soul on the one hand, but on the other hand they are a vivid illustration
of the saying of the Fathers, “Thou art born against thy will.” Thus the
soul, when it is brought before the throne of God, and is commanded to
enter into the body, pleads before Him: “O Lord, till now have I been holy
and pure; bring me not into contact with what is common and unclean.”
Thereupon the soul is given to understand that it was for this destiny
alone that it was created. Another remarkable feature is the warning given
to man before his birth that he will be responsible for his actions. He is
regularly sworn in. The oath has the double purpose of impressing upon him
the consciousness of his duty to lead a holy life, and of arming him
against the danger of allowing a holy life to make him vain. As if to
render this oath more impressive, the unborn hero is provided with two
angels who, besides teaching him the whole of the Torah, take him every
morning through paradise and show him the glory of the just ones who dwell
there. In the evening he is taken to hell to witness the sufferings of the
reprobate. But such a lesson would make free will impossible. His future
conduct would only be dictated by the fear of punishment and hope of
reward. And the moral value of his actions also depends, according to
Jewish notions, upon the power to commit sin. Thus another legend records:
“When God created the world, He produced on the second day the angels with
their natural inclinations to do good, and the absolute inability to
commit sin. On the following days again He created the beasts with their
exclusively animal desires. But He was pleased with neither of these
extremes. If the angels follow my will, said God, it is only on account of
their impotence to act in the opposite direction. I shall therefore create
man, who will be a combination of both angel and beast, so that he will be
able to follow either the good or evil inclination. His evil deeds will
place him beneath the level of animals, whilst his noble aspirations will
enable him to obtain a higher position than angels.” Care is therefore
taken to make the child forget all it has seen and heard in these upper
regions. Before it enters the world an angel strikes it on the upper lip,
and all his knowledge and wisdom disappear at once. The pit in the upper
lip is a result of this stroke, which is also the cause why children cry
when they are born.
As to the origin of these legends, the main features of which are already
to be found in the Talmud, I must refer the reader to the researches of
Löw and others.(238) Here we have only to watch the effect which these
legends had upon the minds of Jewish parents. The newly born child was in
consequence looked upon by them as a higher being, which, but a few
seconds before, had been conversing with angels and saints, and had now
condescended into our profane world to make two ordinary mortals happy.
The treatment which the child experienced from its parents, as well as
from the whole of the community, was therefore a combination of love and
veneration. One may go even further and say that the belief in these
legends determines greatly the destination of the child. What other
destination could a being of such a glorious past have than to be what an
old German Jewish poem expressed in the following lines:—
Geboren soll es wehren
Zu Gottes Ehren.
“The child should be born to the honour of God.” The mission of the child
is to glorify the name of God on earth. And the whole bringing up of the
child in the old Jewish communities was more or less calculated to this
end. The words of the Bible, “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of
priests,” were taken literally. Every man felt it his duty to bring up his
children, or at least one member of his family, for this calling. How they
carried out this programme we shall see later on.
Now, regarding almost every infant as a predestined priest, and thinking
of it as having received a certain preparation for this calling before it
came into this world, we cannot wonder that the child was supposed to show
signs of piety from the days of its earliest existence, and even earlier.
Thus we read that even the unborn children joined in with the chorus on
the Red Sea and sang the Song (of Moses). David, again, composed Psalms
before perceiving the face of this world. On the Day of Atonement they
used to communicate to the unborn child, through the medium of its mother,
that on this great day it had to be satisfied with the good it had
received the day before. And when a certain child, afterwards named
Shabbethai, refused to listen to such a request, R. Johanan applied to it
the verse from the Psalm, “The wicked are estranged from the womb.”
Indeed, Shabbethai turned out a great sinner. It will perhaps be
interesting to hear what his sin was. It consisted in forestalling the
corn in the market and afterwards selling it to the poor at a much higher
price. Of a certain child the legend tells that it was born with the word
_emeth_ (truth) engraved on its fore‐head. Its parents named it
Amiti,(239) and the child proved to be a great saint.
