The Cabbalists and Other Essays 9 - Forgotten Books

THE CA BBA LISTSAND OTHER ESSAYS

9

by

V A. HIRSCH,Ph .D .

AUTHOR OF “ A BOOK OF ESSAYS ,” AND J OINT ED ITORor

“ A GREEK GRAMMAR OF ROGER BACON AND AFRAGMENT OF H IS HEBREW GRAMMAR ,” ETC.

PREFACE

THE essays in the present vo lume were composed atvar ious time s , most ly as lecture s . I t is difficult for me

to say when they originated , as they are the results of

l ife -long pondering on topics which obtruded themse lves On my mind , in the same way as they haveexercised the m inds of many other reasoning m en andI reproduce here the views to which an anxious andcareful reflection has led me .

The first essay—Ou the Cabba l ists—is the on ly one o f

the ser ies that has seen the l ight before. I t appeared ,under the tit le Of Jewish Mystics—an Apprecia tion,

in

1907 , in the October number of the Jewish % uarterlyReview .

The Prolegomena to a Philosophy of the j ew ish Religionare no t exhaust ive even as pro legomena. Many more

questions besides those propounded would requirec lose treatm ent . For instance , the great subj ect of

Ethnica l Psychology,wh ich has such a far-reaching bear

ing upon the phi losophy o f the jewish Re l igion , is hereno mo re than just hinted at .

That subject is , how ever , incidenta l ly a l luded to in thefo l lowing essay on A Universa l Religion . The viewsexpre ssed the re me t with considerable dissensionamong some of my friends . They would have preferredtheir own particular persuas ion to be the goa l foruniversa l adoption . I must

,howeve r

,ab ide by the

convictions which my ow n considerations have forcedupon me .

PREFACE

Ano ther friend , for whose reasoning p owers I havethe greatest re spect , asked me , whe ther the universa lacknowledgment of one only God , wh ich I p ut as the

po ssible maximum for genera l adoption , w as not a biga ssumption ? Of course it is

,so is re l igion itse lf , so is

unive rsa l re l igion , so are innumerable other concep tions which have obta ined the nature of convictions.They are demanded by the Ca tegorica l Impera tive butsome peop le of d i fferent menta l ity may perhaps rej ectthem for all that . The same gent leman remarked thathe found som e p arts of that e ssay very amus ing. The

p assage s he a l luded to may amuse the reade r , but Iknow the keen pain which they gave me when I

p enned them .

The incentive to wri te On the possib i l ity o f aReve lation

,w as a sentence of Mr. Claude Montefiore

suffic ient ly indicated in the article itse lf.The e ssays on The Mishnah

,On Rashi

,and on Public

Disputa tions in Spa in,explain themselve s .

The last of the series , Pfefierkornz’

ana , is comp lementary to e ssays on Johann Reuchlin

,and on J oha nn

Pfefierkorn,which are contained in my Book of Essays,

wh ich appeared in 1905.

I cannot conclude this preface without mentioningthat the pre sent vo lume m ight not have been issued ata l l b ut for the intere st taken in its publ ication by myfriend , Mr. I srae l Zangw ill. Mr. Zangw ill took the

matter in hand , and it is due to his ene rge tic measuresthat I am enabled to offe r it to the publ ic . Need le ssto say that I am grate fu l to him , and I tende r himhe rewith my sincere thanks .

S . A. H .

LONDON , 192 2 .

CONTENTS .

THE CABBALISTS

PROLEGOMENA TO A PH ILOSOPHY OF THE

JEWISH RELIG ION

A UN IVERSAL RELIG ION

POSSIB ILITY OR IMPOSS IB I LITY OF A D I RECTD IV INE REVELAT ION

THE M ISHNAH

RASH I AS AN EXEGETE

PUBLIC D ISPUTAT IONS IN SPA IN

V I I I . PFEFFERKORN IANA

INDEX

TH E CABBALISTS

IT is to be hoped that the t ime has passed when the

term “ J ewish Cabbala suggested the not i on o f a

store-house O f magic,black art , and witchcraft . I t

i s no longer assumed by anybody to be a secret

art o f star-gazing,prognosticating

,horoscop ing, and

soothsaying . Even such as have given on ly sl ight

attention to the matter must have learned that there

are many po ints of Vi ew from which the Cabbalamay be considered

,and that i t may poss ib ly have

an interest ing side even for the unin it iated .

I t would be imposs ibl e to give even a cursorysketch o f the Cabbala wi thout d iving down deep ly

into the intricacies of abstruse systems,without

touch ing upon quest ion s which require the most

minute care o f the specia l i st. A history of the

Cabbala and i ts systems,of i ts vari ous man i festati ons

,

appl ications,and influence

,however exhaustively

treated i n detai l,would

,at most

,elucidate o ne s ide

o f the quest ion on ly . Another aspect would have

to be investigated which would command a much

higher i n terest . The purely human question would

have to be en tered into,and an attempt made to

understand the workings o f the intel lect and the

emotions,the interaction o f re l igious though t and

B

2 THE CABBALI STS

rel igious feel ing,the w onderment at that which

surpasses human intel l igence and the craving tograsp i ts import

,ethical principles and yearn ings o f

the heart,which one and al l are instrumental i n

cal l ing forth the mani festat ions of man’s myst ica li nst incts .

But apart from such encyclopaedic consideration

of the subj ect,there are certa in points wh ich we l l

bear to be dealt wi th exoter i cal ly . There are,on

the very fr inge of the subj ect,tw o questi ons

capable of being investigated,wi thout the necess i ty

o f entering upon abstruse reason ing and obscurede tai ls . There is, first

,the question whether the

term The Ri se o f the Cabbala,

% frequently used inJ ewish l i terature to denote the period commencing

with the twel fth century,i s not somewhat i l l -chosen

and,secondly

,whether the j udgment passed on the

mediaeval Cabbal ists by several J ewish writers o n

J ewish history i s not altogether erroneous .Regarding the first point—the so -cal led rise of the

Cabbala about the twelfth century— it must be saidthat i t is no longer a dogma o f modern Jewish

hi storiography . Prof . L . Ginzbe rg,in h is article on

the Cabbala i n the j ew ish E ncyclopcedia , disposes o f

the not i on that the Cabbala o f the pe r io d a l ludedto was a newly risen star on the Jewish horizon .

There is no abruptness in the genesi s of the CabbalaO f that time . I t i s a natural cont inuation of certainmodes o f thought and feel ing which had never been

THE CABBAL I STS 3

absent ; which , i n o ne form or ano ther,had al l

al ong prevai led i n Judaism,and the actual ri se of

which may be said— from an hi storical point o f

View— to lo se i tsel f in the dim ,distant regions of

antiqu ity and— from a psycho logical po in t o f Vi ew— to be rooted in the construction of that eternal ly

inscrutable en igma which i s cal led the human soul .

I n reference to the second po int : the way inwhich many J ewish scho lars j udge of Cabbal ists

and Cabbala, i s one of condemnation on ly. The

mysti cal element,which has played so importan t

a part i n the hi story o f the J ewi sh rel igion,i s

anathematized . Mystici sm,i t i s said

,can on ly

flouri sh in i nte l lectual decay . Mystic ism i s repre

sented as a po isonous plant o f exo tic or igin,some

seeds o f which,haying been wafted by an um

fortunate wind upon J ewish so i l,tended to cover

large stretches of ferti le region s with its outland ish

parasi t i cal growth . The Cabbala i s described as

an impo rtat ion from without, an enemy o f al l

i n te l l ectual ity,

‘

o f al l rat ional i sm . The luri d l ight

which i t professes to cast upon questions of the

highe st importance tends on ly to make the oh

scurity al l the more palpab le, so that the darkn ess

can be felt . The Cabbala does no t, indeed, hes itate

to attack the most difficul t prob lems in the arena ofphi losophy and metaphysics ; but i t tries to so lve

them,not by methodical reasoning

,but by giving

free l i cense to unbounded imaginati on by inventing

4 THE CABBAL I STS

supernatural s i tuations and combination s , which

are based upon nothing,and Obscure instead of

en l ighten ; to degenerate ultimately into an inane

j uggl ing with numbers and wi th the letters Of the

alphabet . Stripped o f al l circumlocution i t comes

t o thi s : that the Cabbala i s said to be noth ing bu trel igious mania wi th a method ; lunacy raised to

the d igni ty o f a science .

And as for the results which such extravagance

leads to , they are deplored as having been pern iciousi n the highest degree . They are represented as

having marred the Jewish concept ion o f the Deity

in its abso lute spiri tual i ty ; as having introduced a

gross anthrOp omorphism ; an unsound idea o f the

sou l and its duties ; and curious notion s about l i fe

after death . This, i t i s said, l ed again to absurd

rites to the detriment o f the exercise o f e ssential

rel igious duties . The Cabba la, i n short, i s rep resented as having become

,s ince the th irteenth

Chri st ian century unti l comparat ively recen t t imes,

a bad sore upon the body Jewish,paralyzing i t to a

great extent,and endangering i ts very exi stence .

But i t i s not a l l scholars that j udged thus harsh ly

of th i s phenomenon i n h istory . There are some

who admit that the Cabbala has also i ts good

sides,that some O f its developments had a genuine

spiritual izing effect . They concede that the fl ight

Of i ts imagination w as i n many cases high ly poeticalthat its doctrines frequent ly conduced to inten se

THE CABBALI STS 5

rel igious devoti on . But such gracious concess ion s

do not go beyond admitting that an avowed ly bad

case has i ts redeeming po in ts ; i n accordance with

the tri te adage,that noth ing i s abso lutely bad .

I n the face of such abso lute condemnat ion on the

one hand,and a condescending semi-defence on

the other,I c laim for the Cabbala that the fact of

its existence was a go od thing,and not on ly a good

th ing but a necess i ty ; that i t i s a th ing of whichJewish hi storians ought to speak with pride . Iassert that the J ewish i ntel lect could no t have been

of the high order wh ich we would fain bel ieve i t to

have been,that i t must have been feeble indeed

,i f,

i n certa in contingenci es,i t had not taken Shelter i n

the Cabbala .

