means on account of thy deeds thou shalt stumble and fall. _This day_;
that is, in this time; thy fall shall soon come. And so we read, “Then
my anger shall be kindled against them in that day.” (Deut. xxxi. 17.)
And again, “In that day there shall be a root of Jesse,” (Isaiah xi.
10,) where day means time and period. _And the prophet also shall fall
with thee in the night_, that is, the false prophet who deceiveth thee
shall stumble with thee, as men stumble in the night in darkness; and so
the Targum of Jonathan has it. (Kimchi, Comment. in Hos. iv. 2.) Kimchi
and Jonathan, then, both testify that the oral law gives a false
interpretation of this verse. This is in itself rather awkward for a law
that professes to have been given by God, but still more so when it is
made the basis of most unjust and partial legislation, to save the
learned from the punishment which an unlearned man would have in similar
circumstances to suffer. No one can deny that the learned and unlearned
are here placed on very unequal terms. If an unlearned man provoke a
rabbi, he may be excommunicated by that individual without either judge
or jury, or even the form of a trial. But if a learned man makes himself
liable to the same punishment, even a court of justice has not the power
to pronounce the sentence. Who can doubt that the rabbies made these
laws for their own convenience? Can any one believe that God has given
this law, which makes the learned a privileged class of persons, who,
though guilty of the same offence as the working classes, is to be
spared, whilst they are to be punished? God is no respecter of persons,
and therefore no such law can be from him.
The extreme injustice of this mode of legislation will appear still more
from considering the nature of the punishment:—
מהו המנהג שינהג המנודה בעצמו ושנוהגין עמו , מנודה אסור לספר ולכבס כאבל
כל ימי נידויו , ואין מזמנין עליו , ולא כוללין אותו בעשרה לכל דבר שצריך
עשרה , ולא יושבין עמו בארבע אמות , אבל שונה הוא לאחרים ושונין לו , ונשכר
ושוכר , ואם מת בנדויו בית דין שולחין ומניחין אבן על ארונו , כלומר שחן
רוגמין אותו , לפי שהוא מובדל מן הציבור ואין צריך לומר שאין מספידין אותו
ואין מלוין את מטתו ... מי שישב בנידויו שלשים יום ולא בקש להתירו מנדין
אותו שנייה ישב שלשים יום אחרים ולא בקש להתירו מחרימין אותו ׃
“How is an excommunicate person to conduct himself, and how are others
to conduct themselves towards him? It is unlawful for an excommunicate
person, as for a mourner, to trim his heard or hair, or to wash all the
days of his excommunication; neither is he to be associated in
pronouncing the benedictions; neither is he to be reckoned as one of
ten, wherever ten persons are required; neither may any one sit within
four ells of him. He may however teach others and be taught. He may hire
and be hired. But if he die in his excommunication, the tribunal send
and lay a stone upon his coffin to signify that they stone him because
he is separated from the congregation. And it is unnecessary to say that
he is not to be mourned for, and that his funeral is not to be
attended.... Whosoever remains thirty days in his excommunication
without seeking to be absolved, is to be excommunicated a second time.
If he abide thirty days more without seeking absolution, he is then to
be anathematized.” (Hilchoth Talmud Torah, ibid.) This, then, is the
punishment which a learned man has it in his power to inflict at will.
He may deprive him of the comforts of cleanliness and perhaps injure his
health. He may hold him up to the public scorn by separating him by four
ells from all decent people. He may heap obloquy upon his death and
deprive him of a respectful burial, or if the man survive under the
public contempt, and refuse to give the rabbi satisfaction, he will be
anathematized, and his prospects for this world, at least, irretrievably
ruined. The law respecting the anathematized person is this:—
אינו שונה לאחרים ואין שונין לו אבל שונה הוא לעצמו שלא ישכח תלמודו ואינו
נשכר ואין נשכרין לו , ואין נושאין ונותנין עמו , ואין מתעסקין עמו אלא מעט
עסק כדי פרנסתו ׃
“He is not to teach others nor to be taught, but may learn by himself
that he may not forget the learning. He is not to be hired, nor to hire.
