cave of R. Simeon ben Jochai, and said to him, Shall I arrive at the
world to come? He replied, If this Lord will. R. Joshua, the son of
Levi, said, I see two, but I hear the voice of three. He also asked,
When will Messiah come? Elijah replied, Go, and ask himself. R. Joshua
then said, Where does he sit? At the gate of Rome. And how is he to be
known? He is sitting amongst the poor and sick, and they open their
wounds and bind them up again all at once: but he opens only one, and
then he opens another, for he thinks, perhaps I may be wanted, and then
I must not be delayed. R. Joshua went to him and said, Peace be upon
thee, my master and my Lord. He replied, Peace be upon thee, son of
Levi. The rabbi then asked him, When will my Lord come? He replied,
To-day (alluding to the words of the Psalm, To-day, if ye will hear his
voice).” (Sanhedrin, fol. 98, col. 1.) This is evidently a fiction, and
a proof how little those doctors regarded truth; but it shows that he
who invented it, and those who received it, all equally believed that
Messiah was born, and ready waiting to come forth for the redemption of
Israel. It does, indeed, confirm the common idea, that Messiah’s advent
depends upon the repentance of Israel, for it makes the Messiah say that
he would come this very day, if Israel would only hear his voice. But if
the Messiah may any day, when they repent, come and save Israel, then it
is plain that he must have been born long since. The testimony of the
ancient Jews, then, goes to establish these points—First, That the time
for Messiah’s advent has been long past; Secondly, That the end of the
fourth thousand years was the time when he ought to have come: and,
Thirdly, That at that time he did really come; for about that time, they
say, he was born in Bethlehem of Judah. Fourth, That he was taken into
Paradise, as Rashi explains the gate of Rome to mean the gate of
Paradise opposite Rome; and, Fifthly, That he is waiting to return to
this earth for the redemption of his people. Now who is there that does
not see at once, that this agrees in the main with the Christian
doctrine? We believe that, at the end of the fourth thousand years, the
Messiah was born, and at this season of the year we rejoice at the
remembrance of the Saviour’s birth. The Jews refuse to join with us, but
who has the greatest show of right? Not now to speak of the prophecies,
and of the historical evidence which we have, we have the testimony even
of our opponents to show that we are in the right. The most ancient
rabbinical writings unanimously confess, that the time is past, and that
the Messiah has been long since born, and thus testify the correctness
of our faith respecting the time of Messiah’s advent. Christians,
however, go on consistently and believe further, that God did not break
his word, but performed his promise, and therefore we rejoice. The Jews
do not believe, because they are so engrossed with the temporal
deliverance of the nation, that they cannot see that another and a
greater redemption was necessary. We do not, by any means, wish to deny
that Israel is to be restored to the land of promise, and to inherit all
the blessings promised in the prophets. On the contrary, we fully
believe that the Messiah, who visited this earth, for a short season,
will return and re-establish the Theocracy which was once the glory of
Israel, and that, in a much more glorious form than Israel ever saw
under any of their kings. We heartily wish Israel the enjoyment of every
blessing promised; but we cannot help remembering that Messiah has
another and more important office than that of restoring the kingdom to
Israel, and that is the redemption of the human race. The highest pitch
of national glory and earthly prosperity would be as nothing, and less
than nothing unless the children of men were delivered from the effects
of Adam’s sin, and made partakers of a good hope of everlasting life.
Even the gathering of Israel from all the ends of the earth would appear
but a very insignificant business, if it did not stand in immediate
connexion with the eternal welfare of all nations. Many of the sons of
men have appeared as conquerors and heroes, and have raised their
country to a high degree of glory, and conferred upon them much temporal
prosperity; but if Messiah was to be nothing more, we confess we should
not think him worth the having. We think of the Messiah as the Being, in
whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed, as the restorer
indeed of Israel, but also God’s salvation unto the end of the earth.
This is the doctrine which Christianity teaches, and which is confirmed
by the law and the prophets; and therefore we rejoice that this great
Deliverer has been born—that He came at first in great humility to
bruise the serpent’s head, and to lay down his life a ransom for many.