But I do n ot wish to be misunderstood . I t isno t my in tent i on to break a lance e ither for or

against the val idity O f ’ the various doctri nes o f the

Cabbala . I shal l even gran t—for the sake o f

argument—that such myst i c ism was foreign to

the doctrines and Obj ects o f J udaism . Let i t beadmitted—for the sake of argument—that i t w as Neo

Platon ism,and some other more anci ent systems

,

the shoots o f which were grafted upon Jewish

bel i efs and customs,and that every doctrin e put

forth by the Cabbal ists rested on error. Yet,even

so, I aver that a J ewish h istorian , tak ing up thestandpo in t of uncomprom i s ing antagon ism to the

Cabbala,and even whi lst combating its tenets

,would

,

6 THE CABBALI STS

on the ground of h istorical just ice,be obl iged to

find tha t the fact that the Cabbala existed was an

aspect o f the Jewish mind of which he,as a J ewish

h istor ian,ought to be proud .

I t i s for th i s purpose that i t may be useful torece ive some sidel ights from the contemplation o f

mediaeval Chri stian myst ici sm . I t wi l l be profi tablefor three reasons . First

,there i s some s imi lar i ty

in the causes which prompted Chri st ian and J ewishminds a l ike to find solace in mystic i sm . In the

second place,th e fact that mediaeval Chr ist ian

mystics looked for inspirat ion into the books of the

J ewish Cabbala goes far to vindicate the sign ificanceo f the latter . There is a th ird reason wh ich is notso compl imentary to us

,and which issues from a

hope that J ewish wri ters may take an example fromthe way in which Chri st ian wri te rs on the history ofphi losophy treat their mystics . Nobody wi l l suspectthese Christian scholars o f having themselves an

incl ination towards mystici sm ; and i t i s thereforeworth noti cing

,aye

,and imitating

,the h istor i cal

o bj ectivity with which they assign to those mysticsthe ir proper p lace i n the development o f human

thoughtLet us just enquire what the obj ects are which

mystici sm tr i es to accomp l i sh . For mysticism i sone o f the i nstincts that en ter into the composition

of the human being . I t has its uses and its abuses .

I t tri es,in i ts ow n way

,to find so lutions to the host

THE CABBAL I STS 7

of en igmas by which our exi stence i s surrounded .

The questi ons o f why,whence

,whither

,how great

,

how long,are constantly before us . The horizon

o f mental vi sion i s l imi ted ; q uest ions crop up on

every s ide . Must we s i len tly acquiesce i n the fact

of our exi stence,and the existence o f everything

else—that i s,i f we and everything e lse exi st at al l

,

for th i s has also been doubted—without ever beingable to understand whence everyth ing took its

origin,what i t consists of

,to what purpose i t a l l

tends,how th is un iverse came in to exi stence

,what

was i ts primary cause,how far i t extends

,how long

i t endures ?

O f such questi on s there are tw o which main lyharass the mind : one , that of the genesi s o f the

world,of the vis ible

,palpable world ; and the

second,that about its originator . The former

quest i on i s partly put to us by our percept ion

through the senses,and both by the workings o f

our m ind . They already forced themselves upon

the attent ion of primi t ive man . But the primi tive

mind w as unable to conceive abstract ideas ; its

i deas were conceived in a vis ib le,materia l form i t

cou ld n ot draw a l ine o f demarcat ion between things

material and things immateria l . The senses had tosupply answers to the quest ion s that vexed the mind .

The forces o f nature became the primitive man’s

gods . Every luminary in the sky, every tree, everybrook and river

,every breath of wind represented to

8 THE CABBAL I STS

him,or was peopled by h im with wonderful beings,

demons,gods . And when he tried to conce ive h i s

gods apart from the phenomena o f nature , as beingsendowed with free movement

,actio n

,and vol it ion ,

his abstractions d id not ri se above the forms of men

and an imals . He may have exagge rated the s ize ofthe members of the body and their powers

,but he

would not carry h is notions beyond those of colossal

men and monstrosi t i es . I t was mythology which

attempted to sati sfy in th i s way the cravings for a

penetrat ion into the invi s ible .A remarkable fact strikes us i n connection with

th is . The same race which formulated mytho logical

fancies i n the most attractive manner,the race whose

fabulous theogony and cosmogony appeals most to

the sense of poetry,that very same race

,of al l

ancient nations,has striven to free the i ntel lect from

the trammels of fancy,and attempted to so lve the

mysteries o f existence by means of purely sp ecu

lat ive ph i losophy. The ancient Greeks, the masters

of the plasti c representation of the Beaut iful,who

possessed the most poetical system of mytho logy,

were also the first teachers o f Logic and Meta

physics . They produced their Hesiodic and

Homeric poems,and also their Socrates

,their P lato

,

their Ari sto tle .I must no t stop to i nvestigate to what extent

,even

among the ancient Greeks,imagination on the one

hand,and Orental i nfluences on the other

,formed

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10 THE CABBALI STS

together on terms o f i ntimate good fe l lowsh ip .

They tri ed to supplement each other . Religion , or,rather

,those who professed a certain rel igion

,always

l iked to show that whatever rel igious doctri ne s and

rel igious pract ices they adhered to,they were not

merely a matter o f pure fai th,but the necessary out

come o f certain primary princ ip les . Phi losophy o frel igion arose ; i t set i tse l f the laudable obj ect o f

harmon izing,of reconci l ing

,confl ict ing elements .

The question whether a reconci l iat ion was possib le

was n ot asked . The attempt was made, and , mar

vel lons to record,i t succeeded ; at least to the sati s

faction o f those who were wi l l i ng to adopt i ts results .

Thus for ages man has been question ing andanswering . Phenomena were explored , knowledge

w as pi l ed up m ountain h igh . Each generation

added to the store ; the range o f vis ion widened ,the secrets o f nature were laid bare . Knowledge

enabled man to enslave the forces of nature andmake them serviceable to the construction o f gigant i cundertakings . But al l these acqu i s i t ion s wereaccompan ied by an undercurrent of in securi ty. The

questions o f the where,the whither

,the why

,and

the w hat remained unan swered . Some scientists

and phi losophers o f the present age have endea

voured to take stock o f our achievements towards the

so luti on o f these en igmas . They were constrainedto admit the existence o f l imits t o our know ledgewhich they despaired o f man ever being able to

THE CABBALI STS 11

traverse . The physio logist,Emi l Du Boi s-Reymond

,

concluded h is lecture on Die Grenz en a’er Na tur

henntniss with the fo l lowing words “ In respect tothe r iddle What i s matter and force, and how arethey enabled to think

,the explorer o f nature has no

cho ice but to adopt as h is motto lgnorabiinus .

The same scho lar gave,i n 1880

,a lecture at the

Leibn itz-meeting o f the Berl i n A ha a’em ie a

’er

Wissenschaften before a gathering o f scholars andscienti sts of the most advanced scho o l . The lecture

was enti t led The S even R iddles of the Universe .

The lecturer puts forward seven d ifficu lt ies ; he

concedes reluctantly and doubtful ly the poss ibi l i ty

O f being overcome at some future date to on ly threeof them

,to wi t : (1) the quest ion about the orig in

of l i fe ; (2) the apparently intenti onal and tele

o logical arrangemen t i n nature; and (3) origin o f

though t,and—connected therewith—origi n o f

Speech . But he declares the other four difficu lti esto be insuperab le ; or, as he cal ls i t, transcendent .

They are : (1) the nature o f matter and force ;

(2) the origin o f moti on ; (3) the origin o f s imple

percept ion through the senses and (4) free wi l l ;i n case we are not prepared to deny i ts ex i s tence

altogether,but declare the subj ective sense o f

freedom to be an i l lusi on . The seven problems ,he says

,may be comprehended under one s ingle

problem,the problem of the Universe and th i s t ime

he conclude s with the motto a’ubiteinus .

12 THE CABBALI STS

Thi s i t i s what modern research was candidenough to admit ; and i t i s that which has been

given vo ice to at a l l t imes . Re l igion,and par

ticu larly J ewish rel igion , to ld of the exi stence of a

parti t ion which it i s impossible to penetrate . Thu s,

for instance,the Mishnah deprecates the attempt to

understand the infin ite space and time,saying that

“ he who ponders over the fo l lowing four th ings

might as wel l n ot have been born I What i s above

what i s below,what is in front

,and what i s behind .

But the human mind is l ike a chi ld i n leading

strings. I t i s impatient o f restraint . I t refuses to

acknowledge boundaries . I t i s surfeited with doubts,

and th irsts for certainty . I t i s ashamed o f asking

and finding no answers : Thus Du Bo is-Reymond’s

proposi ti ons were no t al lowed to pass unchal lenged .

He met wi th contradict ions from many quarte rs ;not the least impo rtan t o f his opponents was ErnstHaeckel

,who attempted in his ow n way to give a

solution o f The Riddle of the Universe. But then ,neither were Haeckel’s conclusions al l owed to passunchal lenged

,and he himsel f found reason to modi fy

certain of the results p revious ly arr ived at by h im .

The same O ld questions continue to be the subj ects

o f meditat ion , and, when we glanc e at the l i terature

which has sprung up,and revo lves round them

,in

the comparative ly short period of t ime that has

elapsed S i nce Du Bois-Reymond's pronouncemen t,

we are bewi ldered by its extent .

THE CABBALI STS 13

But a lthough rel igion was frequently sat isfied with

the acknowledgment o f ignorance,and

,as we have

seen,some recent scien ti sts and phi l osophers als o

,

i t was not the case with anci ent,mediaeval

,and

comparative ly recent phi losophy. I t certain ly was

no t the case w i th the mysti cs .

I t i s not surpri s ing that ph i losophy did no t satis fythe mystical ly i ncl i ned mind . I t found one system

o f phi losophy supplanting another . Besides,pure

ph i l osophy appeal ed on ly to the intel lect . But can

i t ever sat i sfy the sou l’s craving for communion with

the divine ? Can it s lake the yearn ings for a sight

o f the invi s ib le, for comprehens i on o f that which i s

incomprehensible The mysti c i s dissati sfied with

the phi losopher who invites h im and his problems

to hi s i nte l lectual laboratory,but leaves his th i rst ing

sou l as parched as before .

