are instructed, they are to be taught to serve God only from the motive
of fear, and the desire to receive a reward until,” &c. (Hilchoth
T’shuvah, c. x. 5.) In these passages, and many, many more may be added,
_Amhaaretz_ plainly signifies an unlearned man, and it does not appear
from any one, that there is any crime to be laid to his charge. He may
appear as suitor in a court of law; he is considered as a son or
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he is put on a level with the children and
the women of Israel. The only disparagement is, that he has not been
brought up at the feet of a learned rabbi, and, therefore, cannot be
reckoned amongst the disciples of the wise men.
The next thing to be established is, that the oral law despises and
insults those whose misfortune it is to be unlearned; and here, in
addition to the complement paid to their wives and daughters, noticed in
No. 1, we bring, as a proof, the general rule which is given respecting
their treatment:—
תנו רבנן ששה דברים נאמרו בעמי הארץ אין מוסרין להן עדות ואין מקבלין מהן
עדות ואין מגלין להן סוד ואין ממנין אותן אפוטרופוס על היתומים ואין ממנין
אותן אפוטרופוס על קופה של צדקה וא׳׳ן מתלוין עמהן בדרך וי׳׳א אף אין
מכריזין על אבדתן ׃
“Our rabbies have handed down as a tradition, that six things are said
with respect to Amharatzin. Testimony is not to be given to them, nor
received from them. A secret is not to be revealed to them. They are not
to be appointed as guardians to orphans, nor to an alms-fund. One is not
to bear them company in the way. And some say, that if they have lost
any thing, and it is found, no public notice is to be given respecting
it.” (Pesachim, fol. 49, col. 2.) Here, then, the unlearned are branded
as liars, whose word is not to be depended upon—as rogues, unfit to be
trusted with property—as murderers, with whom it is unsafe to walk by
the way-side. Can contempt or insult add more? Yes; rabbinic contempt
had one insult more galling than these, and that was to put them on a
level with Gentiles, and this it has done by forbidding public notice to
be given, if any thing which they had lost should be found. Now, we fear
not to assert, that this one passage is fatal to the claims of the oral
law. There is not a particle of resemblance in it to the merciful and
just religion made known by Moses. It is the effusion of a mind
intoxicated with self-conceit and arrogance. The authors of the oral law
were determined, so far as they could, to lay it down as a maxim, not
only that no wisdom, but no truth, no honesty, and no humanity, was to
be found, except amongst themselves, and their disciples; they wished to
have the monopoly of all moral virtue, as well as of all learning. We
ask both the learned and the unlearned, whether it be possible that such
a law could have emanated from the God of Israel? But there is not only
excessive arrogance, there is also gross injustice in their law. It is
ordained, first, that in a court of law, the cause of the learned is to
be heard before the cause of the unlearned; this is in itself most
unjust, but is not to be compared with what follows. The oral law
forbids the appointment of an unlearned man as guardian to orphans; can
any thing be more oppressive? Suppose that an unlearned man, on his
death-bed, thinks of a guardian for his orphan children, and looks to a
brother, or an intimate friend, as unlearned as himself, but whose
worth, and honesty, and affection, he has long known and valued; the
oral law forbids him to make such an appointment; and if he has no
learned friend—and how, where such a law exists, is it ever possible
that the learned and the unlearned should be friends?—he must die with
the agonizing thought, that his children must be left to the
guardianship of a perfect stranger. Is it possible to conceive anything
more oppressive, unjust, or cruel? But the oral law is not content with
this; it will not permit an unlearned man, even in his lifetime, to
recover property that has been lost. Whoever finds it may keep it. The
law for other people is, that if any thing be found, the finder is to
have proclamation made in the city, or, if the majority of the
inhabitants be Gentiles, in the synagogue, that the loser may hear of
it. But the poor Amhaaretz is excluded from the benefit of this command.
It may, however, puzzle the reader, how the finder is to know whether
the thing which he has found belongs to a learned or an unlearned man.
