Israelites received the law, but how did they keep it? The Holy One,
blessed be He, will reply, I bear them witness that they have kept the
law. The Gentiles will say, O Lord of the world, is it fair that a
Father should be a witness for his children? For it is written, ‘Israel
is my son, even my first-born.’ (Exod. iv. 22.) The Holy One, blessed be
He, will then say to them, Let the heaven and the earth bear witness to
them, that they have kept the whole law. The Gentiles will answer, O
Lord of the world, the heavens and the earth are interested witnesses,
for it is said, ‘If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have
not appointed the ordinances of heaven and the earth.’ (Jer. xxxiii.
25.) R. Simon Ben Lakish says, What is the meaning of the words ‘And it
was evening and it was morning, the sixth day?’ They show us that the
Holy and Blessed One, made a condition with the creation, and said, If
Israel will receive my law, all is well; but if not, then I will turn
you back into chaos. Hezekiah also teaches this same truth, saying, What
is the meaning of the words, ‘Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from
heaven; the earth feared, and was still?’ (Ps. lxxvi. 9, Eng. 8.) If it
feared, how could it be still; and if it was still, how could it fear?
The answer is, at first it feared [that Israel would not receive the
law, and it should be turned into chaos]; but afterwards it was still.
God will then say to the Gentiles, Then let some of yourselves come, and
bear witness to Israel that they have kept the whole law. Nimrod shall
then come forth and testify of Abraham that he did not commit idolatry.
Laban shall come forth and testify of Jacob that he was not suspected of
dishonesty. Potiphar’s wife shall come forth and testify of Joseph that
he was not suspected of the transgression. Nebuchadnezzar shall come
forth and testify of Hannaniah, Mishael, and Azariah, that they would
not worship the image. Darius shall come and testify of Daniel that he
did not neglect prayer. Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite,
and Eliphaz the Temanite, and Elihu the son of Beracheel, shall come
forth and testify of Israel that they have kept the whole law, as it is
said, ‘Let them being forth their witnesses, that they may be
justified.’ (Isaiah xliii. 9.) The Gentiles will then say, O Lord of the
world, give us the law from the beginning, and we will do it. To this
the Holy One will reply, O fools, he that works on the eve of the
Sabbath shall eat on the Sabbath. He that will not work on the Sabbath
eve, from whence should he eat on the Sabbath? Nevertheless, I have one
easy commandment, Tabernacle is its name, go, therefore, and do it. But
how is it possible, to affirm that God will do this, when R. Joshua, the
son of Levi, says, What is the meaning of the words, ‘Which I command
thee this day?’ And says, the meaning is, they are to be observed to-day
[i.e., in this world], and not tomorrow [_i.e._, in the world to
come].[33] To-day they are to be observed; but the reward is not to be
received to-day. The answer is, that God does not deal with his
creatures in a tyrannical manner. But why is this called an easy
commandment? Because it is not attended with any pecuniary loss.
Immediately every one of the Gentiles will hasten away, and make a
tabernacle on the roof of his house. But the Holy One, blessed be He,
will cause the sun to pierce them with an extraordinary heat at that
season, and then every one of them will kick down his tabernacle and go
forth,” &c. (Avodah Zarah, fol. 2, 3.) Such is the doctrine of the
Talmud, adopted, and therefore sealed with the most solemn sanction, by
the public worship of the synagogue. In the first place it is perfectly
false; it has not even the merit of plausibility. It is only astonishing
how an imagination so absurd should ever have found its way into the
prayers of Israel; and stranger still that the Jews of England should
suffer such a foul blot still to remain on their public services. It
certainly represents Judaism in the most unfavourable point of view, as
a religion of the grossest and most inconsistent superstition; and
proves, beyond all controversy, first, that the synagogue receives, as
of divine authority, even the fables of the Talmud; and, secondly, that
the authors of the oral law, who could either invent or believe so
absurd a statement, cannot be depended upon as faithful transmitters of
the religion of the prophets.
