“Perhaps I do not listen to it,” said Raphael, half to himself.  “But you—­whatever your change—­you have not lost faith in primaries?”

“No; not in what I consider such.”

“Then why give up your platform, your housetop, whence you may do so much good?  You are loved, venerated.”

Strelitski placed his palms over his ears.

“Don’t! don’t!” he cried.  “Don’t you be the advocatus diaboli!  Do you think I have not told myself all these things a thousand times?  Do you think I have not tried every kind of opiate?  No, no, be silent if you can say nothing to strengthen me in my resolution:  am I not weak enough already?  Promise me, give me your hand, swear to me that you will put that paragraph in the paper.  Saturday.  Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—­in six days I shall change a hundred times.  Swear to me, so that I may leave this room at peace, the long conflict ended.  Promise me you will insert it, though I myself should ask you to cancel it.”

“But—­” began Raphael.

Strelitski turned away impatiently and groaned.

“My God!” he cried hoarsely.  “Leon, listen to me,” he said, turning round suddenly.  “Do you realize what sort of a position you are asking me to keep?  Do you realize how it makes me the fief of a Rabbinate that is an anachronism, the bondman of outworn forms, the slave of the Shulcan Aruch (a book the Rabbinate would not dare publish in English), the professional panegyrist of the rich?  Ours is a generation of whited sepulchres.”  He had no difficulty about utterance now; the words flowed in a torrent.  “How can Judaism—­and it alone—­escape going through the fire of modern scepticism, from which, if religion emerge at all, it will emerge without its dross?  Are not we Jews always the first prey of new ideas, with our alert intellect, our swift receptiveness, our keen critical sense?  And if we are not hypocrites, we are indifferent—­which is almost worse.  Indifference is the only infidelity I recognize, and it is unfortunately as conservative as zeal.  Indifference and hypocrisy between them keep orthodoxy alive—­while they kill Judaism.”

“Oh, I can’t quite admit that,” said Raphael.  “I admit that scepticism is better than stagnation, but I cannot see why orthodoxy is the antithesis to Judaism Purified—­and your own sermons are doing something to purify it—­orthodoxy—­”

“Orthodoxy cannot be purified unless by juggling with words,” interrupted Strelitski vehemently.  “Orthodoxy is inextricably entangled with ritual observance; and ceremonial religion is of the ancient world, not the modern.”

“But our ceremonialism is pregnant with sublime symbolism, and its discipline is most salutary.  Ceremony is the casket of religion.”

“More often its coffin,” said Strelitski drily.  “Ceremonial religion is so apt to stiffen in a rigor mortis.  It is too dangerous an element; it creates hypocrites and Pharisees.  All cast-iron laws and dogmas do.  Not that I share the Christian sneer at Jewish legalism.  Add the Statute Book to the New Testament, and think of the network of laws hampering the feet of the Christian.  No; much of our so-called ceremonialism is merely the primitive mix-up of everything with religion in a theocracy.  The Mosaic code has been largely embodied in civil law, and superseded by it.”