One of the commentators has solved this difficulty in the following
manner:—
וא׳׳ת מאין יודע שהוא של עם הארץ ואמר ר׳ יצחק כגון ששיירא של עם הארץ
עוברת וראינו שנפל מהם ׃
“If you ask, How is the finder to know that the thing found belongs to
an Amhaaretz? R. Isaac says, it is in such a case as when a crowd of
Amharatzin is passing, and we see that it fell from them.” (Ibid.) So
that, according to this interpretation, the disciples of the wise men
are positively allowed to retain what they know does not belong to them,
if they only see that it does belong to an unlearned man; and yet these
are the men who are so afraid of the dishonesty of the unlearned, as to
forbid their appointment to the office of guardian to orphans, or
treasurer to a charitable fund. Let any man of common sense decide,
whether this law is honest or dishonest, and then let him decide,
whether it can come from God, and whether such a religion is fit for an
honest man?
The most important point, however, remains, and that is, the permission
to kill an unlearned man, or to rend him like a fish. We have been told
that this is merely figurative language, but the context is not such as
to lead to this conclusion; on the contrary, the passage itself, and all
that precedes and follows, leads us to believe that it was meant
literally. In the first place, it is said, that it is lawful to kill an
Amhaaretz without observing the rules of שחיטה slaughtering, and when
the disciples ask the reason, R. Eleazar replies, Because these rules
would require a benediction to be pronounced, whereas he would not have
an Amhaaretz treated with such respect. Let any man explain the
figurative meaning of all this. Secondly, R. Samuel, to take away all
ambiguity, says, in the name of R. Johannan, that it is lawful to rend
him as a fish. Now it is known that, with regard to fish, the rules of
שחיטה or slaughtering, are not observed. All ambiguity, therefore, as to
R. Eleazar’s meaning, is here removed. Thirdly, it is evident that the
rabbies looked upon the unlearned as nothing better than beasts. They
say, that the daughters of the unlearned are an abomination, and their
wives vermin: yea, that their daughters are beasts. Now, when men are so
wicked as to use such language concerning their fellow-creatures, are we
to be astonished that they would draw the conclusion that necessarily
follows from such premises, and that they should allow these beasts and
vermin to be killed? When we see that these rabbies allow an unlearned
man to be robbed with impunity of that which he has lost, what principle
of conscience or justice is there left to prevent them from killing him
whom they have robbed? If all the other principles of these rabbies were
just, honest, upright, and merciful, we might be tempted to suppose,
that in these words they enveloped some mystical sense. But when we see
that the principles which precede and follow are an outrage upon
humanity, justice, and mercy, no such supposition is necessary.
But, after all, how did the commentators understand the passage? If we,
as Gentiles, are accused of misrepresenting the sense, what did the
rabbies, who succeeded, make of this passage? The commentary from which
we have just quoted, after saying, that if a crowd of Amharatzin let any
thing fall, it is lawful to keep it without giving public notice, adds,
that this is to be understood strictly of what is lost, but that it does
not warrant the learned to rob them by force; upon which the following
difficulty is started:—
אמאי ממונו אסור השתא נופו מותר שמותר לקרצו כדג וכו׳ ׃
“Why should it be unlawful to deal thus with his money, when it is
lawful to deal violently with his body, for it is lawful to rend him as
a fish.” (Ibid.) Now here this rabbi evidently interpreted the
permission to kill literally, and he naturally asks, If it be lawful to
take away a man’s life by violence, why should it not be lawful to take
away his money? If the words had been taken figuratively, there would
have been no room for this question. We have, therefore, neither
misunderstood nor misrepresented the meaning. The oral law allows the
murder of an unlearned man, and that with as little ceremony as it
permits the killing of an unclean animal, or a fish. We therefore repeat
our assertion, that the oral law cannot be from God. One such passage is
quite sufficient to discredit the whole, not only because of its
intrinsic wickedness, but because it displays the character of those men
with whom the oral law originated. Superabundant self-conceit,
cold-blooded cruelty, and unrelenting enmity, are the striking
characteristics of those men, who, by dint of force and fraud, gradually
enslaved the minds of the Jewish people. It appears from these passages,
and from the plain confessions of the rabbies in the context, that the
common people struggled hard before they submitted to the yoke of the