Further, it totally misrepresents the character of God. It describes
Him, first, as bearing witness to the obedience of Israel, whilst in His
Word he bears constant testimony to their disobedience. Here he is
represented also as calling upon heaven and earth to attest their
innocence and righteousness, whilst in His Word he calls upon them to be
the witnesses of their rebellion. “Hear, O heavens; and give ear, O
earth; for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up
children, and they have rebelled against me.” (Isaiah i. 2.) And again,
“Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye
very desolate, saith the Lord. For my people have committed two evils;
they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out
cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jer. ii. 12.) These
passages of the word of God are directly opposed to the above statement
of the oral law. But farther, it misrepresents the Divine Being as an
unmerciful and unjust judge, who pretends to give the guilty Gentiles
another and easy trial by giving them the commandment respecting the
tabernacles, and then employs his omnipotence so to plague them with the
heat of the sun, as to render it impossible for them to yield obedience.
Such a representation is altogether unworthy of the Judge of all the
earth, who will deal justly by the Gentiles as well as the Jews.
But besides misrepresenting the divine character, it misleads the
unlearned and superstitious to believe that, at the day of judgment,
God will not render to every man according to his deeds, but will pass
by their sins and their impenitence, if only they be Israelites. It
therefore begets a false confidence, and is eminently calculated to
lull men asleep in their sins. The man who believes this fable of the
Gentiles bearing witness to the righteousness of Abraham, Joseph,
Daniel, &c., and thinks that this is sufficient for his acquittal at
the bar of judgment, can have no motive for personal repentance or
righteousness. Neither does this fable tend to produce good will and
respect towards his Gentile fellow-sinners. Few men will elevate
themselves above their notions of the Deity. When, then, the
Rabbinists see that, according to the oral law, God treats the
Gentiles with injustice and cruelty, is it natural to suppose that he
will treat them differently? This and similar passages well merit the
serious consideration of all influential Israelites. It is imperative
upon all such to determine, whether such passages of their prayers and
their law are of divine authority or not; and if they are convinced of
their falsehood, to use their unceasing exertions to expunge them from
their religious system. As long as they exist, and are publicly read
in the synagogue, men can only come to one conclusion, and that is,
that the characteristics of the Rabbinical religion are superstition
and uncharitableness. Nothing but a public protest against the error,
and an erasure from the prayer-book, will satisfy the mind, or wipe
away the reproach from Israel. The private professions of individuals
can be of no avail in this matter. Men will go to the authorized
books, especially to the prayer-book of every class of religionist, in
order to judge of his principles; and no one will believe that any man
can be so careless or so presumptuous as to address the Divine Being
in the language of acknowledged falsehood. But above all, let every
Jew compare this account of the day of judgment with that contained in
our Christian books. Judaism teaches that at that great day God will
appear as a partial and cruel judge. Christianity gives us the
following account of the same period:—“When the Son of man shall come
in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon
the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations
and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth
his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right
hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on
his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an
hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I
was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was
sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then
shall the righteous answer and say, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred,
and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? when saw we thee a
stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? or when saw we
thee sick, and in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall
answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and
his angels: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was
thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not
in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited
me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we
thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in
prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them,
saving, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the
least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into
everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” (Matt.
xxv. 31-46.) Such is the view which Christianity sets before us of the
day of judgment, and the principles according to which that judgment
shall be conducted. You will observe that the whole account is
essentially different from that given by the Talmud. In the first
place it represents God as a just Judge, altogether overlooking
nationality; taking no notice of the temporary distinctions of Jew and
Gentile: but fixing his eyes on the eternal features of moral
character, and according to these fixing the eternal destinies of each
individual. In the second place it tends to promote good will and
charity between man and man, for it represents charity or the want of
charity as the main points of inquiry, and the distinctions according
to which the eternal portion of each is assigned. We ask, then, every
impartial and candid Jew to tell us, which of these two accounts are
most worthy of the great God whom we worship? We Christians believe
that the synagogue-worshippers are in error, and they again think us
in error; but we have now before us the doctrines of the two systems
on the most important point in all theology—the principle of final
judgment; by their respective statements, then, on this subject let
each system be judged. Judaism says, that one class of men is to be
saved by the partiality of the Judge, and the other class condemned
simply because they are Gentiles. Christianity says, that all men
shall be tried impartially by one rule, and that neither prepossession
nor prejudice, but justice alone, shall influence the decision. Which,
then, Judaism or Christianity, is most agreeable to the character of
Him of whom the Psalmist says, “He cometh to judge the earth: with
righteousness shall he judge the world, and the nations with equity?”