The priest, however, could not enter into his office without some
consecration. As the first step in this consecration of the child we may
consider the Covenant of Abraham. But this was prefaced by a few other
solemn acts which I must mention. One of the oldest ceremonies connected
with the birth of a child was that of tree‐planting. In the case of a boy
they planted a cedar, in that of a girl a pine; and on their marriage they
cut branches from these trees to form the wedding‐canopy. Other rites
followed, but they were more of a medical character, and would be better
appreciated by the physician. In the Middle Ages superstition played a
great part. To be sure, I have spoken of saints; but we ought not to
forget that saints, too, have their foolish moments, especially when they
are fighting against hosts of demons, the existence of which is only
guaranteed by their own over‐excited brains. Jewish parents were for many
centuries troubled by the fear of Lilith,(240) the devil’s mother, who was
suspected of stealing children and killing them. The precautions they took
to prevent this atrocity were as foolish as the object of their fear. I do
not intend to enumerate here all these various precautions. Every country
almost has its own usages and charms, one more absurd than the other. It
will suffice to refer here to the most popular of these charms, in which
certain angels are invoked to protect the child against its dangerous
enemy Lilith. But of whatever origin they may be, Judaism could do better
without them. The only excuse for their existence among us is to my mind
that they provoked the famous Dr. Erter to the composition of one of the
finest satires in the Hebrew language.
Of a less revolting character was the so‐called ceremony of the “Reading
of the Shema.”(241) It consisted in taking all the little children of the
community into the house of the newly‐born child, where the teacher made
them read the Shema, sometimes also the ninety‐first Psalm. The fact that
little children were the chief actors in this ceremony reconciles one a
little to it despite its rather doubtful origin. In some communities these
readings took place every evening up to the day when the child was brought
into the covenant of Abraham. In other places they performed the ceremony
only on the eve of the day of the _Berith Milah_(242) (Ceremony of the
Circumcision). Indeed, this was the night during which Lilith was supposed
to play her worst tricks, and the watch over the child was redoubled.
Hence the name “Wachnacht,” or the “Night of Watching.” They remained
awake for the whole night, and spent it in feasting and in studying
certain portions of the Bible and the Talmud, mostly relating to the event
which was to take place on the following day. This ceremony was already
known to Jewish writers of the thirteenth century. Nevertheless, it is
considered by the best authorities on the subject to be of foreign origin.
Quite Jewish, as well as entirely free from superstitious taint, was the
visit which was paid to the infant‐boy on the first Sabbath of his
existence. It was called “Shalom Zachar,”(243) probably meaning “Peace‐
boy,” in allusion to a well‐known passage in the Talmud to the effect that
the advent of a boy in the family brings peace to the world.
At last the dawn of the great day of the Berith came. I shall, however,
only touch here on the social aspects of this rite.
Its popularity began, as it seems, in very early times. The persecutions
which Israel suffered for it in the times of Antiochus Epiphanes, “when
the princes and elders mourned, the virgins and the young men were made
feeble, and the beauty of women was changed, and when certain women were
put to death for causing their children to be circumcised,” are the best
proof of the attachment of the people to it. The repeated attempts against
this law, both by heathen and by Christian hands, only served to increase
its popularity. Indeed R. Simeon ben Eleazar characterised it as the law
for which Israel brought the sacrifice of martyrdom, and therefore held
firmly by it. In other words they suffered for it, and it became endeared
to them. R. Simeon ben Gamaliel declares it to be the only law which
Israel fulfils with joy and exultation. As a sign of this joy we may
regard the eagerness and the lively interest which raised this ceremony
from a strictly family affair to a matter in which the whole of the
community participated. Thus we find that already in the times of the
Gaonim the ceremony was transferred from the house of the parents to the
synagogue. Here it took place after the prayers, in the presence of the
whole congregation. The synagogue used to be specially illuminated in
honour of the event. Certain pieces of the daily prayer, of a rather
doleful nature, such as the confession of sins, were omitted, lest the
harmony of the festival should be disturbed. As a substitute for these
prayers, various hymns suitable for the occasion were composed and
inserted in the liturgy for the day. As the most prominent members among
those present figured the happy father of the child and the medical man
who performed the ceremony, usually called the Mohel or Gozer,(244) both
wearing their festal garments and having certain privileges, such as being
called up to the Reading of the Law and chanting certain portions of the
prayers. It is not before the tenth century that a third member suddenly
emerges to become almost as important as the father of the child. I refer
to the _Sandek_ or Godfather. In some countries he was also called the
Baal Berith (Master of the Covenant). In Italy they seemed to have had two
Sandeks. This word was for a long time supposed to be the Greek word
σύνδικος. But it is now proved beyond doubt that it is a corruption of the
word σύντεκνος used in the Greek church for godfather. In the church he
was the man who lifted the neophyte from the baptismal waters. Among the
Jews, the office of the Sandek was to keep the child on his knees during
the performance of the rite. The Sandek’s place was, or is still, near the
seat of honour, which is called the Throne of Elijah, who is supposed to
be the angel of the covenant. Other angels, too, were believed to
officiate at this rite. Thus the angel Gabriel is also said to have
performed the office of Sandek to a certain child. According to other
sources the archangel Metatron himself attended. Probably it was on this
account that later Rabbis admonished the parents to take only a pious and
good Jew as Sandek for their children. Christian theologians also declared
that no good Christian must render such a service to a Jew. The famous
Buxtorf had to pay a fine of 100 florins for having attended the Berith of
a child, whose father he had employed as reader when editing the well‐
known Basel Bible. The poor reader himself, who was the cause of Buxtorf’s
offence, was fined 400 florins. Of an opposite case in which a Jew served
as godfather to a Christian child, we find a detailed account in Schudt’s
_Merkwürdigkeiten der Juden_, a very learned and very foolish book. When
the father was summoned before the magistrate, and was asked how he dared
to charge a Jew with such a holy Christian ceremony, he coolly answered,
because he knew that the Jew would present him with a silver cup. As to
the present, I have to remark that with the Jews also the godfather was
expected to bestow a gift on the child. In some communities he had to
defray the expenses of the festival‐dinner, of which I shall speak
presently. In others, again, he had also to give a present to the mother
of the child.
