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Rabbi Leopold Cohn, D.D.
Life began for Leopold Cohn
in the little town of Berezna, in the eastern part of Hungary. At the
age of seven a great calamity befell the young lad; he lost both his
parents in the same year and was left to shift as well as he could for
himself. In later years he often recalled how those days of terrible
loneliness and bitter struggle for existence taught him to trust in God
with all of his heart. It seems natural, then, to find young Cohn,
after his confirmation at the age of thirteen, determined to enter upon
a course of study with a view to becoming eventually a rabbi and leader
among his people. That he gave a good account of himself as a student
we conclude from the fact that at the age of eighteen he graduated from
the Talmudic academics with a record of high scholarship and with
commendations as a worthy teacher of the Law.
Following the completion of
his formal studies and the subsequent receipt of smicha
or ordination, Rabbi Cohn contracted a very happy marriage and, in
keeping with the custom of the time, became installed in his wife’s
paternal home, there to devote himself to the further study of the
sacred writings.
Through the years of almost
ascetic religious study and devotion, the burning problems of his
people, the problems of the Galut [exile] and of the
promised, but long-delayed, redemption through the coming of the
Messiah, had become deeply etched upon the rabbi’s spirit. Now that he
had obtained leisure and could follow the call of his heart, he gave
himself to earnest prayer and research in the hope of finding a
solution.
A part of his morning
devotions was the repetition of the twelfth article of the Jewish
creed, which declares, "I believe with a perfect faith in the coming of
the Messiah and, though He tarry, yet will I wait daily for His
coming." The regular use of this affirmation of faith fanned to a flame
the desire of his heart for the fulfilment of God’s promises and the
speedy restoration of scattered Israel until, no longer satisfied with
the formal prayers, he began to rise up in the midnight watches and sit
on the bare ground to mourn over the destruction of the temple and to
implore God to hasten the coming of the Deliverer.
The Time of Messiah’s Coming
"Why does the Messiah tarry?
When will He come?" These questions continually agitated the young
rabbi’s mind. One day, while poring over a volume of the Talmud, he
came upon the following citation: "The world will stand six thousand
years. There will be two thousand years of confusion, two thousand
years under the law, and two thousand years of the time of the
Messiah." With quickened interest he turned for light on the passage to
the writings of Rashi [Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, 1040-1105], the
foremost Jewish commentator, but the explanation he found there seemed
to him to be of little help: "After the second two thousand years, the
Messiah will come and the wicked kingdoms will be destroyed." When he
turned away from the ponderous volumes, the solution of his problem
appeared to him to have become more difficult than ever. According to
Talmudic reckoning the Messiah should long since have come; yet, there
was the exile, still the bitterest fact of Jewish life, to be accounted
for. "Can it be possible," he asked himself, "that the time appointed
by God for the coming of the Messiah has passed and the promise has not
been fulfilled?" Sorely perplexed, Rabbi Cohn decided to study of the
original predictions of the Prophets, but the very contemplation of the
act filled him with fear, for, according to the teaching of the Rabbis,
"Cursed are the bones of him who calculates the time of the end." And
so it was that with trembling, hands, expecting at any moment to be
struck by a bolt from heaven, but with an eagerness irresistible, he
opened the book of the prophet Daniel and began to read.
When he reached the ninth
chapter, light began to dawn upon him. He had struck a mine of hitherto
concealed truth, covered up by the commentaries of the revered doctors
of the law. From the twenty-fourth verse of the chapter before him he
deduced without difficulty that the coming of the Messiah should have
taken place 400 years after Daniel received from the divine messenger
the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. The scholar, accustomed to the
intricate and often veiled polemical treatises of the Talmud, now found
himself strangely captivated by the clear and soul-satisfying
declarations of the Word of God, and it was not long before he began to
question in his mind the reliability of the Talmud, seeing that in
matters so vital it differed from the Holy Scriptures.
