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HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY

BEQUEST OF

Lee M. Friedman '93

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STUDIES IN JUDAISM

An edition of this book can also be obtained from
The Jewish Publication Society of America,
1015 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Penn.

STUDIES IN JUDAISM

S. SCHECHTER, M.A.

READER IN TALMUDIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

MACMILLAN AND CO.

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.

1896

-^JjJi (oOO.l^'ilo^ 3C

Harvard

UNlVfRSlTYi

LIBRARY

APR 1 7 1964

J. S. Caahing & Co. — Berwick ft Smith
Norwood Mhi. U.S.A.

TO
THE EVER-CHERISHED MEMORY

THE LATE DR. P. F. FRANKL, RABBI IN BERLIN

THESE STUDIES ARE REVERENTLY

DEDICATED

PREFACE

These studies appeared originally in their first form in
The Jewish Quarterly and The Jewish Chronicle. To the
Editors of these periodicals my best thanks are due for their
readiness in placing the articles at my disposal for the
purposes of the present volume. The Introductory Essay
is new. I desire to express my sincere gratitude io Mr,
J. G. Frazer, Fellow of Trinity College j Cambridge y and Dr,
J, Sutherland Blacky of Londonjfor their great kindness in
revising the proof Sy and for many a valuable suggestion.
To Mr, Claude G, Montefiore I am indebted for the English
version of the Essay on *^ Chassidim'^ — my first literary
effort in this country y written at his own suggestion.

In the transliteration of Hebrew nameSy I have given the
familiar English forms of the authorised version. As
regards post-Biblical nameSy I have with few exceptions
followed Zedner's Catalogue of the Hebrew Books in the
Library of the British Museum. A Hebrew word will be
found here and there in the text ; I have purposely avoided
bewildering devices for representing the actual sound of the
wordy contenting myself with the ordinary Roman alphabety
in spite of its shortcomings.

Vll

viii PREFACE

The authorities used for the various Essays will be found
indicated in the Notes at the end of the volume^ where the
reader will also find short biographical and bibliographical
noticeSy together with brief explanations of technical terms
for which no exact equivalent exists in English. The index
willy it is hopedy facilitate reference,

Cambridge, February 1896.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction xi

1. The Chassidim i

2. Nachman Krochmal and the "Perplexities of the

Time" 46

-^^. Rabbi Elijah Wilna, Gaon 73

4. Nachmanides 99

^^. A Jewish Boswell 142

6. The Dogmas of Judaism ; H7

^7. The History of Jewish Tradition . . . .182
8. The Doctrine of Divine Retribution in Rabbinical

Literature 213

•^. The Law and Recent Criticism 233

10. The Hebrew Collection of the British Museum . 252

11. Titles of Jewish Books 270

12. The Child in Jewish Literature 282 ^

^13. Woman in Temple and Synagogue .... 313 ^

14. The Earliest Jewish Community in Europe . . 326

Notes 341

Index 361

INTRODUCTION

The essays published in this volume under the title of
Studies in Judaism have been written on various occasions
and at long intervals. There is thus no necessary con-
nection between them. If some sort of unity may be de-
tected in the book, it can only be between the first three
essays — on the Chassidim, Krochmal, and the Gaon — in
which there is a certain unity of purpose. The purpose in
view was, as may easily be gathered from the essays them-
selves, to bring under the notice of the English public
a type of men produced by the Synagogue of the Eastern
Jews. That Synagogue is widely different from ours. Its
places of worship have no claims to " beauty of holiness,"
being in their outward appearance rather bare and bald,
if not repulsive; whilst those who frequent them are a
noisy, excitable people, who actually dance on the " Sea-
son of Rejoicing" and cry bitterly on the "Days of
Mourjtiing." But among all these vagaries — or perhaps
because of them — this Synagogue has had its moments
of grace, when enthusiasm wedded to inspiration gave
birth to such beautiful souls as Baalshem, such fine scep-
tics as Krochmal, and such saintly scholars as Elijah
Wilna. The Synagogue of the West is certainly of a
more presentable character, and free from excesses;
though it is not devoid of an enthusiasm of its own which

Xii STUDIES IN JUDAISM

finds its outlet in an ardent and self-sacrificing philan-
thropic activity. But owing to its practical tendency
there is too little room in it for that play of intellectual
forces which finds its extravagant expression in the saint
on the one hand, and the learned heretic on the other.

Eight of these essays are more or less of a theological
nature. But in reading the proofs I have been struck by
the fact that there is assumed in them a certain concep-
tion of the Synagogue which, familiar though it be to the
Jewish student, may appear obscure and even strange to
the general English reader. For brevity's sake I will call
it the High Synagogue, though it does not correspond in
all details to what one is accustomed to understand under
the term of High Church. The High Synagogue has a
history which is not altogether without its points of
interest.

Some years ago when the waves of the Higher Criticism
of the Old Testament reached the shores of this country,
and such questions as the heterogeneous composition of
the Pentateuch, the comparatively late date of the Leviti-
cal Legislation, and the post-exilic origin of certain Prophe-
cies as well as of the Psalms began to be freely discussed
by the press and even in the pulpit, the invidious remark
was often made : What will now become of Judaism when
its last stronghold, the Law, is being shaken to its: very
foundations }

Such a remark shows a very superficial acquaintance
with the nature of an old historical religion like Judaism,
and the richness of the resources it has to fall back upon
in cases of emergency.

As a fact, the emergency did not quite surprise Judaism.
The alarm signal was given some 150 years ago by an

INTRODUCTION xiii

Italian Rabbi, Abiad Sar Shalom Bazilai, in his pamphlet
The Faith of the Sages. The pamphlet is, as the title
indicates, of a polemical character, reviewing the work
of the Jewish rationalistic schools ; and after warming up
in his attacks against their heterodox views, Bazilai ex-
claims : " Nature and simple meaning, they are our mis-
fortune." By "nature and simple meaning" Bazilai, who
wrote in Hebrew, understood what we would call Natural
Science and Philology. With the right instinct of faith,
Bazilai hit on the real sore points. For though he mostly
argues against the philosophical systems of Aristotle and
his commentators, he felt that it is not speculation that
will ever seriously endanger religion. There is hardly any
metaphysical system, old or new, which has not in course
of time been adapted by able dialecticians to the creed
which they happened to hold. In our own time we have
seen the glorious, though not entirely novel spectacle, of
Agnosticism itself becoming the rightful handmaid of
Queen Theology. The real danger lies in "nature" (or
Natural Science) with its stem demand of law and regu-
larity in all phenomena, and in the "simple meaning"
(or Philology) with its inconsiderate insistence on truth.
Of the two, the "simple meaning" is the more objection-
able. Not only is it very often at variance with Tradition,
which has its own code of interpretation, but it is con-
stantly increasing the difficulties raised by science. For
if words could only have more than one meaning, there
would be no objection to reading the first words of Gene-
sis, " In a beginning God evolved^ The difficulties of
science would then be disposed of easily enough. Mai-
monides, who was as bold an interpreter as he was a deep
metaphysician, hinted plainly enough that were he as con-

xiv STUDIES IN JUDAISM

vinced of the eternity of matter as he was satisfied of the
impossibility of any corporeal quality in the deity, he
would feel as little compunction in explaining (figuratively)
the contents of the first chapter of Genesis as he did in
allegorising the anthropomorphic passages of the Bible.
Thus in the end all the difficulties resolve themselves into
the one great difficulty of the "simple meaning." The
best way to meet this difficulty was found to be to shift
the centre of gravity in Judaism and to place it in the
secondary meaning, thus making religion independent of
philology and all its dangerous consequences.

This shifting work was chiefly done, perhaps not quite
consciously, by the historical school which followed upon
that of Mendelssohn and his first successors. The his-
torical school, which is still in the ascendant, comprises
many of the best Jewish writers who either by their
learning or by their ecclesiastical profession as Rabbis
and preachers in great communities have acquired some
important position among their brethren. The men who
have inaugurated this movement were Krochmal (1785-
1841), Rapoport (1790-1867), and Zunz (1794-1886).

It is not a mere coincidence that the first representa-
tives of the historical school were also the first Jewish
scholars who proved themselves more or less ready to
join the modern school of Bible Criticism, and even to
contribute their share to it. The first two, Krochmal
and Rapoport, early in the second quarter of this century
accepted and defended the modern view about a second
Isaiah, the post-exilic origin of many Psalms, and the late
date of Ecclesiastes ; whilst Zunz, who began (in 1832)
with denying the authenticity of Ezekiel, concluded his
literary career (1873) with a study on the Bible {Gesam-

INTRODUCTION XV

fnelte Schriften, i. pp. 217-290), in which he expressed
his view " that the Book of Leviticus dates from a later
period than the Book of Deuteronomy, later even than
Ezekiel, having been composed during the age of the
Second Temple, when there already existed a well-estab-
lished priesthood which superintended the sacrificial wor-
ship/' But when Revelation or the Written Word is
reduced to the level of history, there is no difficulty in
elevating history in its aspect of Tradition to the rank of
Scripture, for both have then the same human or divine
origin (according to the student's predilection for the one
or the other adjective), and emanate from the same
authority. Tradition becomes thus the means whereby
the modern divine seeks to compensate himself for the
loss of the Bible, and the theological balance is to the
satisfaction of all parties happily readjusted.

Jewish Tradition, or, as it is commonly called, the Oral
Law, or, as we may term it (in consideration of its claims
to represent an interpretation of the Bible), the Second-
ary Meaning of the Scriptures, is mainly embodied in the
works of the Rabbis and their subsequent followers dur-
ing the Middle Ages. Hence the zeal and energy with
which the historical school applied itself to the Jewish
post-biblical literature, not only elucidating its texts by
means of new critical editions, dictionaries, and commen-
taries, but also trying to trace its origins and to pursue
its history through its gradual development. To the work
of Krochmal in this direction a special essay is devoted
in this volume. The labours of Rapoport are more of a
biographical and bibliographical nature, being occupied
mostly with the minor details in the lives and writings of
various famous Jewish Rabbis in the Middle Ages ; thus

xvi STUDIES IN JUDAISM

they offer but little opportunity for general theological
comment. Of more importance in this respect are the
hints thrown out in his various works by Zunz, who was
just as emphatic in asserting the claims of Tradition as
he was advanced in his views on Bible criticism. Zunz's
greatest work is Die Gottesdie?istlicken Vortrdge — an awk-
ward title, which in fact means "The History of the Inter-
pretation of the Scriptures as forming a part of the divine
service." Now if a work displaying such wide learning
and critical acumen, and written in such an impartial spirit
can be said to have a bias, it was towards bridging over
the seemingly wide gap between the Written Word (the
Scriptures) and the Spoken Word (the Oral Law or Tra-
dition), which was the more deeply felt, as most of Zunz's
older contemporaries were men, grown up in the habits
of thought of the eighteenth century — a century distin-
guished both for its ignorance of, and its power of ignor-
ing, the teachings of history. Indeed it would seem that
ages employed in making history have no time for study-
ing it.

Zunz accomplished the task he set himself, by showing,
as already indicated, the late date of certain portions of
the Bible, which by setting the early history of Israel in
an ideal light betray the moralising tendency of their
authors, and are, in fact, little more than a traditional
interpretation of older portions of Scripture, adapted to
the religious needs of the time. Placing thus the origin
of Tradition in the Bible itself, it was a comparatively
easy matter for Zunz to prove its further continuity.
Prophecy and Interpretation are with him the natural
expressions of the religious life of the nation ; and though
by the loss of Israel's political independence the voice of

INTRODUCTION xvii

the prophets gradually died away, the voice of God was
still heard. Israel continues to consult God through the
medium of the Scriptures, and He answers His people by
the mouth of the Scribes, the Sages, the Interpreters of
the Law ; whilst the Jiturgy of the Synagogue, springing
up at the time when Psalms were still being composed,
expands in its later stages through the work of the Poets
of the Synagogue into such a rich luxuriance "that it
forms in itself a treasure of history, poetry, philosophy ;
and prophecy and psalms are again revived in the hym-
nology of the Middle Ages." This is in brief the lesson
to be learned from Zunz's Gottesdienstliche Vortrdge as far
as it deals with the significance of Tradition ; and it is in
the introduction to this work that Zunz expresses himself
to the following effect : Indispensable is the free Spoken
Word. Mankind has acquired all its ideal treasures only
by Word of Mouth ; an education continuing through all
stages of life. In Israel, too, the Word of Instruction
transmitted from mouth to mouth was never silenced.

The historical school has never, to my knowledge, offered
to the world a theological programme of its own. By the
nature of its task, its labours are mostly conducted in the
field of philology and archaeology, and it pays but little
attention to purely dogmatic questions. On the whole, its
attitude towards religion may be defined as an enlightened
Scepticism combined with a staunch conservatism which
is not even wholly devoid of a certain mystical touch.
As far as we may gather from vague remarks and hints
thrown out i\ow and then, its theological position may
perhaps be thus defined : — It is not the mere revealed
Bible that is of first importance to the Jew, but the Bible
as it repeats itself in history, in other words, as it is

Xviii STUDIES IN JUDAISM

interpreted by Tradition. The Talmud, that wonderful
mine of religious ideas from which it would be just as
easy to draw up a manual for the most orthodox as to
extract a vade-mecum for the most sceptical, lends some
countenance to this view by certain controversial passages
— not to be taken seriously — in which ** the words of the
scribes ** are placed almost above the words of the Torah.
Since then the interpretation of Scripture or the Second-
ary Meaning is mainly a product of changing historical
influences, it follows that the centre of authority is actu-
ally removed from the Bible and placed in some living
body, which, by reason of its being in touch with the ideal
aspirations and the religious needs of the age, is best able
to determine the nature of the Secondary Meaning. This
living body, however, is not represented by any section of
the nation, or any corporate priesthood, or Rabbihood, but
by the collective conscience of Catholic Israel as embodied
in the Universal Synagogue. The Synagogue "with its
long, continuous cry after God for more than twenty-three
centuries," with its unremittent activity in teaching and
developing the word of God, with its uninterrupted suc-
cession of prophets. Psalmists, Scribes, Assideans, Rab-
bis, Patriarchs, Interpreters, Elucidators, Eminences, and
Teachers, with its glorious record of Saints, martyrs,
sages, philosophers, scholars, and mystics; this Syna-
gogue, the only true witness to the past, and forming in
all ages the sublimest expression of Israel's religious life,
must also retain its authority as the sole true guide for
the present and the future. And being in communion
with this Synagogue, we may also look hopefully for
a safe and rational solution of our present theological
troubles. For was it not the Synagogue, which even in

INTRODUCTION xix

antiquity determined the fate of Scripture ? On the one
hand, for example, books like Ezekiel, the Song of Songs,
and Ecclesiastes, were only declared to be Holy Writ
in virtue of the interpretation put upon them by the
Rabbis : and, on the other hand, it was the veto of the
Rabbis which excluded from the canon the works that
now pass under the name of Apocrypha. We may, there-
fore, safely trust that the Synagogue will again assert its
divine right in passing judgment upon the Bible when it
feels called upon to exercise that holy office. It is ** God
who has chosen the Torah, and Moses His servant, and
Israel His people." But indeed God's choice invariably
coincides with the wishes of Israel; He "performeth all
things " upon which the councils of Israel, meeting under
promise of the Divine presence and communion, have pre-
viously agreed. As the Talmud somewhere expresses
itself with regard to the Book of Esther, "They have
confirmed above what Israel has accepted below.'*

Another consequence of this conception of Tradition is
that it is neither Scripture nor primitive Judaism, but gen-
eral custom which forms the real rule of practice. Holy
Writ as well as history, Zunz tells us, teaches that the law
of Moses was never fully and absolutely put in practice.
Liberty was always given to the great teachers of every
generation to make modifications and innovations in har-
mony with the spirit of existing institutions. Hence a
return to Mosaism would be illegal, pernicious, and indeed
impossible. The norm as well as the sanction of Judaism
is the practice actually in vogue. Its consecration is the
consecration of general use, — or, in other words, of Cath-
olic Israel. It was probably with a view to this com-
munion that the later mystics introduced a short prayer to

XX STUDIES IN JUDAISM

be said before the performance of any religious ceremony,
in which, among other things, the speaker professes his
readiness to act "in the name of all Israel/'

It would be out of place in an introductory essay
to pursue any further this interesting subject with its
far-reaching consequences upon Jewish life and Jewish
thought. But the foregoing remarks may suffice to show
that Judaism did not remain quite inactive at the approach
of the great religious crisis which our generation has
witnessed. Like so many other religious communities, it
reviewed its forces, entrenched itself on the field of his-
tory, and what it lost of its old devotion to the Bible,
it has sought to make up by a renewed reverence for
institutions.

In this connection, a mere mention may suffice of the
ultra-Orthodox party, led by the late Dr. S. R. Hirsch of
Frankfort (i 808-1 889) whose defiance of reason and criti-
cism even a Ward might have envied, and whose saintli-
ness and sublimity even a Keble might have admired.
And, to take an example from the opposite school, we
must at least record the name of that devout Jew, Osias
Schorr (1816-1895), in whom we have profound learning
combined with an uncompromising disposition of mind
productive of a typical champion of Radicalism in things
religious. These men are, however, representative of two
extremes, and their followers constitute mere minorities ;
the majority is with the historical school.

How long the position of this school will prove tenable
is another question. Being brought up in the old Low
Synagogue, where, with all attachment to tradition, the
Bible was looked upon as the crown and the climax of
Judaism, the old Adam still asserts itself in me, and in

INTRODUCTION xxi

unguarded moments makes me rebel against this new
rival of revelation in the shape of history. At times this
now fashionable exaltation of Tradition at the expense of
Scripture even impresses me as a sort of religious bimetal-
lism in which bold speculators in theology try to keep up
the market value of an inferior currency by denouncing
loudly the bright shining gold which, they would have us
believe, is less fitted to circulate in the vulgar use of daily
life than the small cash of historical interpretation. Nor
can I quite reconcile myself to this alliance of religion
with history, which seems to me both unworthy and un-
natural. The Jew, some writer aptly remarked, was the
first and the fiercest Nonconformist of the East, and so
Judaism was always a protesting religion. To break the
idols, whether of the past or of the present, has always
been a sacred mission of Judaism, and has indeed been
esteemed by it as a necessary preliminary to the advent
of the kingdom of God on earth. One of its daily prayers
was and still is: "We therefore hope in Thee, O Lord
our God, that we may speedily behold the glory of Thy
might, when . . . the idols will be cut off, when the world
will be perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty.*'
It bowed before truth, but it had never made a covenant
with facts only because they were facts. History had to
be re-made and to sanctify itself before it found its way
into its sacred annals. Nor did Judaism make a virtue of
swallowing down institutions. Such institutions as crept
into it in course of time had, when the Synagogue was
conscious of their claims to form part of religion, to sub-
mit to the laborious process of a thorough adaptation to
prophetic notions before they were formally sanctioned.
But when this process was deemed impossible or impracti-

xxii STUDIES IN JUDAISM

cable, Judaism boldly denounced the past in such fierce
language as the prophets used and as still finds its echo
in such passages of the liturgy as "First our ancestors
were worshippers of idols and now God has brought us
near to His service " ; or ** But of a truth, we and our an-
cestors have sinned."

However, it would be unfair to argue any further
against a theological system which, as already said, was
never avowed distinctly by the historical school — a
school, moreover, with which speculation is a matter of
minor importance. The main strength of this school lies
in its scientific work, for which Judaism will always be
under a sense of deep gratitude. And living as we do in
an age in which history reigns supreme in all departments
of human thought, we may hope that even its theology,
as far as it goes, will " do " for us, though I neither hope
nor believe that it will do for those who come after us. I
may, however, humbly confess that the sixth essay in this
volume was written in a spirit of rebellion against this all-
absorbing Catholic Israel, with its decently veiled scepti-
cism on the one hand, and its unfortunate tendency with
many people to degenerate into a soulless conformity on
the other hand. There is, I am afraid, not much to be
said in favour of this essay. It is deficient both in matter
and in style. It proved to be a futile attempt to bring
within the compass of an essay what a whole book could
hardly do justice to. The Hebrew documents bearing
upon the question of dogma which I have collected from
various manuscripts and rare printed books, would alone
make a fair-sized volume. I only venture to offer it to
the public in the absence of anything better ; since, so far
as I know, no other attempt has ever been made to treat

INTRODUCTION Xxiii

the subject even in its meagrest outlines. I even venture
to hope that, with all its shortcomings, it will contribute
something towards destroying the illusion, in which so
many theologians indulge, that Judaism is a religion with-
out dogmas. To declare that a religion has no dogmas is
tantamount to saying that it was wise enough not to com-
mit itself to any vital principles. But prudence, useful as
it may be in worldly affairs, is quite unworthy of a great
spiritual power.

Jewish mysticism in the Middle Ages and in modern
times is represented in this volume by two essays (" The
Chassidim" and " Nachmanides "). But in order to avoid
mistakes which might be implied by my silence, I think it
desirable to state that there are "also to be found many
mystical elements in the old Rabbinic literature. Mysti-
cism, not as a theosophic system or as an occult science, but
as a manifestation of the spiritual and as an expression of
man's agonies in his struggle after communion with God,
as well as of his ineffable joy when he receives the assur-
ance that he has found it, is not, as some maintain, foreign
to the spirit of old Rabbinic Judaism. There was no need
for the mediaeval Rabbi to borrow the elements of such a
mysticism from non-Jewish sources. The perusal of the
old Homilies on the Song of Songs, and on the Lessons
from the Prophets, or even a fair acquaintance with the
Jewish liturgy would, in itself, suffice to refute such base-
less assertions. Those who are at all familiar with old
Rabbinic literature hardly need to be told that " the sea of
the Talmud *' has also its gulf stream of mysticism which,
taking its origin in the moralising portions of the Bible,
runs through the wide ocean of Jewish thought, con-
stantly commingling with the icy waters of legalism, and

xxiv STUDIES IN JUDAISM

unceasingly washing the desolate shores of an apparently
meaningless ceremonialism, communicating to it life,
warmth, and spirituality. To draw attention to this fact a
humble attempt has been made in the ninth essay, "The
Law and Recent Criticism," a subject which I have essayed
to expound in a series of essays on "Some Aspects of
Rabbinic Theology,'* now appearing in The Jewish Quar-
terly Review,

The last five essays touch rather on certain social and
familiar aspects of Judaism, and need no further comment.
They are mere caiiseries and hardly deserve the name of
studies. Perhaps it may be useful for those who judge of
the heaviness of a work by its bulk to know that there is
also a lighter side of Rabbinic literature.

But I shall be better pleased if the more serious side of
this volume — Jewish mysticism and Rabbinic theology —
should attract the attention of students, and so draw some
fellow-workers into a field which is utterly neglected.
Notwithstanding the numerous Manuals and Introductions
which all more or less touch. on the subject of Rabbinic
theology, there is, after nearly 250 years, not a single work
among them which, either in knowledge of facts or in
their interpretation, is a single step in advance of the
Cambridge Platonist, John Smith, in his Select Discourses,
But those who try so hard to determine the miraculous
distance of Christianity by the eclipses in Rabbinism,
should, if they wish to be just or prove themselves worthy
scholars, also endeavour to make themselves acquainted
with the numberless bright stars that move in the wide uni-
verse of Jewish thought. We are often told that no creed
or theological system which has come down to us from
antiquity can afford to be judged by any other standard

INTRODUCTION XXV

than by its spiritual and poetic possibilities : this indul-
gence Judaism is as justly entitled to claim as any other
religion. The great and saintly Franz Delitzsch who, born
with an intellect of admirable temper, was also endowed
by Heaven with a soul — and a beautiful soul it was —
was one of the few theologians who, partly at least, ad-
mitted this claim, and sought earnestly and diligently after
these spiritual and poetic possibilities, and was amply re-
warded for his labours.

THE CHASSIDIMi

Throughout the whole of that interesting field of
Theological Literature which deals with the genesis and
course of religious movements, there is probably none
whose history, even whose name, is so little known to
English students, as that of the Chassidim. And yet it
would be difficult to point, in comparatively recent times,
to a Dissenting movement more strikingly complete in its
development, more suggestive of analogy, more full of
interest in its original purpose, more pregnant of warning
in its decay.

The Hebrew word " Chassidim ** ^ merely means "the
Pious," and appears to have been complacently adopted
by the early apostles of the sect. But the thing — Chas-
sidism — was, in its inception at all events, a revolt among
the Jews of Eastern Europe against the excessive casu-
istry of the contemporary Rabbis. It was in fact one
more manifestation of the yearning of the human heart
towards the Divine idea, and of its ceaseless craving for
direct communion with God. It was the protest of an
emotional but uneducated people against a one-sided
expression of Judaism, presented to them in cold and
over-subtle disquisitions which not only did they not
understand, but which shut out the play of the feelings

2 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

and the affections, so that religion was made almost
impossible to them.

Some account of the sect is the more necessary because,
although the Chassidim have not been wholly ignored by
historians or novelists, the references to them have gen-
erally, for perfectly intelligible reasons, been either biassed
or inaccurate. The historians who have treated of them
have been almost exclusively men saturated with Western
culture and rationalism. To them the rude and uncouth
manifestations of an undisciplined religious spirit could
not be other than repellent; to them Chassidism was a
movement to be dismissed as unaesthetic and irrational.

To the purposes of fiction the romantic side of Chas-
sidism lends itself readily, but the novelists who have used
this material have confined themselves to its externals.
Indeed, to have done more would have involved a tedious
and unremunerative study of difficult Hebrew texts, an
undertaking not to be expected from the most conscien-
tious writers of this class. Thus Franzos in his references
to the Jews of Barnow describes faithfully the outer signs
of the man, his long coat and tangled curls, but the inner
life, the world in which the Chassid moved and had his
being, was unknown to him and is therefore unrecorded.

As to my treatment of the subject, I confess that there
was a time when I loved the Chassidim as there was a
time when I hated them. And even now I am not able
to suppress these feelings. I have rather tried to guide
my feelings in such a way as to love in Chassidism what
is ideal and noble, and to hate in it what turned out bad
and pernicious for Judaism. How far I have been suc-
cessful is another question. At least I have endeavoured
to write this paper in such a spirit. But of one thing I

THE CHASSIDIM 3

must warn the reader — the desire to give some clear
notion of the leading ideas of Chassidism has compelled
me to quote some passages in which the Chassidim have
spoken in very offensive terms of their opponents. In
justice to these I must remark that unfortunately religious
-struggles are usually conducted on the most irreligious
principles. Thus the Chassidim imputed to their antago-
nists, the contemporary Rabbis, many vices from which
they were free. Certainly, there was, as one can read in
every history of Jewish religion, something wrong in the
state of Judaism. But I know people who maintain that
there is something very wrong in the present state of
Judaism, and who despair of a regeneration. But surely
this is a silly exaggeration. The Chassidim also exag-
gerated. It would be better to take but little notice of
their accusations and dwell more on that which was
spoken in a kind and loving spirit.

As to the literature of the subject, I can only say here
that I have made use of every book I could consult, both
in English and in foreign libraries. But I cannot pledge
myself to be what early Jewish writers called " a donkey
which carries books." I exercise my own choice and my
own judgment on many points.

As an active force for good, Chassidism was short-lived.
For, as I propose to show, there lurked among its central
tenets the germs of the degeneracy which so speedily
came upon it. But its early purposes were high, its doc-
trines fairly pure, its aspirations ideal and sublime.

The founder of the sect was one Israel Baalshem,^ and
the story of his parentage, birth, and childhood, and the
current anecdotes of his subsequent career play a con-
siderable part in Chassidic literature. But the authentic

4 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

materials for his biography are everywhere interwoven
with much that is pure legend and with much more that
is miraculous. This was, perhaps, inevitable, and is cer-
tainly not an unfamiliar feature in the personal histories
of religious reformers as presented by their followers and
devotees.

The sayings and doings of Baalshem are an essential
— perhaps the most essential — portion of any account
of the sect. For Baalshem is the centre of the Chassidic
world, and Chassidism is so intimately bound up with
the personality of its founder that any separation be-
tween them is well nigh impossible. To the Chassidim
Baalshem is not a man who established a theory or
set forth a system; he himself was the incarnation of a
theory and his whole life the revelation of a system.

Even those portions of his history which are plainly
legendary have their uses in indicating the ideals and in
illustrating the aspirations of the early Chassidim ; while
their circulation and the ready credence they received
are valuable evidence of the real power and influence
of Baalshem's personality.

In the tale as told by the sect little is omitted of
those biographical accessories which are proper to an
Avatar. There is all the conventional heralding of a
pre-ordained advent; all the usual signs and portents
of a new dispensation may be recognised in the almost
preternatural virtues of Baalshem* s parents, in the mirac-
ulous annunciation and exceptional circumstances of his
nativity, and in the early indication of a strong and fear-
less individuality. Everywhere it seems to be suggested
that Baalshem from his infancy was conscious of a lofty
mission. It is already in tender years that he is made

THE CHASSIDIM

to give evidence of an indifference to conventional re-
straints and accepted ideals.

Rabbi Eliezer and his wife, the parents of Baalshem,
dwelt, as the story goes, in Moldavia. They are de-
scribed as a pious and God-fearing couple, who, when
they had already reached old age, were still childless.
They are accredited with a spotless rectitude, which was
unimpaired by a long series of strange vicissitudes and
misfortunes.

Ultimately, an angel of God appeared to Eliezer and
announced that, as he had successfully withstood all the
temptations and sufferings by which he had been tried,
God was about to reward him with a son, who was des-
tined to enlighten the eyes of all Israel. Therefore his
name should be Israel, for in him the words of Scripture
were to be fulfilled, "Thou art my servant, Israel, in
whom I will be glorified." In due course the promise
was fulfilled, and to the aged couple a son was bom, who
was named Israel according to the angel's word. The
date of Baalshem*s birth is about 1700; his birthplace, in
Bukowina, in a hitherto unidentified village which the
authorities call Ukop, then still belonging to Roumania.
The child's mother died soon after he was weaned, and
his father did not long survive her. But before Eliezer
died he took his child in his arms, and blessing him, bade
him fear naught, for God would always be with him.

As Eliezer had been greatly honoured in the community
in which he lived, his orphan son was carefully tended
and educated. He was early supplied with an instructor
in the Holy Law. But though he learned with rare facil-
ity, he rejected the customary methods of instruction.
One day, while still quite young, his teacher missed him,

6 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

and on seeking found him sitting alone in the forest that
skirted his native village, in happy and fearless solitude.
He repeated this escapade so often that it was thought
best to leave him to follow his own bent. A little later
we find him engaged as assistant to a schoolmaster.
His duty was not to teach, but to take the children from
their homes to the synagogue and thence on to the school.
It was his wont while accompanying the children to the
synagogue to teach them solemn hymns which he sang
with them. In the synagogue he encouraged them to
sing the responses, so that the voices of the children
penetrated through the heavens and moved the Divine
father to compassion. Satan, fearing lest his power on
earth should thereby be diminished, assumed the shape
of a werewolf, and, appearing before the procession of
children on their way to the synagogue, put them to
flight. In consequence of this alarming incident the chil-
dren's services were suspended. But Israel, recollecting
his father's counsel to fear naught, besought the parents
to be allowed to lead the children once more in the old
way. His request was granted, and when the werewolf
appeared a second time Israel attacked him with a club
and routed him.

In his fourteenth year Israel became a beadle at the
Beth Hammidrash.* Here he assiduously but secretly
pursued the study of the Law. Yet, being anxious that
none should know his design, he read and worked only
at night, when the schoolroom was empty and the usual
scholars had retired. During the daytime he slept, so
that he was popularly believed to be both ignorant and
lazy. Despite these precautions, however, his true
character was revealed to one person. A certain holy

THE CHASSJDIM y

man, the father of a young student at the college, had
discovered some old manuscripts which contained the
deepest secrets. Before his death he bade his son repair
to Ukop, Israel's birthplace, telling him that he would
find one Israel, son of Eliezer, to whom the precious
documents were to be entrusted. They possessed, so the
old man declared, a certain mystic and heavenly affinity
with Israel's soul. The student carried out his father's
instructions, and at last discovered the object of his
search in the beadle of the Beth Hammidrash. Israel
admitted him to his friendship and confidence on the
condition of secrecy as to his real character. The student,
however, paid dearly for this acquaintance with Israel.
Contrary to Baalshem's advice, he entered upon a danger-
ous incantation in the course of which he made a mistake
so serious that it cost him his life.

Upon the death of his friend, Baalshem left his native
village and settled as a teacher in a small town near
Brody. Here, although his true mission and character
were still unknown, he became much respected for his
rigid probity, and was frequently chosen as umpire in
disputes among Jews. On one of these occasions he
arbitrated with so much learning and impartiality that
not only did he satisfy both parties, but one of them,
a learned man of Brody, named Abraham, offered him
his own daughter in marriage. Israel, to whom it had
been revealed that Abraham's daughter was his predes-
tined wife, immediately accepted the offer and the act of
betrothal was drawn up. But wishing his true character to
remain unknown he stipulated that Abraham, although a
"Talmid Chacham " (student)^ himself and therefore pre-
sumably desirous that his daughter should marry a scholar.

8 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

should omit from the betrothal-deed all the titles of honour
usually appended to the name of a learned bridegroom.
While returning to Brody, Abraham died, and Gershon
his son, a scholar still greater and more celebrated than
his father, was surprised and shocked to find a deed of
betrothal among his father's papers, from which it appeared
that his sister was to wed a man with apparently no claim
to scholarship or learning. He protested to his sister,
but she declined to entertain any objections to a marriage
which her father had arranged. When the time for the
wedding was at hand, Israel gave up his post as teacher,
and repaired to Brody. Disguised as a peasant he pre-
sented himself before his future brother-in-law, who was
then fulfilling some high judicial function. Gershon taking
him for a beggar offered him alms, but Israel, refusing
the money, asked for a private interview, stating that he
had an important secret to reveal. He then, to Gershon's
surprise and disgust, explained who he was and that he
had come to claim his bride. As the girl was determined
to obey her father's will the affair was settled and the day
fixed. On the morning of the wedding Israel revealed to
his bride his real character and mission, at the same time
enjoining secrecy. Evil fortunes would befall them, he
said, but a better time would eventually follow.

After the wedding, Gershon, having in vain attempted
to instruct his seemingly ignorant brother-in-law, decided
to rid himself of his presence. He gave his sister the
choice of being separated from her husband, or of leaving
the town in his company. She chose the latter, and there-
upon the two left Brody and began a life of hardship and
suffering. Israel chose for his new home a spot on one
of the spurs of the Carpathian Mountains. No Jews lived

THE CHASSJDIM g

there, and Israel and his wife were thus separated from
the society of their fellows in a life of complete and un-
changing solitude. Israel dug lime in the ravines among
the mountains, and his wife conveyed it for sale to the
nearest town. Their life at this period seems to have
been one of great privation, but the harder Israel's out-
ward lot, the more he increased in spiritual greatness. In
his soUtude he gave himself up entirely to devotion and
religious contemplation. His habit was to climb to the
summit of the mountains and wander about rapt in spirit-
ual ecstasies. He fasted, prayed, made continual ablu-
tions, and observed all the customary outward and inward
exercises of piety and devotion.

After seven years, Gershon, who was well aware of
the bitter poverty which his sister endured, relented and
brought her and her husband back to Brody. At first
he employed Baalshem as his coachman, but as he proved
wholly unfit for this work Gershon rented a small inn
in a remote village, and there established his sister and
her husband. The business of the inn was managed
by the wife, while Baalshem passed most of his time
in a hut in a neighbouring forest. Here he once more
gave himself up to meditation and preparation for his
future work, and here, a little later, when nearly forty-
two years of age, to a few chosen spirits, afterwards his
most fervent disciples, he first revealed his true character
and mission.

From this point unfortunately the materials for a con-
tinuous biography are wanting ; we next hear of Baalshem
discharging the functions of an ordinary Rabbi at Mied-
ziboz in Podolia, but for the remainder of his personal
history we have to be content with detached ^negcjptes

lO STUDIES IN JUDAISM

and fragmentary passages in his life, the sum total of
which goes to show that he resided in Podolia and Walla-
chia, teaching his doctrines to his disciples and ** working
Wonders." He does not seem to have figured as a public
preacher, nor has he left behind him any written work
He appears rather to have used the method, familiar to
students of Greek philosophy, of teaching by conversa-
tions with his friends and disciples. These conversations,
and the parables with which they were largely inter-
spersed, were remembered and stored up by his hearers.
By his neighbours the country folk, Baalshem was re-
garded simply as "a man of God." He was allowed to
pursue his course undisturbed by persecution of the
serious character which his more aggressive successors
provoked. Such of the Rabbis as were aware of his
existence despised him and his ways, but the Rabbini-
cal world was at that time too much occupied in the
controversy between Eybeschiitz and Emden to concern
itself with the vagaries of an obscure and apparently
"unlearned" eccentric. Baalshem also took part in the
disputes which were held in Lemberg, the capital of
Galicia (i757?), between the Rabbis and the Frankists,^
who denounced the Talmud to the Polish Government
and wanted to have all the Rabbinical books destroyed.
Baalshem suffered from this excitement in a most terri-
ble way. The abrogation of the Oral Law meant for
him the ruin of Judaism.

Baalshem, in forming the little band of devoted fol-
lowers who were destined to spread a knowledge of his
creed, travelled considerably about Wallachia. He at
one time decided to make a pilgrimage to Palestine, but
when he reached Constantinople he felt himself inspired

THE CHASSIDIM II

to return and continue his work at home. He died at
Miedziboz on the eve of Pentecost, 1761.

After his death his disciples, of whom one Beer of
Mizriez was the most prominent, undertook the prosely-
tising mission for which Baalshem had prepared them,
but from which he himself appears to have abstained.
They preached and taught in all the provinces of Russia
where Jews may reside, and in Roumania, and Galicia.
The number of the sect at the present day is probably
about half a million.

Returning now to Baalshem the founder, it may be
noted that his appearance as a teacher and reformer was
accompanied and justified by a customary and adequate
number of miracles. To one disciple he revealed secrets
which could have become known to him only by divine
revelation ; to another he appeared with a nimbus round
his head. On the evidence of the Chassidim we learn
that Baalshem performed all the recognised signs and
marvels which have ever been the customary minor char-
acteristics of men of similar type in similar environment.
When Baalshem desired to cross a stream, he spread
forth his mantle upon the waters, and standing there-
upon passed safely to the other side. Ghosts evacuated
haunted houses at the mere mention of his name. Was
he alone in the forest on a wintry night, he had but to
touch a tree with his finger tips and flames burst forth.
When his spirit wandered through the angelic spheres, as
was frequently the case, he obtained access to Paradise
for millions of pining souls who had vainly waited with-
out through long thousands of mournful years. These
and other miracles need not be examined. Here, as in the
case of other such blissful seasons of grace, they were the

12 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

ephemeral though important accessories in establishing
the inspired character of his utterances and the authority
of his injunctions. It is not as a worker of miracles, but
as a religious teacher and reformer, that Baalshem is
interesting.

Properly to understand the nature and special direction
of his teaching, it is necessary in some measure to realise
the character of the field in which he worked ; to consider,
in other words, the moral and religious condition of the
Jews in those districts where Chassidism first took root

In a Hebrew Hymn, written about looo A.C., and still
recited in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement, the
poet expresses the strange and bitter fortunes of his race
in touching words of mingled sorrow and exultation.

Destroyed lies Zion and profaned,
Of splendour and renown bereft,
Her ancient glories wholly waned,
One deathless treasure only left;

Still ours, O Lord,

Thy Holy Word.

And this Divine Word it was, which a persecuted relig-
ion has sought to preserve intact through so many cen-
turies of persecution, and for the sake of which no labour
seemed too severe, no sacrifice too large. "Bethink
Thee, O God," exclaimed one of our Jewish sages who
flourished about the same period, " bethink Thee of Thy
faithful children who, amid their poverty and want, are
busy in the study of Thy Law. Bethink Thee of the
poor in Israel who are willing to suffer hunger and desti-
tution if only they can secure for their children the know-
ledge of Thy Law.'* And so indeed it was. Old and

THE CHASSIDIM

young, weak and strong, rich and poor, all pursued that
single study, the Torah. The product of this prolonged
study is that gigantic literature which, as a long unbroken
chain of spiritual activity, connects together the various
periods of the Jews' chequered and eventful history. All
ages and all lands have contributed to the develop-
ment of this supreme study. For under the word Torah
was comprised not only the Law, but also the contri-
butions of later times expressing either the thoughts or
the emotions of holy and sincere men; and even their
honest scepticism was not entirely excluded. As in the
canon of the Bible, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon
found place in the same volume that contains the Law
and the Prophets, so at a later time people did not object
to put the philosophical works of Maimonides and the
songs of Judah Hallevi on the same level with the Code
of the Law compiled by R. Isaac Alfasi, and the com-
mentaries on the Bible by R. Solomon b. Isaac."^ None
of them was declared infallible, but also to none of them,
as soon as people were convinced of the author's sin-
cerity, was denied the homage due to seekers after truth.
Almost every author was called Rabbi ("my master")
or Rabbenu (" our master "),^ and nearly every book was
regarded more or less as a contribution to the great bulk
of the Torah. It was called Writ,^ and was treated with
a certain kind of piety. But, by a series of accidents too
long to be related here, sincerity ceased and sport took
its place. I refer to the casuistic schools commonly
known by the name of Pilpulists ^^ (the " seasoned " or the
"sharp" ones), who flourished in the last two centuries
preceding ours. To the authors of this unhappy period,
a few glorious exceptions always allowed, the preceding

14 STUDIES ly JUDAISM

Jewish literature did not mean a "fountain of living
waters," supplpng men with truth and religious inspira-
tion, but rather a kind of armour}- providing them with
juristic cases over which to fight, and to out-do each other
in sophistry and subtlet)-. As a consequence they cared
little or nothing for that part of the Jewish literature that
appeals less to the intellect than to the feelings of men.
In short, religion consisted only of complicated cases and
innumerable ordinances, in which the wit of these men
found delight. But the emotional part of it, whose root is
the Faith and Love of men, was almost entirely neglected.

But it was precisely these higher religious emotions
that were Baalshem's peculiar province, and it was to
them that he assigned in his religious system a place be-
fitting their importance and their dignity. And the local-
ity where his ministration lay was curiously adapted for
such propaganda. To that universal study of the Law
of which I have just spoken there was one exception.
That exception was amongst the Jews in the territories
which bordered on the Carpathian Mountains, and com-
prise the principalities of Moldavia, and Wallachia, Buko-
wina, and the Ukraine.

It is historically certain that the first arrival of the
Jews in Roumania was at a very early date, but there is
no trace of any intellectual productivity among the immi-
grants until recent times, and it is admitted that the study
of the Law was almost entirely neglected. It was in
these districts of mental, and perhaps we might add of
even spiritual, darkness that. Chassidism took its rise and
achieved its first success. " The sect of the Chassidim,"
says one of the bitterest but most trustworthy of their
opponents, " first gained ground in the most uncivilised

THE CHASSIDIM

provinces; in the wild ravines of Wallachia and the
dreary steppes of the Ukraine."

Apart from the genius of its founder, Chassidism owed
its rapid growth to the intellectual barrenness of these
districts as compared with the intellectual fertility of the
other regions where Jews most thickly congregated. The
Roumanian Jews were to some extent under the jurisdic-
tion of the Rabbis of Poland. Now the Poles were cele-
brated even in Germany for the elaboration of their casuis-
try. These over-subtle Rabbis, delighting in the quibbles
of their sophistry, and reducing religion to an unending
number of juristic calculations and all sorts of possibilities
and impossibilities, were but too apt to forget the claims
of feeling in their eager desire to question and to settle
everything. They may have been satisfactory guides in
matters spiritual to the men of their own stamp, but they
were of no avail to their Roumanian brethren who failed
to recognise religion in the garb of casuistry. It was,
therefore, not surprising that a revolt against the excess of
intellectualism should have sprung up and flourished in
those districts where the inhabitants were constitutionally
incapable of appreciating the delights of argument. The
field was ready, and in the fulness of time came the sower
in the person of Baalshem.

In the above estimate of the Polish Rabbis there
undoubtedly lurks a touch of exaggeration. But it rep-
resents the view which the Chassidim took of their oppo-
nents. The whole life of Baalshem is a protest against
the typical Rabbi thus conceived. The essential differ-
ence in the ideals of the two parties is perhaps best illus-
trated in those portions of their biographical literature
where legend treads most closely upon the heels of fact.

l6 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

The hero of Polish Rabbinic biography at five years of
age can recite by heart the most difficult tractates of the
Talmud ; at eight he is the disciple of the most celebrated
teacher of the time, and perplexes him by the penetrative
subtlety of his questions; while at thirteen he appears
before the world as a full-fledged Doctor of 'the Law.

The hero of the Chassidim has a totally different educa-
tion, and his distinctive glory is of another kind. The
legendary stories about Baalshem*s youth tell us little of
his proficiency in Talmudic studies ; instead of sitting in
the Beth Hammidrash with the folios of some casuistic
treatise spread out before him, Baalshem passes his time
singing hymns out of doors, or under the green trees of
the forest with the children. Satan, however, says the
Chassid, is more afraid of these innocent exercises than
of all the controversies in the Meheram Shiff.^^ It was
through external nature, the woods of his childhood, the
hills and wild ravines of the Carpathians where he passed
many of his maturer years, that Baalshem, according to
his disciples, reached his spiritual confirmation. The
Chassidic hero had no celebrated Rabbi for his master.
He was his own teacher. If not self-taught, it was from
angelic lips, or even the Divine voice itself, that he learned
the higher knowledge. From the source whence the
Torah flowed Baalshem received heavenly lore. His
method of self-education, his ways of life, his choice of as-
sociates were all instances of revolt ; not only did he teach
a wholly different theory and practice, but he and his dis-
ciples seem to have missed no opportunity of denouncing
the old teachers as misleading and ungodly. Among the
many anecdotes illustrating this feature, it is told how
once, on the evening before the great Day of Atonement,

THE CHASSIDIM

Baalshem was noticed by his disciples to be, contrary to
his usual custom, depressed and ill at ease. The whole
subsequent day he passed in violent weeping and lamen-
tations. At its close he once more resumed his wonted
cheerfulness of manner. When asked for the explanation
of his behaviour, he replied tha.t the Holy Spirit had re-
vealed to him that heavy accusations were being made
against the Jewish people, and a heavy punishment had
been ordained upon them. The anger of heaven was
caused by the Rabbis, whose sole occupation was to invent
lying premisses and to draw from them false conclusions.
All the truly wise Rabbis of the olden time (such as the
Tannaim, the Amoraim ^ and their followers, whom Baal-
shem regarded as so many saints and prophets) had now
stood forth as the accusers of their modern successors by
whom their words were so grossly perverted from their origi-
nal meaning. On this account Baalshem's tears had been
shed, and his prayers as usual had been successful. The
impending judgment was annulled. On another occasion,
when he overheard the sounds of eager, loud discussion
issuing from a Rabbinical college, Baalshem, closing his
ears with his hands, declared that it was such disputants
who delayed the redemption of Israel from captivity.
Satan, he said, incites the Rabbis to study those portions
of Jewish literatur-e only on which they can whet the sharp-
ness of their intellects, but from all writings of which the
reading would promote piety and the fear of God he
keeps them away. "Where there is much study," says
a disciple of Baalshem, "there is little piety." "Jewish
Devils " ^^ is one of the numerous polite epithets applied
to the Rabbis by the friends of Baalshem. "Even the
worst sinners are better than they; so blind are they in

1 8 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

the arrogance of their self-conceit that their very devotion
to the Law becomes a vehicle for their sin." It will be
found when we deal with the most positive side of Baal-
shem's teaching that this antagonism to the attitude and
methods of the contemporary Rabbis is further empha-
sised, and it will readily be seen that his whole scheme
of religion and of conduct in relation to God and man
rendered this acknowledged hostility inevitable. In ap-
proaching this part of our subject it should be remembered
that, as stated above, Baalshem himself wrote nothing.
For a knowledge of his sayings we are therefore depend-
ent on the reports of his friends and disciples. And it is
not unfrequently necessary to supplement these by the
teaching of his followers, whom we may suppose in large
measure to have caught the spirit of their master. Un-
fortunately the original authorities are in a difficult He-
brew patois which often obscures the precise meaning of
whole passages.

The originality of Baalshem*s teaching has been fre-
quently impugned, chiefly by the suggestion that he drew
largely from the Zohar (Book of Brightness).^* This
mystical book, " the Bible of the Cabbalists," whether we
regard its subject-matter or its history and influence, is
unique in literature. Its pretended author is Simeon ben
Yochai, a great Rabbi of the second century, but the real
writer is probably one Moses de Leon, a Spanish Jew, who
lived eleven centuries later. The book is one of the most
interesting literary forgeries, and is a marvellous mixture
of good and evil. A passage of delicate religious fancy
is succeeded by another of gross obscenity in illustration
and suggestion ; true piety and wild blasphemy are
strangely mingled together. Baalshem undoubtedly had

THE CHASSIDIM

studied the Zohar, and he even is reported to have said
that the reading of the Zohar had enabled him to see into
the whole universe of things. But, for all that, Baalshem
was no copyist; and the Zohar, although it may have
suggested a hint to him here and there, was not the source
whence his inspiration was drawn.

Its attraction for Baalshem is sufficiently explained by
the fantastic, imaginative, and emotional nature of its
contents. It lent itself more easily than the older Rab-
binical literature to new explanations unthought of by its
author. But even the Talmud and its early commentaries
became apocalyptic to the heroes of Chassidism. Nay,
the driest and most legal disquisitions about meum and
tuum could be translated into parables and allegories
and symbols full of the most exalted meanings. Baal-
shem, like every other religious reformer, was partially
the product of his age. The influences of the past, the
history and literature of his own people, helped to make
him what he was. But they do not rob him of his
originality. He was a religious revivalist in the best
sense; full of burning faith in his God and his cause;
convinced utterly of the value of his work and the
truth of his teaching.

Although there can be no real doubt of Baalshem's
claim to originality, it should be borne in mind that his
teaching is not only distinctively Jewish, but that for
every part of it parallels and analogies could be found
in the older Hebrew literature. Indeed it is not wonder-
ful that in a literature, extending over 2000 years, of a
people whose chief thoughts have been religion, and
who have come in contact with so many external relig-
ious and philosophic influences, the germs can be dis-

2(j STUDIES IN JUDAISM

r/ivcrcd of almost every conceivable system, and the
outline of almost every imaginable doctrine.

The keynote of all Baalshem's teachings is the
(^ffinipntHcncc, or more strictly the Immanence, of God
Thin in the source from which flows naturally every
;irfirl<: of his creed; the universality of the Divinity is
Ihr, foundation of the entire Chassidic fabric. The
id(!;i ol the constant living presence of God in all exist-
rnrc iMtrnicatCH the whole of Baalshem's scheme; it is
iMMintctd on in every relation; from it is deduced every
Important proposition and every rule in conduct of his
N<:hool.

All created things and every product of human intel-
liK<uu*(*. owe their being to God. All generation and all
exlMtcnce spring from the thought and will of God. It
Ih incumbent upon man to believe that all things are
pervaded by the divine life, and when he speaks he
Hhould remember that it is this divine life which is
Hpeaking through him. There is nothing which is void
ol (lod. If we imagine for a moment such a thing to
be, it would instantly fall into nothingness. In every
human thought God is present. If the thought be
gross or evil, we should seek to raise and ennoble it by
carrying it back to its origin. So, if a man be suddenly
overwhelmed by the aspect of a beautiful woman, he
should remember that this splendour of beauty is owing
to the all-pervading emanation from the divine. When
he remembers that the source of corporeal beauty is
God. he will not be content to let his thought abide
with the body when he can rise to the inward contem-
plation of the infinite soul of beauty, which is God. A
disciple of Baalshem has said: Even as in the jewels

THE CHASSIDTM 21

of his beloved the lover sees only the beauty of her he
loves, so does the true lover of God see in all the ap-
pearances of this world, the vitalising and generative
power of his divine master. If you do not see the
world in the light of God you separate the creation
from its Creator. He who does not fully believe in
this universality of God's presence has never properly
acknowledged God*s Sovereignty, for he excludes God
from an existing portion of the actual world. The word
of God (to Baalshem, a synonym for God himself), which
" is settled in heaven " and " established on earth,"
is still and always speaking, acting, and generating
throughout heaven and earth in endless gradations and
varieties. If the vitalising word were to cease, chaos
would come again. The belief in a single creation after
which the Master withdrew from his completed work, is
erroneous and heretical. The vivifying power is never
withdrawn from the world which it animates. Creation
is continuous; an unending manifestation of the good-
ness of God. All things are an affluence from the two
divine attributes of Power and Love, which express
themselves in various images and reflections.

This is the doctrine of universality in Chassidism. God,
the father of Israel, God the Merciful, God the All-power-
ful, the God of Love, not only created everything but is
embodied in everything. The necessity of believing this
doctrine is the cardinal Dogma. But as creation is con-
tinuous so also is revelation. This revelation is only to be
grasped by faith. Faith, therefore, is more efficacious
than learning. Thus it is that in times of persecution, the
wise and the foolish, the sinner and the saint, are wont
alike to give up their life for their faith. They who could

22 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

render no answer to the questions of the casuist are yet
willing to die the most cruel of deaths rather than deny
their faith in the One and Supreme God. Their strength
to face danger and death is owing to that divine illumina-
tion of the soul which is more exalted than knowledge.

We should thus regard all things in the light of so
many manifestations of the Divinity. God is present in
all things ; therefore there is good, actual or potential, in
all things. It is our duty everywhere to seek out and to
honour the good, and not to arrogate to ourselves the
right to judge that which may seem to be evil. In think-
ing therefore of a fellow-man, we should above all things
realise in him the presence of the spirit of good. Whence
we have the Doctrine that each of us, while thinking
humbly of himself, should alway be ready to think well,
and alway slow to think evil, of another. This explains
the Chassidic attitude towards erring humanity. Baalshem
viewed human sin and infirmity in a very different light
from that of the ordinary Rabbi. Ever conscious of the
Divine side of Humanity, he vigorously combated the
gratuitous assumption of sinfulness in man which was
a fertile subject with contemporary preachers. They,
among the Roumanian Jews as in other communities,
delighted chiefly to dwell on the dark side of things, and
found their favourite theme in elaborate descriptions of
the infernal punishments that were awaiting the sinner
after death. It is related how on one occasion Baalshem
rebuked one of these. The preacher had been denouncing
woe to an audience of whom he knew nothing whether for
evil or for good. Baalshem, indignant at this indiscrimina-
tive abuse and conceited arrogation of the divine office of
judgment, turned on him in the following words : " Woe

THE CHASSIDIM

upon thee who darest to speak evil of Israel ! Dost not
know that every Jew, when he utters ever so short a
prayer at the close of day, is performing a great work
before which the angels in heaven bow down ? " Great,
as it would seem, was the value set by Baalshem upon the
smallest evidence of the higher nature in man, and few
there were, as he believed, who, if their spirit was not
darkened by pride, did not now and again give proof of
the divine stamp in which God had created them. No sin
so separates us from God that we need despair of return.
From every rung of the moral ladder, no matter how low,
let man seek God. If he but fully believe that nothing is
void of God, and that God is concealed in the midst of
apparent ruin and degradation, he will not fear lest God
be far from him. God is regained in a moment of repent-
ance, for repentance ** transcends the limits of space and
time." And he who leads the sinner to repentance causes
a divine joy ; it is as though a king's son had been in cap-
tivity and were now brought back to his father's gaze.

Baalshem refused to regard any one as wholly irredeem-
able. His was an optimistic faith. God was to be
praised in gladness by the dwellers in this glorious world.
The true believer, recognising the reflection of God in
every man, should hopefully strive, when that reflection
was obscured by sin, to restore the likeness of God in man.
The peculiar detestability of sin lies in this, that man
rejects the earthly manifestations of the Divinity and
pollutes them. One of Baalshem's disciples delighted in
the saying that the most hardened sinners were not to be
despaired of, but prayed for. None knows the heart of
man, and none should judge his neighbour. Let him who
bums with zeal for God's sake, exercise his zeal on him-

24 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

self, not others. Baalshem said, " Let no one think him-
self better than his neighbour, for all serve God; each
according to the measure of understanding which God
has given him."

From this position it is a natural step to Baalshem*s
view of prayer. He is reputed to have said that all the
greatness he had achieved was the issue not of study but
of prayer. But true prayer "must move," as Baalshem
phrased it, "in the realms above," and not be concerned
with affairs sublunary. Your prayer should not be taken
up with your wishes and needs, but should be the means
to bring you nigh to God. In prayer man must lay aside
his own individuality, and not even be conscious of his
existence; for if, when he prays. Self is not absolutely
quiescent, the object of prayer is unattainable. Indeed
it is only through God*s grace that after true prayer man
is yet alive ; to such a point has the annihilation of self
proceeded.

It may be necessary to caution the reader against
ascribing to Baalshem any modern rationalistic notions
on the subject of prayer. The power of prayer, in the
old-fashioned sense, to produce an answer from God was
never doubted by Baalshem for a moment. Baalshem's
deity is not restricted towards any side by any philosophic
considerations. All Baalshem meant was that any ref-
erence or regard to earthly requirements was unworthy
and destructive of this communion of man with God.
The wise man, says Baalshem, does not trouble the king
with innumerable petitions about trifles. His desire is
merely to gain admission into the king's presence and to
speak with him without a go-between. To be with the
king whom he loves so dearly is for him the highest good.

THE CHASSTDTM

But his love for the kmg has its reward; for the king
loves him.

It has already been implied that, with regard to our
duty towards our fellow-man, we must not only honour
him for the good, and abstain from judging the evil that
may be in him, but must pray for him. Furthermore we
must work for his spiritual and moral reclamation. In
giving practical effect in his own life to this doctrine,
Baalshem's conduct was in striking contrast to that of
his contemporaries. He habitually consorted with out-
casts and sinners, with the poor and uneducated of both
sexes, whom the other teachers ignored. He thus won
for his doctrines a way to the heart of the people by
adapting his life and language to their understanding and
sympathies. In illustration of this, as well as of his
hatred of vanity and display, it is told how, on the occa-
sion of his being accorded a public reception by the Jews
on his arrival at Brody, instead of addressing to them in
the conventional fashion some subtle discourse upon a
Talmudical difficulty, he contented himself with convers-
ing upon trivial topics in the local dialect with some of
the less importai^t persons in the crowd.

This' incident is perhaps the more noteworthy because
it occurred in Brody, which was at that time a seat of
learning and Rabbinic culture, — a place where, for that
very reason, Chassidism was never able to gain a foothold.
It is probable enough that Baalshem in his visits to this
town kept aloof from the learned and the wise, and sought
to gather round him the neglected and humbler elements
of Jewish society. It is well known that Baalshem con-
sorted a good deal with the innkeepers of the district, who
were held in very low repute among their brethren. The

26 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

following remark by one of his followers is very sug-
gestive in this respect. Just as only superficial minds
attach a certain holiness to special places, whilst with
the deeper ones all places are alike holy, so that to them
it makes no difference whether prayers be said in the
synagogue or in the forest ; so the latter believe that not
only prophecies and visions come from heaven, but that
every utterance of man, if properly understood, contains
a message of God. Those who are absorbed in God will
easily find the divine element in everything which they
hear, even though the speaker himself be quite ignorant
of it.

This line of conduct gave a fair opening for attack to
his opponents, an opportunity of which they were not
slow to avail themselves. Baalshem was pointed at as
the associate of the lowest classes. They avenged them-
selves for his neglect of and hostility to the learned by
imputing the worst motives to his indifference to appear-
ances. He was accused of idling about the streets with
disreputable characters, and one polemical treatise draws
the vilest inferences from his apparent familiarity with
women. To this charge Baalshem's conduct, innocent in
itself, gave some colour; for his views and habits in re-
lation to women marked a strong divergence from current
customs. The position of women in contemporary circles
was neither debased nor inevitably unhappy, but it was
distinctly subordinate. Their education was almost en-
tirely neglected, and their very existence was practically
ignored. According to the Chassidic doctrine of Uni-
versality, woman was necessarily to be honoured. "All
Jews," says one Chassid, "even the uneducated and the
women, believe in God." Baalshem frequently associated

THE CHASSIDIM

with women, assigning to them not only social equality,
but a high degree of religious importance.

His own wife he reverenced as a saint; when she died
he abandoned the hope of rising to heaven while yet alive,
like Elijah of old, saying mournfully that undivided such
translation might have happened, but for him alone it
was impossible. Then again in a form of religion utilis-
ing so largely the emotions of Faith and Love there was
a strong appeal to the female mind. The effect of this
was soon evident, and Baalshem did not neglect to profit
by it. Among the most devoted of his early adherents
were women. One of them was the heroine of a favourite
anecdote concerning Baalshem's work of Love and Res-
cue. It is related that in a certain village there dwelt
a woman whose life was so disgraceful that her brothers
at last determined to kill her. With this object they
enticed her into a neighbouring wood, but guided by the
Holy Spirit Baalshem intervened at the critical moment,
and dissuading the men from their purpose rescued the
sinner. The woman afterwards became a sort of Mag-
dalen in the new community.

Above I have endeavoured to throw together in some
order of sequence the doctrines and practical rules of con-
duct which Baalshem and his early disciples seem to have
deduced from their central idea of the omnipresence of
God. This was necessary in order to give a connected
idea of their creed, but it is right to say that nowhere in
Chassidic literature have these deductions been logically
co-ordinated. Perhaps their solitary attempt to formulate
and condense their distinctive views is confined to a state-
ment of their idea of piety or service of God, and an exam-
ination of three cardinal virtues. Humility, Cheerfulness,

28 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

and Enthusiasm. What the Chassidim held as to true
service brings into relief Baalshem's characteristic manner
of regarding the Law.

By the service of God was generally understood a life
which fulfilled the precepts of the written and oral law.
Baalshem understood by it a certain attitude towards life
as a whole. For, as God is realised in life, each activity
of life when rightly conceived and executed is at once a
manifestation and a service of the Divine. All things
have been created for the glory and service of God. The
smallest worm serves Him with all its power. Thus,
while eating, drinking, sleeping, and the other ordinary
functions of the body are regarded by the old Jewish mor-
alists as mere means to an end, to Baalshem they are
already a service of God in themselves. All pleasures are
manifestations of God's attribute of love ; and, so regarded,
they are at once spiritualised and ennobled. Man should
seek to reach a higher level of purity and holiness before
partaking of food and drink, than even before the study
of the Law. For when the Torah had once been given
by God the whole world became instinct with its grace.
He who speaks of worldly matters and religious matters
as if they were separate and distinct, is a heretic.

Upon the continual and uninterrupted study of the
Law, Baalshem lays but little stress. He accepted the
ordinary belief that the Law (under which term are
included not only the Pentateuch, but the whole Old Tes-
tament and the major portion of the old Rabbinic litera-
ture) was a revelation of God. But, as the world itself is
equally a divine revelation, the Torah becomes little more
than a part of a larger whole. To understand it aright
one needs to penetrate to the inward reality — to the infr

THE CHASSIDTM

nite light which is revealed in it. We should study the
Law not as we study a science for the sake of acquiring
knowledge (he who studies it so has in truth been con-
cerning himself with its mere outward form), but we
should learn from it the true service of God. Thus the
study of the law is no end in itself. It is studied because,
as the word of God, God is more easily discerned and
absorbed in this revelation of Him than in any other.
The Torah is eternal, but its explanation is to be made by
the spiritual leaders of Judaism. It is to be interpreted
by them in accordance with the Attribute of the age.
For he regarded the world as governed in every age by a
different Attribute of God — one age by the Attribute of
Love, another by that of Power, a third again, by Beauty,
and so on — and the explanation of the Torah must be
brought into agreement with it. The object of the whole
Torah is that man should become a Torah himself. Every
man being a Torah in himself, said a disciple of Baalshem,
has got not only his Abraham and Moses, but also his
Balaam and Haman : he should try to expel the Balaam
and develop the Abraham within him. Every action of
man should be a pure manifestation of God.

The reason why we should do what the Law commands
is not to gain grace thereby in the eyes of God, but to
learn how to love God and to be united to Him. The
important thing is not how many separate injunctions are
obeyed, but how and in what spirit we obey them. The
object of fulfilling these various ordinances is to put one-
self, as it were, on the same plane with God, and thus, in
the ordinary phrase of the religious mystic, to become one
with Him, or to be absorbed in Him. People should get
to know, says Baalshem, what the unity of God really

30 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

means. To attain a part of this indivisible unity is to
attain the whole. The Torah and all its ordinances are
from God. If I therefore fulfil but one commandment in
and through the love of God, it is as though I have ful-
filled them all.

I have now briefly to refer to the three virtues to which
the Chassidim assigned the highest place of honour. Of
these the first is called in Hebrew " Shiphluth," ^^ and is
best rendered by our word "Humility," but in Chassidic
usage it includes the ideas of modesty, considerateness,
and sympathy. The prominence given to these qualities
is in sharp contrast to the faults of conceit, vanity, and
self-satisfaction, against which Baalshem was never weary
of protesting. He regarded these as the most seductive
of all forms of sin. But a few minutes before his death
he was heard to murmur, " O vanity, vanity ! even in this .
hour of death thou darest to approach me with thy temp-
tations : * Bethink thee, Israel, what a grand funeral pro-
cession will be thine because thou hast been so wise and
good.' O vanity, vanity ! beshrew thee.*' " It should be
indifferent to man," says the master, "whether he be
praised or blamed, loved or hated, reputed to be the wisest
of mankind or the greatest of fools. The test of the real
service of God is that it leaves behind it the feeling of
humility. If a man after prayer be conscious of the least
pride or self-satisfaction, if he think, for instance, that he
has earned a reward by the ardour of his spiritual exer-
cises, then let him know that he has prayed not to God
but to himself. And what is this but disguised idolatry ?
Before you can find God you must lose yourself." The
Chassidim treated Shiphluth from- two sides: a negative
side in thinking humbly of oneself, a positive in thinking

THE CHASSIDIM

highly of one's neighbour, in other words the love for our
fellow-man.

He who loves the father will also love his children.
The true lover of God is also a lover of man. It is igno-
rance of one's own errors that makes one ready to see the
errors of others. " There is no sphere in heaven where
the soul remains a shorter time than in the sphere of
merit, there is none where it abides longer than in the
sphere of Love.**

The second Cardinal Virtue is " Cheerfulness,** in He-
brew "Simchah.**^^ Baalshem insisted on cheerfulness of
heart as a necessary attitude for the due service of God.
Once believe that you are really the servant and the child
of God and how can you fall again into a gloomy condition
of mind? Nor should the inevitable sins which we all
must commit disturb our glad serenity of soul. For is not
repentance ready at hand by which we may climb back to
God } Every penitent thought is a voice of God. Man
should detect that voice in all the evidence of his senses,
in every sight and sound of external nature. It is through
his want of faith in the universality of God's presence that
he is deaf to these subtle influences and can read only
the lessons which are inscribed in books.