Much older than the institution of the Sandek is the festival‐dinner just
alluded to, which was held after the ceremony. Jewish legend supplies many
particulars of the dinner the patriarch Abraham gave at the Berith of his
son Isaac. This is a little too legendary, but there is ample historical
evidence that such meals were already customary in the times of the Second
Temple. The Talmud of Jerusalem gives us a detailed account of the
proceedings which took place at the Berith dinner of Elisha ben Abuyah,
who afterwards obtained a sad celebrity as Acher. Considering that
Elisha’s birth must have fallen within the first decades after the
destruction of the Temple, and that these sad times were most unsuitable
for introducing new festivals, we may safely date the custom back to the
times of the Temple. The way in which the guests entertained themselves is
also to be gathered from the passage referred to. First came the dinner,
in which all the guests participated; afterwards the great men of
Jerusalem occupied one room, indulging there in singing, hand clapping,
and dancing. The scholars again, who apparently did not belong to the
great men, were confined to another room, where they employed themselves
in discussing biblical subjects. In later times special hymns, composed
for this festival, were inserted in the grace after dinner. After the
dinner, sermons or speeches used also to be given, the contents of which
were usually made up of reflections on biblical and Talmudical passages
relating to the event of the day. Sometimes they consisted of a kind of
learned puns on the name which the child received on this occasion.
With this meal the first consecration of the child‐priest was concluded.
In some places they used to come to the father’s house on the third day
after the circumcision with the purpose of making inquiries after the
child’s health. In the case when the child was the first‐born the ceremony
of “redeeming the child”(245) in accordance with Exodus xiii. used to take
place. The details of this ceremony are to be found in almost every
prayer‐book, and there is nothing fresh to add. But perhaps I may be
allowed to draw attention to another distinction that the first‐born
received in the Middle Ages. I refer to an account given by the author of
the book, _The Ordinance of the Law_,(246) who flourished in the
thirteenth century. He says: Our predecessors made the rule to destine
every first‐born to God, and before its birth the father had to say, “I
take the vow that if my wife presents me with a son, he shall be holy unto
the Lord, and in His Torah he shall meditate day and night.” On the eighth
day after the Berith Milah they put the child on cushions, and a Bible on
its head, and the elders of the community, or the principal of the
college, imparted their blessings to it. These first‐born sons formed,
when grown up, the chief contingent of the Yeshiboth (Talmudical
Colleges), where they devoted the greatest part of their lives to the
study of the Torah. In later centuries the vow was dropped, but from the
abundance of the Yeshiboth in Poland and elsewhere it seems as if almost
every child was considered as having no other calling but the study of the
Torah. Indeed, the growing persecutions required a strengthening of the
religious force.
With these ceremonies the first act of consecration ended in the case
where the new‐born child was a boy. I will now refer to the ceremony of
the name‐giving, which was common to males and females. In the case of the
former this ceremony was connected with the Berith Milah. The oldest
formula, which is already to be found in the _Ritual Rab Amram Gaon_, is
composed in Aramaic. It is, like many prayers in that language, a most
beautiful composition, and very suitable for the occasion. Our present
Hebrew prayer is far less beautiful, and dates from a much later age. In
some countries the ceremony of naming was repeated in the house of the
parents. It took place on the Sabbath, when the mother returned home from
her first visit to the synagogue after her recovery. Here the friends and
relatives of the family assembled, and after arranging themselves round
the cradle of the child they lifted it three times, shouting the new name
at every lifting. This name was the so‐called “profane” name, whilst the
name it received in the synagogue was the “sacred” or Hebrew name. The
ceremony concluded with the usual festival‐dinner. By the way, there was
perhaps a little too much feasting in those days. The contemporary Rabbis
tried indeed to suppress some of the banquets, and put all sorts of
restrictions on dinner‐hunting people. But considering the fact that, as
Jews, they were excluded from every public amusement, we cannot grudge
them the pleasure they drew from these semi‐religious celebrations. For
people of an ascetic disposition it was, perhaps, the only opportunity of
enjoying a proper meal. In the same way, in our days, the most severe
father would not deny his lively daughter the pleasure of dancing or
singing charitably for the benefit of suffering humanity. The ceremony
described was known to the authors of the Middle Ages by the name of
_Holle Kreish_. These words are proved by Dr. Perles to be of German
origin, and based on some Teutonic superstition into the explanation of
which I cannot enter here.