oral law. The attempt to impose such a burden, evidently produced the
most bitter animosity between the rabbies and the people. The people
were ready, as one of the rabbies says, to kill all the wise men, and
these, in return laid down the principles of retaliation which we have
just considered, and which are a disgrace to the name of religion. These
principles, however, would not have triumphed if the rabbies had not got
the whole power of the State into their own hands. By means of that
unlawful and heathenish tribunal, the Sanhedrin, they were able to
coerce the people, and to kill all who refused to submit. Judaism,
therefore, as it at present exist, is a religion which was originally
forced upon the Jewish people against their will, and therefore has no
claims upon their reverence or gratitude. By the dispersion, God has
removed the main difficulties in the way of their moral and spiritual
emancipation. Christianity is in the ascendant, and will not permit any
“wise men” to kill the unlearned without ceremony. The people may,
therefore, assert their religious liberty in perfect security, and
without any fear of the Sanhedrin. We tell the Jews, even on the
admissions of the Talmud itself, that their present religion is not even
the object of their choice, and much less the religion given by God, but
that it was imposed upon the consciences of their fathers by force; and,
therefore, ask the Jews, Whether they still wish to continue slaves to
superstition and cruelty, when God has, in his providence, arranged the
means of their delivery? The Jewish people have often had reason to
complain of the injustice, contempt, and cruelty of the nations amongst
whom they have been scattered; but we ask them, Have the most barbarous
nations ever treated them with more contempt, injustice, and cruelty
than that which we have just found authorized by the oral law? Ignorant
and superstitious Gentiles have turned the holy name of Jew into a term
of reproach, but where was it ever known or heard of, that the most
ignorant and most superstitious called the Jews vermin, or compared the
wives and daughters of Israel to beasts? It is Judaism, and Judaism
only, that utters this foul and inhuman slander. In seasons of popular
tumult, mobs have risen and plundered the Jews; but where is the nation,
or the religion, which has made a law that it is lawful to keep the lost
property of a Jew? Judaism, and Judaism alone, is guilty of this
injustice. Prejudice has unjustly assailed the character of the Jewish
people, but what sect or party of Christians ever thought of branding
them as liars, whose evidence is not to be received; as rogues, unworthy
to be appointed as guardians to orphans or property; as murderers, with
whom it is unsafe to walk by the road-side? Yet this is the deliberate
sentence of Judaism respecting the unlearned; that is, respecting the
great mass of the Jewish people. Just suppose that the Parliament of
England was to pass a law, declaring that the Jews are to be considered
incompetent to give testimony, or to be guardians of property, warning
people to beware of walking with a Jew, and permitting men to kill them,
or to rend them like a fish; would not the Jewish people perceive in a
moment the injustice and the cruelty of such legislation? Would they not
have just reason to complain of the blind prejudice which possessed the
minds of the legislators? And yet, this is only what the rabbies have
done. If Judaism be true, then the mass of the Jewish people are liars,
rogues, and murderers; for this is what Judaism asserts; and if the
Jewish people consent to its truth, they are stamping themselves, their
wives, and their daughters with infamy. The truth or falsehood of the
oral law is not simply a speculative question, or a question relating to
their eternal interests in another world; it is a question deeply
affecting their characters and their welfare at present. It simply comes
to this, are all unlearned Jews, that is, the overwhelming majority of
the people, to be considered as utterly destitute of truth, honesty, and
humanity? If Judaism be true, the answer is, Yes. Let, then, every Jew,
rich or poor, learned or unlearned, consider whether he will still
profess a religion that defames and insults the mass of his countrymen.
The character of the nation is foully attacked, defamed, and vilified,
but not by Gentiles, not by Turk, Infidel, or Heretic, but by the Talmud
and the Rabbies. The only way in which this calumny can be met and wiped
away, is, by a renunciation of that system which has dared to utter it.
If there live a Jew who has the slightest regard for the honour of the
nation, he is bound to protest aloud against the falsehood of the oral
law. That it is false, requires no great stretch of argument to prove.
Every unlearned Jew, who is conscious that he is not a liar, a rogue,
and a murderer, has the proof in his own breast, that Judaism is false.