The reader will be prepared to learn that Baalshem,
taking this cheerful view of things, was opposed to every
kind of asceticism. Judaism, or rather Israelitism, it is
true, was not originally much of an ascetic religion. But
there can be little doubt that in the course of history there
came in many ascetic doctrines and practices, quite enough
at least to encourage such tender souls the bent of whose
minds lay in this direction. To one of these, a former
disciple, Baalshem wrote : " I hear that you think yourself

32 STUDIES JN JUDAISM

compelled from religious motives to enter upon a course
of fasts and penances. My soul is outraged at your deter-
mination. By the counsel of God I order you to abandon
such dangerous practices, which are but the outcome of a
disordered brain. Is it not written * Thou shalt not hide
thyself from thine own flesh } ' Fast then no more than
is prescribed. Follow my command and God shall be
with you." On another occasion Baalshem was heard to
observe that it is a machination of Satan to drive us into
a condition of gloom and despondency in which the small-
est error is regarded as a deadly sin. Satan*s object is to
keep us away from the true service of God, and God can
only be truly served from a happy and confident disposi-
tion. Anxious scrupulosity in details is therefore to be
avoided. It is the counsel of the Devil to persuade us
that we never have done and shall never do our duty
fully, and that moral progress is impossible. Such ideas
beget melancholy and despair, which are of evil

The third virtue is called in the Hebrew Chassidic
literature " Hithlahabuth," ^^ and is derived from a verb
meaning " to kindle " or " set on fire.*' The substantive
" Hithlahabuth,'* so far as I am aware, was first coined by
Baalshem*s followers. It is best rendered by our word
" Enthusiasm." Every religious action, to be of any
avail, must be done with enthusiasm. A mere mechanical
and lifeless performance of an ordinance is valueless. A
man is no step nearer the goal if he thinks, forsooth, that
he has done his duty when he has gone through the whole
round of laws in every section of the code. This essential
enthusiasm is only begotten of Love. The service of
fear, if not wholly useless, is yet necessarily accompanied
by a certain repulsion and heaviness, which effectually

THE CHASSIDIM ' 33

prevent the rush and ardour of enthusiasm. The inspira-
tion of true service is its own end. There is no thought
of this world, and there is none of the world to come.
In the Talmud there is frequent reference to one Rabbi
Elisha ben Abuyah, an apostate from Judaism, who, when
urged to repent, replied that repentance was useless, and
that for this mournful belief he had direct divine authority.
For he had been told by a voice from heaven that even
though he repented he would be excluded from sharing
the happiness of the world to come. Of him it was said by
one of the Chassidim, " This man indeed missed a golden
opportunity. How purely could he have served God, know-
ing that for his service there could never be a reward ! **

From the conception of Enthusiasm springs the quality
of mobility, suggesting spiritual progress, and commonly
opposed by Baalshem and his followers to the dull re-

ligious stagnation of self-satisfied contemporaries. Man
should not imagine himself to have attained the level of
the righteous ; let him rather regard himself as a penitent
who should make progress every day. Always to remain
on the same religious plane, merely repeating to-day the
religious routine of yesterday, is not true service. There
must be a daily advance^ in the knowledge and love of the
Divine Master. Mere freedom from active sin is not
sufficient ; such negative virtue may be but another word
for the chance absence of temptation. What boots it
never to have committed a sin if sin lies concealed in the
heart .^ It is only the uninterrupted communion with
God which will raise and ennoble your thoughts and
designs, and cause the roots of sin to die. The patriarch
Abraham, without any command from God, fulfilled the
whole Torah, because he perceived that the Law was the

34 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

life of all created things. In the Messianic age the law
will no longer seem to man as something ordained for him
from without; but the law will be within the hearts of
men ; it will seem natural and self-evident to them,
because they will realise that God and life are manifested
through the law.

Baalshem, who dealt largely in parable, has left the
following, which we may fitly add to our somewhat
inadequate presentation of his doctrine.

There was once a king who built himself a glorious
palace. By means of magical illusion it seemed as if the
palace were full of devious corridors and mazes, prevent-
ing the approach to the royal presence. But as there was
much gold and silver heaped up in the entrance halls,
most people were content to go no further, but take their
fill of treasure. The king himself they did not notice.
At last the king's intimate had compassion upon them
and exclaimed to them, " All these walls and mazes which
you see before you do not in truth exist at all. They are
mere illusions. Push forward bravely, and you shall find
no obstacle."

We must not interpret the parable to mean that Baal-
shem denied the reality or even the importance of the
actual phenomenal world. The very contrary is the truth.
The world is for him full of God, penetrated through and
through by the divine, and therefore as real as God him-
self. It was quite in Baalshem's manner when one of his
disciples declared that only fools could speak of the
world as vanity or emptiness. " It is in truth a glorious
world. We must only learn how rightly to make use of
it. Call nothing common or profane : by God's presence
all things are holy."

THE CHASSIDIM

Above we have reviewed the essential doctrines of
Baalshem and his immediate followers ; we have now to
see how they fared at the hands of the sect which he
founded. This is a sad part of our task, for the sub-
sequent history of Chassidism is almost entirely a record
of decay. As formulated by its founder the new creed
amounted to a genuine Reformation, pure and lofty in
ideal. After his death unhappily it was rapidly corrupted
and perverted. This was due almost exclusively to the
dangerous and exaggerated development of a single point
in his teaching. That point, the honour due to the
divine in man, was relatively a minor article in the original
creed. But the later Chassidism has given it a distorted
and almost exclusive importance wholly out of proportion
to the grander and more essential features of Baalshem's
teaching, until the distinctive feature of the Chassidism
of to-day is an almost idolatrous service of their living
leaders. What little there is to say of the history of the
sect after Baalshem's death would be unintelligible with-
out some explanation of the origin and growth of this
unfortunate perversion.

It has been explained that Baalshem laid but little stress
upon the study of the Law or the observance of its pre-
cepts in themselves, but regarded them only as means to
an end. The end is union with God. Man has to discover
the presence of God in the Divine word and will. Now
this mystical service of God, although perhaps sufficing to
sensitive and enthusiastic natures, is scarcely plain or defi-
nite enough for ordinary men. Few can realise abstrac-
tions : and yet fewer can delight in them and find in their
contemplation sufficient nurture for their religious needs.
What then had Chassidism to offer to the ordinary major-

36 STUDIES JN JUDAISM

ity who could not recognise God in aU the plenitude of
His disguise ? The want of something tangible whereon to
fix the minds of the people, which has confronted the
teachers of so many creeds, was also encountered by the
Chassidim, and they unfortunately found their way out of
the difficulty by relying on and developing their doctrine
of man's position in the Universe. Man's ideal is to be a
law himself ; himself a clear and full manifestation of God.
Now, not only is he God's servant and child, but in high-
est development he becomes himself a part of God, albeit
in human shape, so that he may become wholly one with
his divine Father. But if man may reach this highest
level of holiness, he is virtually a kind of God-man, whom
his fellow-men of lower levels perceive by reason of his
manhood, but his essential office consists in raising them
up to God by reason of his Divinity.

The few chosen spirits who through the successful per-
sistency with which they have sought God in all things have
become, though yet on earth, absorbed in Him, are known
in Chassidic literature by the name of the "Zaddikim."
The Hebrew word Zaddik ^^ means "just'' or "righteous"
and the term was probably chosen in conscious opposition
to the title of Rabbinic heroes, " disciples of the wise."
For the Zaddik is not so much the product of learning
as of intuition: his final consummation is reached by a
sudden and direct illumination from God. The Zaddik
not only resembles Moses, but, in virtue of his long
communion with the Divine, he is also the true child of
God. He is, moreover, a vivifying power in creation,
for he is the connecting bond between God and his
creatures. He is the source of blessing and the fount
of grace. Man must therefore learn to love the Zaddik,

THE CHASSIDIM

so that through the Zaddik he may win God's grace.
He who does not believe in the Zaddik is an apostate
from God. Here then we have the fatal exaggeration
to which I have alluded, and here its logical conse-
quence. The step to man-worship is short.

This peculiar doctrine of the Intermediary soon became
the distinguishing feature of Chassidism. By a Chassid
was understood not a man who held such and such opin-
ions in theology and religion, but a believer in the Zaddik,
and one who sought to attain salvation through the wor-
ship of the Zaddik. Every other doctrine of Chassidism
was rapidly pushed into the background and overlooked.
Even the grand and fundamental doctrine of Omnipres-
ence in the Creation was veiled by the special presence in
the Zaddik. Chassidism became mere Zaddikism, and its
subsequent history is identical with the downward develop-
ment of that cult.

Whether Baalshem named his successor is doubtful.
But the lead after his death was assumed by his disciple
Beer of Mizriez. This man's conversion to Chassidism
was an important event for the new community ; his piety
and learning were beyond dispute, and, whereas during
Baalshem's life Chassidism had found its chief adherents
among the lower classes of society. Beer managed to
gather round him many of the most learned among his
contemporaries. It was to these new and ardent disciples
of Beer that the expansion of Chassidism was chiefly due.
They came together from many quarters, and after Beer's
death separated and preached the new doctrine far and
wide. Many even went forth during the lifetime of their
master, and at his command, to found fresh branches of
the new sect. Like Beer himself, they directed their ef-

38 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

forts mainly to winning over the educated sections of
the Jews. The elder men paid little heed to their word,
but the youths, just fresh from their casuistic studies,
which had sharpened their wits and starved their souls,
lent a ready ear and an eager heart to the new doc-
trine. The uneducated were by no means excluded; to
them Chassidism held out a deeper consolation and a
grander hope than the current Rabbinism of the age;
they therefore joined the young community in large num-
bers without any special effort being necessary to gain
them over.

In their methods of Prayer the Chassidim most conspic-
uously differed from the older communities. Laying as
they did supreme stress on the importance and efficacy of
prayer, they soon found it necessary to secede from the ex-
isting synagogues and erect separate buildings for them-
selves. The usual salaried Reader " with the beautiful
voice and empty head," who naturally regarded his func-
tion as a matter of business, was done away with and his
place taken either by the Zaddik himself or by some other
distinguished person in the community. The Chassidim
also effected many changes in the liturgy. Instead of the
German they adopted the Spanish ritual. They excised
many prayers which, lacking the authority of antiquity,
were cumbrous in form or objectionable in matter. They
inserted new prayers and hymns of their own. They paid
little regard to the prescribed hours at which public wor-
ship should be held. Prayer began when they had got
themselves into the proper devotional frame of mind.
Frequent ablutions, perusal of mystical writings, intro-
spective meditation were the means by which they sought
to gain the befitting mood. The prayers themselves were

THE CHASSIDIM 39

accompanied by the usual phenomena of religious excite-
ment. Some in the zeal of their devotion began to dance ;
others were rapt in a motionless ecstasy; some prayed
aloud; others in solemn silence. They justified their
abrogation of fixed hours for prayer by saying that you
cannot order a child when to speak with its father : such
restraint were fit only for slaves.

As a rule the larger number of the younger Chassidim
were able to devote their whole time to religious exercises.
It was the custom among the Jews in Eastern Europe for
the young men to live at the expense of their own or their
wives' parents, in order that they might give themselves
up entirely to religious study. According to the old
notions, this meant the study of the Talmud and its Com-
mentaries; the Chassidim who cared little for the legal
side of Jewish literature betook themselves to the litera-
ture of edification and mysticism. No small part of their
time was taken up with endless conversations about the
Zaddik, his piety, goodness, and self-sacrifice and the won-
derful miracles which he had wrought. If a Zaddik was
living in his own town, the youthful Chassid spent as
many hours as he could in the Zaddik's company, in order
to observe and study this embodied Torah as constantly
as possible. Where no Zaddik was at hand, periodical
pilgrimages were made to the town in which he lived, and
endless were the tales which were afterwards repeated, to
those who were obliged to stay at home, of the Zaddik' s
marvellous wisdom and extraordinary deeds. The last
hours of the Sabbath day were looked upon as a special
season of grace, and the Chassidim were therefore in the
habit of collecting together in the waning of the Sabbath
and celebrating the so-called " Supper of the Holy Queen."

40 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

The meal was accompanied by the usual conversations as
well as by hymns and prayers.

The Chassidim were second to no other sect in their
loyalty and affection for each other. No sacrifice for a
brother Chassid was too great. They knew no difference
of rich and poor, old and young, wise and ignorant ; for
they all, with one accord, worshipped one common ideal,
the Zaddik, who in his exalted position was equally raised
above them all. Before him all minor differences of rank
disappeared. When a Chassid travelled, he had no scruple
in asking for lodging or entertainment in the house of any
Chassid who could afford to give them. If he was in
money difficulties the purse of his host was at his dis-
posal. If that was not sufficient, it was supplemented by
a grant from the fund of the community. These gifts
were not looked upon in the light of charity eithef by
giver or receiver ; they were made to the Zaddik, to whom
all Chassidim alike were debtors. It sometimes even
happened that a Zaddik said that the son of some rich
merchant was to marry the daughter of a poor school-
master, and both parties were equally delighted to fulfil
the wish of their beloved chief.

It may easily be imagined that the innovations of the
Chassidim provoked the wrath of the orthodox communi-
ties. But in their detestation of the Rabbis the Chassidim
returned in full measure all the hatred they received.
The Zaddik is the Moses of his age : the Rabbis its Korah
and Abiram. Where the Chassidic party in any commu-
nity gained the upper hand, the Rabbi was deposed and a
Zaddik, if that was possible, elected in his place. The
issue of these bitter attacks upon the old nobility of the
Jewish race was a rigorous persecution. In many places

THE CHASSIDIM

the Chassidim were excommunicated, in others their
leaders were publicly scourged and put into the stocks.
Their books were burnt and their synagogues forcibly
closed. But persecution produced only the usual result of
increasing the popularity and the numbers of the sect.
The devotion of the Chassidim to each other and to their
common cause was increased a hundred-fold by suffering.
In one case a distinguished Zaddik was accused of trea-
son, before the Russian authorities, and was thrown into
prison. In Russia, however, the power of money is con-
siderable, and on payment of a large ransom not only was
the beloved Zaddik released but as an obvious consequence
his reputation greatly profited : the day of his release was
celebrated as a yearly festival, while his sufferings were
regarded by his followers as a sin-offering that atoned for
the iniquities of his age. From this time the government
maintained a purely neutral attitude towards the new sect,
and ere long the persecution by the orthodox ceased.

The cessation of persecution may possibly be accounted
for by the fact that Chassidism as a secession soon ceased
to be formidable. There were early divisions within the
sect. Even Beer's disciples began to quarrel over theo-
logical differences and to found separate communities.
When once the course of corruption and spiritual decay
had begun, it was the interest of the false Zaddikim to
accentuate these differences. Each Zaddik sought to have
a whole little sect to himself, from which to draw an undi-
vided revenue. And each deluded little sect as it arose
boasted of the exclusive possession of the true Zaddik.

It must not be supposed that these strictures apply to
the whole class of Zaddikim. The greater number of
Baalshem's leading disciples as well as Beer's were beyond

42 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

question men of pure, unalloyed piety, who would have
rejected with scorn any idea of making a trade of their
sacred profession. Their motives and their zeal were
alike ideal. Many gave up highly paid posts as Rabbis
when they joined the new sect. Some emigrated to Pales-
tine to lead a holy life on holy ground, others sought to
become religious specialists, following out practically,
although with some exaggeration, a favourite doctrine of
the Founder, that he who observes but one commandment
devotedly and lovingly, may reach the goal desired: the
union with God. Thus one Zaddik made it his business
never to tell the smallest falsehood, whatever the cost or
the inconvenience of truth might be. It is related that
the Russian Government, suspecting the Jews of his town
of smuggling, consented to withdraw the charge if he
declared his brethren innocent. Having no alternative but
either to bring misfortune on his brethren or to tell an un-
truth, he prayed to God to save him from this dilemma by
sending death upon him. And lo ! when the officials came
to fetch him before the law court they found him dead.
Another, thinking that the commandment in Exodus xxiii.
3, relating to the help that should be given to a neighbour
or enemy when " his ass is lying under its burden," was
practically unobserved, devoted himself to its fulfilment
He was continually to be seen in the streets, helping one
man to load his waggon, and another to drag his cart out
of the mire. A third made the service of the oppressed
his religious speciality. It is said that one day his wife,
having had a quarrel with her maid, was setting out to the
magistrate of the town to obtain satisfaction. Noticing
that her husband was about to accompany her, she asked
him whither he was bound. He replied, "to the magis-

THE CHASSIDIM

trate/' His wife declared that it was below his dignity to
take any part in a quarrel with a servant. She could deal
with the matter herself. The Zaddik replied, "That may
be, but I intend to represent your maid, who when ac-
cused by my wife will find no one willing to take her
part." And then, bursting into a passion of tears, he
quoted Job xxxi. 13: "If I did despise the cause of my
man-servant or of my maid-servant, when they contended
with me, what shall I do when God riseth up ? "

Several Zaddikim were learned men and thinkers of
no ordinary kind. The works of Solomon Ladier or of
Mendel Witipsker, read with attention and without West-
ern preconceptions, certainly give the impression of both
originality and depth of thought. But most characteristic
of all is the passionate yearning of authors such as these
towards tfee Divine. The reader is astonished and moved
by the intense sincerity and ardour of their longing after
God. But, despite the adherence of these worthy men,
the fate of Chassidism, as a regenerative force, was sealed
from the day when Zaddikism replaced the original doc-
trines of the sect.

For, apart from the obvious theological considerations
already suggested, there are two points of inherent weak-
ness in the cult of the Zaddik which naturally doomed it
to perversion and failure. The necessary qualifications for
" Zaddikship " are wholly undefined. We hear a great
deal about what a Zaddik actually is, but we hear vesy
little about what he should be. The Zaddik has many
virtues, but we are nowhere told what are his indispen-
sable qualifications. Moreover, the Zaddik is a being
who can be comprehended by the understanding as little
as an angel, or as God Himself. He is realised by faith,

44 STUDIES m JUDAISM

not conceived by thought. Hence there is no human test
of a true Zaddik except the test of miracles; and every
student of religious history knows the deceitful character
of that test.

The second source of danger arose from the Chassidim
holding it to be their sacred duty to provide for the Zad-
dik a life of comfort and ease. The Zaddik must pursue
his divine avocations undisturbed by grosser cares. But
what were the consequences.^ The Chassidim believed
they could win the grace and blessing of the Zaddik
by the richness and variety of their gifts. A Zaddik's
career became a very profitable concern. The result of
both defects was that not only was the opportunity given
for every scheming charlatan to become a Zaddik, but
inducements were offered to make the deception lucra-
tive. Hence the anxiety of the false Zaddikim, already
noticed, to found separate communities.

Among the Chassidim of to-day there is not one in
ten thousand who has the faintest conception of those
sublime ideas which inspired Baalshem and his immedi-
ate disciples. It is still the interest of the wretched
ringleaders of a widely spread delusion to crush and keep
down every trace of reflection and thought so that they
may play at will with the conscience and purses of their
adherents. The new scientific movement, inaugurated by
such men as Krochmal, Zunz, and others who came under
thie influence of the German critical spirit, found in them
its hottest and most fanatical opponents. That the cult
of the Zaddikim has not led to still more disastrous con-
sequences is solely due to the fact that the Chassidim in
general have remained faithful to the Law. It is the
Law, against the excessive study of which the original

THE CHASSIDIM

Chassidim protested, that has put limits to the license of
its modern false prophets.

Amid much that is bad, the Chassidim have preserved
through the whole movement a warm heart, and an ar-
dent, sincere faith. There is a certain openness of char-
acter and a ready friendliness about even the modern
Chassidim which are very attractive. Religion is .still to
them a matter of life and death. Their faith is still real
enough to satisfy the demands of a Luther, but it is di-
verted and wasted upon unworthy objects. If Chassidism
is to be reformed, its worship must no longer be of man ;
it must be brought back again to the source of all Beauty,
all Wisdom, and all Goodness; it must be restored to
God.

NACHMAN KROCHMAL AND THE "PER-
PLEXITIES OF THE TIME"

In her good-natured panegyric of mediocrity which is
known under the title of Scenes of Clerical Life^ George
Eliot remarked : " Let us hope that there is a saving
ignorance."

Strange as this demand may sound, the wish of the
great novelist to see her favoured mediocrities "saved,"
has been shared by the great majority of mankind. I
know that I, at least, echo that desire with all my heart.
And I am afraid that I am prompted by some rather self-
ish reasons. It would be somewhat hard, when one is
born with small abilities, but a great desire for being
saved, to be deprived of the hope held out by the author
of Adam Bede,

But there are some, I am afraid, who are not satisfied
with this dictum of George Eliot. They show a strong
tendency to make salvation a monopoly of ignorance.
This is a little too selfish. With all due respect to every
form of ignorance, sacred as well as profane, we ought, I
think, to believe that there is also such a thing as a saving
knowledge. Nay, we might go even farther. There may
be certain epochs in history when there is hardly any

HACHMAN KROCHMAL

other path to salvation than knowledge, and the deep
search after truth.

We all know the words of the Psalmist, "The Lord
preserveth the simple." But as there are periods in the
life of the individual when naifvetd has to give way to
sagacity and reflection, so there are times in history at
which Providence does not choose to leave men in sim-
plicity. At such times doubts arise, as though of them-
selves; questions suddenly become open when they had
been supposed solved for centuries; and the human mind
is stirred by a sceptical breeze of which no man can tell
whence it came. One may under those circumstances be
indifferent, but one can be simple no more.

Even in such cases, however, man has no cause to de-
spair. When our dearest beliefs are shaken by all kinds
of doubts. Providence sends us also great thinkers, earnest
lovers of truth, who devote their lives to enlightening our
puzzled minds. Not that these men try to answer all the
questions by which we feel perplexed. They endeavour
to satisfy us, partly by showing that many of our difficul-
ties are not difficulties at all, but merely arise from super-
ficiality, and partly by proving that the great cause about
which we feel so much anxiety does not exactly depend
on the solution of the questions that are troubling us.
They give to the things which are dearer to us than our
life a fresh aspect, which enables us to remain attached to
them with the same devotion and love as before. To
speak again in the words of the Psalmist : " Thou sendest
forth Thy Spirit, and they are created, and Thou renewest
the face of the earth."

This spirit that renews the face of things is what I
understand by " saving knowledge." As men of that

^8 STUDIES AV JUDAISM

saving knowledge we may regard Rabban Johanan ben
Zaccai^ and his disciples, who made it possible for Ju-
daism to sur\'ive the destruction of the Temple, which
some believed to involve the end of the religion; As such
men wc may look upon R. Saadiah Gaon and his fol-
lowers, who worked at a time when Judaism was menaced
in its inner life, namely in the tradition, by the attempts of
the narrow-minded Caraites to convert it into a bookish
religion.^ Such men were Maimonides and his successors,
who came to the aid of religion when it had got into dog-
matic troubles by reason of its coming into contact with
various philosophical systems. And in order to approach
the subject of the present essay, I venture to say that a
man of such saving knowledge was also Nachman Kroch-
mal, who lived and laboured in the first half of the* present
century, when Judaism had been terribly shaken by the
scepticism of Voltaire, and the platitudes of the so-called
Mcndelssohnian school.

Nachman Krochmal was bom on the 17th of February
in the year 1785. His father, Solomon Krochmal, was a
merchant of Brody, a commercial frontier town in the
north-cast of Galicia in Austria. In his early years Solo-
mon often used to visit Berlin for business purposes. He
is said to have seen Mendelssohn there on one occasion,
and to have learned greatly to revere the Jewish sage.
And it is not unlikely that Nachman*s subsequent admira-
tion for Mendelssohn was partly due to his father's influ-
ence.

Solomon was a man of considerable wealth, and he,
therefore, endeavoured to give his son the best possible
education. But as a respectable member of a Polish com-
munity a hundred years ago, Solomon had to follow the

NACHMAN KROCHMAL ^g

fashion adopted by his neighbours, and the best possible
education consisted in affording the child an opportunity
to study the Talmud and other Rabbinical works. All
other languages and their literatures were sealed books to
the child — a very absurd and regrettable fashion indeed.
But let us not be too hard on Polish Jews. I have been
told that there are countries on our globe where people
have been driven by the force of fashion into the opposite
extreme ; where, with few exceptions, they think that the
Talmud, as well as the whole Hebrew literature, must
needs be excluded from the programme of a gentleman's
education.

Happily, or the reverse, KrochmaVs childhood did not
last long, for in the year 1798 we find that Nachman, a
boy of fourteen, was already married to a Miss Haberman
in Zolkiew. As a result of this foolish custom of marrying
at so very early an age, Nachman was hardly ever a boy ;
we have at once to deal with him as a man.

It was then customary in Poland, and perhaps is so still,
for the father of the bride to provide for the support of the
young couple for some years after their marriage. In
order to reduce the expense of this arrangement, the
bridegroom had to reside in the same house as his father-
in-law. Thus we see Krochmal removing from Brody to
Zolkiew, the native town of his wife. Here Krochmal
lived in the house of her father for many years, entirely
devoted to his studies; and he certainly needed all his
time for them. For he now began to expand the sphere
of his education, to embrace subjects quite new to him.
By his marriage Nachman seems to have gained a certain
amount of independence, and the first use he made of it
was to study the Guide of the Perplexed^ of Maimonides,

50 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

the Commentaries of Ibn Ezra on the Bible,* and other
more or less philosophical works written in the Hebrew
language. His next step was to learn German ; but, as
his biographers inform us, he was not able to follow this
course without undergomg many struggles, and overcoming
many obstacles.

It would lead us too far to give a full account of the
difficulties which the young scholar had to conquer while
pursuing his new studies. They will be sufficiently
characterised by the following extract from a Hebrew
letter of his disciple, Solomon Leb Rapoport, who,
writing in 1841 concerning his master and friend, re-
marks : " Consider this, ye inhabitants of Germany " —
and, I may add, ye inhabitants of England — "and you
will be astounded. It is easy for you to avoid being one-
sided, and to study different sciences, for you possess
many schools and teachers from every branch of learning.
It is not so in Poland and Russia even at present, much
less was it so forty years ago. There is no teacher, no
guide, no supporter, for the Jew who desires any sort of
improvement. The Jew who wishes to enter on a new
path of learning has to prepare the road for himself. And
when he has entered on it, his friend will come to him and
ask, * Is it true that you have got scientific books in your
house } Mind you do not mention it to any one. There
are enough bigots in the town to persecute you and all
your family if they get scent of it.' " It was under these
conditions that Krochmal pursued his studies, which were
by no means few or easy, for he was not content with a
knowledge of only the lighter portions of German litera-
ture. He soon began to read the works of Lessing,
Mendelssohn, and more especially of Kant, who always

NACHMAN KROCHMAL

remained his favourite philosopher. In his later years
he also became acquainted with the writings of Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel. But to the last he could not con-
sole himself for having missed the advantages of a system-
atic university education.

After having learned German, Krochmal proceeded to
acquire a knowledge of Latin and French, and to read
the best books written in those languages. To deepen
his knowledge of Hebrew, he studied Arabic and Syraic,
but we are unable to say how far he succeeded in master-
ing these languages. With these studies, which appear
to have occupied our philosopher for an interval of ten
years after his marriage, the first period of his life seems
also to end. But the hard work of ten years did not pass
over the delicate youth without undermining his health
for ever. At the age of twenty-four, Krochmal fell sick
of an illness which compelled him to interrupt his work.
He was forced to go to Lemberg to consult the doctors of
that town, and he had to remain there for a long time.
And now began Krochmal's career as a teacher. For
during his stay at Lemberg there gathered round him a
band of young scholars whom Krochmal's fame had al-
ready reached. It is useless to enumerate the names of
all these students. Among them figured Isaac Erter,
Samson Bloch, A. Bodek, and many others. The most
gifted of them was undoubtedly Rapoport, who afterwards
became even more famous than his master Krochmal. It
is not easy to define accurately the relation that subsisted
between these two men. Graetz, in his history, calls
Rapoport a disciple of Krochmal. Rapoport himself, in
his memoir of Krochmal, describes the latter as a dear
friend with whom he was wont to discuss literary topics.

52 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Zunz does not mention Rapoport at all in his account
of our author. It seems to me that this relation may
be most aptly defined by the Talmudic term " Talmid-
Chaber," ^ " disciple-colleague.**

Indeed, Krochmal's whole method of teaching was rather
that of a companion than of a professor. He gave no set
lectures on particular subjects, but conveyed his instruc-
tion rather by means of suggestive conversations with his
younger friends. His usual habit was to walk with his
pupils in the neighbourhood of the town, and to try to
influence their minds each in accordance with its bent.
If any of his disciples showed an inclination for poetry,
Krochmal sought to refine his taste by directing his atten-
tion to the best works in Hebrew and German literature.
To another, whose fancy strayed into mysticism, he recom-
mended the writings of Philo and Ibn Ezra, at the same
time suggesting how the works of the latter should be in-
terpreted. A third who, like Rapoport, was interested in
historical researches, Krochmal instructed in the methods
of critical inquiry.

There must have been some fascinating charm in
Nachman's personality, which made him irresistible to all
who came into contact with him. Rapoport has described
his first interview with Krochmal. "It is more than
thirty years since I first made his acquaintance, and be-
held the glory of his presence. Though he was in weak
health, still his soul was strong; and as soon as I con-
versed with him there came over me a spirit of judgment
and knowledge. I felt almost transformed into another
man." Elsewhere the same writer says: "Oh, how sweet
to me were these walks with Krochmal — sweeter than all
the pleasures of this world. I could never have enough

NACHMAN KROCHMAL

of his wisdom ; with his every word he conveyed a new
lesson.*'

After a lengthy stay at Lemberg, Krochmal partially,
though not entirely, recovered from his severe illness ; he
remained weak and pale for the rest of his days. H'is
antagonists, the Chassidim, believed him to be possessed
by a demon who could find no better dwelling-place than
in the person of this arch-heretic. Had it been in their
power they would probably have dragged him to some ex-
orcist for the purpose of driving out his German, French,
Latin, and other symptoms of demoniacal heresy. Happily
the orthodox were powerless to do this, so Krochmal was
left unmolested, and was allowed to resume his walks and
studies. It may be here remarked that Krochmal in gen-
eral avoided giving the Chassidim any cause for reasonable
complaint. Rapoport asserts that his master was " deeply
religious and a strict observer of the law. He was zeal-
ously anxious to perform every ordinance. Biblical or
Rabbinical." The only liberty that Krochmal claimed for
himself and his disciples was the right to study what they
thought best and in the way they thought best. When
this liberty was attacked, he showed a firmness and reso-
lution which would hardly have been expected from this
quiet and gentle man. To one of his pupils, who made
concessions to the Chassidim and their Zaddikim worship,
Krochmal wrote : " Be firm in this matter unless you wish
to earn the contempt of every honest man. One who is
afraid of these people, and debases himself before them
bears a mean soul that was born to slavery. The man that
wishes to rise above the mob, with its confused notions
and corrupt morality, must be courageous as a lion in con-
quering the obstacles that beset his path. Consideration

54 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

of what people will say, what bigots will whisper, what
crafty enemies will scheme — questions such as these can
have but one effect, — to darken the intellect and confuse
the faculty of judgment."

So Krochmal continued his studies without interruption
till 1 8 14, when the death of his wife's mother brought his
period of ease and comfort to an end. His father-in-law
seems to have died some time before, and Krochmal was
forced to seek his own living. He became a merchant,
but it is to be regretted that he did not prove as successful
a man of business as he was a man of letters. He found
it a hard struggle to earn a living. But the sever-
est trial which he had to undergo was the death of his
wife in 1826. In a letter, dating from about this time,
to a friend who had asked him for assistance in his philo-
sophical inquiries, Krochmal wrote — " How can I help
you now } I am already an old man ; my head is gray,
and my health is broken. In the last three years I have
met with many misfortunes. My beloved wife died after
a long illness. My daughter will soon leave me to get
married, my elder son will depart to seek his livelihood,
and I shall be left alone with only a child of ten years, the
son of my old age. I will lift up mine eyes unto the
hills : From whence shall my help come ? "

Nachman was evidently in very low spirits at this time,
but he was in too true a sense a philosopher to despair.
He turned for comfort to his studies, and at this dark
epoch of his life he first became acquainted with the
Philosophy of Hegel, whose system he was wont to call
the " Philosophy of Philosophies."

For the next ten years the works of Hegel and inqui-
ries into Jewish history appear to have absorbed all the

NACHMAN KROCHMAL

leisure that his mercantile occupation left him. We shall
presently see what the result of these studies was. No
fresh subjects were undertaken by Krochmal in the last
years of his life; he had already acquired a fund of
knowledge vast enough to engage all his thoughts. There
are, however, some remaining points in his private circum-
stances which it may not be uninteresting to mention.

Krochmal, as has been already related, was not prosper-
ous in his business. Things went from bad to worse, and
he was compelled in 1836 to seek a situation. "There
ought to be literary men poor," some writer has main-
tained, "to show whether they are genuine or not." This
test Krochmal successfully passed through. Even as a
young man Nachman's strength of character was admired
by his contemporaries not less than his rare learning. In
his subsequent distress, he gave evidence of the truth of
this judgment. Despite his poverty, his friends could not
prevail upon him to accept the post of Rabbi in any Jewish
community. "I am unwilling," he wrote to a friend, "to
be the cause of dissensions in any Jewish congregation.
I should prefer to die of hunger rather than become a
Rabbi under present circumstances." He expressed his
views on this subject even more decidedly on a later occa-
sion when the Berlin congregation offered him the post of
Chief Rabbi in that town. In a letter, conveying his re-
fusal of this honourable office, he says : " I never thought
of becoming the Conscience-counsellor (GewissensratJi) of
men. My line of studies was not directed to that end,
nor would it accord with my disposition and sentiments.
The only post that I should care to accept would be that
of teacher in the Jewish Theological Seminary, which,
as I was informed, you were thinking of establishing in

55 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Berlin.*' The plan to found such an institution was not
realised till forty years later, and in the interval Nachman
had to look for his living in other regions than Jewish the-
ology. Being in poor circumstances, and as his children
and friends had left him, he felt very lonely at Zolkiew.
" Nobody cares for me here,** he writes, " and I am equally
indifferent.** His one desire was to obtain a situation at
Brody, possibly as book-keeper with a salary of some thirty
pounds a year, on condition that he would be expected to
devote only half the day to his business duties, thus secur-
ing for himself leisure for philosophical studies.

His terms were accepted, and he obtained the humble
post he sought. He remained in Brody for the next two
years, 1836-8, but at the end of 1838 he fell so danger-
ously ill that he could no longer resist the pressing request
of his daughter to live with her at Tamopol. She had
urged him to take this step even previous to his removal to
Brody, but he had declined on the plea that he preferred
to live by the labour of his hands. Now, however, he
yielded to her wish, and betook himself to Tamopol, where
for two years longer he lived affectionately tended by his
children and respected by all who knew him. In May
1840, KrochmaFs illness began to develop fatal symptoms,
and he died in the arms of his daughter on the 31st of
July (the first of Ab), at the age of fifty-five. As Zunz
happily remarked : " This great man was bom on the 7th
of Adar, the birthday of Moses (according to Jewish tra-
dition), and died on the first of Ab, the anniversary of the
death of Aaron, the High Priest.**

I have tried in the foregoing remarks to give a short
sketch of our Rabbi's life according to the accounts of
Zunz, Rapoport, and Letteris. There is one other point

NACHMAN KROCHMAL

to which I must allude, as it involves a consideration on
which Letteris seems to lay much stress. This biographer
appears to think that Krochmal was in his youth greatly
influenced by the society in which he moved, consisting as
it did of many learned and enlightened men. There is,
too, the oft-quoted saying of Goethe : —

Wer den Dichter will verstehen
Muss in Dichters Lande gehen.

And I am probably expected to give some account of the
state of society in which Nachman grew up. I regret
that I must ask to be excused from doing so. I cannot
consent to take the reader to KrochmaVs land. And if I
might venture to give him my humble advice, I should
only say, "By all means stop at home." Goethe may be
right. about the poet, but his remark does not apply to the
case of the scholar. It may be true, as some think, that
every great man is the product of his time, but it cer-
tainly does not follow that he is the product of his coun-
try. Nor could I name any other country of which Kroch-
mal was the product. Many a city no doubt boasted itself
a town full of " Chakhamim and Sopherim " ® as the He-
brew phrase is, or, as we would express it, " a seat of learn-
ing," full of scholars of the ancient and modern schools.
But neither these ancient scholars nor the modern were
of a kind to produce a real scholar and an enlightened
thinker like Krochmal. There were many men who knew
by heart the whole of the Halachic works of Maimonides,
the Mishnah, and even the whole of the Babylonian Tal-
mud. This is very imposing. But if you look a little
closer, you will find that with a few exceptions — such as
the school of R. Elijah Wilna — these men, generally

58 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

speaking, hardly deserve the name of scholars at all.
They were rather a sort of studying engines. The steam-
engine passes over a continent, here through romantic
scenery, there in the midst of arid deserts, by stream and
mountain and valley, always with the same monotonous
hum and shriek. So these scholars went through the
Talmud with never changing feelings. They did not
rejoice at the description which is given in tractate Biccu-
rim ^ of the procession formed when the first-fruits were
brought into the Holy Temple. They were not much
saddened when reading in tractate Taanith ® of the un-
happy days so recurrent in Jewish history. They were
not delighted by the wisdom of Seder Nezikin? which
deals with civil law ; nor were they vexed of Seder Taha-
roth}^ which treats of the laws of cleanliness and unclean-
liness, that by their exaggeration gave cause to much
dissension in the time of the Temple. The pre-Talmudic
literature, such as the Siphra^ Siphri^ and Mechilta ^^ — the
only existing means of obtaining an insight into the
Talmud — were altogether neglected. All that these
readers cared for was to push on to the end, and the
prayer recited at the close was of more importance to
them than the treatise they had perused.

Not less melancholy was the spectacle presented by the
so-called men of "Enlightenment" {Aufkldrung), They
belonged chiefly to the rationalistic school of Mendelssohn,
but they equalled their master neither in knowledge nor
in moral character. It was an enlightenment without
foundation in real scholarship, and did not lead to an ideal
life, though again I must add that there were exceptions.
These men were rather what Germans would term Sc/ton-
geister, a set of dilettanti who cared to study as little as

NACHMAN KROCHMAL

possible, and to write as much as possible. They wrote
bad grammars, superficial commentaries on the Bible,
and terribly dull poems. Of this lite.rature, with the
exception of Erter's Watchman^ there is scarcely a work
that one would care to read twice. Most of them
despised Rabbinism,. but without understanding its noblest
forms as they are to be traced in the Talmud and later
Hebrew literature. They did not dislike Judaism, but
the only Judaism they affected was one " which does not
oppose itself to anything in particular"; or, as Heine
would have described it, "Eine reinliche Religion.'* In
one respect these little men were great: in mutual
admiration, which reached such a pitch that such titles
as "Great Luminary," "World-famed Sage," were con-
sidered altogether too insignificant and commonplace.

I will now pass to the writings of Krochmal. It must
be premised that Krochmal was not a voluminous author.
All his writings, including a few letters which were pub-
lished in various Hebrew periodicals, would scarcely
occupy four hundred pages. Krochmal used to call him-
self " der ewige Student " (the perpetual pupil). He did
not read books, nor study philosophical systems, with the
object of writing books of his own on them. He read
and studied in order that he might become a better and a
wiser man. Besides, he did not think himself competent
to judge on grave subjects, nor did he consider his judg-
ment, even if he formed one, worthy of publication. He
counselled his friends to be equally slow in publishing
their views to the world. " Be not," he wrote to a corre-
spondent, — " be not hasty in forming your opinions before
you have studied the literature of the subject with care
and devotion. This is no easy matter, for no man can

6o STUDIES IN JUDAISM

obtain any real knowledge of the Torah and philosophy
unless he is prepared to give himself up in single-hearted
devotion to his studies." Severe though he was to his
friends, he was still more severe to himself. Though he
had been collecting materials on subjects of Jewish history
and philosophy from his early youth, it was not until he
had endured much persuasion and pressure from his
friends that he began to write down his thoughts in a
connected form. We thus possess only one work from
the pen of this author ; but that work is the Guide of the
Perplexed of the Time^ a posthumous book published
in 185 1, eleven years after Krochmal's death. His work
had been much interrupted by illness during the last years
of his life, and as a necessary consequence many parts of
his treatise finally remained in an unfinished state. Kroch-
mal commissioned his children to hand over his papers to
Zunz, who was to arrange and edit them as best he might.
Zunz, who in his reverence for Krochmal went so far as
to call him the man of God, gladly accepted the task, in
which he was aided by Steinschneider. Unfortunately,
the work was published in Lemberg, a place famous for
spoiling books. Even the skill of these two great masters
did not suffice to save Krochmal's work from the fate to
which all the books printed in Lemberg seem inevitably
doomed. Thus Krochmal's work is printed on bad paper,
and with faint ink ; it is full of misprints and the text is
sometimes confused with the notes. A second edition
appeared in Lemberg in 1863 ; but, it is scarcely necessary
to add, the reprint is even worse than the original issue.

The work occupies some 350 pages, and is divided into
seventeen chapters. The opening six treat of Religion
in general. The author first indicates the opposite dan-

NACHMAN KROCHMAL 6 1

gers to which men are liable. On the one hand, men
are exposed to extravagant phantasy (^Schwdrfnerei\ su-
perstition and ceremonialism ( Werkheiligkeif), Some, on
the other hand, in their endeavour to avoid this danger,
fall into the opposite extreme, materialism, unbelief, and
moral degeneracy as a consequence of their neglect of
all law. He proceeds to say: Even in the ritual part
of religion, such as the regulations of the Sabbath, the
dietary laws and so forth, we find abstract definitions
necessary, and differences of opinions prevalent. In the
dogmatic aspects of religion, dealing as they do with the
grave subjects of metaphysics, the mystery of life and
death, the destiny of man, his relation to God, reward
and punishment, the inner meaning of the laws, — in
these spiritual matters, the difficulty of accurate defini-
tion must be far greater and the opportunities for differ-
ence of opinion more frequent and important. What
guide are we to follow, seeing that every error involves
the most dangerous consequences } Shall we abandon
altogether the effort of thinking on these grave subjects }
Such a course is impossible. Do not believe, says Kroch-
mal, that there ever was a time when the religious man
was entirely satisfied by deeds of righteousness, as some
people maintain. On the contrary, every man, whether
an independent thinker or a simple believer, always feels
the weight of these questions upon him. Every man
desires to have some ideal basis for his actions which
must constitute his real life in its noblest moments.
Krochmal here quotes a famous passage from the Mid-
rash.^* The Torah, according to one of our ancient sages,
may be compared to two paths, the one burning with fire,
the other covered with snow. If a man enters on the

62 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

former path he will die by the heat ; if he walks by the
latter path he will be frozen by the snow. What, then,
must he do? He must walk in the middle, or, as we
should say, he must choose the golden mean. But, as
Krochmal suggests, the middle way in historical and
philosophical doubts does not consist, as some idle heads
suppose, in a kind of compromise between two opposing
views. If one of two contending parties declares that
twice two make six, while his opponent asserts that twice
two make eight, a sort of compromise might be arrived
at by conceding that twice two make seven. But such
a compromise would be as false as either extreme ; and
the seeker after the truth must revert to that mean
which is the heart of all things, independently of all
factions, placing himself above them.

Having dealt with the arguments relating to the exist-
ence of God as elaborated in the philosophical systems
of his time, Krochmal leads up to his treatment of the
History of Israel by a chapter on the ideal gifts be-
stowed upon the various ancient nations, which, possessed
by them through many centuries, were lost when their
nationality ceased. We next come, in Chapter VII., to
the ideal gifts of Israel. These are the religious gift
and the faculty and desire for seeking the ideal of all
ideals, namely, God. But Israel, whose mission it was
to propagate this ideal, was, even as other nations, sub-
ject to natural laws; and its history presents progress
and reaction, rise and decline. Krochmal devotes his
next three chapters to showing how, in the history of
Israel, as in other histories, may be detected a triple
process. These three stages are the budding, the period
of maturity, and the decay. As the history of Israel is

NACHMAN KROCHMAL

more a history of religion than of politics and battles,
its rise and decline correspond more or less with Israel's
attachment to God, and its falling away from Him. The
decay would be associated with the adoption of either of
the extremes, the dangerous effects of which have been
already mentioned. But "through progress and back-
sliding, amid infectious contact with idolatry, amid sur-
vival of old growths of superstition, of the crude practices
of the past; amid the solicitation of new aspects of life;
in material prosperity and in material ruin," Israel was
never wholly detached from God. In 'the worst times it
had its judges or its prophets, its heroes or its sages, its
Rabbis or its philosophers, who strove to bring Israel
back to its mission, and who succeeded in their efforts
to do so. Even in its decay traces of the Divine spirit
made themselves felt, and revived the nation, which en-
tered again on a triple course and repeated its three
phases. The first of these three-fold epochs began, ac-
cording to Krochmal's eighth chapter, with the times of
the Patriarchs, and ended with the death of Gedaliah after
the destruction of the first Temple. Next, in the follow-
ing two chapters, Krochmal finds the second triple move-
ment in the interval between the prophets of the exile
in Babylon and the death of Bar-Cochba about 135 a.c.
The author also hints at the existence of a third such
epoch beginning with R. Judah the Patriarch, the com-
piler of the Mishnah (220 a.c.),^^ and ending with the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492). This idea is
not further developed by Krochmal ; but it would be
interesting to ask, by the way, in which phase of the
three-fold process — rise, maturity, or decay — are we at
the present time t

6^ STUDIES IN JUDAISM

The next five chapters may be regarded as an excursus
on the preceding two. Krochmal discusses the Biblical
books which belong to the period of the Exile and of the
Second Temple, such as the Second Isaiah, certain Exilic
and Maccabean psalms, Ecclesiastes, certain Apocryphal
books, and the work of the Men of the Great Synagogue.
They contain, again, researches on the various sects, such
as the Assideans, Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, the Gnos-
tics, the Cabbalists and their relation to the latter, and
the Minim,^^ who are mentioned in the Talmud. In an-
other part of this excursus Krochmal describes the sys-
tems of the Alexandrian Jewish philosophers, such as
Philo and Aristobulus, and discusses their relation to
certain theosophic ideas in various Midrash-collections.
The author also attempts to prove the necessity of Tradi-
tion ; he shows its first traces in the Bible, and explains
the term Sopherim (scribes); and he points out the
meaning of the phrase "A law unto Moses from Mount
Sinai," ^^ and similar expressions. He gives a summary
of the development of the Halachah in its different stages,
the criteria by which the older Halachahs may be dis-
criminated ; he seeks to arrive at the origin of the Mish-
nah, and deals with various cognate topics. In another
discourse Krochmal endeavours to explain the term Aga-
dah,^® its origin and development ; the different kinds of
Agadah and their relative value. Chapter XVI. contains
the Prolegomena to a philosophy of the Jewish religion in
accordance with the principles laid down by Hegel. In
the seventeenth and last chapter the author gives a gen-
eral introduction to the Philosophy of Ibn Ezra, and quotes
illustrative extracts.

The space of an essay does not permit me to give

NACHMAN KROCHMAL

further details of Krochmars book. I am conscious that
the preceding outline is deficient in quality as well as in
quantity. Yet, even from this meagre abstract, the reader
will gather that Krochmal reviews many of the great
problems which concern religion in general and Judaism
in particular. Zunz somewhere remarks that Krochmal
was inspired in his work by the study of Hegel, just as
Maimonides had been by the study of Aristotle. I give
this statement solely on the authority of Zunz, as I myself
have never made a study of the works of the German
philosopher, and am therefore unable to express an opin-
ion on the question.

Now there is no doubt that Krochmal's book is not
without defects. The materials are not always well
arranged, there is at times a want of proportion in the
length at which the various points are treated, and the
author occasionally seems to wander from the subject
in hand. But we shall be better able to account for these
and similar technical faults, as well as to appreciate the
real value of the author's work, if we consider the fol-
lowing fact. Nachman Krochmal's object was to elabo-
rate a philosophy of Jewish history, to trace the leading
ideas that ran through it, and the ultimate causes that led
to its various phases. But, unfortunately, at the time
when Krochmal began to write, there did not exist a
Jewish history at all. The labours of Zunz were con-
ducted in an altogether different field. Not to mention
the names of the younger scholars then unborn, Graetz,
the author of the History of tJie Jeivs, and Weiss, who
wrote a history of the Tradition, were still studying at
college. FrankeFs masterly essays on the Essenes and
the Septuagint, his well-known work, hitrodiictioii to the

66 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Mishfiahy and the results of Geiger's most interesting and
suggestive researches on the older and later Halachah,
and on the Pharisees and Sadducees, had yet to be written.
Rapoport's great treatise, Erech Milling had not been
published at that time, and Steinschneider was not yet
working at his historical sketch of Jewish literature. It
was not till six years after Krochmal's death (viz. in 1846)
that Landauer's memorable studies on the Jewish mystics
were given to the world. Even the bad books of Julius
Fiirst, such as his History of the Canon, and his still worse
History of Jewish Literature in Babylon, were then un-
written. Neither the most charlatanic History of the
Opinions and Teachings of All the Jewish Sects, by Peter
Beer, the universal provider, nor Jost*s most honest but
narrow-minded and superficial History of the Jews, was
of much use to Krochmal. Jost*s more scholarly works
were not published till long afterwards. Krochmal was
thus without the guidance of those authorities to which
we are now accustomed to turn for information. Except-
ing the aid that he derived from the writings of Azariah
de Rossi,^ Krochmal was therefore compelled to prose-
cute all the necessary research for himself ; he had to
establish the facts of Jewish history as well as to philoso-
phise upon them. Hence, in the very midst of his philo-
sophical analysis, the author was bound to introduce
digressions on historical subjects, in order to justify as
well as to form the basis of that analysis. He had to
survey the ground and to collect the materials, besides
constructing the plan of the edifice and working at its
erection. Nevertheless, it is precisely for these historical
excursuses that Krochmal has deserved the gratitude of
posterity. He it was who taught Jewish scholars how to

NACHMAN KROCHMAL 67

submit the ancient Rabbinic records to the test of criti-
cism and the way in which they might be utilised for the
purpose of historical studies ; he it was who enabled them
to trace the genesis of the tradition, and to watch the
inner germination of that vast organism. He even indi-
cated to them how they might continue to connect their
own lives with it, how they might derive nourishment from
it, and in their turn further its growth. I may assert with
the utmost confidence that there is scarcely a single page
in Krochmal's book that did not afterwards give birth
to some essay or monograph or even elaborate treatise,
though their authors were not always very careful about
mentioning the source of their inspiration. Thus Kroch-
mal justly deserves the honourable title assigned to him
by one of our greatest historians, who terms him the
Father of Jewish Science.

So far, I have been speaking of the importance of
KrochmaFs treatise and of its significance in the region
of Jewish Science. It is necessary, I think, to add a
few words with regard to the general tendency of his
whole work. I have already alluded to the characteristic
modesty of Krochmal; I have pointed out how little he
cared for publicity, how dearly he loved retirement. The
question accordingly presents itself — What can have
been the real and sufficient causes that prevailed upon
him to yield to the solicitations of his friends and to write
upon what the Talmud would term " matters standing on
the heights of the world " }

The answer to this question may, I think, be found in
the title of KrochmaVs book, the Guide of the Perplexed
of the Time. It is indeed a rather unusual coincidence
for the title of a Hebrew book to have any connection

58 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

with its subject matter. The same merit is possessed
by the Guide of the Perplexed of Maimonides, the title
of which undoubtedly suggested that of Krochmal's
treatise. There is, however, one little addition in
KrochmaVs title that contains a most important lesson
for us. I mean the' words " of the Time." By these
words Krochmal reminds us that, great as are the merits
of the immortal work of Maimonides — and it would be
difficult to exaggerate its value and importance — still it
will no longer suffice for us. For, as Krochmal himself
remarks, every time has its own perplexities, and there-
fore needs its own guide. In order to show that these
words are no idle phrase, I shall endeavour to illustrate
them by one example at least. In the Guide of the
Perplexed of Maimonides, Part II., Chapter XXVI.,
occurs a passage which runs thus: "In the famous
chapters known as the 'Chapters of R. Eliezer the
Great,' 2^ I find R. Eliezer the Great saying something
more extraordinary than I have ever seen in the utter-
ances of any believer in the Law of Moses. I refer
to the following passage : * Whence were the heavens
created } He (God) took part of the light of His gar-
ment, He stretched it like a cloth, and thus the heavens
were extending continually, as it is said (Ps. civ. 2):
He covereth Himself with light as with a garment, He
stretcheth the heavens like a curtain. Whence was
the earth created } He took of the snow under the
throne of glory, and threw it; according to the words
(in Job xxxvii. 6), He said to the snow be thou earth.'
These are the words given there (in the 'Chapters of
R. Eliezer the Great'), and I, in my surprise, ask, What
was the belief of this sage } Did he think it impossible

NACHMAN KROCHMAL

that something be produced from nothing? ... If the
terms *the light of His garment' and the *snow of
» glory ' mean something eternal (as matter) they must
be rejected. ... In short, it is a passage that greatly
confuses the notions of all intelligent and religious per-
sons. I am unable to explain it sufficiently."

So far Maimonides ; and we are quite able to conceive
his perplexity in dealing with this passage. On one side,
Maimonides himself believed that Judaism is a dogmatic
religion, and that one of its dogmas is the principle of
Creatio ex nihilo. On the other side, he found .R. Eliezer
— one of the greatest authorities of the early part of the
second century — apparently denying this dogma. The
perplexity was indeed a serious one for Maimonides, but
we find no difficulty whatever in extricating ourselves from
it. In the first place, there are many who cling to the
theory which holds that there are no dogmas in Judaism
at all, and to them Maimonides* difficulty would have no
relevance. Secondly, those who believe that there are
dogmas in Judaism may regard such expressions as those
quoted above from the " Chapters of R. Eliezer " in the
light of mere poetical metaphors, or may call them fairy
tales or legends, or include them in some other section of
literature, known under the name of folklore, which is an
excuse for every absurdity, the fortunate authors of which
are responsible neither to philosophy nor to religion, and
sometimes not even to common sense. But there is a
third consideration that affords the best solution of the
difficulty. The "Chapters of R. Eliezer," despite their
pompous title, are not the work of R. Eliezer at all.
Criticism has taught us to attach no importance to the
heading of a chapter or the title-page of a book. We are

70 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

now in a position to judge from the tone, style, and con-

•

tents of the work, that the " Chapters of R. Eliezer " is a
later compilation of the eighth century, and that its author
could not have been R. Eliezer, the teacher of R. Akiba,
in the second century. In this way, these particular diffi-
culties of Maimonides solve themselves for us in a suffi-
ciently easy way. But it is just these solutions that open
up new difficulties and perplexities which did not exist for
the generation of the great Spanish philosopher. Sup-
pose that we accept the view that Judaism is not a dog-
matic religion. But how are we to conceive a religion
without dogmas, or, if you prefer the expression, without
principles or bases of belief.*^ Or is Judaism, as some
platitudinarians think, a mere national institute with some
useful dietary and sanitary laws, but with nothing that
makes for the sanctification of man, with no guidance to
offer us in the great problems of our life, and in the great-
est anxieties of the human soul.*^ On the other hand,
granted that we may consider certain things as mere le-
gend, how are we to discriminate between these and the
things that must be taken seriously } Does it depend on
the nature of the subject, or on the position of the book in
the canon of Hebrew literature } In the thirteenth cen-
tury symbolical meanings were given to certain difficult
passages in the Talmud ; but the process was carried
further, and the Biblical narratives were subjected by phi-
losophers to a like treatment. R. Solomon ben Adereth
and his colleagues (in the thirteenth century) settled the
question by indiscriminately excommunicating all young
men who should study philosophy; but this method is
scarcely one to be commended for present use.

The third, or the philological solution of difficulties,

NACHMAN KROCHMAL

leads to fresh troubles. A hundred years ago men were
in that happy state of mind in which they knew every-
thing. They knew the exact author and date of every
Psalm ; they knew the author of each and every ancient
Midrash ; they knew the originator of every law and ordi-
nance ; they even knew the writer of the Zohar, and of
other mystical books. There were certainly a few who
did not know all these things, among them Ibn Ezra,
Azariah de Rossi, and the two Delmedigos.^ But they were
merely a miserable historical blunder, men who had no
right to be born when they were. But the philological
method has swept away all this knowingness as by a
deluge from heaven, and men find that they know nothing.
True, there linger on a few who still know all these things,
but it is they who are now the anachronism. These, and
such as these, are the perplexities of our time, to the res-
olution of which the labours of Krochmal and of a noble
band of scholars have been directed in this century.

Have these perplexities, we must ask, and these puz-
zles been solved by Krochmal and his coadjutors.*^ We
may with all certainty answer : They have only pointed out
the way, it is for ourselves to proceed by it. It would be
unreasonable to expect that difficulties which have been
accumulating during the course of thousands of years
should be solved by the men of one or two generations.
Again, we live in a century in which excavations and dis-
coveries in other fields have added at once to our know-
ledge and to our uncertainty. Each country, we might
almost say, over and above the perplexities that trouble
mankind in general, has its own special difficulties which
are entirely unknown to those who dwell outside its
frontiers. I am not disposed to discuss these difficulties

72 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

in this place. Nor have I the ability to do so. But of
two things I am perfectly certain : the first is, that for a
solution of these difficulties which, in the language of
Maimonides, "confuse the notions of all intelligent and
religious persons," the only hope is in true knowledge and
not in ignorance ; and secondly, this knowledge can only
be obtained by a combination of the utmost reverence for
religion and the deepest devotion to truth. The poor old
Rabbis who have been so foully decried by their calumni-
ators as hedonists, and so foolishly praised by sorry apolo-
gists as materialistic optimists, strongly insisted that when
a man woos the truth, his suit can only prosper if he is
influenced by the purest and most single-hearted affection.
" A man,*' says the Siphr6, " must not say : * I will study
the Torah in order that I may attain the title of Rabbi or
savant, or that I may become rich by it, or that I may be
rewarded for it in the world to come.' He must study for
love's sake." Such a knowledge, which is free from all
taint of worldliness and of other-worldliness, a knowledge
sought simply and solely for pure love of God, who is
Truth, — such a knowledge is in the highest sense a sav-
ing knowledge, and Nachman Krochmal was in possession
of it.

Ill

RABBI ELIJAH WILNA, GAON

The three great stars of German literature are usually
characterised by German scholars in the following way :
Goethe they say represents the beautiful, Schiller the
ideal, while Lessing represents truth. I think that we
may apply the same characteristics to the three great
luminaries, with which the Jewish middle ages ceased —
for as Zunz somewhere remarked, the Jewish middle ages
lasted till the beginning of the eighteenth century — and
the modern age of Judaism opened. I am thinking of
Mendelssohn in Germany, Israel Baalshem, the founder of
the sect of the Chassidim in Podolia, and Elijah Wilna, or
as he is more frequently called, the Gaon,^ the Great One,
in Lithuania.

As to Mendelssohn, enough, and perhaps more than
enough, has already been written and spoken about his
merits in awakening the sense for the beautiful and the
harmonious which was almost entirely dormant among the
Jews of his age. In regard to the second, namely, Israel
Baalshem, I have only to refer the reader to the first essay
in this volume. The subject of the present essay will be
R. Elijah Wilna, who, among the Jews, as Lessing among
the Germans, represented truth, both by his life and by
his literary activity.

74 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

I say that the Gaon represented truth, but these words
must be taken cumgrano salts. For I do not mean at all to
say that he was in possession of the whole truth, still less
in exclusive possession of it It is true as we shall learn
in the course of this essay, that the Gaon was a genius of
the first order. But there are matters of truth, the obtain-
ing of which cannot be accomplished by genius alone.
R. Elijah Wilna did not know any other language than
Hebrew. Truths, therefore, which are only to be reached
through the medium of other languages, remained a secret
to him. Again, records of ancient times which are buried
in the shelves of remote libraries or under the ruins of
past civilisations are not always a matter of intuition.
Even the most gifted of men have to wait patiently till
these are brought to light by the aid of spade and shovel,
or the pen of some obscure copyist. But R. Elijah lived
at a time when excavation had as yet done very little for
Semitic studies, and when a Jew scarcely got admittance
into the great libraries of Europe. Thus much truth
which we get now in a very easy way was beyond this
seer's eye.

But even if all the libraries on earth had been at his dis-
posal, even if he had read all the cuneiform writings which
ornament the British Museum, and had deciphered all the
Hieroglyphics which the Louvre possesses, even in that
case we should not be justified in terming him a represent-
ative of the truth, without qualifying our words.

" Truth," said the old Rabbis, " is the Seal of the Holy
One, praised be He.'* But Heaven has no Lord Chancel-
lor. Neither men nor angels are trusted with the great
Seal. They are only allowed to catch a glimpse of it, or
rather to long after this glimpse. However, even the

EUJAH WILNA 75

longing and effort for this glimpse will bring man into
communion with God, and make his life divine. And the
life of the Gaon was, as we shall see, one long effort and
unceasing longing after the truth.

Again, if I say that the Gaon represented truth, you
must not think that he lacked the two other qualities. A
life entirely devoted to such a great cause as that of seek-
ing the truth is, ipso facto, ideal and harmonious. It is
only in his influence on Judaism — more particularly on
the Jews in the North of Europe — that this feature in his
life becomes more prominent than his other admirable
qualities.

In what this truth consisted, how the Gaon arrived at it,
and by what means he conveyed it to others, we shall see
in the course of this essay.

R. Elijah was born at Wilna in the year 1720. His
father, Solomon Wilna, is called by his biographers the
great Rabbi Solomon, and is said to have been the de-
scendant of R. Moses Rivkas, the author of a learned
work, containing notes to the Code of the Law by R.
Joseph Caro.2

Having quoted the biographers, I must point out that
there are only two biographies of the Gaon : the one by
Finn, in his book Faithful City^ on the celebrities of
Wilna, the other by Nachman of Horodna, in his book
Ascension of Elijah,^ The former is a very honest account
of the Gaon's life, but a little too short. The latter is too
long, or rather too much intermixed with that sort of
absurd legend, the authors of which are incapable of mark-
ing the line which separates the monster from the hero.

Even in the region of imagination we must not for a
moment forget the good advice given to us by one of our

76 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

greatest scholars who had to deal with a kindred subject :
" He," says this scholar, " who banishes the thought of
higher and lower from his study, degrades it into a mere
means of gratifying his curiosity, and disqualifies it for the
lofty task which it is called upon to perform for modern
society." We shall thus cling to the higher and stop at
the hero.

Our hero was the first-bom of five brothers. They
were all famous men in their little world. According to
the tradition in Wilna, Elijah was a lovely child, with
beautiful eyes, and goodly to look at, or as it is expressed
in another place, " as beautiful as an angel ! " . The tradi-
tion, or rather the legend, relates that as a child of six
years he was already the pupil of R. Moses Margalith, the
famous author of a commentary on the Talmud of Jerusa-
lem. At the age of seven years he is said to have already
perplexed the Chief Rabbi of his native town by his con-
troversial skill in Talmudical subjects. At the early age
of nine he was acquainted with the contents of the Bible,
the Mishnah, the Talmud and its ancient commentaries ;
and even the Cabbalistic works of R. Isaac Loria were no
secret to the youthful scholar.^ At the age of twelve years
he is said to have acquired the seven liberal arts, and to
have puzzled the scholars of Wilna by his astronomical
knowledge. At thirteen, when according to Jewish law he
attained his majority, he was already the accomplished or
" the great one " (Gaon) ; so far tradition. I am afraid that
tradition is here, against all experience, too exact in its
dates. But we may learn from it that the child Elijah
showed many signs of the future Gaon, and was therefore
considered as the prodigy of his age. Again it is likewise
pretty certain that no man could boast of having been the

ELIJAH WILNA yy

master of Elijah. He was not the product of any school,
nor was he biassed by the many prejudices of his time.
He was allowed to walk his own way in his struggle after
truth.

It is rather an unfortunate thing that history is so much
made up of parallels and contrasts that the historian or
even the biographer cannot possibly point out the great-
ness of some men without touching, however slightly, on
the smallness of others. It is only natural that every
strong shining object should push the minor lights of its
surroundings into the background and darken them.
Thus, when we are speaking of the superiority of the
Gaon, we cannot escape hinting at least at the shortcom-
ings of his contemporaries, as well as of his predeces-
sors.

To indicate briefly in what this superiority consisted, I
will premise here a few words from a Responsum by one
of his great predecessors, the Gaon Rabbi Hai.^ Con-
sulted by a student as to the meaning of certain mystical
passages in the tractate Chagigah^ Rabbi Hai, in warning
his correspondent not to expect from him a long philosoph-
ical dissertation, writes as follows : " Know that it never
was our business to palliate matters and explain them in a
way of which the author never could have thought. This
is fashionable with other people, but our method is to
explain the words of this or that authority in accordance
with his own meaning. We do not pledge ourselves that
this meaning is 'right rule' in itself, for there do exist
statements made by the old authorities that cannot be ac-
cepted as norm." Thus far the words of the Gaon of the
tenth century, which speak volumes. The Gaon of the
eighteenth century followed the same course. All his

78 STUDIES IX JUDAISM

eflForts were directed to this point; namely, to find out
the true meaning of the Mishnah, the true meaning of
the Gemara,* the true meaning of ^ the Gaonim, the true
meaning of the great codifiers, and the true meaning of
the commentators on the ancient Rabbinical literature.
Whether this meaning would be acceptable to us mattered
very little to him. His only object was to understand
the words of his predecessors, and this he obtained, as
we shall soon see, bv the best critical means. This was
the method of the Gaon ; that of other scholars (at least
of the great majority) was dictated by entirely differ-
ent considerations. They would not suffer the idea that
the great man could be wrong at times. To them, all that
he said was " right rule." Now suppose a great author
like Maimonides had overlooked an important passage in
the Talmud or any other statement by a great authority,
the alternative remaining to them was either to explain
away the passage of the Talmud or to give the words of
Maimonides a strange meaning. This led originally to
the famous method of the Pilpid (casuistry), a kind of
spiritual gymnastic, which R. Liva of Prague in the six-
teenth century, and many others condemned as most per-
nicious to Judaism and leading to the decay of the study
of the Torah.

Now it is beyond doubt that the method of the two
Gaonim is the only right one. But, in justice to the
casuistic school, which includes many a great name, it is
only right to remember that this impartiality towards ac-
knowledged authorities as maintained by our hero is not at
all such an easy matter as we imagine- We quote often
with great satisfaction the famous saying, Amicus Plato,
amicus Socrates, sed magis arnica Veritas, "Plato is our

ELIJAH WILNA 79

friend, so is Socrates, but Truth is, or rather ought to be,
our greatest friend." This sounds very nicely, but let us
only realise what difficulties it involves. To be a friend of
Socrates or Plato means to know them, or in other words
to have a thorough knowledge of the writings of the one
and the recorded utterances of the other. But such a
knowledge can with most men only be obtained by devot-
ing one's whole life to the study of their works, so that
there is not left much time for new friendships. And
the few who are able to save a few years after long wan-
derings with these Greek philosophers, seldom see the
necessity of new friendships. For what else did those
long courtships of Plato or Aristotle mean except that
those who conducted them thought that thereby they
would wed Truth }

This impartiality is the more difficult when these friends
are invested with a kind of religious authority where
humility and submission are most important factors. The
history of Lanfranc, the predecessor of Anselm of Can-
terbury, gives a striking example of what this submission
meant in the Middle Ages. One day, we are told, when
he was still an ordinary monk, he was reading at the
table and pronounced a word as it ought to be pronounced,
but not as seemed right to the person presiding, who bade
him say it differently ; " as if he had said docere, with the
middle syllable long, as is right, and the other had cor-
rected it into doc^re^ with the middle short, which is
wrong; for that Prior was not a scholar. But the wise
man, knowing that he owed obedience rather to Christ
than to Donatus, the grammarian, gave up his pronunci-
ation, and said what he was wrongly told to say ; for to
make a short syllable long, or a long one short, he knew

go STUDIES IN JUDAISM

to be no deadly sin, but not -to obey one set over him in
God's behalf was no light transgression." ^

But this admiration — and here we turn again to the
Gaon — must not prevent us from believing that Provi-
dence is not confined to such ungrammatical Priors, and
that the men who are really working on behalf of God
are those who teach us to pronounce rightly, and to think
rightly, and to take matters as they are, not as we desire
them to be on account of our friends.