Of much more importance was the ceremony of name‐giving in the case of a
girl, it being the only attention the female child received from the
synagogue. The usages varied. In some countries the name was given on the
first Sabbath after the birth of the child. The father was “called up to
the Reading of the Law,” on which followed the formula, “He who blessed
our ancestors Abraham,” etc., “may He also bless,” etc., including the
blessing and announcement of the child’s name. After the prayer the
congregation assembled in the house of the parents to congratulate them.
In other countries the ceremony took place on the Sabbath when the mother
attended the synagogue after the recovery. The ceremony of Holle Kreish
seems to have been especially observed in the case of a girl.
Though the feasting was now over for the parents, the child still lived in
a holiday atmosphere for a long time. In the legend of the “Ages of Man”
the child is described in the first year of its existence as a little
prince, adored and petted by all. The mother herself nourished and tended
the child. Although the Bible already speaks of nurses, many passages in
the later Jewish literature show a strong aversion to these substitutes
for the mother. In the event of the father of the child dying, the mother
was forbidden to marry before her suckling infant reached the age of two
years, lest a new courtship might lead to the neglect of the child.
More difficult is it to say wherein the other signs of loyalty to the
little prince consisted; as, for instance, whether Jews possessed anything
like lullabies to soothe the little prince into happy and sweet slumber.
At least I am not aware of the existence of such songs in the ancient
Jewish literature, nor are they quoted by mediæval writers. The
“Schlummerlied,” by an unknown Jewish bard, about which German scholars
wrote so much, contains more heathen than Jewish elements. From the
protest in _The Book of the Pious_, against using non‐Jewish cradle‐songs,
it seems that little Moshechen was lulled to sleep by the same tunes and
words as little Johnny. The only Jewish lullaby of which I know, is to be
found in the work of a modern writer who lived in Russia. How far its
popularity goes in that country I have no means of ascertaining. This
jingle runs as follows:—
O! hush thee, my darling, sleep soundly my son,
Sleep soundly and sweetly till day has begun;
For under the bed of good children at night
There lies, till the morning, a kid snowy white.
We’ll send it to market to buy Sechora,(247)
While my little lad goes to study Torah.
Sleep soundly at night and learn Torah by day,
Then thou’lt be a Rabbi when I have grown gray.
But I’ll give thee to‐morrow ripe nuts and a toy,
If thou’lt sleep as I bid thee, my own little boy.(248)
But naturally the holiday atmosphere I spoke of was very often darkened by
clouds resulting from the illness of the child. Excepting small‐pox, the
child was subject to most of those diseases which so often prove fatal to
our children. These diseases were known under the collective name of “the
difficulties (or the pain) of bringing up children.” These difficulties
seem to have been still greater in Palestine, where one of the old Rabbis
exclaimed that it was easier to see a whole forest of young olive trees
grow up than to rear one child.(249) To avoid so mournful a subject, I
refrain from repeating the touching stories relating to the death of
children. The pain was the more keenly felt since there was no other way
of explaining the misfortune which befell the innocent creature than that
it had suffered for the sins of the parents; and the only comfort the
latter had was that the child could not have lost much by its being
removed from this vale of tears at such an early period. A remarkable
legend describes God Himself as giving lessons so many hours a day to
these prematurely deceased children.(250) Indeed, to the mind of the old
Rabbis, the only thing worth living for was the study of the Law.
Consequently the child that suffered innocently could not have a better
compensation than to learn Torah from the mouth of the Master of masters.
But even when the child was healthy, and food and climate proved congenial
to its constitution, there still remained the troubles of its spiritual
education. And to be sure it was not an easy matter to bring up a
“priest.” The first condition for this calling was learning. But learning
cannot be acquired without honest and hard industry. It is true that R.
Akiba numbers wisdom among the virtues which are hereditary from father to
son. Experience, however, has shown that it is seldom the case, and the
Rabbis were already troubled with the question how it happens that
children so little resemble their fathers in respect of learning.