It was neither an easy nor a
pleasant matter for Rabbi Cohn, the leader of a Jewish community, daily
gaining in popularity among his people, to entertain doubts concerning
the authority of the Talmud. Quite apart from the disquietude that it
brought to his own soul, he felt that doubt in a man of his position
was heretical and, in some mystical way, injurious to the welfare of
Israel. And yet, every moment of sober contemplation brought him face
to face with the question, "Shall I believe God’s Word, or must I shut
my eyes to truth?" In the midst of the conflict thus produced in his
heart, there was one prayer that rose to his lips more often than any
other was: "Open Thou mine eyes, O Lord, that I may behold wondrous
things in Thy law."
The Parting of the Ways
Without being fully
conscious of it, Rabbi Cohn was travelling toward a parting of the
ways. A crisis was inevitable, and it broke upon him one Hanukkah.
It was the season of the Feast of Dedication and, as was his custom, he
planned to preach to his people on the meaning of the feast. He had not
intended to refer in his sermon either to his doubts about the Talmud
or to his late discoveries in the prophecy of Daniel but, when he rose
to speak, some of his deepest thoughts welled up within him and would
not be denied articulation. The effect of his words upon the
congregation became immediately evident. Whispers grew to loud
protests, and before the sermon progressed very far the service broke
up in an uproar. That day initiated a series of petty persecutions
which robbed the life of the young rabbi of its joy and made his
ministry difficult to the point of impossibility.
The New Testament was as yet
an unknown book to Rabbi Cohn, and consequently it never entered his
mind to look there for the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophetic
predictions. In a vortex of soul, casting about for a course of action,
he decided to seek advice from a fellow rabbi in a distant town, a man
his senior by many years, for whose learning and piety he entertained a
very high regard. "Surely," he thought, "my problem is not a new one.
Others must have puzzled over it and found some satisfactory answer,
else how could they continue to study and teach the Talmud." But, here
again, his hopes were destined to be dashed to the ground. Cohn had
hardly finished unburdening his troubled soul when the rabbi whose help
he travelled so far to seek began to lash him with his tongue and to
pour upon him a stream of insult and vituperation. "So you have set out
to find the Messiah, to uncover the inscrutable? You are hardly out of
the shell and already you have the temerity to question the authority
of the Talmud! The teachings of our masters are no longer good enough
for you? You talk for all the world like the renegades across the sea,
about whom I have recently read in a Vienna paper, who claim that our
Messiah has already come. Better go back to your post, young man, and
count yourself happy that you have not yet been deprived of it. And
take my warning, if you persist in these unholy ideas, you will one day
end your Rabbinate in disgrace and probably wind up among those
apostates in America."
Land of the Free
Disappointed and crushed,
Rabbi Cohn took his leave. But in spite of his utter humiliation, a new
thought was beginning to form in his mind, and with it he seemed to see
a glimmer of new hope in the far distance. America! The land of
freedom! The haven of the persecuted! There he would continue his
investigation. March 1892 found Rabbi Cohn in the city of New York,
warmly welcomed by his countrymen, many of whom had known him
personally at home. Rabbi Kline of the Hungarian Synagogue, who had
preceded him to America, and to whom he had a letter of recommendation,
received him with much kindness and even offered him a place of
temporary service in his synagogue while awaiting a call to a suitable
congregation.
On a Saturday, soon after
his arrival, Rabbi Cohn went out for the customary Sabbath afternoon
stroll. As had become his habit, he was meditating upon the subject of
the Messiah. But in the midst of his musings, as he was passing by a
church located in one of the Ghetto streets, a sign written in Hebrew
and announcing Meetings for Jews arrested his
attention. He hardly knew what to make of the strange combination: A
church with meetings for Jews!