As for the critical means to which I have alluded, the
Gaon himself said somewhere that simplicity is the best
criterion of truth, and this is the most characteristic feat-
ure of all his literary career. The Gaon studied Hebrew
grammar in order to obtain a clear notion of the language
in which the Scriptures are written. He tried to attain
to the knowledge of the Bible by reading the Bible itself ;
and was not satisfied to become acquainted with its con-
tents from the numerous quotations which are made from
it in Rabbinical literature. Again, he studied mathemat-
ics, astronomy, and philosophy, as far as they could be
found in Hebrew books. Certainly the Gaon did not
study these subjects for their own sake, and they were
considered by him only as a means to the end, or as the
phrase goes, as the " hand-maidens " of Theology, the
queen of all sciences. But it may be looked upon as a
mark of great progress in an age when Queen Theology
had become rather sulky, continually finding fault with
her hand-maidens, and stigmatising every attention paid
to them as conducive to disloyalty. To these accusa-
tions the Gaon answered that Queen Theology does not
study her own interests. Knowledge of all arts and
sciences, the Gaon maintained, is necessary for the real

ELIJAH WILNA 8 1

understanding of the Torah which embraces the whole of
them. From his own writings it is evident that he him-
self was familiar with Euclid, and his Ayil Meshulask*
contains several original developments of Euclid. It was
at his suggestion that a certain Baruch of Sclow trans-
lated Euclid into the Hebrew language.

Another way which led the Gaon to the discovery of
many truths was his study of the pre-Talmudic literature,
and of the Jerusalem Talmud. By some accident or other
it came to pass that only the Babylonian Talmud was
recognised as a guide in the practices of religious life.
As the great teachers and their pupils cared more for
satisfying the religious wants of their flocks than for
theoretic researches, the consequence was that a most
important part of the ancient Rabbinic literature was
almost entirely neglected by them for many centuries.
And it was certainly no exaggeration, when R. Elijah
said that even the Gaonim and Maimonides, occupied as
they were with the practical part of the law, did not pay
sufficient attention to the Talmud of Jerusalem and the
Tosephta.^® The Gaon was no official head of any Jew-
ish community, and was but little troubled by decisions
of questions which concern daily life. He was thus in
a position to leave for a little while the Babylonian Tal-
mud and to become acquainted with the guides of the
g^de. I refer to Siphra, Siphr6, Mechilta, Tosephta,
the Seder Olam,^ the Minor Tractates,^ and above all
the Talmud of Jerusalem, which, regarded from an his-
torical and critical point of view, is even of more impor-
tance than its Babylonian twin-brother. But by this means
there came a new light upon the whole of ancient Rab-
binic literature. The words of the Torah, the Midrash

82 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

says, are poor in one place, but we shall find them rich
in another place. The Gaon by his acquaintance with
the whole of the Torah had no difficulty whatever in
discovering the rich places. If there was a difficult pas-
sage in this or that Tractate, he showed, by giving a
reference to some other place, that it was wanting in
some words or lines. Obscure passages in the Mishnah
he tried to elucidate by parallel passages in the Tosephta.
The too complicated controversies of the Babylonian Tal-
mud he tried to explain by comparing them with the
more ancient and more simple Talmud of Jerusalem.

There is little to be told of the Gaon's private affairs.
Even the date of his marriage with a certain Miss Anna
of Kaidon is not mentioned by his biographers. But it
may be taken for granted that, in accordance with the
custom in Poland, he married at a very early age, say
about eighteen years. It was also when a young man
that he travelled for some years through Poland and
Germany. It is rather difficult to say what his object
may have been in making these travels — for the Gaon
was not the man to travel for pleasure's sake. Perhaps
it was to become acquainted with the great Rabbis of
these countries. It is also possible, as others maintain,
that the Gaon considered the many privations which a
traveller had to endure a hundred and fifty years ago,
as an atonement for his imaginary sins. Indeed we find
in many ascetic books that travelling, or as they term it
" receiving upon oneself to be banished into the exile," ^
is recommended as a very successful substitute for pen-
ance. At least it seems that the coachmen whom the
Gaon employed on his journeys looked at it from this
point of view. One of them went so far in adding to

ELIJAH WILNA 83

the privations of the Gaon as to run away with his car-
riage when the Rabbi alighted from it in order to read
his prayers. But the reading of the Eighteen Benedic-
tions ^* must not be interrupted excepting in the case of
danger ; and the Gaon did not consider it very dangerous
to be left without money and without luggage.

These travels ended in the year 1745. The Gaon left
Wilna again at a later date with the purpose of going to
Palestine and settling there. But he found so many ob-
stacles on his way that he was soon compelled to give up
his favourite plan and to return to his native town. It is
not known whether he left Wilna again.

The position which the Gaon occupied in Wilna was, as
already hinted, that of a private man. He could never be
prevailed upon to accept the post of Rabbi or any other
office in a Jewish community. I am unable to give the
reason for his declining all the offers made to him in this
direction. But it may be suggested here that it was in
the time of the Gaon that there arose a bitter struggle
between the Rabbi and the Jewish wardens of his native
town, which ended in the abolition of the office of Rabbi.
The history of the struggle is the more irritating, as it
arose from the pettiest reasons imaginable. People act-
ually discovered that there was no light in the house of
the Rabbi after the middle of the night, which fact might
lead to the conclusion that he did not study later than
12 o'clock P.M. What an idle man! And this idleness
was the less pardonable in the eyes of the community, as
the Rabbi's wife was so unfortunate as not to have been
polite enough to some Mrs. Warden. Under such circum-
stances we must not wonder if the Gaon did not find it
very desirable to meddle with congregational affairs in an

84 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

official capacity. The relation of the Gaon to his contem-
poraries resembles rather the position in the olden times
of a Tanna or Amora,*^ who neither enjoyed the title of
Nasin or that of Ab Beth Din.^® Like R. Akiba, or Mar
Samuel, the Gaon became influential among his contem-
poraries only by his teaching and his exemplary life.

It must be said in praise of the Jews of Wilna that, not-
withstanding their petty behaviour towards their ecclesias-
tical chief, they willingly submitted to the authority of the
Gaon (who was devoid of all official authority). They
revered him as a saint. To converse with the Gaon was
considered as a happy event in the life of a Jew in Wilna,
to be of any use to him as the greatest distinction a man
could attain on earth. But what is remarkable is the
readiness with which even scholars acknowledged the
authority of the Gaon. Scholars are usually more slow
in recognising greatness than simple mortals. Every
new luminary does not only outshine their minor lights
and thus hurt their personal vanity, but it threatens also
sometimes to obscure certain traditions which they wish to
keep prominently in view. But the literary genius of the
Gaon was too great to be opposed with success, and his
piety and devotion- to religion far above suspicion. Thus
the Gaon was very soon recognised by his contemporaries
as their master and guide ; not only in literary questions,
but also in matters of belief and conduct.

It would lead me too far to name here all the Gaon's
disciples. It seems as if all the great scholars in his coun-
try considered themselves to be more or less his pupils.
The Gaon used to give in the Beth Hammidrash, which he
founded, public lectures on various subjects, and the stu-
dents who attended these lectures also claimed the honour

ELIJAH WTLNA 85

of being called his pupils. I shall mention here only his
greatest disciple, R. Chayim Walosin, who, after the Gaon,
influenced his countrymen more than any other scholar of
that time. This R. Chayim also did not occupy any official
post among his brethren. He was a cloth manufacturer
by profession, and was very prosperous in his business.
But it did not prevent him from being devoted to Hebrew
literature, and he enjoyed a wide-spread fame as a great
scholar. But as soon as the fame of the Gaon reached
him, he left cloth manufactory and scholarship behind,
and went to Wilna to " learn Torah " from the mouth of
the great master. It must be noticed that even the giv-
ing up of his claim to scholarship was no little sacrifice.
All our learning, said some scholar in Wilna, disappeared
as soon as we crossed the threshold of the Gaon's house.
He made every disciple who came into close contact with
him begin at the beginning. He taught them Hebrew
grammar, Bible, Mishnah, and many other subjects, which
were, as already mentioned, very often neglected by the
Talmudists of that time. R. Chayim had also to go
through all this course. Some would have considered such
treatment a degradation. R. Chayim, however, became
the more attached to his master for it.

In such a way the life of the Gaon was spent, studying
by himself or teaching his pupils. It must be understood
that to learn Torah meant for the Gaon more than mere
brain work for the purpose of gaining knowledge. To
him it was a kind of service to God. Contemporaries who
watched him when he was studying the Torah observed
that the effect wrought on the personality of the Gaon was
the same as when he was praying. With every word his
countenance flushed with joy ; with every line he was gain-

86 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

ing strength for proceeding further. Only by looking at
matters from this point of view shall we be able to under-
stand the devotion and the love of the Gaon for study.

There has been, no doubt, among the Russian Jews a
strong tendency to exaggerate the intellectual qualities of
the Gaon. But one can readily excuse such a tendency.
He was gifted by nature with such a wonderful memory
that, having read a book once, he was able to recite it
by heart for the rest of his life. Not less admirable
was his sure grasp. The most complicated controversies
in the Talmud, into which other scholars would require
whole days and weeks to find their way, the Gaon was
able to read by a glance at the pages. Already as a
boy he is said to have gone through in a single night
the tractates Zebachim and Menachoth^ containing not
less than two hundred and thirty pages, the contents of
which are sometimes so difficult as to make even an aged
scholar despair of understanding them. Again, he pos-
sessed so much common-sense that all the intellectual
tricks of the casuistic schools did not exist for him. And
nevertheless his biographers tell us that he was so much
occupied by his studies, that he could not spare more
than one hour and a half for sleep out of twenty-four
hours. This is, no doubt, an exaggeration. But let us
say five hours a day. He had not time to take his meals
regularly. He used also, according to tradition, to repeat
every chapter in the Bible, every passage in the Talmud,
hundreds of times, even if they presented no difficulty
at all. But it was, as already said, a matter of love for
the Gaon ; of love, not of passing affection.

Nothing on earth could be more despicable to the Gaon
than amateurs who dabble with ancient literature, To

ELIJAH WTLNA gy

understand a thing clearly made him happy. He is said
to have spent more than six months on a single Mishnah
in the tractate Kilayim}^ and felt himself the happiest
man when he succeeded in grasping its real meaning.
Not to be able to go into the depth of a subject, to miss
the truth embedded in a single passage, caused him the
most bitter grief. A story told by his pupil, R. Chayim,
may illustrate this fact. One Friday, narrates R. Chayim,
the servant of the Gaon came to him with the message
that his master wanted to see him as soon as possible.
R. Chayim went instantly. When he came into the house,
he found the Gaon lying in bed with a bandage on his
head and looking very ill. The wife of the Gaon also
reported to him that it was more than three days since
her husband had taken any food, and that he had hardly
enjoyed any sleep all this time. All this misery was
caused by reason of not having been able to understand
some difficult passages in the Talmud of Jerusalem. The
Gaon now asked his disciples to resume with him their
researches. Heaven, he said, might have mercy upon
them and open their eyes, for it is written, " Two are
better than one " : and lo ! Heaven did have mercy on
them; they succeeded in getting the true meaning of
the passage. The Gaon recovered instantly, and master
and disciple had a very joyful Sabbath.

He is also reported to have said on one occasion, he
would not like to have an angel for his teacher who would
reveal to him all the mysteries of the Torah. Such a con-
dition is only befitting the world to come, but in this world
only things which are acquired by hard labour and great
struggle are of any value. The German representative of
truth expressed the same thought in other words, which

88 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

are well worth repeating here : " Did the Almighty," says
Lessing, " holding in His right hand Truth and in His left
Search after Truth, deign to tender me the one I might
prefer, in all humility and without hesitation I should
select Search after Truth."

This absorption of all his being in the study of the
Torah may also, I think, account for the fact that his
biographers have so little to say about the family of the
Gaon. Of his wife, we know only that she died in the
year 1783. Not much fuller is our knowledge about his
children. The biographers speak of them as of the family
" which the Lord has blessed," referring to his two sons,
Rabbi Aryeh Leb and Rabbi Abraham, who were known
as great scholars and very pious men. The latter one is
best known by his edition of a collection of smaller Mid-
rashim. Mention is also made of the Gaon's sons-in-law,
especially one Rabbi Moses of Pinsk. But this is all, and
we are told nothing either about their lives or their call-
ings. From his famous letter which he sent to his family
when on his way to Palestine, we see that he was rather
what one may call a severe father. He bids his wife pun-
ish his children most severely for swearing, scolding, and
speaking untruth. He also advises her to live as retired
a life as possible. Retirement he considers as a condition
sine qua non for a religious life. He even advises his
daughter to read her prayers at home, for in the syna-
gogue she may get envious of the finer dresses of her
friends, which is a most terrible sin. The only tender
feature in this letter is perhaps where he implores his
wife to be kind to his mother on account of her being a
widow, and it were a great sin to cause her the least an-
noyance. From other passages we may gather that his

ELIJAH WILNA 89

family had at times to suffer hunger and cold by the ex-
cessive occupation of their father with the study of the
Torah and other religious works. In short, the Gaon was
a one-sided, severe ascetic, and would never have deserved
the title of a good father, a good husband, an amiable man
or any other appellation derived from those ordinary
"household decencies" which, as Macaulay informs us,
half of the tombstones claim for those who lie behind
them. But I am very much afraid that many a great man
who has made his mark in history could never claim these
household virtues as his own. I do not want to enter here
into the question whether Judaism be an ascetic religion
or not. But even those who think Judaism identical with
what is called "making the best of this life," will not dis-
pute the fact that Jewish literature contains within it
enough ascetic elements to justify the conduct of our
greatest men whose lives were one long-continued self-
denial and privation. "The Torah," says the Talmud,
" cannot be obtained unless a man is prepared to give his
life for it," or as the Talmud puts it, in another place, " if
it be thy desire not to die, cease to live before thou diest."
This was the principle by which the Gaon's life was actu-
ated. And as he did not spare himself, he could not spare
others. We could not expect him to act differently. The
Scriptures tell us : " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.'* But how is it with the man who never loved
himself, who never gave a thought to himself, who never
lived for himself, but only for what he considered to be
his duty and his mission from God on earth } Such a
man we cannot expect to spend his time on coaxing and
caressing us. As to the charge of one-sidedness at which
I have hinted, if the giving up of everything else for the

go STUDIES IN JUDAISM

purpose of devoting oneself to a scholarly and feintly life
is one-sidedness, the Gaon must certainly bear this charge ;
but in a world where there are so many on the other side,
we ought, I think, to be only too grateful to Providence for
sending us from time to time great and strong one-sided
men, who, by their counterbalancing influence, bring God's
spoilt world to a certain equilibrium again. To appease my
more tender readers, I should like only to say that there is
no occasion at all for pitying Mrs. Gaon. It would be a
miserable world indeed if a good digestion and stupidity
were, as a certain author maintained, the only conditions
of happiness. Saints are happy in their suflferings, and
noble souls find their happiness in sacrificing themselves
for these sufferers.

Another severe feature in the life of the Gaon showed
itself in his dispute with the Chassidim. I regret not to
be able to enter here even into a brief account of the his-
tory of this struggle. I shall only take leave to say that I
am afraid each party was right, the Gaon as well as the
Chassidim; the latter, in attacking the Rabbis of their
time, who mostly belonged to the casuistic schools, and in
their intellectual pursuits almost entirely neglected the
emotional side of religion; but none the less was the
Gaon right in opposing a system which, as I have shown
above, involved the danger of leading to a worship of
men.

Excepting this incident, the Gaon never meddled with
public affairs. He lived in retirement, always occupied
with his own education and that of his disciples and
friends. It is most remarkable that, in spite of his hard
work and the many privations he had to endure, he
enjoyed good health almost all his life. He never con-

ELIJAH WILNA 9 1

suited a doctor. It was not until the year 1791, in the
seventieth year of his life, that he began to feel the
decline of his health. But he was not much interrupted
by the failure of his powers. As a means of recovery, he
esteemed very highly the conversation of the preacher
Jacob of Dubna, better known as the Dubna Maggid,^^
whose parables and sallies of wit the Gaon used to enjoy
very much. On the eve of the Day of Atonement in the
year 1797, he fell very ill and gave his blessing to his
children. He died on the third day of the Feast of Tab-
ernacles, with the branch of the Lulab^ in his hands.
The Feast of Joy, relates a contemporary, was turned into
days of mourning. In all the streets of Wilna were heard
only lamenting and crying voices. The funeral orations
delivered on this occasion in Wilna, as well as in other
Jewish communities, would form a small library. His dis-
ciples wept for their master, the people of Wilna for the
ornament of their native town, and the feeling of the jews
in general was that "the Ark of God was taken away."

After the foregoing sketch, the reader will hardly
expect me to give an account of the Gaon's literary pro-
ductions. The results of so long a life and such powers
of mind devoted to one cause with such zeal and fervour,
would furnish by themselves the subject of a whole series
of essays. The tombstone set on his grave by his pious
admirers bears the inscription, " The Gaon gave heed and
sought and set in order " — that is to say, he wrote com-
mentaries or notes on — "the Bible, the Mishnah, both
Talmuds, the Siphr6, Siphra, the Zohar, and many other
works." Inscriptions on tombstones are proverbial for
exaggeration, and we all know the saying, " as mendacious
as an epitaph.*' But a glance at the catalogue of the

92 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

British Museum under the heading of Elijah Wilna, will
show that this inscription makes a praiseworthy exception.
We will find that this list might be lengthened by many
other works of great importance for Jewish life and
thought. His commentary to the Code of R. Joseph
Caro, in which one will find that in many cases he knew
the sources of the religious customs and usages, put
together in this work, better than its compiler himself,
would have been sufficient to place him at the head of
Halachic scholarship, whilst his notes and textual emenda-
tions to the Tosephta and Seder 01am, to the restoration
of which he contributed so much, would have sufficed to
establish his fame as a critic of the first order. And this
is the more astonishing when we consider that all this was
done without manuscripts or any other aid, and by mere
intuition. We cannot wonder that scholars who had
the opportunity of visiting great libraries and saw how
the emendations of the Gaon agreed sometimes with the
readings given in the best manuscripts exclaimed very
often : " Only by inspiration could he have found out
these secrets." We have no need to go so far; we shall
simply say with the Talmud, "The powers of the real
sage surpass those of the prophet.'* Nay, even had we
possessed only his Gleanings^ which form a kind of obiter
dicta on various topics of Jewish literature, the Gaon
would have remained a model of clear thinking and real
ingenuity for all future generations.

However, a real appreciation of the Gaon's greatness as
a scholar would only be possible either by a thorough
study of his works, to which I have alluded, or by giving
many specimens of them. The short space I am limited
to makes such an undertaking impossible. I shall there-

ELIJAH WILNA 93

fore use what remains to me to say a few words on the
salutary influence the Gaon had on his countrymen, the
Russian Jews.

The Russian Jew is still a riddle to us. We know this
strange being only from the Reports of the Board of
Guardians or from bombastic phrases in public speeches ;
for he has always been the victim of platform orators,

So over violent or over civil,

That every man with them is God or Devil.

From all, however, that I can gather from the best Jewish
writers in Russia, I can only judge that the Russian Jew,
when transplanted to a foreign soil, where he is cut off
from the past and uncertain of his future, is for the time
at least in a position in which his true character cannot be
truly estimated. His real life is to be sought in his own
country. There, amidst his friends and kinsmen who are
all animated by the same ideals, attached to the same tra-
ditions, and proud of the same religious and charitable
institutions, everything is full of life and meaning to him.
Thus, a certain Russian writer addresses his younger col-
leagues who find so much fault with the bygone world:
" Go and see how rich we always were in excellent men.
In every town and every village you would find scholars,
saints, and philanthropists. Their merits could sustain
worlds, and each of them was an ornament of Israel."
And he proceeds to give dozens of names of such excel-
lent men, who are not all indeed known to us, but with
whom the Russian Jew connects many noble and pious
reminiscences of real greatness and heroic self-denial, and
of whom he is justly proud.

g^ STUDIES IN JUDAISM

The focus, however, of all this spiritual life is the Yeshi-
bah (Talmudical College)^ in Walosin. I hope that a
glance at its history and constitution will not be found
uninteresting. The intellectual originator of this institu-
tion which bears the name Ycshibah Ets C/iayim (Tree of"
Life College ),22 was the Gaon himself. Being convinced
that the study of the Torah is the very life of Judaism, but
that this study must be conducted in a scientific, not in a
scholastic way, he bade his chief disciple, the R. Chayim
already mentioned, to found a college in which Rabbinical
literature should be taught according to his own true
method. It would seem that, as long as the Gaon was
alive, R. Chayim preferred to be a pupil rather than a
teacher. When, however, the Gaon died, R. Chayim did
not rest till he had carried out the command of his master,
and in the year 1803 the College was opened in Walosin.
The cloth manufacturer and disciple now became Rabbi
and master. He began on a small scale, teaching at first
only a few pupils. But even for the sustenance of a small
number he had not sufficient means, and his pious wife
sold her jewellery to help him in accomplishing his favour-
ite plan. This is the best refutation of the French prov-
erb Avare comme une Rabbine. The number, however,
increased daily, and before he died (1828), he was fortunate
enough to lecture to a hundred students. The number of
students in the year 1888 amounted to 400, and the Rus-
sian Jews are thus right in asserting that they have the
greatest Talmudical College in the world. It is evident
that no private charity by a single man, however great,
could suffice to maintain such large numbers. Thus R.
Chayim was already compelled to appeal to the liberality
of his Russian brethren. The name of R. Chayim, and

ELIJAH WILNA 95

the still greater name of his master, were recommendation
enough, and besides private offerings, many communities
promised large sums towards supporting the students in
Walosin. From time to time also messengers are sent out
by the committee to promote the interests of the Yeshi-
bah. The writers to whom I owe these data tell us that
these messengers travel to all parts of the world to collect
offerings for Walosin : so that it is a standing joke with
the students that the existence of the mythical river
Sambatyon^ may be questioned after all, otherwise it
must long have been discovered by these messengers who
explore the whole world in their journeys. But it would
seem that this world is only a very small one. For the
whole income of the Yeshibah has never exceeded the
sum of about ;^i8oo. Of this a certain part is spent in
providing the salaries of the teaching staff and proctors,
and on the repairs of the building; whilst the rest is
distributed amongst the students. Considering that no
scholarship exceeds £12, — it is only the forty immortals
of Walosip who receive such high stipends — considering
again that the great majority of the students belong to the
poorer classes and thus receive no remittance from their
parents, we may be sure that the words of the Talmud :
** This is the way to study the Torah ; eat bread and salt,
drink water by measure, sleep on the earth, and live a
life of care," are carried out by them literally. But it
would seem that the less they eat and the less they sleep,
the more they work. Indeed the industry and the enthu-
siasm of these Bachurim {alumni)'^ in the study of the
Torah is almost unsurpassable. The official hours alone
extend from nine in the morning until ten in the evening,
while many of the students volunteer to continue their

g6 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

studies till the middle of the night, or to begin the day at
three in the morning.

As to the subject of these studies, it is confined, as may
be imagined, to the exploration of the old Rabbinic litera-
ture in all its branches. But it would be a mistake to think
that the modern spirit has left Walosin quite untouched.
It would be impossible that among 4CXD thinking heads
there should not be a few who are interested in mathemat-
ics, others again in philosophy or history, while yet others
would conjugate the irregular verbs of some classical lan-
guage when moving to and fro over their Talmud folios
and pretending to ^Heam'' Indeed, almost all the writers
who demand that these subjects should be introduced as
obligatory into the programme of Walosin, belonged them-
selves to this Yeshibah. And it is these writers who
betray the secret how secular knowledge is now invading
the precincts of Walosin, as well as of other Talmudical
Colleges in spite of all obstacles and prohibitions. In
conquering these difficulties seem to consist the pleasures
of life of many Bachurim at Walosin. Look onl^ at that
undergraduate, how, after a heavy day's work he is stand-
ing there in the street reading Buckle's History of Civili-
sation in the moonlight ! Poor man, he is not so romantic
as to prefer the moonlight to a cheerful, warm room, with
the more prosaic light of a candle, but he has got tired of
knocking at the door, for his landlady, to whom he has
neglected to pay rent for the last three terms, made up
her mind to let him freeze to-night. But still more cruel
to him is his fellow-sufferer, who is also wandering in the
streets with an overloaded brain and empty stomach ; he
roughly shakes him out of his dreams by telling him that
Buckle is long ago antiquated, and that he had better

ELIJAH WILNA 97

Study the works of Herbert Spencer, who has spoken the
last word on every vital subject in the world. Still these
two starving and freezing representatives of English
thought in Walosin form only an exception. The gen-
eral favourites are the representatives of Jewish thought
That such books as the Guide of the Perplexed^ by Mai-
monides, the Metaphysical Researches of Levi b. Ger-
shom,^ and other philosophical works of the Spanish
school are read by the Walosin students it is needless to
say. These books now form a part of the Rabbinic litera-
ture, and it would be almost unorthodox to suspect their
readers. But is worth noticing that even the productions
of the modern historico-critical school, such as the works
of Zunz, Frankel, Graetz, Weiss, are very popular with
the Bachurim, being much read and discussed by them.

Thus Walosin deserves rightly to be considered as the
centre of Jewish thought in Russia, in which the spirit of
the Gaon is still working.

I have very often, however, heard doubts expressed as
to the continuance of this spirit when, as it is to be hoped,
better times come for the Jews in Russia. Is it not to be
feared that liberty and emancipation will render untenable
ideas and notions which arose under entirely different cir-
cumstances ? There is no need of entertaining such fears.
Rabbi Jedaiah of Bedres^ concludes his philosophical
work Examination of the Worlds with the following words :
" The conclusion of the whole matter is, go either to the
right, my heart, or go to the left, but believe all that R.
Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides) has believed, the last of
the Gaonim by time, but the first in rank." About five
hundred years have passed away since these lines were
written. Time, as we have seen, has brought another

gg STCDIES I\ JUDAISM

Gaon, and probably Time will favour us in future with
still another. But times have also altered. The rebel-
lious hearts of a liberal age are not likely to obey always
the command, "believe all that the Gaon said.** But the
heart of man will in all ages retain idealism enough to
love and revere the greatest of men and to follow what
was best in them.

NACHMANIDESi

R. Chayim Vital, in his Book of the Transmigrations of
Soulsy gives the following bold characteristic of the two
great teachers of Judaism, Maimonides and Nachmanides.
Their souls both sprang forth from the head of Adam —
it is a favourite idea of the Cabbalists to evolve the whole
of ideal humanity from the archetype Adam — but the
former, Maimonides, had his genius placed on the left
curl of Adam, which is all judgment and severity, whilst
that of the latter, Nachmanides, had its place on the right
curl, which represents rather mercy and tenderness.

I start from these words in order to avoid disappoint-
ment. For Nachmanides was a great Talmudist, a great
Bible student, a great philosopher, a great controversialist,
and, perhaps, also a great physician ; in one word, great
in every respect, possessed of all the culture of his age.
But, as I have already indicated by the passage quoted by
way of introduction, it is not of Nachmanides in any of
these excellent qualities that I wish to write here. For
these aspects of his life and mind I must refer the reader
to the works of Graetz, Weiss, Steinschneider, Perles, and
others. I shall mostly confine myself to those features
and peculiarities in his career and works which will illus-
trate Nachmanides the tender and compassionate, the

lOO STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Nachmanides who represented Judaism from the side of
emotion and feeling, as Maimonides did from the side of
reason and logic.

R. Moses ben Nachman, or Bonastnic de Portas, as he
was called by his fellow-countrymen, or Nachmanides, as
he is commonly called now, was bom in Gerona about the
year 1 195. Gerona is a little town in the province of Cata-
lonia in Spain. But though in Spain, Gerona was not
distinguished for its philosophers or poets like Granada,
Barcelona, or Toledo. Situated as it was in the North of
Spain, Gerona was under the influence of Franco-Jewish
sympathies, and thus its boast lay in the great Talmudists
that it produced. I shall only mention the name of
R. Zerahiah Hallevi Gerundi — so-called after his native
place — whose strictures on the Code of R. Isaac Alf asi,
which he began as a youth of nineteen years, will always
remain a marvel of critical insight and independent re-
search. Nachmanides is supposed by some authors to
have been a descendant of R. Isaac ben Reuben of Barce-
lona, whose hymns are still to be found in certain rituals.
The evidence for this is insufficient, but we know that he
was a cousin of R. Jonah Gerundi, not less famous for his
Talmudic learning than for his saintliness and piety.
Nachmanides thus belonged to the best Jewish families
of Gerona. Various great men are mentioned as his
teachers, but we have certainty only about two, namely
R. Judah ben Yakar, the commentator of the prayers,
and R. Meir ben Nathan of Trinquintaines. The mystic,
R. Ezra (or Azriel), is indeed alleged to have been his
instructor in the Cabbalah, and this is not impossible, as
he also was an inhabitant of Gerona ; but it is more prob-
able that Nachmanides was initiated into the Cabbalah by

NACHMANIDES jOi

the R. Judah just mentioned, who also belonged to the
mystical school.

Whoever his masters were, they must have been well
satisfied with their promising pupil, for he undertook, at
the age of fifteen, to write supplements to the Code of
R. Isaac Alfasi. Nor was it at a much later date that he
began to compose his work, The Wars of the Lord, in
which he defends this great codifier against the strictures
of R. Zerahiah, to which we have referred above. I shall
in the course of this essay have further occasion to speak
of this latter work; for the present we will follow the
career of its author.

Concerning the private life of Nachmanides very little
has come down to us. We only know that he had a
family of sons and daughters. He was not spared the
greatest grief that can befall a father, for he lost a son ;
it was on the day of the New Year.^ On the other hand,
it must have been a great source of joy to him when he
married his son Solomon to the daughter of R. Jonah,
whom he revered as a saint and a man of God. As a
token of the admiration in which he held his friend, the
following incident may be mentioned. It seems that it
was the custom in Spain to name the first child in a
family after his paternal grandfather ; but Nachmanides
ceded his right in behalf of his friend, and thus his
daughter-in-law's first son was named Jonah. Another
son of Nachmanides whom we know of was Nachman, to
whom his father addressed his letters from Palestine, and
who also wrote Novellae to the Talmud, still extant in MS.
But the later posterity of Nachmanides is better known
to fame. R. Levi ben Gershom was one of his descend-
ants; so was also R. Simeon Duran;^ whilst R. Jacob

I02 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Sasportas, in the eighteenth century,* derived his pedigree
from Nachmanides in the eleventh generation.

As to his calling, he was occupied as Rabbi and teacher,
first in Gerona and afterwards in Barcelona. But this
meant as much as if we should say of a man that he is
a philanthropist by profession, with the only difference
that the treasures of which Nachmanides disposed were
more of a spiritual kind. For his livelihood he probably
depended upon his medical practice.

I need hardly say that the life of Nachmanides, "whose
words were held in Catalonia in almost as high authority
as the Scriptures," was not without its great public events.
At least we know of two.

The one was about the year 1232, on the occasion of
the great struggle about Maimonides' Guide of the Per-
plexed^ and the first book of his great Compendium of
the Law. The Maimonists looked upon these works
almost as a new revelation, whilst the Anti-Maimonists
condemned both as heretical, or at least conducive to
heresy.^ It would be profitless to reproduce the details
of this sad affair. The motives may have been pure and
good, but the actions were decidedly bad. People de-
nounced each other, excommunicated each other, and did
not (from either side) spare even the dead from the most
bitter calumnies. Nachmanides stood between two fires.
The French Rabbis, from whom most of the Anti-
Maimonists were recruited, he held in very high esteem
and considered himself as their pupil. Some of the
leaders of this party were also his relatives. He, too,
had, as we shall see later on, a theory of his own about
God and the world little in agreement with that of Mai-
monides. It is worth noting that Nachmanides objected

NACHMANIDES

103

to calling Maimonides "our teacher Moses" (Rabbenu
Mosheh),^ thinking it improper to confer upon him the
title by which the Rabbis honoured the Master of the
Prophets. The very fact, however, that he had some
theory of the Universe shows that he had a problem to
solve, whilst the real French Rabbis were hardly troubled
by difficulties of a metaphysical character. Indeed,
Nachmanides pays them the rather doubtful compliment
that Maimonides* work was not intended for them, who
were barricaded by their faith and happy in their belief,
wanting no protection against the works of Aristotle and
Galen, by whose philosophy others might be led astray.
In other words, their strength lay in an ignorance of
Greek philosophy, to which the cultivated Jews of Spain
would not aspire. Nachmanides was also a great admirer
of Maimonides, whose virtues and great merits in the
service of Judaism he describes in his letter to the French
Rabbis. Thus, the only way left open to him was to play
the part of the conciliator. The course of this struggle
is fully described in every Jewish history. It is sufficient
to say that, in spite of his great authority, Nachmanides
was not successful in his effort to moderate the violence
of either party, and that the controversy was at last set-
tled through the harsh interference of outsiders who well-
nigh crushed Maimonists and Anti-Maimonists alike.

The second public event in the life of Nachmanides
was his Disputation, held in Barcelona, at the Court and
in the presence of King Jayme I., of Aragon, in the year
1263. It was the usual story. A convert to Christianity,
named Pablo Christiani, who burned with zealous anxiety
to see his former co-religionists saved, after many vain
attempts in this direction, applied to the King of Aragon

I04 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

to order Nachmanides to take part in a public disputation.
Pablo maintained that he could prove the justice of the
Messianic claims of Jesus from the Talmud and other
Rabbinic writings. If he could only succeed in convinc-
ing the great Rabbi of Spain of the truth of his argument,
the bulk of the Jews was sure to follow. By the way,
it was the same Talmud which some twenty years pre-
viously was, at the instance of another Jewish convert,
burned in Paris, for containing passages against Chris-
tianity. Nachmanides had to conform with the command
of the king, and, on the 2ist of July, 1263, was begun
the controversy, which lasted for four or five days.

I do not think that there is in the whole domain of
literature less profitable reading than that of the contro-
versies between Jews and Christians. These public dis-
putations occasionally forced the Jews themselves to
review their position towards their own literature, and
led them to draw clearer distinctions between what they
regarded as religion and what as folklore. But beyond
this, the polemics between Jews and Christians were
barren of good results. If you have read one you have
read enough for all time. The same casuistry and the
same disregard of history turn up again and again.
Nervousness and humility are always on the side of the
Jews, who know that, whatever the result may be, the
end will be persecution ; arrogance is always on the side
of their antagonists, who are supported by a band of
Knights of the Holy Cross, prepared to prove the sound-
ness of their cause at the point of their daggers.

Besides, was there enough common ground between
Judaism and thirteenth century Christianity to have jus-
tified the hope of a mutual understanding? The Old

NACHMANIDES IO5

Testament was almost forgotten in the Church. The
First Person in the Trinity was leading a sort of shadowy
existence in art, which could only be the more repulsive
to a Jew on that account. The largest part of Church
worship was monopolised by devotion to the Virgin
Mother, prayers to the saints, and kneeling before their
relics. And a Jew may well be pardoned if he did not
entertain higher views of this form of worship than Lu-
ther and Knox did at a later period. It will thus not be
worth our while to dwell much on the matter of this
controversy, in which the essence of the real dispute is
scarcely touched. There are only two points in it which
are worth noticing. The first is that Nachmanides de-
clared the Agadoth^ in the Talmud to be only a series
of sermons (he uses this very word), expressing the indi-
vidual opinions of the preacher, and thus possessing no
authoritative weight. The convert Pablo is quite aghast
at this statement, and accuses Nachmanides of heter-
odoxy.

Secondly, — and here I take leave to complete the
rather obscure passage in the controversy by a parallel
in his book. The Date of Redemption^ quoted by Azariah
de Rossi — that the question of the Messiah is not of that
dogmatic importance to the Jews that Christians imagine.
For even if Jews supposed their sins to be so great that
they forfeited all the promises made to them in the Script-
ures, or that, on some hidden ground, it would please the
Almighty never to restore their national independence,
this would in no way alter the obligations of Jews towards
the Torah. Nor is the coming of the Messiah desired by
Jews as an end in itself. For it is not the goal of their
hopes that they shall be able again to eat of the fruit of

I06 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Palestine, or enjoy other pleasures there; not even the
chance of the restoration of sacrifices and the worship of
the Temple is the greatest of Jewish expectations (con-
nected with the appearance of the Messiah). What
makes them long for his coming is the hope that they
will then witness, in the company of the prophets and
priests, a greater spread of purity and holiness than is
now possible. In other words, the possibility for them
to live a holy life after the will of God will be greater
than now. But, on the other hand, considering that such
a godly life under a Christian government requires greater
sacrifices than it would under a Jewish king; and, con-
sidering again that the merits and rewards of a good act
increase with the obstacles that are in the way of execut-
ing it — considering this, a Jew might even prefer to live
under the King of Aragon than under the Messiah, where
he would perforce act in accordance with the precepts of
the Torah.

Now there is in this statement much that has only to
be looked upon as a compliment to the government of
Spain. I am inclined to think that if the alternative laid
before Nachmanides had been a really practical one, he
would have decided in favour of the clement rule of the
Messiah in preference to that of the most cruel king
on earth. But the fact that he repeats this statement
in another place, where there was no occasion to be over
polite to the Government, tends to show, as we have said,
that the belief in the Messiah was not the basis on which
Nachmanides' religion was built up.

The result of the controversy is contested by the dif-
ferent parties; the Christian writers claim the victory
for Pablo, whilst the Jewish documents maintain that

NACHMANIDES

107

the issue was with Nachmanides. In any case, ^^ Der
Jude wird verbrannt'' For in the next year (1264) all
the books of the Jews in Aragon were confiscated and
submitted to the censorship of a commission, of which
the well-known author of the Pugio Fidei, Raymund
Martini, was, perhaps, the most important member. The
books were not burned this time, but had to suffer a
severe mutilation ; the anti-Christian passages, or such as
were supposed to be so, were struck out or obliterated.
Nachmanides' account of the controversy, which he
probably published from a sense of duty towards those
whom he represented, was declared to contain blasphemies
against the dominant religion. The pamphlet was con-
demned to be burned publicly, whilst the author was, as
it seems, punished with expulsion from his country. It
is not reported where Nachmanides found a home during
the next three years; probably he had to accept the
hospitality of his friends, either in Castile or in the
south of France; but we know that in the year 1267 he
left Europe and emigrated to Palestine.

Nachmanides was, at this juncture of his life, already
a man of about seventy.. But it would seem as if the
seven decades which he had spent in the Spanish Penin-
sula were only meant as a preparation for the three years
which he was destined to live in the Holy Land, for it
was during this stage of his life that the greatest part of
his Commentary on the Pentateuch was written. In this
work, as is agreed on all sides, his finest thoughts and
noblest sentiments were put down.

Before proceeding to speak of his works, let us first
cast a glance at his letters from Palestine, forming as
they do a certain link between his former life and that

I08 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

which was to occupy him exclusively for the rest of his
days. We have three letters, the first of which I shall
translate here in extenso.

The letter was written soon after his arrival at
Jerusalem in the year 1267. It was addressed to his
son Nachman, and runs as follows : —

" The Lord shall bless thee, my son Nachman, and thou shalt
see the good of Jerusalem. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's
children (Ps. cxxviii.), and thy table shall be like that of our
father Abraham ! * In Jerusalem, the Holy City, I write this
letter. For, thanks and praise unto the rock of my salvation,
I was thought worthy by God to arrive here safely on the 9th
of the month of Elul, and I remained there till the day after the
Day of Atonement. Now I intend going, to Hebron, to the
sepulchre of our ancestors, to prostrate myself, and there to dig
my grave. But what am I to say to you with regard to the
country ? Great is the solitude and great the wastes, and, to
characterise it in short, the more sacred the places, the greater
their desolation ! Jerusalem is more desolate than the rest
of the country : Judaea more than Galilee. But even in this
destruction it is a blessed land. It has about 2000 inhabitants,
about 300 Christians live there who escaped the sword of the
Sultan. There are no Jews. For since the arrival of the Tar-
tars, some fled, others died by the sword. There are only two
brothers, dyers by trade, who have to buy their ingredients
from the government. There the Ten Men^^ meet, and on
Sabbaths they hold service at their house. But we encouraged
them, and we succeeded in finding a vacant house, built on pillars
of marble with a beautiful arch. That we took for a synagogue.
For the town is without a master, and whoever wiU take possession
of the ruins can do so. We gave our offerings towards the repairs
of the house. We have sent already to Shechem to fetch some
scrolls of the Law from there which had been brought thither
from Jerusalem at the invasion of the Tartars. Thus they will
organise a synagogue and worship there. For continually people
crowd to Jerusalem, men and women, from Damascus, Zobah

NACHMANIDES

109

(Aleppo)," and from all parts of the country to see the Sanctu-
ary and to mourn over it. He who thought us worthy to let us
see Jerusalem in her desertion, he shall bless us to behold her
again, built and restored, when the glory of the Lord will return
unto her. But you, my son, and your brothers and the whole of
our family, you all shall live to see the salvation of Jerusalem and
the comfort of Zion. These are the words of your father who
is yearning and forgetting, who is seeing and enjoying, Moses
ben Nachman. Give also my peace to my pupil Moses, the son
of Solomon, the nephew of your mother. I wish to tell him . . .
that there, facing the holy temple, I have read his verses, weeping
bitterly over them. May he who caused his name to rest in the
Holy Temple increase your peace together with the peace of the
whole community."

This letter may be illustrated by a few parallels taken
from the appendix to Nachmanides' Commentary to the
Pentateucky which contains some rather incoherent notes
which the author seems to have jotted down when he
arrived in Jerusalem. After a lengthy account of the
material as well as the spiritual glories of the holy city
in the past, he proceeds to say : —

" A mournful sight I have perceived in thee (Jerusalem) ; only
one Jew is here, a dyer, persecuted, oppressed and despised. At
his house gather great and small when they can get the Ten Men.
They are wretched folk, without occupation and trade, consisting
of a few pilgrims and beggars, though the fruit of the land is still
magnificent and the harvests rich. Indeed, it is still a blessed
country, flowing with milk and honey. . . . Oh ! I am the man who
saw affliction. I am banished from my table, far removed from
friend and kinsman, and too long is the distance to meet again.
... I left my family, I forsook my house. There with my
sons and daughters, and with the sweet and dear children whom I
have brought up on my knees, I left also my soul. My heart and
my eyes will dwell with them for ever. . . . But the loss of all
this and of every other glory my eyes saw is compensated by hav-

1 10 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

ing now the joy of being a day in thy courts (O Jerusalem), visit-
ing the ruins of the Temple and crying over the ruined Sanctuary ;
where 1 am permitted to caress thy stones, to fondle thy dust, and
to weep over thy ruins. I wept bitterly, but I found joy in my
tears. I tore my garments, but I felt relieved by it."

Of some later date is his letter from Acra, which may
be considered as a sort of ethical will, and which has been
justly characterised as a eulogy of humility. Here is an
extract from it : —

" Accustom yourself to speak gently to all men at all times, and
thus you will avoid anger, which leads to so much sin. . . . Hu-
mility is the first of virtues ; for if you think how lowly is man, how
great is God, you will fear Him and avoid sinfulness. On the
humble man rests the divine glory ; the man that is haughty to
others denies God. Look not boldly at one whom you address.
. . . Regard every one as greater than thyself. . . . Remember
always that you stand before God, both when you pray and when
you converse with others. . . . Think before you speak. . . .
Act as I have bidden you, and your words, and deeds, and thoughts,
will be honest, and your prayers pure and acceptable before God."

The third letter is addressed to his son (R. Solomon T)
who was staying (in the service of the king) in Castile. It
is in its chief content a eulogy of chastity.^ Probably
Nachmanides had some dread of the dangerous allure-
ments of the court, and he begs his son never to do any-
thing of which he knows that his father would not approve,
and to keep his father's image always before his eyes.

As to his works, we may divide them into two classes.
The one would contain those of a strictly legalistic (Hala-
chic), whilst the other those of a more homiletic-exegetical
and devotional character (Agadic). As already indicated
in the preliminary lines of this paper, I cannot dwell long

NA CHMANIDES I j i

on the former class of our author's writings. It consists
either of Glosses or Novellas to the Talmud, in the style
and manner of the French Rabbis, or of Compendia of
certain parts of the Law after the model set by R. Isaac
Alfasi or Maimonides, or in defences of the " Earlier Au-
thorities " against the strictures made on them by a later
generation. A few words must be said with regard to these
defences ; for they reveal that deep respect for authority
which forms a special feature of Nachmanides' writings.
His Wars of the Lordy in which he defends Alfasi against
R. Zerahiah of Gerona, was undertaken when he was very
young, whilst his defence of the author of the Halachoth
Gedoloth^ against the attacks of Maimonides, which he
began at a much more mature age, shows the same defer-
ence "to the great ones of the past." Indeed, he says in
one place, " We bow before them (the earlier authorities),
and though their words are not quite evident to us we
submit to them '* ; or, as he expresses himself elsewhere,
"Only he who dips (deeply enough) in the wisdom of the
'ancient ones' will drink the pure (old) wine." But it
would be unjust to the genius of Nachmanides to repre-
sent him as a blind worshipper of authority. Humble and
generous in disposition, he certainly would bow before
every recognised authority, and he would also think it his
duty to take up the cudgels for him as long as there was
even the least chance of making an honourable defence.
But when this chance had gone, when Nachmanides was
fully convinced that his hero was in the wrong, he followed
no guide but truth. " Notwithstanding," he says in his
introduction to the defences of the Halachoth Gedolothy
" my desire and delight to be the disciple of the Earlier
Authorities, to maintain their views and to assert them, I

112 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

do not consider myself a 'donkey carrying books.' I will
explain their way and appreciate their value, but when
their views are inconceivable to my thoughts, I will plead
in all modesty, but shall judge according to the sight of
my eyes. And when the meaning is clear I shall flatter
none, for the Lord gives wisdom in all times and ages."
But, on the other hand, there seems to have been a certain
sort of literary agnosticism about Nachmanides which
made it very difficult for him to find the "clear meaning."
The passage in the Wars of the Lord to the effect " that
there is in the art (of commenting) no such certain demon-
stration as in mathematics or astronomy," is well known
and has often been quoted ; but still more characteristic of
this literary agnosticism is the first paragraph of the
above-mentioned defences of the Halachoth Gedoloth,
Whilst all his predecessors accepted, on the authority of
R. Simlai,^^ the number (613) of the commandments as
an uncontested fact, and based their compositions on it,
Nachmanides questions the whole matter, and shows that
the passages relating to this enumeration of laws are only
of a homiletical nature, and thus of little consequence.
Nay, he goes so far as to say, " Indeed the system how to
number the commandments is a matter in which I suspect
all of us (are mistaken) and the truth must be left to him
who will solve all doubts." We should thus be inclined to
think that this adherence to the words of the earlier Au-
thorities was at least as much due to this critical scepti-
cism as to his conservative tendencies.

The space left to me I shall devote to the second class
of his writings, in which Nachmanides worked less after
given types. These reveal to us more of his inner being,
and offer us some insight into his theological system.

NACHMANIDES

113

The great problem which seems to have presented
itself to Nachmanides' mind was less how to reconcile
religion with reason than how to reconcile man with
religion. What is man? The usual answer is not flat- ^
tering. He is an animal that owes its existence to the
same instinct that produces even the lower creatures, and
he is condemned, like them, to go to a place of worm and
maggot. But, may not one ask, why should a creature
so lowly born, and doomed to so hapless a future, be
burdened with the awful responsibility of knowing that
he is destined "to give reckoning and judgment before
the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He " } It
is true that man is also endowed with a heavenly soul,
but this only brings us back again to the antithesis of flesh
and spirit which was the stumbling-block of many a theo-
logical system. Nor does it help us much towards the solu-
tion of the indicated difficulty ; for what relation can there
be between this materia impura of body and the pure in-
tellect of soul.^ And again, must not the unfavourable
condition in which the latter is placed through this uncon-
genial society heavily clog and suppress all aspiration for
perfection } It is " a house divided against itself," doomed
to an everlasting contest, without hope for co-operation or
even of harmony.

The works The Sacred Letter and The Law of Man
may be considered as an attempt by Nachmanides, if not
to remove, at least to relieve the harshness of this antithe-
sis. The former, in which he blames Maimonides for fol-
lowing Aristotle in denouncing certain desires implanted
in us by nature as ignominious and unworthy of man,
may, perhaps, be characterised as a vindication of the
flesh from a religious point of view. The contempt in

1 14 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

which "that Greek," as Nachmanides terms Aristotle,
held the flesh is inconsistent with the theory of the
religious man, who believes that everything (including
the body, with all its functions) is created by God, whose
work is perfect and good, without impure or inharmonious
parts. It is only sin and neglect that disfigure God's crea^
tions. I cannot enter into any further details of this work,
but I may be permitted to remark that there is a very
strong similarity between the tendency of the Sacred
Letter and certain leading ideas of Milton. Indeed, if
the first two chapters of the former were a little con-
densed and put into English, they could not be better
summarised than by the famous lines in the Paradise
Lost : —

Whatever hypocrites austerely talk
Of purity, and place, and innocence,
Defaming as impure what God declares
Pure, and commands to some, leaves free to all,
Our Maker bids increase ; who bids abstain
But our destroyer, foe to God and man ?
Hail, wedded love, mysterious law! . . .
Far be it that I should write thee sin or blame
Or think thee unbefitting holiest place,
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets.

The second of these two works, the Law of Man^ may
be regarded as a sanctification of grief, and particularly
of the grief of griefs, death. The bulk of the book is
legalistic, treating of mourning rites, burial customs, and
similar topics; but there is much in the preface which
bears on our subject. For here again Nachmanides takes
the opportunity of combating a chilling philosophy, which
tries to arm us against suffering by stifling our emotions.

NACHMANIDES

IIS

" My son," he says, " be not persuaded by certain prop-
ositions of the great philosophers who endeavour to
harden our hearts and to deaden our sensations by their
idle comfort, which consists in denying the past and de-
spairing of the future. One of them has even declared
that there is nothing in the world over the loss of which
it is worth crying, and the possession of which would
justify joy. This is an heretical view. Our perfect
Torah bids us to be joyful in the day of prosperity and
to shed tears in the day of misfortune. It in no way
forbids crying or demands of us to suppress our grief. On
the contrary, the Torah suggests to us that to mourn over
heavy losses is equivalent to a service of God, leading
us, as it does, to reflect on our end and ponder over our
destiny."

This destiny, as well as Reward and Punishment in
general, is treated in the concluding chapter of the Law
of Man, which is known under the title of The Gate of
Reward}^ Nachmanides does not conceal from himself
the difficulties besetting inquiries of this description.
He knows well enough that in the last instance we must
appeal to that implicit faith in the inscrutable justice of
God with which the believer begins. Nevertheless he
thinks that only the "despisers of wisdom" would fail
to bring to this faith as full a conviction as possible, which
latter is only to be gained by speculation. I shall have
by and by occasion to refer to the results of this specula-
tion. Here we must only notice the fact of Nachmanides
insisting on the bodily resurrection which will take place
after the coming of the Messiah, and will be followed by
the Olam Habba i^ (the life in the world to come) of which
the Rabbis spoke.

Il6 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Irrational as this belief may look, it is only a conse-
quence of his theory, which, as we have seen, assigns even
to the flesh an almost spiritual importance. Indeed, he
thinks that the soul may have such an influence on the
body as to transform the latter into so pure an essence
that it will become safe for eternity. For, as he hints in
another place, by the continual practising of a thing the
whole man, the body included, becomes so identified with
the thing that we call him after it, just as the Holy Singer
said : I am prayer,^"^ so that —

Oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begins to cast a beam on the outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the soul^s essence,
Till all be made immortal.

But if even the body holds such a high position as to
make all its instincts and functions, if properly regulated,
a service of God, and to destine it for a glorious future of
eternal bliss and rejoicing in God, we can easily imagine
what a high place the soul must occupy in the system of
Nachmanides. To be sure it is a much higher one than
that to which philosophy would fain admit her. A beau-
tiful parable of the Persian poet Yellaladeen (quoted by
the late Mr. Lowell) narrates that " One knocked at the
beloved's door, and a voice asked from within, * Who is
there } * and he answered, * It is I.* Then the voice said,

* This house will not hold me and thee,' and the door was
not opened. Then went the lover into the desert and
fasted and prayed in solitude, and after a year he returned
and knocked again at the door, and again the voice asked

* Who is there } ' and he said * It is thyself ' ; and the door

NACHMANIDES

117

was opened to him." This is also the difference between
the two schools — the mystical and the philosophical —
with regard to the soul. With the rationalist the soul is
indeed a superior abstract intelligence created by God, but,
like all His creations, has an existence of its own, and is
thus separated from God. With the mystic, however, the
soul is God, or a direct emanation from God. " For he '
who breathes into another thing (Gen. ii. 7) gives unto it
something of his own breath (or soul)," and as it is said in
Job xxxii. 8, "And the soul of the Almighty giveth them
understanding." This emanation, or rather immanence —
for Nachmanid^s insists in another place that the Hebrew
term employed for it, Aziluth}^ means a permanent
dwelling with the thing emanating — which became mani-
fest with the creation of man, must not be confounded
with the moving soul (or the Nephesh CliayaH)}^ which is
common to man with all creatures.

It may be remarked here that Nachmanides endows all
animals with a soul which is derived from the " Superior
Powers," and its presence is proved by certain marks of
intelligence which they show. By this fact he tries to
account for the law prohibiting cruelty to animals, "all
souls belonging to God." Their original disposition was,
it would seem, according to Nachmanides, peaceful and
harmless.

About them frisking played
All beasts of earth, since wild, and of all chace
In wood or wilderness, forest or den.

It was only after man had sinned that war entered into
creation, but with the coming of the Messiah, when sin
will disappear, all the living beings will regain their \y

Il8 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

primaeval gentleness, and be reinstituted in their first
rights.

The special soul of man, however, or rather the " over-
soul," was pre-existent to the creation of the world,
treasured up as a wave in the sea or fountain of souls —
dwelling in the eternal light and holiness of God. There,
in God, the soul abides in its ideal existence before it
enters into its material life through the medium of man ;
though it must be noted that, according to Nachmanides*
belief in the Transmigration of souls, it is not necessary
to perceive in the soul of every new-born child, " a fresh
message from heaven " coming directly from the fountain-
head. Nachmanides finds this belief indicated in the com-
mandment of levirate marriage, where the child bom of
the deceased brother's wife inherits not only the name of
the brother of his actual father, but also his soul, and thus
perpetuates his existence on earth. The fourth verse of
Ecclesiastes ii. Nachmanides seems to interpret to mean
that the very generation which passes away comes up
again, by which he tries to explain the difficulty of God's
visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children ; the
latter being the very fathers who committed the sins.
However, whatever trials and changes the soul may have
to pass through during its bodily existence, its origin is in
God and thither it will return in the end, "just as the
waters rise always to the same high level from which their
source sprang forth."

It is for this man, with a body so superior, and a soul so
sublime — more sublime than the angels — that the world
was created. I emphasise the last word, for the belief in
the creation of the world by God from nothing forms,
according to Nachmanides, the first of the three funda-

NACHMANIDES

119

mental dogmas of Judaism. The other two also refer to
God's relation to the world and man. They are the belief
in God's Providence and his Yediah,^ Creation from
nothing is for Nachmanides the keynote to his whole
religion, since it is only by this fact, as he points out in
many places, that God gains real dominion over nature.
For, as he says, as soon as we admit the eternity of
matter, we must (logically) deny God even " the power of
enlarging the wing of a fly, or shortening the leg of an
ant." But the whole Torah is nothing if not a record of
God's mastery in and over the world, and of His miracu-
lous deeds. One of the first proclamations of Abraham
to his generation was that God is the Lord (or Master) of
the world (Gen. xviii. 33). The injunction given to Abra-
ham, and repeated afterwards to the whole of Israel (Gen.
xvii. 2, and Deut. xviii. 1 3), to be perfect with God, Nach-
manides numbers as one of the 613 commandments, and
explains it to mean that man must have a whole belief
in God without blemish or reservation, and acknowledge
Him possessed of power over nature and the world, man
and beast', devil and angel, power being attributable to
Him alone. Indeed, when the angel said to Jacob, " Why
dost thou ask after my name " (Gen. xxxii. 29), he meant
to indicate by his question the impotence of the heavenly
host, so that there is no use in knowing their name, the
power and might belonging only to God.

We may venture even a step further, and maintain that
in Nachmanides' system there is hardly room left for such
a thing as nature or "the order of the world." There are
only two categories of miracles by which the world is
governed, or in which God's Providence is seen. The
one is the category of the manifest miracles, as the ten

120 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

plagues in Egypt, or the crossing of the Red Sea; the
other is that of the hidden miracles, which we do not per-
ceive as such, because of their frequency and continuity.
" No man," he declares, " can share in the Torah of our
Teacher, Moses (that is, can be considered a follower of
the Jewish religion), unless he believes that all our affairs
and events, whether they concern the masses or the in-
dividual, are all miracles (worked by the direct will of
God), attributing nothing to nature or to the order of the
world." Under this second order he classes all the prom-
ises the Torah makes to the righteous, and the punish-
ments with which evil-doers are threatened. For, as he
points out in many places, there is nothing in the nature
of the commandments themselves that would make their
fulfilment necessarily prolong the life of man, and cause
the skies to pour down rain, or, on the other hand, would
associate disobedience to them with famine and death.
All these results can, therefore, only be accomplished in
a supernatural way by the direct workings of God.

Thus miracles are raised to a place in the regular
scheme of things, and the difficulty regarding ' the possi-
bility of God's interferences with nature disappears by
their very multiplication. But a still more important
point is, that, by this unbroken chain of miracles, which
unconditionally implies God's presence to perform them,
Nachmanides arrives at a theory establishing a closer
contact between the Deity and the world than that set
forth by other thinkers. Thus, he insists that the term
Shechmah, or Cabod^^ (Glory of God), must not be under-
stood, with some Jewish philosophers, as something sepa-
rate from God, or as glory created by God. " Were this
the case," he proceeds to say, " we could not possibly

NA CHMANIDES 1 2 1

say, 'Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place/
since every mark of worship to anything created involves
the sin of idolatry." Such terms as Shechinah, or Cabody
can- therefore only mean the immediate divine presence.
This proves, as may be noted in passing, how unphilo-
sophical the idea of those writers is who maintain that the
rigid monotheism of the Jews makes God so transcen-
dental that He is banished from the world. As we see,
it is just this assertion of His absolute Unity which not
only suffers no substitute for God, but also removes every
separation between Him and the world. Hence also
Nachmanides insists that the prophecy even of the suc-
cessors of Moses was a direct communion of God with
the prophet, and not, as others maintained, furnished
through the medium of an angel.

The third fundamental dogma, Yediah, includes, accord-
ing to Nachmanides, not only the omniscience of God —
as the term is usually translated — but also His recognition
of mankind and His special concern in them. Thus, he
explains the words in the Bible with regard to Abraham,
"For I know him'* (Gen. xviii. 19), to indicate the special
attachment of God*s Providence to the patriarch, which, on
account of his righteousness, was to be uninterrupted for
ever ; whilst in other places we have to understand, under
God's knowledge of a thing, his determination to deal with
it compassionately, as, for instance, when Scripture says
that God knew (Exod. ii. 25), it means that His relation to
Israel emanated from His attribute of mercy and love.
But just as God knows (which means loves) the world, He
requires also to be recognised and known by it. " For this
was the purpose of the whole creation, that man should
recognise and know Him and give praise to His name," as

122 STUDIES m JUDAISM

it is said, " Everything that is called by my name (mean-
ing, chosen to promulgate God*s name), for my glory have
I created it."

It is this fact which gives Israel their high prerogative,
for by receiving the Torah they were the first to know
God's name, to which they remained true in spite of all
adversities; and thus accomplished God*s intention in
creating the world. It is, again, by this Torah that the
whole of Israel not only succeeded in being real prophets
(at the moment of the Revelation), but also became Segu-
lah^ which indicates the inseparable attachment between
God and His people, whilst the righteous who never dis-
obey His will become the seat of His throne.

The position of the rest of humanity is also determined
by their relation to the Torah. " It is,** Nachmanides tells
us, " a main principle to know that all that man contrives
to possess of knowledge and wisdom is only the fruits of
the Torah or the fruits of its fruits. But for this know-
ledge there would be no difference between man and the
lower animated species. The existence of the civilised
nations of the world does not disprove this rule ** both
Christians and Mahometans being also the heirs of the
Torah. For when the Romans gained strength over
Israel they made them translate the Torah which they
studied, and they even accommodated some of their laws
and institutions to those of the Bible.** Those nations,
however, who live far away from the centre of the world
(the Holy Land) and never come into contact with Israel
are outside the pale of civilisation, and can hardly be
ranked together with the human species. " They are the
isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have
seen my glory.**

NACHMANIDES

123

What Nachmanides meant by maintaining that all know-
ledge and wisdom were " the fruits of the Torah, or the
fruits of these fruits/* will be best seen from his Commen-
tary on the Pentateuch. I have already made use of this
Commentary in the preceding quotations, but, being the
greatest of the works of Nachmanides, it calls for some
special attention by itself. Its general purpose is edifica-
tion, or as he says, " to appease the mind of the students
(labouring under persecution and troubles) when they read
the portion on Sabbaths and festivals, and to attract their
heart by simple explanations and sweet words." The ex-
planations occupy a considerable space. As Dr. Perles
has shown in his able essay on this work of Nachmanides,
our author neglected no resource of philology or archae-
ology accessible in his age which could contribute to es-
tablish the "simple explanations" on a sound scientific
basis. The prominent feature of this Commentary, how-
ever, is the "sweet words." Indeed, how sweet and sooth-
ing to his contemporaries must have been such words as
we read at the end of the " Song of Moses " (Deut. xxxii.) : j- \
" And behold there is nothing conditional in this Song. It
is a charter testifying that we shall have to suffer heavily
for our sins, but that, nevertheless, God will not destroy
us, being reconciled to us (though we shall have no merits),
and forgiving our sins for his name's sake alone. . . . And
so our Rabbis said. Great is this song, embracing as it
does both the past (of Israel) and the future, this world
and the world to come. . . . And if this song were the
composition of a mere astrologer we should be constrained
to believe in it, considering that all its words were ful-
filled. . How much more have we to hope with all our
hearts and to trust to the word of God, through the mouth

124 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

of his prophet Moses, the faithful in all his house, like unto
whom there was none, whether before him or after him."
A part of these sweet words may also be seen in the nu-
merous passages in which he attempts to account for
various laws, and to detect their underlying principles.

For though " the Torah is the expression of God's simple
and absolute will, which man has to follow without any
consideration of reward," still this will is not arbitrary, and
even that class of laws which are called chukkim ^ (which
means, according to some Jewish commentators, motive-
less decrees) have their good reasons, notwithstanding that
they are unfathomable to us. " They are all meant for the
good of man, either to keep aloof from us something hurt-
ful, or to educate us in goodness, or to remove from us an
evil belief and to make us know his name. This is what
they (the Rabbis) meant by saying that commandments
have a purifying purpose, namely, that man being purified
and tried by them becomes as one without alloy of bad
thoughts and unworthy qualities." Indeed, the soul of
man is so sensitive to every impurity that it suffers a sort
of infection even by an unintentional sin. Hence the in-
junction to bring a Korban (sacrifice) even in this case ;
the effect of the Korbatiy as its etymology (JCaraby^ indi-
cates, is to bring man back to God, or rather to facilitate
this approach. All this again is, as Nachmanides points
out, only an affluence from God's mercy and love to man-
kind. God derives no benefit from it. " If he be right-
eous what can he give thee } " And even those laws and
institutions which are intended to commemorate God's
wonders and the creation of the world (for instance, the
Passover festival and the Sabbath) are not meant for His
glorification, or, as Heine maliciously expressed it : —

NA CHMANIDES 1 2 5

Der Weltkapellenmeister hier oben
Er selbst sogar hort gerne loben
Gleichfalls seine Werke. . . .

" For all the honour (we give to Him), and the praising of
His work are counted by Him less than nothing and as
vanity to Him." What He desires is' that we may know
the truth, and be confirmed in it, for this makes us worthy
of finding in Him "our Protector and King."

The lessons which Nachmanides draws from the various
Biblical narratives also belong to these "sweet words."
They are mostly of a typical character. For, true as all
the stories in the Scriptures are, " the whole Torah is," as
he tells us (with allusion to Gen. v. i.), "the book of the
generations of Adam," or, as we should say, a history of
humanity written in advance. Thus the account of the
six days of the creation is turned into a prophecy of the
most important events which would occur during the suc-
ceeding six thousand years, whilst the Sabbath is a fore-
cast of the millennium in the seventh thousand, which will
be the day of the Lord. Jacob and Esau are, as in the
old Rabbinic homilies generally, the prototypes of Israel
and Rome ; and so is the battle of Moses and Joshua with
Amalek indicative of the war which Elijah and the
Messiah the son of Joseph will wage against Edom (the
prototype of Rome), before the Redeemer from the house
of David will appear.^ Sometimes these stories convey
both a moral and a pre-justification of what was destined to
happen to Israel. So Nachmanides* remarks with refer-
ence to Sarah's treatment of Hagar (Gen. xvi. 6) : " Our
mother Sarah sinned greatly by inflicting this pain on
Hagar, as did also Abraham, who allowed such a thing to
pass ; but God saw her affliction and rewarded her by a

126 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

son (the ancestor of a wild race), who would inflict on
the seed of Abraham and Sarah every sort of oppres-
sion/* In this he alluded to the Islamic empires. Nor
does he approve of Abraham's conduct on the occasion of
his coming to Egypt, when he asked Sarah to pass as his
sister (Gen. xii.). "Unintentionally/* Nachmanides says,
" Abraham, under the fear of being murdered, committed
a great sin when he exposed his virtuous wife to such a
temptation. For he ought to have trusted that God would
save both him and his wife. ... It is on account of this
deed that his children had to suffer exile under the rule of
Pharaoh. There, where the sin was committed, also the
judgment took place." It is also worth noticing that, in
opposition to Maimonides, he allows no apology for the
attack of Simeon and Levi on the population of Shechem
(Gen. xxxiv. 25). It is true that they were idolaters, im-
moral, and steeped in every abomination ; but Jacob and
his sons were not commissioned with executing justice on
them. The people of Shechem trusted their word, there-
fore they ought to have spared them. Hence Jacob's pro-
test, and his curse against their wrath, which would have
been quite unjustified had he looked on the action of his
sons as a good work.

Besides these typical meanings, the matters of the
Torah have also their symbolical importance, which places
them almost above the sphere of human conception ; they
are neither exactly what they seem to be nor entirely what
their name implies, but a reflex from things unseen, which
makes any human interference both preposterous and dan-
gerous. Of " the things called Tree of Life and Tree of
Knowledge," Nachmanides tells us that their mystery is
very great, reaching into higher worlds. Otherwise, why

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127

should God, who is good and the dispenser of good, have
prevented Adam from eating the fruit (of the latter), whilst
in another place he says : " And if thou wilt be worthy, and
understand the mystery of the word Bereshith^ (with
which the Torah begins), thou wilt see that in truth the
Scripture, though apparently speaking of matters here below
(on earth), is always pointing to things above (heaven); " for
"every glory and every wonder, and every deep mystery,
and all beautiful wisdom are hidden in the Torah, sealed
up in her treasures."

It is very characteristic of the bent of Nachmanides*
mind, that he is perhaps the first Jewish writer who men-
tions the apocryphal book The Wisdom of Solomon, which
he knew from a Syriac version, and which he believed to
be genuine. And when we read there (vii. 7-25), " Where-
fore I prayed and understanding was given to me. I called
upon God and the spirit of wisdom came upon me. . . .
For God has given me unmistakable knowledge to know
how the world was made, and the operations of the planets.
The beginning, ending, and midst of the times, the alter-
ations and the turnings of the sun, the changes of the
seasons, the natures of the living creatures and the furies
of the wild beasts, the force of the spirits and the reason-
ings of men, the diversities of plants and the virtues of the
roots. All such things that are either secret or manifest,
them I knew" — the wise king was, according to Nach-
manides(who quotes the passages which I have just cited),
speaking of the Torah, which is identical with this wis-
dom, a wisdom which existed before the creation, and by
which God planned the world. Hence it bears the impres-
sion of all the universe, whilst on the other hand when
it is said, "The king brought me into his chambers,"

128 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

those secret recesses of the Torah are meant in which all
the great mysteries relating to Creation and to the Chariot
(Ezekiel i.) are hidden.