Men may have no dealings with him, nor any business except a little that
he may get a livelihood.” Now then suppose that an unlearned man does or
says something, which a rabbi interprets as contempt, he is first
excommunicated. If, in the consciousness of innocence, he refuses to ask
for the rabbi’s forgiveness, he is at last anathematized, and all his
business stopped, and all this is done to him because he is an unlearned
man. He is himself to be dishonoured, his business ruined, and he
himself to die of a broken heart, not because he has committed some
grievous crime, but because he has been wanting in respect either to the
rabbi’s person or his words. The most absolute autocrat never made a law
more despotic.
But some one will say, that the rabbi has the power of forgiving if he
please, and that the oral law recommends him to do so. It is true that
if the affront be given in private, he has this power, and is told to
forgive, but not so if it be offered in public, he has then no choice.
He is bound to excommunicate the offender. That we may not appear to act
unfairly, we will give the whole passage:—
אף על פי שיש רשות לחכם לנדות לכבודו אינו שבח לתלמיד חכם להנהיג עצמו בדבר
זה אלא מעלים אזניו מדברי עם הארץ ולא ישית לבו להן כענין שאמר שלמה בחכמתו
גם לכל הדברים אשר ידברו אל תתן לבך , וכן היה דרך חסידים הראשונים שומעים
חרפתם ואינן משיבין ולא עוד אלא שמוחלים למחרף וסולחים לו , וחכמים גדולים
היו משתבחים במעשיהם הנאים ואומרים שמעולם לא נידו אדם ולא החרימוהו לכבודן
, וזו היא דרכם של תלמידי חכמים שראוי לילך בה , במה דברים אמורים כשבזוהו
או חרפוהו בסתר אבל תלמיד חכם שבזהו או חרפו אדם בפרהסיא אסור לו למחול על
כבודו ואם מחל נענש שזה בזיון של תורה אלא נוקם ונוטר הדבר כנחש עד שיבקש
ממנו מחילה ׃
“Although a wise man has the power to excommunicate on account of his
honour, yet it is not to be praised in the disciple of a wise man who
does so. On the contrary he ought to shut his ears against the words of
an unlearned man (am-haaretz), and not to attend to them, according as
Solomon has said in his wisdom, ‘Take no heed to all the things that are
spoken.’ (Eccles. vii. 21.) And such was the custom of the saints of
old, who heard their reviling, but did not answer; and not only so, but
they pardoned the reviler, and forgave him. The greatest of the wise men
used to glory in their good deeds, and say, that they had never
excommunicated nor anathematized any man on account of their honour, and
this is the way in which the disciples of the wise men ought to walk. In
what case is this to be applied? When they have been despised or reviled
in secret. _But if the disciple of a wise man be despised or reviled by
any man publicly, it is unlawful for him to forgive any affront to his
honour, and if he forgive he is to be punished, for this is a contempt
of the law. He is on the contrary, to avenge and keep the thing in mind,
like a serpent, until the offender entreat to be forgiven._” (Ibid. c.
vii. 13.) The great object of these laws is plainly to uphold the power
and dignity of the rabbies, and to make it impossible for the people to
shake off their yoke. The care which is taken to punish every offence
against the wise men betrays a lurking consciousness of error, and a
fear lest the common people should compare their precepts with
Scripture, assert the plain unsophisticated truth, and thus shake off
the galling chains of rabbinism. To prevent this, the very first
semblance of disobedience is to be punished with excommunication. But
for the poor and unlearned, if insulted by a learned man, there is no
satisfaction. He cannot thunder out an excommunication or an anathema in
return. For him the oral law makes no provision, except for his
punishment. If Judaism, therefore, should ever attain the supreme power,
the working and unlearned classes will be placed in the power and at the
mercy of the learned, and every disciple of a wise man will wield the
absolute power of an autocrat.
But some one may say, that if the disciple of a wise man should
excommunicate any one hastily that the people would not regard his
excommunication. But if they did not, they would do it at their peril,
for the oral law expressly declares that they are bound to observe the
excommunication not only of a rabbi, but of one of his disciples:—
הרב שנידה לכבודו כל תלמידיו חייבין לנהוג בו נדוי במנודה אבל תלמיד שנידה
לכבוד עצמו אין הרב חייב לנהוג בו נדוי אבל כל העם חייבין לנהוג בו נדוי ׃
“When a rabbi excommunicates on account of his honour, all his disciples
are bound to treat the excommunicate person as such. But when a disciple
excommunicates on account of his own honour, the rabbi is not bound to
treat that person as excommunicate, but all the people are bound.”