While he stood in front of
the church absorbed in thought, a countryman of his seized him by the
arm and said in a voice charged with fear, "Rabbi Cohn, better come
away from this place." The rabbi was startled but, at the same time,
his sense of inquiry was aroused. Just what was there about that church
with the Hebrew sign? "There are apostate Jews in that church," he was
told, "and they teach that the Messiah has already come." At the sound
of these words Rabbi Cohn’s pulse quickened. They teach that the
Messiah has already come! Could these be the people referred to by that
Rabbi whom he had visited before leaving Hungary? This was something
worth finding out.
As soon as he could take
leave of his companion, and after making sure that he was not being
observed, he quickly retraced his steps to the church. But he had
hardly set foot inside the door when a sight met his eyes that
compelled him to turn back. The speaker on the platform was bareheaded,
and so was the audience. As it would have been to any Orthodox Jew,
that was to Rabbi Cohn the height of sacrilege. On the way out,
however, he thought that he should explain to the sexton his reason for
leaving, and from him he received the suggestion that even if he could
not stay for the service, he would nevertheless be welcome if he called
for a private interview with the minister at his home.
On the following Monday,
although still somewhat affected by his Saturday’s experience, Rabbi
Cohn plucked up enough courage to present himself at the minister’s
address. He entered the house with many misgivings, but the impression
made upon him by the gracious personality of the minister, a Jew who,
like himself, was a trained Talmudist, and in addition the scion of a
famous rabbinical family very soon put him completely at ease. Before
he realised what he was doing, he found himself relating to his
new-found friend the story of his messianic quest.
The Book of Messiah
Near the close of the
interview, noting that his visitor was completely unacquainted with its
contents, the minister handed him a copy of the New Testament in Hebrew
and asked him to study it at his leisure. Receiving with eager hands
the book which was destined to transform his life and ministry, and
being anxious to examine it. Rabbi Cohn opened the volume and turned to
the first page, where his eyes fell upon the first lines of the Gospel
by Matthew: "This is the book of the generation of Yeshua the Messiah,
the son of David, the son of Abraham."
The feelings the words
awakened in him beggar description. It seemed that he had finally
reached the goal of his long quest. The sacrifices he had made, the
separation from wife and children he had endured, the days he had spent
in agonising prayer—all those things were about to bear their fruit and
receive their reward. The problem which neither he nor those he
consulted could solve was now answered by a book, and that book was in
his hands. Surely such a book must have come to him by the will of
Heaven. God had finally answered his many prayers and now, he was sure,
He would help him to find the Messiah.
Taking leave of his host,
Rabbi Cohn ran as fast as he could to his room and, locking the door,
gave himself to a study of the precious volume, his pearl of great
price. "I began reading at eleven o’clock in the morning," he wrote
later when reflecting on the events of that momentous day, "and
continued until one o’clock after midnight. I could not understand the
entire contents of the book, but I could at least see that the
Messiah’s name was Yeshua, that He was born in Bethlehem of Judah, that
He had lived in Jerusalem and communicated with my people, and that He
came just at the time predicted in the prophecy of Daniel. My joy was
boundless."
But had he been able to look
into the future, Rabbi Cohn would have seen other days of sorrow in
store for him. Narrow and toilsome is the path of faith in a world of
unbelief. His first rude shock came the very next morning, when he
tried to share his discovery with Rabbi Kline, who but recently had
offered to assist him in finding a charge. "You are a wild dreamer!"
shouted his rabbinical colleague when he had heard Cohn’s story. "The
Messiah whom you say you found is none other than the Jesus of the
Gentiles. And as for this book," he said, tearing the New Testament
from Cohn’s hands, "a learned rabbi like you should not even handle,
much less read this vile production of the apostates. It is the cause
of all our sufferings." And with these words he threw the book to the
floor and trampled upon it with his feet.
Fleeing from this unexpected
outburst of wrath, Rabbi Cohn felt himself once more a raging sea of
conflicting thoughts and emotions. "Can it be possible that Yeshua the
Messiah, the son of David, is the Jesus whom the Gentiles worship?" To
believe upon such a one would indeed be an act of rank idolatry!