We must content ourselves with these few sparks
struck from the glowing fires of these inner compart-
ments, which, imperfectly luminous as my treatment has
left them, may yet shed some light on the personality of
Nachmanides, which is the main object of this essay.
But I do not propose to accompany the mystic into the
" chambers of the king," lest we may soon get into a
labyrinth of obscure terms and strange ways of thinking
for which the Ariadne thread is still wanting. We might
also be confronted by the Fifty Gates of Understanding,
the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom, and the Two Hundred
and Thirty-One Permutations or Ciphers of the Alphabet,
the key to which I do not hold. It is also questionable
whether it would always be worth while to seek for it.
When one, for instance, sees such a heaping on of nouns
(with some Cabbalists) as the Land of Life, the Land of
Promise, the Lord of the World, the Foundation Stone,
Zion, Mother, Daughter, Sister, the Congregation of
Israel, the Twin Roes, the Bride, Blue, End, Oral Law,
Sea, Wisdom, etc., meant to represent the same thing or
attribute, and to pass one into another, one cannot pos-
sibly help feeling some suspicion that one stands before
a conglomerate of words run riot, over which the writer
had lost all control.

Indeed Nachmanides himself, in the preface to the
above-mentioned Commentary, gives us the kind advice
not to meditate, or rather brood, over the mystical hints
which are scattered over this work, "speculation being
(in such matters) folly, and reasoning over them fraught

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129

with danger." Indeed, the danger is obvious. I have,
to give one or two instances, already alluded to the theory
which accepts -the Torah or the Wisdom as an agent in
the creation of the world. But the mystic pushes further,
and asks for the Primal Being to which this Wisdom owes
its origin. The answer given is from the great Nothing,
as it is written. And the Wisdom shall be found from
Nothing.^ What is intended by this, if it means anything,
is probably to divest the first cause of every possible
quality which by its very qualifying nature must be limit-
ing and exclusive. Hence, God becomes the Unknowable.
But suppose a metaphysical Hamlet, who, handling words
indelicately, should impetuously exclaim. To be or not to
be, that is the question } — into what abyss of utter nega-
tions would he drag all those who despair, by his terrible
Nothing.

On the other hand, into what gross anthropomorphisms
may we be drawn by roughly handling certain metaphors
which some Cabbalists have employed in their struggling
after an adequate expression of God's manifestations in
His attribute of love, if we forget for a single moment
that they are only figures of speech, but liable to get
defiled by the slightest touch of an unchaste thought.

But the greater the dangers that beset the path of
mysticism, the deeper the interest which we feel in the
mystic. In connection with the above-mentioned warning,
Nachmanides cites the words from the Scriptures, "But
let not the priests and the people break through to come
up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them " (Exod.
xix. 24). Nevertheless, when we read in the Talmud the
famous story of the four Rabbis^ who went up into the
PardeSy or Garden of Mystical Contemplation, we do not

I30 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

withhold our sympathy, either from Ben Azzai, who shot
a glance and died, or from Ben Zoma, who shot a glance
and was struck (in his mind). Nay, we feel the greatest
admiration for these daring spirits, who, in their passion-
ate attempt to "break through" the veil before the
Infinite, hazarded their lives, and even that which is
dearer than life, their minds, for a single glance. And
did R. Meir deny his sympathies even to Other One
or Elisha ben Abuyah, who " cut down the plants " ?
He is said to have heard a voice from heaven, " Return,
oh backsliding children, except Other One,'* which pre-
vented his repentance. Poor fallen Acher, he mistook
hell for heaven. But do not the struggle and despair
which led to this unfortunate confusion rather plead for
our commiseration }

Nachmanides, however, in his gentle way, did not mean
to storm heaven. Like R. Akiba, " he entered in peace,
and departed in peace." And it was by this peacefulness
of his nature that he gained an influence over posterity
which is equalled only by that of Maimonides. "If he
was not a profound thinker," like the author of the Guide
of the Perplexed, he had that which is next best — " he
felt profoundly." Some writers of a rather reactionary
character even went so far as to assign to him a higher
place than to Maimonides. This is unjust. What a
blank would there have been in Jewish thought but for
Maimonides' great work, on which the noblest thinkers of
Israel fed for centuries ! As long as Job and Ecclesi-
astes hold their proper place in the Bible, and the Talmud
contains hundreds of passages suggesting difficulties re-
lating to such problems as the creation of the world, God's
exact relation to it, the origin of evil, free will and pre-

NACHMANIDES

131

destination, none will persuade me that philosophy does
not form an integral part of Jewish tradition, which, in its
historical developments, took the shape which Maimonides
and his successors gave to it. If Maimonides' Guide^
which he considered as an interpretation of the Bible and
of many strange sayings in the old Rabbinic homilies
in the Talmud, is Aristotelian in its tone, so is tradition
too; even the Talmud in many places betrays all sorts
of foreign influences, and none would think of declaring
it un-Jewish on this ground. I may also remark in pass-
ing that the certainty with which some writers deprecate
the aids which religion may receive from philosophy is
a little too hasty. For the question will always remain.
What religion } The religion of R. Moses of Tachau or
R. Joseph Jabez^ would certainly have been greatly
endangered by the slightest touch of speculation, while
that of Bachya,^ Maimonides, Jedaiah of Bedres, and
Delmedigo undoubtedly received from philosophy its
noblest support, and became intensified by the union.

But apart from that consideration, the sphere of the ac-
tivity of these two leaders seems to have been so widely
different that it is hardly just to consider them as antag-
onists, or at least to emphasise the antagonism too much.
Maimonides wrote his chief work, the Guide, for the few
elect, who, like Ibn Tibbon^^ for instance, would traverse
whole continents if a single syllogism went wrong. And
if he could be of use to one wise man of this stamp,
Maimonides would do so at the risk of "saying things
unsuitable for ten thousand fools." But with Nach-
manides, it would seem, it was these ten thousand who
formed the main object of his tender care. They are, as
we have seen, cultivated men, indeed " students," having

132 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

enjoyed a proper education; but the happy times of
abstract thinking have gone, and being under a perpetual
strain of persecutions and cares, they long for the Sabbath
and Festivals, which would bring them both bodily and
spiritual recreation. They find no fault with religion, a
false syllogism does not jar on their ears; what they are
afraid of is that, being engaged as they are, all the six
days of work, in their domestic affairs, religion may be
too good a thing for them. "To appease their minds,"
to edify them, to make life more sweet and death less
terrible to them, and to show them that even their weak-
nesses, as far as they are conditioned by nature, are not
irreconcilable with a holy life, was what Nachmanides
strove after. Now and then he permits them a glance
into the mystical world in which he himself loved to move,
but he does not care to stifle their senses into an idle
contemplation, and passes quickly to some more practical
application. To be sure, the tabernacle is nothing but a
complete map of the superlunar world; but nevertheless
its rather minute description is meant to teach us "that
God desires us to work."

This tendency toward being useful to the great majority
of mankind may account for the want of consistency of
which Nachmanides was so often accused. It is only the
logician who can afford to be thoroughgoing in his theory,
and even he would become most absurd and even danger-
ous but for the redeeming fact " that men are better than
•their principles." But with Nachmanides these "prin-
ciples" would have proved even more fatal. Could he,
for instance, have upset authority in the face of the ten
thousand ? They need to be guided rather than to guide.
But he does not want them to follow either the Gaon or

NACHMANIDES

133

anybody else slavishly, " the gates of wisdom never having
been shut," whilst on the other hand he hints to them that
there is something divine in every man, which places him
at least on the same high level with any authority. Take
another instance — his wavering attitude between the
Maimonists and the Anti-Maimonists, for which he was
often censured. Apart from other reasons, to which I
have pointed above, might he not have felt that, in spite
of his personal admiration for Maimonides* genius, he had
no right to put himself entirely on the side where there
was little room for the ten thousand who were entrusted
to his guidance, whilst the French Rabbis, with all their
prejudices and intolerance, would never deny their sym-
pathies to simple emotional folk .?

This tender and absorbing care for the people in gen-
eral may also account for the fact that we do not know
of a single treatise by Nachmanides of a purely Cabba-
listic character in the style of the Book of Weight, by
Moses de Leon, or the Orchard, by R. Moses Cordovora,
or the Tree of Life by R. Isaac Loria.^ The story that
attributes to him the discovery of the Zohar in a cave in
Palestine, from whence he sent it to Catalonia, needs as
little refutation as the other story connected . with his
conversion to the Cabbalah, which is even more silly and
of such a nature as not to bear repetition. The Lilac of
Mysteries ^ and other mystical works passed also for a
long time under his name, but their claim to this honour
has been entirely disproved by the bibliographers, and
they rank now among the psetidepigraphica. It is true
that R. Nissim, of Gerona, said of Nachmanides that he
was too much addicted to the belief in the Cabbalah, and
as a fellow-countryman he may have had some personal

134 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

knowledge about the matter. But as far as his writings
go, this belief finds expression only in incidental remarks
and occasional citations from the Bahir,^ which he never
thrusts upon the reader. It was chiefly when philosophy
called in question his deep sympathies with even lower
humanity, and threatened to withdraw them from those
ennobling influences under which he wanted to keep them,
that he asserted his mystical theories.

Nachmanides* inconsistency has also proved beneficial
in another respect. For mysticism has, by its over-
emphasising of the divine in man, shown a strong ten-
dency to remove God altogether and replace Him by the
creature of His hands. Witness only the theological
bubble of Shabbethai Tsebi — happily it burst quickly
enough — which resulted in mere idolatry (in more polite
language, Hero Worship) on the one side, and in the
grossest antinomianism on the other. Nachmanides,
however, with a happy inconsistency, combined with the
belief of man*s origin in God, a not less strong conviction
of man's liability to sin, of the fact that he does sin —
even the patriarchs were not free from it, as we have seen
above — and that this sin does alienate man from God.
This healthy control over man's extravagant idea of his
own species was with Nachmanides also a fruit of the
Torah, within the limits of which everything must move,
the mystic and his aspirations included, whilst its fair
admixture of 365 Do 7iofs with 248 Do's preserved him
from that " holy doing nothing " which so many mystics
indulged in, and made his a most active life.

Much of this activity was displayed in Palestine, "the
land to which the providence of God is especially at-
tached," and which was, as with R. Judah Hallevi, always

NACHMANIDES

135

"his ideal home.** There he not only completed his
Commentary on the Pentateuchy but also erected syna-
gogues, and engaged in organising communities, whose
tone he tried to elevate both by his lectures and by his
sermons. His career in Palestine was not a long one,
for he lived there only about three years, and in 1270
he must already have been dead. A pretty legend nar-
rates that when he emigrated to Palestine his pupils asked
him to give them a sign enabling them to ascertain the
day of his death. He answered them that on that day
a rift in the shape of a lamp would be seen in the tomb-
stone of his mother. After three years a pupil suddenly
noticed this rift, when the mourning over the Rabbi began.
Thus, stone, or anything else earthly, breaks finally, and
the life of the master passes into light.

What life meant to him, how deeply he was convinced
that there is no other life but that originating in God, how
deeply stirred his soul was by the consciousness of sin,
what agonies the thought of the alienation from God
caused him, how he felt that there is nothing left to him
but to throw himself upon the mercy of God, and how he
rejoiced in the hope of a final reunion with Him — of all
these sentiments we find the best expression in the follow-
ing religious poem, with which this paper may conclude.
Nachmanides composed it in Hebrew, and it is still pre-
served in some rituals as a hymn, recited on the Day of
Atonement. It is here given in the English translation of
Mrs. Henry Lucas.^

Ere time began, ere age to age had thrilled,
I waited in his storehouse, as he willed ;
He gave me being, but, my years fulfilled,

I shall be summoned back before the King.

136 STUDIES IiV JUDAISM

He called the hidden to the light of day,
To right and left, each side the fountain lay,
From out the stream and down the steps, the way
That led me to the garden of the King.

Thou gavest me a light my path to guide,
To prove my hearths recesses still untried ;
And as I went, thy voice in warning cried :

** Child ! fear thou him who is thy God and King !^^

True weight and measure learned my heart from thee ;
If blessings follow, then what joy for me !
If nought but sin, all mine the shame must be,
For that was not determined by the King.

I hasten, trembling, to confess the whole
Of my transgressions, ere I reach the goal
Where mine own words must witness Against my soul,
And who dares doubt the writing of the King?

Erring. I wandered in the wilderness,

In passion's grave nigh sinking powerless ;

Now deeply I repent, in sore distress.

That I kept not the statutes of the King !

With worldly longings was my bosom fraught,
Earth's idle toys and follies all I sought ;
Ah ! when he judges joys so dearly bought.

How greatly shall I fear my Lord and King !

Now conscience-stricken, humbled to the dust,
Doubting himself, in thee alone his trust.
He shrinks in terror back, for God is just —
How can a sinner hope to reach the King?

Oh, be thy mercy in the balance laid.

To hold thy servant's sins more lightly weighed,

When, his confession penitently made.

He answers for his guilt before the King.

NA CHMANIDES \ 3 7

Thine is the love, O God, and thine the grace,
That folds the sinner in its mild embrace ;
Thine the forgiveness, bridging o'er the space

'Twixt man's works and the task set by the King.

Unheeding all my sins, I cling to thee ;
I know that mercy shall thy footstool be :
Before I call, oh, do thou answer me,

For nothing dare I claim of thee, my King !

O thou, who makest guilt to disappear,
My help, my hope, my rock, I will not fear ;
Though thou the body hold in dungeon drear,
The soul has found the palace of the King !

Postscript

The third letter of Nachmanides to which I have
alluded above, is embodied in the following will by R.
Solomon, son of the martyr Isaac. Neither the date
nor the country of the testator is known, but style and
language make it probable that he was a Spanish Jew,
and lived in the fourteenth century. I give here a trans-
lation from the whole document as it is to be found in the
Manuscripts.

These are the regulations which I, Solomon, the son of the mar-
tyr. Rabbi Isaac, the son of R. Zadok, of blessed memory, draw
up for myself. That as long as I am in good health, and free
from accident, and think of it, I shall not eat before I have studied
one page of the Talmud or of its commentaries. Should I trans-
gress this rule intentionally, I must not drink wine on that day, or
I shall pay half a Zehub ^ to charity. Again, that I shall every
week read the Lesson twice in the Hebrew text, and once in the
Aramaic version. Should I intentionally omit completing the
Lesson as above, then I must pay two Zehubs to charity. Again,
that I shall every Sabbath take three meals, consisting of bread or
fruit. Should I omit to do so, I must give in gharitjr half a Zehub.

138 STUDIES m JUDAISM

Again, in order to subdue my appetites, and not to enjoy in this
world more than is necessary for the maintenance of my body, I
must not eat at one meal more than one course of meat, and not
more than two courses altogether; nor must I drink more than
two cups of wine at one meal, apart from the blessing-cup (over
which grace is said), except on Sabbath, Festivals, Chanukah (the
Maccabean Dedication Feast), New Moon, and at other religious
meals (for instance, wedding-dinners and similar festive occa-
sions). Again, I must not have any regular meal on the day pre-
ceding Sabbath or Festivals. I must not have during the day
more than one course, so that I shall enter upon the holy day with
a good appetite. Should I transgress this resolve intentionally
I shall have to fast a day, or to pay two Zehubs. Again, that I
shall not eat the fish called burbot,^ if I think of it. Again, even
on the above-mentioned days, I must not eat more than three
courses at a meal, nor drink more than three cups of wine, exclu-
sive of the blessing-cup. Again, ... I muist not swear by God,
nor mention the name of Heaven without a purpose, nor curse
any man in the name of God. Should I, God forbid, transgress
it, I must not drink more than one cup of wine on that day ex-
clusive of the blessing-cup. Should I, however, transgress this
after dinner, I must abstain from wine the following day. Should
I transgress it, I have to pay half a Zehub, Again, that I shall
get up every night to praise God, to supplicate for His mercy, and
to confess. On those nights when confession is not to be said
(Sabbaths and Festivals), I shall say hymns and psalms. This I
shall do when I am in my house, and in good health, free from
any accident. Should I transgress it, I shall drink not more than
one cup of wine the following day, except the blessing-cup. I
again take upon myself to give in charity the following proportion
of my expenditure — from each dress which I shall have made for
myself or for one member of my family, costing more than ten
ZehubSy I must pay one Pashut ^ for each ten Zehubs, Again, if
I should buy an animal, or a slave, or a female slave, or ground,
that I shall also pay at the same rate. And if I shall buy clothes
for sale, called fashas, I shall pay two Pashuts for each garment.
As often as I have occasion to say the benediction of thanksgiv-

NACHMANIDES

139

ings for having escaped danger I shall pay a Zehub, except when
I am travelling [also involving danger in those times!], in which
case I shall have to pay a Zehub on my arrival, and two Pashuts
daily during the journey. Again, from every kind of fish bought
for me, costing more than a Zehub, I shall pay a Pashut for each
Zehub, And also, if I shall be deemed worthy by God to marry
my children, and to be present at their wedding, to cause them to
give to the poor from the dowry brought to them by their wives,
whether in money or in kind, at the rate of one per cent. If God
will find me worthy of having sons, I must give in charity accord-
ing to my means at the time.

I shall also, between New Year and the Day of Atonement in
each year, calculate my profits during the past year and (after de-
ducting expenses) give a tithe thereof to the poor. Should I be
unable to make an accurate calculation, then I shall give approx-
imately. This tithe I shall put aside, together with the other
money for religious (charitable) purpose, to dispose of it as I
shall deem best. I also propose to have the liberty of employing
the money in any profitable speculation with a view to augment-
ing it. But in respect of all I have written above I shall not hold
myself guilty if I transgress, if such transgression be the result of
forgetfiilness ; but in order to guard against it, I shall read this
through weekly.

I also command my children to take upon themselves as many of
the above regulations as may be in their power to observe, and also
to bind them {i,e. the regulations), from generation to generation,
upon their children. And he who carries them out, and even
adds to them, at pain of discomfort to himself, shall merit a spe-
cial blessing. And this is the text of the will which I, the above-
mentioned Solomon, draw up for my children, may God preserve
them. That they shall pray thrice daily, and endeavour always
to utter their prayers with devotion. Again, that this prayer
shall be said in the Beth Hammidrash, or in the synagogue to-
gether with the congregation. Again, that they shall apply all their
powers to maintain the synagogues and the houses of study, which
our ancestors have built, as well as to continue the endowments
established by my ancestors and myself. They must always en-

I^o STUDIES IN JUDAISM

deavour to imitate them, so that goodness shall never cease from
among them. Again, that they shall always have a chair on
which a volume of the Talmud, or some other Talmudical work,
shall lie ; so that they shall always open a book when they come
home. At least, they shall read in any book they like four lines
before taking their meal. Again, that they shall every week read
the Lesson twice in the Hebrew text, and once in the Aramaic
version. Again, to take three meals on the Sabbath . . .

Again, that they shall be always modest, merciful, and chari-
table, for these are the qualities by which the children of Israel are
known. Let also all their thoughts and meditations be always di-
rected to the service of the Lord, and be as charitable and benevo-
lent as possible, for this is all that remains to man of his labour.
They shall also endeavour to regulate their diet according to the
rules laid down by Rabbi Moses (b. Maimon, or Maimonides), so
as to fulfil the words of Scripture : " The righteous eateth to the
satisfying of his soul." And let them always be careful not to take
the name of God in vain, to be honest in all business transactions,
and let their yea be always yea. They shall always be under the
obligation to train their children to the Study of the Torah, but
one shall devote his life exclusively to the study thereof. And
it shall be incumbent upon his brothers to support this one, and to
invest his moneys, and to provide for him that he and his family
may live respectably, so that he be not distracted by worldly cares
from his studies. Let also the elder love the younger brothers as
their own children, and the younger respect the elder as a parent.
Thus they may always bear in mind that they are of a God-fear-
ing family. Let them love and honour scholars, thus to merit the
honour of having scholars for their sons and sons-in-law. This
will they shall themselves read weekly, and shall also make it in-
cumbent upon their children, from generation to generation, to
read weekly, in order to fulfil what is written (Gen. xviii. 19),
" For I know him that he will command his children," etc., and
also the words of Isaiah (lix.21), " And this is my covenant," etc.
But as often as they shall read this will, they shall also read the
two letters below written, which Rabbi Moses ben Nachman sent
to his sons, with a view of being serviceable to them in many re^

NACHMANIDES

141

spects. Should, heaven forbid, they be by any sad accident pre-
vented from fulfilling the injunctions above laid down, they must
fine themselves by not drinking wine on that day, or by eating one
course less at the dinner, or by giving some fine in charity. . . .

And this is the letter which the above-mentioned Rabbi
sent from the Holy Land to Castile, when his son was
staying before the king (in his service) : —

"... May God bless you and preserve you from sin and pun-
ishment. Behold, our master, King David, had a son, wise and
of an understanding heart, like unto whom there was never one
before or after. Nevertheless he said to him (i Kings ii. 2) : * And
keep the charge of the Lord thy God,' etc. He also said to him :
*And thou, my son, know the God of thy father' (i Chron.
xxviii. 9). Now, my son, if thou wilt measure thyself with Solo-
mon, thou wilt find thyself a worm — not a man, merely an insect ;
nevertheless, if thou Wilt seek God, he will make thee great ; and if
thou wilt forsake him, thou wilt be turned out and forsaken. My
son, be careful that thou read the Shenta^ morning and evening,
as well as that thou say the daily prayers. Have always with thee
a Pentateuch written correctly, and read therein the Lesson for
each Sabbath. . . . *Cast thy burden upon the Lord,' for the
thing which thou believest far from thee is often very near unto thee.
Know, again, that thou art not master over thy words, nor hast
power over thy hand ; but everything is in the hand of the Lord,
who formeth thy heart. ... Be especially careful to keep aloof
from the women [of the court?]. Know that our God hates im-
morality, and Balaam could in no other way injure Israel than by
inciting them to unchastity. [Here come many quotations from
Malachi and Ezra.] . . . My son, remember me always, and let
the image of my countenance be never absent from before thine
eyes. Love not that which I hate. . . . Let the words of the
Psalmist be always upon thy lips, * I am a stranger in the earth :
hide not thy commandments from me ' (Ps. cxix. 19) ; and God,
who is good and the dispenser of good, shall increase thy peace
and prolong thy life in peace and happiness, and promote thy honour
according to thy wish and the wish of thy father who begat thee,
Moses ben Nachman."

A JEWISH BOSWELL

There is a saying in the Talmud " Nothing exists of
which there is not some indication in the Torah." These
words are often quoted, and some modem authors have
pressed them so far as to find even the discoveries of
Columbus and the inventions of Watt and Stephenson
indicated in the Law. This is certainly misapplied in-
genuity. But it is hardly an exaggeration to maintain
that there is no noble manifestation of real religion, no
expression of real piety, reverence, and devotion, to which
Jewish literature would not offer a fair parallel.

Thus it will hardly be astonishing to hear that Jewish
literature has its Boswell to show, more than three cen-
turies before the Scottish gentleman came to London to
admire his Johnson, and more than four centuries before
the Sage of Chelsea delivered his lectures on Hero Wor-
ship. And this Jewish Boswell was guided only by the
motives suggested to him in the old Rabbinic literature.
In this literature the reverence for the great man, and
the absorption of one's whole self in him, went so far
that one Rabbi declared that the whole world was only
created to serve such a man as company.^

Again, the fact that, in the language of the Rabbis,
the term for studying the Law and discussing it is "to

142

A JEWISH BOSWELL 1 43

attend " or rather " to serve the disciples of the Wise "
may also have led people to the important truth that the
great man is not a lecturing machine, but a sort of living
Law himself. "When the man," said one Rabbi, "has
wholly devoted himself to the Torah, and thoroughly
identified himself with it, it becomes almost his own
Torah.'* Thus people have not only to listen to his
words but to observe his whole life, and to profit from
all his actions and movements.

This was what the Jewish Boswell sought to do. His
name was Rabbi Solomon, of St. Goar, a small town on
the Rhine, while the name of the master whom he served
was R. Jacob, the Levite, better known by his initials
Maharil, who filled the office of Chief Rabbi in Mayence
and Worms successively. The main activity of Maharil
falls in the first three decades of the fifteenth century.
Those were troublous times for a Rabbi. For the pre-
ceding century with its persecution and sufferings — one
has only to think of the Black Death and its terrible con-
sequences for the Jews — led to the destruction of the
great Schools, the decay of the study of the Law, and
to the dissolution of many congregations. Those which
remained lost all touch with each other, so that almost
every larger Jewish community had its own Minhag or
ritual custom.2

It was Maharil who brought some order into this chaos,
and in the course of time his influence asserted itself
so strongly that the rules observed by him in the per-
forming of religious ceremonies were accepted by the
great majority of the Jewish communities. Thus the per-
sonality of Maharil himself became a standing Minhag,
suppressing all the other Minhagim (customs).

144 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

But there must have been something very strong and very
great about the personality of the man who could succeed
in such an arduous task. For we must not forget that
the Minhag or custom in its decay degenerates into a kind
of religious fashion, the worst disease to which religion
is liable, and the most difficult to cure. It is therefore
an irreparable loss both for Jewish literature and for Jewish
history, that the greatest part of Maharil's posthumous
writings are no longer extant, so that our knowledge about
him is very small. But the little we know of him we owe
chiefly to the communicativeness of his servant, the Solo-
mon of St. Goar whom I mentioned above.

Solomon not only gave us the " Customs " of his master,
but also observed him closely in all his movements, and
conscientiously wrote down all that he saw and heard,
under the name of Collectanea, It seems that the bulk
of these Collectanea was also lost. But in the fragments
that we still possess we are informed, among other things,
how Maharil addressed his wife, how he treated his pupils,
how careful he was in the use of his books, and even how
clean his linen was. Is this not out-Boswelling Boswell t

The most striking point of agreement between the
Boswell of the fifteenth and him of the eighteenth cen-
tury, is that they both use the same passage from the
Talmud to excuse the interest in trifles which their labours
of love betrayed. Thus Solomon prefaces his Collectanea
with the following words : " It is written. His leaf shall
not wither. These words were explained by our Sages
to mean that even the idle talk of the disciples of the wise
deserves a study. Upon this interpretation I have relied.
In my love to R. Jacob the Levite, I collected everything
about him. I did not refuse even small things, though many

A JEWISH BO SWELL 1 45

derided me. Everything I wrote down, for such was the
desire of my heart."

Thus far Solomon. Now, if we turn to the introduction
to Boswell's Life qf Johnson^ we read the following sen-
tence : " For this almost superstitious reverence, I have
found very old and venerable authority quoted by our
great modern prelate. Seeker, in whose tenth sermon
there is the following passage: * Rabbi Kimchi, a noted
Jewish commentator who lived about five hundred years
ago, explains that passage in the first Psalm, "His leaf
also shall not wither " from Rabbins yet older than him-
self, that even the idle talk, so he expressed it, of a good
man ought to be regarded. * "

Croker's note to* this passage sounds rather strange.
This editor says: "Kimchi was a Spanish Rabbi, who
died in 1240. One wonders that Seeker's good sense
should have condescended to quote this far-fetched and
futile interpretation of the simple and beautiful metaphor,
by which the Psalmist illustrates the prosperity of the
righteous man." Now Kimchi died at least five years
earlier than Croker states, but dates, we know from
Macaulay's essay on the subject, were not Croker's strong
point. But one can hardly forgive the editor of Boswell
this lack of sympathy. Had he known what strong
affinity there was between his most Christian author and
the humble Jew Solomon, he would have less resented
this condescension of Archbishop Seeker.

As for the Jewish Boswell himself, we know very little
about him. The only place in which he speaks about his
own person is that in which he derives his pedigree from
R. Eleazar ben Samuel Hallevi (died 1357), ^.nd says that
he was generally called " Der gute (the good) R. Salman."

1^6 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

He well deserved this appellation. In his Will we find
the following injunction to his children: "Be honest, and
conscientious in your dealing with men, with Jews as well
as Gentiles, be kind and obliging to them ; do not speak
what is superfluous/* And wisdom is surely rare enough
to render inappropriate a charge of superfluousness
against the work of those who in bygone times spent
their energies in gathering the crumbs that fell from the
tables of the wise.

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM

The object of this essay is to say about the dogmas of
Judaism a word which I think ought not to be left unsaid.

In speaking of dogmas it must be understood that
Judaism does not ascribe to them any saving power. The
belief in a dogma or a doctrine without abiding by its real
or supposed consequences (e.g, the belief in creatio ex
nihilo without keeping the Sabbath) is of no value. And
the question about certain doctrines is not whether they
possess or do not possess the desired charm against cer-
tain diseases of the soul, but whether they ought to be
considered as characteristics of Judaism or not.

It must again be premised that the subject, which occu-
pied the thoughts of the greatest and noblest Jewish
minds for so many centuries, has been neglected for a
comparatively long time. And this for various reasons.
First, there is Mendelssohn's assertion, or supposed asser-
tion, in his yerusalenty that Judaism has no dogmas — an
assertion which has been accepted by the majority of
modern Jewish theologians as the only dogma Judaism
possesses. You can hear it pronounced in scores of
Jewish pulpits ; you can read it written in scores of Jewish
books. To admit the possibility that Mendelssohn was in
error was hardly permissible, especially for those with

147

148 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

whom he enjoys a certain infallibility. Nay, even the fact
that he himself was not consistent m his theory, and on
> another occasion declared that Judaism has dogmas, only
that they are purer and more in harmony with reason than
those of other religions ; or even the more important fact
that he published a school-book for children, in which the
so-called Thirteen Articles were embodied, only that
instead of the formula " I believe," he substituted " I am
convinced,'* — even such patent facts did not produce
much effect upon many of our modern theologians.^
They were either overlooked or explained away so as to
make them harmonise with the great dogma of dogma-
lessness. For it is one of the attributes of infallibility
that the words of its happy possessor must always be
reconcilable even when they appear to the eye of the
unbeliever as gross contradictions.

Another cause of the neglect into which the subject has
fallen is that our century is an historical on^. It is not
only books that have their fate, but also whole sciences
and literatures. In past times it was religious speculation
that formed the favourite study of scholars, in our time it
is history with its critical foundation on a sound philology.
Now as these two most important branches of Jewish
science were so long neglected — were perhaps never cul-
tivated in the true meaning of the word, and as Jewish lit-
erature is so vast and Jewish history so far-reaching and
eventful, we cannot wonder that these studies have ab-
sorbed the time and the labour of the greatest and best
Jewish writers in this century.

There is, besides, a certain tendency in historical studies
that is hostile to mere theological speculation. The his-
torian deals with realities, the theologian with abstrac-

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM I49

tions. The latter likes to shape the universe after his
system, and tells us how things otight to be^ the former
teaches us how they are or have been^ and the explanation
he gives for their being so and not otherwise includes in
most cases also a kind of justification for their existence.
There is also the odium theologicum y which has been the
cause of so much misfortune that it is hated by the his-
torian, whilst the superficial, rationalistic way in which
the theologian manages to explain everything which
does not suit his system is most repulsive to the critical
spirit.

But it cannot be denied that this neglect has caused
much confusion. Especially is this noticeable in England,
which is essentially a theological country, and where
people are but little prone to give up speculation about
things which concern their most sacred interest and
greatest happiness. Thus whilst we are exceedingly poor
in all other branches of Jewish learning, we are compara-
tively rich in productions of a theological character. We
have a superfluity of essays on such delicate subjects as
eternal punishment, immortality of the soul, the day of
judgment, etc., and many treatises on the definition of
Judaism. But knowing little or nothing of the progress
recently made in Jewish theology, of the many protests
against all kinds of infallibility, whether canonised in this
century or in olden times, we in England still maintain
that Judaism has no dogmas as if nothing to the contrary
had ever been said. We seek the foundation of Judaism
in political economy, in hygiene, in everything except relig-
ion. Following the fashion of the day to esteem religion
in proportion to its ability to adapt itself to every possible
and impossible metaphysical and social system, we are

I50 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

anxious to squeeze out of Judaism the last drop of faith
and hope, and strive to make it so flexible that we can
turn it in every direction which it is our pleasure to fol-
low. But alas! the flexibility has progressed so far as
to classify Judaism among the invertebrate species, the
lowest order of living things. It strongly resembles a cer-
tain Christian school which addresses itself to the world in
general and claims to satisfy everybody alike. It claims
to be socialism for the adherents of Karl Marx and
Lassalle, worship of man for the followers of Comte and
St. Simon ; it carefully avoids the word " God " for the
comfort of agnostics and sceptics, whilst on the other hand
it pretends to hold sway over paradise, hell, and immortal-
ity for the edification of believers. In such illusions many
of our theologians delight. For illusions they are; you
cannot be everything if you want to be anything. More-
over, illusions in themselves are bad enough, but we are
menaced with what is still worse. Judaism, divested of
every higher religious motive, is in danger of falling into
gross materialism. For what else is the meaning of such
declarations as "Believe what you like, but conform to
this or that mode of life " ; what else does it mean but
" We cannot expect you to believe that the things you are
bidden to do are commanded by a higher authority ; there
is not such a thing as belief, but you ought to do them
for conventionalism or for your own convenience."

But both these motives — the good opinion of our
neighbours, as well as our bodily health — have nothing to
do with our nobler and higher sentiments, and degrade
Judaism to a matter of expediency or diplomacy. Indeed,
things have advanced so far that well-meaning but ill-
advised writers even think to render a service to Judaism

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 151

by declaring it to be a kind of enlightened Hedonism, or
rather a moderate Epicureanism.

I have no intention of here answering the question,
What is Judaism ? This question is not less perplexing
than the problem, What is God's world ? Judaism is also
a great Infinite, composed of as many endless Units, the
Jews. And these Unit-Jews have been, and are still,
scattered through all the world, and have passed under an
immensity of influences, good and bad. If so, how can
we give an exact definition of the Infinite, called Judaism }

But if there is anything sure, it is that the highest mo-
tives which worked through the history of Judaism are the
strong belief in God and the unshaken confidence that at
last this God, the God of Israel, will be the God of the
whole world; or, in other words. Faith and Hope are the
two most prominent characteristics of Judaism.

In the following pages I shall try to give a short
account of the manner in which these two principles of
Judaism found expression, from the earliest times down to
the age of Mendelssohn ; that is, to present an outline of
the history of Jewish Dogmas. First, a few observations
on the position of the Bible and the Talmud in relation to
our theme. Insufficient and poor as they may be in pro-
portion to the importance of these two fundamental docu-
ments of Judaism, these remarks may nevertheless suggest
a connecting link between the teachings of Jewish antiq-
uity and those of Maimonides and his successors.

I begin with the Scriptures.

The Bible itself hardly contains a command bidding us
to believe. We are hardly ordered, e.g.y to believe in the
existence of God. I say hardly, but I do not altogether
deny the existence of such a command. It is true that we

152 STUDIES IN JUDAISM .

do not find in the Scripture such words as : " You are
commanded to believe in the existence of God.'* Nor is
any punishment assigned as awaiting him who denies it.
Notwithstanding these facts, many Jewish authorities —
among them such important men as Maimonides, R.
Judah Hallevi, Nachmanides — perceive, in the first words
of the Ten Commandments, " I am the Lord thy God,"
the command to believe in His existence.^

Be this as it may, there cannot be the shadow of a
doubt that the Bible, in which every command is dictated
by God, and in which all its heroes are the servants, the
friends, or the ambassadors of God, presumes such a
belief in every one to whom those laws are dictated, and
these heroes address themselves. Nay, I think that the
word "belief" is not even adequate. In a world with so
many visible facts and invisible causes, as life and death,
growth and decay, light and darkness ; in a world where
the sun rises and sets ; where the stars appear regularly ;
where heavy rains pour down from the sky, often accom-
panied by such grand phenomena as thunder and light-
ning ; in a world full of such marvels, but into which no
notion has entered of all our modern true or false explana-
tions — who but God is behind all these things } " Have
the gates," asks God, " have the gates of death been open
to thee } or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of
death } . . , Where is the way where light dwelleth }
and as for darkness, where is the place thereof.^ . . .
Hath the rain a father } or who hath begotten the drops
of dew } . . . Canst thou bind the sweet influences of
Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion .«*... Canst thou
send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee.
Here we are } " (Job xxxviii.). Of all these wonders, God

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 153

was not merely the prima causa ; they were the result of
His direct action, without any intermediary causes. And
it is as absurd to say that the ancient world believed in
God, as for a future historian to assert of the nineteenth
century that it believed in the effects of electricity. We
see them, and so antiquity saw God. If there was any
danger, it lay not in the denial of the existence of a God,
but in having a wrong belief. Belief in as many gods
as there are manifestations in nature, the investing of
them with false attributes, the misunderstanding of God's
relation to men, lead to immorality. Thus the greater
part of the laws and teachings of the Bible are either
directed against polytheism, with all its low ideas of God,
or rather of gods ; or they are directed towards regulating
God's relation to men. Man is a servant of God, or His
prophet, or even His friend. But this relationship man
obtains only by his conduct. Nay, all man's actions are
carefully regulated by God, and connected with His holi-
ness. The 19th chapter of Leviticus, which is considered
by the Rabbis as the portion of the Law in which the
most important articles of the Torah are embodied, is
headed, " Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your own God
am holy." And each law therein occurring, even those
which concern our relations to each other, is not founded
on utilitarian reasons, but is ordained because the opposite
of it is an offence to the holiness of God, and profanes
His creatures, whom He desired to be as holy as He is.^
Thus the whole structure of the Bible is built upon the
visible fact of the existence of a God, and upon the belief
in the relation of God to men, especially to Israel. In
spite of all that has been said to the contrary, the Bible
does lay stress upon belief, where belief is required. The

154 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

unbelievers are rebuked again and again. "For all this
they sinned still, and believed not for His wondrous
work/* complains Asaph (Ps. Ixxviii. 32). And belief is
praised in such exalted words as, "Thus saith the Lord,
I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of
thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilder-
ness, in a land that was not sown*' (Jer. ii. 2). The Bible,
especially the books of the prophets, consists, in great
part, of promises for the future, which the Rabbis justly
termed the "Consolations.'** For our purpose, it is of
no great consequence to examine what future the prophets
had in view, whether an immediate future or one more
remote, at the end of days. At any rate, they inculcated
hope and confidence that God would bring to pass a
better time. I think that even the most advanced Bible
critic — provided he is not guided by some modern Aryan
reasons — must perceive in such passages as, "The Lord
shall reign for ever and ever," "The Lord shall rejoice
in his works," and many others, a hope for more than
the establishment of the "national Deity among his
votaries in Palestine."

We have now to pass over an interval of many centu-
ries, the length of which depends upon the views held
as to the date of the close of the canon, and examine
what the Rabbis, the representatives of the prophets,
thought on this subject. Not that the views of the
author of the Wisdom of Solomon, of Philo and Aristobu-
lus, and many others of the Judaeo-Alexandrian school
would be uninteresting for us. But somehow their influ-
ence on Judaism was only a passing one, and their doc-
trines never became authoritative in the Synagogue. We
must here confine ourselves to those who, even by the

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 155

testimony of their bitterest enemies, occupied the seat of
Moses.

The successors of the prophets had to deal with new
circumstances, and accordingly their teachings were
adapted to the wants of their times. As the result of
manifold foreign influences, the visible fact of the exist-
ence of God as manifested in the Bible had been some-
what obscured. Prophecy ceased, and the Holy Spirit
which inspired a few chosen ones took its place. After-
wards this influence was reduced to the hearing of a
Voice from Heaven, which was audible to still fewer.
On the other hand the Rabbis had this advantage that
they were not called upon to fight against idolatry as
their predecessors the prophets had been. The evil in-
clination to worship idols was, as the Talmud expresses
it allegorically, killed by the Men of the Great Syna-
gogue, or, as we should put it, it was suppressed by the
sufferings of the captivity in Babylon. This change of
circumstances is marked by the following fact : — Whilst
the prophets mostly considered idolatry as the cause of all
sin, the Rabbis show a strong tendency to ascribe sin to
a defect in, or a want of, belief on the part of the sinner.
They teach that Adam would not have sinned unless he
had first denied the " Root of all " (or the main principle),
namely, the belief in the Omnipresence of God. Of Cain
they say that before murdering his brother he declared :
"There is no judgment, there is no judge, there is no
world to come, and there is no reward for the just, and
no punishment for the wicked.''^

In another place we read that the commission of a sin
in secret is an impertinent attempt by the doer to oust
God from the world. But if unbelief is considered as

156 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

the root of all evil, we may expect that the reverse of
it, a perfect faith, would be praised in the most exalted
terms. So we read : Faith is so great that the man who
possesses it may hope to become a worthy vessel of the
Holy Spirit, or, as we should express it, that he may hope
to obtain by this power the highest degree of communion
with his Maker. The Patriarch Abraham, notwithstanding
all his other virtues, only became " the possessor of both
worlds " by the merit of his strong faith. Nay, even the
fulfilment of a single law when accompanied by true faith
is, according to the Rabbis, sufficient to bring man nigh
to God. And the future redemption is also conditional
on the degree of faith shown by Israel.^

It has often been asked what the Rabbis would have
thought of a man who fulfils every commandment of the
Torah, but does not believe that this Torah was given by
God, or that there exists a God at all. It is indeed very
difficult to answer this question with any degree of cer-
tainty. In the time of the Rabbis people were still too
simple for such a diplomatic religion, and conformity
in the modern sense was quite an unknown thing. But
from the foregoing remarks it would seem that the
Rabbis could not conceive such a monstrosity as atheistic
orthodoxy. For, as we have seen, the Rabbis thought
that unbelief must needs end in sin, for faith is the ori-
gin of all good. Accordingly, in the case just supposed
they would have either suspected the man's orthodoxy,
or would have denied that his views were really what he
professed them to be.

Still more important than the above cited Agadic pas-
sages is one which we are about to quote from the trac-
tate Sanhedrin. This tractate deals with the constitution,

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 157

of the supreme law-court, the examination of the wit-
nesses, the functions of the judges, and the different
punishment to be inflicted on the transgressors of the
law. After having enumerated various kinds of capital
punishment, the Mishnah adds the following words:
"These are (the men) who are excluded from the life
to come : He who says there is no resurrection from
death; he who says there is no Torah given from
heaven, and the Epikurus."^ This pasisage was con-
sidered by the Rabbis of the Middle Ages, as well as
by modern scholars, the locus classicus for the dogma
question. There are many passages in the Rabbinic
literature which exclude man from the world to come
for this or that sin. But these are more or less of an
Agadic (legendary) character, and thus lend themselves
to exaggeration and hyperbolic language. They cannot,
therefore, be considered as serious legal dicta, or as the
general opinion of the Rabbis.

The Mishnah in Sanhedrin, however, has, if only by
its position in a legal tractate, a certain Halachic (obliga-
tory) character. And the fact that so early an authority
as R. Akiba made additions to it guarantees its high
antiquity. The first two sentences of this Mishnah are
clear enough. In modern language, and positively speak-
ing, they would represent articles of belief in Resurrection
and Revelation. Great difficulty is found in defining what
was meant by the word Epikurus. The authorities of the
Middle Ages, to whom I shall again have to refer, explain
the Epikurus to be a man who denies the belief in reward
and punishment ; others identify him with one who denies
the belief in Providence ; while others again consider the
Epikurus to be one who denies Tradition. But the paral-

158 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

lei passages in which it occurs incline one rather to think
that this word cannot be defined by one kind of heresy.
It implies rather a frivolous treatment of the words of
Scripture or of Tradition. In the case of the latter (Tra-
dition) it is certainly not honest difference of opinion that
is condemned; for the Rabbis themselves differed very
often from each other, and even Mediaeval authorities
did not feel any compunction about explaining Scripture
in variance with the Rabbinic interpretation, and some-
times they even went so far as to declare that the view
of this or that great authority was only to be considered
as an isolated opinion not deserving particular attention.
What they did blame was, as already said, scoffing and
impiety. We may thus safely assert that reverence for
the teachers of Israel formed the third essential principle
of Judaism.^

I have still to remark that there occur in the Talmud
such passages as " the Jew, even if he has sinned, is still a
Jew,** or "He who denies idolatry is called a Jew." These
and similar passages have been used to prove that Judaism
was not a positive religion, but only involved the negation
of idolatry. But it has been overlooked that the statements
quoted have more a legal than a theological character.
The Jew belonged to his nationality even after having
committed the greatest sin, just as the Englishman does
not cease to be an Englishman — in regard to treason and
the like — by having committed a heinous crime. But he
has certainly acted in a very un-English way, and having
outraged the feelings of the whole nation will have to suf-
fer for his misconduct. The Rabbis in a similar manner
did not maintain that he who gave up the belief in Revela-
tion and Resurrection, and treated irreverently the teach-

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM ijg

ers of Israel, severed his connection with the Jewish nation,
but that, for his crime, he was going to suffer the heaviest
punishment. He was to be excluded from the world to
come.

Still, important as is the passage quoted from Sanhe-
drin, it would be .erroneous to think that it exhausted the
creed of the Rabbis. The liturgy and innumerable pas-
sages in the Midrashim show that they ardently clung to
the belief in the advent of the Messiah. All their hope
was turned to the future redemption and the final estab-
lishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Judaism,
stripped of this belief, would have been for them devoid of
meaning. The belief in reward and punishment is also
repeated again and again in the old Rabbinic literature.
A more emphatic declaration of the belief in Providence
than is conveyed by the following passages is hardly con-
ceivable. " Everything is foreseen, and free will is given.
And the world is judged by grace.*' Or, "the born are to
die, and the dead to revive, and the living to be judged.
For to know and to notify, and that it may be known
that He (God) is the Framer and He the Creator, and
He the Discerner, and He the Judge, and He the Wit-
ness," etc.^

But it must not be forgotten that it was not the habit of
the Rabbis to lay down, either for conduct or for doctrine,
rules which were commonly known. When they urged
the three points stated above there must have been some
historical reason for it. Probably these principles were
controverted by some heretics. Indeed, the whole tone
of the passage cited from Sanhedrin is a protest against
certain unbelievers who are threatened with punishment.
Other beliefs, not less essential, but less disputed, remain

l6o STUDIES IN JUDAISM

unmentioned, because there was no necessity to assert
them.

It was not till a much later time, when the Jews came
into closer contact with new philosophical schools, and
also new creeds which were more liable than heathenism
was to be confused with Judaism, that this necessity was
felt. And thus we are led at once to the period when the
Jews became acquainted with the teachings of the Moham-
medan schools. The Caraites came very early into con-
tact with non-Jewish systems. And so we find that they
were also the first to formulate Jewish dogmas in a fixed
number, and in a systematic order. It is also possible that
their separation from the Tradition, and their early division
into little sects among themselves, compelled them to take
this step, in order to avoid further sectarianism.

The number of their dogmas amounts to ten. Accord-
ing to Judah Hadasi (1150), who would appear to have
derived them from his predecessors, their dogmas include
the following articles: — i. Creatio ex nihilo; 2. The ex-
istence of a Creator, God ; 3. This God is an absolute unity
as well as incorporeal ; 4. Moses and the other prophets
were sent by God; 5. God has given to us the Torah,
which is true and complete in every respect, not want-
ing the addition of the so-called Oral Law ; 6. The Torah
must be studied by every Jew in the original (Hebrew)
language; 7. The Holy Temple was a place elected by
God for His manifestation ; 8. Resurrection of the dead ;
9. Punishment and reward after death ; 10. The Coming
of the Messiah, the son of David.

How far the predecessors of Hadasi were influenced by
a certain Joseph Albashir (about 950), of whom there exists
a manuscript work, " Rudiments of Faith," I am unable to

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM i6i

say. The little we know of him reveals more of his inti-
macy with Arabic thoughts than of his importance for his
sect in particular and for Judaism in general. After Ha-
dasi I shall mention here Elijah Bashazi, a Caraite writer
of the end of the fifteenth century. This author, who was
much influenced by Maimonides, omits the second and the
seventh articles. In order to make up the ten he numbers
the belief in the eternity of God as an article, and divides
the fourth article into two. In the fifth article Bashazi
does not emphasise so strongly the completeness of the
Torah as Hadasi, and omits the portion which is directed
against Tradition. It is interesting to see the distinction
which Bashazi draws between the Pentateuch and the
Prophets. While he thinks that the five books of Moses
can never be altered, he regards the words of the Prophets
as only relating to their contemporaries, and thus subject
to changes. As I do not want to anticipate Maimonides'
system, I must refrain from giving here the articles laid
down by Solomon Troki in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. For the articles of Maimonides are copied by
this writer with a few slight alterations so as to dress them
in a Caraite garb.

I must dismiss the Caraites with these few remarks, my
object being chiefly to discuss the dogmas of the Syna-
gogue from which they had separated themselves. Besides,
as in everything Caraitic, there is no further development
of the question. As Bashazi laid them down, they are
still taught by the Caraites of to-day. I return to the Rab-
banites.^^

As is well known, Maimonides (1130-1205), was the first
Rabbanite who formulated the dogmas of the Synagogue.
But there are indications of earlier attempts. R. Saadiah

1 62 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Gaon's (892-942) work, Creeds and Opinions^ shows such
traces. He says in his preface, " My heart sickens to
see that the belief of my co-religionists is impure and
that their theological views are confused." The subjects
he treats in this book, such as creation, unity of God,
resurrection of the dead, the future redemption of Israel,
reward and punishment, and other kindred theological
subjects might thus, perhaps, be considered as the essen-
tials of the creed that the Gaon desired to present in a
pure and rational form. R. Hannaneel, of Kairowan,^^ in
the first half of the eleventh century, says in one of his
commentaries that to deserve eternal life one must believe
in /(7^r things: in God, in the prophets, in a future world
where the just will be rewarded, and in the advent of the
Redeemer. From R. Judah Hallevi's Cusari^ written in
the beginning of the twelfth century, we might argue that
the belief in the election of Israel by God was the cardinal
dogma of the author.^^ Abraham Ibn Daud, a contem-
porary of Maimonides, in his book The High Belief}^
speaks of rudiments^ among which, besides such meta-
physical principles as unity, rational conception of God's
attributes, etc., the belief in the immutability of the Law,
etc., is included. Still, all these works are intended to fur-
nish evidence from philosophy or history for the truth of
religion rather than to give a definition of this truth. The
latter task was undertaken by Maimonides.

I refer to the thirteen articles embodied in his first work,
The Commentary to the Mishnah. They are appended
to the Mishnah in Sanhedrin, with which I dealt above.
But though they do not form an independent treatise,
Maimonides' remarks must not be considered as merely
incidental.

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 163

That Maimonides was quite conscious of the importance
of this exposition can be gathered from the concluding
words addressed to the reader : " Know these (words)
and repeat them many times, and think them over in the
proper way. God knows that thou wouldst be deceiving
thyself if thou thinkest thou hast understood them by hav-
ing read them once or even ten times. Be not, therefore,
hasty in perusing them. I have not composed them with-
out deep study and earnest reflection."

The result of this deep study was that the following
Thirteen Articles constitute the creed of Judaism. They
are: —

I. The belief in the existence of a Creator; 2. The
belief in His Unity ; 3. The belief in His Incorporeality ;
4. The belief in His Eternity ; 5. The belief that all wor-
ship and adoration are due to Him alone ; 6. The belief in
Prophecy ; 7. The belief that Moses was the greatest of
all Prophets, both before and after him ; 8. The belief that
the Torah was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai ; 9. The
belief in the Immutability of this revealed Torah ; 10. The
belief that God knows the actions of men; 11. The belief
in Reward and Punishment; 12. The belief in the coming
of the Messiah; 13. The belief in the Resurrection of the
dead.

The impulse given by the great philosopher and still
greater Jew was eagerly followed by succeeding genera-
tions, and Judaism thus came into possession of a dogmatic
literature such as it never knew before Maimonides. Mai-
monides is the centre of this literature, and I shall accord-
ingly speak in the remainder of this essay of Maimonists
and Anti-Maimonists. These terms really apply to the
great controversy that raged round Maimonides' Guide of

1 64 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

the Perplexed, but I shall, chiefly for brevity's sake, em-
ploy them in these pages in a restricted sense to refer to
the dispute concerning. the Thirteen Articles.

Among the Maimonists we may probably include the
great majority of Jews, who accepted the Thirteen Articles
without further question. Maimonides must indeed have
filled up a great gap in Jewish theology, a gap, moreover,
the existence of which was very generally perceived. A
century had hardly elapsed before the Thirteen Articles
had become a theme for the poets of the Synagogue. And
almost every country where Jews lived can show a poem
or a prayer founded on these Articles. R. Jacob Molin
(1420) of Germany speaks of metrical and rhymed songs
in the German language, the burden of which was the
Thirteen Articles, and which were read by the common
people with great devotion. The numerous commentaries
and homilies written on the same topic would form a small
library in themselves.^* But on the other hand it must
not be denied that the Anti-Maimonists, that is to say
those Jewish writers who did not agree with the creed
formulated by Maimonides, or agreed only in part with
.him, form also a very strong and respectable minority.
They deserve our attention the more as it is their works
which brought life into the subject and deepened it. It
is not by a perpetual Amen to every utterance of a great
authority that truth or literature gains anything.

The Anti-Maimonists can be divided into two classes.
The one class categorically denies that Judaism has dog-
mas. I shall have occasion to touch on this view when I
come to speak of Abarbanel. Here I pass at once to the
second class of Anti-Maimonists. This consists of those
who agree with Maimonides as to the existence of dogmas

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 165

in Judiasm, but who differ from him as to what these
dogmas are, or who give a different enumeration of
them.

As the first of these Anti-Maimonists we may regard
Nachmanides, who, in his famous Semion in the Presence
of the King, speaks of three fundamental principles : Crea-
tion (that is, non-eternity of matter). Omniscience of God,
and Providence. Next comes R. Abba Mari ben Moses,
of Montpellier. He wrote at the beginning of the four-
teenth century, and is famous in Jewish history for his
zeal against the study of philosophy. We possess a small
pamphlet by him dealing with our subject, and it forms
a kind of prologue to his collection of controversial let-
ters against the rationalists of his time.^^ He lays down
three articles as the fundamental teachings of Religion :
I. Metaphysical : The existence of God, including His Unity
and Incorporeality ; 2. Mosaic : Creatio ex nihilo by God
— a consequence of this principle is the belief that God
is capable of altering the laws of nature at His pleasure ;
3. Ethical: Special Providence — i,e, God knows all our
actions in all their details. Abba Mari does not mention
Maimonides' Thirteen Articles. But it would be false to
conclude that he rejected the belief in the coming of the
Messiah, or any other article of Maimonides. The whole
tone and tendency of this pamphlet is polemical, and it is
therefore probable that he only urged those points which
were either doubted or explained in an unorthodox way by
the sceptics of his time.

Another scholar, of Provence, who wrote but twenty
years later than Abba Mari — R. David ben Samuel
d'Estella (1320) — speaks of the seven pillars of religion.
They are: Revelation, Providence, Reward and Punish-

1 66 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

merit, the Coming of- the Messiah, Resurrection of the
Dead, Creatio ex nihilOy and Free Will.^^

Of authors living in other countries, I have to mention
here R. Shemariah, of Crete, who flourished at about the
same time as R. David d'Estella, and is known from his
efforts to reconcile the Caraites with the Rabbanites.
This author wrote a book for the purpose of furnishing
Jewish students with evidence for what he considered the
five fundamental teachings of Judaism, viz. : i. The Exis-
tence of God; 2. The Incorporeality of God; 3. His
Absolute Unity ; 4. That God created heaven and earth ;
5. That God created the world after His will 5106 years
ago — 5106 (1346 A.c), being the year in which Shemariah
wrote these words.^^

In Portugal, at about the same time, we find R. David
ben Yom-Tob Bilia adding to the articles of Maimonides
thirteen of his own, which he calls the " Fundamentals of
the Thinking Man." Five of these articles relate to the
functions of the human soul, that, according to him,
emanated from God, and to the way in which this divine
soul receives its punishment and reward. The other eight
articles are as follows: i. The belief in the existence of
spiritual beings — angels; 2. Creatio ex nihilo ; 3. The
belief in the existence of another world, and that this
other world is only a spiritual one ; 4. The Torah is above
philosophy; 5. The Torah has an outward (literal) mean-
ing and an inward (allegorical) meaning ; 6. The text of
the Torah is not subject to any emendation ; 7. The
reward of a good action is the good work itself, and the
doer must not expect any other reward ; 8. It is only by
the "commands relating to the heart," for instance, the
belief in one eternal God, the loving and fearing Him, and

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 167

not through good actions, that man attains the highest
degree of perfection.^® Perhaps it would be suitable to
mention here another contemporaneous writer, who also
enumerates twenty-six articles. The name of this writer
is unknown, and his articles are only gathered from quo-
tations by later authors. It would seem from these quota-
tions that the articles of this unknown author consisted
mostly of statements emphasising the belief in the attri-
butes of God : as, His Eternity, His Wisdom and Omnip-
otence, and the like.-^^

More important for our subject are the productions of
the fifteenth century, especially those of Spanish authors.
The fifteen articles of R. Lipman Muhlhausen, in the pref-
ace to his well-known Book of Victory^ {i 410), differ but
slightly from those of Maimonidcs. In accordance with
the anti-Christian tendency of his polemical book, he lays
more stress on the two articles of Unity and Incorpo-
reality, and makes of them four. We can therefore dis-
miss him with this short remark, and pass at once to the
Spanish Rabbis.

The first of these is R. Chasdai Ibn Crescas, who com-
posed his famous treatise, TAe Light of God, about 1405.
Chasdai*s book is well known for its attacks on Aristotle,
and also for its influence on Spinoza. But Chasdai deals
also with Maimonides' Thirteen Articles, to which he was
very strongly opposed. Already in his preface he attacks
Maimonides for speaking, in his Book of the Command'
mentSf of the belief in the existence of God as an ** affirma-
tive precept." Chasdai thinks it absurd ; for every com-
mandment must be dictated by some authority, but on
whose authority can we dictate the acceptance of this
authority? His general objection to the Thirteen Articles

1 68 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

is that Maimonides confounded dogmas or fundamental
beliefs of Judaism, without which Judaism is inconceivable,
with beliefs or doctrines which Judaism inculcates, but the
denial of which, though involving a strong heresy, does
not make Judaism impossible. He maintains that if
Maimonides meant only to count fundamental teachings,
there are not more than seven ; but that if he intended
also to include doctrines, he ought to have enumerated
sixteen. As beliefs of the first class — namely, fundamen-
tal beliefs — he considers the following articles : i. God's
knowledge of our actions ; 2. Providence ; 3. God's om-
nipotence — even to act against the laws of nature;
4. Prophecy; 5. Free will; 6. The aim of the Torah is
to make man long after the closest communion with God.
The belief in the existence of God, Chasdai thinks, is an
axiom with which every religion must begin, and he is
therefore uncertain whether to include it as a dogma or
not. As to the doctrines which every Jew is bound to
believe, but without which Judaism is not impossible,
Chasdai divides them into two sections: {a) i. Creatio ex
nihilo ; 2. Immortality of the soul ; 3. Reward and Pun-
ishment; 4. Resurrection of the dead; 5. Immutability
of the Torah ; 6. Superiority of the prophecy of Moses ;
7. That the High Priest received from God the instructions
sought for, when he put his questions through the medium
of the Urim and Thummim ; 8. The coming of the Mes-
siah, ip) Doctrines which are expressed by certain relig-
ious ceremonies, and on belief in which these ceremonies
are conditioned : i. The belief in the efficacy of prayer —
as well as in the power of the benediction of the priests to
convey to us the blessing of God ; 2. God is merciful to
the penitent; 3. Certain days in the year — for instance,

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 169

the Day of Atonement — are especially qualified to bring
us near to God, if we keep them in the way we are com-
manded. That Chasdai is a little arbitrary in the choice
of his " doctrines," I need hardly say. Indeed, Chasdai's
importance for the dogma-question consists more in his
critical suggestions than in his positive results. He was,
as we have seen, the first to make the distinction between
fundamental teachings which form the basis of Judaism,
and those other simple Jewish doctrines without which
Judaism is not impossible. Very daring is his remark,
when proving that Reward and Punishment, Immortality
of the soul, and Resurrection of the dead must not be con-
sidered as the basis of Judaism, since the highest ideal of
religion is to serve God without any hope of reward. Even
more daring are his words concerning the Immutability
of the Law. He says : ** Some have argued that, since
God is perfection, so must also His law be perfect, and
thus unsusceptible of improvement." But he does not
think this argument conclusive, though the fact in itself
(the Immutability of the Law) is true. For one might
answer that this perfection of the Torah could only be in
accordance with the intelligence of those for whom it was
meant; but as soon as the recipients of the Torah have
advanced to a higher state of perfection, the Torah must
also be altered to suit their advanced intelligence. A
pupil of Chasdai illustrates the words of his master by a
medical parallel. The physician has to adapt his medica-
ments to the various stages through which his patient has
to pass. That he changes his prescription does not, how-
ever, imply that his medical knowledge is imperfect, or
that his earlier remedies were ignorantly chosen ; the vary-
ing condition of the invalid was the cause of the variation

I70 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

in the doctor's treatment. Similarly, were not the Immu-
tability of the Torah a "doctrine," one might maintain
that the perfection of the Torah would not be inconsistent
with the assumption that it was susceptible of modifi-
cation, in accordance with our changing and progressive
circumstances. But all these arguments are purely of a
theoretic character ; for, practically, every Jew, according
to Chasdai, has to accept all these beliefs, whether he
terms them fundamental teachings or only Jewish doc-
trines.2^

Some years later, though he finished his work in the
same year as Chasdai, R. Simeon Duran (1366-1444,) a
younger contemporary of the former, made his researches
on dogmas. His studies on this subject form a kind of
introduction to his commentary on Job, which he finished
in the year 1405. Duran is not so strongly opposed to
the Thirteen Articles as Chasdai, or as another " thinker
of our people," who thought them an arbitrary imitation
of the thirteen attributes of God. Duran tries to justify
Maimonides; but nevertheless he agrees with "earlier
authorities," who formulated the Jewish creed in Three
Articles — The Existence of Grod, Revelation, and Reward
and Punishment — under which Duran thinks the Thir-
teen Articles of Maimonides may be easily classed. Most
interesting are his remarks concerning the validity of dog-
mas. He tells us that only those are to be considered
as heretics who abide by their own opinions, though they
know that they are contradictory to the views of the
Torah. Those who accept the fundamental teachings of
Judaism, but are led by their deep studies and earnest
reflection to differ in details from the opinions current
among their co-religionists, and explain certain passages

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 171

in the Scripture in their own way, must by no means be
considered as heretics. We must, therefore, Duran pro-
ceeds to say, not blame such men as Maimonides, who
gave an allegorical interpretation to certain passages in
the Bible about miracles, or R. Levi ben Gershom, who
followed certain un- Jewish views in relation to the belief
in' Creatio ex nihilo. Only the views are condemnable,
not those who cherish them. God forbid, says Duran,
that such a thing should happen in Israel as to condemn
honest inquirers on account of their differing opinions.
It would be interesting to know of how many divines as
tolerant as this persecuted Jew the fifteenth century can
boast.^

We can now pass to a more popular but less original
writer on our theme. I refer to R. Joseph Albo, the
author of the Roots^ who was the pupil of Chasdai, a
younger contemporary of Duran, and wrote at a much
later period than these authors. Graetz has justly denied
him much originality. The chief merit of Albo consists
in popularising other people's thoughts, though he does
not always take care to mention their names. And the
student who is a little familiar with the contents of the
Roots will easily find that Albo has taken his best ideas
either from Chasdai or from Duran. As it is of little
consequence to us whether an article of faith is called
" stem," or " root,'* or " branch," there is scarcely anything
fresh left to quote in the name of Albo. The late Dr.
Low, of Szegedin, was indeed right, when he answered
an adversary who challenged him — "Who would dare to
declare me a heretic as long as I confess the Three Arti-
cles laid down by Albo } " with the words " Albo himself."
For, after all the subtle distmctions Albo makes between

172 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

different classes of dogmas, he declares that every one
who denies even the immutability of the Law or the com-
ing of the Messiah, which are, according to him, articles
of minor importance, is a heretic who will be excluded
from the world to come. But there is one point in his
book which is worth noticing. It was suggested to him
by Maimonides, indeed; still Albo has the merit of having
emphasised it as it deserves. Among the articles which
he calls " branches " Albo counts the belief that the per-
fection of man, which leads to eternal life, can be obtained
by the fulfilling of one commandment. But this command
must, as Maimonides points out, be done without any
worldly regard, and only for the love of God. When one
considers how many platitudes are repeated year by year
by certain theologians on the subject of Jewish legalism,
we cannot lay enough stress on this article of Albo, and
we ought to make it better known than it has hitherto
been.2*

Though I cannot enter here into the enumeration of the
Maimonists, I must not leave unmentioned the name of
R. Nissim ben Moses of Marseilles, the first great Mai-
monist, who flourished about the end of the thirteenth
century, and was considered as one of the most enlight-
ened thinkers of his age.^ Another great Maimonist
deserving special attention is R. Abraham ben Shem-Tob
Bibago, who may perhaps be regarded as the most promi-
nent among those who undertook to defend Maimonides
against the attacks of Chasdai and others. Bibago wrote
The Path of Belief^ in the second half of the fifteenth
century, and was, as Dr. Steinschneider aptly describes
him, a Denkgldubiger. But, above all, he was a believing
Jew. When he was once asked, at the table of King

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 1 73

John II., of Aragon, by a Christian scholar, "Are you the
Jewish philosopher ? " he answered, " I am a Jew who
believes in the Law given to us by our teacher Moses,
though I have studied philosophy.*' Bibago was such a
devoted admirer of Maimonides that he could not tolerate
any opposition to him. He speaks in one passage of the
prudent people of his time who, in desiring to be looked
upon as orthodox by the great mob, calumniated the
Teacher (Maimonides), and depreciated his merits. Bi-
bago's book is very interesting, especially in its contro-
versial parts ; but in respect to dogmas he is, as already
said, a Maimonist, and does not contribute any new point
on our subject.

To return to the Anti-Maimonists of the second half
of the fifteenth century. As such may be considered
R. Isaac Aramah, who speaks of three foundations of
religion : Creatio ex nihilo^ Revelation (?), and the belief
in a world to come.^ Next to be mentioned is R. Joseph
Jabez, who also accepts only three articles : Creatio ex
nikilOf Individual Providence, and the Unity of God.^
Under these three heads he tries to classify the Thirteen
Articles of Maimonides.

The last Spanish writer on our subject is R. Isaac
Abarbanel. His treatise on the subject is known under
the title Top of Amanah^ and was finished in the year
1495. The greatest part of this treatise forms a defence
of Maimonides, many points in which are taken from
Bibago. But, in spite of this fact, Abarbanel must not
be considered a Maimonist. It is only a feeling of piety
towards Maimonides, or perhaps rather a fondness for
argument, that made him defend Maimonides against
Chasdai and others. His own view is that it is a mistake

1^4 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

to formulate dogmas of Judaism, since every word in the
Torah has to be considered as a dogma for itself. It was
only, says Abarbanel, by following the example of non-
Jewish scholars that Maimonides and others were induced
to lay down dogmas. The non- Jewish philosophers are
in the habit of accepting in every science certain indis-
putable axioms from which they deduce the propositions
which are less evident. The Jewish philosophers in a
similar way sought for first principles in religion from
which the whole of the Torah ought to be considered as
a deduction. But, thinks Abarbanel, the Torah as a
revealed code is under no necessity of deducing things
from each other, for all the commands came from the
same divine authority, and, therefore, all are alike evident,
and have the same certainty. On this and similar grounds
Abarbanel refused to accept dogmatic articles for Judaism,
and he thus became the head of the school that forms
a class by itself among the Anti-Maimonists to which
many of the greatest Cabbalists also belong. But it is
idle talk to cite this school in aid of the modern theory
that Judaism has no dogmas. As we have seen, it was
rather an embarras de richesse that prevented Abarbanel
from accepting the Thirteen Articles of Maimonides. To
him and to the Cabbalists the Torah consists of at least
613 Articles.

Abarbanel wrote his book with which we have just
dealt, at Naples. And it is Italy to which, after the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain, we have to look chiefly
for religious speculation. But the philosophers of Italy
are still less independent of Maimonides than their pred-
ecessors in Spain. Thus we find that R. David Messer
Leon, R. David Vital, and others were Maimonists.