Let me i l lustrate th is by a phase i n the h istory o f

modern phi lo sophy. Immanuel Kant opened an

epoch in ph i l osophy which canno t be said to have

come to a close ye t . This ph i losopher started his

meditati ons on the basi s o f the systems which pre

ceded h is . He found them insuffici en t ; he rej ected

them one after another,and ended in—metaphor

ically speaking—construct ing a great waste-paper

basket,into which he unceremon i ously bundled a

number o f previous phi losophical tenets, after having

torn them to rags an d tatters . Fich te cont inued thework, and demol ished the l i ttl e that had been spared

14 THE CABBALI STS

by Kant . Bu t h i s fo l lower,Sche l l ing

,went boldly

forwards,discovered fresh insufficiencies

,and ended

by surrende r ing himse lf,hand and foot

,to mysticism .

The phi losophical Chrysa l i s had become metam orphosed i nto a mystical butterfly .

Such transi t i on from phi losophy to mystici smfinds numerous counterparts in ancient and mediaevalt imes . The causes are i dentical . The German

phi losophe r,Eduard Zel ler

,expresse s them in the

fo l lowing terms : The mystica l turn o fmind revoltsagainst a science which wants to define

,to demon

strate,to d iscuss eve ryth ing ; which wants to invest

the divine myster ies with human notions . Andthese noti ons themselves were too dry and too poorto meet the requ irements o f the myst ic’s profound

nature,to give expressi on to the i nspirat ions of h i s

gen ial mind . The strictness o f the l ogical forms

oppressed h is th inking powers ; which were, indeed ,bright enough to notice the contradict ions o f many

disti nction s,but were yet too much l imi ted by rel igious

interests and dogmatical tradi tions to remove the lastcauses of these contradictionsz H e took refuge i n

dictato rial sentences o f p ious consciousness ; i nnoti ons devo id o f clearness

,but ingenious and rich

i n fancies .%

Such are the terms which a German phi losopherappl ies to the mediaeval German mystics ; they are

the est imate by a Chri st ian ph i losopher of theChri st ian mystics of h is country . They are the

THE CABBALI STS 15

words o f an antago n i st o f mystic ism,who maintains

that such myst i c speculat ions “ canno t poss ib ly have

any last ing influence upon the condit ions o f

knowledge,because they undertake to so lve the most

compl icated and comprehens ive quest ions by means

o f unc lear not ions and dogmat ic proposi t i ons whichh ave not been proved . I nstead of wel l-defined

i deas,they o ffer a confus ing mass o f fluctuating

figures instead of scien tific research,fanci fu l

ficti on s ; in stead o f i ntel l igib le series o f thoughts,

apocalypt i c riddles .

We see how outspoken Zel le r i s i n h is deprecat ion

o f mysti cism as compared with pure ph i losophy .

We must not stop to enquire whether the boundaryl ine between mystici sm and phi losophy can in real i ty

be so sharply defined ; whether“ fanc i ful fictions

were not,more or less

,importan t auxi l iarie s i n the

construct ion o f both anci ent and modern phi lo

sophical systems how much,for example

,Leibn itz’s

monado logy owed to a l ively phantasy ; how con

siderab ly Haecke l,when sett ing up h is al leged

so lut ion o f the Riddle o f the Un iverse,drew upon

hi s powerfu l imagination . I t i s enough for us

to notice how so uncompromising an opponent o f

myst ic i sm as Zel ler does not l o ok down with con

tempt upon the myst ics o f his country . Far fromit ; together with other h istoriographers o f phi lo

sophy,he tr i es to d ive down into the souls o f these

men,to understand their doctri nes

,and to ass ign to

16 THE CABBALI STS

them the ir place in the pantheon o fmen of profound

thought . There i s no conde scension here on h ispart there i s an honest attempt to discover i n theirendeavours an influence for the good and he points

to them with pride as members of the race to which

he be longed .

Our J ewish mysti cs have not rece ived such del icatehandl ing at the hands of some of our modern J ewish

wri ters . I t would not be difficul t to explain why

the method of pi tying condescension,or ofmerci less

c ondemnation,or even superci l ious ridicule

,has

been appl ied by J ews to J ewish mys t i cs . I must,

however,add that the re were others who co nsidered

them from a much more reasonable po int o f Vi ew .

N or must i t be forgo tten that among Christians alsothe cases are by no means rare

,that men who

deserved the grati tude of contemporaries and

posteri ty were not appreciated for the good theyhad attempted to accompl ish

,but l ived in the

memories of men as wizards and magic ians,as

,for

example,Roger Bacon andTheophrastes Paracelsus .

The commencement of method ical mysticism

loses i tsel f i n the fogs of ages . A real o r supposed

Pythagoras i s said to have acquired some profoundmystical doctr ines when trave l l ing in the East.

Whoever Pythagoras may have been,or whether

there ever was a Pythagoras,so much i s certain

,

that there exi sted a Pythagorean schoo l o f phi loSophers . Pythagoras, or his school , considered the

18 THE CABBALI STS

which we re explained as the ten agencie s throughwhich God created the wor ld : Wisdom

,I nsight

,

Cognition , Strength , Power, I nexorab leness, Just ice ,Right , Love, and Mercy. There were notions about

spirits and ange l s . There was the doctri n e o f the

myster i ous powers o f the H ebrew alphabet . This

mysti cal use of the letters of the a lphabet bears ananalogy to the Pythagorean method of exp lain ingthe un iverse through numbers . The book Yetz iraplays an important part from the ve ry earl ies t t imes .

The le tters of the a l phabet were considered toreso lve the contrast between the substance and theform o f th ings .

Such doctrines,and many more

,were further

cult ivated for centuries . They prevai led during the

peri od o f the Geon im . They existed i n Babylon

and in I taly,and from I taly they were carri ed to

Germany . J ewi sh myst ici sm in Germany in the

th irteenth century was not at al l un like the J ewishmystici sm that prevai led in Babylon about thebeginning of the n inth .

This i s not in accord with those writers w ho aver

that the Cabbala o f the twe l fth and th irteenth centuries

was an entirely new departure in Judaism . I t has

been maintained that about that t ime the Cabbala

arose as a new system o f fantast i c doctrines, that

were invented by some mystics,and that thi s system

succeeded in obtain ing recogn i t ion among largenumbers of Jews . I t i s said that i t grew apace, that

THE CABBAL I STS 19

i t assumed formidable d imensions,and fin ished by

obscuring the horizon of the Jewish mind,and to

replace clear n ot ions by fantast i c fabrication s and

pueri l e games with numbers and the l etters o f the

alphabet .

I do not i n tend now ei ther to endorse or to

contradict these views,except on t he one po int

,

about the novel ty o f the departure . The new

Cabbala was noth ing b ut a continuati on and further

devel opment o f the mystic i sm that prevai led at the

t ime of the Geon im . I t i s true that about that t imethe Cabbala derived addit i onal authori ty from the

beli ef that i t w as rooted in an anti qu i ty of quite a

different nature . People bel i eved that at the b e

ginn ing o f the twelfth century the doctri nes o f the

Cabbala had been revea led by the prophet El ij ah to

Jacob Ha-Nazir ; that the latter had transmitted the

new revelat ion s to the great Rabb i Abraham ben

David of Pasqu iéres , whose son,I saac the Bl ind

,

and the latter’s a l l eged d iscip l e Azrie l,divulged

them to larger c ircles . We smi le perhaps at the

na ivete'

o f those w ho earnest ly bel i eved i n such

stories . But i t requires a certain amount o f na i’

vete’

of a di fferent kind to assume that I saac the B l i nd

had been the i nventor and origi nator of the mediaeval

speculat ive Cabbala . I t i s much too compl icated a

work to ow e - i ts orig in to the effo rts o f one man

The works of Az ri e l contain traces which po int to

origins of a much earl i er date . Further investigat ions

20 THE CABBALI STS

have shown,as I said before , that these doctrines

exi s ted in Babylon and I taly,and from I taly they

were carri ed to Germany about the beginning o f thetenth century . As to I saac the Bl ind , we cannot say

more than that he contributed largely to make the

Cabbal i stical tenets publ ic property .

I shal l not give a catalogue o f names of those who

were the bearers of the Cabbala o f that period, nor

o f the books in which their do ctrines had been laid

down . Those w ho have given attent ion to the

subj ect wi l l have read about the book A z ilut, the

earl iest book in which the speculat ive Cabbala i s

expounded . I ts doctr i nes of the four graduatedworlds

,and of the concentrat ion of the divine Being,

and i ts angelo logy,are entirely based on the book

Yetz ira,and do no t differ much from the V iew held

on these matters by the Geon im . The author of

the article Cabbala in the j ewish Eng/clopaedia saysthat i t is probably a product o f the Geon ic period .

Another book in which the doctrines o f the

speculat ive Cabbala are fu l ly expounded is the book

B ahir. Its author i s unknown ; but, as was the

case with a number of Cabbal ist ica l books, anauthor w as found for i t . I t was ascribed to o ne o f

the Talmudical Sages . Probably the book had no

author, but a compi ler, who p laced the doctrinesthat had been curren t i n severa l school s of thoughtupon a dialecti cal basi s. The book B ahir has the

meri t o f having given to the Jewish scholars of the

THE CABBALI STS 2 1

t ime an open ing towards a thorough study o f

Metaphys ics,which had

,unti l then

,been carried on

on ly on the l ines laid down by Ari stot le . I t is notnecessary to give here a description of the book

Z ohar,and the op in i ons fo r and against i t . The

Spaniard Azrie l (1160-1238) made the metaphysical

aspects o f th e Cabbala accessibl e to the Jewish

phi losophers of his t ime . The not ion was curren t

at that t ime that w e are on ly able to pred icate o f

God that which he i s no t ; that\

all attr ibutes o fGodcannot go any further than abrogate from h im

corporeal and materia l imperfect i ons . This idea

was fo l lowed up by Azri el . He starts from the

negat ive attributes o f God,and cal ls God the En-sof ,

the One without End,the One without Limi tati on

,

the abso lutely infin i te One,who can on ly be com

pre hended as the negation o f al l n egation s .