(Ibid. c. vi. 13.) Nothing can more clearly prove the injustice of such
excommunication. If the rabbi be not bound to regard the disciples’
excommunication, why should all the people be bound? If the offence
committed against the disciple be a sin before God, and such it ought to
be to require such severe punishment, the excommunication ought to be as
binding upon the rabbi as upon the people. But if it be not binding upon
the rabbi, then the offence for which it was inflicted cannot be a sin
in the sight of God, it is therefore an arbitrary and unjust punishment,
and it is both wicked and cruel to require the people to obey it. But
the principle itself is monstrous, that the disciple of a rabbi should
be constituted both judge and jury in his own case, and have the power
of lording it over those, whose circumstances do not permit them to
devote their time to study, and who, therefore, cannot be enrolled in
the privileged class. Just suppose that the clergy of this land, or the
professors and students at our Universities, were to claim such power,
and to excommunicate and anathematize all who treated them with
disrespect, and that without any trial or conviction before a legal
tribunal, and that the unfortunate victims were to be separated from
society, ruined, and then their dead bodies treated with dishonour,
would not this be regarded as a monstrous and insupportable tyranny? Yet
this is what the oral law claims for the rabbies and their disciples,
and what they would possess and exercise if Judaism ever attains to
supreme power. Would the Jews wish such a power established? Do they
desire to live under such a government? If they do not, if they prefer
the personal liberty and the even-handed justice secured to them by
Christian laws, then they confess that the Christian principles are
better than those of their own religion, and they must be charged with
inconsistency in professing and asserting the truth of a religion, which
they hope may never triumph. Every man who believes his religious
principles to be Divine, must wish that they should triumph, and that
they should have free scope for their development. Any man who dreads
the triumph of his religion must have secret misgivings that it is
false. We therefore ask every Jew whether he desires that the oral law
should attain that absolute power which it claims, and that every rabbi
and his disciples should have the power of excommunicating and
anathematizing all who affront them? One of the most perfect tests of a
religion, is to consider what would be its effects if supreme. At
present there are various systems of religion in the world, some of
which, as directly contradicting others, must be decidedly false. The
hope of all reflecting men is, that the truth will ultimately triumph,
that God himself will at last interpose, and establish the dominion of
truth and eradicate all error. Each hopes that his own system will then
prevail, but let him follow out that system, and see how it will work,
when all resistance shall be vain. Let the Jews calmly consider the
state of things, when the rabbies and their disciples shall be masters
of the world, as they must one day be, if Judaism be true. The unlearned
will then be completely at their mercy, their servants and their
bondmen. Will this be a happy condition, or is this state of things
desirable? In the first place, there will be no personal liberty. Any
man who may chance to differ from a rabbi, and treat him with disrespect
will immediately be excommunicated. In the second place, there will be
no liberty of conscience or of thought. Every man must then let the
rabbies think for him, and he must be content to receive their decisions
without any appeal. The body will scarcely have the appearance of being
free, and the intellect will be bound in fetters of adamant. It will no
doubt be a glorious period for the wise men and their disciples, but
they will always form a small minority, compared with the bulk of
mankind. The majority of Israel, not now to speak of the Gentiles, will
then be degraded into poor, crouching, submissive servants of the
learned, afraid to use their reason, and always having the fear and
dread of excommunication before their eyes. Do they then honestly wish
for such a state of things, to be tied hand and foot, and given into the
hands of their learned men? If they do not, if they see the horror and
the injustice and degradation of such a state of things, why do they
profess a religion which will inevitably lead to it, if it be true? If
such laws be unjust, and such a consummation dreadful, instead of
desirable, the religion of the oral law must necessarily be false; and
it is the duty of every Israelite to consider what he is doing in
upholding it. The present state of things will not continue always. The
Jewish nation cannot always wish to be wanderers in foreign lands. They
look forward to a restoration to the land of their fathers, and they
wish in that land to be happy and prosperous. But happiness and
prosperity will be unknown words, if they are then to be governed
according to the principles of the oral law. That law gives the learned
a monopoly of power and happiness, but leaves the mass of the nation in
bondage. Do they then, in contemplating the re-establishment of the
kingdom of Israel, expect another than the oral law, and other
principles of religion and justice? If they do, they confess that the
oral law is false, and if it would be false and hurtful, and destructive
of all happiness, if supreme, it is equally false and hurtful now. The
Israelite, therefore, who upholds it, is upholding a false system. He
may do it in ignorance, and we believe that this is the case with the
majority; but it is most unbecoming in any reasonable man to profess a
religion of which he is ignorant. He may answer, I have no time to
acquire an accurate knowledge of my religion. The books in which it is
contained are too voluminous to admit of my acquiring an acquaintance
with them. I must work for my bread. We grant that this is the fact, but
then this brings us back to our original position, that Judaism is only
a religion for those who have leisure, that is, for the rich and the
learned, and we conclude, on that very account, that it cannot be from
God, who looks neither at riches nor learning, but considereth the
welfare, and above all, the religious welfare of the poorest of his
creatures. The especial character of the Messiah is, that he will care
for the poor. “He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the
children of the needy.” (Psalm lxxii. 4.) He, therefore, cannot have the
religion of the oral law. He will not be a rabbi, nor a rabbi’s
disciple.
