For this wild vision the West is entirely responsible.

Europe has created the Tower of Giotto; but it has also created the topper.

We of the West must bear the burden, as best we may, both of the responsibility and of the hat.
It is solely the special type and shape of hat that makes the Hebrew ritual seem ridiculous.

Performed in the old original Hebrew fashion it is not ridiculous, but rather if anything sublime.
For the original fashion was an oriental fashion; and the Jews are orientals; and the mark of all such orientals is the wearing of long and loose draperies.

To throw those loose draperies over the head is decidedly a dignified and even poetic gesture.
One can imagine something like justice done to its majesty and mystery in one of the great dark drawings of William Blake.
It may be true, and personally I think it is true, that the Hebrew covering of the head signifies a certain stress on the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, while the Christian uncovering of the head suggests rather the love of God that is the end of wisdom.
But this has nothing to do with the taste and dignity of the ceremony; and to do justice to these we must treat the Jew as an oriental; we must even dress him as an oriental.
I have only taken this as one working example out of many that would point to the same conclusion.