I f we desire to gain an independent j udgmentabout the value

, the motive, and the effects of such

speculat ions,the best method wi l l be agai n to cast

a glance upon simi lar phenomena in qui te different

Spheres o f thought . Let us see what Christ i anmed iae val mysti c ism o f that age , and o f subsequent

ages,had to say about them .

Towards the end of the th irteenth century the

Dominican monk Master Eckhart proclaimed from

the pulpi t in the German language vi ews which

brought h im into seri ous confl i c t with h i s ecclesiastical superiors . He had a thorough knowledge

22 THE CABBALI STS

o fAristot le,Neo-Platon ism,

and the Scholast ici sm of

his t ime . He had taught in Pari s with great success .

After visit ing Rome he returned to Germany, and ,for a number of years, taught and preached inSaxony

,Bohemia

,and Cologne . Proceedings were

i nsti tuted against h im,and he made a publi c re

cantat i on,but appealed

,at the same time

,to the

Pope . He on ly escaped the papal condemnation by

dying befo re i t could take effect . The condemnationthen fe l l upon his teach ing .

Fo l lowing previous doctrines , he distinguishesbetween God and the Godhead . God has a be

ginning and an end,but not the Godhead . God

,

or the Godhead,i s exalted above al l understanding ;

he has no existence ; he is above every existence .He has no predicate ; noth ing can be attri buted toh im which could not with greater reason be den iedo f him he is a non -God

,a non -person

,a non-form .

He is everything,and noth ing o f everything . When

dwel l ing in the noth ing of noth ing he i s not God,

but the Godhead , unpersonal , unbeknown to h im

sel f . I n order to become known to himself i t i s

necessary that there shou ld be in h im,together with

existence,nature and form . Before things were

created God w as not God . H e was ob l iged tocommun icate h imse l f God can do withou t creaturesj ust as l i tt le as creatures can do without h im . All

th ings are equally in God and are God himself .Only nothingness distinguishes the things from God .

THE CABBALI STS 23

Compared wi th these and such- l ike enunciati ons

of E ckhart’s the obscure sayings o f the Jewish

myst ics are bright daylight . People rightly con sider

Azriel’s saying,the E n-S of , the abso lute I nfin ite,

can on ly be comprehended as the negation of al l

negat ions to be obscure . But how does i t compare

for obscuri ty with Master E ckhart’s exposi t ion s ?

And w e must not forget that Eckhart manages

somehow or other to evo lve out o f hi s theory o f

God’s self-concepti on , bes ides the reve lat i on o f God

i n a world,also the difference o f persons in God

,as

the Christ ian Church teaches in the doctrin e of the

Trin i ty . I t would be easy enough to dec lare thewhole o f Eckhart

’

s myst ic i sm to be sen seless

phantasy . But l et us l i sten to the words o f the

great German wri ter on the history of phi losophy,

whom I had occas ion to quote above,about that

wh ich,i f i t were w ri tten by a J ewish mysti c

,would

have been stigmat ized by many a J ewish wri ter as a

farrago of nonsense .

Scholast ici sm,

”Zel ler says

,had forcib ly un ited

two incongruous elements a fa i th which was unde rthe guard ian sh ip o f the ecclesiasti ca l powers

,and a

science ruled by the trad i t i on o f the schoo ls. Both

e lements had suffered by the uni son . I t had

created a theo logy i n which the sentiment o f piety

gained no sat isfaction . The Neo-Platonic idea

o f God in i ts original concepti on had removed the

Deity to a distance , where i t could not be reached

24 THE CABBALI STS

by mortal beings ; where, for i tself, i t would have

no need of creatures ; and th e universe was broughtforth by him only by the way

,by an overflow o f

the divine power . Eckhart , on the contrary, was so

much al ive to the Christian idea of an intrinsic and

real communion of man with God,that he was qui te

unable to conceive h i s God without un iverse and

man . Thi s doctr in e o f Master Eckhart i s

certain ly not a strictly ph i losoph ica l system . I t

i ssues rather from re l igious mot ives than from

scientific ones ; and instead o f an enquiry intoreal i ty wh ich assumes noth ing for granted

,i t starts

partly from the Christian dogma,part ly from

previous speculat ions,especial ly Neo-Platonism .

Yet has h is doctrine,as compared with others

,so

much a character o f i ts own,and i t encounters the

domin eering system with so much boldness and

independence,that we have every reason to see in i t

the first attempt o f a German phi losophy ; the first

vigorous fl ight o f the German mind,which felt

itsel f strong enough to think of emancipating itself

from science,as i t then existed

,which was Romanic

both in origin and substance ; to excogi tate a new

form of research more i n accordance with itsgenius and i ts wants . ”

I do not wish to use harsh terms about the views

lai d down in the books on J ewish history whichdeal with that which i s cal led “ the rise o f the

Cabbala . Those J ewish mystics who rej ected the

26 THE CABBALI STS

I s i t th i nkable that l earned Europe should go to

sl eep one night steeped in the conditions o f science,as i t was understood by the fo l lowers of an Albert

the Great or a Thomas Aquinas,to ri se the next

morn ing as adepts in the methods o f an ImmanuelKant or a Darwin I t i s no t thus that revo lutionsi n the domini ons of l earn ing and cognition take

place . Mediaeval scho last ici sm on the one hand,

and the ach ievements of a Gal i leo and a Descartes

on the other,are wide and far apart . Their bri dging

over i s not a que sti on of t ime ; i t i s a quest ion oftrans i ti on

,o f i ntermediary stages

,of evo lution .

According to the natura l constructi on of the humanmind

,mystic i sm was one of these stages

,through

which an effete scholast icism had to be meta

m orp ho sed i nto a methodica l phi lo sophy and study

o f nature . I t was a psychological necessi ty that

mystic i sm shou ld form one o f the l inks between

dogmati c ph i losophy and an independen t expl oration

o f nature,o f metaphysics

,and o f the human mind .

These are no t arb i trary a priori a ssump tions, pos ited

for the purpose o f exp lain ing by their means realor imaginary facts . They are h istor i cal facts

,

which force themselves upon the attent ion of the

observer.This i t i s what the writers of the h istory o f

phi losophy—may they ever so much have beeno pposed to mystici sm—have seen ; th i s i s the

reason why they acknowledge the merits o f those

THE CABBALISTS 27

Chr i st ian myst ics,who were

,i n thi s manner

,

i n strumental in paving the way for the developmentof sci ence o f the present day . This i t i s what our

J ewish h i storians do not seem to have understood i n

regard to our ow n mystics . What then ought weto have preferred to th i s “ ri se o f the Cabbala ”

? As

l i tt l e as i t was poss ib le for a Master Eckhart or a

Jacob Bohme to be a Gal i l eo or a Leibn itz,just as

imposs ible was i t for Isaac the Bl ind or Azri el to be

a Hegel or a Herbert Spencer . The on ly al ternat ive

they had was,ei ther to continue model l ing and

remode l l ing the o ld harmonizing methods o f the age,

which were then cal led phi losophy,or to turn to

mystic i sm,to the natural stepp ing-stone from a

fruit less scho last ici sm to independent scien t ific

research . And,i n doing so , our J ewish mystics

had a great advantage over the i r congeners . I f i t i s

true,as Huxley expresses i t in co nnection wi th the

progress o f science , that“ by a happy conj uncti on

of c ircumstances the J ewish and the Arabian

physic i ans and phi losophers escaped many of the

influences which,at that t ime

,bl ighted natura l

knowledge in the Chri st ian world ,” how much more

true i s i t that the J ewish mysti cs were preserved

from many a b lock, against which the other mystics

could not help stumbling, by thei r wri t ten and

tradit iona l Torah,by the M idrash ic and Geoni c

l i terature and i ts developments, upon which they

were able to fal l back .

28 THE CABBALI STS

The Cab bali sts o f th i s period were also influential

i n ano ther way . They gave a direction to the

Chri st i an mystics . To some o f these latter the

Jewish Cabbala came as a revelat i on . They wereno longer able to construe Chr i st ian i ty on the l ines

o f a tottering Scholastici sm . Whither were they to

turn for that which they cal led rational izing their

dogmas ? They di scovered that by means of some

modificat ions they might force the Cabbala into

their service . A circumstance favoured them .

Several books of the Cabbala went under theficti t i ous names o f some ancient sages as their

authors . Now there were i n those days a com

p aratively large number o f J ews that had turned

Chr i st ians,and w ho

,i n their renegade zeal

,were

more popish than the pope . They wrote books

against J ews and Judaism,and some occas ional ly

tried their hands at the manufacture of Cabba l i s t icalbooks

,in to which they smuggled some vei led

representat ion o f the Christian dogmas . The

Chr i st ian myst ic s eagerly took ho ld of the Cabbala

for their purposes .

Foremost among them was the I tal ian count

Giovanni Pico del la Mirando la . When quite younghe had been a pupi l o f the J ewish scho lar El ij ahdel Medigo of Candia . But thi s master could not

sat i sfy h i s myst ical propensities,because he belonged

to that section o f J ews that were hos ti le to the

Cabbala . He turned to another master, Joachim

THE CABBAL I STS 29

Allemano,Rabbi O f Constantinople

,w ho l ived in

I taly . P i co was determined to find proofs of

Christian ity in the Cabbala and what cannot be

accompl ished if one tri es hard enough ? And in

h i s cas e i t was not so very hard after al l . He did

not so much enter into the metaphysical s ide o f the

Cabbala as into i ts formal methods . By transposing

at wi l l the letters of the H ebrew alphabet,and by a

free use of thei r numerical values,he managed to

produce results most convincing to h imself.

I t was the same with the German mysti c Agrippavon Nettesheim

,and wi th the ce lebrated J ohann

Reuch lin,t o whom the Cabbala had come from

I taly.

Heinri ch Cornel ius Agrippa von Nettesheim was

born in Cologne 111-

1486. His career was “ half

scientific and half pol i t i cal,but a lways stormy.