Every unlearned Jew, who duly honours and respects his wife and
daughters, and believes that they are neither vermin nor beasts, is a
witness against the truth of the oral law. Every one who believes that
dishonesty is contrary to the will of God, and that the murder of the
unlearned is unlawful, has the proof that that system which was imposed
upon his fathers, is not from God.
No. LX.
RECAPITULATION.
Having, by the help and mercy of God, brought those papers to the last
number, we propose here to sum up their contents, and to give a review
of the arguments which have been urged. The topics discussed have been
very various, but the object in all has been the same,—To show that
Judaism, or the religion of the oral law, is not the old religion of
Moses and the Prophets, but a new and totally different system, devised
by designing men, and unworthy of the Jewish people. That Judaism is
identical with the religion of the oral law was proved in the first
number by an appeal to the highest possible authority, the Prayer-book
of the synagogue, which is not only formed in obedience to the
directions of the oral law, but declares expressly that the Talmud is of
Divine authority. So long, therefore, as that Prayer-book is the ritual
of the synagogue, the worshippers there must be considered as
Talmudists, believers in all the absurdities, and advocates of all the
intolerance of that mass of tradition. That this is no misrepresentation
and no unfounded conclusion of our own, appears from the latest book
published in this country by a member of the Jewish persuasion. Joshua
Van Oven, Esq., has, in his “Introduction to the Principles of the
Jewish Faith,” a chapter, headed JUDAISM, which begins thus,—“The Jewish
religion, or Judaism, is founded solely on the law of Moses, so called
from its having been brought down by him from Mount Sinai. With the
particulars of these laws he had been inspired by the Almighty during
the forty days he remained on the mount, after receiving the Ten
Commandments; these he afterwards embodied in the sacred volume, known
and accepted as the written law, and called the Pentateuch, or the Five
Books of Moses, contained in the volume we term the Bible. _We also,
from the same source, receive, as sacred and authentic_, a large number
of traditions not committed to writing, but transmitted by word of mouth
down to later times; without which many enactments in the Holy Bible
could not have been understood and acted upon; these, termed traditional
or oral laws, were collected and formed into a volume called the
‘Mishna,’ by Rabbi Jehudah Hakodesh, A.M. 4150. In addition to this, _we
are guided_ by the explications of the later schools of pious and
learned rabbies, _constituting what is now known by the name of the
Talmud, or Gemara_.”[37]
Nothing can be more explicit than this avowal. A learned and pious Jew
of the nineteenth century honestly avows that Judaism is the religion of
the Talmud; and upon this principle we have examined Judaism, and
compared it with Moses and the Prophets, and the result of this
comparison is—
I. THAT JUDAISM IS A FALSE RELIGION.
The premises, from which we draw this conclusion, are—
1. _That the oral law is altogether destitute of external evidence._ To
establish the authority of the oral law, it is absolutely necessary to
prove a succession of Sanhedrins from the time of Moses to that of Rabbi
Jehudah, or at the least an unbroken chain of tradition. But it has been
proved, in Nos. xliii. and xliv., that there was no such thing as a
Sanhedrin until after the Greek conquest of Judea, and in No. xlv., that
there is no continuous chain of tradition. The only evidence, therefore,
which could beget faith in the mind of a reasonable man is wanting.
2. _The oral law itself is full of manifest fables._ This has been
proved almost in every number, but particularly from Nos. xvii.-xxi.,
where the fables selected are such as are particularly noticed in the
prayers of the synagogue. No one can doubt that the stories about
Leviathan and Behemoth—of Adam’s singing the 92d Psalm after a
conversation with Cain—of the river Sambation—of the experiment made by
Turnus Rufus to raise his father—of Mount Sinai having been turned, like
a tub, over the Israelites—of the descent of 600,000 angels to crown the
Israelites—of the people’s travelling 240 miles backwards and forwards
during the delivery of the Ten Commandments, &c., &c.,—are all downright
fables, not a whit more authentic than similar stories contained in the
Koran, or the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Any one fable would be
sufficient to overturn the credit of the oral law, but what are we to
think of the host of downright falsehoods here enumerated?