We remember that this blessed news, these glad tidings of great joy,
were brought to us by Jews; and, therefore, feeling our deep
obligations, we desire to show our gratitude by inviting Israel to come
and partake in our joy. We feel assured that our joy is no illusion.
Even the rabbies themselves bear witness that the Messiah ought to have
been born, and was born at the very time in which we believe the Messiah
to have been born. But if he was born who was he? What other person can
make any claim to the Messiahship, but He whom we acknowledge? Is it
reasonable to believe, as the rabbies do, that God actually sent the
Great Deliverer down into this wretched world, and then took him away
again, without permitting him to accomplish his work? No; if ever he
visited this earth—and that he did visit it, both the ancient Jews and
Christians assert—he could not have left it again without bestowing upon
its inhabitants a remedy for their woes. The ancient rabbies and the
Christians both agree as to the time of Messiah’s birth, and the fact of
his birth in Bethlehem. Indeed the whole nation practically showed their
agreement with Christians, as to the time of Messiah’s advent, by
readily following every military adventurer, who laid claim to the
character of Redeemer. Even before the destruction of the temple,
multitudes had suffered by their credulity; but immediately after the
desolation, the people and the rabbies with one accord followed Bar
Chochba, and thereby showed the reality of their belief, that that was
about the time when Messiah ought to appear. Judaism, therefore, teaches
this doctrine—that God promised the Messiah, that God fixed a time, that
that time is past, and yet that God did not keep his promise.
Christianity, on the contrary, acknowledges the promise, recognises the
time, believes that Messiah was born, but believes further that God
fulfilled his word—that Messiah was not carried away into Paradise,
until he had accomplished the work that was to be done at his first
advent. Then, indeed, we acknowledge that He ascended into heaven, and
sitteth at God’s right hand, from whence he will come again for the
final redemption of his people, and the establishment of the reign of
righteousness. The only real difference between us is, as to the
VERACITY of God. We believe that God did not, and could not, break his
word. Modern Judaism teaches that God broke his promise. It is for
rational beings to decide which doctrine is most agreeable to the Divine
character. For our own parts, we will rejoice in God’s unchangeableness,
and say, in the remembrance, that “His truth endureth for ever.”
Footnote 36:
This number was originally published December 23, 1836.
No. LI.
SLAUGHTERING OF MEAT, CONTINUED.
According to the confessions of the rabbies themselves, the time for the
advent of Messiah is long since past, what is there then that prevents
the Jews from believing in him, who came at the appointed time? The
grand objection is, that the nation is still in captivity; they say that
Messiah ought to have given them liberty. The answer to this objection
is, that Messiah was willing, and is willing to this hour, to give them
liberty, but that they will not have it. The very first condition of
national liberty and independence is moral and intellectual
emancipation. No nation was ever yet enslaved until the hearts and
intellects of the people had first become the slaves of corruption or
superstition—and no nation that hugs to its heart the chains of moral
slavery, can ever be made free, nor could it retain its liberty if it
got it. When Messiah came, therefore, as he found the Jewish nation
already under the Roman yoke, the very first step was to endeavour to
emancipate their hearts and minds, and to deliver them from that moral
bondage, of which their national degradation was only a consequence.