He was first a soldi er and fo l lowed the armies o f

the Emperor Maximi l ian . He was knighted,

studied law,medicine

,and languages . As professor

in Hebrew at D616 , i n France,b e publ icly

expounded Reuchlin’

s work on the M iraculous

Word . Then the monks persecuted h im,and he

came to London and lectured there . After many

vici ssitudes he thought he had at last se ttled down

in Metz . But he had to leave that t own for two

reasons : first,because he had the audaci ty o f

opposing the common opin ion that the holy Anna

had had three husbands and,second ly

,because he

30 THE CABBALI STS

had dared to defend a woman that had been

accused o f sorcery . When Lou i sa of Savoy , themother o f Francis I

,appointed him as her phys ician

,

she wanted him also to be her astro loger . H e was

shocked at the idea and indignantly refused ; but atthe very same moment he was engaged in sett ing a

horoscope for the Constable of Bourbon,for whom

he prophes ied a bri l l iant victory over France . He

was expel led,and there was qu i te a rush to receive

him elsew here . He received offers from two

German princes,from the K ing O f England

,and

from Margaret,the governess o f the Netherlands .

He accepted the latter’s invi tat ion,and but a short

t ime after he terminated his chequered career at the

age o f forty-seven years . One of h i s books bears thetitle of De nobilita te et praecellentia foeminei sexus

declamatio a disserta tion on the nobility and

excellengy of the fema le sex) . The reader may

decide whether th i s was penned by the scientific

s ide,or by the po li tical s ide

,or by the mystical

side , or by the pure ly human s ide , i n the character

o f th i s versat i le man . The book has been tran s

lated into English I be l i eve,twi ce . But hi s ch i ef

work is that on the occult philosophy. Here he

handled the letters o f the Hebrew alphabet withunheard o f freedom . The book i s ful l o f tables

and schemes o f transposi ti on o f letters ; and in

this manner he manages to prove whatever he

wishes .

THE CABBALI STS 3 1

The celebrated Reuch l i n was a man of un

fathomab ly higher s ign ificance than Agrippa von

Nettesheim . He also started hi s career with the

study of the Cabbala . He approached a great Rabb i

w i th the request to supp ly him with books on the

Cabbala,but the Rabb i repl i ed that no such books

exi sted in h is p lace ; he moreover advi sed h im to

have nothing to do wi th myst icism . Reuchl in wrote

two Cabbal ist ical books ; the one ent it led De A rte

Cabalistica,and the other De Verbo M irifico , the

Wonderful Word. I n the latter book he also gives

free s cope to an arb itrary transpos i ti on of l etters ,and in serts between the four letters of the tetra

grammaton the letter w, so as to obtain the name

J eshuah,a composi te name

,to wh ich he ascribes

al l sorts o f miraculous propert i es . Great as he w as

as a human ist,hi s contributi ons to phi losophy were

feeb le ; and he assisted i n fert i l i z ing the ground for

the new sprouting, up o f modern sci en ce more by

hi s human ism—the other powerfu l lever i n theupheaval o f mode rn thought and sci ence— than by

h is myst ic i sm . Myst ic i sm,not less than humanism ,

paved the way for a new era o f independent research

in phi losophy and the knowledge o f nature . Thus

we see i n Theophrastes Parace lsus’

s l i fe and en

deavours—which Robert Brown ing wished to makeintel l igib le to the Engl ish publ i c in a remarkable

poetical compositi on—a striking i l lustrat ion of the

trans it ion from the O ld to the new methods along

32 THE CABBALI STS

the paths O f mystic ism . There were Jacob Bohme ,N icholas Cusanus

,Giordano Bruno

,who was burn t

at Rome,who gradual ly led up to the poss ib i l ity o f

a pure phi losophy,and of science based upon

research and experiment .

Looking back upon our Jewish mystics o f the

twe l fth and thirteenth centuries,I cannot he lp con

sidering them o f deserving a h igher place in thehi story o f phi losophy than a Master Eckhart and a

Jacob BOhm e ; they had certai n ly much loft ier aspirations than such men as Agrippa von Nettesheim .

I n estimating these Cabbal i sts I abstained from dis

cussing the claims o f the mystical el ement in human

nature to a vo ice in the consideration o f the highest

problems I did not touch upon the question whatpart these mystical instincts play i n the systems o f

our most advanced metaphysi c ians and physic i sts .

l have placed mysel f upon the standpoin t of thosewho are uncompromisingly antagoni sti c to mys

ticism . But I aver that from this very standpoint

our Cabbal i sts have been unj ustly treated by mostO f our modern J ewish writers . Much has been said

about the dire influences which the Cabbala has

exercised upon the development o f Judaism. Even

if we were— for the sake Of argument—to admit theexistence o f these abuses

,these could not neutral ize

the meri ts o f those whom the inexorable order O f

nature forced in to the channels of the Cabbala. And

it i s more than questionable whether the influences

34 THE CABBALI STS

i t because I forget that I have been here already ?How happy I to forget i t I A remembrance of my

previous conditions would permit me to make a bad

use o f those in which I now move . And have I

then forgotten for ever that which I must forget forthe present ? Or i s i t because too much time

wou ld be lost for me ? Lost,indeed % What

time am I then obl iged to lose ? I s not al l etern i ty

mine

What mystic may have said th is What Cabbal i st

may have spoken these words ? They are not thewords o f any Cabbal ist or mysti c . They are the

words o f no less a person than Gotthold Ephraim

Lessing,the great Lessing

,the clear-headed cri ti c

,

the calmly reason ing ph i losopher. They are the

concluding sentences of h i s treat ise on Die E rz ie

hung des M enscheng eschlechts (the Educa tion of the

human race) . Disagree with Less ing i f you wi l l,but you wi l l no t be able to say that he needed to be

ashamed of these sentiments .

I shal l conclude wi th Lessing’s words . I am

strongly o f op in ion that our Cabbal i sts have not

always been fairly treated by J ewish writers of the

present time . The who le subj ect requ ires an entire

overhaul ing . But about thi s we need n ot be concerned . J ewish hi stor i ography is a comparat ive lyrecent grow th . Time wi l l assuredly show wherethe truth lies . And i f anyth ing

,surely h istory is

able to say Is not al l etern i ty mine ? ”

PROLEGOMENA TO A PH ILOSOPHY

OF THE JEW ISH RELIGION

A Lecture read before the Jews’ College Union Society ,

London,1 909

SOME months ago you honoured me by an invitat ion

to read before you a paper on“ The Phi losoph ica l

Basis o f Tradit ional J udaism .

” My sense of grati

tude fo r th e kindness thus shown me w as neutral i sed

by the conviction that i t was impossib le for me to

grapple with a subj ect l ike th i s . The more I con

sidered the subj ect t he more I saw how unable I

was to deal with it . The w ords “ Tradit io nal

Judai sm made me pause at once . The express io n

serves wel l enough in di scussi on s about certain

asp ects o f J uda ism,and on occasion s when n o

part icu lar prec is ion is demanded. But i n a di s

qu isition i n which phi l osophi ca l exactness o f the

terms employed is o f paramount importance,I d id

not see what use I could poss ib ly make of the termTradit ional Judaism .

%

I f the ra ison d’

etre o f Judaism has to be establ ished

on a ph i losophical bas is,our med itat i on s must needs

result i nto one J udai sm on ly,and i t is when we have

reached the end of our reflections that the question

35

36 THE JEW I SH RELIGION

arises whether any adj ective has to be appl ied,and

,

If so,which i t i s to b e .

I n a strict ly phi losophical enquiry one might even

go so far as to make the question about the right o fJudaism to exi st

,the resu l t

,and not the start ing

point o f the investigati on . As for the adj ective

Trad it ional,i t i s

,i n an enqu i ry on stric t

phi l osoph ical l in es,one of the most unfortunate .

I n the first place,given the term “ Judaism

,

% the

term “ tradit i onal ” i s already expressed . The dis

t inct ion between Judaism based on Scripture alone,

and Judaism based on the latter i n connection with

such tradit i on as are cal led “ Tradltion par excel

lence,has lost al l i ts sign ificance . Written Law and

oral Law do not denote such a partit ion as manypeople would fain draw between the two . Speaking

o f the present t ime,both scr iptural and extra

scriptural behests and doctrines are traditi onal .

The re i s certai n ly a class of people who avow the ir

ob l igation o f adopting scriptura l whi lst rej ecting

the other trad iti ons . But the grounds on which

they profess to be bound by the former are purely

trad i ti onal . For certain reasons,based upon tradi~

t ion,they consider i t their duty to adopt in toto a

document which is neither more nor less than a

tradi ti on put to writing at a certain early peri odfixed by traditi on .

Besides,i f we look into the manner in which such

loyalty to a certain written tradit ion is upheld,i n

THE JEW ISH RELIG ION 37

the face o f a total abrogatio n of the other class o f

tradit i ons,we shall find that i t exi sts more i n name

than i n real i ty . Those who adhere to the wri tten

document,to the exclus i on o f the other trad it i ons

,

cal l the former i n quest ion i n almost every sentence,

test i t by da ta derived from other sources,retai n

what they choose,and rej ect more or less reverently

al l that does not fit in with not ions acquired from

without . That dist inction betw een Scripture and

Trad it i on as a ground of divergence i s philo so

phically unsound, and had , as a matter o f fact , ceased

to be o f any practica l value .

Again,i n reference to a phi losoph ica l basi s of

J udaism,

” the a priori assumpti on of such is

already unph i l osophi cal . The quest ion could pos

sib ly be put i n th i s way :“ Has Judaism a phi lo

so ph ical basi s,

” and “ i f so,where i s i t to be

found And in that case the former quest ion

should be put first . But the treatment o f the whol e

quest i on i s fraught with so many difficulti es,and is

,

at the same t ime, of so del icate a nature

,that I

despaired o f do ing anyth ing even approach ing

j ustice to the subj ect an d that with in the compassof a lecture . But when I reflected upon the task

set me,to speak

,not on ly about a phi lo sophical

basi s of J udaism,but about th e ” phi losoph ical

bas is,a phi losoph ical basi s with the defin i te adjec

t ive,the on ly genu ine basi s

,th e one exclus ively

correct on w hich the who le structure would prove

38 THE JEW I SH RELIG ION

to rest,I reso lved to resign . I t may not be

complimentary to my courage,but I final ly struck

my sai l s before an adj ect ive of three letters .