3. _It is directly subversive of the state of things established in the
written law._ Moses appointed the priests, the sons of Levi, as the
religious teachers of Israel. The oral law has ousted them altogether
from their office, as was shown in No. xli.
4. _The oral law encourages those Heathen superstitions expressly
forbidden by Moses and the Prophets_, such as magic, astrology, amulets,
and charms, as is shown from Nos. xxii.-xxvi.
5. _The oral law loosens the moral obligations._ It teaches men how to
evade the Divine commandments, as was shown in Nos. xi., xiv., and xv.
It allows dispensation from oaths, as proved in Nos. lvi. and lvii. It
allows men to retain what they know does not belong to them, if it only
belongs to a Gentile (p. 18), or to an unlearned Jew, as appears from
No. lix. It sanctions the murder of the unlearned.
6. _It leads men to put trust in mere external acts as a compensation
for moral delinquencies._ The washing of hands (No. x.)—the external
sanctification of the Sabbath (No. xxix.)—the blowing of the cornet at
the new year (No. xxxiv.)—the rite of circumcision (No. lviii.), &c.,
&c., are represented as sufficient to save wicked men from the just
punishment of their misdeeds.
7. _Though called an oral law, because not written with ink, it is
really written in blood._ For the most trifling offences it sentences
the offender to be flogged (Nos. xiii. and liii.)—for the transgression
of the rabbinic commands respecting the Sabbath, it awards the sentence
of death (No. xxvii.)—and, by its laws respecting the killing and
cooking meat (Nos. xlix.-liv.), it prevents the poor from getting food
for themselves and their children.
8. _It degrades the female sex_, by permitting polygamy (No. xlvii.)—by
permitting divorce on the most trifling pretext (No. xlviii.)—by
declaring women incompetent to give evidence—by excluding them from the
public worship of God—and by teaching that they are under no obligation
to learn the revealed will of their Creator (No. iii.).
9. _It oppresses and insults slaves_, by forbidding them to be
instructed in the law (No. iii.), and by placing them, when dead, on a
level with brutes (No. lv.).
10. _It is a persecuting and intolerant system._ It gives every rabbi
the power of excommunicating the Jews (No. xxxi.), and it commands the
conversion of all the Gentile nations by the sword (No. vi.).
11. _It forbids the exercise of the commonest feelings of humanity to
those whom it calls idolaters._ It will not permit a drowning idolater
to be helped, nor a perishing idolater to be rescued, nor an idolatrous
woman in travail to be delivered (Nos. iv. and v.).
12. _It leaves those Gentiles who are not idolaters without religion._
It teaches that they are not commanded to love God, and breaks up all
the happiness of domestic life, by asserting that amongst Gentiles there
is no such thing as marriage (No. viii.). For these and other reasons
which might be adduced, we believe that Judaism is contrary to the
religion of Moses and the Prophets—that it has not proceeded from God,
but is the mere invention of men, and therefore false.
II. From these premises we have concluded, secondly, THAT JUDAISM HAS
FOR ITS AUTHORS WICKED MEN, UNWORTHY OF CREDIT. One of the most daring
acts of wickedness, that can be committed is to invent laws and
principles, and pass them off as the laws of God. Every degree of wilful
falsehood is sinful; but to forge Divine laws, and impose upon the
consciences of men, is the most daring of all wickedness, for it not
only deceives men, but it dishonours God. The Divine Being is
represented as the author of principles and practices which are abhorred
by the good even amongst men. Is it possible that those men could be
good, who invented the fables of which we have spoken above—or who
overturned the Mosaic constitution for the purposes of personal
aggrandisement—or who teach that oaths may be broken with impunity—or
that men may keep what does not belong to them—or that unlearned men may
be murdered without ceremony—or that it is lawful to look upon the
agonies and pain of an idolater without rendering him any assistance or
feeling any pity? If falsehood, perjury, dishonesty, cruelty, and
inhumanity, constitute men wicked, then the authors of the oral law are
wicked men, and altogether unworthy of credit. And therefore we
conclude—