A New Creature
The days which followed were
filled with heartache and melancholy thoughts. But gradually he
succeeded in freeing himself from the clutches of despair and began to
study his problem anew in the light of the Holy Scriptures. When he
turned to God’s lamp of truth, he found light. The prophetic vision of
the suffering Messiah began to penetrate his mind as he read and
re-read the fifty-third chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah, yet he was a
long way from finding peace of soul. Solemn questions now stared him in
the face: "What if Yeshua and Jesus are the same person? How shall I
love the ‘hated one’? How shall I defile my lips with the name of
Jesus, whose followers have tortured and killed my brethren through
many generations? How can I join a community of people so hostile to
those of my own flesh and blood?" These were indeed questions
troublesome enough to rob any man of his peace. And yet, above all the
raging storm, there was a still, small voice that kept speaking to his
heart and saying, "If He is the Messiah predicted in the Scriptures,
then surely you must love Him, and no matter what others have done in
His name, you must follow Him."
Still halting between two
opinions, Rabbi Cohn decided to fast and to pray until God clearly
revealed to him what to do. When he began his supplications, he had in
his hands a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures. Being wholly absorbed in
prayer, he was startled when the volume fell from his hands to the
floor and when he bent down to retrieve the sacred book he saw that it
had opened at the third chapter of the prophecy of Malachi, which
begins with the words, "Behold I send my messenger, and he shall
prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly
come to His temple, even the Angel of the Covenant whom ye delight in:
behold He has already come, saith the Lord of Hosts." Now his entire
being was electrified to attention and his every sense of perception
awakened. For a moment he felt that the Messiah himself stood by his
side pointing him to the words "He has already come". Stricken with a
feeling of awe, he fell on his face, and out of his innermost parts
came words of prayer and adoration. "My Lord, my Messiah Yeshua, Thou
art the One in whom Israel is to be glorified, and Thou art surely the
One who hast reconciled Thy people unto God. From this day I will serve
Thee no matter what the cost." And, as if in direct answer to his
prayer, a flood of light filled his understanding and to his
unspeakable happiness he no longer found it difficult to love his Lord,
although he was sure now that it was Jesus whom he was addressing. In
that hour he knew that he had become a new creature in the Messiah.
Consulting no longer with
flesh and blood, Cohn began to proclaim to all his friends and
acquaintances that the rejected Jesus was the true Messiah of Israel,
and that not until the Jews as a people accepted Him could they find
peace with God. The first reaction of his friends was one of amused
indulgence. "Rabbi Cohn is mentally confused," they said, "due to his
long separation from his loved ones." But when his perseverance and
earnestness of appeal challenged their attention, they branded him as a
traitor to his people and began to persecute him bitterly. Some even
thought that it would be a pious act to remove him from among the
living. Such are the ways of zeal void of the knowledge of God!
Apostate!
When Cohn’s countrymen
settled down to the inevitable acceptance of the fact of his
conversion, they proceeded to dispatch letters to his wife and friends
at home, to inform them about his "apostasy." As a result, all
communication between him and his wife was soon completely stopped.
In the meantime the Jews of
New York were in an uproar over the act of the once honoured rabbi.
There is no way of estimating what harm fanatical persecution would
have inflicted upon him had he remained long in New York. But,
fortunately, the minister who gave him his first New Testament learned
about his plight and came to his aid. A group of friends was rallied,
who undertook to give shelter and protection to Cohn; but when it
became plainly evident that in New York his life would be daily in dire
danger, arrangements were made for his secret departure to Scotland, so
that he might have opportunity to study and gather strength in a
friendly environment.
In Edinburgh Cohn found a
cordial welcome among the people of the Barklay Church. It was well
that he was now among friends, for he had another battle ahead of him
and another enemy to overcome, an enemy more subtle and dangerous than
all those he had left behind in New York. Approaching the day of his
baptism, he felt that he would have to face the supreme test of his
life and that arrayed against him would be Satan and all the powers of
hell. Many things, he knew, were in the balance for him. In a spiritual
way he expected to gain much from a resolute and open confession of his
faith in the Messiah, but on the human side he was in danger of losing
all that he counted dear in life—his wife, children, friends, position,
dignities; in fact, everything.