Al l I can do for the present i s to make a few

remarks on certa in phi lo soph ical aspects o f Judaism .

I should l ike to remind you that I take the wordphi losophy here in i ts strictest sense . I f i t wereon ly a quest ion o f moral i s ing on some prominent

points o f Judai sm,of sett ing forth their grandeur

,

o f exto l l ing certain views about question s connected

with our rel igi on over others,i t would be to lerably

easy,but i t would have noth ing in common with

phi losophy. To test the very foundati ons o f our

bel i ef by the standard o f phi losophical investigati on

i s a task requiri ng considerable powers . I can do

no more n ow than to sketch a few outl ines,to give

head ings o f chapters with in the boundaries o f which

such d isqui s it ion may poss ib ly be carried on .

We should,however

,have to go back very far

before we were in a pos ition to attack the subj ect

itself . As the firs t chapter,I wou ld suggest an

enquiry whether a ph i losophical bas is o f Judaism

can possib ly be found—“ phi lo sophical always to

b e taken in its severest sense . You first pos i t

J udaism,

” and look afterwards for a ph i losophicalfoundation

,with the firm determination to find one .

What connecti on can there be between phi l osophy,

which should posi t noth ing,and derive everyth ing

from the s implest primary pri nc ip les, and the


adopti on of such a compl icated and ful ly equipped

structure as the J ewish rel igi on

Strip Judai sm,and reduce i t to a few simple

pri nciples,se lect from the fu lness o f that which

J udaism offers some th irteen,or even some three

princip les,ignore by do ing so the innumerable

e lements that render Judaism specifical ly J ewish,

and then try to test the princip les thus gain ed by a

ph i lo soph ical standard conceived a priori. But

even in adopting such method you posi t much too

much . A further reflect ion may make us nervous

about the possibi l i ty o f an a p riori phi losophy o f

the J ewi sh rel igion . We might,quite unp hiloso

p hically, posi t as the starting po int some maj or, i nto

which we should,quite unconsci ous ly

,put exactly

as much as,and no more than

,we should be

desirous o f deducing from it . We should convince

ourse lves that we had deduced the existence o fGod,

Revelat ion,our Revelat i on

,and consisten tly

,the

part iculars connected with th is Revelat i on from some

primary, some natural pri ncip les ; we should set up

certain moral,social

,and rel igi ous i deals

,and

perhaps some hygien ic and economical considera

ti ons,and prove them to underl i e a number o f

behests,warn ings

,doctrines

,contained i n that which

our rel igion offers . We could prove al l th i s to our

own sati s fact i on and to the sati sfacti on o f al l w ho

fee l i nc l ined to abide by our arguments,but our

proofs would no t go any further.

40 THE JEW I SH REL IG ION

But,i t may be argued

,i f we cal l i n question the

possibi l i ty of an a p riori phi losophy of the Jewish

rel igion,what wi l l be our posit ion in reference to an

a priori phi losophy of re l igion , J ewish or otherwiseI n thi s respect I would ask you to consi der that

,

stri ct ly spoken,no phi losophy of rel igion has ever

been attempted . I t w as a lways the phi losophy o f acertain re l igion

,o f rel igion A

,B,o r C

,or i t was

phi losophy which considered rel igion i n the course

of i ts me taphysical reflections .But then w e may argue : i f rel igion in a general

sense is thus shown to form an important chapter

o f metaphysics,what h inders us to separate that

chapter from the curriculum that estab l ishes the sum

total o f metaphys ical i nvestigati ons,to consider i t

o n i ts own meri ts,and then to see what use can be

made o f i t fo r the purpose of phi losophical ly con

sidering our own religion

But you wil l agree that i t would be hardly con

sisten t with an a priori ph i losophical consideration

to pick out arbi trari ly one subj ect out o f those whichform— excuse the expression— the metaphysicalstock in trade

,and obediently adopt

,without con

sidering them,the princip les from which the

ph i losopher obtained his views on rel igion . Bes ides ,

you wou ld no t find it an easy task—you wou ld find

the quest i ons relat ing to re l igion to be so inseparab lyintertwined with the general metaphysical quest ion s

,

that you w ouid not be ab le to di st inguish a l ine o f

42 THE JEW I SH RELIGION

certai n state o f security. The phi losophers were soself-satisfied with the so -cal led Leibni tz-Wo lffian

phi losophy . The Deity had been construed cosm o logically, onto logical ly

,and teleo logical ly .

Wolff had described the s oul i n al l i ts detai ls .

Ph i losophers had to do no more than to trim and

keep in order the phi losophical tenets gained in thi s

way. Me ndelsohn had observed a flaw in the

ontological proof of the existence of God,and

appl ied a plaster to it . Teleo logy ran ri ot and

vented i tse lf i n physico -theo logical reflecti ons .

Starting po ints from which to deduce theo logical

convictions were derived from the phenomena o f

storms and earthquakes,the properties o f stones and

plants,the constructi on o f the body

,the l i fe and

techn ical inst incts of particular animals .” The

phi lo sopher Ze l ler,i n po int ing thi s out

,gives a

rather amusing l i st of essays on such subj ects,which

appeared under such t it les as “B ronteo theo logy,

S ismo theo logy,”

Litheo theo logy,”

Phyto

theol ogy,

” “Insecto theo logy,

” “ Me littotheo logy,”

“Acrido theo logy,

” “Ischyo theo logy,

” etc “ The

conclusion s to be drawn,

” says Zel ler,

“ from the

proposit ion s of Leibn itz and Wolff were re ady to

hand in al l their deta i ls . Their successors no t beingable to submit these proposit ions to renewed in

vestigations, and to look fo r a new scientific basis,noth ing remained to them but to l imi t themselves to

sporadi c supplements of the Le ibnitz -Wo lffian


system,and to uti l ise the princip les offered by the

latter,partly for the explanation and part ly for the

pract ical treatment of particular discip l ines .

Then Kant appeared wi th h i s cri t i cal ph i losophy .

The Crit i que o f Pure Reason swept away the who le

fabric on which so m any convict ion s rested , by

scrutin i sing our po ss i b i l i t ies of cogn it i on . When

the work began to be noticed a great number o f

controvers ies were raised . The most honest o f the

o ld schoo l o f ph i losophy proved to be Moses

Mendelsohn . He at once fe lt and pronounced

publ i cly that h i s part in phi l osophy was p layed out

and although in his i n tercourse wi th friend s he ex

pressed the hope that,after al l

,Kant’s cri t i que w ou ld

no t be of great importance, he was candid enough

to confes s that he did no t understand that work .

But Mendelsohn’s hope w as\

no t fu lfi l led . The

period o f Kant ian ph i losophy has,even now

,no t

nearly reached its l imits,and i t wi l l

,i t appears

,be a

long t ime before Kan t’s phi losophy wi l l reach the

stage at wh ich that o f Le ibn it z and Wolff hadarrived at Kant’s t ime .Kant has proved the imposs ib i l i ty o f Onto logy

al though he sti l l adhered to an a priori noti on o f

Das Ding an sich,

” the substratum,o f wh ich we

are on ly ab le to fo l l ow up the phenomena ; the on,the n oumenon

,substance

,matter

,or whatever term

may be appl ied to i t . Fichte averred that i t w as

on ly the Ego w hich pos i ted th e Non-Ego . Das


Ding an Sich disappears,although i t occasi onal ly

crops up again in subsequen t systems .

Bri efly,the fact that Onto logy is impossibl e forces

itself upon our convicti on . With the d i sappearance

o f Onto logy,what becomes of a l l those meta

physical a priori j udgments from whi ch a

ph i lo soph ical foundat i on o f re l igion was to be

deduced ? I f i t i s impossib le to demon strate the

nature,and even th e existence

,o f matter

,how

should i t be poss ib le to demonstrate the nature andexistence of God

,soul

,creat i on

,revelat ion

,and the

number o f not i ons connected therewith ? How

wi l l i t be possibl e to recognise e i ther the purpose o r

the origin of anything,phys ical or metaphysica l ?

We ment ioned the theory of the Ego pos i ting the

Non -Ego,but how is i t possib le phi losophical ly to

recogn ise the Ego

The course taken by modern science in theinvestigation o f Nature does not tend to improve

the interests of a priori demonstrat i on . Te leo logy

wi l l have to share the fate o f Onto logy. The

theories of natural select ion,of the struggle for

existence,wi l l i l l accord with the theory that the

adaptation of every detai l of creation to a certainpurpose was the ra ison d

’

e'

tre of i ts exi s tence . I fthe theor ie s se t up by Darwin

,and fo l lowed up

since h is t ime,be made the basis o f our reflecti on s

,

the resul t wi l l be further i nroads i n the mostun iversal ly adopted not ions . I fear me that our

THE JEW I SH RELIG ION 45

no tion s o f Development and Progress wi l l stand a

poor chance . I th ink I can make thi s c l earer byenunciating i t in the form of paradoxes

,as fo l lows

1 . Everyth ing i n nature shows development.

The development i n nature i s stagnancy because i ti s on ly a regular transformati on of certai n fixed

amounts .

2 . The sum o f progress i s equal to the sum of

deteriorat ion .

3 . Birth i s death and death i s b irth .

4 . Every development begins wi th l i fe and ends

with l i fe,an d has l i fe in al l i ts end less i ntermediate

stages . Every development has death at the

beginn ing of i ts chain and deat h at the end .

Developmen t has n either beginn ing n or end .

5. Nature creates unintermittlngly. Nature

shows no n ew creat ion .

6 . Even the most seemingly l i fe less th ing teems

with l i fe— l ives . I n real i ty,the whole Un iverse i s

an i ner t mass .7 . Mot ive and final i ty are observed everywhere .

Every phenomenon i s without mot ive and without

aim . By general is ing more and more motives

disappear ent ire ly.

