A Cause which changed such a weak people [“the children of
Israel”] into a powerful nation, rescued them from captivity, caused them to
attain to sovereignty, transformed their ignorance into knowledge and
philosophy, granted them prosperity and endowed them with an impetus to advance
along all paths of attainment, such a Cause makes it evident that religion is a
source of honor and progress for humanity, a foundation for eternal happiness.
But blind imitations and dogmas which crept in later, those
are ever a destructive force and the cause of the retrogression of nations. It
is written in the Torah and in historical records that when the Jews were
fettered by forms and imitations the wrath of God became manifest.
When the foundation of the law of God was ignored, God sent
Nebuchadnezzar. He killed the men, enslaved the children, laid waste the Holy
Temple, took seventy thousand Jews into captivity to Babylon and caused the
Torah to be burned.
- 'Abdu'l-Baha (Words
of ‘Abdu’l-Baha, From a talk at San Francisco’s Jewish Temple, October 12,
1912, San Francisco, USA, recorded by Mahmud Zarqani; ‘Mahmud’s Diary’) (To see
the entire talk please visit Talks of
‘Abdu’l-Baha)