This first step Messiah immediately took—he protested against the
superstitions of the oral law, and pointed them to the perfect liberty
of God’s written Word. But the nation chose to retain the cause of their
misfortunes, and to reject the overtures of deliverance. If therefore
they are still in a state of national dependence, they must not cast the
blame on God, and say that He suffered the time to pass away without
fulfilling his promise; nor upon the Messiah, when they themselves
refused to receive that without which no national liberty can possibly
exist. They chose to give themselves, body and soul, as bond-slaves to
the oral law, there was, therefore, no possibility of national
redemption. It would require an act of omnipotent coercion, such as God
does not employ, to make a nation free against its will. But perhaps the
Jews of the present day will deny that they are in a state of moral and
intellectual slavery. We refer them, in reply, to the numerous proofs
already given in these papers, and especially the laws of שחיטה or
_slaughtering_, upon which we have a few words to add. Where in all the
world can a more wretched slave be found, than the man, who himself,
together with his family, is ready to perish of hunger, and yet dare not
partake of wholesome food, offered by the providence of God, because his
rabbinical task-masters say, No? But now take another instance:—
כל טבח שלא בדק הסכין שלו ששוחט בה לפני חכם ושחט לעצמו בודקין אותה , אם
נמצאת יפה ובדוקה מנדין אותו לפי שיסמוך על עצמו פעם אחרת ותהיה פגומה
וישחוט בה , ואם נמצאת פגומה מעבירין אותו ומנדין אותו ומכריזין אל כל בשר
ששחט שהוא טרפה ׃
“If a slaughterer, who has not had his slaughtering knife examined
before a wise man [a rabbi], slaughters by himself, his knife must be
examined. If it be found in good order and examined, he is to be
excommunicated, because he may depend upon himself another time, when it
has a gap in it and yet slaughter therewith. But, if it be found to have
a gap, he is to be deposed from his office, and excommunicated, and
proclamation is to be made, that all the meat which he has slaughtered
is carrion.” (Jad Hachazakah, Hilchoth Sh’chitah, c. i. 26.) Here we
have the same slavery and the same cruel oppression. In the first place
we see the intention to make the Jews entirely dependent upon the
rabbies. The Jews are not to eat meat unless it be slaughtered as the
rabbies direct, and the slaughterer himself is not even to do that,
which he knows to be right according to the oral law, without the
express sanction of the rabbies. All are to be in bondage, not merely to
the oral law, but to the rabbi for the time being. They are to have no
mind and no judgment of their own. In the simplest concerns of life they
are to be entirely dependent upon the will and judgment of another. In
the second place, we see the determination to maintain this tyranny by
the severest punishments. The man who has slaughtered without showing
his knife to the rabbi, even though they have no fault to find with him,
is to be excommunicated—but if a rabbinic flaw in the knife should be
detected, then not only the man himself is to suffer, but those who
employed him, and also the Israelites themselves to be deprived of food.
All that he has slaughtered is to be declared unfit for use. Who can
deny that those who think their consciences bound by such laws are in
miserable bondage? Who, that has his senses and God’s Word to guide
them, can believe that a small gap in a knife is sufficient to make meat
unfit for food? Who ever saw a knife, or even the finest razor that ever
was manufactured, without a series of such imperfections? Let a rabbi,
who has just pronounced, concerning a knife, that it has no gap in it,
apply a microscope, and he will soon find out that a knife without gaps
never existed. He will be convinced that the oral law requires what is
impossible, and therefore cannot possibly be from God. Who then can deny
that those who are bound by it, are the slaves of superstition? There
never was, and never will be in the world, such a thing as a knife
without the least possible gap, and consequently there never was, and
never will be, any meat fit for the food of a Rabbinist. The Jews must
therefore either give up the use of meat entirely, or they must give up
the oral law.
If the oral law were uniformly severe, and everywhere required that its
adherents should obtain the best possible evidence that their meat was
properly slaughtered: or in case they could not obtain this evidence,
that they should entirely abstain from meat, the consistency of the
doctrine would in some measure justify, or at least excuse the credulity
of the Jews. But this is not the case, its authors felt the
inconvenience of their own doctrine, and therefore relaxed whenever it
suited themselves. For instance, they say:—
הרי שראינו ישראל מרחוק ששחט והלך לו ולא ידענו אם יודע או אינו יודע הרי
זו מותרת , וכן האומר לשלוחו צא ושחוט לי ומצא הבהמה שחוטה , ואין ידוע אם
שלוחו שחטה אם אחר הרי זו מותרת , שרוב הטצויין אצל שחיטה מומחין הן ׃
“If we were to see an Israelite at a distance who had slaughtered a
beast, and he was to go his way, and we were ignorant of the fact
whether he understood the art or not, in that case the meat is lawful.
