City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York, 3-volume box set

7 New York’s Republican Rabbi and His Congregation

137 As spiritual leader of Shearith Israel from the late colonial period to the end of the War of 1812, Gershom Seixas lived in three separate eras of American history. The only Jewish trustee of Columbia College in the nineteenth century, he represented Judaism in early national New York. A Jeffersonian republican and a devout, traditional Jew, his life was also a model for Jews in New York who strove to be Jewish citizens of the new republic. Born in New York of an obscure merchant, Gershom Seixas, under the influence of Hazan Joseph Jeshurun Pinto, gravitated to the synagogue from an early age, becoming hazan in 1768, when he was only twenty-two. Except for the war years in Philadelphia, he served until his death in 1816. During his tenure, Seixas led daily, Sabbath, and holiday prayers; circumcised Jewish boys; taught school; conducted weddings, funerals, and bar mitzvahs; and comforted the sick and bereaved. In addition to being the first Jewish trustee of Columbia College, he also served on the board of the city’s Humane Society . He mixed with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton and was likely present at Washington’s inauguration. A man of average height and stature, eschewing a beard, and known for his generous but not outgoing personality, Seixas dressed in the manner of the city’s divines, in a black gown with a double white collar. Over the years, “his integrity, his innate dignity and his sound judgment in all his dealings with the Jewish and Christian communities” made him both a beloved leader of the congregation and the chief representative of the Jewish people in the nation’s largest city.1 Seixas knew the problems of Shearith Israel. During the War of 1812, he C H A P T E R 7 New York’s Republican Rabbi and His Congregation 138 ■ h av e n o f l i b e r t y anguished over the “state of the finances of the synagogue.” Regarding internal disputes, Seixas wrote his daughter, “There is talk of doing something to rectify the affairs of the Shule. How much it will be affected I know not.” Another letter complained that “Shule affairs” were in the “same mismanagement” as when she had left them, with “no prospect for the better.” Respected as he was, the Board of Trustees considered him an employee and not a policymaker. He could not curb the divisive forces in the congregation. But if he was unable to heal the wounds of the synagogue, he could set an example and offer comfort as a spiritual leader.2 ■ Seixas and Jeffersonianism Jefferson’s religious convictions were entwined within Jeffersonian republicanism . Historians identify two major historical strands of republican thought. The first, classical republicanism or civic humanism, dating from Aristotle’s Athens and Machiavelli’s Florence, stressed virtue and the common good. In a republic, each citizen’s duty is to place the good of the whole ahead of his or her personal concerns. Republican society would succeed or fail to the extent that the republic contained virtuous citizens willing to make personal sacrifices needed for the welfare of the commonwealth. The second strand, based on the writings of John Locke, emphasized individual liberties. The state allows each citizen full access to the public square and the marketplace to pursue his or her goals unobstructed by the state, church, or aristocratic privilege. The two strands were not mutually exclusive; New York’s Jeffersonians held aspects of each. They expressed a sense of patriotic public duty and sacrifice, with distaste for excessive extremes of wealth and for a deferential society. They also championed an egalitarianism that allowed ambitious artisans and merchants to enter the marketplace unfettered by traditional and deferential barriers. Jeffersonians detested opposition “aristocrats” (Federalists) who used economic coercion to maintain a deferential society.3 Jefferson’s republican religious creed centered on his belief in the power of science. Two of his three heroes, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, were scientists . Jefferson possessed absolute faith that scientific law controlled the world according to the dictates of reason. A monotheist, he had no patience for the supernatural. He regarded Jesus as a great moralist, but when he made his edition of the Bible, he excised all miracles. Concepts such as the Trinity had no place in modern religion. Jefferson considered Judaism one of many American New York’s Republican Rabbi and His Congregation ■ 139...