8 . Order and regulari ty,both o f shape and

sequence, domineer in nature . Elim i nate man,and

the world i s a chaos .

Contradicti ons o f th i s ki nd force th emselves upon

the mind now as they did in pre-Kantian t imes .

46 THE JEW I SH REL IGION

Certain mystics and phi losophers,both before and

after Kant,so lved them simp ly by the theory that i n

God are un ited a l l contradict ions,by the theory of

the harmony o f contradicti ons . Phi losophers who

scout that not ion often thought to have so lved them

by some phi losophical formula . They enunciated

the difficulty,which they then pronounced to be a

rule .

A formula o f a different kind I do not know,

I do not understand,

” al though common enough to

theo logians,seems rather repuls ive to phi losophers .

And yet th is formula forces i tsel f to the front more

and more . The cogn iti on o f substance i s being

admitted to have narrowed as the knowledge o f

the phenomena of nature widened . Scienti sts and

phi losophers o f the most advanced school have

tried to so lve the riddles,and the ir verd ict as to the

subj ects which exerci se our minds to the utmost ;the ir verdict i s i n some cases dubitemus

,we shal l

alw ays doubt , and i n some ignora biinus , we shal l

never know .

1

Thus,the ground upon which to construct not

only an a priori foundat ion of the J ew ish rel igion,

o f rel igion pure and s imple, but a l so any a priorz

metaphysical j udgments,has been removed from

under our feet . The question then arises how to

proceed ? I t might occur to some that abso lutenegat ion would be the l ogical outcome . But th i s i s

I S ee p . 1 1.


fal laci ous . Non-existence has been proved as l i tt l e

as existence . We might then be led to fa l l i n to that

state o f mind which induced so many to adopt a

middle course,namely

,agnosti ci sm . There are

many people who profess neither to bel ieve nor todisbel ieve

,nei ther to affirm nor deny . But on

reflect ion we shal l see that hardly anybody has

succeeded in l iving up to that convicti on,i f i t be

true that i t ever reached that stage ; i n theory he

denies,i n practice he affirms

,or vice versa. Thus

i t i s and thus i t must be,because the agnost ic

,l ike

h i s fel low,i s a human being . Reason forces us to

rej ect,reason forces us to assume . Neither b l ind

fai th in arbitrari ly assumed tenets,nor severe

ideal i sm,nor exclusive material i sm

,wi l l succeed in

sati sfying the cravings and regu lat ing the conductof man . Blind fai th would have to resort to per

s i stent,and yet fut i l e

,attempts to ki l l doubt

,t o

ki l l everyth i ng that i s essential ly human i n nature.

Ideal ism cannot have anyth ing but theoretical significance . Material i sm rigorously appl ied to man’s

in tercourse with hi s fel low,with wife and ch i ld

,is

noth ing el se but an abstracti on,and has no existence

i n fact . There is,therefore

,noth ing for i t but to

face the matter,to reckon with man as he is

,to

reckon with human nature .

The way has again been po inted out by Kant .H is disti nction between Pure Reason and Practical

Reason gives the d irect i on . A number of not i ons


which we are unable to arr ive at by Pure Reason

w e are compel led to adopt by Practical Reason .

We assume them because we must,i t i s imperat ive

that we shou ld do so . Kant’s arguments were

fol lowed up and modified by his successors : theyconst i tute a rational basi s on which to work . But

we must b e careful to pursue such work accordingto the methods appl ied to science i n modern t imes .

There i s a comple te s imi lari ty of method in our

t imes betw een phi losophy a nd physical science .

Formerly,physical sc ience not l ess than ph i losophy

tr i ed to construe a priori the nature o f matter .

Modern science recognises on ly observation and

exper iment,and starts on ly from phenomena . Thi s

i s also done,or

,at leas t

,ought t o be done

,by

modern ph i losophy . I t i s id le to specu lat e on thenature of the Ego and the Non -Ego . We have to

assume both,and to consider the way in which

they affect each other. What concern s us at th is

moment is the question,i n how far practi cal reason

compels us to accept the notion of rel igion,and in

how far rel igion i s an essentia l requirement of theEgo . The first questi o n affe cts certain th ingsbeyond us

,which would have existence eve n i f

no human be ing existed ; the second is purely a

question concern ing ourse lves . Here we have againthe headings o f tw o Chapters one o n the necessi ty

or otherwise o f rel igion to man,and the s econd on

rel igion . I t wi l l be c onven ient to consider the


pains to manufacture and remodel God after the irow n image , after their own nature . So many

phi losophers,so many Gods . The mind of man

ranges along the course from rigid pantheism toinconce ivable sp iritual i ty . Outside phi losophy the

human mind al ighted upon strange concept ions

about the Dei ty. Primitive generation s were on lyable to conce ive abstract ideas under the forms o f

things palpab le and visi ble . The phenomena o f

nature were worsh ipped di rectly or indirectly in theforms o f persons . A gross demonology

,a crude

worship o f th ings materi al prevai led . But nei therpopular beli efs nor phi lo sophica l scrutiny has

resulted in to such a conception o f God as to be

sati sfactory at the same t ime both to our re ligous

cravings and the demands o f our reason . I t e i ther

led to mean ingless and even immoral ri tes , o r i t

le ft the heart co ld and cravings for a commun ication

with God unsati sfied . The invest igation carried on

in this chapter wi l l therefore have to deal with thequesti on as to whe re we are to find the gu ide tol ead us safely through the lab vrinth of notions about

God,to rescue us from aberrat ions and to show us

what i t rea l ly i s to which the demands o f re l igion

must l ead us,over and above the recogn ised

demands of our moral dut i es .A fre sh chapter wi l l be required here for fixing

the method to be adopted i n order to arrive a t an

answer to the questions put in the previous chapter .

THE JEWISH REL IG ION 1

On ly one method suggests i tself,th e one which is

i n use in al l discipl ines that admi t o f observat i on and

experience . I nduct ion first,deducti on stepping i n

at the proper stage,i n order to arrive at construction .

Samson Raphael H irsch wrote about seventy or

eighty years ago that the method to be appl i ed to

invest igat i ons about the Torah was the same as that

app li ed to inquiri es about nature . “ I n nature , he

says,

“ the phenomena are facts,and we are inten t to

spy ou t a posteriori the law o f everyon e and the

connect ion o f al l . The proof o f the truth , or rather,o f the probabi l ity of our assumpt ion s

,i s again nature

itself,by the phenomena of wh ich we have to t est our

assumption s,so as to reach the h ighest degree ever

attainab le,which i s

,to be able to say

,everything

is actual ly as i f our assumption s were true ; or, i n

o ther words,the phenomena brought under our

observation can be exp lain ed by our assumption .

I t is,therefore

, our duty to gather al l experience that

can poss ib ly be obtained about the phenomena

which are the subj ect o f our i nvestigat ion s, etc .”

That wh ich i s said here about the Torah appl ies

equal ly to re l igion . The Torah,H irsch says

,

“is

a fact l ike H eaven and Earth . So i s Rel igion in

its general sense . As proved in a previous chapter,Rel igio n i s a necessi ty

,a law o f nature

,a fact l ike

Heaven and Earth . We have, therefore , to assum e

i t as a phenomenon ; we have to trace its particu lars

and the vari ous modes in wh ich i t found expression .


From these we must general i se,and the verification

of the results must again be looked for in these

parti culars and mod es o f express ion themselves .

Consequently,we shal l have to consider what we

know about re l igion,and which phenomena i n the

region of rel igion the hi story o f mankind offers .

The quest i on wi l l,happi ly

,be narrowed

,so as to

confine ourselves to a dist in ct field for our

observat i ons o f the phenomena o f re l igion . For

whatever in terest the crude not ions o f the lower

forms of rel igion may have for the anthropo logist

or the psycho logi st,we shal l be en ti tl ed to neglect

them in our enquiry,or

,at most

,to cons ider them

very bri efly . We have the right to direct ouratten tion at once to re l igion in i ts most transcendental

concept ion .

The Greeks developed the concept ion of the

beaut i fu l i n the highest degree . They gave it l i fei n plast ic representat ions

,and in their poetry . At

the same t ime they became the world’s teachers in

phi losophy . They possessed an elaborate myth

o logy,based original ly on the deification o f the forces

o f nature,and finding express i on in certain r i tes

and obscure,questionable mysteries . The Romans

gave the world the sc i ence o f jurisprudence, but asregards re l igion they did no t rise above po lytheis ti cnotions about the gods . Conceptions o f a purer

kind obtained with some peoples in the far East,

that i s to say, i n their purer man ifestati ons,

THE JEW I SH RELIGION 53

parti cularly in those taught by the Buddha ; but

even in them it i s a lways the gods,on ly they are o f

various degrees ; h igher gods, with an idea o f a

highest god,with which men shou ld str ive ul t imately

to be un i ted,or final ly to cease to exi st . The

crude worsh ip or modes o f worsh ip into wh ich

these concepti ons degenerate may be neglected .

1

I n whatever form,and to whatever length the

enquiry may be carried on as to the physi o logy—so

to say—of rel igious bel i efs,we shal l ult imately have

to come to th e conc lusi on that manki nd owes to

the Jews the most tran scendental concept i on s o f

God and rel igi on . I f on ly keeping true to the

method of observing phenomena before anyth ing

e lse,we shal l find that rel igi on as promulgated by

the J ews , taught to~ discard the worsh ip o f nature

,

an d ideas conceived under the form o f natural

phenomena . J udai sm is,therefore

,that pheno

menon i n regard to re l igions to wh ich the aforesaid

method must be pre-eminen tly app l i ed . J udai sm

fixed the not ions about God as to incorporeal i ty,ln

vis ibi l i ty,omnipotence

,omniscience

,l ove

,and

infin i te mercy ; i t estab l ished God as Creator,

Providence,and Eterna l . I t demanded recogni ti on

o f Him,and o f Him on ly, and i t held forth the

prospect that al l earth would be ful l o f the recog

nition of H im as the water covers the sea . Ourchapter would have to deal with these and s imi lar

I A fuller enquiry into these top ics w ould b e highly imp ortant ,but it is b eyond the scop e of this lecture ,


considerations about God and rel igion,and with

the questi on a s to what sort o f worship the J ewish

rel igion demands of mankind at large .