And in like manner, if a man should say to his messenger, Go and
slaughter for me, and should find the beast slaughtered, but it should
not be certain whether his messenger, or another person, had slaughtered
it, this also is lawful, for the majority of persons concerned in
slaughtering are skilful.” (Ibid., c. iv. 7.) This relaxation shows how
exceedingly inconvenient the doctrine was found, and how unwilling the
doctors were to bear inconvenience themselves. No doubt cases often
occurred in real life similar to those supposed. An Israelite travelling
might come to a town in which lived a small congregation of Jews, and
might wish to have some dinner, and would of course wish to have it of
lawful meat. The only satisfactory way of obtaining it would be to go to
the person who had slaughtered it, and examine him as to his competency,
but he might be absent, if therefore he should be scrupulous, he would
have to go without his dinner; and the same thing would happen to a rich
man, who might send a messenger to a neighbouring town to have a beast
killed for him. The messenger might send back the meat by some one else,
and thus the owner would not have satisfactory evidence, that the
rabbinic laws had been observed. Here again the man who was rich enough
to do this, might have to go without his dinner, or to wait an
inconvenient time. The oral law has therefore provided in this case that
the meat is lawful for use without any further scruples. But this
decision shows of how little real importance all these precepts about
slaughtering are. If it be a sin to eat meat not properly killed, then
it is also a sin to eat meat, when there is no satisfactory evidence of
this fact. Whenever a man doubts about the right or wrong of any
particular action, he is certainly wrong if he does it. But if it be
certain that he may either do it or leave it undone without guilt, then
that action cannot be sinful. And as the rabbies here affirm, that men
may lawfully eat meat, concerning which they have no satisfactory
evidence that it has been lawfully slaughtered, it follows that the
rabbinic art cannot be of much value. Why then should a poor man be
starved if he does not eat, or flogged if he does eat, meat slaughtered
by a Gentile, when, if he had money to send a beast to be killed, he
might eat what was sent back, even though he had no proof that the laws
were kept? Indeed how are the poor and unlearned ever to know, that they
eat lawful meat? If they were even to stand by, and see the operation
performed, still, as being ignorant of the rabbinic laws, they could not
understand, and must therefore take the matter entirely upon trust: and
thus the mass of the nation, the unlearned and the women, are made the
blind slaves of laws which they neither understand nor know; or rather
of those who expound those laws, for how can it be said that a man
transgresses that of which he does not know the right or wrong?
If the rabbies were all unanimous in their statement of what is and is
not lawful, the unanimity might in some degree excuse the Jews for
submitting to a yoke so grievous, and holding it that round the necks of
their brethren. They might urge the uniformity of the tradition as a
proof of its genuineness. But this cannot be pretended in the present
case. To this very hour the rabbies themselves are not agreed as to what
is, or what is not the oral law. We have just seen that if a man send a
messenger to have a beast slaughtered, and afterwards find it
slaughtered, that he may eat of it without asking any more questions.
This is the general principle, but as soon as it comes to be applied in
detail the rabbies differ. The Baal Turim thus states the difference:—
וכתב הרמב׳׳ם דוקא שמצאה בבית אבל מצאה בשוק או באשפה שבבית אסורה וכן כתב
בעל העיטור וא׳׳א ז׳׳ל התיר אפילו באשפה שבבית ולא אסר אלא באשפה שבשוק וכן
הרשב׳׳א ׃
“Rambam has written expressly, In case that it should be found in the
house; but, if he find it in the street, or on the dunghill in the
house, it is forbidden. The Baal Haittur has given the same judgment:
but my lord my father of blessed memory says, the meat is lawful, even
if it be found on the dunghill in the house, and has not pronounced it
unlawful, except when found on the dunghill in the street; and Rashba is
of the same opinion.” (Joreh Deah., 1.) Here, then, we have the most
learned of the rabbies, disputing as to what is the law; the one party
pronouncing that to be unlawful which the other party declares lawful.
What, then, are the unlearned to do in this case? Or how can it be said
that there is an oral law which gives the true meaning of the written
law? Or, if there be an oral law, what use is it, when it is itself a
subject of dispute? Every one who has looked into the oral law knows
that this difference of opinion is by no means a rare case; and that it
cannot be said that the difference of opinion is in matters of minor
importance. Let us, for example, consider the case of an Israelite who
is accustomed to eat unlawful meat, and does so to vex Israel—is it
lawful to eat the meat which he has killed?