We are sure that the good sense of the Jewish nation must decide, that
the impartial justice of the New Testament-representation is most in
accordance with the spirit of the law and the prophets. Nay, we believe
that every devout and thinking Israelite will feel that the Talmudic
picture of God’s judgment misrepresents the God of Israel as much as any
graven image ever deified by heathen idolaters. To suppose that God
would make a mock overture of mercy, or offer a mock trial to any of his
creatures, is to strip him of the attributes of Deity, and to exhibit a
blind and senseless bigot as the object of Israel’s worship. A statement
so abhorrent even from human reason, and so inconsistent with the Word
of God, proves that its authors were not moved by the Spirit, and that
the religion of which it forms a part cannot be divine. But here, as in
many cases which we have already pointed out, the New Testament avoids
the error of the Talmud, and teaches the doctrine conformable to the
law, and in accordance with right reason. Let the advocates of the oral
law explain the fact.
But this Talmudic representation of the day of judgment is not only
opposed to reason and Scripture, but also seems to contradict other
statements of the oral law. Here the Gentiles appear to be marked out
for destruction; whereas, we are told elsewhere, that the pious of the
nations of the world are to have a part in the world to come: and that
obedience to the seven commandments of the sons of Noah, is all that is
required from a Gentile. If this be true, what need is there of giving
them the command to keep the Feast of Tabernacles? But, above all, if
they are to be cast down into the lowest hell, as the Prayer-book says,
how can they have a part of the blessings of the world to come? It is at
the very least, the duty of those who advocate the oral law, to explain
this matter to us Gentiles. We cannot persuade ourselves that a
religion, which makes so little provision for the eternal welfare of the
great bulk of the human race, can possibly proceed from Him who is the
God of the spirits of all flesh, the Creator and Preserver of all
mankind. Living daily by his bounty, and receiving all we have at his
most gracious hands we believe that if he makes such provision for our
bodies, He has made still more for our immortal spirits; and therefore,
amongst other reasons, we believe in Christianity; for if it be not
true, there is no spiritual provision for the Gentiles, and God has left
the majority of his rational creatures without any proof of his paternal
affection.
Footnote 33:
היים לעשותם בעולם הזה , ולא למהר דאינו יכול לעשותם לעולם הבא ׃
No. XXXVIII.
PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD.
To the fool, who hath said in his heart, There is no God, it is a matter
of little consequence, whether the religion of his forefathers afford a
reasonable ground of hope or not. He may therefore consistently neglect
all inquiry into the nature and evidences of that religion in which he
happened to be born. He does not believe in it, whatever it may be, and
such an inquiry could have no interest for him. Not so with the Jew or
the Christian, who honestly believes, as he has been taught, that there
is, in another world, an abode of bliss, and another of woe. His earnest
desire must be to know how he may attain to the one and escape the
other; and if his religion does not afford him a hope, a reasonable,
well-grounded hope of salvation, it is not worth the having. We say a
reasonable hope, for as it has pleased God to endow us with reason and
understanding, and to give us his Word to guide our reason, no other
hope can or ought to satisfy us. In examining, then, the modern Jewish
religion, one great test of its value is, whether it affords a hope on
which a reasonable man can rely, and upon which he can hazard his
eternal welfare. We think not, and we have already given some reasons
for this opinion. The inconsistency and contradictory nature of the
rabbinic doctrines respecting justification and atonement appear to us
so glaring as to destroy all confidence in the hope which they propose:
and _the custom, which prevails at this and other festivals, of praying
for the dead, proves, beyond a doubt, that the rabbinic hope is a mere
delusion_. Amongst the prayers of the Feast of Tabernacles, we find the
following declaration and prayer:—
נוהגים בתפוצות ישראל להזכיר נשמות אבותיו ביום כפור ובשלש רגלים ביום מתנת
יד לאחר הפטורה , יזכור אלהים נשמת אבא מורי פלוני בר׳ פלוני שהלך לעולמו
בעבור שאני נודר צדקה בעדו בשכר זה תהא נפשו צרורה בצרור החיים עם נשמת
אברהם יצחק ויעקב שרה רבקה רחל ולאה ועם שאר צדיקם וצדקניות שבגן עדן ונאמר
אמן ׃
יזכור אלהים נשמת אמי וכו׳ ׃
“It is customary among the dispersions of Israel, to make mention of the
souls of their departed parents, &c., on the day of atonement, and the
ultimate days of the three festivals; and to offer prayers for the
repose of their souls.
