ABSTRACT
There are the spiritualistic philosophies which exalt mind or spirit to an unchangeable essence which can have no genuine commerce with the altogether illusory or contaminating realm of matter and flesh. Professor Baron has elaborated the point that the Jewish religion has progressively turned to historical explanations of its ritual or cultus. Contrasted with the great epics of the Jewish people, in the Bible, Josephus, or Graetz, the total amount of genuine historical work contributed by Talmudic Judaism previous to the nineteenth century seems pitiably small. The chapter seeks to distinguish between actual historical writings and philosophies or general interpretations of the course of human events. One form of the economic interpretation offers an historical explanation of the crisis which so recently faced and still to some extent faces the Jewish people throughout the world. According to this view, the period of liberalism was the result of the expanding commercial economy in which the Jews found a place.