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 175

Even the otherwise refined and original thinker, R. Eli-
jah Delmedigo (who died about the end of the fifteenth
century) becomes almost impolite when he speaks of the
adversaries of Maimonides in respect to dogmas. " It
was only," he says, " the would-be philosopher that dared
to question the articles of Maimonides. Our people have
always the bad habit of thinking themselves competent
to attack the greatest authorities as soon as they have got
some knowledge of the subject. Genuine thinkers, how-
ever, attach very little importance to their objections.^^

Indeed, it seems as if the energetic protests of Del-
medigo scared away the Anti-Maimonists for more than
a century. Even in the following seventeenth century
we have to notice only two Anti-Maimonists. The one
is R. Tobijah, the Priest (1652), who was of Polish de-
scent, studied in Italy, and lived as a medical man in
France. He seems to refuse to accept the belief in the
Immutability of the Torah, and in the coming of the Mes-
siah, as fundamental teachings of Judaism.^^ The other,
at the end of the seventeenth century (1695), is R. Abra-
ham Chayim Viterbo, of Italy. He accepts only six
articles: i. Existence of God ; 2. Unity; 3. Incorporeal-
ity ; 4. That God was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai,
and that the prophecy of Moses is true; 5. Revelation
(including the historical parts of the Torah) ; 6. Reward
and Punishment. As to the other articles of Maimonides,
Viterbo, in opposition to other half-hearted Anti-Maimon-
ists, declares that the man who denies them is not to be

considered as a heretic; though he ought to believe
them.82

I have now arrived at the limit I set to myself at the
beginning of this essay. For, between the times of

176 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Viterbo and those of Mendelssohn, there is hardly to be
found any serious opposition to Maimonides worth notic-
ing here. Still I must mention the name of R. Saul
Berlin (died 1794); there is much in his opinions on
dogmas which will help us the better to understand the
Thirteen Articles of Maimonides. As the reader has
seen, I have refrained so far from reproducing here the
apologies which were made by many Maimonists in behalf
of the Thirteen Articles. For, after all their elaborate
pleas, none of them was able to clear Maimonides of the
charge of having confounded dogmas or fundamental
teachings with doctrines. It is also true that the Fifth
Article — that prayer and worship must only be offered
to God — cannot be considered even as a doctrine, but
as a simple precept. And there are other difficulties
which all the distinctions of the Maimonists will never
be able to solve. The only possible justification is, I
think, that suggested by a remark of R. Saul. This
author, who was himself — like his friend and older
contemporary Mendelssohn — a strong Anti-Maimonist,
among other remarks, maintains that dogmas must never
be laid down but with regard to the necessities of the
time.^

Now R. Saul certainly did not doubt that Judaism is
based on eternal truths which can in no way be shaken
by new modes of thinking or changed circumstances.
What he meant was that there are in every age certain
beliefs which ought to be asserted more emphatically
than others, without regard to their theological or rather
logical importance. It is by this maxim that we shall
be able to explain the articles of Maimonides. He as-
serted them, because they were necessary for his time.

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 1 77

We know, for instance, from a letter of his son and from
other contemporaries, that it was just at his time that
the belief in the incorporeality of God was, in the opin-
ion of Maimonides, a little relaxed. Maimonides, who
thought such low notions of the Deity dangerous to
Judaism, therefore laid down an article against them.
He tells us in his Guide that it was far from him to
condemn any one who was not able to demonstrate the
Incorporeality of God, but he stigmatised as a heretic
one who refused to believe it. This position might be
paralleled by that of a modem astronomer who, while
considering it unreasonable to expect a mathematical
demonstration of the movements of the earth from an
ordinary unscientific man, would yet regard the person
who refused to believe in such movements as an ignorant
faddist.

Again, Maimonides undoubtedly knew that there may
be found in the Talmud — that bottomless sea with its
innumerable undercurrents — passages that are not quite
in harmony with his articles ; for instance, the well-known
dictum of R. Hillel, who said, there is no Messiah for
Israel — a passage which has already been quoted ad
nauseam by every opponent of Maimonides from the
earliest times down to the year of grace 1896. Maimon-
ides was well aware of the existence of this and similar
passages. But, being deeply convinced of the necessity
of the belief in a future redemption of Israel — in oppo-
sition to other creeds which claim this redemption ex-
clusively for their own adherents — Maimonides simply
ignored the saying of R. Hillel, as an isolated opinion
which contradicts all the consciousness and traditions of
the Jew as expressed in thousands of other passages, and

178 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

especially in the liturgy. Most interesting is Maimonides*
view about such isolated opinions in a letter to the wise
men of Marseilles. He deals there with the question of
free will and other theological subjects. After having
stated his own view he goes on to say : " I know that
it is possible to find in the Talmud or in the Midrash
this or that saying in contradiction to the views you have
heard from me. But you must not be troubled by them.
One must not refuse to accept a doctrine, the truth of
which has been proved, on account of its being in opposi-
tion to some isolated opinion held by this or that great
authority. Is it not possible that he overlooked some
important considerations when he uttered this strange
opinion ? It is also possible that his words must not be
taken literally, and have to be explained in an allegorical
way. We can also think that his words were only to be
applied with regard to certain circumstances of his time,
but never intended as permanent truths. . . . No man
must surrender his private judgment. The eyes are not
directed backwards but forwards." In another place
Maimonides calls the suppression of one's own opinions —
for the reason of their being irreconcilable with the iso-
lated views of some great authority — a moral suicide.

By such motives Maimonides was guided when he left
certain views hazarded in the Rabbinic literature un-
heeded, and followed what we may perhaps call the
religious instinct, trusting to his own conscience. We
may again be certain that Maimonides was clear-headed
enough to see that the words of the Torah : " And there
arose no prophet since in Israel like unto Moses '' (Deut.
xxxiv. 10), were as little intended to imply a doctrine as
the passage relating to the king Josiah, "And like unto

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM 1 79

him was there no king before him that turned to the Lord
with all his heart . . . neither after him arose there any-
like him " (2 Kings xxiii. 25). And none would think of
declaring the man a heretic who should believe another
king to be as pious as Josiah. But living among followers
of the "imitating creeds" (as he calls Christianity and
Mohammedism), who claimed that their religion had super-
seded the law of Moses, Maimonides, consciously or un-
consciously, felt himself compelled to assert the supe-
riority of the prophecy of Moses. And so we may guess
that every article of Maimonides which seems to offer
difficulties to us contains an assertion of some relaxed
belief, or a protest against the pretensions of other creeds,
though we are not always able to discover the exact neces-
sity for them. On the other hand, Maimonides did not
assert the belief in free will, for which he argued so ear-
nestly in his Guide, The common " man," with his simple
unspeculative mind, for whom these Thirteen Articles were
intended, " never dreamed that the will was not free," and
there was no necessity of impressing on his mind things
which he had never doubted.^

So much about Maimonides. As to the Anti-Maimon-
ists, it could hardly escape the reader that in some of the
quoted systems the difference from the view of Maimonides
is only a logical one, not a theological. Of some authors
again, especially those of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies, it is not at all certain whether they intended to op-
pose Maimonides. Others again, as for instance R. Abba
Mari, R. Lipman, and R. Joseph Jabez, acted on the
same principle as Maimonides, urging only those teach-
ings of Judaism which they thought endangered. One
could now, indeed, animated by the praiseworthy exam-

l8o STUDIES IN JUDAISM

pie given to us by Maimonides, also propose some arti-
cles of faith which are suggested to us by the necessities
of our own time. One might, for instance, insert the
article, " I believe that Judaism is, in the first instance,
a divine religion, not a mere complex of racial pecul-
iarities and tribal customs." One might again propose
an article to the effect that Judaism is a proselytising
religion, having the mission to bring about God's king-
dom on earth, and to include in that kingdom all man-
kind. One might also submit for consideration whether
it would not be advisable to urge a little more the prin-
ciple that religion means chiefly a Weltanschauung and
worship of God by means of holiness both in thought
and in action. One would even not object to accept the
article laid down by R. Saul, that we have to look upon
ourselves as sinners. Morbid as such a belief may be, it
would, if properly impressed on our mind, have perhaps
the wholesome effect of cooling down a little our self-
importance and our mutual admiration that makes all
progress among us almost impossible.

But it was not my purpose to ventilate here the question
whether Maimonides* articles are sufficient for us, or
whether we ought not to add new ones to them. Nor do
I attempt to decide what system we ought to prefer for
recitation in the Synagogue — that of Maimonides or that
of Chasdai, or of any other writer. I do not think that
such a recital is of much use. My object in this sketch
has been rather to make the reader think about Judaism,
by proving that it regulates not only our actions, but also
our thoughts. We usually urge that in Judaism religion
means life ; but we forget that a life without guiding
principles and thoughts is a life not worth living. At

THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM i8i

least it was so considered by the greatest Jewish thinkers,
and hence their efforts to formulate the creed of Judaism,
so that men should not only be able to do the right thing,
but also to think the right thing. Whether they suc-
ceeded in their attempts towards formulating the creed
of Judaism or not will always remain a question. This
concerns the logician more than the theologian. But
surely Maimonides and his successors did succeed in
having a religion depending directly on God, with the
most ideal and lofty aspirations for the future ; whilst the
Judaism of a great part of our modem theologians reminds
one very much of the words with which the author of
Marius the Epicurean characterises the Roman religion
in the days of her decline : a religion which had been
always something to be done rather than something to
be thought, or believed, or loved.

Political economy, hygiene, statistics, are very fine
things. But no sane man would for them make those
sacrifices which Judaism requires from us. It is only for
God's sake, to fulfil His commands and to accomplish His
purpose, that religion becomes worth living and dying for.
And this can only be possible with a religion which
possesses dogmas.

It is true that every great religion is " a concentration
of many ideas and ideals," which make this religion able
to adapt itself to various modes of thinking and living.
But there must always be a point round which all these
ideas concentrate themselves. This centre is Dogma.

VII

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION

There is an anecdote about a famous theologian to the
effect that he used to tell his pupils, "Should I ever
grow old and weak — which usually drives people to em-
brace the safer side — and alter my opinions, then pray
/ do not believe me." The concluding volume of Weiss*s
p^^^is^ory of Jewish Tradition ^ shows that there was no
need for our author to warn his pupils against the dan-
gers accompanying old age. For though Weiss had, when
he began to write this last volume, already exceeded his
three-score and ten, and, as we read in the preface, had
some misgivings as to whether he should continue his
work, there is no trace in it of any abatement of the
great powers of the author. It is marked by the same
freshness in diction, the same marvellous scholarship, the
same display of astonishing critical powers, and the same
impartial and straightforward way of judging persons and
things, for which the preceding volumes were so much
distinguished and admired.'

This book, which is recognised as a standard work
abroad, is, I fear, owing to the fact of its being written
in the Hebrew language, not sufficiently known in this
country. Weiss does not want our recognition; we are
rather in need of his instruction. Some general view

182

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 183

of his estimate of Jewish Tradition may, therefore, be
of service to the student. It is, indeed, the only work of
its kind. Zunz has confined himself to the history of the
Agadah. Graetz gave most of his attention to the politi-
cal side of Jewish history. But comparatively little has
been done for the Halachah, though Frankel, Geiger,
Herzfeld, and others have treated some single points
in various monographs. Thus it was left for Weiss to
write the History of Tradition^ which includes both the
Agadah and the Halachah. The treatment of this latter
must have proved, in consequence of the intricate and
intractable nature of its materials, by far the more diffi-
cult portion of his task.

In speaking of the History of Tradition, a term which
suggests the fluctuating character of a thing, its origin,
development, progress, and retrogression, we have already
indicated that Weiss does not consider even the Halachah
as having come down from heaven, ready-made, and defi-
nitely fixed for all time. To define it more clearly. Tradi-
tion is, apart from the few ordinances and certain usages
for which there is no precedent in the Bible, the history
of interpretation of the Scriptures, which was constantly
liable to variation, not on grounds of philology, but
through the subjective notions of successive generations
regarding religion and the method and scope of its
application.

Weiss's standpoint with reference to the Pentateuch is
the conservative one, maintaining both its unity and its
Mosaic authorship. Those passages and accounts in the
Bible in which the modern critic discerns traces of dif-
ferent traditional sources, are for Weiss only indicative
of the various stages of interpretation through which th^

1 84 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Pentateuch had to pass. The earliest stage was a very
crude one, as may be seen from the case of Jephthah*s
vow, for which only a misinterpretation of certain pas-
sages in the Pentateuch (Gen. xxii. 2 ; Num. xxv. 4) could
be made responsible. Nor was Jephthah, who felt himself
bound to carry out his vow, acquainted with the provision
for dissolving vows ^ that was sufficiently familiar to later
ages. When, on the other hand, Jeremiah declared sacri-
fices to be altogether superfluous, and said that God did
not command Israel, when he brought them from the
land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices
(vii. 22), he was not in contradiction with Leviticus, but
interpreted the laws contained in this book as a conces-
sion to popular custom, though not desirable on their
own account. This concession, whenever it was of a
harmless nature, the prophets carried so far as to per-
mit altars outside the Tabernacle or Temple, though
this was against the plain sense of Deuteronomy. Elijah
even bewailed their destruction (i Kings xix. 10). He
and other prophets probably interpreted the law in ques-
tion as directed against the construction and maintenance
of several chief sanctuaries, but not against sacrificing in
different places on minor occasions. This is evidently a
free interpretation, or rather application, of the Law.
Occasionally the conception as to when and how a law
should be applied took a completely negative form. In
this manner is to be explained the action of Solomon in
suspending the Fast of the Day of Atonement before
the festival he was going to celebrate in honour of the
consecration of the Temple (i Kings viii. 65), the king
being convinced that on this unique occasion the latter
was of more religious importance than the former. Weiss

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 185

thinks that the later custom of holding public dances in
the vineyards on the loth of Tishri might have had its
origin in this solemn, but also joyful, festival. Ezekiel,
again, though alluding more frequently than any other
prophet to the laws in the Pentateuch, is exceedingly
bold in his interpretation of them, as, for instance, when
he says that priests shall not eat anything that is dead
or torn (xliv. 31), which shows that he took the verses
in Exod. xxii. 30, and Deut. xiv. 20, to have been meant
only as a good advice to the laymen to refrain from eat-
ing these unclean things, but not as having for them the
force of a real commandment.

Starting from this proposition, that there existed always
some sort of interpretation running side by side with the
recognised Scriptures, which from the very looseness of
its connection with the letter of the Scripture could claim
to be considered a thing independent in itself, and might
therefore be regarded as the Oral LaWy in contradistinc-
tion to the Written LaWy the author passes to the age of
the Second Temple, the period to which the rest of the
first volume is devoted. In these pages Weiss reviews the
activity of Ezra and Nehemiah, the ordinances of the Men
of the Great Synagogue, the institutions of the Scribes, the
Lives of the so-called Pairs,^ the characteristics of the
three sects, the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes, and
the differences between the schools of Shammai and Hillel.
To each of these subjects Weiss gives his fullest attention,
and his discussions of them would form perfect mono-
graphs in themselves. To reproduce all the interesting
matter would mean to translate the whole of this portion
of his work into English. I shall only draw attention to
one or two points.

1 86 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

First, this liberal interpretation was active during the
whole period referred to. Otherwise no authority could
have abolished the lex talionis, or have permitted war on
Sabbath, or made the condition that no crime should be
punished without a preceding warning (which was chiefly
owing to the aversion of the Rabbis to the infliction of
capital punishment), or have sanctioned the sacrificing of
the Passover when the 14th of Nisan fell on Sabbath.
Indeed Shemaiah and Abtalyon, in whose name Hillel
communicated this last law, were called the Great Inter-
preters.*

Secondly, as to the so-called laws given to Moses on
Sinai^ Much has been said about these. The distinction
claimed for them by some scholars, viz. that they were
never contested, is not tenable, considering that there pre-
vailed much difference of opinion about some of them.
Nor is the theory that they were ancient religious usages,
dating from time immemorial, entirely satisfactory. For
though the fact may be true in itself, this could not have
justified the Rabbis in calling them all Sinaitic laws, espe-
cially when they were aware that not a few of them were
contested by certain of their colleagues, a thing that would
have been quite impossible if they had a genuine claim to
Mosaic authority. But if we understand Weiss rightly
these laws are only to be considered as a specimen of the
whole of the Oral Law, which was believed to emanate,
both in its institutional and in its expository part, from the
same authority. The conviction was firmly held that
everything wise and good, be it ethical or ceremonial in
its character, whose effect would be to strengthen the
cause of religion, was at least potentially contained in the
Torah, and that it only required an earnest religious mind

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 187

to find it there. Hence the famous adage that "everything
which any student will teach at any future time was already
communicated to Moses on Mount Sinai " ; or the injunc-
tion that any acceptable truth, even if discovered by an
insignificant man in Israel, should be considered as having
the authority of a great sage or prophet, or even of Moses
himself. The principle was that the words of the Torah
are "fruitful and multiply."

It will probably be said that the laws of clean and un-
clean, and such like, have proved rather too prolific ; but
if we read Weiss. carefully, we shall be reminded that it
was by the same process of propagation that the Rabbis
developed from Deut. xxii. 8, a whole code of sanitary and
police-laws which could even now be studied with profit ;
from the few scanty civil laws in Exod. xxi., a whole corpus
jurisy which might well excite the interest and the admira-
tion of any lawyer ; and from the words " And thou shalt
teach them diligently unto thy children," a complete school-
system on the one hand, and on the other the rhumi of a
liturgy that appears to have suflBced for the spiritual needs
of more than fifty generations of Israelites.

Before we pass to the age of the Tannaim,^ the subject
of Weiss* s second volume, we must take account of two
important events which have greatly influenced the further
development of Tradition. I refer to the destruction of
the Temple and the rise of Christianity. With the former
event Judaism ceased to be a political commonwealth, and
if " the nation was already in the times of Ezra converted
into a church," — an assertion, by the way, which has not
the least basis in fact, — it became the more so after it had
lost the last remains of its independence. But it was a
church without priests, or, since such a thing, as far as

1 88 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

history teaches us, has never existed, let us rather call it a
Synagogue.

From this fact diverse results flowed. A Synagogue
can exist not only without priests, but also without sacri-
fices, for which prayer and charity were a sufficient substi-
tute. With the progress of time also many agricultural
laws, as well as others relating to sacerdotal purity,
gradually became obsolete, though they lingered on for
some generations, and, as a venerable reminiscence of a
glorious time, entered largely into Jewish literature. This
disappearance of so many laws and the weakening of the
national element, however, required, if Judaism was to con-
tinue to exist, the strengthening of religion from another
side. The first thing needed was the creation of a new
religious centre which would not only replace the Temple
to a certain degree, but also bring about a greater solidar-
ity of views, such as would render impossible the ancient
differences that divided the schools of Hillel and Shammai.
The creator of this centre was R. Johanan ben Zaccai,
who founded the school of Jamnia, and invested it with
the same authority and importance as the Sanhedrin had
enjoyed during Temple times. The consciousness that
they were standing before a new starting-point in history,
with a large religious inheritance from the past, actuated
them not only to collect the old traditional laws and to
take stock of their religious institutions, but also to give
them more definite shape and greater stability. As many
of these traditions were by no means undisputed, the best
thing was to bring them under one or other heading of
the Scriptures. This desire gave the impulse to the famous
hermeneutic schools of R. Akiba and R. Ishmael.

The next cause that contributed to give a more deter-

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 189

minate expression to the Law was the rise of Christianity.
This is not the place to give an account of the views which
the Rabbis entertained of Christianity. Suffice it to say
they could not see in the destruction of the Law its ful-
filment. They also thought that under certain conditions
it is not only the letter that killeth, but also the spirit, or
rather that the spirit may sometimes be clothed in a letter,
which, in its turn, will slay more victims than the letter
against which the loudest denunciations have been levelled.
Spirit without letter, let theologians say what they will, is
a mere phantasm. However, the new sect made claims to
the gift of prophecy, which, as they thought, placed them
above the Law. It would seem that this was a time of
special excitement. The student of the Talmud finds that
such marvels as predicting the future, reviving the dead,
casting out demons, crossing rivers dry-shod, curing the
sick by a touch or prayer, were the order of the day, and
performed by scores of Rabbis. Voices from heaven were
often heard, and strange visions were frequently beheld.
Napoleon L is said to have forbidden the holy coat of
Treves to work miracles. The Jewish legislature, how-
ever, had no means of preventing these supernatural
workings ; but when the Rabbis saw their dangerous con-
sequences, they insisted that miracles should have no in-
fluence on the interpretation and development of the Law.
Hence the saying with regard to Lev. xxvii. 34, that no
prophet is authorised to add a new law. And when R.
Eliezer b. Hyrkanos (about 120 a.c.) thought to prove the
justice of his case by the intervention of miracles, the
majority answered that the fact of this or that variation,
effected at his bidding, in the established order of nature,
proved nothing for the soundness of his argument. Nay,

igO STUDIES IN JUDAISM

they even ignored the Batk-KoP (the celestial voice),
which declared itself in favour of R. Eliezer, maintaining
that the Torah having once been given to mankind, it is
only the opinion of the majority that should decide on its
interpretation and application. Very characteristic is the
legend connected with this fact. When one of the Rabbis
afterwards met Elijah and asked him what they thought
in heaven of the audacity of his colleagues, the prophet
answered, " God rejoiced and said, my children have con-
quered me."

Into such discredit did miracles fall at that period, whilst
the opinion of the interpreting body, or the Sanhedrin, be-
came more powerful than ever. These were merely dog-
matical consequences. But new laws were enacted and
old ones revived, with the object of resisting Christian in-
fluences over the Jews. To expand the Oral Law, and
give it a firm basis in the Scriptures, were considered the
best means of preserving Judaism intact. "Moses de-
sired," an old legend narrates, "that the Mishnah also
(that is Tradition) should be written down;" but foresee-
ing the time when the nations of the world would translate
the Torah into Greek, and would assert their title to rank
as the Children of God, the Lord refused to permit tra-
dition to be recorded otherwise than by word of mouth.
The claim of the Gentiles might then be refuted by ask-
ing them whether they were also in possession of "the
Mystery." The Rabbis therefore concentrated their at-
tention upon "the Mystery," and this contributed largely
towards making the expository methods of R. Akiba and R.
Ishmael, to which I have above referred, the main object
of their study in the schools.

It would, however, be a mistake to think that the San-

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 19 1

hedrin now spent their powers in " enforcing retrograde
measures and creating a strange exegesis." I especially
advise the student to read carefully that admirable chap-
ter (VII., of Vol. II.) in which Weiss classifies all the Or-
dinances, ** Fences," Decrees, and Institutions, dating both
from this and from earlier ages, under ten headings, and
also shows their underlying principles. The main object
was to preserve the Jewish religion by strengthening the
principle of Jewish nationality, and to preserve the nation-
ality by the aid of religion. But sometimes the Rabbis
also considered it necessary to preserve religion against
itself, so to speak, or, as they expressed it, " When there
is time to work for the Lord, they make void thy Torah."
This authorised the Beth Din^ to act in certain cases
against the letter of the Torah. " The welfare of the
World" was another" great consideration. By "World"
they understood both the religious and the secular world.
From a regard to the former resulted such " Fences " and
Ordinances as were directed against " the transgressors,"
as well as the general injunction to " keep aloof from what
is morally unseemly, and from whatever bears any like-
ness thereto." In the interests of the latter — the welfare
of the secular world — they enacted such laws as either
tended to elevate the position of women, or to promote
the peace and welfare of members of their own commu-
nity, or to improve the relations between Jews and their
Gentile neighbours. They 'also held the great principle
that nothing is so injurious to the cause of religion as
increasing the number of sinners by needless severity.
Hence the introduction of many laws " for the benefit of
penitents," and the maxim not to issue any decree which
may prove too heavy a burden to the majority of the com-

192 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

munity. The relaxation of certain traditional laws was also
permitted when they involved a serious loss of property, or
the sacrifice of a man's dignity. Some old decrees were
even permitted to fall into oblivion when public opinion
was too strong against them, the Rabbis holding that it
was often better for Israelites to be unconscious sinners
than wilful transgressors. The Minhag^ or religious cus-
tom, also played an important part, it being assumed that
it must have been first introduced by some eminent au-
thority ; but, if there was reason to believe that the custom
owed its origin to some fancy of the populace, and that it
had a pernicious effect on the multitude, no compunction
was felt in abolishing it.

Very important it is to note that the Oral Law had not
at this period assumed a character of such rigidity that all
its ordinances, etc., had to be looked upon as irremovable
for all times. With those who think otherwise, a favourite
quotation is the administratory measure laid dawn in Trac-
tate Evidences^ I. 5, where we read that no Beth Din has
the right of annulling the dicta of another Beth Din^ unless
it is stronger in numbers (having a larger majority) and
greater in wisdom than its fellow tribunal. Confess with
becoming modesty that the world is always going downhill,
decreasing both in numbers and in wisdom, and the result
follows that any decision by the earlier Rabbis is fixed law
for all eternity. Weiss refutes such an idea not only as
inconsistent with the nature of Tradition, but also as con-
tradictory to the facts. He proves by numerous instances
that the Rabbis did abolish ordinances and decrees intro-
duced by preceding authorities, and that the whole concep-
tion is based on a misunderstanding. For the rule in
question, as Weiss clearly points out, originally only meant

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 193

that a Beth Din has no right to undo the decrees of
another contemporary Beth Din, unless it was justified in
doing so by the weight of its greater authority. This was
necessary if a central authority was to exist at all. Weiss
is indeed of opinion that the whole passage is a later inter-
polation from the age of R. Simeon b. Gamaliel II., when
certain Rabbis tried to emancipate themselves from the
authority of the Patriarch. But it was not meant that the
decision of a Beth Din should have perpetual binding
power for all posterity. This was left to the discretion of
the legislature of each generation, who had to examine
whether the original cause for maintaining such decision
still existed.

The rest of this volume is for the greater part taken up
with complete monographs of the Patriarchs and the heads
of the schools of that age, whilst the concluding chapters
give us the history of the literature, the Midrash, Mechilta,
Siphra, Siphr6, Mishnah, etc., which contain both the
Halachic and the Agadic sayings emanating from these
authorities.

With regard to these Patriarchs, I should like only to
remark that Weiss defends them against the charge made
by Schorr and others, who accuse them of having assumed
too much authority on account of their noble descent, and
who describe their opponents as the true friends of the
people. Weiss is no lover of such specious phrases. The
qualifications required for the leadership of the people
were a right instinct for the necessities of their time, a fair
amount of secular knowledge, and, what is of chief impor-
tance, an unbounded love and devotion to those over whose
interests they were called to watch. These distinctions, as
Weiss proves, the descendants of Hillel possessed in the

ig4 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

highest degree. It is true that occasionally, as for instance
in the famous controversy of R. Gamaliel II. with R.
Joshua b. Hananiah, or that of R. Simeon b. Gamaliel II.
with R. Nathan and R. Meir, they made their authority
too heavily felt ; ^^ but this was again another necessity of
those troubled times, when only real unity could save
Israel.

However, Weiss is no partisan, and the love he lavishes
on his favourite heroes does not exhaust his resources of
sympathy and appreciation for members of the other
schools. Weiss is no apologist either, and does not make
the slightest attempt towards explaining away even the
defects of R. Akiba in his somewhat arbitrary method of
interpretation, which our author thinks much inferior to
the expository rules of R. Ishmael ; but this does not pre-
vent him from admiring his excellences.

Altogether it would seem that Weiss thinks R. Akiba
more happy in his quality as a great saint than in that of
a great exegete. What is most admirable is the instinct
with which Weiss understands how to emphasise the right
thing in its right place. As an indication of the literary
honesty and marvellous industry of our author, I would
draw attention to the fact that the sketch of R. Akiba
and his school alone is based on more than two thousand
quotations scattered over the whole area of the Rabbinic
literature; but he points in a special note to a sentence
attributed to R. Akiba, which presents the whole man
and his generation in a single stroke. I refer to that pas-
sage in Tractate Joys}^ in which R. Akiba speaks of the
four types of sufferers. He draws the comparison of a
king chastising his children ; the first son maintains stub-
born silence, the second simply rebels, the third suppli-

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 195

cates for mercy, and the fourth (the best of sons) says :
"Father, proceed with thy chastisement, as David said.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me
from my sin " (Ps. li. 4). This absolute submission to
the will of God, which perceives in suffering only an ex-
pression of His fatherly love and mercy, was the ideal of
R. Akiba.

The great literary production of this period was the
Mishnah, which, through the high authority of its com-
piler, R. Judah the Patriarch, his saintliness and popu-
larity, soon superseded all the collections of a similar
kind, and became the official text-book of the Oral Law.
But a text requires interpretation, whilst other collections
also demanded some attention. This brings us to the two
TalmudSy namely, the Talmud of Jerusalem and the Tal-
mud of Babylon, the origin and history of which form
the subject of Weiss' s third volume.

Here again the first chapters are more of a preliminary
character, giving the student some insight into the laby-
rinth of the Talmud. The two chapters entitled "The
instruments employed in erecting the great Edifice," and
the "Workmanship displayed by the Builders," give evi-
dence of almost unrivalled familiarity with the Rabbinical
literature, and of critical powers of the rarest kind. Now
these instruments were by no means new, for, as Weiss
shows, the Amoraim employed in interpreting the Mish-
nah the same explanatory rules that are known to us
from the School of R. Ishmael as "the Thirteen Rules
by which the Torah is explained," though they appear
in the Talmud under other names, and are in reality only
a species of Midrash. Besides this there comes another
element into play. It was the exaggerated awe of all

196 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

earlier authorities that endeavoured to reconcile the most
contradictory statements by means of a subtle dialectic
for which the schools in Babylon were especially famous.
There were certainly many opponents of this system, and
from the monographs which Weiss gives on the various
heads of the western and eastern schools we see that not
all followed this method, and some among them even con-
demned it in the strongest words. However, it cannot be
denied that there is a strong scholastic feature in the Tal-
mud, which is very far from what we should look for in
a trustworthy exegesis. Thus we must not always ex-
pect to find in the Talmud the true meaning of the say-
ings of their predecessors, and it is certain that a more
scientific method in many cases has led to results the
very opposite of those at which the later Rabbis have
arrived. This fact was already recognised in the six-
teenth century, though only in part, by R. Yom-Tob
Heller and others. Only he insisted that in this matter
a line must be drawn between theory and practice. But
Weiss gives irrefragable proofs that even this line was
often overstepped by the greatest authorities, though they
remained always within the limits of Tradition. Indeed,
as Weiss points out, not every saying to be found in the
Talmud is to be looked upon as representing Tradition;
for there is much in it which only gives the individual
opinion or is merely an interpolation of later hands ; nor
does the Talmud contain the whole of Tradition, this
latter proceeding and advancing with the time, and cor-
responding to its conditions and notions. As we read
Weiss, the conviction is borne in upon us that there was
a Talmud before, and another after The Talmud.

Much space in this volume is given to the Agadah and

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 197

the so-called "Teachers of the Agadah." Weiss makes
no attempt at apology for that which seems to us strange,
or even repugnant in this part of the Rabbinic literature.
The greatest fault to be found with those who wrote down
such passages as appear objectionable to us is, perhaps,
that they did not observe the wise rule of Johnson, who
said to Boswell on a certain occasion, " Let us get serious,
for there comes a fool." And the fools unfortunately
did come in the shape of certain Jewish commentators
and Christian controversialists, who took as serious things
which were only the expression of a momentary impulse,
or represented the opinion of some isolated individual, or
were meant simply as a piece of humorous by-play, calcu-
lated to enliven the interest of a languid audience. But
on the other hand, as Weiss proves, the Agadah contains
also many elements of real edification and eternal truths
as well as abundant material for building up the edifice
of dogmatic Judaism. Talmudical quotations of such a
nature are scattered by thousands over Weiss's work, par-
ticularly in those chapters in which he describes the lives
of the greatest Rabbinical heroes. But the author lays the
student under special obligations by putting together in
the concluding pages of this volume some of these sen-
tences, and classifying them under various headings. I give
here a few extracts. For the references to authorities I
must direct the reader to the original : —

" The unity of God is the keystone of dogmatic Judaism.
The Rabbis give Israel the credit of having proclaimed to
the world the unity of God. They also say that Israel
took an oath never to change Him for another God. This
only God is jeternal, incorporeal, and immutable. And
though the prophets saw Him in different aspects, He

igg STUDIES IN JUDAISM

warned them that they must not infer from the visions
vouchsafed to them that there are different Gods. *I
am the first/ He tells them, which implies that he had no
father, and the words, * There is no God besides me,' mean
that he has no son. Now, this God, the God of Israel, is
holy in every thinkable way of holiness. He is merciful
and gracious, as it is said, * And I will be gracious to whom
I will be gracious,' even though he who is the recipient of
God's grace has no merit of his own. * And I will show
mercy to whom I will show mercy,' that is, even to those
who do not deserve it. His attributes are righteousness,
loving-kindness, and truth. God speaks words of eternal
truth, even as He himself is the eternal life. All that the
Merciful One does is only for good, and even in the time
of His anger He remembers His graciousness, and often
suppresses His attribute of judgment before His attri-
bute of mercy. But with the righteous God is more
severe than with the rest of the world, and when His hand
falls in chastening on His saints His name becomes awful,
revered, and exalted. This God of Israel, again, extends
His providence over all mankind, and especially over Israel.
By His eye everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice
is given, and the world is judged by grace, yet all accord-
ing to the works wrought. Hence, know what is above
thee, a seeing eye and a hearing ear, and that all thy deeds
are written in a book.

" They [the Rabbis] believed that God created the world
out of nothing, without toil and without weariness. This
world was created by the combination of His two attri-
butes, mercy and justice. He rejoices in His creation, and
if the Maker praises it, who dares to blame it.? And if
He exults in it, who shall find a blemish in it } Nay, it is

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION igg

a glorious and a beautiful worid. It is created for man,
and its other denizens were all meant but to serve him.
Though all mankind are formed after the type of Adam, no
one is like his fellow-man (each one having an individuality
of his own). Thus he is able to say, * For my sake, also,
was the world created * ; and with this thought his respon-
sibilities increase. But the greatest love shown to man is
that he was created in the image of God. Man is a being
possessed of free will, and, though everything is given on
pledge, whosoever wishes to borrow may come and borrow.
Everything is in the gift of Heaven except the fear of
God. In man's heart abide both the evil inclination and
the good inclination ; and the words of Scripture, ' Thou
shalt not bow down before a strange god,* point to the
strange god who is within man himself, who entices him
to sin in this world, and gives evidence against him in
the next. But the Holy One — blessed be He ! — said, * I
have created the evil inclination, but I have also created
its antidote, the Torah.* And when man is occupied with
the Torah and in works of charity, he becomes the master
of the evil inclination ; otherwise, he is its slave. When
man reflects the image of God, he is the lord of creation,
and is feared by all creatures ; but this image is defaced
by sin, and then he has no power over the universe, and is
in fear of all things.

"Another principle of Judaism is the belief in reward
and punishment. * I am the Lord, your God,* means,
*it is I who am prepared to recompense you for your
good actions, and to bring retribution upon you for your
evil deeds.' God does not allow to pass unrewarded even
the merit of a kind and considerate word. By the same
measure which man metes out, it shall be meted out to

200 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

him. Because thou drownedst others, they have drowned
thee, and at the last they who drowned thee shall them-
selves be drowned. Though it is not in our power to
explain either the prosperity of the wicked or the affliction
of the righteous, nevertheless know before whom thou
toilest, and who thy employer is, who will pay thee the
reward of thy labour. Here at thy door is a poor man
standing, and at his right hand standeth God. If thou
grantest his request, be certain of thy reward; but if
thou refusest, think of him who is by the side of the
poor, and will avenge it on thee. 'God seeketh the
persecuted ' to defend him, even though it be the wicked
who is persecuted by the righteous. The soul of man
is immortal, the souls of the righteous being treasured
up under the throne of God. Know that everything is
according to the reckoning, and let not thy imagination
give thee hope that the grave will be a place of refuge
for thee, for perforce thou wast formed, and perforce thou
wast born, and thou livest perforce, and perforce thou wilt
die, and perforce thou wilt in the future have to give
account and reckoning before the Supreme King of kings,
the Holy One, blessed be He.

"The advent of the Messiah is another article of the
belief of the Rabbis. But if a man tell thee that he
knows when the redemption of Israel will take place,
believe him not, for this is one of the unrevealed secrets
of the Almighty. The mission of Elijah is to bring peace
into the world, while the Messiah, in whose days Israel
will regain his national independence, will lead the whole
world in repentance to God. On this, it is believed, will
follow the resurrection of the dead.

"Another main principle in the belief of the Rabbis

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 2OI

is the election of Israel, which imposes on them special
duties, and gives them a peculiar mission. Beloved are
Israel, for they are called the children of God, and His
firstborn. ' They shall endure for ever * through the merit
of their fathers. There is an especial covenant established
between God and the tribes of Israel. God is their father,
and He said to them. My children, even as I have no
contact with the profanity of the world, so also withdraw
yourselves from it. And as I am holy, be ye also holy.
Nay, sanctify thyself by refraining even from that which is
not forbidden thee. There is no holiness without chastity.

"The main duty of Israel is to sanctify the name of God,
for the Torah was only given that His great name might
be glorified. Better is it that a single letter of the law
be cast out than that the name of Heaven be profaned.
And this also is the mission of Israel in this world : to
sanctify the name of God, as it is written, * This people
have I formed for myself, that they may show forth my
praise.' Or, 'And thou shalt love the Lord thy God,'
which means. Thou shalt make God beloved by all creat-
ures, even as Abraham did. Israel is the light of the
world ; as it is said, * And nations shall walk by thy light'
But he who profanes the name of Heaven in secret will
suffer the penalty thereof in public ; and this whether the
Heavenly Name be profaned in ignorance or in wilfulness.

" Another duty towards God is to love Him and to fear
Him. God's only representative on earth is the God-fear-
ing man. Woe unto those who are occupied in the study
of the Torah, but who have no fear of God. But a still
higher duty it is to perform the commandments of God
from love. For greater is he who submits to the will of
God from love than he who does so from fear,

202 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

" Now, how shall man love God ? This is answered in
the words of Scripture, * And these words shall be upon
thy heart.' For by them thou wilt recognise Him
whose word called the world into existence, and follow
His divine attributes.

"God is righteous; be ye also righteous, O Israel.
By righteousness the Rabbis understand love of truth,
hatred of lying and backbiting. The seal of the Holy
One, blessed be He, is Truth, of which the actions of man
should also bear the impress. Hence, let thy yea be
yea, and thy nay, nay. He who is honest in money trans-
actions, unto him this is reckoned as if he had fulfilled
the whole of the Torah. Greater is he who earns his liveli-
hood by the labour of his hands than even the God-fearing
man ; whilst the righteous judge is, as it were, the compan-
ion of God in the government of the world. For upon
three things the world stands : upon truth, upon judg-
ment, upon peace; as it is said, 'Judge ye the truth and
the judgment of peace in your gates.* But he who breaks
his word, his sin is as great as if he worshipped idols ;
and God, who punished the people of the time of the Flood,
will also punish him who does not stand by his word.
Such a one belongs to one of the four classes who are
not admitted into the presence of the Shechinah ; these
are the scoffers, the. hypocrites (who bring the wrath of
God into the world), the liars, and the slanderers. The
sin of the slanderer is like that of one who would deny
the root (the root of all religion, Le, the existence of God).
The greatest of liars, however, is he who perjures himself,
which also involves the sin of profanation of the name of
God. The hypocrite, who insinuates himself into people's
good opinions, who wears his phylacteries and is en-

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 203

wrapped in his gown with the fringes, and secretly com-
mits sins, equally transgresses the command, ' Thou shalt
not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.'

" God is gracious and merciful ; therefore man also
should be gracious and merciful. Hence, 'Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself,' which is a main principle
in the Torah. What is unpleasant to thyself, do not unto
thy neighbour. This is the whole Torah, to which the
rest is only to be considered as a commentary. And this
love is also extended to the stranger, for as it is said with
regard to Israel, 'And thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself,* so is it also said, * And thou shalt love him (the
stranger) as thyself.* And thus said God to Israel, * My
beloved children, Am I in want of anything that I should
request it of you } But what I ask of you is that you
should love, honour, and respect one another.* Therefore,
love mankind, and bring them near to the Torah. Let
the honour of thy friend be as dear to thee as thine own.
Condemn not thy fellow-man until thou art come into his
place, and judge all men in the scale of merit. Say not

* I will love scholars, but hate their disciples ; * or even,

* I will love the disciples, but hate the ignorant,* but love
all, for he who hates his neighbour is as bad as a mur-
derer. Indeed, during the age of the second Temple,
men studied the Torah and the commandments, and per-
formed works of charity, but they hated each other, a sin
that outweighs all other sins, and for which the holy
Temple was destroyed. Be careful not to withdraw thy
mercy from any man, for he who does so rebels against
the kingdom of God on earth. Walk in the ways of God,
who is merciful even to the wicked, and as He is gracious
alike to those who know Him, and to those who know

204 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Him not, so be thou. Indeed, charity is one of the three
pillars on which the world is based. It is more precious
than all other virtues. The man who gives charity in
secret is greater even than Moses our teacher. An act
of charity and love it is to pray for our fellow-man, and to
admonish him. *Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neigh-
bour, and not suffer sin upon him' (Lev. xix. i8), means
it is thy duty to admonish him a hundred times if need be,
even if he be thy superior; for Jerusalem was only de-
stroyed for the sin of its people in not admonishing one
another. The man whose protest would be of any weight,
and who does not exercise his authority (when any wrong
is about to be committed), is held responsible for the whole
world.

" Peacef ulness and humility are also the fruit of love.
Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and pursuing
peace. Let every man be cautious in the fear of God;
let him ever give the soft answer that turneth away wrath ;
let him promote peace, not only among his own relatives
and acquaintances, but also among the Gentiles. For (the
labour of) all the prophets was to plant peace in the world.
Be exceeding lowly of spirit, since the hope of man is but
the worm. Be humble as Hillel, for he who is humble
causes the Divine presence to dwell with man. But the
proud man makes God say, * I and he cannot dwell in the
same place.* He who runs after glory, glory flees from
him, and he who flees from glory, glory shall pursue him.
Be of those who are despised rather than of those who
despise ; of the persecuted rather than of the persecutors ;
be of those who bear their reproach in silence and answer
not.

"Another distinctive mark of Judaism is faith in God,

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 205

and perfect confidence in Him. Which is the right course
for a man to choose for himself ? Let him have a strong
faith in God, as it is said, ' Mine eye shall be upon the
faithful (meaning those possessing faith in God) of the
land.* And so also Habakkuk based the whole Torah on
the principle of faith, as it is said, * And the just shall live
by his faith ' (ii. 4). He who but fulfils a single command-
ment in absolute faith in God deserves that the -Holy
Spirit should rest on him. Blessed is the man who fears
God in private, and trusts in Him with all his heart, for
such fear and trust arms him against every misfortune.
He who puts his trust in the Holy One, blessed be He,
God becomes his shield and protection in this world
and in the next. He who has bread in his basket for
to-day, and says, ' What shall I have to eat to-morrow t '
is a man of little faith. One consequence of real faith is
always to believe in the justice of God*s judgments. It is
the duty of man to thank God when he is visited with
misfortune as he does in the time of prosperity. There-
fore, blessed is the man who, when visited by suffering,
questions not God*s justice. But what shall he do } Let
him examine his conduct and repent.

"For repentance is the greatest prerogative of man.
Better is one hour of repentance and good deeds in this
world than the whole life of the world to come. The aim
of all wisdom is repentance and good deeds. The place
where the truly penitent shall stand is higher than that of
the righteous. Repentance finds its special expression in
prayer ; and when it is said in Scripture, * Serve God with
all thy heart,* by this is meant, serve Him by prayer, which
is even greater than worship by means of sacrifices.
Never is a prayer entirely unanswered by God. There-

2o6 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

fore, even though the sword be on a man's neck, let him
not cease to supplicate God's: mercy. But regard not thy
prayer as a fixed mechanical task, but as an appeal for
mercy and grace before the All-Present; as it is said,
'For He is gracious and full of mercy, slow to anger,
abounding in lovmg-kindness, and repenteth him of the
evil/ "

The last two volumes of Weiss's work deal* with the
history of Tradition during the Middle Ages, that is, from
the conclusion of the Talmud to the compilation of the
Code of the Law by R. Joseph Caro. I have already in-
dicated that with Weiss Tradition did not terminate with
the conclusion of the Talmud. It only means that a
certain undefinable kind of literature, mostly held in dia-
logue form and containing many elements of Tradition,
was at last brought to an end. The authorities who did
this editorial work were the so-called Rabbanan Sabiirai^
and the Gaonim^ whose lives and literary activity are fully
described by Weiss. But, while thus engaged in preserv-
ing their inheritance from the past, they were also enrich-
ing Tradition by new contributions, both the Saburai and
the Gaonim having not only added to and diminished from
the Talmud, but having also introduced avowedly new
ordinances and decrees, and created new institutions.

Now, it cannot be denied that a few of these ordinances
and decrees had a reforming tendency (see the second and
twentieth chapters of vol. iv.); in general, however, they
took a more conservative turn than was the case in the
previous ages. This must be ascribed to the event of the
great schism within the Rabbinical camp itself. I refer
to the rise of Caraism, which took place during the first
half of the eighth century.

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 207

There is probably no work in which the Halachic or
legalistic side of this sect is better described than in this
volume of Weiss. I regret that I am unable to enter into
its details. But I cannot refrain from pointing to one of
the main principles of the Caraites. This was " Search
the Scriptures.'* Now this does not look very dissimilar
from the principle held by the Rabbis. For what else is
the Talmud, but a thorough searching through the Bible
for whatever was suggestive by time and circumstances ?
The light which the Caraites applied to the searching of
the Scriptures was the same which illumined the paths of
the. Rabbis' investigations. They employed most of the
expository rules of the Tannaite schools. The fact is that
they were only determined to find something different from
what the Rabbis found in the Scriptures. They wanted
to have gloomy Sabbaths and Festivals, and discovered
authority for it in the Bible ; they wanted to retain most
of the dietary laws which had their root only in Tradition,
but insisted on petty differences which they thought might
be inferred from the Scriptures, and they created a new
" order of inheritance," and varied the forbidden degrees
in marriage, in all which the only merit was that they were
in contradiction to the interpretation of the Rabbis. They
also refused to accept the Liturgy of Rabbinical Judaism,
but never succeeded in producing more than a patch-
work from verses of the Bible, which, thus recast, they
called a prayer-book. There were undoubtedly among
their leaders many serious and sincere men, but they give
us the impression of prigs, as for instance, Moses Darai,
when he reproaches the Rabbinical Jews for having an
" easy religion," or Israel Hammaarabi, when he recom-
mended his book on the laws regarding the slaughtering

2o8 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

of animals, as having the special advantage that his deci-
sions were always on the more stringent side. Those
who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land were by the
Caraitcs canonised as "mourners." The Rabbanite R.
Judah Hallevi also visited the ruins of Jerusalem, but he
did something more than "mourn. and sigh and cry," he
became a God-intoxicated singer, and wrote the "Zion-
Elegy." The novel terminology which they use in their ex-
egetical and theological works, was only invented to spite
the Rabbanites, and marks its authors as pedants. On
the other hand, it is not to be denied that their opponents
did not employ the best means to conciliate them. The
Middle Ages knew no other remedy against schism than
excommunication, and the Gaonim were the children of
their time. Nor were the arguments which the latter
brought forward in defence of Tradition always calculated
to convince the Caraites of their error. When R. Saadiah,
in his apology for the institution of the Second Day of
the Festival, ^^ went the length of assigning to it a Sinaitic
origin, he could only succeed in making the Caraites more
suspicious of the claims of Tradition than before. In a
later generation one of his own party, R. Hai Gaon, had
to declare his predecessor's words a " controversial exag-
geration." The zeal which some of the Gaonim showed
in their defence of such works as the Chambers and the
Measure of the Statute ^* was a not less unfortunate thing,
for it involved the Rabbanites in unnecessary responsi-
bilities for a new class of literature of doubtful origin,
which in succeeding centuries was disowned by the best
minds in Judaism.

The Gaonic period, to which we also owe the rise of the
Massorah and the introduction of points in the text of the

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 209

Bible — of which Weiss treats fully in the twenty-third
and twenty-fourth chapters of vol. iv. — comes to an end
with the death of R. Hai. The famous schools of Sura
and Pumbeditha, over which these two Gaonim presided,
fell into decay, and Babylon ceased to be the centre of
Judaism. To be more exact, we should say that Judaism
had no longer any real centre. Instead of dwelling in one
place for centuries, we now have to be perpetually on our
journey, accompanying our authors through all the inhab-
ited parts of the world — France, Italy, Spain, Germany,
with an occasional trip to Africa and Russia. There we
shall meet with the new schools, each of which, though
interpreting the same Torah, occupied with the study of
the same Talmud, and even conforming more or less to
the same mode of life, has an individuality and character
of its own, reflecting the thought and habits of the country
which it represents. Thus "geographical Judaism'* be-
comes a factor in history which no scholar can afford to
neglect. It is true that Judaism never remained entirely
unbiassed by foreign ideas, and our author points in many
a place to Persian, Greek, and Roman influences on
Tradition ; still, these influences seem to have undergone
such a thorough " Judaization " that it is only the practised
eye of the scholar that is able to see through the transfor-
mation. But it requires no great skill to discriminate
between the work produced by a Spanish and that of a
French Rabbi. Though both would write in Hebrew,
they betray themselves very soon by the style, diction,
and train of thought peculiar to each country. The
Spaniard is always logical, clear, and systematising, whilst
the French Rabbi has very little sense of order, is always
writing occasional notes, has a great tendency to be

2IO STUDIES IN JUDAISM

obscure, but is mostly profound and critical. Hence the
fact that whilst Spain produced the greatest codifiers of
the law, we owe to France and Germany the best com-
mentaries on the Talmud. What these codes and com-
mentaries meant for Judaism the student will find in
Weiss's book, and still more fully in his admirable essays
on Rashi (Solomon b. Isaac), Maimonides, and R. Jacob
Tam (published in his periodical, Betk Talmud, and also
separately). It is enough for us here only to notice the
fact of the breadth of Tradition, which could include
within its folds men of such different types as the sceptics,
Maimonides, Solomon b. Gabirol, and Abn Ezra on one
side, and the simple "non-questioning" Rabbenu Ger-
shom, Rashi, and Jacob Tam on the other.

The last three centuries, which occupy our author's
attention in the fifth volume, are not remarkable for their
progress. The world lives on the past. The rationalists
write treatises on Maimonides* philosophical works, whilst
the German Talmudists add commentary to commentary.
It is, indeed, the reign of authority, " modified by acci-
dents." Such an accident was the struggle between the
Maimonists and Anti-Maimonists, or the rise of the Cab-
balah, or the frequent controversies with Christians, all of
which tended to direct the minds of people into new chan-
nels of thought. But though this period is less original in
its work, it is not on that account less sympathetic. One
cannot read those beautiful descriptions which Weiss gives
of R. Meir of Rothenburg and his school, or of R. Asher
and his descendants, without feeling that one is in an
atmosphere of saints, who are the more attractive the
less they were conscious of their own saintliness. The
only mistake, perhaps, was that the successors of these

THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION 2II

" Chassidim or pious men of Germany *' looked on many
of the religious customs that were merely the * voluntary
expression of particularly devout souls as worthy of imita-
tion by the whole community, and made them obligatory
upon all.

This brings us to the question of the Code already men-
tioned (by R. Joseph Caro), with which Weiss*s work con-
cludes. I have already transgressed the limits of an
essay, without flattering myself that I have done anything
like justice to the greatest work on Jewish Tradition
which modern, Jewish genius has produced. But I should
not like the reader to carry away with him the false im-
pression that our author shares in the general cry, " Save
us from the Codifiers." Weiss, himself a Rabbi, and the
disciple of the greatest Rabbis of the first half of this cen-
tury, is quite aware of the impossibility of having a law
without a kind of manual to it, which brings the fluid
matter into some fixed form, classifying it under its proper
headings, and this is what we call codifying the law. And
thus he never passes any attempt made in this direction
without paying due tribute to its author — be it Maimon-
ides or Caro. But however great the literary value of a
code may be, it does not invest it with the attribute of in-
fallibility, nor does it exempt the student or the Rabbi
who makes use of it from the duty of examining each par-
agraph on its own merits, and subjecting it to the same
rules of interpretation that were always applied to Tradi-
tion. Indeed, Weiss shows that Maimonides deviated in
some cases from his own code, when it was required by
circumstances.

Nor do I know any modern author who is more in
favour of strong authority than Weiss. His treatment of

212 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

the Struggle between the Patriarch R. Gamaliel and his
adversaries, which I have touched on above, proves this
sufficiently. What Weiss really objects to, is a weak
authority — I mean that phonograph-like authority which
is always busy in reproducing the voice of others without
an opinion of its own, without originality, without initiative
and discretion. The real authorities are those who, draw-
ing their inspiration from the past, also understand how to
reconcile us with the present and to prepare us for the
future.

VIII

THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION
IN RABBINICAL LITERATURE

"Blessed be he who knows." These are the words
with which Nachmanides, in his classical treatise, Gate of
Reward, dismisses a certain theory of the Gaonim with
regard to this question; after which he proceeds to ex-
pound another theory, which seems to him more satisfac-
tory. This mode of treatment implies that, unsatisfactory
as the one or other theory may appear to us, it would be
presumptuous to reject either entirely, there being only
One who knows the exact truth about the great mystery.
But we may indicate our doubt about one doctrine by put-
ting by its side another, which we may affirm to be not
more absolutely true, but more probable. This seems to
have been the attitude, too, of the compilers of the ancient
Rabbinical literature, in which the most conflicting views
about this grave subject were embodied. Nor did the Syn-
agogue in general feel called upon to decide between these
views. There is indeed no want of theodicies, for almost
every important expounder of Job, as well as every Jewish
philosopher of note, has one with its own system of retribu-
tion. Thus Judaism has no fixed doctrine on the subject.
It refused a hearing to no theory, for fear that it should

213

214 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

contain some germ of truth, but on the same ground it
accepted none to the exclusion of the others.

These theories may, perhaps, be conveniently reduced

to the two following main doctrines that are in direct

opposition to each other, whilst all other views about the

.subject will be treated as the more or less logical results of

the one or other doctrine.

I. There is no death without (preceding) sin, nor afflic-
tion without (preceding) transgression.^ This view is cited
in the name of R. Ammi, who quoted in corroboration the
verses Ez. xviii. 20, and Ps. Ixxxix. 33. Though this
Rabbi flourished towards the end of the third century,
there is hardly any doubt that his view was held by the
authorities of a much earlier date. For it can only be
under the sway of such a notion of Retribution that the
Tannaim were so anxious to assign some great crime as
the antecedent *to every serious calamity by which man-
kind was visited. The following illustrations will suffice :
— "Pestilence comes into the world for capital crimes
mentioned in the Torah, which are not brought before the
earthly tribunal. . . . Noisome beasts come, into the world
for vain swearing and for profanation of the name (of God).
Captivity comes upon the world for strange worship and
incest, and for shedding of blood and for (not) giving
release to the land." As an example of the misfortune
befalling the individual I will merely allude to a passage in
another tractate of the Talmud, according to which lep-
rosy is to be regarded as the penalty for immorality,
slander, perjury, and similar sins.^

If we were now to complement R. Ammi*s view by add-
ing that there is no happiness without some preceding
merit — and there is no serious objection to making this

THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION

215

addition — then it would resolve itself into the theory of
Measure for Measure, which forms a very common stand-
ard of reward and punishment in Jewish literature.
Here are a few instances : — " Becajise the Egyptians
wanted to destroy Israel by water (Exod. i. 22), they were
themselves destroyed by the waters of the Red Sea, as
it is said. Therefore I will measure their former work
into their bosom (Is. Ixv. 7) ; " whilst, on the other hand,
we read, "Because Abraham showed himself hospitable
towards strangers, providing them with water (Gen. xviii.
4), God gave to his children a country blessed with plenty
of water (Deut. viii. i)." Sometimes this form of retri-
bution goes so far as to define a special punishment to
that part of the body which mostly contributed to the
committing of the sin. Thus we read, " Samson rebelled
against God by his eyes, as it is said. Get her (the Philis-
tine woman) for me, for she pleases my eyes (Judg. xvi.
21); therefore his eyes were put out by the Philistines
(Judg. xviii. 9)"; whilst Absalom, whose sinful pride be-
gan by his hair (2 Sam. xiv. 25), met his fate by his hair
(2 Sam. xviii. 9).^ Nahum of Gemzo himself explained
his blindness and the maimed condition of his arms and
legs as a consequence of a specific offence in having neg-
lected the duty of succouring a poor man. Addressing
the dead body of the suppliant who perished while Nahum
was delaying his help, he said, " Let my eyes (which had
no pity for your pitiful gaze) become blind; may my
hands and legs (that did not hasten to help thine) become
maimed, and finally my whole body be covered with
boils." * " This was the hand that wrote it," said Cranmer
at the stake ; "therefere it shall first suffer punishment."
It is worth noticing that this retribution does not always

2i6 STUDIES m JUDAISM

consist in a material reward, but, as Ben Azzai expressed
it: "The reward of a command is a command, and the
reward of a transgression is a transgression." * So again :
" Because Abraham showed himself so magnanimous in
his treatment of the king of Sodom, and said, I will not
take from thee a thread ; therefore, his children enjoyed
the privilege of having the command of Zizith, consisting
in putting a thread or fringe in the border of their gar-
ments." In another passage we read, " He who is anx-
ious to do acts of charity will be rewarded by having the
means enabling him to do so."^ In more general terms
the same thought is expressed when the Rabbis explained
the words. Ye shall sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be
holy (Lev. xi. 44), to the effect that if man takes the initi-
ative in holiness, even though in a small way, Heaven will
help him to reach it to a much higher degree.^

Notwithstanding these passages, to which many more
might be added, it cannot be denied that there are in the
Rabbinical literature many passages holding out promises
of material reward to the righteous as well as threatening
the wicked with material punishment. Nor is there any
need of denying it. Simple-minded men — and such the
majority of the Rabbis were — will never be persuaded
into looking with indifference on pain and pleasure ; they
will be far from thinking that poverty, loss of children,
and sickness are no evil, and that a rich harvest, hope of
posterity, and good health, are not desirable things. It
does lie in our nature to consider the former as curses and
the latter as blessings; "and if this be wrong there is
no one to be made responsible for it but the Creator of
nature." Accordingly the question must arise. How can
a just and omnipotent God allow it to happen that men

THE^ DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION

217

should suffer innocently? The most natural suggestion
towards solving the difficulty would be that we are not
innocent. Hence R. Ammi*s assertion that affliction and
death are both the outcome of sin and transgression ; or,
as R. Chanina ben Dossa expressed it, " It is not the wild
beast but sin which kills."®

We may thus perceive in this theory an attempt "to
justify the ways of God to man." Unfortunately it does
not correspond with the real facts. The cry wrung from
the prophets against the peace enjoyed by the wicked,
and the pains inflicted on the righteous, which finds its
echo in so many Psalms, and reaches its climax in the
Book of Job, was by no means silenced in the times of
the Rabbis. If long experience could be of any use, it
only served to deepen perplexity. For all this suffering
of the people of God, and the prosperity of their wicked
persecutors, which perplexed the prophets and their im-
mediate followers,, were repeated during the death-strug-
gle for independence against Rome, and were not lessened
by the establishment of Christianity as the dominant re-
ligion. The only comfort which time brought them was,
perhaps, that the long continuance of misfortune made
them less sensible to suffering than their ancestors were.
Indeed, a Rabbi of the first century said that his genera-
tion had by continuous experience of misery become as
insensible to pain as the dead body is to a prick of a
needle.® The anaesthetic effect of long suffering may,
indeed, help one to endure pain with more patience, but
it cannot serve as an apology for the deed of the inflictors
of the pain. The question, then, how to reconcile hard
reality with the justice of God, remained as difficult as
ever.

2i8 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

The most important passage in Rabbinical literature re-
lating to the solution of this problem is the following : —
With reference to Exod. xxxiii. 13, R. Johanan said, in the
name of R. Jos6, that, among other things, Moses also
asked God to explain to him the method of his Providence,
a request that was granted to him. He asked God, Why-
are there righteous people who are prosperous, and right-
eous who suffer ; wicked who are prosperous and wicked
who suffer ? The answer given to him was, according to
the one view, that the prosperity of the wicked and the
suffering of the righteous are a result of the conduct of
their ancestors, the former being the descendants of right-
eous parents and enjoying their merits, whilst the latter,
coming from a bad stock, suffer for the sins of those to
whom they owe their existence. This view was suggested
by the Scriptural words, " Keeping mercy for thousands
(of generations) . . . visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children " (Exod. xxxiv. 7), which were regarded
as the answer to Moses* question in the preceding chapter
of Exodus.^^ Prevalent, however, as this view may have
been in ancient times, the Rabbis never allowed it to pass
without some qualification. It is true that they had no
objection to the former part of this doctrine, and they
speak very frequently of the " Merits of the Fathers *' for
which the remotest posterity is rewarded ; for this could
be explained on the ground of the boundless goodness of
God, which cannot be limited to the short space of a life-
time. But there was no possibility of overcoming the
moral objection against punishment of people for sins
they have not committed.

It will suffice to mention here that, with reference to
Joshua vii. 24, 25, the Rabbis asked the question, If he

THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION

219

(Achan) sinned, what justification could there be for put-
ting his sons and daughters to death ? And by the force
of this argument they interpreted the words of the Script-
ures to mean that the children of the criminal were only
compelled to be present at the execution of their father.

Such passages, therefore, as would imply that children
have to suffer for the sins of their parents are explained
by the Rabbis as referring to cases in which the children
perpetuate the crimes of their fathers.^^ The view of
R. Jos6, which I have already quoted, had, therefore, to
be dropped, and another version in the name of the same
Rabbi is accepted. According to this theory the sufferer
is a person either "entirely wicked" or "not perfectly
righteous," whilst the prosperous man is a person either
"perfectly righteous," or "not entirely wicked."

It is hardly necessary to say that there is still some-
thing wanting to supplement this view, for the given clas-
sification would place the not entirely wicked on the same
level with the perfectly righteous, and on a much higher
level than the imperfectly righteous, who are undoubtedly
far superior. The following passage may be regarded as
supplying this missing something: — "The wicked who
have done some good work are as amply rewarded for it
in this world as if they were men who have fulfilled the
whole of the Torah, so that they may be punished for
their sins in the next world (without interruption) ; whilst
the righteous who have committed some sin haye to suffer
for it (in this world) as if " they were men who burned the
Law," so that they may enjoy their reward in the world to
come (without interruption)." ^ Thus the real retribution
takes place in the next world, the fleeting existence on
earth not being the fit time either to compensate right-

220 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

eousness or to punish sin. But as, on the one hand, God
never allows "that the merit of any creature should be
cut short,'* whilst, on the other hand. He deals very
severely with the righteous, punishing them for the
slightest transgression ; since, too, this reward and punish-
ment are only of short duration, they must take place in
this short terrestrial existence. There is thus established
a sort of divine economy, lest the harmony of the next
world should be disturbed.

Yet another objection to the doctrine under discussion
remains to be noticed. It is that it justifies God by
accusing man, declaring every sufferer as more or less
of a sinner. But such a notion, if carried to its last
consequences, must result in tempting us to withhold
our sympathies from him. And, indeed, it would seem
that there were some non-Jewish philosophers who argued
in this way. Thus a certain Roman official is reported
to have said to R. Akiba, "How can you be so eager
in helping . the poor } Suppose only a king, who, in his
wrath against his slave, were to set him in the gaol, and
give orders to withhold from him food * and drink ; if,
then, one dared to act to the contrary, would not the
king be angry with him .? " ^^ There is some appearance
of logic in this notion put into the mouth of a heathen.
The Rabbis, however, were inconsistent people, and re-
sponded to the appeal which suffering makes to every
human heart without asking too many questions. With-
out entering here into the topic of charity in the Rabbinic
literature, which would form a very interesting chapter,
I shall only allude now to the following incident, which
would show that the Rabbis did not abandon even those
afflicted with leprosy, which, according to their own

THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION 221

notion, given above, followed only as a punishment for
the worst crimes. One Friday, we are told, when the
day was about to darken, the Chassid Abba Tachnah
was returning home, bearing on his shoulders the baggage
that contained all his fortune; he saw a leprous man
lying on the road, who addressed him : " Rabbi, do me
a deed of charity and take me into the town/' The
Rabbi now thought, " If I leave my baggage, where shall
I find the means of obtaining subsistence for myself and
my family? But if I forsake this leprous man I shall
commit a mortal sin." In the end, he allowed the good
inclination to prevail over the evil one, and first carried
the sufferer to the town.^* The only practical conclusion
that the Rabbis drew from such theories as identify
suffering with sin were for the sufferer himself, who
otherwise might be inclined to blame Providence, or even
to blaspheme, but would now look upon his affliction as
a reminder from heaven that there is something wrong
in his moral state. Thus we read in tractate Berachoth : ^^
" If a man sees that affliction comes upon him, he ought
to inquire into his actions, as it is said. Let us search and
try our ways, and turn again to the Lord (Lam. iii. 40)."
This means to say that the sufferer will find that he
has been guilty of some offence. As an illustration of
this statement we may perhaps consider the story about
R. Huna, occurring in the same tractate.^® Of this Rabbi
it is said that he once experienced heavy pecuniary losses,
whereupon his friends came to his house and said to him,
" Let the master but examine his conduct a little closer."
On this R. Huna answered, " Do you suspect me of
having committed some misdeed ? " His friends rejoined,
" And do you think that God would pass judgment with-

222 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

out justice?" R. Huna then followed their hint, and
found that he did not treat his tenant farmer so gener-
ously as he ought. He offered redress, and all turned
out well in the end. Something similar is to be found
in the story of the martyrdom of R. Simeon ben Gamaliel
and R. Ishmael ben Elisha. Of these Rabbis we are
told that on their way to be executed the one said to
the other, "My heart leaves me, for I am not aware of
a sin deserving such a death *' ; on which the other an-
swered, "It might have happened that in your function
as judge you sometimes — for your own convenience —
were slow in administering justice.*' ^^

But even if the personal actions of the righteous were
blameless, there might still be sufficient ground for his being
afflicted and miserable. This may be found in his relations
to his kind and surroundings, or, to use the term now more
popular, by reason of human solidarity. Now, after the
above remarks on the objections entertained by the Rabbis
against a man*s being punished for the sins of others, it
is hardly necessary to say that their idea of solidarity has
little in common with the crude notions of it current in
very ancient times. Still, it can hardly be doubted that
the relation of the individual to the community was more
keenly felt by the Rabbis than by the leaders in any other
society, modern or ancient. According to the view given
by an ancient Rabbi whose name is unknown, it would,
indeed, seem that to them the individual was not simply a
member of the Jewish commonwealth, or a co-religionist,
but a limb of the great and single body "Israel,*' and that
as such he communicated both for good and evil the sen-
sations of the one part to the whole. In the Midrash^
where a parallel is to be found to this idea, the responsi-

THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RETRIBUTION

223

bility of the individual towards the community is further
illustrated by R. Simeon ben Yochai, in the following way :
"It is," we read there, "to be compared to people sitting
on board a ship, one of the passengers of which took an
awl and began to bore holes in the bottom of the vessel.
Asked to desist from his dangerous occupation, he an-
swered, * Why, I am only making holes on my own seat,'
forgetting that when the water came in it would sink the
whole ship." Thus the sin of a single man might en-
danger the whole of humanity. It was in conformity with
the view of his father that R. Eliezer, the son of R. Simeon
(ben Yochai) said, " The world is judged after the merits or
demerits of the majority, so that a single individual by his
good or bad actions can decide the fate of his fellow-creat-
ures, as it may happen that he is just the one who con-
stitutes this majority." ^^ Nor does this responsibility cease
with the man's own actions. According to the Rabbis
man is responsible even for the conduct of others — and
as such liable to punishment — if he is indifferent to the
wrong that is being perpetrated about him, whilst an ener-
getic protest from his side could have prevented it. And
the greater the man the greater is his responsibility. He
may suffer for the sins of his family which is first reached
by his influence ; he may suffer for the sins of the whole
community if he could hope to find a willing ear among
them, and he may even suffer for the sins of the whole
world if his influence extend so far, and he forbear from
exerting it for good.^^ Thus the possibility is given that
the righteous man may suffer with justice, though he him-
self has never committed any transgression.

