Gods
ord which has come to my attention. For we must distinguish between a patron or tutelary god and a national god. The first is an especially assigned power. The second is the complete reflex of the people, a god who is born with the people, who is its raison d'être, without whom the people would not have come into national existence. You have had patron or appropriated gods: we have a national God. In the heart of any pious Jew, God is a Jew. Is your God an Englishman or an American?
There is no real contradiction between this confessed anthropomorphism and my claim that we Jews alone understand and feel the universality of God. In anthropomorphism we merely symbolize God: we reduce the infinite, temporarily, to tangible proportions: we make it accessible to daily reference. For neither we nor you can carry on the business of ordinary living on the plane of constant abstraction. It is not because of your anthropomorphism that I accuse your religious feelings of being trivial. It is because of the manner of your anthropomorphism, it is be-
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