“May God remember the soul of my honoured father, A. B. who is gone to
his repose; for that I now solemnly vow charity for his sake; in reward
of this, may his soul be bound up in the bundle of life, with the souls
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah, with the
rest of the righteous males and females that are in Paradise; and let us
say, Amen.”
“May God remember the soul of my honoured mother,” &c. (Prayer for the
Feast of Tabernacles, p. 156.) Now this custom and this prayer show that
the Jews themselves do not believe in their own doctrines, nor put any
trust in the hopes held out by the oral law; for if they did, they would
never observe this custom nor offer this prayer. If they believed that
their departed parents were already safe—that their merits, or the
merits of their ancestors, or the Day of Atonement, &c., had procured
for them pardon and eternal life, why should they offer alms, and pray
that God would accept the alms as a ransom for the deceased? The fact of
making such a vow and offering such a prayer proves, that the Rabbinical
Jew has no ground for believing in the salvation of even his own father
and mother; that on the contrary his belief is, that they have not been
bound up in the bundle of life, and that they are not in paradise with
Abraham and the other saints; but that they are in some other place,
whence he hopes, by his prayer and his almsgiving, to ransom them. Here,
then, we see that the rabbinical hope is a mere delusion. After all his
fasting and ceremonial observances, he has no hope after death of going
to the mansions of the blessed. His sad prospect is, that when he goes
hence, he must go to the place of punishment, and there abide until the
prayers and almsgiving of his children purchase his liberation.
According, then, to this doctrine, every Jew and Jewess dies without
pardon, for if they were pardoned, they would not go to the place of
punishment, and if they did not go to the place of punishment, there
would be no necessity to offer alms in order to deliver their souls. So
then, after all the pretensions and promises of the rabbies, they here
fairly confess that all the hopes which they have held out are a mere
lie and a delusion; that none of their observances can deliver the soul,
and that even after the dread hour of death, the survivors have still to
undertake the work of saving the deceased.
This inference follows inevitably from the custom and the prayer which
we have just considered; but it does not rest solely on these. The oral
law furnishes other adequate proof, that the Jewish survivors of a
departed parent do not believe that he is safe, and that therefore a
dying Jew can have no hope of his own salvation; for it requires the
surviving son to repeat a certain prayer for his departed parent, and
that for many months, in order to procure his release, as we read in the
_Joreh Deah_:—
על כן נהגו לומר קדיש על אב ואם בתרא י׳׳ב חודש , וכן נהגו להפטיר בנביא
ולהתפלל ערבית במוצאי שבת שהוא הזמן שחוזרין הנשמות לגיהנם , וכשהבן מתפלל
ומקרש ברבים פודה אביו ואמו מגיהנם ׃
“Therefore the custom is for twelve months to repeat the prayer called
Kaddish, and also to read the lesson in the prophets, and to pray the
evening-prayer at the going out of the Sabbath, for that is the hour
when the souls return to hell; but when the son prays and sanctifies in
public, he redeems his father and his mother from hell.” (376.) Now
every child who observes this custom, makes a public confession, that
his deceased parent is not enjoying the bliss of paradise, but suffering
the torments of hell. This is but a poor hope for a child respecting his
parent, the very utmost limit of which is, that he is not one of the
notoriously wicked, and that he may perhaps, by his prayers, get him out
of the place of torment. But if he believes in the oral law, he must be
convinced that his father or mother, with all their exertions, and
notwithstanding the merits of their forefathers, and the benefits of the
Day of Atonement, died in sin, sunk into perdition, and that he must now
undertake the work of their salvation. The dying Jew, therefore, has no
hope when he dies of being admitted to a state of happiness; he cannot
die with the peace of one who knows that his sins are forgiven, but must
look forward with horror to at least eleven dreary months of punishment
in the abodes of the damned. The doctrine of the Talmud is, that those
who die in communion with the synagogue, or who have never been Jews,
are punished for twelve months, but that Jewish heretics and apostates
are doomed to eternal punishment.