As a much higher aspect of this solidarity — and as may
have already suggested itself to the reader from the pas-

224 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

sage cited above from the anonymous Rabbi — we may
regard the suffering of the righteous as an atonement for
the sins of their contemporaries. "When there will be
neither Tabernacle nor the Holy Temple," Moses is said
to have asked God, " what will become of Israel ? " Where-
upon God answers, "I will take from among them the
righteous man whom I shall consider as pledged for them,
and will forgive all their sins;'* the death of the perfect
man, or even his suffering being looked upon as an expi-
ation for the shortcoming of his generation.^

It is hardly necessary to remind the reader of the affinity
of this idea with that of sacrifices in general, as in both
cases it is the innocent being which has to suffer for the
sins of another creature. But there is one vital point which
makes all the difference. It is that in our case the suffer-
ing is not enforced, but is a voluntary act on the part of
the sacrifice, and is even desired by him. Without enter-
ing here on the often-discussed theme of the suffering of
the Messiah, I need only mention the words of R. Ishmael
who, on a very slight provocation, exclaimed, " I am the
atonement for the Jews," which means that he took upon
him all their sins to suffer for them.^^ This desire seems
to have its origin in nothing else than a deep sympathy
and compassion with Israel. To suffer for^ or, at least
with Israel was, according to the Rabbis, already the ideal
of Moses. He is said, indeed, to have broken the Two
Tables with the purpose of committing some sin, so that
he would have either to be condemned together with Israel
(for the sin of the golden calf), or to be pardoned together
with them.^ And this conduct was expected not only from
the leaders of Israel, but almost from every Jew. " When
Israel is in a state of affliction (as, for instance, famine) one

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225

must not say, I will rather live by myself, and eat and drink,
and peace be unto thee, my soul. To those who do so the
words of the Scriptures are to be applied : And in that day
did the Lord God of Hosts call to weeping and to mourn-
ing, . . . and behold joy and gladness. . . . Surely this
iniquity shall not be purged out from you till ye die " (Is.
xxii. 12-14). Another passage is to the effect that, when a
man shows himself indifferent to the suffering of the com-
munity, there come the two angels (who accompany every
Jew), put their hands on his head, and say, " This man who
has separated himself shall be excluded from their con-
solations.'*^

We might now characterise this sort of suffering as the
chastisement of love (of the righteous) to mankind, or
rather to Israel. But we must not confuse it with the
Chastisement of Love often mentioned in the Talmud,
though this idea also seems calculated to account for the
suffering of the righteous. Here the love is not on the
side of the sufferer, but proceeds from him who inflicts
this suffering. " Him," says R. Huna, " in whom God
delights he crushes with suffering." As a proof of this
theory the words of Is. liii. 10 are given, which are inter-
preted to mean : him whom the Lord delights in He puts
to grief. Another passage, by the same authority, is to
the effect that where there is no sufficient cause for pun-
ishment (the man being entirely free from sin), we have
to regard his suffering as a chastisement of love, for it
is said : ''Whom the Lord loveth He correcteth" (Proverbs
iii. 11).^ To what purpose He corrects him may, perhaps,
be seen from the following passage : ** R. Eleazar ben
Jacob says : If a man is visited by affliction he has to be
thankful to God for it : for suffering draws man to, and

226 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

reconciles him with God, as it is said : For whom God
loveth he correcteth." ^5

It is in conformity with such a high conception that
affliction, far from being dreaded, becomes almost a
desirable end, and we hear many Rabbis exclaim, " Be-
loved is suffering," for by it fatherly love is shown to man
by God; by it man obtains purification and atonement,
by it Israel came in possession of the best gifts, such as
the Torah, the Holy Land, and eternal life.^ And so
also the sufferer, far from being considered as a man
with a suspected past, becomes an object of veneration,
on whom the glory of God rests, and he brings salvation
to the world if he bears his affliction with joyful submis-
sion to the will of God.^ Continuous prosperity is by no
means to be longed after, for, as R. Ishmael taught, " He
who has passed forty days without meeting adversity has
already received his (share of the) world (to come) in
this life."^ Nay, the standing rule is that the really
righteous suffer, whilst the wicked are supposed to be
in a prosperous state. Thus, R. Jannai said, " We (aver-
age people) enjoy neither the prosperity of the wicked nor
the afflictions of the righteous,*' ^ whilst his contemporary,
Rab, declared that he who experiences no affliction and
persecution does not belong to them (the Jews).^

2. The second main view on Retribution is that re-
corded by the Rabbis as in direct opposition to that of
R. Ammi. It is that there is suffering as well as death
without sin and transgression. We may now just as well
infer that there is prosperity and happiness without pre-
ceding merits. And this is, indeed, the view held by
R. Meir. For in contradiction to the view cited above,
R. Meir declares that the request of Moses to have

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227

explained to him the mysterious ways of Providence was
not granted, and the answer he received was, ** And I will
shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy *' (Exod. xxxiii.
.19), which means to say, even though he to whom the
mercy is shown be unworthy of it. The old question
arises how such a procedure is to be reconciled with the
justice and omnipotence of God. The commentaries try
to evade the difficulty by suggesting some of the views
given above, as that the real reward and punishment are
only in the world to come, or that the affliction of the
righteous is only chastisement of love, and so on. From
the passages I am about to quote, however, one gains the
impression that some Rabbis rather thought that this
great problem will indeed not bear discussion or solution
at all. Thus we have the legend : " The angels said to
God, why have you punished Adam with death .^ He
answered. On account of his having transgressed my
commandment (with regard to the eating of the tree of
knowledge). But why had Moses and Aaron to die.?
The reply given to them is the words, Eccl. ix. 2 : * All
things come alike to all ; there is one event to the right-
eous and to the wicked, to the good and to the clean and
to the unclean.' '' ^^ Another legend records, " When
Moses ascended to heaven, God showed him also the
great men of futurity. R. Akiba was sitting and inter-
preting the law in a most wonderful way. Moses said
to God : Thou hast shown me his worth, show me also
his reward ; on which he is bidden to look back. There
he perceives him dying the most cruel of deaths, and his
flesh being sold by weight. Moses now asks : Is this the
reward of such a life } whereupon God answers him :
Be silent; this I have determined.'*®

228 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

It is impossible not to think of the fine lines of the
German poet : —

Warum schleppt sich blutend, elend,
Unter Kreuzlast der Gerechte,
Wahrend glucklich als ein Sieger

Trabt auf hohem Ross der Schlechte?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ *

Also fragen wir bestandig,
Bis man uns mit einer Handvoll
Erde endlich stopft die Mauler —
Aber ist das eine Antwort ?

Still, one might perhaps suggest that these passages
when examined a little closer, not only contain a rebuke
to man's importunity in wanting to intrude into the secrets
of God, but also hint at the possibility that even God's
omnipotence is submitted to a certain law — though de-
signed by His own holy will — which He could not alter
without detriment to the whole creation. Indeed, in one
of the mystical accounts of the martyrdom of R. Akiba
and other great Rabbis, God is represented as asking the
sufferers to accept His hard decree without protest, unless
they wish Him to destroy the whole world. In another
place again, we read of a certain renowned Rabbi, who
lived in great poverty, that once in a dream he asked the
divine Shechinah how long he would have still to endure
this bitter privation } The answer given to him was :
" My son, will it please you that I destroy the world for
your sake ? " ^ It is only in this light that we shall be
able to understand such passages in the Rabbinic litera-
ture as that God almost suffers Himself when He has to
inflict punishment either on the individual or on whole
communities. Thus God is represented as mourning for

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229

seven days (as in the case when one loses a child) before
He brought the deluge on the world ; He bemoans the
fall of Israel and the destruction of the Temple, and the
Shechinah laments even when the criminal suffers his just
punishment. And it is not by rebelling against these
laws that He tries to redeem His suffering. He himself
has recourse to prayer, and says : ** May it be my will
that my mercy conquer my wrath, that my love over-rule
my strict justice, so that I may treat my children with
love.**^ If now man is equal to God, he has nevertheless,
or rather on that account, to submit to the law of God
without any outlook for reward or punishment; or, as
Antigonos expressed it, " Be not as slaves that minister to
the Lord with a view to receive recompense.*' ^ Certainly
it would be hazardous to maintain that Antigonos's saying
was a consequence of this doctrine ; but, at any rate, we
see a clear tendency to keep the thought of reward (in
spite of the prominent part it holds in the Bible) out of
view. Still more clearly is it seen when, with reference
to Ps. cxii., "Blessed is the man . . . that delighteth
greatly in his commandments," Rabbi Eleazar remarks
that the meaning is that the man desires only to do His
commandments, but he does not want the rewards con-
nected with them.^ This is the more remarkable, as the
whole contents of this psalm are nothing else than a long
series of promises of various rewards, so that the explana-
tion of Rabbi Eleazar is in almost direct contradiction to
the simple meaning of the words. On the other hand,
also, every complaint about suffering must cease. Not
only is affliction no direct chastisement by God in the
way of revenge ; but even when it would seem to us that
we suffer innocently, we have no right to murmur, as

230 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

God himself is also suffering, and, as the Talmud expresses
it, * It is enough for the slave to be in the position of his
master.* '' ^

This thought of the compassion — in its strictest sense
of fellow-suffering — of God with His creatures becomes
a new motive for avoiding sin. "Woe to the wicked,"
exclaims a Rabbi, ** who by their bad actions turn the
mercy of God into strict justice.'* ^ And the later mystics
explain distinctly that the great crime of sin consists in
causing pain, so to speak, to the Shechinah. One of
them compared it with the slave who abuses the goodness
of his master so far as to buy with his money arms to
wound him. But, on the other hand, it becomes, rather
inconsistently, also a new source of comfort; for, in the
end, God will have to redeem Himself from this suffering,
which cannot be accomplished so long as Israel is still
under punishment.^ Most interesting is the noble prayer
by a Rabbi of a very late mystical school : " O God,
speedily bring about the redemption. I am not in the
least thinking of what I may gain by it. I am willing to
be condemned to all tortures in hell, if only the Shechinah
will cease to suffer.**^

If we were now to ask for the attitude of the Synagogue
towards these two main views, we should have to answer
that — as already hinted at the opening of this paper — it
never decided for the one or the other. R. David Rocca
Martino dared even to write a whole book in Defence of
Adam proving that he committed no sin in eating the
fruit of the tree of knowledge against the literal sense of
the Scriptures, which were also taken by the Rabbis
literally.^^ By this he destroyed the prospects of many a
theodicy, but it is not known to me that he was severely

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231

rebuked for it. It has been said by a great writer that the
best theology is that which is not consistent, and this ad-
vantage the theology df the Synagogue possesses to its
utmost extent. It accepted with R. Ammi the stern prin-
ciple of divine retribution, in as far as it makes man feel
the responsibility of his actions, and makes suffering a
discipline. But it never allowed this principle to be
carried so far as to deny the sufferer our sympathy, and
by a series of conscious and unconscious modifications,
he passed from the state of a sinner into the zenith of the
saint and the perfectly righteous man. But, on the other
hand, the Synagogue also gave entrance to the very op-
posite view which, abandoning every attempt to account
for suifering, bids man do his duty without any hope of
reward, even as God also does His. Hence the remarkable
phenomenon in the works of later Jewish moralists, that,
whilst they never weary of the most detailed accounts of
the punishments awaiting the sinner and the rewards in
store for the righteous, they warn us most emphatically
that our actions must not be guided by these unworthy
considerations, and that our only motive should be the love
of God and submission to His holy will.

Nor must it be thought that the views of the Rabbis
are so widely divergent from those enunciated in the
Bible. The germ of almost all the later ideas is already
to be found in the Scriptures. It only needed the proc-
ess of time to bring into prominence those features
which proved at a later period most acceptable. Indeed,
it would seem that there is also a sort of domestication
of religious ideas. On their first association with man
there is a certain rude violence about them which, when
left to the management of untutored minds, would car-

232 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

tainly do great harm. But, let only this association last
for centuries, during which these ideas have to be sub-
dued by practical use, and they 'will, in due time, lose
their former roughness, will become theologically work-
able, and turn out the greatest blessing to inconsistent
humanity.

THE LAW AND RECENT CRITICISM i

Professor Toy's -viovky Jtidaism and Christianity y gives
an admirable conspectus of the results of the modem
critical school in their bearing on the genesis of Chris-
tianity. The author takes various important doctrines of
Christianity, traces them back to their origin in Israeli-
tism, pursues their course through their various phases
in Judaism, until they reach their final development in
the teaching of Jesus and His disciples, which, in the
author's judgment, is the consummation of that which
the prophets and their successors had to give to the
world. Laying so much stress as Professor Toy does on
the saying, " By their fruits shall ye know them,** he
ought also, perhaps, to have told us what, in the course
of time, has become of these several doctrines. For
when, for instance, with regard to the doctrine of origi-
nal sin, he remarks that " in certain systems of Christian
theology the human race is involved in the condem-
nation of the first man** (p. 185, n. i); or that, in the
New Testament, " the demand for a mediating power be-
tween God and humanity is pushed to the farthest point
which thought can occupy consistently with the mainte-
nance of the absoluteness of the one Supreme Deity"
(p. 121), he is rather evading a difficulty than answering
it. Such elaboration would, however, have been outside

234 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

the scope of Professor Toy's book, which claims only to
be a sketch of the progress of thought from the Old
Testament to the New. For his own solution of the
indicated difficulty, Toy, to judge from his liberal stand-
point, would probably refer us to Dr. Hatch's Hibbert
lectures; the issue of such an appeal must, I imagine,
remain for long doubtful and disputed.

A delightful characteristic of Toy's book is its trans-
parent clearness and sobriety, which will make it inter-
esting reading, even to those who are acquainted with
the writer's authorities in their original sources. Almost
entirely new, as well as most suggestive, is the justice
which Toy does to the law in recognising it as a factor
for good in the history of religion. In this point Toy is
not only up to his date, but beyond it. It is true that
even the Pharisees have made some advance in the esti-
mation of the liberal school. They are no longer con-
demned en masse as so many hypocrites. It is even
admitted that there were a few honest men among
them, such as Rabban Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul,
or R. Akiba, the patriot of Bethar. We are now too
polite to be personal. But with regard to the law, on
the other hand, there is at present a markedly opposite
tendency. The general idea seems to be that, as the
doctrine of the resurrection of Christ must be loosely
interpreted in a spiritual sense, it must logically have
been preceded by a universal spiritual death, and the
germs of the disease which brought this death about
are to be sought for in the law. Hence the strained
efforts to discover in the law the source of all religious
evil, — cant, hypocrisy, formalism, externalism, transcen-
dentalism, and as many "isms" more, of bad reputation.

THE LAW AND RECENT CRITICISM 235

It was probably with this current representation of the
law in view that Toy, when speaking of the Levitical leg-
islation, and of its fixing "men's minds on ceremonial
details which, in some cases, it put into the same category
and on the same level with moral duties,** asks the ques-
tion: "Would there not thence result a dimming of the
moral sense and a confusion of moral distinctions ? The
ethical attitude of a man who could regard a failure in the
routine of sacrifice as not less blameworthy than an act of
theft cannot be called a lofty one** (p. 186). The answer
which he gives is more favourable than such a leading
question would induce us to expect. He tells us that, " in
point of fact, the result was different ** {ibid). "The Levit-
ical law is not to be looked on as a mere extension and
organisation of the ritual. ... Its ritual was, in great
part, the organised expression of the consciousness of sin **
(p. 226). Of the law in general Toy says that it had
"larger consequences than its mere details would sug-
gest,** for it " cultivated the moral sense of the people
into results above its mechanical prescriptions,** and "it
developed the sense of sin, as Paul points out ** (Gal. iii.
19), "and therewith a freer feeling, which brought the
soul into more immediate contact with God** (p. 227);
whilst in another place he reminds us " that much of the
law is moral, and that no one could fail to see a spiritual
significance beneath its letter ** (p. 245), and he even ad-
mits that " the great legal schools which grew up in the
second century, if we may judge by the sayings of the
teachers which have come down to us, did not fail to dis-
criminate between the outward and the inward, the cere-
monial and the moral ** (p. 186).

These and similar passages will suffice to show that

236 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Toy's estimate of the law is a very diflFerent one from that
of Smend and his school However, it must not be sup-
posed that he is not on the look-out for the germs of the
disease. He must find these germs somewhere, or else
the progress, which his book is intended to illustrate,
would be difficult to detect. And thus he repeats the old
accusations, though not without modification.

Professor Toy's objections may, perhaps, be summed up
in the passage in which he represents the Jewish law as
"an attempt to define all the beliefs and acts of life"
(p. 239), or as "the embodiment of devotion to a fixed
rule of belief and conduct" (p. 237). Toy does not
entirely condemn this system, and even speaks of it as a
" lofty attempt " (p. 239) ; but, on the whole, he considers
that it must have resulted in bad theology, as well as in
doubtful conduct. Without following Professor Toy over
the whole area of his investigations, which would require
a volume for itself, I will only take the opportunity of
making a few general remarks upon the nature and
character of this legal system, which seems to hold the
key to the spiritual history of Judaism.

First, as to its theology. Toy's description of the law as
an attempt to define all the beliefs of life — an assertion
which is also made by Schurer — is not wholly accurate.
For such an attempt was never made by Judaism. The
few dogmas which Judaism possesses, such as the Exist-
ence of God, Providence, Reward, and Punishment —
without which no revealed religion is conceivable — can
hardly be called a creed in the modern sense of the term,
which implies something external and foreign to man's
own knowledge, and received only in deference to the
weight of authority. To the Jew of the Christian era,

THE LA W AND RECENT CRITICISM

237

these simpler dogmas were so self-evident that it would
have cost him the greatest effort not to believe them.
Hence the fact that, whilst there have come down to us
so many controverted points between the Sadducees and
Pharisees with regard to certain juristic and ritual ques-
tions, we know of only one of an essentially dogmatic
character, viz. the dispute concerning the Resurrection.
It is thus difficult to imagine to what Professor Toy can
be alluding when he speaks of the "interest they (the
Jews) threw into the discussion and determination of
minutiae of faith" (p. 241). Discussions upon niinutice
of faith are only to be read in the works of the later
schoolmen (as Saadiah, Maimonides and their followers),
in which such subtle problems as Creatio ex nihilOy the
origin of evil, predestination, free will and similar subjects
are examined; but this period is very distant from that
with which Toy is concerned. The older schools and
the so-called houses of Shammai and Hillel, most of whose
members were the contemporaries of the Apostles, show
very little predilection for such minutice. Their discus-
sions and differences of opinion about ritual matters are
very numerous, scattered as they are over the whole of
the ancient Rabbinic literature, but I can only remember
two of a metaphysical character, or touching upon the
minutice of faith. The one, dealing with the efficacy of
certain sacrifices, discusses whether it only extends to
the remission of the pending punishment for sins, or also
includes their purification and washing away; the other
considers the question* whether it would not have been
better for man not to have been created.^ But this latter
controversy, which is said to have lasted for two years
and a half, by no means led to any big metaphysical or

238 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

theological system, but only to the practical advice that,
as we have been created, we ought to be watchful over
our conduct. It is, indeed, a noteworthy feature of Juda-
ism that theological speculations have never resulted in
the formulation of any imposing or universal doctrine, but
usually in divers ceremonial practices. To give one illus-
tration: according to Professor Toy (p. 210) the conclu-
sion which the author of i Tim. ii. 11-14 draws from the
fact that woman was the immediate agent of the introduc-
tion of sin was the subordination of her sex. The Rabbis
also noticed the same fact, and in their less abstract lan-
guage speak of woman as having brought death and grief
into the world ; but the conclusion which they drew was
that since woman had extinguished the "light of the
world,** she ought to atone for it by lighting the candles
for the Sabbath.^ Nor is Toy quite correct when he main-
tains that the conception of the Memra as Creator and
Lord, etc., and as " representative of the immediate divine
activity,** did not keep its hold on Jewish thought, hav-
ing been discarded in the later literature (p. 104). For
the Shechinah of the Talmud, the Metatron * of the Gaonic-
mystical literature, the Active Intelligence of the philosoph-
ical schools, as well as the Ten Sephiroth ^ (Emanations)
of the Cabbalists, all owe their existence to the same theo-
sophic scruples and subtleties in which the Logos of Philo
and the Memra ^ of the Targums originated. Thus, they
always kept — though under various forms — their hold
on the Jewish mind. Judaism was always broad enough
to accommodate itself to these formulae, which for the
one may mean the most holy mysteries, and for the other
empty and meaningless catchwords. The objection — in
fact, the active opposition — of the Synagogue began when

THE LAW AND RECENT CRITICISM

239

these possible or impossible explanations of the universe
tended to transgress the bounds of abstract speculation,
and, passing over into real concrete beings, to be wor-
shipped as such. An instance from comparatively modem
times might be found in one of the vagaries of the fol-
lowers of the Pseudo-Messiah, Shabbethai Tsebi. For
many generations the controversy had raged among the
Cabbalists, whether the first of the above-mentioned Ten
Emanations (called by some Original Adanty by others,
Crotvn'^) is to be considered as a part of the Deity or
as something separate, and so to speak, having a reality
in itself. The danger of establishing a Being near the
D^ity, having an existence of its own and invested with
divine attributes, could not have escaped the thoughtful,
and there are indeed some indications to this effect. The
Synagogue as such, however, remained during the whole
controversy strictly neutral, and allowed these theosophists
to fight in the air as much as they liked. But the moment
that the sect of Shabbethai Tsebi identified the incarnate
Original Adam with their leader, and worshipped him as
a sort of God-Messiah, the Synagogue at once took up
a hostile attitude against those who separated God from
His world, and, declaring Shabbethai Tsebi and his fol-
lowers to be apostates, excluded them from Judaism for
ever.

Nor can it be proved that legalism or nomism has ever
tended to suppress the spiritual side of religion, either in
respect of consciousness of sin, or of individual love and
devotion. With an equal logic quite the opposite might
be argued. Professor Toy tells us himself that it is no
" accident that along with this more definite expression of
ethical-religious law we find the first traces of a more

240 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

spiritual conception of righteousness in the *new heart'
of Jeremiah and Ezekiel" (p. 235), whilst in another pas-
sage we read that "a turning point is marked by the
Deuteronomist Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who announce the
principles of individual responsibility and inwardness of
obedience *' (p. 184). Now, two things are certain; first,
that Ezekiel urges the necessity of the new heart as well as
of individual responsibility more keenly than any of his
predecessors ; secondly, that in Ezekiel the legalistic ten-
dency is more evident than in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah.
The logical conclusion would thus be that the higher ideals
of religion are not only not inconsistent with legalism, but
are the very outcome of it, and the so-called Priestly Code,
by the very fact of its markedly legalistic tendency,
should be considered as a step in the right direction. The
latter assertion sounds like a paradox, but it will seem less
so when the prevailing characteristic of this portion of the
Pentateuch, as given even by Kuenen, who is by no means
a champion of the Law, is borne in mind. " The centre
of gravity," according to the great Dutch critic, "lies for
the priestly author elsewhere than for the prophet ; it lies
in man's attitude, not towards his fellow-men, but towards
God ; not in his social, but in his personal life " {Hibbert
Lectures^ p. 161). It is here that we seem to strike the
keynote of the Weltanschauung of the Priestly Legislation.
In it man is more than a social being. He has also an
individual life of his own, his joys and sorrows, his his-
torical claims, his traditions of the past, and his hopes for
the future — and all these have to be brought under the
influence of religion, and to become sanctified through
their relation to God. Hence, the work of the Priestly
narrator and legislator opens with a cosmogony of his

THE LAW AND RECENT CRITICISM

241

own, in which we find the grand theological idea of man
being created in the Divine image ; hence, too, his relig-
ious conception of the history of the nation and the con-
trol claimed by him over all the details of human life,
which became with him so many opportunities for the
worship of God. To him, God is not a mere figurehead ;
He not only reigns, but governs. Everywhere, — in the
temple, in the judge's seat, in the family, in the farm, and
in the market-place, — His presence is felt in enforcing
the laws bearing His imprimatur^ " I am the Lord thy
God." By thus diffusing religion over the whole domain
of human life — not confining it to the social institutions
which are represented only by a few personages, such as
the king, the princes, the priests, the judges or elders
— they made it the common good of the whole people,
and the feeling of personal responsibility for this good
became much deeper than before. Thus it came to pass
that whilst, during the first temple, the apostasy of kings
and aristocracy involved the entire people, so that the
words "And he (the king) did evil in the sight of the
Lord," embrace the whole nation, during the second
temple it was no longer of much consequence which side
the political leaders took. Both during the Hellenistic
persecutions, as well as afterwards in the struggles of
some Maccabean kings with the Pharisees, the bulk of the
people showed that they considered religion as their own
personal affair, not to be regulated by the conscience of
either priest or prince. It is true that this success may
be largely ascribed to such contemporary religious factors
as the Synagogue with its minimum of form, the Scribes
with their activity as teachers, and the Psalmists with
their divine enthusiasm; but the very circumstance that

242 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

these factors arose and flourished under the influence of
the Priestly Code would suffice to prove that its tendency
was not so sacerdotal as some writers would have us
believe. Jewish tradition indeed attributes the composi-
tion of the daily public prayers, as well as of others for
private worship, to the very men whom modem biblical
criticism holds responsible for the introduction of the
Priestly Code. Now this fact may perhaps be disputed,
but there is little doubt that the age in which these
prayers were composed was one of flourishing legalism.
Nor is there any proof that the synagogues and their
ritual were in opposition to the temple. From the few
documents belonging to this period, it is clear that there
was no opposition to the legalistic spirit by which the
Priestly Code was actuated. This would prove that legal-
ism meant something more than tithes and sacrifices for
the benefit of the priests.

Nor is it true that the legal tendency aimed at narrowing
the mind of the nation, turning all its thoughts into the one
direction of the law. Apart from the fact that the Torah
contained other elements besides its legalism, the prophets
were not forgotten, but were read and interpreted from a
very early age. It was under the predominance of the
Law that the Wisdom literature was composed, which is
by no means narrow or one-sided, but is even supposed by
some critics to contain many foreign elements. In the
book of Job, the great problems of man*s existence are
treated with a depth and grandeur never equalled before
or since. This book alone ought partly to compensate the
modem school for the disappearance of prophecy, which
is usually brought as a charge against the Law. Then,
too, the Psalms, placed by the same school in the post-

THE LAW AND RECENT CRITICISM

243

exilic period, are nothing but another aspect of prophecy,
with this difference, perhaps, that in the Prophets God
speaks to man, while in the Psalms it is man who estab-
lishes the same communion by speaking to God. There
is no reason why the critical school, with its broad concep-
tion of inspiration, and with its insistence that prophecy
does not mean prediction, should so strongly emphasise
this difference. If **it is no longer as in the days of
Amos, when the Lord Yahveh did nothing without reveal-
ing his counsel to his servants the prophets,** there is in
the days of the Psalmists nothing in man's heart, no ele-
ment in his longings and meditations and aspirations,
which was not revealed to God. Nay, it would seem that
at times the Psalmist hardly ever desires the revelation of
God's secrets. Let future events be what they may, he is
content, for he is with God. After all his trials, he ex-
claims, " And yet I am continually with thee ; thou hast
taken hold of my right hand. According to thy purpose
wilt thou lead me, and afterwards receive me with glory.
Whom have I (to care for) in heaven } and possessing
thee, I have pleasure in nothing upon earth. Though my
flesh and my heart should have wasted away, God would
for ever be the rock of my heart and my portion " (Ps.
Ixxiii. 23-26). How an age producing a literature contain-
ing passages like these — of which Wellhausen in his Ab-
riss (p. 95) justly remarks, that we are not worthy even to
repeat them — can be considered by the modem school as
wanting in intimate relation to God and inferior to that of
the prophets is indeed a puzzle.

Now a few words as to the actual life under the Law.
Here, again, there is a fresh puzzle. On the one side, we
heir the opinions of so many learned professors, proclaim-

244 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

ing ex cathedrA, that the Law was a most terrible burden,
and the life under it the most unbearable slavery, deaden-
ing body and soul. On the other side we have the testi-
mony of a literature extending over about twenty-five
centuries, and including all sorts and conditions of men,
scholars, poets, mystics, lawyers, casuists, schoolmen,
tradesmen, workmen, women, simpletons, who all, from the
author of the 1 19th Psalm to the last pre-Mendelssohnian
wnter — with a small exception which does not even de-
serve the name of a vanishing minority — give unanimous
evidence in favour of this Law, and of the bliss and hap-
piness of living and dying under it, — and this, the testi-
mony of people who were actually living under the Law,
not merely theorising upon it, and who experienced it in
all its difficulties and inconveniences. The Sabbath will
give a fair example. The law of the Sabbath is one of
those institutions the strict observance of which was al-
ready the object of attack in early New Testament times.
Nevertheless, the doctrine proclaimed in one of the Gos-
pels — that the son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath —
was also current among the Rabbis. They, too, taught
that the Sabbath had been delivered into the hand of man
(to break, if necessary), and not man delivered over to the
Sabbath.® And they even laid down the axiom that a
scholar who lived in a town, where among the Jewish pop-
ulation there could be the least possibility of doubt as to
whether the Sabbath might be broken for the benefit of a
dangerously sick person, was to be despised as a man neg-
lecting his duty ; for, as Maimonides points out, the laws
of the Torah are not meant as an infliction upon mankind,
"but as mercy, loving-kindness, and peace.**®
The attacks upon the Jewish Sabbath have not abated

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245

with the lapse of time. The day is still described by
almost every Christian writer on the subject in the most
gloomy colours, and long lists are given of minute and
easily transgressed observances connected with it, which,
instead of a day of rest, would make it to be a day of
sorrow and anxiety, almost worse than the Scotch Sun-
day as depicted by continental writers. But it so happens
that we have the prayer of R. Zadok, a younger contem-
porary of the Apostles, which runs thus : " Through the
love with which Thou, O Lord our God, lovest Thy people
Israel, and the mercy which Thou hast shown to the
children of Thy covenant, Thou hast given unto us in love
this great and holy Seventh Day." ^^ And another Rabbi,
who probably flourished in the first half of the second
century, expresses himself (with allusion to Exod. xxxi. 1 3 :
Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep . . . that ye may know
that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you) — "The Holy
One, blessed be He, said unto Moses, I have a good gift
in my treasures, and Sabbath is its name, which I wish
to present to Israel. Go and bring to them the good
tidings.'*^ The form again of the Blessing over the
Sanctification-cup ^ — a ceremony known long before the
destruction of the Second Temple — runs : " Blessed art
Thou, O Lord our God, who hast sanctified us by Thy
commandments, and hast taken pleasure in us, and in love
and grace hast given us Thy holy Sabbath as an inheri-
tance." All these Rabbis evidently regarded the Sabbath
as a gift from heaven, an expression of the infinite mercy
and grace of God which He manifested to His beloved
children.

And the gift was, as already said, a good gift. Thus
the Rabbis paraphrase the words in the Scripture " See,

246 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath ** (Exod. xvi.
29) : God said unto Israel behold the gem I gave you, My
children I gave you the Sabbath for your good. Sanctify
or honour the Sabbath by choice meals, beautiful garments ;
delight your soul with pleasure and I will reward you (for
this very pleasure) ; as it is said : " And if thou wilt call
the Sabbath a delight and the holy of the Lord honourable
(that is honouring the Sabbath in this way) . . . then
shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord" (Is. Iviii. 13, 14).-^
The delight of the Sabbath was keenly felt. Israel
fell in love with the Sabbath, and in the hyperbolic lan-
guage of the Agadah the Sabbath is personified as the
"Bride of Israel," whilst others called it "Queen Sab-
bath,"^* and they are actually jealous of a certain class
of semi-proselytes who, as it seems, were willing to ob-
serve the Sabbath, but declined to submit to the cove-
nant of Abraham. The Gentile Sabbath-keepers — who,
like all the nations of the world, envy Israel their Sab-
bath — the Rabbis considered as shameless intruders de-
serving punishment.^^ No, it was Israel's own Queen or
Bride Sabbath whose appearance in all her heavenly
glory they were impatiently awaiting. Thus we are told
of R. Judah b. Ilai that when the eve of the Sabbath
came "he made his ablutions, wrapped himself up in his
white linen with fringed borders looking like an angel of
the Lord of Hosts," thus prepared for the solemn* recep-
tion of Queen Sabbath. Another Rabbi used to put on
his best clothes, and arise and invite the Sabbath with
the words : " Come in Bride, come in." ^^ What the Bride
brought was peace and bliss. Nay, man is provided with
a super soul for the Sabbath, enabling him to bear both
the spiritual and the material delights of the day with

THE LAW AND RECENT CRITICISM

247

dignity and solemnity.^^ The very light (or expression)
of man's face is different on Sabbath, testifying to his
inward peace and rest. And when man has recited his
prayers (on the eve of the Sabbath) and thus borne tes-
timony to God's creation of the world and to the glory
of the Sabbath, there appear the two angels who accom-
pany him, lay their hands on his head and impart to
him their blessing with the words: "And thine iniquity
is taken away and thy sin purged" (Is. vi. f)}^ For
nothing is allowed to disturb the peace of the Sabbath;
not even "the sorrows of sin,** though the Sabbath had
such a solemn effect on people that even the worldly
man would not utter an untruth on the Day of the Lord.
Hence it was not only forbidden to pray on Sabbath for
one's own (material) needs, but everything in the liturgy
of a mournful character (as for instance the confession
of sin, supplication for pardon) was carefully avoided. It
was with difficulty, as the Rabbis say, that they made
an exception in the case of condoling with people who
had suffered loss through the death of near relatives.
There is no room for morbid sentiment on Sabbath, for
the blessing of the Lord maketh rich, and He addeth
no sorrow with it (Prov. x. 22).^^ The burden of the
Sabbath prayers is for peace, rest, sanctification, and joy
(through salvation) and praise of God for this ineffable
bliss of the Sabbath.

Such was the Sabbath of the old Rabbis and the
same spirit continued through all ages. The Sabbath
was and is still celebrated by the people who did and
do observe it, in hundreds of hymns, which would fill vol-
umes, as a day of rest and joy, of pleasure and delight,
a day in which man enjoys some foretaste of the pure

248 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

bliss and happiness which are stored up for the righteous
in the world to come. Somebody, either the learned
professors, or the millions of the Jewish people, must
be under an illusion. Which it is I leave to the reader
to decide.

It is also an illusion to speak of the burden which a
scrupulous care to observe six hundred and thirteen com-
mandments must have laid upon the Jew. Even a super-
ficial analysis will discover that in the time of Christ
many of these commandments were already obsolete (as
for instance those relating to the tabernacle and to the
conquest of Palestine), while others concerned only cer-
tain classes, as the priests, the judges, the soldiers, the
Nazirites, or the representatives of the community, or
even only one or two individuals among the whole popu-
lation, as the King and the High-Priest. Others, again,
provided for contingencies which could occur only to a
few, as for instance the laws concerning divorce or
levirate marriages, whilst many — such as those concern-
ing idolatry, and incest, and the sacrifice of children to
Moloch — could scarcely have been considered as a prac-
tical prohibition by the pre-Christian Jew; just as little
as we can speak of Englishmen as lying under the
burden of a law preventing them from burning widows
or marrying their grandmothers, though such acts would
certainly be considered as crimes. Thus it will be found
by a careful enumeration that barely a hundred laws
remain which really concerned the life of the bulk of
the people. If we remember that even these include
such laws as belief in the unity of God, the necessity of
loving and fearing Him, and of sanctifying His name,
of loving one*s neighbour and the stranger, of providing

THE LA W AND RECENT CRITICISM

249

for the poor, exhorting the sinner, honouring one's
parents and many more of a similar character, it will
hardly be said that the ceremonial side of the people's
religion was not well balanced by a fair amount of
spiritual and social elements. Besides, it would seem
that the line between the ceremonial and the spiritual
is too often only arbitrarily drawn. With many com-
mandments it is rather a matter of opinion whether they
should be relegated to the one category or the other.

Thus, the wearing of Tephillin^ or phylacteries has,
on the one hand, been continually condemned as a mean-
ingless superstition, and a pretext for formalism and
hypocrisy. But, on the other hand, Maimonides, who
can in no way be suspected of superstition or mysti-
cism, described their importance in the following words:
"Great is the holiness of the Tephillin; for as long as
they are on the arm and head of man he is humble and
God-fearing, and feels no attraction for frivolity or idle
things, nor has he any evil thoughts, but will turn his
heart to the words of truth and righteousness." The
view which R. Johanan, a Palestinian teacher of the
third century, took of the fulfilment of the Law, will
probably be found more rational than that of many a
rationalist of to-day. Upon the basis of the last verse
in Hosea, "The ways of the Lord are right, and the
just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall
therein," he explains that while one man, for instance,
eats his paschal lamb with the purpose of doing the
will of God who commanded it, and thereby does an act
of righteousness, another thinks only of satisfying his
appetite by the lamb, so that his eating it (by the very
fact that he professes at the same time to perform a relig-

250 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

ious rite) becomes a stumbling-block for him.^ Thus all
the laws by virtue of their divine authority — and in this
there was in the first century no difference of opinion
between Jews and Christians — have their spiritual side,
and to neglect them implies, at least from the individual's
own point of view, a moral offence.

The legalistic attitude may be summarily described as
an attempt to live in accordance with the will of God, car-
ing less for what God is than for what He wants us to be.
But, nevertheless, on the whole this life never degenerated
into religious formalism. Apart from the fact that during
the second temple there grew up laws, and even beliefs,
which show a decided tendency towards progress and
development, there were also ceremonies which were popu-
lar with the masses, and others which were neglected. Men
were not, therefore, the mere soulless slaves of the Law ;
personal sympathies and dislikes also played a part in
their religion. Nor were all the laws actually put upon
the same level. With a happy inconsistency men always
spoke of heavier and slighter sins, and by the latter —
excepting, perhaps, the profanation of the Sabbath — they
mostly understood ceremonial transgressions. The state-
ment made by Professor Toy (p. 243), on the authority of
James (ii. 10), that " the principle was established that he
who offended in one point was guilty of all," is hardly cor-
rect; for the passage seems rather to be laying down a
principle, or arguing that logically the law ought to be
looked upon as a whole, than stating a fact. The fact
was that people did not consider the whole law as of equal
importance, but made a difference between laws and laws,
and even spoke of certain commandments, such as those
of charity and kindness, as outweighing all the rest of the

THE LAW AND RECENT CRITICISM

251

Torah. It was in conformity with this spirit that in
times of great persecution the leaders of the people had
no compunction in reducing the whole Law to the three
prohibitions of idolatry, of incest, and of bloodshed. Only
these three were considered of sufficient importance
that men should rather become martyrs than transgress
them.

These, then, are some of the illusions and misrepresen-
tations which exist with regard to the Law. There are
many others, of which the complete exposure would re-
quire a book by itself. Meanwhile, in the absence of
such a book to balance and correct the innumerable vol-
umes upon the other side, Professor Toy has done the
best he could with existing materials, and produced a
meritorious work deserving of wide recognition and
approval.

THE HEBREW COLLECTION OF THE

BRITISH MUSEUM

The Hebrew collection in the British Museum forms
one of the greatest centres of Jewish thought. It is only
surpassed by the treasures which are contained in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford. The fame of these magnifi-
cent collections has spread far and wide. It has pene-
trated into the remotest countries, and even the Bachurim
{alumni) of some obscure place in Poland, who otherwise
neither care nor know anything about British civilisation,
have a dim notion of the nature of these mines of Jewish
learning.

All sorts of legends circulate amongst them about the
" millions " of books which belong to the " Queen of Eng-
land." They speak mysteriously of an autograph copy of
the Book of Proverbs, presented to the Queen of Sheba on
the occasion of her visit to Jerusalem, and brought by the
English troops as a trophy from their visit to Abyssinia,
which is still ruled by the descendants of that famous lady.
They also talk of a copy of the Talmud of Jerusalem
which once belonged to Titus, afterwards to a Pope, was
presented by the latter to a Russian Czar, and taken away
from him by the English in the Crimean war ; of a manu-

252

BRITISH MUSEUM HEBREW COLLECTION 253

script of the book Light is Sown} which is so large that
no shelf can hold it, and which therefore hangs on iron
chains. How they long to have a glance at these pre-
cious things ! Would not a man get wiser only by looking
at the autograph of the wisest of men ?

But even the students of Germany and Austria, who are
inaccessible to such fables, and by the aid of Zedner's,
Steinschneider's, and Neubauer*s catalogues have a fair
notion of our libraries, cherish the belief that they would
gain in scholarship and wisdom by examining these grand
collections. How often have I been asked by Jewish stu-
dents abroad : " Have you really been to the British Mu-
seum? Have you really seen this or that rare book or
manuscript? Had you not great difficulties in seeing
them ? Is not the place where these heaps of jewels are
treasured up always crowded by students and visitors ? "

Yet how little does our English public know of these
wonderful things! We are fairly interested in Graeco-
Roman art. We betray much curiosity about the different
Egyptian dynasties. We look with admiration at the
cuneiform inscriptions in the Nimrod room. We do not
even grudge a glance at the abominable idols of the sav-
age tribes. But as to the productions of Jewish genius,
— well, it is best to quote here the words of Heine, who
ridiculed this indifference to everything that is Jewish,
in the following lines : —

Alte Mumien, ausgestopfte,
Pharaonen von iEgypten,
Merowinger Schattenkon^ge,
Ungepuderte Periicken,

Auch die Zopfmonarchen China^s
Porzellanpagodenkaisef —

254 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Alle lemen sie auswendig,
Kluge Madchen, aber, Himmel!

Fragt man sie nach grossen Namen,
Aus dem grossen Goldzeitalter
Der arabisch-althispanisch
Judischen Poetenschule;

Fragt man nach dem Dreigestirn
Nach Jehuda ben Halevy,
Nach dem Salomon Gabirol
Und dem Moses Iben Esra.

Fragt man nach dergleichen Namen,
Dann mit grossen Augen schaun
Uns die Kleinen an — alsdann
Stehn am Berge die Ochsinnen.

Now Heine goes on to advise his beloved one to study
the Hebrew language. It would be indeed the best rem-
edy against this indifference. But this is so radical a cure
that one cannot hope that it will be made use of by many.
A few remarks in English, trying to give some notion of
the Hebrew collection in the British Museum, may, there-
fore, not be considered altogether superfluous.

The Hebrew collection in the Museum may be divided
into two sections : Printed Books, and Manuscripts. The
number of the printed books amounted in the year 1867,
in which Zedner concluded his catalogue, to 10,100 vol-
umes. Within the last twenty-eight years about 5000
more have been added.

This enormous collection has grown out of very small
beginnings. The British Museum was first opened to the
public in the year 1759. Amongst the 500,000 volumes
which it possessed at that time only a single Jewish work,
the editio princeps of the Talmud (Bomberg, Venice, 1520-

BRITISH MUSEUM HEBREW COLLECTION 255

1523) was to be found on its shelves. According to an
article by Zedner in the Hebrdische Bibliographie (ii. p.
88), this copy of the Talmud once belonged to Henry
VIII. But very soon the Museum was enriched by a
small collection of Hebrew books, presented to it by Mr.
Solomon da Costa, surnamed Athias, who had emigrated
to England from Holland. The translation of the He-
brew letter with which the donor accompanied his pres-
ent to the Trustees of the Museum was first published in
the Gentleman's Magazine, February 1760, and was after-
wards republished by the Rev. A. L. Green, in an article
in the Jewish Chronicle , 1859. I shall only reproduce
here the passage relating to the history of this collection.
After expressing his gratitude to the "crowning city, the
city of London, in which he dwelt for fifty-four years in
ease and quietness and safety," and telling us that he
bequeaths these books to the British nation as a token of
his gratitude. Da Costa proceeds to say that they are 180
books, which had been gathered and bound for Charles
II., with valuable bindings and marked with the king's
own cipher. These books were intended as a present
from the London Jewish community to Charles for certain
privileges which he had bestowed on them. The sudden
death of the king seems to have frustrated the intention
of the first donors. The books were scattered, and Da
Costa had to collect them again.

Small as this collection is, it is most valuable on account
of its including many early editions of Venice, Constanti-
nople, Naples, etc. The original letter of Da Costa, with
a full list of the 180 books, is preserved in a MS. in the
British Museum (Additional, 47 10- 11).

Of still greater importance is the Michaelis collection.

256

STUDIES IN JUDAISM

It consists of 4420 volumes, and was bought by the Trus-
tees of the Museum m 1848. Other successive acquisi-
tions, especially the purchase of a large number of printed
books from the Almanzi collection, brought the Museum
into possession of one of the most complete and one of
the largest Hebrew libraries in the world.

After the foregoing remarks on the quantity of this
collection, I shall now attempt to give some idea of its
quality. The following table, taken from the Preface of
Zedner's Catalogue, shows its manifold contents : —

1. Bibles 1260

2. Commentaries on the

Bible 510

3. Talmud 730

4. Commentaries on the

Talmud 700

5. Codes of Law. . . . 1260

6. Decisions 520

7. Midrash 160

8. Cabbalah 460

9. Sermons 400

10. Liturgies 1200

1 1 . Divine Philosophy . . 690

12. Scientific works ... 180

13. Grammars, Dictionaries 450

14. History, Geography . 320

15. Poetry, Criticism . . 770

The reader can see that almost every branch of human
thought, religious and secular, is amply represented in
this collection. Looking at this table from a geographical
point of view, we may perhaps classify the authors in the
following way: — France and Germany in the Middle
Ages, Poland and the East in modern times, are repre-
sented by the fourth, fifth, and sixth classes. The Rabbis
of Spain and Italy would probably excel in the last five
classes. In the productions of classes eight and nine all
the before-mentioned countries would have an equal share.
English Judaism, by reason of its large number of occa-
sional prayers and wedding hymns (Zedner, pp. 472, 652),
may perhaps be represented in the last class (criticism

BRITISH MUSEUM HEBREW COLLECTION

257

excluded). We in England are a pious, devotional people,
and leave the thinking to others.

But what is still more welcome to the student is the fact
that all these branches of Jewish learning are represented
in the British Museum by the best editions. It would be
a rather tedious task to enumerate here all the early edi-
tions of which this collection can boast. There is hardly
any Hebrew book of importance from the Bible down to
the Code of R. Joseph Caro of which the Museum does
not possess the first printed edition. There are also many
books and editions in the Museum of which no second
copy is known to be in existence. An enumeration of
these rare books and editions would require long lists, the
perusal of which would be rather trying. But I shall say
a few words to show the importance of such early editions
for the student. They possess, first, the advantage of
being free from the misprints which crept in with every
fresh republication. The art of editing books in a correct
and scientific way is of a very recent date. And even
Hebrew literature does not find that support from the
public which would enable scholars to edit Jewish books
in such a way as Roman and Greek classics are prepared
by Oxford and Cambridge students. A new edition of a
Hebrew book meant therefore an addition of new mistakes
and misprints. And it is only by examining the editiones
principes that the scholar finds his way out of these
perplexities.

Another advantage is the fact that these early editions
escaped the hand of the censor, whose office was not intro-
duced till a comparatively late date. The same advantage
is also possessed by the Hebrew books published at Con-
stantinople, Salonica, and other Mohammedan cities. Only

258 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Christian countries indulged in the barbarous pleasure of
burning and disfiguring Jewish books. It is one of the
most touching points in the life of R. David Oppenheim,
of Prague, who spent all his life and fortune in collecting
Hebrew works, and whose collection now forms one of the
greatest ornaments of the Bodleian Library, that he was
not allowed by the censor to enjoy the use of his treasures.
He had to put them under the protection of Lipman Cohen,
his father-in-law in Hanover, many hundreds of miles from
his own home. With the exception of the Bible hardly
any Jewish books escaped mutilation. In certain Chris-
tian countries some books were not allowed to be published
at all ; of others, again, whole chapters had to be omitted,
while of others many passages had to be expunged. The
words Roman, Greek, Gentile, were strictly forbidden, and
had to be changed into Turks, Arabs, Samaritans, or wor-
shippers of the stars and planets. One can imagine what
confusion such stupid alterations caused. Fancy what
blunders would have been committed in history if the old
chroniclers had been compelled to change the Pope into
the Grand Turk or the Shah of Persia, the Christian rulers
into as many califs and pashas, or Rome and Athens into
Pekin and Mecca !

It may perhaps be interesting to learn that Jews some-
times imitated their bitter enemies in this work of mutila-
tion. Thus in the later editions of the Book of Genealogies
by Abraham Zacuto,^ a passage was left out reproducing
the evidence given by the widow of Moses de Leon to the
effect that the cabbalistic work, the Zohar, was a forgery
manufactured by her poor dear husband. Another omis-
sion of this kind is to be found in the Code of R. Joseph
Caro, mentioned above. Here the earliest editions declare,

BRITISH MUSEUM HEBREW COLLECTION

259

in the heading of section 605, " a certain religious usage **
to be " a custom of folly." In the republications, the last
three words were left out. From such nonsensical omis-
sions and changes only the earliest editions, which are
abundant in the Museum, were exempt

A remarkable feature about the books of this Hebrew
collection also is that many of them are provided in the
margin with manuscript notes by their former possessors.
These often happen to bear very great names in literature.
I shall only mention here R. Jacob Emden, Almanzi,
Michael, Gerundi, and Heidenheim. Of the works writ-
ten by R. Jacob Emden, the Museum possesses an almost
complete author's copy with abundant corrections, notes,
and emendations by the author himself. His works are
still very popular among Polish and Russian Jews, espe-
cially his Prayer-Book, and his Responses. It would be
advisable for publishers in these countries to avail them-
selves of this copy on the occasion of a new edition. Of
Christian scholars I should name here Isaac Casaubon. A
rather amusing mistake occurs in Ben-Jacob*s Treasure of
Books in connection with this name. Among the many
valuable copies of Kimchi*s grammatical work Perfection^
possessed by the Museum, there- is included one which
belonged to Casaubon, and is full of notes by him. The
author of the Treasure speaks of a Perfection with notes
by Rabbi Yitzchak Kasuban. I was at first at a loss to
guess who that Rabbi Casaubon might be. When ex-
amining Zedner I found it was no other than the famous
Christian scholar, Isaac Casaubon. It is not known that
Casaubon's ambition lay in this direction. But when
Philo was regarded as a Father of the Church, Ben Gabirol
quoted for many centuries as a Mohammedan philosopher,

26o STUDIES IN JUDAISM

why should not Casaubon obtain for once the dignity of a

Rabbi ?

After having given the reader some notion of the collec-
tion of printed works, I should like now to invite him to
accompany me through the Manuscript Department of the
Museum. But I am afraid that I shall make a bad guide
here ; for the Museum is still without a descriptive cata-
logue of the Hebrew manuscripts, which is the only means
of enabling the student to obtain a general view of the
number and nature of these works. The manuscript cata-
logue of Dukes goes only as far as 1856. It was, as we
shall soon see, just after this time that the Museum made
its largest and, to a certain degree also, its most valuable
acquisitions in Hebrew manuscripts. The following re-
marks must, therefore, not be taken as the result of a
systematic study of this collection, which would be quite
impossible without the aid of a catalogue. They rest
partly on the descriptions given of a certain number of
manuscripts in the catalogue by Dukes, but for the greater
part on occasional glances at this or that MS.

As to the history of the collection, it has grown out of
small beginnings just as that of printed books. The col-
lection of Dr. Sloane, which laid the foundation of the
Museum Library, contained only nine Hebrew MSS.
Later acquisitions, as the Harleian collection, the Cot-
tonian collection, the Royal collection, and many other
smaller collections marked as Additional up to 1854, in-
creased the number of the Hebrew manuscripts to 232.
Of much more importance was the Almanzi collection,
bought by the trustees of the Museum in 1865, and con-
sisting of 335 MSS. Of succeeding acquisitions I shall
mention here only the Yemen MSS., which were brought

BRITISH MUSEUM HEBREW COLLECTION 261

to this country by the famous Shapira. The number of
Hebrew MSS. at the present day is said to exceed one
thousand. But we must not forget that many MSS. con-
tain more than one work ; in some cases even three or
four, so that the number of Hebrew works is far greater
still.

I shall now speak of the nature and importance of these
MSS. As to their contents they may be easily grouped
under the following headings : Biblical MSS., Commen-
taries (to the Bible) and Super-Commentaries, parts of the
Talmud and their Commentaries, Theology, Philosophy
and Ethics, Massorah, Grammar and Lexicography, Cab-
balah. Poetry, Mathematics, Astronomy, Astrology and
Magic, Historical and Polemical Literature, etc. All
these branches of theological and secular learning and even
of human folly are fairly represented in the collection of
Hebrew MSS. in the Museum, though often only by a
part or a fragment of a work.

Thus the Babylonian Talmud is to be found only in two
MSS. (Harl. 5508 and Add. 25,717) both of them includ-
ing 1 1 Tractates, hardly a third part of the whole work.
Indeed poor " Rabbinus Talmud " had to go to the auto de
// on so many occasions that one cannot wonder if only
disjointed limbs are to be found of him in libraries. The
only complete MS. copy which escaped this vandalism is
that in the Royal Library in Munich, from which Mr.
Rabbinowicz has edited his monumental work, Variae
Lectiones of the Talmud,

All other libraries, Oxford included, have to be satisfied
with fragments. Still worse, as it is seen, fared the Jeru-
salem Talmud, and excepting the well-known copy in
Leyden from which the Venice edition was prepared, not

262 STUDIES IX JUDAISM

even fragments of this Talmud are to be found in the
majority of libraries. To my knowledge it is only the
British Museum which can boast of the Jerusalem Talmud
in MS. extending over Order of Seeds and one tractate of
Order of Festivals *(Or. 21 22-24) i^-ith commentaries of R.
Solomon Syrillo, the first few pages of which were edited
by Dr. Lehmann of Mayence. The Museum also pos-
sesses a great part of the Tosephta extending over 14
Tractates (Add. 27,296). Of Midrashim we find in the
Museum two excellent manuscripts of the Genesis Rabbah^
one of the Leviticus Rabbah^ and one of the Siphra and
the Siphri {hAA, 27,169 and 16,406), besides two copies
of the Midrash Haggadol and other Aagadic collections
brought from Yemen. The Midrash by Machir b. Abba
Mari to the minor prophets included in the Harleian col-
lection (5704) is unique. Of Liturgies, besides a great
number of MSS. representing the most peculiar rites, I
shall mention the Machzor^ Vitri (Add. 27,200-1) com-
posed by the disciples of R. Solomon b. Isaac, and form-
ing in itself almost a small library. For, apart from the
prayers for festivals and week days which gave it its title,
it includes, besides the Sayings of the Fathers with a large
commentary, three of the Minor Tractates of the Talmud,
many responses by German and French Rabbis, and a
whole scries of religious hymns by German and Spanish
authors, and many other literary pieces, Cabbalah is rep-
resented by various valuable writings of the pre-Zoharis-
tic time (see for instance Add. 15,299) and the works of
R. Moses de Leon and R. Abraham Abulafia. Of Poetry,
I shall point here to the Tarshish of R. Moses Ibn Ezra,
the Makames by Judah Al Charisi (Add. 27,122), and the
Di\*an of R. Abraham of Bedres(AdA 27,188). Of works

BRITISH MUSEUM HEBREW COLLECTION 263

relating to grammar and lexicography, I may refer to a
Codex (Add. 27,214) which contains the lexicon of R.
Menahem ben Saruk, which is considered as the oldest
Hebrew MS. in the Museum, dating from the year 1091.
Of historical works, I mention the chronicle of R. Joseph
the Priest (Add. 27,122) and the letter of R. Sherira Gaon
(Arundel 51), the oldest existing copy of this work (1189),
which was edited by Dr. Neubauer in his Mediceval Jewish
Chronicles.

These examples will suffice to show the significance of
the MSS. collection of this Library. And the student
may rest assured that in whatever branch of Jewish
thought he is interested, he will always find in the Mu-
seum some Hebrew manuscript useful for his purpose.

I ought now to say a few words as to the value of this
collection of manuscripts. Now, if the work contained in
a MS. has never been edited, as for instance the Machzor
Vitri^ and so many others, its value is established by the
mere fact of its existence. For those who published MSS.
were not always guided by the best literary motives. And
while they published and republished many books of
which one edition would have been more than enough,
many other works of the greatest importance for Jewish
literature and history remained in manuscript. As an
instance, it will suffice to mention here the Zohar, which
has passed through twenty-four editions since the six-
teenth century, whilst the earliest Jewish Midrash, the
Pessikta de Rab Kahana^ had to linger in the libraries till
the year 1868, when it was edited by Mr. S. Buber. Thus
there are still many pearls of Jewish literature which exist
only in MS. Likewise most publishers were careless in
their choice of the manuscript from which our editions

264 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

have been prepared. Almost the whole of Jewish litera-
ture will have to be re-edited before a scientific study of it
will be possible. But such critical editions can only be
obtained by the aid of the MSS. not yet made use of, in
which better readings are to be found. From this fact
even those MSS. the contents of which have been several
times reprinted, as for instance the MSS. of the Midrash
Rabbahy gain the greatest literary importance. And the
more MSS. the editor of a work has at his disposal, the
more certain is he of being able to furnish us with a good
text.

But even when the whole of Jewish literature lies
before the student in the best of texts, there will still
remain a great charm about manuscripts. Printed books,
like the great mass of the modern society for which they
are prepared, are devoid of any originality. They interest
us only as classes, and it is very seldom that they have a
story of their own to tell. It is quite different with manu-
scripts, where the fact of their having been produced by a
living being invests them with a certain kind of individual-
ity. This is specially the case with Hebrew MSS., which
were not copied by men shut up in cloisters, but by socia-
ble people living in the world and sharing its joys and
sorrows. Even women were employed in this art, and I
remember to have read in some MS. or catalogue a post-
script by the lady copyist, which, if I remember rightly,
ran as follows: "I beseech the reader not to judge me
very harshly when he finds that mistakes have crept into
this work; for when I was engaged in copying it God
blessed me with a son, and thus I could not attend to my
business properly."

To be sure, some of these copyists were curious folk.

BRITISH MUSEUM HEBREW COLLECTION 265

Their mind as well as that of the world around them must
have been of a peculiar constitution hardly conceivable to
us. Take, for example, Benjamin, the copyist of a certain
Machzor in the Museum (Add. 11,639). This Machzor
was written in times of bitter persecution. The copyist,
who was himself a learned man, alludes in one place to
the sufferings which the Jews in a certain French town
had to undergo in the year 1276. On one of them,
the martyr R. Samson, Benjamin the copyist composed a
lamentation written in a most mournful strain. But this
lamentation is followed by a wine-song, one of the j oiliest
and wildest parodies for the feast of Purim.

Speaking of this Machzor I should like to remark that
it forms one of the greatest ornaments of the Museum.
Besides including the whole of the Pentateuch, the above-
mentioned Tarshish by R. Moses Ibn Ezra, and many
other smaller literary pieces which would require a small
volume to describe them properly, this MS. is most richly
illuminated, and contains very many illustrations. The
subjects of these illustrations are biblical, sometimes also
apocryphal, such as — Adam and Eve in Paradise, Noah
in the Ark, Abraham meeting the angels, Sarah behind
the door listening to the conversation of her husband'with
his guests, Moses with the rpd in his hands dividing the
Red Sea, Samson riding on the back of a lion, Solomon
on his throne, Daniel in the lion's den, the king Ahasuerus
holding out the golden sceptre to Esther, Judith address-
ing Holofernes, the Leviathan, the mythical bird Bar
Yochni, and many other similar subjects. In passing I
recommend these illustrations and illuminations to the
attention of the artist as the most worthy examples of
Jewish ecclesiastical art, — if there is such a thing as a

266 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

special Jewish art. The artist will find the Museum best
suited for this purpose, its collection being considered as
the richest of the kind. Besides this Machzor I must also
allude to the illuminated Bible (Or. 2226-28) written in
Lisbon for R. Judah Alchakin — it is said to be one of the
finest specimens of such works — and the illuminated
Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, executed for R. Joseph of
the famous Yachya family, also thought to be most artisti-
cally done. The liturgies for the Passover Eve service
will also offer to the artist a rich harvest, especially Codex,
Add. 27,210, which the wealthy Lady Rosa Calico pre-
sented to her son-in-law on his wedding-day, and Codex,
Add. 14,762, even the binding of which is considered as
an artistic curiosity.

Leaving now these marvels to the appreciation of the
artist, the greatest wonder which suggests itself to us is
how the Jews could maintain such a cultured taste in such
unhappy times, and get the means of satisfying it These
reflections about the owners present themselves the more
strongly to our mind when we meet with one of those old
Jewish prayer-books, which in many cases formed the
whole religious and literary treasure of the family. In
their' fly-leaves, in which the births and deaths of succes-
sive generations are very often registered, the spiritus
familiaris seems to be still haunting the pages. When
you turn them over and see the service for Passover Eve,
are you not bound to think of the anxiety with which these
poor creatures engaged in this ceremony lest they might
be attacked suddenly by a fanatic mob } must you not ask
how they could bear life under such circumstances ? And
when you turn a few more pages and arrive at the prayers
read for the dead, must you not ask how did they die ?

BRITISH MUSEUM HEBREW COLLECTION 267

Were they perhaps burnt alive ad majorem Dei gloriam,
or torn to pieces by a " saintly mob " ? Take again the
illuminated copies of the Bible and the Mishneh Torah,
both of which were finished only a few years before the
great expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal, times
when the earth already " burnt under their feet, and the
heaven was also very unkind to them/* And nevertheless
Jews were still, as these MSS. show us, cultivating science
and art. Another instance of such a devotion to science
in spite of the unfavourable times may be seen from a
colophon to Codex Or. 39. It contains the book Nissim^
a philosophical treatise on the fundamental teachings of
Judaism, together with a philosophical commentary on the
Pentateuch by R. Nissim of Marseilles, a contemporary
of R. Solomon ben Adereth in the thirteenth century.
The Museum copy was written by R. Jacob, the son of
David, who also added some annotations to the book.
At the end he says : " I have copied this book Nissim for
my own use, that I may study in it, I and my children and
my grandchildren. ... I have finished it to-day, Sunday,
the 28th of Ab, 5333 (1573), at Venice, in the year of the
expulsion which befell us on account of our sins.'* Now,
only observe this poor R. Jacob, who has to go through all
these horrors, yet is still occupied in copying MSS. for his
own pleasure, and in meditating on the most complicated
problems of philosophy and religion.

But it is not always stories of this heroic nature that
the MSS. tell us. They betray also very much of the
instability of human affairs and their weakness. You
find in many copies the words that they must not
" be sold or given in mortgage." But scarcely a genera-
tion has passed away, and they are already in the posses-

268 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

sion of a new owner, who writes the same injunction to
be broken again by his children in their turn. In Codex
27,122, we find commendatory letters for a worthy poor
man, who is so unhappy as to have two grown-up daugh-
ters, and not to have the means of supplying them with
marriage portions. Indeed, he must have been very poor,
not possessing even a book in his house, or else his
troubles could not have been so great. For in Codex
Harl. 5702, we find the owner saying: "To eternal
memory that I have acquired this Third Book of Avicena
from the hands of my father-in-law, R. Jekuthiel, as a
part of my dowry,"

As a sign of human weakness I give the following two
instances. There lies before me a cabbalistic Codex (Add.
27,199), which acquired some notoriety from the fact of
its having been copied by the famous grammarian, R.
Elijah Levita, for his pupil Cardinal Aegidius. At the
end of this MS. we read : " I (Levita) have finished (the
copying of) this book on Wednesday, the day of Hoshana
Rabba,''^ 5277 (15 16), on which day I have seen my head
in the shadow of the moon. Praised be God (for it), for
now I am sure not to die in the following year." These
words relate to a well-known superstition, according to
which, when a man is going to die in the course of the
next year his shadow disappears from him on the preced-
ing Hoshana Rabba. But is it not humiliating to see
that the great Levita, who was superior to many preju-
dices of his time, and taught Christians Hebrew, and who
denied the antiquity of the vowels in the Bible, which was
considered by the great majority of Tiis contemporaries
as a mortal heresy — is it not humiliating to see this
enlightened man trembling for his life on this night, and

BRITISH MUSEUM HEBREW COLLECTION

269

anxiously observing his shadow? Another Codex lies
before me (Add. 17,053), containing the Novellae to three
tractates of the Talmud. Its owner must accordingly
have been a learned man. But in the fly-leaf of this MS.
we read the following words : " Memorandum — Thurs-
day, the 25th of Sivan, 5295 (1535), I have taken an oath
in the presence of R. David Ibn Shushan and R. Moses
de Castro, etc., not to play (cards) any more." I might
perhaps suggest on this occasion that in our days when
all sorts of Judaisms are circulating, a cooking Judaism,
a racing Judaism, a muscular Judaism, and so many
Judaisms more — it would be interesting to take up also
the subject of playing Judaism, and to write its history.

In conclusion I shall mention the colophon to Codex
Harl. 5713, which may have some interest for the English
reader. It runs : " I have written it in honour of the
noble and pious, etc., Humphrey Wanley, the noble Libra-
rian of my Lord Treasurer. May his glory be increased.
In the year 5474(1714) in the holy community of London,
under the reign of the noble and happy Queen Anne.
May the Lord increase her splendour and glory." The
signature of the copyist is "Aaron the son of Moses,
born in the city of Navaschadok in Poland." By the way,
we learn from this signature that the immigration of Polish
Jews into this country had already begun in the time of
Queen Anne, and perhaps still earlier.

Thus everything in a MS., the arrangement of the
matter, the remarks of the owners, the signature of the
copyist, sets the reader thinking, and contributes many
a side-light to the history of the Jews.

TITLES OF JEWISH BOOKS

It is now more than half a century since Isaac Reggio
in his edition of Elijah Delmedigo's Examination of
Religion^ made the remark that this book adds to its other
merits that of bearing a title corresponding to its contents,
— a merit that is very rare in Jewish books. Reggio pro-
ceeds to give a few specimens confirming his assertion,
and concludes his remarks with a eulogy on Delmedigo,
who in this respect also had the courage to differ from
his contemporaries. Zunz also once wrote an article on
titles of books. But this article unfortunately appeared
in some German periodical which the British Museum
does not possess, and I could not even succeed in ascer-
taining whether Zunz treats at all of titles of Hebrew
books, nor am I aware that the subject has been taken up
by any other scholar, Isaac D' Israeli's few notes on the
subject in his Curiosities of Literature being scarcely
worth mention. It seems to me, however, interesting
enough to deserve some illustration, though I can by no
means hope to be complete.