No. XXXII.
NEW YEAR’S DAY.
The season of the Jewish year, which we are now approaching, naturally
leads us to the consideration of some subjects more important than those
which we have lately discussed, the oral law teaches that the festival
of the new year is nothing less than a day of judgment, on which God
pronounces sentence respecting the state of every individual:
וכשם ששוקלין זכיות אדם ועוונותיו בשעת מיתתו כך בכל שנה ושנה שוקלין
עוונות כל אחד ואחד מבאי עולם עם זכיותיו ביום של ראש השנה , מי שנמצא צדיק
נחתם לחיים ומי שנמצא רשע נחתם למיתה , והבינונים תולין אותו עד יום
הכפורים אם עשה תשובה נחתם לחיים ואם לאו נחתם למיתה ׃
“As the merits and the sins of a man are weighed at the hour of his
death, so likewise every year, on the festival of New Year’s Day, the
sins of every one that cometh into the world are weighed against his
merits. Every one who is found righteous is sealed to life. Every one
who is found wicked is sealed to death. But the judgment of the
intermediate class is suspended until the Day of Atonement. If they
repent, they are sealed to life, but if not, they are sealed to death.”
(Hilchoth T’shuvah, c. iii. 3.) This naturally leads us to consider the
rabbinic doctrine of justification, and to inquire how far it agrees
with Moses and the prophets. And here our first business must be to
state the doctrine as it is found in the oral law.
This law teaches, first, that he whose merits are more than his sins is
accounted a righteous man:—
כל אחד ואחד מבני אדם יש לו זכיות ועוונות , מי שזכיותיו יתרות על עוונותיו
צדיק , ומי שעוונותיו יתרות על זכיותיו רשע , מחצה למחצה בינוני ׃
“Every one of the children of many has merits and sins. If his merits
exceed his sins, he is righteous. If his sins exceed his merits, he is
wicked. If they be half and half, he is a middling or intermediate
person.” (Ibid. 1.)
It teaches, secondly, that in estimating the comparative state, respect
is had not only to the number but to the quality of the actions:—
ושקול זה אינו לפי מנין הזכיות והעוונות אלא לפי גדלם , יש זכות שהיא כנגד
כמה עוונות שנאמר יען נמצא בו דבר טוב , ויש עוון שהוא כנגד כמה זכיות ,
שנאמר וחוטא אחד יאבד טובה הרבה ׃
“And this weighing is made, not with respect to the number of the merits
and the sins, but according to their greatness. There is a merit which
may outweigh many sins, as it is said, ‘Because in him there is found
some good thing.’ (1 Kings xiv. 13.) And there are sins which may
outweigh many merits, for it is said, ‘One sinner destroyeth much
good.’” (Ecclesiast. ix. 18.)
It teaches, thirdly, that it is possible by transgression or obedience
to turn the scale:—
חטא חטא אחד הרי הכריע את עצמו ואת כל העולם כולו לכף חובה וגרם לו השחתה ,
עשה מצוה אחת הרי הכריע את עצמו ואת כל העולם כולו לכף זכות וגרם לו ולהם
תשועה והצלה שנאמר וצדיק יסוד עולם זה שצדק הכריע את כל העולם לזכות והצילו
, מפני ענין זה נהגו כל בית ישראל להרבות בצדקה ובמעשים טובים ולעסוק
במצוות מראש השנה ועד יום הכפורים יתר מכל השנה ׃
“If a man sin one sin, he gives the preponderance for himself and for
all the world to the scale of guilt, and causes destruction. But if he
perform one commandment, he gives the preponderance both for himself and
all the world to the scale of merit, and causes salvation and
deliverance to himself and them, as it is said, ‘The righteous is the
foundation of the world’ (Prov. x. 25), which means that righteousness
gives the world a preponderance in the scale of merit and delivers it.