כתב הרשב׳׳א שאין מוסרין לו בתחלה לשחוט אפילו אם ישראל עומד על גביו , ואם
שחט בדיעבד כשר ע׳׳י בדיקת סכין תחילה או סוף וא׳׳א הרא׳׳ש ז׳׳ל כתב שדינו
כגוי ׃
“Rashba has written that it is not lawful to give him a beast
intentionally to slaughter, even if an Israelite should stand by. But if
he has slaughtered the beast, it may be declared lawful by means of
examining the knife, either at the beginning or at the end; and my lord
my father of blessed memory has written that in the case of such a
person the law is the same as in that of a Gentile.” (Ibid. 2.) Now the
difference here is very great and very important. The one opinion says,
that, under certain circumstances, such meat is lawful. The other, that
it is unlawful as that killed by a Gentile—that is, what the one allows,
the other pronounces to be so unlawful as to deserve the flogging of
rebellion, as we saw in No. 49. Here, then, is a case involving severe
corporal punishment, and yet the rabbies are not agreed as to which is
the law. How, then, can men of sense and reflection give themselves up
to a system, the doctors of which cannot agree upon a question so simple
as this, What sort of food is lawful, and what is unlawful? and who,
nevertheless, require unlimited obedience under the heaviest penalties
temporal and eternal? The oral law does not suffer a wise man to be
contradicted, and declares that all their sayings are “the words of the
living God;” and yet here they contradict one another so widely, that if
a man follow the one, he will be sentenced to a flogging by the
other—and if from fear of the flogging he should agree with the latter,
he will then be contradicting the former, and thereby incur the sentence
of excommunication, and even run a risk of losing his soul. But in every
case he must give up his judgment and his reason, and submit to be led
by those, who are still disputing about the right road: yea, and if he
would obey the oral law, must confess that they are both in the right.
If this be not moral and intellectual slavery of the worst kind, we have
yet to learn the meaning of these words. It will not be a pertinent
reply to say that Christians also differ in opinion on important points.
We confess that they do, and will continue to do so, as long as they
continue to be fallible men: but then these persons do not profess to
have an oral law given by God in order to preserve them from a wrong
interpretation. There is one Christian Church that has followed the
example of the rabbies in this particular, and has therefore fallen into
many of their absurdities. Difference of opinion amongst those who make
no such pretensions is no argument against the truth of the original
records, whence both professedly draw their religion. Two men may differ
as to the sense of a verse in the law of Moses, and yet we know that the
verse itself contains the truth. But when each of these persons tells us
that his interpretation is an inspired tradition, and that both, though
contradicting each other, are equally true and correct, then it is
evident that they say not only what is false, but what is absurd, and
that they are labouring under a delusion. If it be a mere speculative
delusion it is to be deplored—but if it be a practical delusion,
involving the happiness and welfare of thousands, it must be combated
and exposed—and this is precisely the case with the oral law. The
particular part of it which we have now been considering seriously
affects the temporal comfort of many thousands of the poor in every part
of the world. The general principles enslave the minds of the whole
nation, and thus prevent the state of happiness and glory which the
prophets have promised. The Jewish nation is in a state of dispersion,
and in some parts of the world victims of a cruel oppression, simply
because they are the willing slaves of superstition. Until an
intellectual and moral change is effected, they never can appear as “the
peculiar people, the kingdom of priests, the holy nation.” High and holy
is their destiny, and great is the providential mercy of God in still
preserving them, when they refuse obstinately to fulfil it. But neither
their destiny nor God’s forbearance can be of any avail, until they
reassert the glorious liberty of the children of God. The chains of
Rabbinism must be broken, and the mild yoke of Messiah taken upon their
shoulders, before national independence and liberty can return. How
could a nation exist, whose moral and intellectual energies are all
crampt by the endless subtleties of the rabbies? How could a people
maintain national liberty whilst they are such perfect slaves to
superstition as to believe that traditions, which are the curse of the
poor, and many of which flatly contradict others, all proceed from the
God of mercy and truth? The temple must first be cleansed of all
defilement before the glory of God can enter. It is therefore a matter
of the first and highest importance, to every Jew who wishes well to his
nation, to examine that system, whose constant companion for so many
centuries has been misery; and if they are convinced of its falsehood,
then to use every exertion to deliver their brethren, from that which is
mischievous as well as false. We might urge its tendency to produce and
perpetuate an unfriendly separation between the Jews and their
neighbours: not that we are ignorant of God’s declaration,
הן עם לבדד ישכון ובגוים לא יתחשב ׃