The titles of the books contained in the Bible need not
be discussed here; information concerning them is to be
found in every critical introduction to the Old Testament.
The Rabbinical works dating from antiquity also oflfer

270

TITLES OF JEWISH BOOKS 27 1

little opportunity for reflection on their -titles. The Tal-
mud, as a work, has no title at all ; for Talmud simply
means "teaching" or "study." Sometimes it is termed
ShaSS, an abbreviation of Shisha Sedarim} meaning the
Six Orders or divisions contained in the Mishnah. This
last word means, according to some authors, " Repetition."
Other Tannaitic collections of laws or expositions of the
Scriptures are called " the Book " (Siphra), " the Books "
(Siphr6), or " Additions " (Tosephta to the Mishnah).
The word Baraitha^ means the external Mishnah that
enjoyed less authority than the Mishnah of R. Judah the
Patriarch. Some approach to titles we find in the names
given to the different tractates included in the Mishnah,
as Berachothy because it treats of Benedictions, Peah^
(Corner) which contains the particulars concerning the
law in Lev. xix. and so forth. Of the few works quoted
in the Talmud it will suflfice to mention the Seder Olaniy
the Order of the World, the name of which is very suita-
ble to the chronological contents of the book. In general,
I may observe that as long as the law which prohibited
the writing down of the Oral teachings was in force, there
hardly existed Jewish books. But where there are no
books there is also no need for titles. The few titles,
however, which can be proved to be historical are simple
and to the point. It is not till about the beginning of the
Middle Ages, when this prohibitive law had, for reasons not
to be explained here, been abolished, that we can speak of
Hebrew books. But here also the Title-confusion begins.
In order that we may have some general view of the
thousands of titles that are catalogued by the Jewish
bibliographers, it will perhaps be well to arrange them
under the following six classes : —

272 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

I. Simple titles y that have no other object than that of
indicating the subject matter of the book. These are, as
we have just seen, the only kind of titles known to antiq-
uity. The few books which the Gaonim left us bear
such simple titles as could have served as models to later
generations. Among them may be mentioned the Hala-
choth or collection of Laws, Creeds and Opinions, by R.
Saadiah Gaon, the Book on Buying and Selling, by R.
Hai Gaon, containing the laws relating to commercial
transactions. It may be noticed that this last book is
one of the best arranged in Jewish literature, and dis-
plays more systematising powers than even the Code of
Maimonides. The greatest part of the literary activity
of the Gaonim consists in their Responsa, in which they
gave decisions on ritual questions, or explanations of dif-
ficult passages in the Talmud. The titles borne by the
various collections of those Responsa belong to a period
later than the author's. The great majority of the books
produced by the Franco-German school may also be in-
cluded in this class. They are termed " Commentaries,"
"Additions;' or "Glosses," "Novella," or "Confirming
Proofs," and similar modest titles which show both their
relation to, and dependence on, another older authority.
The largest collection of Midrashim we possess bears the
simple title "Bag."* Many of the Responsa satisfy them-
selves with the words " Questions to, and Answers by."

II. Titles taken from the first word with which the book
begins y or from the first word of the Scriptural verse occur-
ring first in the book. This class is strongly represented
by the Midrashim. Thus the Midrash to the Song of
Songs is also quoted as the Midrash Chazitha^ " Midrash,
Seest thou " (the first text with which this Midrash deals

TITLES OF JEWISH BOOKS 2/3

being Proverbs xxii. 28). The Midrash to the Psalms is
called Midrash Shocher Tob^ " Midrash, He that dili-
gently seeketh the good" (Prov. xi. 37). The Midrash
containing the legendary story of the wars of the sons of
Jacob with the Canaanites is quoted as Midrash V'yisseu^
" Midrash, And they journeyed," as the story begins with
the verse from Gen. xxxv. 5. And this is the case with
the titles of many other Midrashim. Whether the work
cited under the strange name of Meat on Coals did not
begin with those words, containing some law relating to
the salting of meat, I do not venture to decide. Under
this class we may also arrange those books that are called
after a phrase which is often used in the book, e,g,^ the
Midrash Yelamdenu (He may teach us), or the Vehizhir^
"And He commanded us," almost every paragraph in
these books beginning with the phrases mentioned.®
Probably all the books belonging to this class received
from the hands of their authors or compilers no titles at
all. The student who had to quote them gave them
names after the phrase or word which first caught his eye.
In later centuries this class disappears almost entirely (see,
however, Ben-Jacob*s Treasure^ p. 201, No. 827).

HI. Pompous titles. The largest contributions to this
class were made by the mystical writers. Books which
profess to know what is going on in the heavens above
and the earth beneath cannot possibly be satisfied with
modest titles. Thus we have the " Book of Brightness "
(Zohar), "the shining book" (Bahir), "the Confidential
Shepherd" (Moses).® The books which the Zohar
quotes bear such titles as the Book of Adam, the Book of
Enoch. The only excuse for the Zohar is that the manu-
facturing of such books with pseudo-epigraphical titles

274 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

had already begun in antiquity. It is not, however, till
the Gaonic period that a whole apocryphal literature sud-
denly emerges which perplexes the Gaonim themselves.
No one is spared. Angels, patriarchs, and martyrs are
called upon to lend their names to these books. What
one resents most is that history came within the range of
the forger's activity. There is, for instance, the Josippon,
which professes to be written by Josephus, the well-known
Jewish historian of the first century. But in spite of all
the care taken by the author to disguise himself in the
garb of antiquity, the Josippon is a forgery of the ninth
or tenth century. Of a similar kind is the Book of Jasher,
containing legendary stories relating to Biblical person-
ages. It pretends to be identical with the Book of Jasher
quoted in Joshua x. 13 and 2 Sam. i. 18. Some sixty
years ago a certain Mr. Samuel of Liverpool had the mis-
fortune to make himself ridiculous by maintaining the pre-
tensions of this book; for, indeed, it does not require
much knowledge of the Agadic literature to see that the
Book of Jasher is only a compilation of comparatively late
Midrashim.

IV. Titles suggested by other Titles, As an instance of
this we may take Maimonides' great Code of Law, which
bears the title Mishneh Torah, The importance of the
book made it the object of study for hundreds of scholars,
who wrote their commentaries and glosses on it. Among
the titles of the commentaries such Title-genealogies may
be discovered as Maggid Mishneh^ Mishneh Lammelech ;
which last word again suggested such titles as Emek ha-
Melech^ Shaar \i2i-Melechy and so on.^^

The same process may be observed in other standard
works, the importance of which made them a subject of

TITLES OF JEWISH BOOKS 275

investigation and interpretation as the " Prepared Table,"
one of the glosses to which is called Mappahy "Table-
cloth," whilst others provided it with the Shewbread and
with New Fruit,

V. Euphemistic Titles^ as "The Tractate of Joys,"
treating of funeral ceremonies and kindred subjects. It
does not seem that this title was known to antiquity, but
it is certain that already the earlier authorities quoted it
by this name. "The Book of Life" (the German Jewish
title of which is Alle Dininiy von Freuden)^ is the name of
a very popular book containing the prayers to be read in
the house of mourning as well as in the cemetery, which
is also called the House of Life.

VL Titles taken from the Bible, or Fancy Titles. This
is the largest class of all, though it was utterly unknown
in antiquity. It will be, perhaps, convenient to arrange
this class of titles under the following sub-divisions, {a)
Titles taken from the Bible, but also fulfilling the purpose
of indicating the name of the author. For instance,
" Seed of Abraham " (Ps. cv. 6), is the title of nine differ-
ent books, the name of whose authors happened to be
Abraham; "And Isaac entreated" (Gen. xxv. 21), is by
Isaac Satanow on the Prayers; "Then Isaac sowed"
{ibid, xxvi. 12), edited by R. Isaac Perles, contains an
index to the Zohar. "Jacob shall take root" (Is. xxvii.
6) is the name of a book on Grammar and Massorah
by R. Jacob Bassani. R. Joseph of Posen left two col-
lections of sermons and commentaries on the Penta-
teuch, of which the one is called "And Joseph nour-
ished" (Gen. xlvii. 12), the other "And Joseph gathered"
{ibid, 14). Authors with the name of Judah are repre-
sented among others by such titles as "And this of Judah"

2/6 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

(Deut. xxxiii. 7), a treatise on the laws concerning the
killing of animals; or "Judah shall go up" (Judges L 2),
a pamphlet containing a collection of prayers to be said
on a journey. " Moses began " (Deut. i. 5) forms the title
of three different books on various subjects, the authors
of which had the name Moses. "Moses shall rejoice,"
a phrase occurring in the morning prayer for Sabbaths,
is also the title of two books, the authors of which were
named Moses. The "Rod of Aaron*' enjoyed, as it seems,
a goodly popularity; there are four bearing this name,
not to speak of a fifth, " The Rod of Aaron brought forth
buds '* (Exod. xvii. 23), which is the name of a collection
of Responsa by R. Aaron ben Chayim. But other Rods
also were fashionable; there are, besides the five Rods
of Moses, also Rods of Ephraim, Dan, Judah, Joseph,
Naphtali, and Manasseh. By authors of the name of
David we find books with the title " And David said," or
a " Prayer of David," and other phrases occurring in the
Psalms relating to David ; whilst the " Tower of David "
became the stronghold of other writers, and the " Shield
of David " protected as many as nine more. The " Chariot
of Solomon" (Cant. iii. 9) adorns the title-pages of five
books by authors named Solomon. The Caraite Solomon
Troki was so fond of that title that he called his two
polemical treatises "He made himself a chariot," while
R. Solomon of Mir's collection of sermons has the title,
"This Bed which is Solomon's" (Cant. iii. 7). As to
family names, there were not many authors in the enjoy-
ment of that luxury (especially among the German Jews),
but we find them indicating the fact of their being Priests
or Levites. Among such books are the collection of
Responsa, by R. Raphael Cohen, which has the title

TITLES OF JEWISH BOOKS 2//

" And the Priest shall come again *' (Lev. xiv. 39), and
the Cabbalistic treatise by R. Abraham Cohen, of Lask,
with the title "And the Priest shall reckon unto him"
(Lev. xxvii. 18). Probably the author deals with num-
bers. R. Hirsch Horwitz, the Levite, called his Novellae
to the Talmud "The Camp of Levi.'* The title "The
Service of the Levite" (with allusion to Exodus xxxviii.
21) is borne by five other books by authors who were
Levites. And there may be found hundreds of books
with titles suggesting the Priestly or Levitical descent of
their authors. Most anxious is Joseph Ibn Kaspi (Joseph
the Silvern, so called after his native place Argenti^re, in
the south of France) to provide most of his numerous
books with some Biblical titles combined with silver, as a
"Bowl of Silver" (Numb. vii. 13), or "Points of Silver"
(Song of Songs i. 11), or "Figures of Silver" (Prov. xxv.
10), and other similar phrases. On the other hand Azulai
manages to indicate at least one of his three Hebrew
names, Chayim Joseph David, in most of his works, of
which the number exceeds seventy, as Chayim Shaal,^^
"He asked Life" (Ps. xxi. 4), or "The knees of Joseph"
(alluding to Gen. xlviii. 12), and "Truth unto David"
(Ps. cxxxii. 11).

{U) The Tabernacle with its furniture was also a great
favourite with many authors. There are not only six tab-
ernacles (two on Cabbalah, two on grammar, and two on
Talmudical subjects), but also three "Arks of the Testi-
mony," two "Altars of gold," two "Tables of Shewbread,"
four "Candlesticks of the Light," two*" Sockets of Silver,"
and two " Pillars of Silver." Others again preferred the
vestments of the priests as the " Plate of Judgment," the
" Robe of the Ephod," the " Mitre of Aaron," the " Plate

2/8 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

of Gold," the "Bell and Pomegranate," " Wreathen Chains,"
and the "Arches of Gold." Many of these books were
written by authors claiming to be priests, (c) But be-
sides the canonical, other costumes were also fashionable.
R. Mordecai Yafeh composed ten books, every one of them
bearing the name of some garment or apparel, as "Apparel
of Royalty," "Apparel of Blue," "Apparel of White," and
so the whole suit with which Mordecai went out from the
presence of the king (Esther viii. 15). These ten works
range from codifications of the law and occasional sermons
to philosophy, astronomy, and Cabbalah. By other writers
we have three " Coats of many colours " (Gen. xxxvii. 4),
one " Bridal Attire," and the " Thread of Scarlet " is not
missing, {d) The ingredients for incense as well as other
articles used in the Tabernacle or in the Temple were also
fancied by some authors, and we have two books with the
title of " Principal Spices," two " Pure Myrrh," three
" Arts of the Apothecary," one " Oil of Holy Ointment,"
five " Meat Offerings mingled or dry," three or four " Flour
of the Meat Offering," and also one " Two Young Pigeons"
(Bene Yonah) by R. Jonah Zandsopher. But the appetite
of the authors did not stop at these holy things. It ex-
tended also to such lay articles as " Spiced Wine," " Juice
of Pomegranate " (Cant. viii. 2), " Forests of Honey," the
"Book of the Apple," and "Seven Kinds of Drink."

{e) Field and flock also suggested to Hebrew writers as
well as to Mr. Ruskin such titles as " The Fruit of the
Hand," the "Rose of Sharon," the " Lily of the Valleys,"
or " The Shepherds' Tents," and " In the Green Pastures "
(Ps. xxiii. 2).

The specimens given for every class may with very tittle
trouble be doubled and redoubled. But it is not my inten-

TITLES OF JEWISH BOOKS 279

tion to reproduce here whole catalogues. Reggio thinks
all such titles, which do not correspond with the context
of the book, absurd and confusing. He suggests that
the Jews followed in this respect the Arabic writers. There
is no doubt that Reggio is not altogether wrong in his
complaint. Almost all the titles included in class vL, as
the reader might have observed, never indicate to the
student the subject of which the books treat. How can
one guess that the Responsa, the Dance of Mahanaim
(two companies), is of a polemical nature against the ten-
dencies of reform } This list may be lengthened by hun-
dreds of titles. But even these incomprehensible titles
are better than the Chad Gadyah Lo Israel (One Kid No
Israel), ^2 ^^ un-Hebrew title of a pamphlet trying to prove
the un-Jewish origin of the well-known folk-song sung on
Passover Eve. But, on the other hand, it must not be
overlooked that even this class has, though not always,
something suggestive and even practical about it. The
" Choice of Pearls " is undoubtedly more attractive than
the prosaic " Collection of Proverbs and Sayings," which
is what the book contains. " Understanding of the Sea-
sons*' (i Chr. xii. 32), sounds also better than the simple
"Collection of Sermons on different occasions." "The
Lips of those who Sleep '* recommends itself as a very
suggestive title for a catalogue, especially when one thinks
of the Agadic explanation given to Cant. vii. 10, according
to which the study of the book of a departed author
makes the lips of the dead man to speak. Such titles as
" Bunch of Lilies " for a collection of poems are still usual
with us. Such a title as the " Jealousy Offering," or the
" Law of Jealousies," in polemical literature is very appro-
priate for its subject. R. Jacob Emden, who named one

28o STUDIES IN JUDAISM

of his pamphlets " Rod for the fool's back " (Prov. xxvL 3),
will be envied for his choice by many a controversialist
even to-day. Wittily devised is the pun-title, " City of
Sihon " for a mathematical book by R. Joseph Tsarphathi,
alluding to Numb. xxL 27, " For Hesbon (reckoning) is
the City of Sihon."

Other titles were probably intended more as mottoes
than titles. "Go forth and behold, ye daughters of
Zion" (Cant. iii. 11), is put in the title-page of R. Jacob's
German-Jewish paraphrase of the Pentateuch, which was
written chiefly for the use of ladies. " Let another man
praise thee and not thine own mouth, a stranger and not
thine own lips " (Prov. xxvii. 2), forms the title of a book
extending over only one and a half page in quarto. It
contains letters by seven Rabbis (among them R. Liva of
Prague) recommending the Ascetic, R. Abraham Wangos,
who has a daughter to marry, and .wants also to make a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as deserving the support
of his brethren.

There is also another objection to these titles. It is
that they seem sometimes not quite consonant with our
notions of modesty. Thus we have " Desirable and
Sweet" on astronomy, "Sweeter than Honey" or "He
shall comfort us," and many others of this kind. But it
must not be thought that we have a right to infer from
the title to the author. There is, indeed, an anecdote
that three authors were rather too little careful about
the choice of their titles, namely Maimonides in calling
his Code Mishneh Torah (which is the traditional title of
the Book of Deuteronomy), R. Moses Alshech in call-
ing his homiletical commentaries Torah of Moses, and
R. Isaiah Horwitz in calling his book Skene Luchoth ha-

TITLES OF JEWISH BOOKS 28 1

Berith (The Two Tables of the Covenant). These authors,
as the story goes, had for their punishment that their
works are never quoted by the titles they gave to them,
the former two being usually cited as Rambam or
Alshech, whilst the last is more known by its abbre-
viated title of SHeLa^^ than by its full name.

I do not remember where I have read this story, but I
am quite sure that its pious author would have been more
careful about repeating it had he known that this accu-
sation against Maimonides was a favourite topic with
apostates, who thought to hit Judaism in the person of
its representative Maimonides. But, as R. Solomon
Duran in his polemical work remarks, Maimonides was
too much of a truly great man to find any satisfaction
in such petty vanity. Nor do I believe that even the
character of less-known authors can in any way be im-
pugned by the seemingly conceited titles of their books ;
just as on the other hand the humility of the author is
not proved by calling his book "The Offering of the
Poor,'* or other modest titles. The fancy title was in
common use, and was therefore a commonplace with no
significance whatever. The real disadvantage of such
titles lies in the fact that, as already pointed out, they con-
ceal from the student the contents of the book which he
might otherwise consult in the course of his researches.

Did these authors perhaps foresee that there would
come a time in which index-knowledge would pass for
deep scholarship.? and did they thus by using these
obscure titles try to put a check on the dabblers who
speak the more of a book the less they have read of its
contents } If this be the case we can only admire their
foresight.

XII

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE

" I SAW a Jewish lady only yesterday with a child at
her knee, and from whose face towards the child there
shone a sweetness so angelical that it seemed to form a
sort of glory round both. I protest I could have knelt
before her, too, and adored in her the divine beneficence
in endowing us with the maternal storgi which began with
our race and sanctifies the history of mankind." These
words, which are taken from Thackeray's Pendennis^ may
serve as a starting-point for this paper. The fact that the
great student of man perceived this glory just round the
head of a Jewish lady rouses in me the hope that the small
student of letters may, with a little search, be able to dis-
cover in the remains of our past many similar traces of this
divine beneficence and sanctifying sentiment. Certainly
the glimpses which we shall catch from the faded leaves
of ancient volumes, dating from bygone times, will not be
so bright as those which the novelist was so fortunate as
to catch from the face of a lady whom he saw but the pre-
vious day. The mothers and fathers, about whom I am
going to write in this essay, have gone long ago, and the
objects of their anxiety and troubles have also long ago
vanished. But what the subject will lose in brightness, it
may perhaps gain in reality and intensity. A few moments

282

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 283

of enraptured devotion do not make up the saint. It is a
whole series of feelings and sentiments betrayed on differ-
ent occasions, expressed in different ways, a whole life of
sore troubles, of bitter disappointments, but also moments
of most elevated joys and real happiness.

And surely these manifestations of the divine benefi-
cence, which appear in their brightest glory in the litera-
ture of every nation when dealing with the child, shine
strongest in the literature of the Jewish nation. In it,
to possess a child was always considered as the greatest
blessing God could bestow on man, and to miss it as the
greatest curse. The patriarch Abraham, with whom Israel
enters into history, complains — " Oh Lord, what wilt Thou
give me, seeing I go childless ! "

The Rabbis regarded the childless man as dead, whilst
the Cabbalist in the Middle Ages thought of him who died
without posterity as of one who had failed in his mission
in this world, so that he would have to appear again on
our planet to fulfil this duty. To trace out the feelings
which accompanied the object of their greatest anxiety,
to let them pass before the reader in some way ap-
proaching to a chronological order, to draw attention to
some points more worthy of being emphasised than
others, is the aim of this essay.

I said that I propose to treat the subject in chrono-
logical order. I meant by this that I shall follow the
child in the different stages through which it has to pass
from its birth until it ceases to be a child and attains its
majority. This latter period is the beginning of the thir-
teenth year in the case of a female, and the beginning of
the fourteenth year in the case of a male. I shall have
occasion later on to examine this point more closely.

284 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

But there is the embryo-period which forms a kind of
preliminary stage in the life of the child, and plays a
very important part in the region of Jewish legends.
Human imagination always occupies itself most with
the things of which we know least. And so it got hold
of this semi-existence of man, the least accessible to ex-
perience and observation, and surrounded it by a whole
cycle of legends and stories. They are too numerous
to be related here. But I shall hint at a few points
which I regard as the most conspicuous features of
these legends.

These legends are chiefly based on the notion of the
pre-existence of the 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 un-
clean." 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 ren-
der this oath more impressive, the unborn hero is pro-
vided 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 wit-

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 285

ness 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 Low and others.^ Here
we have only to watch the effect which these legends hkd
upon the minds of Jewish parents. The newly born child
was in jconsequence looked upon by them as a higher
being, which, but a few seconds before, had been converse

286 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

ing 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 soil es wehren
Zu Gottes Ehren.

" The child should bt 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 Atone-
ment they used to communicate to the unborn child,

THE CHILD IN yEWISH LITERATURE 28/

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 if 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,^ and the child proved
to be a great saint.

The priest, however, could not enter into his office with-
out some consecration. As the first step in this consecra-
tion 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 fol-
lowed, 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,^ the devil's mother, who was suspected of
stealing children and killing them. The precautions they

288 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

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." * 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 cere-.
mony reconciles one a little to it despite its rather doubt-
ful 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^ (Ceremony of the Circumcision).
Indeed, this was the night during which Lilith was sup-
posed 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 re-
lating to the event which was to take place on the follow-
ing day. This ceremony was^ already known to Jewish

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 289

writers of the thirteenth century. Nevertheless, it is con-
sidered 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,'*® 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 chil-
dren to be circumcised," are the best proof of the attach-
ment 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 de-
clares 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 cere-
mony 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
u

290 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

transferred from the house of the parents to the syna-
gogue. 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,^ 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
Saiidek or Godfather. In some countries he was aJso
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 <rth^&4C09.
But it is now proved beyond doubt that it is a corruption
of the word avvreKvo^ used in the Greek church for god-
father. 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

THE CHILD 'IN JEWISH LITERATURE 29 1

said to have performed the office of Sandek to a certain

child. According to other sources the archangel Meta-

•

tron 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 Bux-
torf 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 Merkwurdigkeiten 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

292 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

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 celeb-
rity 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 agam, who
apparently did not belong to the great men, were confined
to another room, where they employed themselves in dis-
cussing 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 relat-
ing to the event of the day. Sometimes they consisted of
a kind of learned puns on the name which the child re-
ceived 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 " ® 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

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 293

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^ who
flourished in the thirteenth century. He says : Our pred-
ecessors 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 col-
lege, imparted their blessings to it. These first-born sons
formed, when grown up, the chief contingent of the Yes-
hiboth (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 abun-
dance 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

294 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

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 con-
cluded 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 dmner-
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 enjoy-
ing 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

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 295

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 at-
tended the synagogue after the recovery. The ceremony
of HoUe 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 de-
scribed 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 mediaeval
writers. The " Schlummerlied," by an unknown Jewish
bard, about which German scholars wrote so much, con-
tains 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

20 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

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 modem 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.
Well send it to market to buy Sechora,*®
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 ril give thee to-morrow ripe nuts and a toy,
If thou'lt sleep as I bid thee, my own little boy."

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 col-
lective name of " the difficulties (or the pain) of bringmg
up children.'* These difficulties seem to have been still
greater in Palestine, where one of the old Rabbis ex-
claimed that it was easier to see a whole forest of young
olive trees grow up than to rear one child.^ To avoid
so mournful a subject, I refrain from repeating the touch-
ing 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 IN JEWISH LITERATURE 297

the child could not have lost much by its being removed
from this vale of tears at such an early period. A re-
markable legend describes God Himself as giving lessons
so many hours a day to these prematurely deceased
children.^^ 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.

Certainly Jewish legends can boast of a whole series of
prodigies. Thus a certain Rabbi is said to have been so
sharp as to have had a clear recollection of the mid-wife
who made him a citizen of this world. Ben Sira again,
instantly after his birth, entertains his terrified mother
with many a wise and foolish saying, refuses the milk she
offers him, and asks for solid food. A certain Nachman
was born with a prophecy on his lips, predicting the fate
of all nations on earth, as well as fixing the date for the
advent of the Messiah. The youngest of seven sons of
Hannah, who became martyrs under the reign of Antio-

298 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

chus Epiphanes, was according to one version a^^ed two
years, six months, six hours, and thirty minutes. But the
way in which he defied the threats of the tyrant was
really worthy of one of seventy. R. Judah de Modena is
said to have read the lesson from the prophets in the
synagogue at the age of two years and a half. A famous
Cabbalist, Nahum, at the age of three, gave a lecture on
the decalogue that lasted for three days. The Chassidim
pretended of one of their Zaddikim that he remembered
all that he had been taught by the angels before his birth,
and thus excused their Zaddik's utter neglect of studying
anything. Perhaps I may mention in this place a sen-
tence from Schudt, which may reconcile one to the harm-
less exaggerations of the Chassidim. It relates to a case
where a Jewish girl of six was taken away by a Christian
with the intention of baptising her, for he maintained that
this was the wish and pleasure of the child. Probably
the little girl received her instruction from the Christian
servant of the house, as has happened many times.
Schudt proves that this wish ought to be granted in spite
of the minority of the child. He argues : As there is a
maxim, " What is wanting in years may be supplied by
wickedness,*' why could not also the reverse be true that
" What is wanting in years can be supplied by grace " ?
Of a certain R. Meshullam, again, we know that he
preached in the synagogue at Brody, at the age of nine,
and perplexed the chief Rabbi of the place by his deep
Talmudical learning. As the Rabbi had a daughter of
seven, the cleverness exhibited by the boy Rabbi did not
end without very serious consequences for all his life.

Happily all these prodigies or children of grace are
only exceptional. I say happily, for the Rabbis them-

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 299

selves disliked such creatures. They were more satisfied
with those signs of intelligence that indicate future great-
ness. The following story may serve as an instance: —
R. Joshua ben Hananiah once made a journey to Rome.
Here he was told that amongst the captives from Jeru-
salem there was a child with bright eyes, its hair in
ringlets, and its features strikingly beautiful. The Rabbi
made up his mind to redeem the boy. He went to the
prison and addressed the child with a verse from Isaiah,
"Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the robbers.?"
On this the child answered by continuing the second half
of the same verse, " Did not the Lord, He against whom
we have sinned } For they would not walk in His ways,
neither were they obedient unto His law*' (Isaiah xlii.
24). The Rabbi was so delighted with this answer, that
he said : " I am sure he will grow up to be a teacher in
Israel. I take an oath to redeem him, cost what it
may.'* The child was afterwards known under the name
of R. Ishmael ben Elisha. Such children were ideals
of the Rabbis, but they hated the baby scholar, who
very often grew impertinent and abused his elders. The
Rabbis much preferred the majority of those tiny creat-
ures, who are characterised by the already mentioned
legends on the "Ages of Men" as little animals play-
ing, laughing, crying, dancing, and committing all sorts
of mischief.

But these children must be taught. Now, there is the
well-known advice of Judah ben Tema, who used to say
that the child at five years was to be taught Scripture,
at ten years Mishnah, at thirteen to fulfil the Law, etc.
This saying, incorporated in most editions in the fifth
Chapter of the Sayings of the Fathers^ is usually con-

300 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

sidered as the programme of Jewish education. But,
like so many programmes, this tells us rather hoiv things
ought to have been than how they were. In the times of
the Temple, the participation of the youth in religious
actions began at the tenderest age. As soon as they
were able to walk a certain distance with the support
of their parents, the children had to accompany them
on their pilgrimages to Jerusalem. In the Sabbatical
year they were brought to the Temple, to be present at
the reading of Deuteronomy by the king.^* The period
at which the child's allegiance to the Synagogue began
is still more distinctly described. Of the many Talmudi-
cal passages relating to this question, I shall select the
following quotation from a later Midrash, because it is
the most concise. In allusion to Leviticus xix. 23, 24,
concerning the prohibition of eating the fruits of a tree
in the first three years, this Midrash goes on to say:
"And this is also the case with the Jewish child. In
the first three years the child is unable to speak, and
therefore is exempted from every religious duty, but in
the fourth year all its fruits shall be holy to praise the
Lord, and the father is obliged to initiate the child in
religious works.'* Accordingly the religious life of the
child began as soon as it was able to speak distinctly,
or with the fourth year of its life. As to the character
of this initiation we learn from the same Midrash and
also from other Talmudical passages, that it consisted in
teaching the child the verses, " Hear, O Israel : the Lord
our God is One " (Deut. vi. 4), and " Moses commanded
us a Torah, the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob "
(Deut. xxxiii. 4). It was also in this year that the boys
began to accompany their parents to the synagogue, car-

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 301

rying their prayer-books. At what age the girls first
came out — not for their first party, but with the pur-
pose of going to the synagogue — is difficult to decide
with any degree of certainty. But if we were to trust a
rather doubtful reading in Tractate Sopherim}^ we might
maintain that their first appearance in the synagogue was
also at a very tender age. I hope that they behaved there
more respectfully than their brothers, who played and
cried instead of joining in the responses and singing
with the congregation. In some communities they proved
so great a nuisance that a certain Rabbi declared it would
be better to leave them at home rather than to have the
devotion of the whole congregation disturbed by these
urchins. Another Rabbi recommended the praiseworthy
custom of the Sephardim,^^ who confined all the boys
in the synagogue to one place, and set a special over-
seer by their side, with a whip in his hands, to compel
them to keep quiet and to worship with due devotion.

A strange custom is known among the Arabian and Pal-
estinian Jews under the name of Chalaka, It means the
first hair-cutting of the boy after his fourth birthday. As
on this occasion loyalty to the Scripture is shown by not
touching the "comers *' (Lev. xix. 17), the whole action is
considered a religious ceremony of great importance. In
Palestine it usually takes place on the second day of the
Feast of the Passover when the counting of the seven
weeks begins. On this day friends and relatives assemble
at the house of the parents. Thither the boy is brought,
dressed in his best garments, and every one of the as-
sembly is entrusted with the duty of cutting a few hairs,
which is considered a great privilege. The ceremony is as
usual followed by a dinner given to the guests. The Jews

302 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

in Safed and Tiberias perform the ceremony with great
pomp in the courtyard surrounding the (supposed) grave
of R. Simeon ben Yochai, in one of the neighbouring

villages.

Another custom already mentioned in the Talmud, but
which quite disappeared in later times, is that of ^weighing
the child. It would be worth reviving if performed in the
way in which the mother of Doeg ben Joseph did it. This
tender-hearted mother weighed her only son every day,
and distributed among the poor, in gold, the amount of
the increased weight of her child.

I pass now to the second great consecration of the boy,
— the rites performed on the day when the boy went to
school for the first time. This day was celebrated by the
Jews, especially in the Middle Ages, in such a way as to
justify the high esteem in which they held the school.
The school was looked upon as a second Mount Sinai, and
the day on which the child entered it as the Feast of Reve-
lation. Of the many different customs, I shall mention
here that according to which this day was fixed for the
Feast of Weeks. Early in the morning, while it was still
dark, the child was washed and dressed carefully. In
some places they dressed it in a **gown with fringes."
As soon as day dawned the boy was taken to the syna-
gogue, either by his father or by some worthy member of
the community. Arrived at their destination, the boy was
put on the Almemor, or reading-dais, before the Scroll of
the Law, from which the narrative of the Revelation (Exod.
XX. 2-26) was read as the portion of the day. From the
synagogue the boy was taken to the house of the teacher,
who took him into his arms. Thereupon a slate was
brought, containing the alphabet in various combinations,

THE CHILD IN JEWISH UTERATURE 303

the verse, " Moses has commanded," etc. in Deut. xxxiii. 4,
the first verse of the Book of Leviticus, and the words,
" The Torah will be my calling/' The teacher then read
the names of the letters, which the boy repeated. After
the reading, the slate was besmeared with honey, which the
boy licked off. This was done in allusion to Ezekiel iii.
3, where it is said : " And it (the roll) was in my mouth
as honey for sweetness." The boy was also made to eat
a sweet cake, on which were written passages /rom the
Bible relating to the importance of the study of the Torah.
The ceremony was concluded by invoking the names of
certain angels, asking them to open the heart of the boy,
and to strengthen his memory. By the way, I am very
much afraid that this invocation was answerable for the
abolition of this ceremony. The year in which this cere-
mony took place is uncertain, probably not before the fifth,
nor later than the seventh, according to the good or bad
health of the child.

The reverence for the child already hinted at was still
further increased when the boy entered the school. " The
children of the house (school) of the master " is a regular
phrase in Jewish literature. It is on their pure breath
that the existence of the world depends, and it is their
merit that justifies us in appealing to the mercy of God.
Words of Scripture, uttered by them quite innocently,
were considered as oracles ; and many a Rabbi gave up
an undertaking on account of a verse pronounced by a
schoolboy, who hardly understood its import. Take only
one instance: R. Johanan was longing to see his friend
Mar Samuel in Babylon. After many disturbances and
delays, he at last undertook the journey. On the way he
passed a school where the boys were reciting the verse

304 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

from I Samuel xxviii. 3, " And Samuel died.'* This was
accepted by him as a hint given by Providence that all
was over with his friend.

Especially famous for their wisdom and sharpness were
the children of Jerusalem. Of the many illustrative
stories given in the Midrash to Lamentations, let the fol-
lowing suffice : R. Joshua was one day riding on his don-
key along the high road. As he passed a well, he saw a
little girl there, and asked her to give him some water.
She accordingly gave water to him and to his animal.
The Rabbi thanked her with the words : " My daughter,

•

you acted like Rebecca." "To be sure," she answered,
"I acted like Rebecca; but you did not behave like
Eleazar." I must add that there are passages in Jewish
literature from which, with a little ingenuity, it might be
deduced that Jewish babies are the most beautiful of their
kind. The assertion made by a monk that Jewish chil-
dren are inferior to Christian children is a dreadful libel.
The author of the Old Victory}^ in whose presence this
assertion was made, was probably childless, or he would
have simply scratched out the eyes of this malicious monk,
instead of giving a mystical reason for the superior beauty
of any other children than his own.

Another point to be emphasised is that the boys were
not confined all day long to the close air of the school-
room. They had also their hours of recreation. This
recreation consisted chiefly, as one can imagine, in play-
ing. Their favourite game was the ball, boys as well as
girls being fond of this form of amusement. They did
not deny themselves this pleasure even on festivals.
They were also fond of the kite and games with nuts, in
which their mothers also took part. Letter-games and

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 305

riddles also occupied their minds in the recreation hours.
The angel Sandalphon,^® who also bears in the Cabbalah
the name of "Boy," was considered by the children as
their special patron, and they invoked him in their plays,
addressing to him the words : " Sandalphon, Lord of the
forest, protect us from pain/* Speaking generally, there
are very few distinctively Jewish games. From the re-
searches of Zunz, Giidemann, and Low on this subject, it
is clear that the Jews always adopted the pastimes of the
peoples among whom they dwelt.

But it must not be thought that there was too much
playing. Altogether, Jewish education was far from spoil-
ing the children. And though it was recommended — if
such recommendation were necessary — to love children
more than one's own soul, the Rabbis strongly condemned
that blind partiality towards our own offspring, which ends
in burdening our world with so many good-for-nothings.
The sad experience of certain biblical personages served
as a warning for posterity. Even from the quite natural
behaviour of Jacob towards his son Joseph, which had the
best possible results in the end, they drew the lesson that
a man must never show to one of his children marks of
greater favour than to the others. In later times they
have been even anxious to conceal this love altogether,
and some Rabbis went so far as to refrain from kissing
their children. The severity of Akabya ben Mahalaleel
is worth mentioning, if not imitating. When this Rabbi,
only a few minutes before his death, was asked by his
son to recommend him to his friends and colleagues, the
answer the poor boy received was: "Thy conduct will
recommend thee to my friends, or will estrange thee from
them." Another Rabbi declared (with reference to Prov.

3o6 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

xxviii. 27) that it is life-giving to a youth to teach him
temperance in his diet, and not to accustom him to meat
and wine. R. Judah, the Pious, in the Middle Ages, gives
the advice to rich parents to withdraw their resources
from their sons if they lead a disorderly life. The strug-
gle for their existence, and the hardship of life, would
bring them back to God. When the old Rabbi said that
poverty is a most becoming ornament for Israel, his re-
mark was probably suggested by a similar thought. And
many a passage in the Rabbinic literature gives expression
to the same idea as that in Goethe's divine lines : —

Wer nie sein Brot mit Thranen ass,

Wer nie die kummervollen Nachte

Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,

Der kennt £uch nicht, Ihr himmlischen Machte.

I have spoken of a kingdom of priests, but there is one
great disadvantage of such a polity. One or two priests
in a community may be sustained by the liberality of
the congregation. But if a community consisted of only
priests, how could it then be maintained } Besides, the
old Jewish ideal expected the teacher to be possessed of a
divine goodness, imparting his benefits only as an act of
grace. Salaries, therefore, either for teaching or preach-
ing, or for giving ritual decisions, were strongly forbidden.
The solution of the question put by the Bible, " And if ye
shall say, What shall we eat 1 '* is to be found in the law
that every father was obliged to teach his son a handi-
craft, enabling him to obtain a living.

I have now to speak of the time when childhood is
brought to a conclusion. It is, as I stated above, in the
case of a girl at the beginning of the thirteenth year, and

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 307

in that of a boy at the beginning of the fourteenth year.
As a reason for this priority I will reproduce the words of
R. Chisda, who said that God has endowed woman with
a greater portion of intelligence- than man, and therefore
she obtains her maturity at an earlier period than man
does. A very nice compliment, indeed ; but like all com-
pliments it is of no practical consequence whatever. It
is not always the wiser who get the best of it in life.
Whilst the day on which the girl obtained her majority
passed unnoticed either by her or by her family, it was
marked in the case of the boy as the day on which he
become a Son of the Law,^^ and was signalised by various
rites and ceremonies, and by the bestowing on him of
beautiful presents. I miss only the wig, which used to
form the chief ornament of the boy on this happy day.
Less known, however, is the origin of this ceremony,
and the reason for fixing its date. It cannot claim a very
high antiquity. I may remark that in many cases centu-
ries elapse before an idea or a notion takes practical shape
and is crystallised into a custom or usage, and still longer
before this custom is fossilised into a law or fixed institu-
tion. As far as the Bible goes, there is not the slightest
indication of the existence of such a ceremony. From
Lev. xxvii. 5, and Num. xiv. 29, it would rather seem that
it was not before the twentieth year that the man was con-
sidered to have obtained his majority, and to be responsi-
ble for his actions. It was only in the times of the Rabbis,
when Roman influence became prevalent in juristic mat-
ters at least, that the date of thirteen, or rather the puber-
tas, was fixed as giving the boy his majority. But it would
be a mistake to think that before having obtained this
majority the boy was considered as under age in every

3o8 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

respect. Certainly the law made every possible eflfort to
connect him with the synagogue, and to initiate him in his
religious duties long before the age of thirteen.

We have seen that the boy's first appearance in the syn-
agogue was at the beginning of the fourth year. We have
noticed the complaints about his troublesome behaviour.
But how could we expect the poor child to be attentive to
things which quite surpassed the intellectual powers of his
tender age } There was no better reason for this attend-
ance either in the Temple or in the synagogue than that
the parents might be rewarded by God for the trouble of
taking their children there. These cares, by the way, fell
most heavily upon the women. The mother of R. Joshua
enjoyed this burden so much that she carried her boy,
when still in the cradle, to the " House of Study of the
Law," in order that his ears might be accustomed to the
sound of the Torah. In later times there was another ex-
cuse for taking the little children to the synagogue. They
were there allowed to sip the wine of the Sanctification
Cup,^ which was the exclusive privilege of the children ;
an easy way of worshipping, but, as you can observe, it is
a method that they enjoy and understand most excellently.
They did not less enjoy and understand the service with
which they were charged on the day of " The Rejoicing of
the Law. "2^ On this feast they were provided with flags,
which they carried before the bearers of the Torah, who
feasted them after the service with sweets. Another treat
was that of being called up on this day to the Torah, a
custom that is still extant. In the Middle Ages they went
in some countries so far as to allow these little fellows who
did not wear caps "to be called up" to say the blessings
over the Law bare-headed. A beautiful custom was that

THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE 309

every Sabbath, after finishing the weekly lesson and dress-
ing the Scroll of the Law, the children used to come up to
the Almemor and kiss the Torah. Leaving the synagogue
they kissed the hands of the scholars. At home the initi-
ation began with the blessing the child received on every
eve of the Sabbath, and with its instruction in " Hear O
Israel'* and other verses as already mentioned. Short
prayers, consisting of a single sentence, were also chosen
for children of this age. The function of the child on the
eve of the first day of Passover is well known. Besides
the putting of the four questions for the meaning of the
strange ceremony (Exod. xiii. 14), the boy had also to
recite, or rather to sing, the "Praise.'*^ But I am afraid
that they enjoyed better the song of " One Kid," which
was composed or rather adapted for their special enter-
tainment from an old German poem.

Within three or four years after entering the syna-
gogue, and with the growth of intellect and strength,
the religious duties of the boy increased, and became of
a more serious character. He had not only to attend
the school, which was troublesome enough, but he was
also expected to attend the services more regularly, and
to gain something by it. Yet the Rabbis were not so
tyrannical as to put unjust demands on the patience of
the child. The voice of God on Mount Sinai, the Rabbis
said, was adapted to the intellect and powers of all who
witnessed the Revelation — adapted, as the Midrash says,
to the powers of old and young, children and women. It
was in accordance with this sentiment that the Rabbis
suited their language to the needs of the less educated
classes. Thus we read in the Tractate Sopherim that
according to the law the portion of the week, after hav-

3IO STUDIES IN JUDAISM

ing been recited in Hebrew, must be translated into
the language of the vernacular for the benefit of the un-
learned people, the women, and the children. Another
consideration children experienced from the Rabbis was
that at the age of nine or ten the boy was initiated into
the observance of the Day of Atonement by fasting a
few hours. Lest, however, this good work might be over-
done, and thus endanger the child's health, the sage R.
Acha used to tell his congregation after the Addition-
Prayer " My brethren, let every one of you who has a
child go home and make it eat." In later centuries,
when the disease of small-pox became so fatal, some
Rabbis declared it to be the duty of every father to
leave the town with his children as soon as the plague
showed itself. The joy with which the Rabbis hailed
Dr. Jenner's discovery deserves our recognition. None
of them perceived in vaccination a defiance of Provi-
dence. R. Abraham Nansich, from London, wrote a
pamphlet to prove its lawfulness. The Cabbalist Buzagli
disputed Dr. Jenner*s priority, but nevertheless approved
of vaccination. R. Israel Lipschiitz declared that the
Doctor acquired salvation by his new remedy.

With his advancing age, not only the boy*s duties but
also his rights were increased. An enumeration of all
these rights would lead me too far, but I shall mention
the custom which allowed the boy the recital of " Magni-
fied"^ and "Bless ye"^ in the synagogue. Now this
privilege is restricted to the orphan boy. It is interest-
ing to hear that girls were also admitted to recite the
Magnified in the synagogue, in cases where their parents
left no male issue. I have myself witnessed such a case.
In some countries the boy had the exclusive privilege of

THE CHILD IN JE WISH LITER A TURE 3 1 1

reading the prayers on the evenings of the festivals and
Sabbaths. R. Samson ben Eleazar, in the fifteenth cen-
tury, received his family name Baruch Sheamar^^ from
the skill with which he recited this prayer when a boy.
He chanted it so well that he was called by the members
of the community Master Baruch Sheamar. As to the
question whether the boy, while under age, might law-
fully be considered as one of the Ten when such a quo-
rum was required, or one of the three in the case of
grace after meals, I can only say that the authorities
never agreed in this respect. Whilst the one insisted
upon his having obtained his majority, the other was
satisfied with his showing such signs of intelligence as
would enable him to participate in the ceremony in ques-
tion. Here is an instance of such a sign. Abaye and
Raba, the two celebrated heroes of the Babylonian Tal-
mud, were sitting at the table of Rabbah. Before say-
ing grace he asked them, ** Do you know to whom these
prayers are addressed.?" Thereupon one boy pointed
to the roof, whilst the other boy went* out and pointed
to the sky. The examiner was satisfied with their answer.
The privilege of putting on the phylacteries forms now
in most countries the chief distinction of "The Son of
the Law " ; in olden times, however, every boy had claim
to it as soon as he showed himself capable of behaving
respectfully when wearing the holy symbol. It even hap-
pened that certain honours of the synagogue were be-
stowed on boys, though under age. We possess a copy
of a Jewish epitaph dating from about the third century,
which was written in Rome for a boy of eight years, who
is there designated as archon. The fact is the more curi-
ous, as on the other hand the Palestinian R. Abuha, who

312 STUDIES IS JUDAISM

lived in the same centun', maintained that no man must
be elected as Warden before he has achieved his fiftieth
year. That boys were admitted to preach in the syna-
gogue I have already mentioned *

From all these remarks it will easily be seen that in
olden times the boy enjoyed almost all the rights of
majority long before the day of his being "The Son of
the Law/* The condition of the novice is hardly distin-
guishable from that of the initiated priest. The Talmud,
the Gaonim, and even R. Isaac Alfasi and Maimonides
knew neither the term "The Son of the Law" (in our
sense of the word) nor any ceremony connected with it.
There is only one slight reference to such an institution,
recorded in the Tractate Sopherim, with the quotation of
which I shall conclude this paper. We read there : " In
Jerusalem there was the godly custom to initiate the chil-
dren at the beginning of the thirteenth year by fasting the
whole Day of Atonement. During this year they took
the boy to the priests and learned men that they might
bless him, and {)ray for him that God might think him
worthy of a life devoted to the study of the Torah and
pious works.** For, this author says, "they were beauti-
ful, and their lives harmonious and their hearts directed
to God.**

XIII

WOMAN IN TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE

The learned Woman has always been a favourite sub-
ject with Jewish students; and her intellectual capabilities
have been fully vindicated in many an essay and even
fair-sized book. Less attention, however, has been paid
to woman's claims as a devotional being whom the
Temple, and afterwards the Synagogue, more or less
recognised. At least it is not known to me that any
attempt has been made to give, even in outline, the history
of woman's relation to public worship. It is needless to
say that the present sketch, which is meant to supply
this want in some measure, lays no claim -to completeness;
but I venture to hope that it will help to direct the atten-
tion of the friends of research to the matter, and that it
may induce others to deal more fully with the subject and
do it the justice it deserves.

The earliest allusion to women's participation in public
worship, is that in Exodus xxxviii. 8, to the women who
assembled to minister at the door of the "tent of meet-
ing," of whose mirrors the lavers of brass were made (cf.
I Sam. ii. 22). Philo, who is not exactly enamoured of
the emancipation of women, and seeks to confine them to
the " small state," is here full of their praise. " For," he
says, "though no one enjoined them to do so, they of

313

314 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

their own spontaneous zeal and earnestness contributed
the mirrors with which they had been accustomed to deck
and set off their beauty, as the most becoming first-fruits
of their modesty, and of the purity of their married life,
and, as one may say, of the beauty of their souls." In
another passage Philo describes the Jewish women as
"competing with the men themselves in piety, having
determined to enter upon a glorious contest, and to the
utmost extent of their power to exert themselves so as not
to fall short of their holiness."

It is, however, very difficult to ascertain in what this
ministry of women consisted. The Hebrew term "Zo-
beoth " ^ would suggest the thought of a species of relig-
ious Amazons, who formed a guard of honour round the
Sanctuary. Some commentators think that the minis-
try consisted in performing religious dances' accompanied
by various instruments. The Septuagint again speaks
"of the women who fasted by the doors of the Taber-
nacle." But most of the old Jewish expositors, as well as
Onkelos, conceive that the women went to the tent of
meeting to pray. Ibn Ezra offers the interesting remark,
"And behold, there were women in Israel serving the
Lord, who left the vanities of this world, and not being
desirous of beautifying themselves any longer, made of
their mirrors a free offering, and came to the tabernacle
every day to pray and to listen there to the words of
the commandments." When we find that in i Sam. L
12, "Hannah continued to pray before the Lord," she
was only doing there what many of her sisters did
before and after her. We may also judge that it was
from the number of these noble women, who made relig-
ion the aim of their lives, that the " twenty-two " heroines

WOMAN IN TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE 315

and prophetesses sprang who form part of the glory of
Jewish history. Sometimes it even happened that their
husbands derived their religious inspiration from them.
Thus the husband of the prophetess Deborah is said to
have been an unlettered man. But his wife made him
carry to the Sanctuary the candles which she herself had
prepared, this being the way in which she encouraged
him to seek communion with the righteous.

The language in which the husband of the "Great
Woman ** of Shunem addresses his wife : " Wherefore wilt
thou go to him" (the prophet)? "it is neither New Moon
nor Sabbath " (2 Kings iv. 23), proves that on Festivals
and Sabbaths the women used to attend some kind of wor-
ship, performed by the prophet, though we cannot say in
what this worship consisted. The New Moon was espe-
cially a woman's holiday, and was so observed even in the
Middle Ages, for the women refrained from doing work
on that day. The explanation given by the Rabbis is that
when the men broke off their golden earrings to supply
material for the golden calf, the women refused to con-
tribute their trinkets, for which good behaviour a special
day of repose was granted to them. Some Cabbalists even
maintain that the original worshippers of the golden calf
continue to exist on earth, their souls having successively
migrated into various bodies, while their punishment con-
sists in this, that they are ruled over by their wives.
Rather interesting as well as complimentary to women
is the remark which the Rabbis made with regard to
the " Great Woman." As will be remembered, it is she
who says, " I perceive that this (Elisha) is a holy man
of God" (2 Kings iv. 19). In allusion to this verse
the Talmud says : " From this fact we may infer that

3i6 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

woman is quicker in recognising the worth of a stranger
than man."

The great woman, or women, continued to pray and to
join in the public worship also after the destruction of the
first Temple. Thus Esther is reported by tradition to
have addressed God in a long extempore prayer before
she presented herself before the throne of Ahasuerus to
plead her people's cause ; and women were always en-
joined to attend the reading of the Book of Esther. When
Ezra read the Law for the first time, he did so in the pres-
ence of the men and the women (Neh. viii. 3). In the
Book of the Maccabees we read of " The women girt with
sackcloth . . . and the maidens that ran to the gates . . .
And all holding their hands towards heaven made suppli-
cation." In the Judith legend, mention is also made of
" Every man and woman . . . who fell before the Temple,
and spread out their sackcloth before the face of the Lord
. . . and cried before the God of Israel." In the second
Temple, the women, as is well known, possessed a court
reserved for their exclusive use. There the great illumi-
nations and rejoicings on the evening of the Feast of Tab-
ernacles used to be held. On this occasion, 'however, the
women were confined to galleries specially erected for
them. It was also in this Women's Hall that the great
public reading of certain portions of the Law by the king,
once in seven years, used to take place, and women had
also to attend at the function. On the other hand, it is
hardly necessary to say that women were excluded from
performing any important service in the Temple. If we
were to trust a certain passage in the "Chapters of R.
Eliezer," we might perhaps conclude that during the first
Temple, the wives of the Levites formed a part of the

WOMAN IN TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE

317

choir, but the meaning of the passage is too obscure and
doubtful for us to be justified in basing on it so important
an inference. Nor can the three hundred maidens who
were employed for the weaving of the curtains in the Tem-
ple, be looked upon as having stood in closer connection
with the Temple, or as having formed an order of women-
priests or girl-devotees (as one might wrongly be induced
to think by certain passages in Apocryphal writings of the
New Testament). But on the other hand, it is not im-
probable that their frequent contact with the Sanctuary of
the nation produced in them that religious enthusiasm and
zeal which may account for the heroic death which — ac-
cording to the legend — they sought and found after the
destruction of the Temple. It is to be remarked that,
according to the law, women were even exempted from
putting their hands on the head of the victim, which
formed an important item in the sacrificial worship. It is,
however, stated by an eye-witness, that the authorities per-
mitted them to perform this ceremony if they desired to do
so, and that their reason for this concession was " to give
calmness of the spirit, or satisfaction, to women."

Still greater, perhaps, was ** the calmness of spirit "
given to women in the synagogue. We find in ancient
epitaphs that such titles of honour were conferred upon
them as "Mistress of the Synagogue,'* and "Mother of
the Synagogue," and, though they held no actual office
in the Synagogue, it is not improbable that they acquired
these titles by meritorious work connected with a religious
institution, viz. : Charity. There was, indeed, a tendency
to exclude women from the synagogue at certain seasons,
but almost all the authorities protest against it, many of
them declaring such a notion to be quite un-Jewish. Some

3i8 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Jewish scholars even think Aat the ancient synagogues
knew of no partition for women. I am rather inclined to
think that the synagogue took for its model the arrange-
ments in the Temple, and thus confined women to a place
of their own. But, whether they sat side by side with
the men or occupied a special portion of the edifice, there
can be no doubt that the Jewish women were great syna-
gogue-goers. To give only one instance. One Rabbi asks
another: Given the case that the members of the syna-
gogue are all descendants of Aaron, to whom then would
they impart their blessing } The answer is, to the women
who are there.

Of the sermon they were even more fond than their
husbands. Thus one woman was so much interested in
the lectures of R. Meir, which he was in the habit of
giving every Friday evening, that she used to remain there
so long that the candles in her house burnt themselves
out. Her lazy husband, who stopped at home, so strongly
resented having to wait in the dark, that he would not
permit her to cross the threshold until she gave some of-
fence to the preacher, which would make him sure that
she would not venture to attend his sermons again.

The prayers they said were the Eighteen Benedic-
tions which were prescribed by the Law. But it would
seem that occasionally they offered short prayers com-
posed by themselves as suggested by their personal feel-
ings and needs. Thus, to give one instance, R. Johanan
relates that one day he observed a young girl fall on her
face and pray : ** Lord of the world. Thou hast created
Paradise, Thou hast created hell, Thou hast created the
wicked. Thou hast created the righteous ; may it be Thy
will that I may not serve as a stumbling-block to them.'*

WOMAN m TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE

319

The fine Hebrew in which the prayer is expressed, and
the notion of the responsibility of Providence for our
actions, manifest a high degree of intelligence and reflec-
tion. It would also seem that some women went so far
in their religious sensibility as to lead a regular ascetic
life, and, according to the suggestion of some scholars,
even took the vow of celibacy. Of these the Rabbis did
not approve, and stigmatised them as the " destroyers of
the world." Perhaps it was just at this period that Juda-
ism could not afford to give free play to those morbid
feelings, degenerating into religious hysterics, which led
some to join rival sects, and others to abandon themselves
to the gross immorality we read of in the history of
the Gnostics.

The same circumstances may have been the cause of
public opinion being led to accept the view of R. Eliezer,
who thought it inadvisable — it would seem on moral
grounds — to permit woman to study the Law. This
opinion was opposed to that of Ben Azzai, who con-
sidered it incumbent upon every father to teach his
daughter Torah. But justified as the advice of R. Eliezer
may have been in his own time, it was rather unfortunate
that later generations continued to take it as the guiding
principle for the education of their children. Many great
women in the course of history indeed became law-
breakers and studied Torah ; but the majority were en-
tirely dependent on men, and became in religious matters
a sort of appendix to their husbands, who by their good
actions insured salvation also for them, and sometimes the
reverse. Thus there is a story about a woman which, put
into modern language, would be to the effect that she
married a minister and copied his sermons for him ; he

320 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

died, and she then married a cruel usurer, and kept his
accounts for him.

The fact that women were exempted from certain affirm-
ative laws, which become operative only at special seasons
— e,g,y the taking of the palm branch on the Feast of
Tabernacles — must also have contributed to weaken their
position as a religious factor in Judaism. The idea that
women should vie with men in the fulfilment of every law,
became even for the Rabbis a notion connected only with
the remotest past. This is the impression one gains when
reading the legend about Michal, the daughter of Saul,
putting on phylacteries, or the wife of the prophet Jonah
making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the three Festivals.
It would indeed seem as if women were led to strive for
the satisfaction of their religious wants in another direc-
tion. Yet it was said of Jewish women, " The daughters
of Israel were stringent and laid certain restrictions on
themselves." They were also allowed to form a quorum
by themselves for the purpose of saying the Grace, but
they could not be counted along with males for this end.
It was also against the early notion of the dignity of the
congregation that women should perform any public ser-
vice for men.

One privilege was left to women — that of weeping.
In Judges xi. 40, we read of the daughters of Israel that
went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah ; while in
2 Chronicles xxxv. 25, we are told how " all the singing
men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their
lamentations." Of this privilege they were not deprived,
and if they were not allowed to sing any longer, they at
least retained the right to weep as much as they pleased.
Even in later times they held a public office as mourning

WOMAN IN TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE

321

women at funerals. In the Talmud fragments of composi-
tions by women for such occasions are to be found. In-
deed, woman became in these times the type of grief and
sorrow. She cannot reason, but she feels much more
deeply than man. Here is one instance from an old
legend : Jeremiah said, ** When I went up to Jerusalem
(after the destruction of the Temple) I lifted my eyes and
saw there a lonely woman sitting on the top of the moun-
tain, her dress black, her hair dishevelled, crying, * Who
will comfort me.?' I approached her and spake to her,
* If thou art a woman, speak to me. If thou art a ghost,
begone.' She answered, * Dost thou not know me .? . . .
I am the Mother, Zion.* "

In general, however, the principle applied to women
was : The king's daughter within the palace is all glorious
(Psalm xlv. 14), but not outside of it. In the face of the
" Femina in ecclesia taceat," which was the ruling maxim
with other religions, Jewish women could only feel flat-
tered by this polite treatment by the Rabbis, though it
meant the same thing. We must not think, however,
that this prevented them from attending the service of the
synagogue. According to the Tractate Sopheriniy even
" the little daughters of Israel were accustomed to go to
the synagogue." In the same tractate we find it laid
down as " a duty to translate for them the portion (of the
Law) of the week, and the lesson from the prophets " into
the language they understand. The " King's daughter "
occasionally asserted her rights without undue reliance on
the opinion of the authorities. And thus being ignorant
of the Hebrew language women prayed in the vernacular,
though this was at least against the letter of the law.
And many famous Rabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth

322 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

centuries express their wonder that the " custom of
women praying in other (non-Hebrew) languages ex-
tended over the whole world." It is noteworthy that
they did not suppress the practice, but on the contrary,
they endeavoured to give to the Law such an interpretation
as would bring it into accord with the general custom.
Some even recommended it, as, for example, the author
of The Book of the PiotiSy who gives advice to women to
learn the prayers in the language familiar to them.

At about the same period a lengthy controversy was
being waged by the commentators of the Talmud and the
codifiers, about woman's partaking in the fulfilment of the
laws for special seasons, from which, as already remarked,
they were exempted. To the action itself there could not
be much objection, but the difficulty arose when women
also insisted on uttering the blessing. Now the point at
issue was whether they could be permitted to say, for
instance, " Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, etc., who
hast sanctified us by Thy Commandments, and hast com-
manded uSy concerning the taking of the Palm branch,"
since in reality the women had not been commanded to do
it. To such logical and systematic minds as Maimonides
and R. Joseph Caro, the difficulty was insurmountable,
and they forbade women to use the formula; but with
the less consistent majority women carried their point.
Rather interesting is the answer received by R. Jacob, of
Corbeil, with regard to this question. This Rabbi is said
to have enjoyed the mysterious power which enabled him
to appeal in cases of doubt to the celestial authorities.
Before them he put also this women's case for decision.
Judgment was communicated to him in the verse from the
Scriptures, " In all that Sarah saith unto Thee, hearken

WOMAN IN TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE

323

unto her voice" (Gen. xxL 12). Nor was it unknown for
a pious Jew to compose a special hymn for his wife's use
in honour of the Sabbath.

How long this custom of women praying in the vernac-
ular lasted, we have no means of ascertaining. Probably
was already extinct about the end of the fifteenth century.
For R. Solomon Portaleone, who lived in the sixteenth
century, already regrets the abolition of "this beautiful
and worthy custom." "When they prayed in the ver-
nacular," he says, "they understood what they were say-
ing, whilst now they only gabble off their prayers." As
a sort of compromise we may regard the various "Sup-
plications "; ^ they form a kind of additional prayers sup-
plementary to the ordinary liturgy, and are written in
German. Chiefly composed by women, they specially an-
swer the needs of the sex on various occasions. These
prayers deserve a full description by themselves, into
which I cannot enter here ; I should like only to mention
that in one of these collections in the British Museum, a
special supplication is added for servant-maids, and if I
am not quite mistaken, also one for their mistresses.

It is also worth noticing that the manuals on the
" Three Women's Commandments " (mostly composed in
German, sometimes also in rhymes), contained much more
than their titles would suggest. They rather served as
headings to groups of laws, arranged under each com-
mandment. Thus the first (about certain laws in Lev. xii.
and XV.) becomes the motto for purity in body and soul ;
the second (the consecration of the first cake of the
dough) includes all matters relating to charity, in which
women were even reminded to encourage their newly
married husbands not to withhold from the poor the

324 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

tithes of the bridal dowry, as well as of their future yearly
income ; whilst the third (the lighting of the Sabbath
lamp) becomes the symbol for spiritual light and sweet-
ness in every relation of human life.

As another compromise may also be considered the in-
stitution of "Vorsugern" (woman-reader) or the "Woilken-
nivdicke " (the well-knowing one) who reads the prayers
and translates them into the vernacular for the benefit
of her less learned sisters. In Poland and in Russia, even
at the present time, such a woman-reader is to be found
in every synagogue, and from what I have heard the insti-
tution is by no means unknown in London. The various
prayer-books containing the Hebrew text as well as the
Jewish-German translation, which appear in such frequent
editions in Russia, are mostly intended for the use of
these praying women. Not uninteresting is the title-page
of R. Aaron Ben Samuel's Jewish-German translations
and collections of prayers which appeared in the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century. He addressed the Jewish
public in the following terms : " My dear brethren, buy
this lovely prayer-book or wholesome tonic for body and
soul, which has never appeared in such German print
since the world began ; and make your wives and children
read it often, thus they will refresh their bodies and souls,
for this light will shine forth into your very hearts. As
soon as the children read it they will understand their
prayers, by which they will enjoy both this world and the
world to come."

An earlier translator of the prayer-book addresses him-
self directly to the " pious women '* whom he invites to buy
his book, " in which they will see very beautiful things.**
Recent centuries seem, on the whole, to have been dis-

WOMAN IN TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE

32s

tinguished for the number of praying-women they pro-
duced. The virtues which constituted the claim of women
to religious distinction were modesty, charity, and daily at-
tendance at the synagogue morning and evening. In the
memorial books of the time hundreds of such women are
noticed. Some used also to spin the " Fringes," which
they presented to their friends ; others fasted frequently,
whilst " Old Mrs. Hechele " not only attended the syna-
gogue every day, and did charity to poor and rich, but also
understood the art of midwifery, which she practised in the
community without accepting payment for her services.
According to R. Ch. J. Bachrach women used also to say
the "Magnified" prayer in the synagogue when their
parents left no male posterity.

In bringing to a close this very incomplete sketch, per-
haps I ought to notice the confirmation of girls introduced
during this century in some communities in Germany,
which the " Reformed " Rabbis recommended, but of which
the "Orthodox" Rabbis disapproved. It would be well if
in the heat of such controversies both sides would remem-
ber the words of R. Zedekiah b. Abraham, of Rome, who
with regard to a certain difference of opinion on some
ritual question, says : " Every man receives reward from
God for what he is convinced is the right thing, if this
conviction has no other motive but the love of God."

XIV

THE EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY

IN EUROPE

Roman Judaism has disappeared from our guide-books.
Civilisation has levelled down the walls of the Ghetto, and
its former inhabitants are not any longer " a people that
dwell alone." But with this well-deserved destruction
a good deal of the interest was also destroyed which the
traveller used to attach to " the peculiar people " enclosed
in that terrible slum of Rome.

Still, if there is anything eternal in the ** eternal city,"
which was neither reconstructed by the Caesars, nor im-
proved upon by the Popes, it is the little Jewish commu-
nity at Rome. It has survived the former ; it has suffered
for many centuries under the latter, and, partaking in the
general revival which has come upon the Italian nation,
it may still be destined for a great future. Indeed, the
history of the relation of Israel to Rome is so old that it is
not lacking even in legendary elements. On the day on
which King Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh,
the Rabbis narrate, there came down the angel Gabriel.
He put a reed into the sea, which, by means of the slime
that adhered to it, formed itself, in the course of time,
into a large island, on which the city of Rome was built —
an event with which the troubles of Israel began. These

326

EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN EUROPE 327

were the evil consequences of the first mesalliance. Even
more unfortunate for Israel (and it is not impossible that
this is the meaning of the legend) were the results of that
spiritual mixed marriage between Judaism and paganism
which took place at a much later period, whereat a blunt
soldier, who sympathised with neither, and " who dealt in
salvation as he dealt in provinces," acted as best man.
As a fact, the parties concerned never understood each
other properly. The declaration of love, and the final
proposal, were made in an Alexandrine jargon, strange to
both, the obscurities of which only grew with the com-
mentaries each successive generation added to them.
Under such circumstances, a happy union was not to be
expected, and the family quarrel which fills the annals of
civilised Europe soon broke out. Judaism, more particu-
larly Roman Judaism, witnessed this struggle from the
beginning, and its fortunes were greatly dependent on
the chance which of these two elements, the Jewish or the
pagan, won the ascendency. •

However, I am theologising too much, whilst I am
deviating from the subject of these lines. Nor could I
think of giving here, even in outline, the history of the
oldest Jewish community in Europe. This has been
already admirably done by Dr. A. Berliner, who has made
the history of the Jews of Rome the subject of his studies
for nearly a quarter of a century. I intend only to repro-
duce here, in a stray fashion, some of those impressions
and reflections which, I am certain, must occur to every
Jewish traveller in Italy.

Now I do not think for a moment that we Jews should
have a point of view of our own for looking at things and
men in this paradise of Europe. It would be as silly to

328 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

have a Jewish Baedeker as to think of orthodox mathe-

•

matics or an ecclesiastical logic or a racial morality —
though unfortunately there exist such things. But on the
other hand, if we have not, like the fox in the fable, left
our heart at home, let us not do violence to our feelings by
passing over everything Jewish, over sights which might
remind us of our history, with a certain indifference which
would be affected on our part. We are not all little
Goethes, nor even little Ruskins, and our artistic enjoy-
ment is hardly so intense as to shut our hearts against
impressions which force themselves upon us either by
the way of remembrance of the past, or even as a living
contrast in the present.

It so happened that my first visit to the Vatican was
on a Friday. After doing my work in the Vatican
Library, which is open till noon, I went into the adjoining
Church of St. Peter.

One should be, like the angel of death in the legend,
full of eyes, properly to see all the wonders of art and
marvels of architecture at which human genius and piety
laboured busily through centuries, in adorning the grand-
est of sacred buildings in the world. But there is Bae-
deker or Murray serving at least as a pair of good specta-
cles to the layman, and it was by their aid that I made my
round in St. Peter. But lo, whilst you are observing the
celebrated Pieti by Michael Angelo, and, according to
the instruction of your guides, admiring both the grief
of the Mother and the death of the Son, you notice in its
vicinity a little column, surrounded by rails to which the
pilgrims approach with a certain awe ; for " Tradition
affirms it to have been brought from Jerusalem." Natu-
rally, one is instantly reminded of the report, given by the

EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN EUROPE 329

famous traveller of Tudela, of the curiosities of Rome,
which among other things records, "That there are also
to be seen in St. Giovanni in Porta Latina (probably
meant for Lateran) the two brazen pillars, constructed
by King Solomon of blessed memory, whose name,
Solomon, the son of David, is engraved upon each ; of
which he was also told that every year about the 9th
of Ab (the anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem),
these pillars sweat so much that water runs down from
them." So far Benjamin of Tudela in the twelfth cen-
tury. In our days pillars weep no longer, and even of
men it is considered a special sign of good breeding to
behave pillar-like; but a sigh is still permissible at the
sight of this temple-column, which in its captivity sym-
bolises, not less than the Pietil, the grief of a whole
people. Of course, not possessing on the spot either
the Itinerary or even Urlick, one is unable to establish
the connection between these two traditions and their
claim to authenticity. Perhaps one may even comfort
oneself on the same ground on which the famous cur6
tried to. appease his flock who were sobbing bitterly at
his telling them the Passion story. He exclaimed : " My
children, do not weep so much; it happened long ago,
and even perhaps is not quite true.*'

However, the Vatican is the last place in the world to
exercise your critical faculties ; you are so deeply absorbed
in seeing, that you have no time to think. So on I went,
from aisle to aisle, from niche to niche, from chapel to
chapel, looking, staring, and admiring, till of a sudden my
eyes were struck by a large statue, on which the words,
" Thou shalt have no other God before me," are engraved.
There I stood before a question of exegesis, where one is

330 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

permitted to use his right senses without any regard to
the aesthetic side. Yet not all the manifold expositions
of the Decalogue, nor all the talk about the subjective-
objective, the absolute and the real, with which metaphy-
sicians have tried to confuse the notion of the Unity of
God, will reconcile one to the meaning which Mediaeval
Art has impressed upon the Ten Commandments. The
truth has to be sought elsewhere, and thus my thoughts
were turned to the synagogue, and thither I went.