For some days prior to his
baptism, even until the very hour of his solemn public commitment to
the Messiah, Cohn lived under a cloud of gloomy foreboding. Prayer, to
which he resorted often, brought him only temporary relief. But on the
morning of his baptism, when he reached the church, he felt
strengthened and cheered, as if the clouds had been dispelled by the
very presence of the Messiah whom he was so eager to confess. Later, he
came to know how the prayers of many friends had supported him in the
hour of battle and of glorious victory. Indicative of these was a
letter he received from Dr. Andrew A. Bonar, the venerable pastor of
the Finnieston Church in Glasgow, which read, "My people and I were
praying for you at our service this morning." In this way Cohn cut
loose from the life he once lived, in order to give himself anew to the
service of his people. He was no longer a rabbi of the law, but a
messenger of the Messiah, and he carried in his heart the secret of
Israel’s salvation.
Back in the USA
In the fall of 1893 he
returned with his family [who had also come to believe that Jesus is
the Messiah] to New York, still the same passionate pilgrim after
truth, except that now he had his bearings and the goal was no longer
to him a matter of speculation. For the former Rabbi there was only one
calling in life to serve God, and only one thing worth doing - to make
known the way of God’s salvation in Jesus the Messiah. And so, upon
landing again in New York, he set about immediately to establish
contact with the masses of his Jewish brethren.
To secure a platform for the
proclamation of the Gospel he opened a little mission in Brownsville.
Being a man of practical sense, he devoted himself not alone to
preaching, but also to the alleviation of the many needs that he found
in the lives of immigrant Jews who were then crowding into New York by
the thousands. It strikes one with pungent tragedy that at his first
attempt to serve his people in the name of the Messiah, he stood very
much alone. While his work as a preacher did not lack popularity, the
Jewish community as a whole still looked upon him with hostile eyes,
and Christians, who should have upheld his busy hands, rallied to his
aid altogether too slowly. Before he went very far with his mission
project, his wife’s jewellery, a token of former affluence, had to be
sacrificed in order to provide the rent for the humble meeting hall.
And there came days when the larder of the missionary’s little family
was quite bare of provisions and when the children had to be sent to
school half fed. Those must have been heartbreaking days, sufficient to
crush the stoutest of spirits, but Cohn carried on undaunted, trusting
himself and his beloved to God, who had called him out of darkness into
His marvellous light.
Persecution must also have
been a sore trial to the sensitive spirit of the young missionary; but
if there were scars inflicted by cruel tongues and hands, those were
known alone to God. Cohn never complained, but remained always bright
and hopeful. There is on record an incident related by Dr. Cohn many
years ago to an intimate group, in order to illustrate the text "The
disciple is not greater than his Lord".
"One afternoon," he said, "I
went to deliver a New Testament at a house where it had been requested.
But when I arrived there, a powerful man fell upon me, first battering
me with his fists and then jumping upon me with his feet. Finally he
took hold of my ears, and lifting my head, he began to knock it
repeatedly against the hard floor, all the while intoning in Hebrew,
‘These ears which heard from Sinai that we must have no strange gods,
and which now listen to the Christian idols, must be pulled out,’ and
emphasising each mention of the words ‘pulled out’ with a terrible
jerk." From this experience Cohn went home with blood on his face, but
that was the blood of one who suffered for the truth’s sake and it
became the seed of a great work.