And on this account all the house of Israel are accustomed to abound in
almsgiving, and in good deeds, and to be diligent in the commandments in
the interval between New Years Day and the Day of Atonement more than in
all the year besides.” (Ibid. 4.) This then is the doctrine which we
have to consider.
The first great principle is that “Every one of the children of men has
merits and has sins.” That every man has sins we readily admit; but that
any man, or any angel, or any of God’s creatures, has any merit in the
sight of God we deny. First, because the idea of merit is utterly
inconsistent with the idea of the relation in which the creature stands
to the Creator. Every created being is bound by the very fact of his
creation to love God with all his heart and soul, and mind and strength,
and to do all his will. Whatsoever, therefore, he does, he can never
exceed the limit of his bounden duty, and can therefore never lay any
claim to merit. If created beings were free from all obligation to love
God or to do his will—if they were independent and masters of
themselves, then by loving God or doing his will they might have merit,
for they would be doing him a service which He has no right to require.
Just as a man that is free may hire himself to do work for another man,
which he is not bound to do, and thereby earn wages. But not so the
slave, who is his maker’s property. He can only do his duty, and if he
toil all the day and be diligent and faithful in his master’s service,
he still can lay no claim to wages or to merit; he has only done what he
is bound to do. To lay any claim to merit, we must stand on equal terms,
and confer what the other has no right to expect. But this no created
being can ever do. He is a debtor overwhelmed with such an amount of
debt, that all that he has or can raise only goes in part payment, and
who therefore will never be able to confer anything which is not already
due. And therefore it is said, “Can a man be profitable unto God?” and
again, “Is it gain to him, that thou makest thy ways perfect?” (Job
xxii. 2, 3.) The unfallen angels themselves have no merit before God,
and much less fallen and rebellious man.
But, secondly, the assertion that man has merits is contradicted by the
plain testimonies of Scripture. If man have merits, however few, then so
far as those merits are concerned, his nature must be good and holy, but
God declares the contrary: “Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints;
yea the heavens are not clean in his sight: how much more abominable and
filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water.” (Job xv. 15, 16.)
Such language cannot be applied to any creature capable of meriting
anything in the sight of God. Again, if man have merits, his merits must
proceed from the good things which he has done. He that does nothing
good cannot be meritorious, but yet God says, “There is none that doeth
good, no, not one. They are all gone aside, they are all together become
filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” (Ps. xiv. 1-3.) If
this be true, then no man has merits. If man have merits, they must
proceed from an inherent good principle in his nature, but God says even
of Israel that were is no such principle of good: on the contrary, he
declares that “the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From
the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in it:
but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.” (Isaiah i. 5, 6.) Here
God describes Israel, and the description is generally true of mankind,
as totally corrupt. There is no soundness in it. The intellect is
corrupt, for “the whole head is sick.” The affections are corrupt, for
“the whole heart is faint.” How, then, can he that has a perverted
intellect and a corrupt heart have merits? Again, if man have merits,
his good deeds, whatever they be, must be such as to deserve the
approbation of God; but the confession of the prophet is—
ונהי כטמא כלנו וכבגד עדים כל צדקותינו ׃
“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness as filthy
rags.” (Isa. lxiv. 6.) Either, then, the oral law or the Bible says what
is false. The Bible says that the very best of man’s deeds, “all his
righteousnesses,” are no better in the sight of God than filthy rags: if
this be true, then man has no merit whatsoever.
But again, the assertion that every man has merits and sins, is based
upon a false principle. It takes for granted that God judges men by
their individual acts, and not by the state of their hearts; that is,
that he judges as we do. When we consider a man’s conduct, we can only
look at his acts, and to us some of them appear good and others bad. In
our sight, therefore, he may have some merits and some demerits. But God
looks at the heart, and sees whether a man loves him or not, and by the
whole habit of his mind and affections judges the man’s state and all
his actions. We short-sighted creatures judge a man’s heart by his
actions; but God judges his actions by his heart, and where the heart is
wrong, he is so far from counting any actions as meritorious, that he
looks upon the whole conduct as one mass of abominable sin.