The day was already drawing to its close, and, by a
marvellous coincidence, I arrived at the synagogue just as
the congregation was intoning the words : " The Lord is
one, and His name is one to His renown and glory.*'
Here was sound, simple exegesis, though sadly lacking
in the illustrative matter in which the Vatican is so rich.
But what need was there of any real or artificial " aid to
the believer," in the presence of such a living faith, as
enabled this little community to maintain its protesting
position in the teeth of the mistress of the world ! And
this even at a time, when it only required a hint from the
successors of the old Roman Emperors to make the whole
world renounce its right of thinking and judging, and,
were we to believe Herr Janssen, even to feel perfectly
happy in this torpor.

But, by the way, are our own times much better } As
I write these lines (October 1893) I hear that a Bill has
been brought into the German Diet, asking that the Tal-
mud should be submitted to a Commission (which en pas-^
santy has been sitting in unbroken session in that country
since the days of Pfefferkorn in the fifteenth century)
with the purpose of examining its contents, while in the
Vatican the very pupils of Loyola are oflfering every con-

EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN EUROPE 331

venience and comfort to the student who should care to
devote his time to Rabbinic literature. Does not the work
of a great number of our poets, historians, theologians,
and so-called seers in this blessed century of ours, in many
respects prove but a strained effort to destroy the few
humanitarian principles which were established a few
generations ago, as well as to deify every brutal warrior
who was successful in his day? Again, is the national
idea so much sublimer, so much grander, than that of a
universal religion, that we would willingly permit the
former to employ the means which have been denied to
the latter as inhuman and barbarous ? Every age has its
own idolatry, and the eternal wandering Jew will always
be the chosen victim of the Moloch in fashion.

Let us, however, return to the synagogue, which with-
stood many a cruelty, both ancient and modem. The
place where the synagogue stands is near the Ghetto,
now called Piazza di Scuola. It is, besides a few other
communal houses, the only building left there, — all those
narrow, dirty, and typhoid-breeding streets which formed
the old Ghetto having been demolished by a sage and
humane government, which by this action wiped out the
last stain from its history. There, on this vast blank is
the synagogue, a comparatively small, insignificant build-
ing, laden with heavy age and looking down on her
children whom she has been nursing, consoling, and pro-
tecting for centuries, but who, now grown old, have for-
saken her and scattered to all the ends of the city. Of
all her former acquaintances there appears to be left
only father Tiber, who would seem to be murmuring to
h€r many an old tale of the times before she was called
into existence. And if he listened to the special prayers

332 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

recited within her walls by the deputies of the Jewish
communities, when preparing themselves to go to the
court of the Pope, the Tiber heard many a sigh and
cry, wrung out from the heart of a Jewish captive who,
preferring death to slavery even under the masters of
the world, found his last repose in its waters. But insig-
nificant as this synagogue appears, she proved the spirit-
ual bulwark against all the attacks of the time, and you
admire her brave resistance all the more when you look
at that multitude of churches and cloisters in the closest
vicinity of the Ghetto, impressing you as so many in-
trenchments, all directing their missiles and weapons
against this humble, defenceless building, threatening it
with death and destruction. One of these churches,
probably founded by some Jewish convert, who gained
in it both salvation and a good living, bears on its gates
in Hebrew letters the inscription : " I have spread out
my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which
walketh in the way that was not good, after their own
thoughts. A people that provoketh me to anger con-
tinually to my face" (Isaiah Ixv. 2, 3). Menace is fol-
lowed by persuasion, the cited verses being accompanied
by the Latin words : " Indulgentia plenaria quotodiana
perpetua pro vivis et defunctis.*' Theologians who like
to quarrel most about things they can know least, have
for ages discussed the question, whether prayers for the
dead are of any use; here the matter is decided by a
simple advertisement. It is not to be denied that one
would enjoy the fortunes accumulated by one's late sin-
ner of an uncle all the better for being sure that a few
pennyworths of prayer enable the legatee to make one's
benefactor in Hades comfortable and happy.

EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN EUROPE 333

The thought is very consoling indeed, and it is not to be
wondered at that the Roman synagogue could not entirely
withstand its temptations, and introduced into the offering-
blessing after one is called up to the Torah, the words :
"To the advancing of the soul of the departed." Of
course much of this tendency may be attributed to the
Ford Jabbok,^ which was and is still very popular in
that country ; but the fact that the author of this Jewish
"Book of the Dead "was an Italian (from Modena), shows
clearly that there was some Catholic influence at work,
from which even the fellow-countrymen of Azariah de
Rossi and Judah Messer Leon could not entirely emanci-
pate themselves.

I ought to have spoken of Roman synagogues, since
the building in the Ghetto to which I have been constantly
alluding comprises four prayer-houses devoted to Spanish
and Italian rites. It says much for Roman Judaism, that
they did not consider ritual differences of such importance
as to prevent them from forming one community for all
charitable and congregational purposes. In Verona and
in Modena some congregations even retained the German
rite, which their ancestors who immigrated from the Rhine
provinces brought with them, whilst they accepted the
Spanish pronunciation. I wish that the Anglo-Jewish
community could see their way to imitate their example.
Not that I think for a moment that the Spanish pronun-
ciation is more correct than the German. Each system
has its own mistakes and corruptions; and it is more
than probable that the prophet Isaiah, or even the author
of Ecclesiastes, would be as little able to follow the
prayers in Bevis Marks as in Duke's Place. But since
the non-Jewish scientific world has, though only by pure

334 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

accident, accepted the Spanish way of reading the Hebrew,
I should like to see this trifling difference of ^^ruch over
^wnich at last disappear, by pronouncing the camets-vowel
a instead of Oy and accepting similar little changes, which
are of no real importance to us.

The inside of these synagogues is even more simple
than their outside. I was told that the synagogue which
was burned down last winter, and which also formed a
part of this building, could boast of many fine decorations
and carvings, etc., but I could observe nothing of the kind
in the synagogues I had occasion to frequent. Nor is
there much of natural decorum in them, and they reconcile
one perfectly to the worst of the Small Synagogues else-
where. I venture to think that in this respect, too, we
have to recognise Catholic influence. It was, I think, one
of the leaders in the Oxford Movement who expressed his
delight at seeing in Italy a woman poorly-dressed coming
into the church, who, after putting down the basket from
her back, kneels before one of the many altars and says
her prayers. A good deal of this familiarity in the place
of worship may also be noticed in the Roman synagogues,
where I have seen a woman come into the partition for
men, notwithstanding their having a separate gallery,
without bonnet or hat on her head, and with an infant in
her arms, and listen there to the prayers, till she walked
home with her husband. The other people were also
very restless, coming and going often, whilst, as soon as
the reading of the Law was over, the greater part of the
worshippers left the synagogue. It was not a very de-
lightful sight. A minus of decorum does not always mean
a plus of devotion ; just as little as a maximum of respect-
ability and stiffness are to be taken as signs of true piety.

EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN EUROPE 335

It is not uninteresting to notice that the Roman syna-
gogue, in spite of its old traditions, did not entirely shut
itself against modem reforms. Among them there is that
of " calling up the people to the Torah " by the simple for-
mula, "Let the Priest" (or "the Levite'*) "step forth,'' 2
and so on, not mentioning either names or titles, which I
should like to recommend most strongly to our congrega-
tions. I hope that no man will suspect me of such heresy
as that of questioning the wisdom of the Synagogue Reg-
ulations. But I am inclined to think that the business of
conferring the degrees of Rabbi, "Associate" or " Master,"
does not exactly fall within the sphere of activity of the
Wardens. The matter could only be decided by a proper
Board of examination. As the Council is not provided
with such a Board, nor is every aspirant to this honour
prepared to undergo the examination required, the wisest
course would be to give up titles altogether, calling up all
people alike in the way indicated.

The robes the ministers wear (somewhat similar to those
of the Greek clergy), are probably also an innovation of
modern date, — the old orthodox Rabbis looking at any
special vestment for the Preacher or Reader with the same
feeling of disgust which the old Puritans entertained for
surplice or mitre. But the principle of " The Beauty of
Holiness" proved too strong for resistance, and it was
only a pardonable vanity when the reformers applied it
to their own persons ; " Vanity of vanities," saith the
preacher, so often, that he gets rather to like it. This
vanity is greatly redeemed by the fact that the preacher
does not grudge his uniform to his humbler brother, the
beadle, who is in most cases to be distinguished from the
officiating ministry only by the brass-plate on his breast,

336 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

on which the word " Servant *' is engraved. Considering
the great confusion arising from the meaningless " Rever-
end " and the universal white neck-tie, such a label, indi-
cating the proper office of the bearer, might, perhaps,
prove as useful among the English Jews as it is among
the Jews of Rome.

It was with a pupil of the Rabbinical College, in com-
pany with his friends, that I took my first walk through
ancient Rome. I felt attracted to him by his striking face
of that peculiar fine Jewish type, which is more common
among the Jews in the East than among us. And when
he was reading the lesson from the Prophets in the syna-
gogue, where I made his acquaintance, he reminded me of
that Jewish boy with bright eyes, black curls, and features
strikingly beautiful walking as a captive from Jerusalem
through the streets of Rome some seventeen centuries ago,
whose proficiency in the words of Isaiah caused his re-
demption. It would be an exaggeration to say that my
companion's remarks were very instructive from an artistic
point of view. Being bom and bred in Rome, he passed
with utter indifference many objects which we are bidden
to admire, whilst at others he actually shouted out " Im-
age," or made some other prosaic remark. But in a coun-
try where one is determined to play the heathen for so
many weeks, to worship superannuated .deities, to get into
raptures at every reminiscence of superseded and vanish-
ing religions, and to be delighted at the sights of "greasy
saints and martyrs hairy," there can be no great harm in
being called back to one's true nature.

The feelings crowding upon one, when entering that
part of the ancient city which probably was in the mind
of the Rabbis when they spoke of "Guilty Rome," are

EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN EUROPE 337

of a conflicting nature. Every stone and every brick
there saw the humiliation of Israel, in every theatre and
every circus the Jew served as a comic figure, and was
held up to ridicule, whilst there was, perhaps, hardly a
single lane or gate through which those who resented
the yoke of the " anti-Semites of Antiquity " did not pass,
in order to "be butchered to make a Roman holiday/*
What concerns a Jew most in this perished world of
ruins, and at the same time causes him the deepest grief,
is the triumphal arch of Titus, "commemorating the de-
feat of the Jews, and dedicated to him by his successor,
Domitian." Enough has been said and written about it
both by antiquarians and theologians, the former admir-
ing the workmanship of the reliefs, the latter perceiving
in it a proof of the fulfilment of the well-known passages
in the New Testament about the destruction of the Tem-
ple, which came to pass in ^spite of the efforts made by
Titus to save it. Those who have read Bernay's essay on
the " Chronik des Sulpicius Severus " know that the be-
haviour of " the delight of the human species " on that
occasion is rather open to doubt, and it is more probable
that, instead of trying to rescue it, he commanded that
it should be set on fire. Josephus, who witnessed the
shame of his compatriots and co-religionists, has left us
a full account of the triumphal procession. Only a
flunkey like Josephus could maintain that calm indiffer-
ence with which he describes the events of the "bitter
day," the perusal of which makes one's blood boil. His
description fairly agrees with the famous relief on the
arch, showing that part of the procession in which the
table with the shewbread, the candlestick with the seven
lamps, and the golden trumpets figure as the chief ob-

338 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

jects. The only thing which we miss is the "Law of
the Jews," which, according to Josephus, was carried in
the triumph as "the last of all the spoils." Was it only
an oversight of the artist, or had he no place for it, or is
it Josephus who committed the error, mistaking some
other object for the Scroll of the Law? I dearly hope
that this last was the case, and that Heine was under the
impulse of a true and real and poetic inspiration when he
wrote (speaking of the Holy Scripture to which he owed
his conversion): "The Jews, who appreciate the value
of precious things, knew right well what they did when,
at the burning of the second temple they left to their fate
the golden and silver implements of sacrifice, the candle-
sticks and lamps, even the breastplate of the High Priest
adorned with great jewels, but saved the Bible. This
was the real treasure of the temple, and, thanks be to
God ! it was not left a prey to the flames, nor to the fury
of Titus Vespasian, the wretch, who, as the Rabbi tells us,
met with so dreadful a death."

However, there were others who brought the glad tid-
ings of the Old Testament to Rome long before there
existed a New one. And this is, on the other side, what
makes Rome a sort of Terra Sancta even to the Jew. It
is true that we have not to look for the footprints of the
prophets, for whom even tradition never claimed " the gift
of missionary-travelling." But might not the ground there
have received a sort of consecration by the fact that it was
traversed by the ambassadors of Judas Maccabaeus (about
i6i B.C.) "to make a league of amity and confederacy"
with the Roman Senate } Of the embassy of Simon the
Maccabee (about 140 B.C.) there is actual historical evi-
dence that they began to propagate in Rome the Jewish

EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN EUROPE 339

religion. Some seventy or eighty years later the Jews
had already their own quarter in Rome, with their own
synagogues, which they were in the habit of visiting,
" most especially on the sacred Sabbath days, when they
publicly cultivate their national philosophy." That many
of the oldest teachers of Israel/ the Tannaim, went to
Rome as deputies, and that one of them (R. Mathia ben
Chares) founded a school there early in the second cen-
tury, is also an authenticated fact. One would like to
know what they taught, and in what way they expounded
their national philosophy. Most of all one would like to
know what were the spiritual means they employed in
their proselytising work, in which they were, according to
the testimony of history, so successful. Did they preach
in the streets } Or did they hold public controversies }
Or did they even send out Epistles which, in form at least,
served as a model to apostles of another creed.? How
many a problem would be solved; how many a miracle
would disappear ; how many a book would become super-
fluous, if we could obtain certainty about these points!
The Talmud tells us little, almost nothing, about these
important things, whilst we get from the Roman writers
only sneers and raillery. To these respectable Romans
the Jews were only a mob of unlettered atheists. Indeed,
to a good orthodox heathen, a religion without images and
statues, with a God without a pedigree and without a
theogony, was an impossible thing. Those poor meta-
physicians !

However, why dwell so long on a past world.? A
famous Rabbi once exclaimed : " If a man would ask thee,
* Where is thy God } * answer him : * In the great city of
Rome.* " The underlying idea was the mystical notion

340 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

that wherever Israel had to migrate, they were accom-
panied by the Divine presence. And Rome was, in the
times of the Rabbis, the point to which the streams of
Jewish migration from the Holy Land chiefly converged.
But now, instead of to Rome, might we not point to Lon-
don and New York as centres of Jewish migrations ?

NOTES

I. THE CHASSIDIM

I. Subjoined is a List of selected Authorities on the Sub-
ject OF THE Chassidim. — Historical and Bibliographical Works:
Graetz (xi. including the polemical literature quoted in the Appendix),
Jost, Peter Beer, M. Bodek (e^inn nnnn nno, Lemberg, 1865), A. Wal-
den (jnnn D>Snjjn db', Warschau, 1864), Finn (hjdnj 7\>'^p^ Wilna, i860),
D. Kahana (Sow px in the periodical -inrn, iv.), Zederbaum (njina ina,
Odessa, 1868). Essays and Satires: T. Erter ( noixn, Wien, 1858),
S. Szant<5 {Jahrbuch fUr Israeliten^ p. 108-178, 1867), A. Gottlober
(in his periodical iw ipun, iii.), L. Low (Ben Chananjah, ii.). Ruder-
mann (inz^n, vi.), Rapoport (mim nV™, Lemberg, 1873, ?• 'o), Frohlich
(imD.-i, Warschau, 1876, p. 63 seq.^^ S. Maimon (^Autobiographies
Berlin, 1792). Compare also the Hebrew novels by P. Smolensky,
L. Gordon, M. Brandstatter, A. Gottlober and B. Horowitz (German).
Occasional references to the liturgy or the system of the Chassidim in
the "Responses" of R. Ezechiel Landau, Moses Sopher, E. Flekeles
and T. Steinhart, and in the works of Israel Samostsch, Salomon
Chelma and Chayim Walosin. Compare also Zunz {Gottesdienstliche
Vortrdge, p. 477) and L. Low {Mannheimer Alburn^ Wien, 1874),
Senior Sachs (n-innn, i. 61) and B. L. Zeitlin (nirp nirn, Paris, 1846).
The best book on the whole subject is E. ZweifePs work Sxi3»> S37 oiVr
(Zitomyr 1868, three parts), which I strongly recommend to students.
The books written by the Chassidim would amount to more than 200.
They are catalogued by Bodek and Walden. I shall only draw the
attention of the student to the works of Beer, Salomon Ladier, and
Mendel Witipsker on one side, who developed the theory of the
Immanence, and those of Nachman Braslaw and Melech Liezensker,
who, on the other hand, carried the theory of Zaddikism to its utmost
consequences. The student will find a fair collection of sayings and
sentences arranged according to theological subjects in the books *pn
on^on and o^Dan \yth (Anon., Lemberg, 1876).

341

342 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

2. on^n, "pious ones" (Ps. xxxvii. 28, Ixx. 2, etc.). The reader
is probably acquainted with the term from the Maccabean history
(i Mace. ii. 42, vii. 13), in which the strict party, opposed to all
Hellenistic influence, are called "Assideans" [R.V. " Hasidaeans '^J,
Gr. *A(rt&itoe.

3. ^v hy2, "The Master of the Name/' a term usually applied to
exorcists, who cast out devils and performed other miracles through
adjuration by the name of God (or angels). The unbelieving Rabbis
maintained indeed that in his exorcisms Baalshem employed "impure
names" (of devils), whilst the Chassidim, on the other hand, declared
that their Master never used " names " at all, his miracles being per-
formed by the divine in Baalshem to which all nature owes obedience.
Occasionally the Chassidim call him 2x2 os^ S373 (The Man of Good
Name), in allusion to Eccles. vii. i, shortened by some into Besht,

4. KhnDH n-ia — " House of Research " or of " study " (of the Law),
but in which also divine service is held thrice a day.

5. 03n n^oSn — "Disciple of the Wise," the usual title of a scholar
or student.

6. A Jewish sect, so called after their founder Jacob Leibovicz
Frank, who was himself one of the apostles of the pseudo-Messiah
Shabbethai Tsebi of Smyrna in Turkey. Among his other doctrines
he taught also a sort of Trinity, consisting of the Holy Ancient One,
the Holy King or the Messiah, and a feminine person in the Godhead,
in which he, like his master, represented the Second Person. The sect
ultimately abolished the Law, and, after many controversies with the
Rabbinic Jews, went over to Catholicism, the dominant religion in
Poland, by which they were soon absorbed. Eybeschiitz, chief Rabbi
of Prague and Hamburg, was suspected by Emden to be a secret
adherent of Shabbethai Tsebi, which was tantamount to apostasy from
Judaism. Eybeschiitz protested. The litigants excommunicated each
other, and the Rabbis divided into two camps, taking sides either with
Emden or with his antagonist.

7. The works of Maimonides or Moses b. Maimon (i 135-1204) are
too many to be enumerated here. The most important are the Guide
of the Perplexed (o-isiaj n-^ic) and his Compendium of the Law (njs»D
nnin). Judah Hallevi or Abul Hassan flourished in the first half of the
twelfth century. He is well known as a poet by his Divan ^d as a

NOTES

343

deep religious thinker by his Cusaru The former contains also many
songs of a secular nature. Isaac Alfasi (died 1103) is best known by
his Compendium of the Talmud, which was so greatly admired by his
contemporaries that they declared it could never have been composed
"without the aid of the Holy Spirit." R. Solomon b. Isaac, also
called by his initials Rashi (1040-1105), is well known by his com-
mentaries on the Bible and the Talmud.

8. trai, <3i.

9. -^fiD, Sepher,

10. The Hebrew word is SidVd, meaning subtle discussion and sharp
distinction. The word is closely related to ^ehQ or vhsho, which means
" pepper " or " seasoning."

11. t\>^ Dino = R. Meir Shiff, whose novella on the Talmud are of a
very subtle kind, and were very popular with the students of this work.

12. o^N-^icN — o>Njr, " The Repeaters," and " The Interpreters." The
sayings and statements of the former are embodied in the Mishnah, a
work compiled by R. Judah the Saint about 220 a.c, and covering a
period of about 250 years (30 B.C.-220 a.c). The latter occupied
themselves mainly with the interpretation of the Mishnah, and their
discussions and controversies are incorporated in the Talmud of Jeru-
salem and that of Babylon, and extend over the period from 220-500
A.c. The Talmud of Jerusalem is mostly the product of the schools
of Palestine. The Talmud of Babylon is a growth of that country.
The authorities of this latter Talmud being far away from the place
where the first great Rabbis lived and laboured, their traditions are
naturally not so historically reliable as those of the Talmud of Jerusa-
lem. The authorities of Palestine were also simpler in their method
of interpretation. These again are followed by the Babylonian schools
of new interpreters (of the Talmud) .

13. i-'Knin-' pno', an expression that goes back as far as to the Zohar,

14. nnv, "Brightness." Cf. Dan. xii. 3, — the authors of "The
Brightness" pretending to be the MaskiUm or "Wise Ones" men-
tioned in this verse.

15. r^h&tf.

16. nnor.

17. manSnn.

18. pnx, pi. o^p^TX.

344 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

II. NACHMAN KROCHMAL

1. R. Johanan b. Zaccai was a contemporary of the Apostles, and
died about no a.d. He belonged to the peace party in opposition to
the Zealots, and obtained permission from the Roman government to
establish the school of Jamnia, which, after the destruction of the
Temple, became the centre of Jewish religious life. See also p.
i88.

2. R. Saadiah Gaon was born in Egypt in 892, and died as the
head of the school of Sura in Babylon in 942. He is known by his
translations of and commentaries on the Bible, and many other works,
especially his philosophical treatise Creeds and Opinions. He was
also a great controversialist. Most of his polemical writings are di-
rected against the Caraites (^^Nnp) or " Scripturalists," a Jewish sect
founded by Anan in the eighth century. They protested against the
Oral Law, and denied Tradition. On the title " Gaon," see note i to
Elijah Wilna.

3. DODj niiD, Moreh Nebuchiniy generally considered to be the
greatest philosophical work by any Jewish thinker.

4. R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, who spent some time in London, died
about 1 161. He is best known by his commentaries on the Bible. He
was the first writer who doubted the unity of the book of Isaiah.

5. i3n i^dSd.

6. onoiDi D>DDn .in'^d n-iy, meaning " sages " and " scribes," but used
by later writers in the sense given in the text.

7. 0^133, dealing with the laws relating to the firstfruits which were
brought to the temple (Ex. xxiii. 19). The processions formed by the
pilgrims are very vividly described after the said tractate by Delitzsch
in his /m, p. 190 sq. (English ed.). See also by the same author,
y'udisches Handwerkerleben zur Zeit Jesu^ p. 66 seq,

8. n^jj;n, " Fast," or nrjjrn, " Fasts."

9. rpnj "TiD, " Order of Damages," treating of the civil law of the
Jews, the procedure of courts of justice, and kindred subjects. This
Order also includes the tractate nux, Aboth or "Sayings of the
Fathers," which is very important for the study of Rabbinic doctrine
and ethics.

NOTES

345

10. nnnta niD, " Order of Purities," dealing with the laws regarding
Levitical purity.

11. NiflD (or o>jn3 n-iin), neo, ndS^sd. These three works form the
oldest Rabbinic commentary on Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deu-
teronomy. The authorities cited in these commentaries all belong to
the period of the Tannaim. See above, note 12 to the Chassidim.
Constituting as they do, to a certain extent, one of the sources used by
the Gemara, they are naturally indispensable for a scientific study of
the Talmud.

12. Hflixn, '''' Hatsophe^'^ a spirited satire against the orthodox and
especially against the then prevailing belief in the transmigration of
souls taught by the mystical schools. The book is written in the
purest biblical Hebrew.

13. prn ^30 J miD.

14. tmc, pi. D''2^-^iD {Midrashim), "Research," "Researches," a
name usually applied to the homiletical part of the Rabbinic literature.
The most important collection of this kind is the Midrash Rabbah to
the Pentateuch. The usual way of quoting it is Genesis Rabbah, Exo-
dus Rabbah, and so on.

15. See above, note 12 to the Chassidim.

16. o^j-tc, " Heretics," applied to the first Christians, and more so to
certain Gnostic sects.

17. '"j^DD Twxh nsSn, see below, p. 186 and note.

1 8 . mjn or mjN — nsSn, " rule," " method," — " narrative." The for-
mer deals with the legal side of the Scriptures, and is thus more of a
juristic nature; the latter represents a collection of homilies having
mostly as their text the historical and exhortatory parts of the Bible,
and is thus more of an edifying character. The theological side of
Judaism, as well as its ideal aspirations and Messianic hopes, find their
expression in the Agadah. The two words are also used as adjectives,
as Halachic (legalistic, juristic, and obligatory) and Agadic (poetic, edi-
fying, and hyperbolic) .

19. i^Sd t^;?, a sort of encyclopaedia to the Talmud, of which only
the first letter appeared.

20. Menahem Azariah de Rossi, an Italian Jew who flourished in
the first half of the sixteenth century. His great work, o>r? nwr, Meor
Enayim, " Light of the Eyes," is the first attempt made by a Jew to

346 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

submit the statements d[ the Talmud to a critical rxamination, and to
question the value of tradition in its historical records.

21. -^Tjr^K 'St ^pnc

22. Italian Jews of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. The
one, Elijah Delmedigo, wrote an Examination of Religion, whilst his
grandson, Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, wrote various pamphlets of a

deeply sceptical character. See Geiger*s Introduction to his Mieio
Chofnayim (Berlin, 1840).

III. ELIJAH WILNA

1. |wj, "The Great One." The authorities of the Babylonian
schools after the sixth century were also called the Gaonim (s^jwcj),
" [their] Eminences." The title was also given afterwards to great
Rabbis distinguished for their learning.

2. R. Joseph Caro (1488-1575) lived in Safed. The title of his
code is inj; yrhv^ Prepared Table. This is a code of the Oral Law
compiled from the Rabbinic literature.

3. njDKj n>-)p, containing an account of the Jewish worthies of that
city.

4. ti^Vk nh^,

5. A famous mystic of the sixteenth century, from Safed, who was
the more admired the less his pupils understood him.

6. Hai was the last of the authorities called Gaon. With his death
(1038) the schools of Babylon fell into decay and soon disappeared.

7. T\:i>:ix\y treating of the voluntary oflferings brought by the pilgrims
to Jerusalem.

8. N-«c;}, " Perfection or Supplementary Explanations." By this is
understood the interpretation given to the Mishnah by the schools in
Palestine and Babylon. See above, note 12 to the Chassidim.

9. See Dean Church's St. Anselm, from which this story is taken.

10. NPcDin, "Addition" (to the Mishnah), but also containing only
the sayings and discussions of the period of the Tannaim.

1 1 . zhyy nio, " Order of the World," dealing with the Chronology of
the Bible, and dating from about the end of the second century.

12. These "Minor Tractates" include, among others, treatises on
proselytes, on the laws concerning funerals, the writing of the Law,

NOTES

347

and the like. Others are more of an edifying nature, treating of good
manners, conduct, etc.

13. niSjj nSap.

14. n-ie^jy njine^, "Eighteen." They are recited thrice a day, and
form the original germ of the prayers, from which a very rich liturgy
developed in the course of time.

15. The titles of the old authorities from 70 B.C. to 500 A.c. See
above, note 12 to the Chassidim.

16. |n no 3N, N^2>j, "Prince," or "Patriarch," religious head, of the
Jews (not political), and "Father (or president) of the Court of
Justice."

17. nnjc, D-'nar, "Sacrifices," "Offerings." They treat of the laws
relating to sacrifices and meal-offerings.

18. D-iNSa, the laws relating to diverse seeds and garments of diverse
sorts. Cf. Deut. xxii. 9-1 1.

19. 'vxcj " Teller," a sort of travelling preacher.

20. aSiS, "palm branch." Cf. Lev. xxiii. 40.

21. 7\2>v\ "High School," or "Academy," in which the Rabbinic
literature is studied.

22. D>^n yy na^c''.

23. ircDacD, a mythical river which is supposed to stop its course on
Sabbath.

24. o>-nn3, sing, nina, " Young man," by which term the Jews usu-
ally understand the alumni of their Talmudical schools.

25. Levi b. Gershom (i 286-1 344) is generally regarded as the
greatest successor of Maimonides. Besides his rationalistic commen-
taries on the Bible, he wrote various treatises on metaphysics, mathe-
matics, astronomy, medicine, etc.

26. ^\y nj^na.

IV. NACHMANIDES

I . In Steinschneider's Catalogue of the Bodleian Library y under the
name of Moses Nachmanides, pp. 1947- 1965, all the works which are
ascribed to this author are put together, and also discussed as to their
authenticity. There are only to be added the new edition of the
Derasha by Jellinek (Vienna, 1872), in which the variants from
Schorr's MS. (Ki*?nn, viii. 162) are already incorporated; a new edi-

348 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

tion of the nwM, and the commentary to Is. lii.-liii. by Steinschneider
(Berlin, i860) ; a Sermon for the New Year, ed. by H. Berliner {Liba-
noHy V. 564); and another Sermon at a wedding (?), ed. by Schorr
(Heckaluzj xii. 3). For the literature on Nachmanides, besides the
references given by Steinschneider, in his Catalogue^ and the Addenda,
p. cxviii. (cf. also the pedigree in the Catalogue 2305), see also Graetz,
Geschichte, vii., pp. 1 12-143, ^^^ P* ^47 ^^^-t Michael, o^>nn iw.
No. 1 125, and Weiss, rtc^nni in in, v. 4 seq.; Perles' Monatsschrifty
i860, p. 175 ; Zomber, ibid, 421 ; and Z. Frankel, ibid. 1868, p. 449,
and The Jewish Quarterly Review^ iv. 245 seq. For Nachmanides'
disputation we have to add M. Loeb in the Rtvue des Etudes Juivesj
XV. I seq.^ and xviii. 52 (about Abner), and Dr. Neubauer's Essay on
Jewish Controversy in the Expository vol. vii. (third series), p. 98 seq.y
with the references given there. See also his article on the Bahir and
the Zohar in The Jewish Quarterly Review, iv. 357. With regard to
Nachmanides' mystical system see the references to S. Sachs (whose
remarks are most suggestive), Krochmal, and Jellinek in Steinschnei-
der, col. 1949 and 1964, Perles' Monatsschrifty 1858, p. 83 seq.y and
Steinschneider in the Heb. Bibliographiey i. 34. See also Professor
Kaufmann's Die Geschichte der Attributenlehrey and the references
given in the index under this name. The Novellce by hb son R.
Nachman, alluded to in the text, are in the University Library, Cam-
bridge (Add. 1 187, 2). The Thy^v\ fp is extant in the British Museum,
MS. Add. 26,894, and the passage quoted by De Rossi is to be found
on p. 163^, but a few words are erased by the censor. As to the poem
given at the end of this paper, see Zunz, Synagogale Poesie, p. 478 ;
Landshut, Amude ha-Abodah s.v.y the references in Sachs' Religiose
Poesie der Juden, and Luzzatto in the Ozar Nechmady ii. 27. Compare
also Professor Cheyne's The Origin of the Psaltery p. 421.

2. New Year's Day, on the first of Tishri. It is in autumn.

3. A famous Rabbi of the fifteenth century, known by his various
casuistical and philosophical works.

4. Chiefly known through his controversial writings against the
adherents of the pseudo-Messiah Shabbethai Tsebi. He was for some
time the Rabbi of the Portuguese congregation in London.

5. The main objections of the opponents of Maimonides were di-
rected against his rationalistic notions of Revelation, and his allegoris-

NOTES

349

ing interpretation of the Scriptures, which amounted in some places to
a denial of miracles. He was also suspected of having denied bodily
resurrection. A history of Jewish rationalism is still a desideratum.
I am certain that it would prove at least as interesting as Renter's
Geschichte der religiosen Aufkldrungim Mittelalter (Berlin, 1845-60).

6. n5c»D won.

7. nnjN, " Homilies." See above, p. 64 and note,

8. Thy^:i7\ yp, " The end of the Redemption," that is the time when
the advent of the Messiah is to be expected.

9. This patriarch is famous in Jewish legend for his hospitality.
See Beer's Leden Abrahams^ pp. 37 and 56.

10. This is the quorum necessary to form a congregation (m;;) for
the purpose of holding divine service.

11. By Zobah, or Aram Zobah, the Jews of the Middle Ages usually
understood Aleppo. See Benjamin of Tudela's Itinerary, i. 88, ii. 124
(London and Berlin, 1840-41).

12. See below, p. 141, where a full translation of the letter is given.

13. niSnjj nwSn, a compendium of the Law, dating from the ninth
century, by R. Simon Caro.

14. R. Simlai flourished in Palestine in the third century. He is
best known as an Agadic teacher and a great controversialist. Accord-
ing to him, 613 commandments were given to Moses on Mount Sinai,
of which 365 are prohibitive laws, whilst the remaining 248 are positive
injunctions.

15. SiDjjn i3;e^, " Treatise on Reward (and Punishment)."

16. N3n oSy.

17. Ps. cix. 4; nScn >y»\

18. niV^XN.

19. 7\>n irw.

20. njrn*, " Knowledge," " Foreknowledge," " Omniscience."

21. 1133, 7\}^yt^,

22. nSuD. See Exod. xix. 5

23. D^pn.

24. 3np, pnp.

25. According to a Jewish tradition (the date of which is uncertain)
the advent of the Messiah, the Son of David, will be preceded by that
of the Messiah, the Son of Joseph. The latter will perish in the battle

350 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

against Gog and Magog (the Antichrist of Jewish literature), but will
soon be brought back to life on the appearance of the former. Cf. G.
H. Dalman^s Der leidende und der sterbende Messias der Synagoge
(Berlin, 1881).

26. n^B'xia, "In the beginning," Gen. L i.

27. pxD; Job xxvii. 12.

28. Chagigah 14^. The activity of these four Rabbis falls chiefly
in the second century. R. Akiba died as a martyr in the Hadrianic
persecution (about 130). Elisha b. Abuyah, the apostate, was usually
called nnK, Acher^ " the other one."

29. The former lived in the twelfth, the latter in the sixteenth,
century. They are both known for their hostility to philosophy.

30. Bachya wrote in the eleventh century a famous book called
niaaSn main, The Duties of the Heart, For the others see above, p. 13
and note^ p. 49 and note^ p. 102 and notey p. 97 and note^ p* 71 and
note. They all belong to the rationalistic school.

31. A younger contemporary of Maimonides, who translated the
Guide from Arabic into Hebrew.

32. Spiron iBD. See above, p. 18. R. Moses Cordovora, the author
of the DT)fi, lived in Safed in the sixteenth century. For R. Isaac
Loria, the author of the o-^^nn fjy, see above,. note 5 to Elijah Wilna.

33. nnio \»ytf.

34. i^nan noD, a forgery by a Proven9al Jew of the thirteenth cen-
tury, who attributed it to a Rabbi of the first century.

35. This hymn is now incorporated in her excellent little book.
Songs of Zion, pp. 13-15.

36. 3inT, a gold piece. The country and the date of the writer not
being certain, it is impossible to determine the value of this coin.

37. The lawfulness of eating this fish (= sturgeon?) was contested
for many centuries, and the controversy still continues.

38. oitrc, a smaller coin than the Zehub.

39. v^Vy "Hear," the verses from Deut. vi. 4-9, xi. 13-21, and
Num. XV. 37-41, recited twice a day by the Jews.

NOTES

351

V. A JEWISH BOSWELL

1. Sabbathy 30^.

2. jjnjc, pi. o^jnjD {Minhagini)y applied usually to those ritual cus-
toms and ceremonies for which there is no distinct authority in the
Scriptures or even in the Talmud.

VI. THE DOGMAS OF JUDAISM

1. yerusalem, in Mendelssohn's Sdmmtliche Werke (Vienna, 1838),
especially from p. 264 onwards, and a letter by him published in
Frankel-Graetz's Monatsschrift, 1859, p. 173. For Mendelssohn's
position, see Graetz's Geschichte, xi. 86 seq., especially p. 88 and
note I ; Kayserling, Leben und Werke of M., 2d ed., p. 394; Stein-
heim, Moses Mendelssohn (Hamburg, 1840), p. 30 seq,*, Holdheim,
Moses Mendelssohn (Berlin, 1859), P« 18 seq. ; Leopold Low's pam-
phlet, Judische Dognten (Pesth, 1871).

2. See the Commentaries on Maimonides' mxon -iod, especially R.
Simeon Duran's tP'^'^ '^'^^^ ; cf. also ancient and modern commentaries
on Exod. XX. 2.

3. See Siphra (ed. Weiss), pp. 86^, 93^.

4. Baba Bathra, 14^; cf. Fiirst's Kanon^ P- ^S-

5. See Sanhedrinj 38^, and Pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. iv. 8.

6. Mechilta, 33^.

7. Dmp>flN, Lat. Epicurus.

8. See Mishnah, Sanhedrin, x. e, § i, and Talmud, ibid, (pa and b,
and Rabbinowicz's Variae Lectiones, ix. p. 247 notes. Besides the
ordinary commentaries on the Talmud, account must also be taken of
the remarks of Crescas, Duran, Albo, and Abarbanel on the subject.
Cf. also Kampf in the Monatsschrift (1863), p. i^seq, ; Oppenheim,
ibid. (1864), p. 144; Friedmann in the Belh Talmud, i. p. 210 seq.
See also Talmudical Dictionaries, s.v. omp^cx. The explanation I
have adopted agrees partly with Friedmann's and partly with Oppen-
heim's views.

9. Sayings of the Father s, iii. § 9, and iv. § 22.
10. See y7\h^ nmx (Jovslow, 1835), p. 48. In my exposition of the
dogmas of the Caraites I have mainly followed the late Dr. Frankl's

352 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

article "Karaiten" in Ersch u. Gruber's Encyclopddie (sec. ii.
vol. XXX vi. pp. 1 2- 1 8). See also his Ein mutazilitischer Kalant
and his Beitrdge zur Literaturgeschichte der Karder (Berlin, 1887)
on Bashazi. Cf. also Jost's Geschichte^ ii. c. 13.

1 1 . Kairowan was one of the greatest centres of Jewish learning in
North Africa during that period.

12. See, however. Professor D. Kaufmann's note in the Jewish
Quarterly Review^ i. p. 441 . From this it would seem that the creed of
R. Judah Hallevi may be formulated in the following articles : — The
conviction of the existence of God, of His eternity, of His guidance of
our fathers, of the Divine Origin of the Law, and of the proof of all
this, the pledge or token of its truth, the exodus from Egypt.

13. nnn hjidk, Emunah Ramahy pp. 44 and 69; cf. Gulmann,
Monatsschrift, 1878, p. 304.

14. For the various translations of the Thirteen Articles which were
originally composed in Arabic, see Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1887.
Cf. Rosin, Ethik des Maimonidesy p. 30 ; Weiss, Beth Talmud^ i. p. 330,
and Ben Chananjah, 1863, p. 942, and 1864, PP* ^4^ ^^d 697, and
Landshut, miaj;n niDj?, p. 231.

15. niwp nniD. See pp. 1-16.

16. See Hammaskiry viii. pp. 63 and 103.

17. See Steinschneider, Cat, Munchen, No. 210.

18. See the Collection o-iDsn na**, by Ashkenazi, pp. 56^ seq.

19. See Albo, c. iii. Probably identical with the author mentioned
by Duran, 13^.

20. pnxj ncD, " Sepher Nizzachon."

21. See 'n nw (ed. Johannisburg), preface, and pp. 20^, 44^, 59^,
and elsewhere. The style of this author is very obscure. Cf. JoePs
pamphlet on this author (Breslau, 1874).

22. See the first pages of the max pn (Leghorn, 1758), and his
DctB^D anw, pp. I'^seq.

23. onpjr, Ikkarim, "Fundamentals."

24. See Ikkarinty i. c. 23, and Maimonides' Commentary on the
Mishnah (end of tractate Maccoth). On Albo compare Schlesinger's
Introduction and notes to the Ikkarim^ JoePs pamphlet, p. 82 ; Paulus,
Monatsschrifty 1874, p. 463, and Briiirs Jahrb, iv. p. 52.

25. I know his work from a MS. in the British Museum, Orient. 39.

NOTES

353

26. njiDN 111, Derech Emunah. Cf. Steinschneider, Monatsschrift^
1883, p. j<)seq,

27. See pnx> rn^j;, gate 55.

28. See his hjidnh niD^ and nnnNn noND.

29. njDN B^xn.

30. See mn nj-'na, ed. Reggio, p. 28.

31. See noTO nirj^D (Venice, 1707), i6<J! and 23a. His language is
very vague.

32. See the Collection by Ashkenazi (as above, note 18), p. 29^.

33. See his ij^ni d^db^3, p. 331.

34. See Weiss's admirable monograph on Maimonides, published
in the Beth Talmud^ i.

VII. THE HISTORY OF JEWISH TRADITION

1. The Hebrew title of the work is VB^nni nn in.

2. That is, vows of an ascetic nature (not vows or oaths enforced
by a court of justice), which the tribunal could annul when there was
sufficient reason for it.

3. The ten Rabbis who are named as the bearers of tradition during
the period between 170 and 30 B.C. The "pair" in each case is sup-
posed to have consisted of the president and the vice-president of the
Sanhedrin for the time being. See, however, Kuenen, Gesammelte
Schriften^ p. 49 seq,

4. D^Snj D^jiyii.

5. ^:^DD Twxh msSn. They amount, in the whole of Rabbinic litera-
ture, to about forty, of which more than ten concern the preparation of
the phylacteries, whilst others relate to the libations of water at the
Feast of Tabernacles and similar subjects.

6. This is the time when the school of R. Johanan b. Zaccai began
its activity. Others place the Tannaitic age in Hillel's time (30 B.C.) .

7. Sip na.

8. |n n^3, lit. "Court of Justice," as above, note 16 to Elijah Wilna,
but it means also a sort of permanent Synod, in which of course justice
was also administered as a part of religion.

9. nrn;;, "Evidences given by Witnesses." The tractate consists

354 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

mostly of a number of laws attested by various Rabbis as having come
down to them as old traditions.

10. The family of Hillel, which was supposed to be descended from
the house of David, supplied the Jews with patriarchs for many gen-
erations. Gamaliel II. flourished about 120 a.c, whilst Simon b.
GamaliePs activity as Patriarch falls about 160 a.c.

11. TwXiVy Semachoth, It is a euphemistic title, the tractate dealing
with the laws relating to funeral ceremonies and mourning.

12. ^«ii3D, " Elucidators " or "Explainers." The heads of the
schools in Babylon during the fifth and sixth centuries were so
designated.

13. The Rabbinic Jews of the dispersion add one day to each
festival, and thus celebrate the Passover eight days, the Feast of
Weeks two days, etc. The custom arose out of the uncertainty
about the first day of the month, the prerogative of fixing the New
Moon resting with the great Beth Din in Palestine, which had not
always the means of communicating in time the evidence given before
them that the New Moon had been seen by qualified witnesses. The
prerogative was abolished in the fourth century, and the calendar fixed
for all future time, but -the additional day is still kept by the Rabbinic
Jews as the " Custom of their Fathers."

14. nmp nv^B', niSa^n, " Chambers (of Heaven) " and the " Measure
of the Stature," mystical works in which occasionally gross anthropo-
morphisms are to be found. Their authorship is unknown.

III. THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RETRIBUT^'ION IN

RABBINICAL LITERATURE

1. Sabbath^ ^^a,

2. Sayings of the Fathers (ed. C. Taylor), v. 12-15. See also
Sabbath^ yi seq., and Mechilta (ed. Friedman), 95^. Arachin, i6a.

3. See Mechilta^ 25^, 32^. Gen, Rabbah, ch. 48, and Tossephta
Sotahy iv. 7, and parallels.

4. Taanith, 21a.

5. Sayings of the Father s^ iv. 5.

6. Baba Bathra^ 9^.

7. YomOy 39/7.

NOTES

355

8. Berachoth, y^a,

9. Sabbath^ 13^.

10. Berachoth, ya.

11. See Mechilta^ 68^, and parallels. Sifihra, 112b. Pessikta of R.
Kahana, 167^. Cp. Sanhedrin^ 44«.

12. /^^^/^ de R. Nathan, 40a, 59^, and 62^.

13. Baba Bathra, loa.

14. Eccles. Rabbahj ix. 7.

15. 5^j.

16. 7^.

17. See Mechilta, 95^, and parallels.

18. See Kiddushin^ 40^. MechiUa^ d^Jb, Lev, Rabbahj iv.

19. See Sabbath^ S4a.

20. Exodus Rabbahj c. 35, and parallels.

21. See iVl?^<i/>«, ii. I.

22. Exod. Rabbahj c. 46.

23. Taanithy iia,

24. See Berachothy ^a.

25. Tanchumaj Nxn ^d, § 2. Cp. MechtltUy 72^.

26. Sifihrij T^b, and parallels.

27. Taanithy 8«.

28. Arachin^ i6b.

29. Sayings of the Fathers^ iv. 15.

30. See Chagigahj ^a.

31. Sabbath, 55a.

32. Menachoth, igb.

33. Taam'th, 25^.

34. Gen. Rabba/t, xx\u. ; Pessikta, 136^; Sanhedrin, v\, 5; ^^ra:-

35. Sayings of the Fathers, i. 3, p. 27, ed. Taylor. See also note 8.

36. Abodah Zarah, iga ; Siphri, 79^.

37. Berachoth, 58^.

38. See £ri!?^. 7?., 30, and parallels.

39. See HDsn n^»Kn, i. 9.

40. See o>DW o^non, 33^.

41. See Sabbath, 55^, and Siphra, 27a,

356 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

IX. THE LAW AND RECENT CRITICISM

1 . Judaism and Christianity^ a Sketch of the Progress of Thought
from Old Testament to New Testament ^ by C. H. Toy, Professor in
Harvard University. London, 1890.

2. See Pessikta of R. Kahana, 6i3, and parallels, and Erubin^
lib,

3. Tal. Jer., Sabbathy $b.

4. pnooD, the name of an angel, already found in the Talmud, but
playing a more important part in the Book of Chambers, where he is
identified with Enoch. The etymology of the word is doubtful, some
authors considering it to be of Persian origin (Mithra) ; others again
deriving it from the Greek fura rvpawov, or fura Opovov.

5. nn^fiD.

6. NnD">c, "The Word," sometimes substituted for God. See J.
Levy's Chalddisches Worterbuch, s.v.

7. nns, |iDnp din.

8. Mechilta, 104a.

9. See Tal. Jer., Yoma, 45^. Cf. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah,
:l'7\ a"fi nag' niD^n,

10. Tosephta Berachoth, iii. 7.

11. Sabbath, 10b, The name of the Rabbi is not given, but the
fact that R. Simeon b. Gamaliel (160 A.c.) already refers to this inter-
pretation makes it clear that its anonymous author must have lived at
least a generation before.

12. tc^np Sa^ 013.

13. See Midrash to the Psalms xcii. and Deut, Rabbah iii. The
Rabbis perceived in the words Jiy naB^S PNnpi (Isa. Iviii. 13), a command
to make the Sabbath a day of pleasure, whilst the word -jxen was under-
stood by them to mean " needs," " wants," or " business " {not " pleas-
ure ") . Cf. Sabbath, 11 3^ and b,

14. See Gen, Rabbah, xi. (and parallels), and Sabbath, 119^1.

15. See Maaseh Torah (ed. Schonblum) and Deut, Rabbah, i.

16. Sabbath, 25^ and 11 9a.

17. Betsah, i6a, Cf. Baer's notes in his Prayer-Book , p. 203 seq,

18. See Sabbath, 119^, and Gen, Rabbah, xi.

NOTES

19. See Sabbathy lob, and Gen, /Kabbah, ibid,

20. pScn.

21. Naziry 2^b.

357

X. THE HEBREW COLLECTION OF THE BRITISH

MUSEUM

1. j^m? -MN by R. Isaac b. Moses of Vienna (thirteenth century),
mostly on legal subjects.

2. |>Dni>, Yuchasin.

3. SSdd, Miklal.

4. D^pnr, n;;)c, the former treating of the agricultural laws of the
Bible, the latter of those relating to the Sabbath, Passover, and other
festivals.

5. •>wnr, " Cycle," containing the liturgy for the festivals.

6. Since then edited by the Mekize Nirdamim.

7. Eve of the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles.

XI. TITLES OF JEWISH BOOKS

1. onno nw. d"2^.

2. ND^na.

4. i3)pS>, Yalkut.

5. nnn.

6. aio vnic'.

7. ij;d>i.

8. Tnrm, uidS>.

9. KjD>nD K>y>.

10. iSdh poy, nhuh ni»D, ni»D n>iD, nmn niiro, ^SD^ np».

11. Snb' o^>n.

12. Sk-^b'^ nS «nj in.

13. nnan mmS >jir. ny'».

358 STUDIES IN JUDAISM

XII. THE CHILD IN JEWISH LITERATURE

I. The main authorities on the subjects of this essay are Die
Lebensalter, by Dr. Leopold Low ; The Jewish Rite of Circumcisian^
by Dr. Asher; an article by Dr. Pedes in the Graetz Jubelschrifty
p. 23 seq, ; Merkwurdigkeiten der Juden, by Schudt ; the o^jnjon >-MpD
and other works on ritual customs ; Gudemann^s Geschichte ties Erzie-
hungswesens und der Cultur der Juden ; and Das Kind in Branch
und Sitte der Vblkery by Dr. Ploss.

2. ^nCN, DDK.

3. rvh'hy Is. xxxiv. 14.

4. See above, note 39 to Nachmanides.

5. nS>D nna, "Covenant of Circumcision." This is the usual
expression in Hebrew literature for the rite of circumcision.

6. nor oiSir.

8. pn pnc.

9. n-Mnn npn, on educational matters.

10. n-»inD, ** business," or " wares."

11. I am indebted for the English adaptation to Mrs. Henry Lucas.

12. Bereshith Rabbah, chapter xx. For another reading see n^a^K-^
noDn (ed. Cracow), p. 374.

13. Abodah Zarah^ 3^.

14. This is the way in which Deut. xxxi. 10-12 was explained.

15. onciD, "Scribes"; treating of the regulations concerning the
writing of the Law, but containing also much liturgical matter.

16. onneD, by which name the Jews of the Spanish rite are desig-
nated.

17. \if^ prKj, a controversial work published by Wagenseil. See
above, p. 203, for another victory.

18. |)dSijd, who is probably known to the English reader from
Longfellow's poem.

19. n«D "»a.

20. B^n^, " Sanctification " — "benediction" — on the eve of Sab-
bath, which is pronounced over a cup of wine.

21. n-»)n nnDB^, on the 23rd of Tishri, when the last portion from the
Pentateuch is read.

NOTES

359

22. SSr\y "Praise," i.e. Ps. cxiii.-cxviii.

23. B^np, the name of a prayer commencing v'^pT\>'\ Sijin^, " Magnified
and sanctified be," etc.

24. Prayer beginning iDir, " Bless ye," etc.

25. noNC' "ina, beginning of a prayer, " Blessed be He," etc.

26. See Schiirer's Die Gemeindeverfassung der Jiiden in Rom,
p. 24. Cf. Hebrdische Bibliographie, xix. p. 79.

XIII. WOMAN IN TEMPLE AND SYNAGOGUE

1 . DNaV.

2. niinn.

XIV. THE EARLIEST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN

EUROPE

1. pa^ -^apc.

2. nisy^ In olden times the weekly lesson from the Law used to
be read by seven members of the congregation who were " called up "
for this purpose ; the Priest and the Levite took precedence of laymen
for this honour. At the present day, the members of the congregation
are still called up, but the actual reading is performed by an official.

INDEX

This Index contains the most important names of persons^ titles of books,
technical terms and Hebrew words occurring in the text. In the notes to
the texty commencing with p. 41^, the Hebrew words are for the most part
given also in Hebrew characters.

Abarbanel, Isaac, 173, 174

Abaye, 311

Ab Beth Din, 84, 347

Abba Mari b. Moses, 165, 179

Abba Tachnah, the Chassid, 221

Abraham, Baalshem's father-in-law, 7

Abraham, son of Elijah Wilna, %%

Abraham of Bedres, 262

Abraham Abulaphia, 262

Abraham Ibn Daud, 162

Abraham Ibn Ezra, 50, 52, 64, 71, 210,

3I4» 344
Abraham b. Shem — Tob Bibago, 172,

173

Abtalyon, 186

Abuha, 311

Acha, 310

Acher, 292, 350

Adam, Primal, 239, 356

Agadah, pi. Agadoth, 64, 105, 183,

I97» 345
Agadic, no, 156, 157, 193, 262, 279,

345
Ages of Man, 295

Akabyah b. Mahalaleel, 305

Akiba, 70, 84, 130, 188, 190, 194, 220,

227, 2,28, 234, 350

Almemor^ 302

Ammi, 214, 217, 226, 231

Amora, pi. Amoraim, 17, 84, 195, 343

Amram Gaon, 293

Anna of Kaidon, wife of Elijah Wilna,

82
Anselm, St., of Canterbury, 79
Antigonos of Socho, 229
Anti-Maimonists, 133
Aristotle, 79, 167

Aryeh Leb, son of Elijah Wilna, 88
Ascension of Elijah, 75, 346
Asher b. Jechiel, 210
Assideans, 64, 342
Ayil Meshulash, 81

Azariah de Rossi, 66, 71, 105, 333, 345
Aziluth, II J, 349
Azulai, 277

BAALSHEAf, Israel, 3-12, 14-35,

73. 342
Bachrach, Ch. J., 325
Bachur^ pi. Bachurim, 95, 97, 347
Bachya, 131, 350
Baraitha, 271, 357
Baruch Sheamar, 311, 359
Bashazi, 161
Bath-Kol, 190, 353
Beer of Mizriez, n, 37
Beer, Peter, 66
Ben Azzai, 130, 216, 319
Benjamin of Tudcla, 329
Ben-Jacob, 259
Ben Sira, 297
Ben Zoma, 130

361

STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Biriskilh, 127,350

Berilh Miiah, 288, 29a, 293, 358

Berliner, A., 327

Be mays, Isaak, 337

Hith Din, 191-193.354

Beth Ilammii/rash, 7, 16, 84, 139,

342
£elh Ta!miid,2\o
Bucwim, 3, 344
Bloch, Samson, 51
Botiek, A., S

Boak of Brigklitas {see Zohai)
Book of ike Piotti, 295, 321
Book of Victory, 167, 352
Boot of iVeighl, 133,350
Boswell, 142, 197
Buckle, 96
Burbei, 138, 350
Buzagli, Che Cabbalist, 310

Cabgalah, Cabbalists, 99, 128, 129,

133.210,283,3:5
Cabod, 120, :2i
Carailes, 4S, 160, 161, Z07, Z08, 344,

35'
Casaubon, Isaac, 259
Chagigah, 11, 346
Ckakhamim 57, 344
Chambers, ti.e, 208, 355
Cbatiina b. Dossa, 217
Chanukah, 138
Chapters ef A'. E/ieztr Ike Great, 68,

69, 316, 346
Chasdai Ibn Crescns, 167-173, 180
Chassidim, Cbaasii.1, Chassidic. Chaa-

sidism, 1-4, II, 12, 14-16, 21, 22,

25-*7. 30- 33. 35-41. 43-45, 53,

73, 90. 298, 341, 342
Chayim Vital, 99
Chayim Walosin, 85, 87, 94
Chisda, 307
Chukkim, 124, 349
Code of the Law, by Caro, 75, 91, 206,

211, 257, 346

Collectanea, 144

Commtntary on the Penlateueh, by
Nachmanides, 107, loS, 123, 135

DATE OF THE REDEMPTION, 105,

349
David Rocca Mirtino, 230
David Messct Leon, 174
DavitI b. Samuel d'Ealella, 165, 166
David b. Yom-Tob BilJa, 166
Defence of Adam. 230
LklmedigD, 71, 13'. '75. 34^
Diipulalien, by Nachmanides, 103
Dultes, L., 260

Eighteen benedictions, 83,

347
Eieazar, 229
Eleazar b. Jacob, 225
Eliezer, father of Baalshem, 5
Eliezer b. Hyrkanos, 1S9, 319
Eliezer b. Samuel Hallevi, 145
Eliezer b. Simeon, 223
Elijah Levita, 268

Elijab Wilna, 57, 73-77, 81-92, 96, 97,
Elisha b. Abuyah, 33, 130, 292
Emden, Jacob, 10. 259, 342
Epikurus, 157, 351
Ereek Millin, 66, 345
Ecter, Isaac, 51, 59,288
Eaaenes, 64, 1S5

Examination of the World, 97, 347
EybeachuU, J„ 10, 342
Ezia, or Azriel, the mystic, 100

Faithful City, the, 75, 346
Fichte, 51

Ford JabM, 333, 359
FrankisCa, 10, 342
Frankl, Z., 65, 97
Fflrst, J., 66

INDEX

363

Gaotiy pi. Gaoniniy 73, 76-78, 97, 98,
206, 208, 209, 289, 312, 346

Garden of Mystical Contemplation^
129

Gate of Reward t 115, 213, 349

Geiger, A., 66

Gemaraj 78, 346

Gershon, brother-in-law of Baalshem,

8,9
Ghetto, 326, Z3^-3ZZ
Gnostics, 64

Goethe, 57, 73, 306, 328
Gozer, 290, 358
Graetz, 65, 97, 99, 183
Great Interpreters^ 186, 353
Green, A. L., 255
Guide of the Perplexed^ 49, 68, 97,

102, 130, 131, 179, 342, 344
Guide of the Perplexed of the Timey

60, 67, 345

Hadasi, Judah, 160, 161

Hai Gaon, 77, 208, 209, 272, 346

Halachah^ pi. Halachothy 64, 66, 183,

345
Halachic, 57,92, no, 157, 193-, 207,

344
Halachoth Gedolothy III, 1 1 2, 349
Hannaneel of Kairwan, 162
Hegel, 51, 54,64,65
Heine, 59, 124, 254
High Belief 162, 352
Hillel the Great, 185, 186, 188, 193,

237
Hillel, R., 177

History of Jewish Tradition y 65, 182,

353
Hithlahabuthy 32, 343

Holle Kreischy 294, 295

Huna, 221, 225

Isaac Alfasi, 13, 100, loi, in, 312,

343
Isaac Aramah, 173

Isaac Loria, 76, 133, 350

Isaac b. Ruben, 100

Ishmael, 188, 190, 224

Ishmael b. Elishah, 222, 299

Israel Baalshem {see Baalshem, Israel)

Jacob of Corbeil, 322
Jacob Dubna, 91

Jacob the Levite, or Maharil, 143,
144

Jacob Sasportas, 1 01, 102

Jacob Tam, 210

Jannai, 226

Jedaiah of Bedres, 97, 131

Jerusaleniy by Mendelssohn, 147, 351

Johanan, 249, 287, 303, 318

Johanan b. Zaccai, 48, 188, 344

Jonah Gerundi, 100, loi

Jonah, son of Nachmanides, loi

Jose, 218, 219

Joseph Albashir, 160

Joseph Albo, 171, 172

Joseph Caro, 75, 92, 206, 211, 322,

346
Joseph Jabez, 131, i73» I79» 35°
Joshua b. Hananiah, 194, 299, 304,

308
Jost, M., 66
Judah Alcharisi, 262
Judah Hallevi, 13, 34, 152, 162, 208,

342, 352
Judah b. Ilai, 246

Judah Messer Leon, 333

Judah de Modena, 298

Judah the Patriarch, 63, 195, 343

Judah the Pious, 306

Judah b. Tema, 299

Judah b. Yakar, 100

Karab, 124, 349

Kilayim, 87, 347

Kimchi, D., 145

Korbany 124, 349

Krochmal, Nachman, 44, 46, 48-68,

7i»72
Kuenen, 240

Law OF Man, 113-115

Laws unto Moses on Mount Sinai,
64, 345» 353

364

STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Lessing, 73

Letteris, M., 56, 57

Levi b. Gershom, 97, loi, 171, 347

Light of God, 167, 352

Lilac of Mysteries, 1 33, 350

Lilith, 287, 288, 358

Lipman of Miihlhausen, 167, 179

Liva of Prague, 78

Lowell, R., 116

Low, L., 171, 285, 305

Lucas, Mrs. Henry, 135, 358

Macaulay, 89

Maggid, 19, 347

Magnified, 310, 359

Maimonides, or Moses b. Maimon,
13, 48, 49, 68, 70, 78, 97, icx), 102,
103, III, 126, 130, 133, 140, 161-
168, 170-181, 210, 211, 249, 274,
280, 281, 312, 322, 342

Maimonists, Anti-Maimonists, 163-
165, 173, 210

Mar Samuel, 84

Mathia b. Chares, 339

Measure of the Stature, 208

Mechilta, 58, 81, 193, 345

Meheram Schiff, 16, 343

Meir, 130, 194, 226, 318

Meir b. Nathan of Trinquintaines, loo

Meir of Rothenburg, 210

Memra, 238, 356

Men of the Great Synagogue, 64, 185

Menachoth^ 86, 347

Mendelssohn, Moses, 48, 58, 73, 147,

151* 176, 351
Metatron, 238, 356

Midrash, pi. Midrashim, 61, 64, 71,

81, 193, 195, 222, 262, 272, 273,

304» 345
Milton, 114

Minhag, pi. Minhagim^ 143, 192, 351

Minim ^ 64, 345

Minor Tractates, 81, 346

Mishnah^ 57, 64, 66, 76, 78, 82, 85,

87* 91, I57» 190, i93» I95» 271, 343
Mistress of the Synagogue, 317
^^oses Cordevora, 133, 350

Moses Ibn Ezra, 262

Moses de Leon, 18, 133, 258, 262

Moses of Tachau, 131

Mother Zion, 321

Nachman, son of Nachmanides, loi
Nachmanides, or Moses b. Nachman,

99-141, 213
Nahum of Gemzo, 215
Nasi, 84, 347
Nathan, 194

Nephesh Chayah, 117, 349
Neubauer, Dr. A., 263
Night of Watching, 288
Nissim of Gerona, 133
Nissim of Marseilles, 267

OLAM HABBA, 115
Old Victory, 304, 358
Oral Law, 10
Orchard, the, 133, 350
Ordinance of the Law, 293, 358

Pablo Christiano, 103, 105, 106

Pairs, the, 185, 353

Paradise Lost, 114

Pardes, 129

Pashut, 138, 350

Path of Belief 172, 353

Perles, J., 99, 123, 294

Pharisees, 64, 185, 237, 241

Philo, 52, 64, 154, 238

Pilpul Pilpulist, 13, 78, 343

Plato, 78

Pugio Fidei^ 107

Raba, 311

Rabbanan Saburai, 206, 354

Rabbah, 311

Rabbenu, 13, 343

Rabbenu Mosheh, 103, 349

Rabbinowicz, R. N. N., 261

Raimund Martini, 107

Rapoport, Solomon Leb, 50, 53, 56, 66

Reggio, Isaac, 270

Roois^ the, 171, 352

Ruskin, 328

INDEX

36s

Saadiah Gaon, 48, 162, 208, 272, 344

Sacred Letter, 113

Sadducees, 64, 185, 237

Salman the Good, 145

Sambatyon, 95, 347

Sanctification-cupf 245, 356

Sandalphon, 305

Sandek, 290

Sanhedrin, the, 188, 190, 191

Saul Berlin, 176, 180

Sayings of the Fathers, Aboth^ 262,

299
Schelling, 51
Schiller, 73
Schlummerlied, 295
Schorr, O., 193
Schudt, 291, 298
Sechorah^ 296, 358
Seder Nezikin, 58, 344
Seder Oiam, 81, 92, 346
Seder Taharoth^ 58, 345
Segulah, 122, 349
Sephardim, 301, 358
Sepher, 13, 343
Sephiroth, Ten, 238, 356
Sermon in the Presence of the Khtg,

by Nachmanides, 165
Shabbethai Tsebi, 134, 239, 348
Shalom Zachar, 289, 358
Shammai, 185, 188, 237
Shechinah, 120, 121, 228-230, 349
Shema, reading of the, 141, 288, 350
Shemaiah, 186
Shemariah of Crete, 166
Sherira Gaon, 263
Shiphluth, 30, 343
Simchah, 31, 343
Simeon Duran, loi, 170, 171, 348
Simeon b. Eleazar, 289
Simeon b. Gamaliel, 222
Simeon b. Gamaliel II., 193, 194,

354
Simeon b. Yochai, 18, 223

Simlai, 112, 349

Siphra, 58, 81, 91, 193, 262, 345

Siphre, 58, 81, 91, 193, 262, 345

Solomon b. Adereth, 70, 267

Solomon b. Gabirol, 210
Solomon of St. Goar, 143-145
Solomon b. Isaac, Rashi, 13, 210, 343
Solomon b. Isaac b. Zadok, 137
Solomon Ladier, 43, 341
Solomon Portaleone, 323
Solomon, son of Nachmanides, 1 10
Solomon Syrillo, 262
Solomon Wilna, 75
Son of the Law, 307, 312, 358
Sopherim^ 64
Spencer, Herbert, 97
Steinschneider, M., 99, 172

TAANITH, 58, 344

Talmid Chaber, 52, 344

Talmid Chakam^ 7, 342

Talmud (of Jerusalem or Babylon),

16, 19, ZZ. 49» 52, 57-59» 64, 76, 78,
81, 82, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 96, loi,
104, 105, III, 129, 131, 140, 151,
i55» 158, i95» 196, 206, 207, 209,
210, 238, 252, 254-256, 261, 262,
271, 272, 277, 343
Tanna, pi. Tannaim^ 17, 84, 187,

342, 343
Tephillin^ 249, 357

Thackeray, 282

Thirteen Articles of the Creed, 148,

163, 164, 170, 176, 179

Thirteen Rules (of Interpretation),

195
Tobijah, the Priest, 175

Tosephta, 81, 82, 92, 262, 271, 346

Toy, Prof., 233-239, 251

Tractate Berachoth, 221, 271

Tractate Evidences, 192, 353

Tractate Joys^ 194, 354

Tractate Sanhedrin, 156, 157, 159

Tractate Sopherim, 301, 312, 321, 358

Tree of Life, the, 133

Troki, Solomon, 1 61

VARIAE LECTIONES (of the Tal-
mud), 261
Viterbo, Abraham Chayim, 175, 176
Vorsugerin, 324

366

STUDIES IN JUDAISM

Wars of the Lord, ioi

Watchman, the, 59, 341, 345

Weiss, T. H., 65, 97, 99, 182, 183,

185-187, 191-197, 206, 207, 209-

212
Wellhausen, 243
Wisdom of Solomon, 127, 154
Woilkennivdicke, 324

YEDIAH, 119, 349

Yeshibahf pi. Yeshihoth, 94~96, 293,

347
Yom-Tob Heller, 196

ZADDIKy pi. Zaddikim (Zaddikism),

36-44. 53» 298, 343
Zadoc, 245
Zebachim, 86, 347
Zedner, 254-256

Zekub, 137-139. 350

Zerahiah Hallevi of Gerona (or Ge-

rondi), icx), loi, 11 1
Zion-Elegy, 208
Zobeoth, 314, 359

Zohar, 18, 19, 71, 91, 133, 258, 343
Zunz, Leopold, 44, 52, 56, 60, 65, 73,

97, 183, 270, 305

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