Henry Pereira Mendes
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Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes (1852-1937) served as rabbi of New York’s traditional Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, in which capacity he attended the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He was the first president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and the first professor of homiletics at Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary in New York. He wrote:
- There is a legend that, when Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden or earthy paradise, an angel smashed the gates, and the fragments flying all over the earth are the precious stones. We can carry the legend further. The precious stones were picked up by the various religions and philosophers of the world. Each claimed and claims that its own fragment alone reflects the light of heaven, forgetting the setting and incrustations which time has added. Patience my brother. In God's own time we shall, all of us, fit our fragments together and reconstruct the gates of paradise. There will be an era of reconciliation of all living faiths and systems, the era of all being in at-one-ment, or atonement, with God. Through the gates shall all people pass to the foot of God's throne.[21]
Here we have an Orthodox thinker who clearly affirms a common core of all religions, which over time became encrusted and thereby lead to devolution of various faiths. In the modern age we now seek a collective activity of all humanity’s seeking to return to the original core. The Biblical vision of becoming a light unto the nations is as part of a joint effort to worship together. The eventual goal is a messianic restoration to Eden.