פושעי ישראל בגופו ופושעי אומות העולם בגופן יורדין לגיהנם ונידונין בה
שנים עשר חודש לאחר שנים עשר חודש גופן כלה ונשמתן נשרפת ורוח מפזרתן תחת
כפות רגלי הצדיקים שנאמר ועסותם רשעים כי יהיו אפר תחת כפות רגליכם אבל
המינין והמוסרין והאפיקורסין שכפרו בתורה ושכפרו בתחיית המתים ושפירשו
מדרכי צבור ושנתנו חתיתם בארץ חיים ושחטאו והחטיאו את הרבים כגון ירבעם בן
נבט וחביריו יורדין לגיהנם ונידונין בה לדורי דורות ׃
“Israelites who sin with their body, and also Gentiles, descend into
hell, and are judged there for twelve months. After the twelve months
their body is consumed and their soul is burnt, and the wind scatters
them under the soles of the feet of the righteous, as it is said, ‘Ye
shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of
your feet.’ (Mal. iv. 3.) But heretics, and informers, and Epicureans,
who have denied the law or the resurrection of the dead, or who have
separated from the customs of the congregation, or who have caused their
fear in the land of the living, who have sinned, or caused many to sin,
as Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, all such go down to hell and are judged
for ever.” (Rosh Hashanah, fol. 17. 1.) According to this, the dying
Israelite ought to expect twelve months of torment, and his surviving
son ought to repeat the prescribed prayer for twelve months; but the
rabbies have commanded that the prayer should be repeated only for
eleven months, to intimate that the deceased was not so wicked as to be
obliged to remain all the time of torment:—
ונהגו שאין אומרים קדיש ותפלה רק י׳׳א חדשים כדי שלא יעשו אביהם ואמם רשעים
כי משפט רשע י׳׳ב הודש ׃
“The custom is, not to say Kaddish more than eleven months, so as not to
cast a reproach on the character of the deceased father and mother as if
they were wicked, for twelve months are the term appointed for the
wicked.” (Joreh Deah, 376.) From this it is clear that a dying Jew’s
expectation must be to endure the torments of hell for at least eleven
months; and when he is dead, his son confesses, in the most public
manner, and the appointed prayers of the synagogue confess, of every
departed Jew, that he died in sin, and was not worthy to enter into the
bliss of paradise; and express, moreover, their conviction that his
portion is actually with the damned. Thus it is evident that Judaism
holds out no hope of the forgiveness of sins, and that all its
prescribed observances are of no avail in the hour of need. A Jew’s sad
contemplation on his death is, then, that he is going down to hell, and
his hope of liberation is based upon the prayers of his son, or upon the
fact of his being an Israelite. But is this a reasonable ground of hope?
No hope of salvation can be reasonable which is not built upon a plain
promise of God. Our reason can tell us nothing about either heaven or
hell; and therefore no speculations of our own can satisfy us respecting
either one or the other. The only satisfactory testimony can come from
God’s revealed will; but in the whole volume of the Old Testament, there
is not one promise declaring that an Israelite shall be delivered from
hell after twelve months’ punishment, or that the son’s public prayers
in the synagogue shall deliver the father. This is all the mere
invention of the rabbies, without the least warrant from the Word of
God. It is, therefore, not a hope on which any reasonable man can rest
in peace. The sum of the whole matter is, that every Jew expects to go
to hell, and that he has no promise of God to assure him that he shall
be redeemed thence. Judaism is not, therefore, a religion which affords
a rational hope of salvation. In asserting that every Israelite must go
down to hell, it teaches that sin is not forgiven by God, but must be
atoned for by the personal suffering of the offender; and that happiness
cannot be enjoyed until personal satisfaction has been yielded by twelve
months’ torments. Now if this principle were true, there could be no
salvation at all. Sin, as being an offence against an infinite Being, is
infinite in magnitude, and therefore, requires infinite punishment. The
justice of God is also infinite, and requires an infinite satisfaction;
so that if this satisfaction is to be rendered by the personal suffering
of the offender, that suffering must be infinite, that is, it must
endure for ever and ever, and thus salvation is altogether out of the
question. The Jewish hope is, therefore, unwarranted by Scripture, and
contrary to reason, and, we may add, inconsistent with itself. In the
custom and doctrine which we have just considered, a dying Jew is taught
to hope that he shall be delivered from that place of torment, whither
he is going, either on account of his son’s prayers, or on account of
his Jewish origin. But on his death-bed he is taught to believe that his
death will be an atonement for his sins, for in his dying confession,
these words are put into his mouth:—
ואם קרבה עת פקודתי למות , תהא מיתתי כפרה לכל חטאותי ולכל עוונותי ולכל
פשעי שחטאתי ושעויתי ושפשעתי מיום היותי ׃