But perhaps the sorest
trials that he had to suffer came from the side of people who were
ostensibly of like mind with him. "False brethren" such characters were
dubbed by St. Paul, and no better description for them has been found
yet. When Dr. Cohn was already established in his work, with a large
congregation of Jews whom he had won to the faith of the Messiah rising
up around him to call his name blessed, there were found men of
sufficient temerity to impugn his motives and to question the sincerity
of his faith. Fortunately there were others, men of unimpeachable
character, who knew the real worth of Dr. Cohn and stood with him and
for him to the end of his life. It is noteworthy that in I930, at a
time when the severest attacks were being levelled upon him, Wheaton
College in Illinois, a Christian educational institution of first rank,
conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Soldier of Messiah
Dr. Leopold Cohn passed away
on December 19, 1937. His funeral services, held at the Marcy Avenue
Baptist Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., and conducted by the ministerial
association of which he had been a life-long member, drew a large
attendance of friends and admirers, both Jews and Christians. Of the
many beautiful tributes paid to his memory perhaps the most revealing
and intimate will be found in the following brief address delivered by
Hugh R. Monro, LL.D., a prominent business executive of New York, who
had known Dr. Cohn and associated with him for a period of nearly forty
years:
I am glad this
evening to bear a simple word of tribute to this valiant soldier of
Christ who was my friend for many years. As far as I have been able to
draw from the remarks that have been given tonight, I think that my
acquaintance extended over a period almost as long as that of any of
the speakers, nearly forty years. I treasure this fellowship as one of
the inspiring things which have come into my life, one of the real
influences. I owe a great debt to this true soldier of the Cross. He
was indeed a soldier, for. as several have indicated, he knew what
strife was, what warfare was, on behalf of the Lord. There are probably
not many in this audience who know how acute the suffering of this
servant of Christ was in his early ministry, the anguish that he went
through over a period of years. It is one of the phenomena of the
spiritual history of this city and it is hard to account for it. I can
hardly think of a parallel in the religious history of this country. To
find an exact parallel I should have to go abroad to a celebrated case
in France, in which one of his own people was concerned a generation
ago. The simple fact is that his life was in constant peril for years
in his early ministry. He was the victim of assault more than once. How
strange this is when we think of the gentleness of his spirit, and his
humility, and his one passion, and that to serve others. Yet for some
reason this violent opposition not only on the part of his own people,
but on the part of some Gentiles, developed, and for many years he was
hounded and haunted night and day by opposition, by obstacles, by
vilest slander and misrepresentation. It sounds like a chapter out of
the dark ages. Perhaps some day that history will be written. I think
there would be a value in the record. We live in days of such
indulgence and softness, we know little of what our forefathers had to
pass through, the things that put fight into them and iron in their
blood. But Leopold Cohn knew all about it.
Another impression
I have, and that was his singular poise and stamina. Leopold Cohn knew
his Bible as few men know theirs. He was steeped in its teaching. He
had a full-orbed message. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians there
is a list of the endowments that are given to the saints of God, fruits
of the Spirit. In the Epistle to the Ephesians there is a catalogue of
God’s gifts to His Church. And when our Lord ascended on high He gave
gifts unto men, and these gifts were prophets, apostles, pastors,
evangelists, and teachers. Now I can think of our beloved brother right
in the midst of that catalogue. He was in truth a gift of our Lord to
the Church. He had the true spirit of the under-shepherd. He had a
passion for souls. He had a keen responsiveness to the voice of the
Spirit. How unslightingly did he labour during all these years in this
very community. Starting amidst discouraging circumstances, and with
only a few kindred spirits behind him to share his afflictions and
persecutions, the work which he founded is reaching out, as has been
observed, to almost all quarters of the globe. Our Lord is a Great
Vindicator. He has a way of seeing his children through, and He has a
way of settling accounts and squaring things. What a satisfaction and
joy it is to realise as we meet here tonight that even while still in
the flesh he knew his Lord’s vindication. He had led him out into this
large and wealthy place. So I salute this true soldier of the Cross. I
would like to lay some worthy tribute upon this casket. He has fought a
good fight. He has finished his course. He has kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up that crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous judge, will give him, and not to him only, but to
all those that love His appearing.
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