This would raise another prob lem requir i ng achapter of i ts own . The subj ects of cons iderationwould be

,first

,i n how far the Jewish not ions about

God and H is worsh ip have taken hold of the Jewishrace secondly

,i n how far the nat ions have modified

them and thirdly,whether such modificati on i s an

improvement or a deteriorati on . Chri st i ans averthat i t was Chr i stian ity that gave the J ewish notionstheir pure spi r i tual i ty . I t i s an astounding assertion

,

bu t the ph i l osopher must reckon with i t,and must

do so agai n by the l ight of observation o f the

phenomena . He wi l l then find that Chri st ian i tyturned backward from the transcendental i ty o f theJewish not ions i n two ways . First

,i t returned to

some extent to the pr imit ive pagan impulses o f conceiving abstract ideas in forms offered by physica lnature and secondly

,i n stead of taking man out o f

himself and l i ft ing him up to God,i t again made

man the centre from w hich the concepti on o f God

starts and to which i t returns . I n the latter respecti t reckons

,moreover

,too much with the emotions

,

to the neglect o f man’s intel l ectual,physica l

,and

social endowments . Ve ry momentous cons iderations these

,over which I regret be ing obl iged to

hurry,but which would make the present chapter

the most del icate o f the enqu iry .

THE JEW I SH RELIGION 55

The next chapter would i nvest igate the ques t ion

how the J ewish nation acquired i ts transcendental

notions about God and rel igion . Two answers

sugge st themse lves i t was e ither by a developmen t

of general human insti ncts,which were parti cu larly

keen in the Jewi sh race,o r i t was by d irect d ivine

interference,by revelat i on . Darwin

,at the c lose of

h i s “ Descent of Man,

” appl i es the laws o f phys ical

evo lut i on to explain the acquis i t i on by man of h i sideas about God . That the re l ig i ous consc iousness

o f mankind grew and acquired a determined shape,

e i ther by gradual development,o r as a resu l t o f

evolution,is a maxim which has acquired the

authority of a creed . But the ph i losopher must

have the courage to test i ts val id ity. ls rel igi on

progress ive ? The -same quest i on obtain s i n reference to eth ics : i s ethi cs progress ive ? This latter

quest ion,although not the subj ect o f our enquiry

,

i s,however

,very much akin to i t

,for i t i s Chris

tianity that c laims to have bestowed upon the human

race a h igher s tandard o f moral ity than ever known

before,and much beyond that which Judaism

offered . Let us hear what Pro fessor Huxley repl i ed

when that c laim was put forward . He says,

1 “ But

there are a good many people who th ink that i t i sobvious that Chr i st ian i ty al s o i nheri ted a good dealfrom Pagan ism

,and from Judai sm

,and that i f the

Sto ics and the J ews revoked their bequest the moral

I Sci ence a nd Mora ls. Collected Essays, IX, p . 145.


property of Christ iani ty would real ise very l i tt le .

And in hi s essay on “ Agnost ici sm and Chri stianity,

he says,

1 “ Again,al l that i s best in th e eth ics of the

modern wor ld,i n so far as i t has no t grown out of

Gre ek thought,or Barbarian manhood

,i s the direct

development o f the eth ics o f old I srael . There i sno code of legislat ion

,ancien t or modern

,at once

so j ust and so merci ful,so tender to the weak and

the poor,as the Jewish Law .

”

On the poin t of the progressive nature of ethi csor otherwise i t wi l l be conven ient to quote T . H .

Buckle on the subj ect,as i t wi l l save the necessi ty

o f again h inting—within the compass of a lecture

at part i cularly J ewish eth ics . He says : “To do

good to others,to sacrifice for their benefit your

own wishes,to l ove your ne ighbour as yourself

,to

’

forgive your enemies,to re strain your passions

,to

respect tho se who are se t over you these and a

few others are the so le essential s o f morals ; but

they have been known for thousands o f years,and

not one j o t o r t i tt l e has been added to them .

” Buckle

adds in hi s notes : “ That the system o f morals

propounded in the New Testament contained nomaxim which had not been previous ly enunciated

,

and that some o f the most beaut ifu l passage s inthe Aposto l ic wr i t ings are quotat ions from pagan

au thors i s we l l known to every scho lar . S ir John

Mackinto sh was so struck by the stat ionary character

I Collected Essays , V , p . 315.


the acknowledgment of the abso lute un ity of God,is of subordinate importance . I t requ ires a certainamount o f i nte l lectual reflect ion for nati on s todimin i sh the number o f the ir gods

,and

,at last , to

arrive at the acceptance o f no more than a dua l i tyof gods ; as, for instance , a god of l ight and a god

of darkness,or a god and an anti -god . But the

gul f gaping between the cogn i ti on of even so smal l

a numb er as two and the abso lute J ewish monotheism is so enormous

,which to clear would require

such extraord inary mental capaci ties,that i t would

be astounding if any nat i on had ever been able to

accompl ish i t . The d ifficu l ty would be th e same i fthe dist in ct i on drawn by some cri t ics between

monolatry and monotheism had any substance in

fact . The motives for the drawing of that di st inction

would a l so have to be la id bare in the same chapter.Our inqu iries wou ld next lead us to conside r the

phenomena offered by the J ewish tradi t ions,wri tten

or otherwise,wh ich form the sources from which

the rel igions of the present t ime are main ly derived,

and we should have to di scuss the way in whi ch theyaffect us Jews in parti cular. Here i s material for

a number of chapters,but on ly the meres t indicat ions

can be given here .

Let me say at once that the apo loget ic chapters

shou ld occupy a very smal l space indeed . Let usput our own house in o rder, and recogn i t i on wi l lfo l low , or not, accord ing to the greater or lesser


freedom of mind possessed by those outs ide .

Apology should only be resorted to where d irect

attacks have been made . But then we shal l be

asked : have we not seen already that the J ewi sh

rel igi on expects that the earth become ful l of the

knowledge o f God “ as the waters cover the sea”

This open s up the quest ion of I srae l’s mission,of

that wh ich I srae l i s meant to accomplish . How then

should I srael proceed ? Three ways suggest them

selves : (1) aggress ive methods, (2) defens ive

warfare,and (3 ) a th ird method—which i s the

essential ly J ewi sh one— th e constan t w atch ing over

the mach inery devi sed to accompl i sh the work,so

that i t may effect the des i red resu lt in a natural,i.e.

,

i n a divinely d i rected manner .

The problem of a‘

un iversa l un i ty o f worship i s

c lose ly conn ected with these reflect ions,and deserves

a chapter o f i ts own . I firmly bel i eve that our

i nvest igations wi l l resu lt in the acceptance o f the

poss ib i l i ty o f a un iversal recogn it ion o f the uni ty o f

God without,at the same time

,a union o f al l man

k ind ln the mode o f giving i t express ion,and

certain ly wi thout a un iversal worsh ip . As long as

human nature remains what the experi ence o f

thousands of years showed i t to be,rel igion s wi l l

d iffer , even i f on e leading princip le were un iversal ly

adopted . An Esperanto or Volapuk rel igion wi l l be

as l i tt le real i sab le as an esperanto o r volapuklanguage . Experi ence has shown that the subl im e


ideal of a universal re ligion has been at the bottomof al l rel igious persecuti ons .As for ourselves

,being J ews

,and remaining Jews

,

what does th is J udaism demand of us Again

keeping stri ct ly to observat ion,we shal l

,i n the

chap ter devo ted to the consideration of our relati onsto God

,find that the leading principle i s the fu lfil

ment of God ’s wi l l . B l i ss—or sa lvation,or beatitude

—and perfect ion,cannot be motives

,but

,at most

,

on ly accesso ry consequences . The ideas o f the goodof our sou ls

,the saving o f the sou ls

,even when

raised to their h ighe st concepti on,are not devo id o f

the not ion of enj oyment and uti l i tar ian i sm,tending

again to centre everyth ing in man . God demands,

not that w e should mere ly enj oy or suffer,but

,

above al l,that we should serve H im . Our re l igion

offers us the machinery by which to keep th isconstantly before our eyes ; t o schoo l our acti ons,thoughts and fe e l ings to the executi on o f that duty .

Man,when left to h imse l f

,i s prone to forget

,to

neglect,to fal l i nto a l l sorts of aberrat ion s n ot on ly

such as al ienate man a l together from God,but such

also as lead him astray in the ve ry desire o f

worshipp ing H im .

One of these erro rs i s the idea that we are able toknow God and serve H im by abrogating our humannature

,by crush ing our materia l requ irements, or

by reducing them to a min imum . I f w e suffer

ourselves to be persuaded by our intel lect to use the


latter for question ing the demands of our otherpsych ical possess i ons and our material n eeds

,we

abuse our i n tel lect j us t as much as i t would be an

abuse o f our natural impu l ses, our feel ings , emotions,des ires

,to al low them to domineer over our i n tel l ect

o r our body . Man i s not al together intel lect,nor

altogether fee l ing,nor altogether an imal ; he i s a

total i ty of forces,none o fwhich should predominate

at the cost of the o thers . All psych ical or corporeal

forces should combine to keep the balance . Again,

not al l men are equal ly organ ised,and aberra ti ons

are i nevitab le . A regulator i s wanted to check h im

and prope l h im as the occas ion requires . Such

regulator is offered us by our rel igion .

Experience teaches us that n o human interest i s

safeguarded,without some chosen few w ho have i ts

requirements part icu larly at heart,and devo te them

selves ent ire ly to its superi ntendence . I n rel igion

that c lass o f persons are cal led pri ests,and the

performance o f certa in rites,in which the devotional

consc iousness o f those who profess that rel igion

culminates,is exclus ively ass igned to them . I n the

fami ly of mankind such priesthood was ass ign ed to

a Who le nat ion of heredi tary pri ests,se lected for that

purpose from thei r apti tude to these dut i es,cal led

the J ews,who— wheels with in wheels—have again

a hereditary pri esthood of their ow n . The J ews

were estab l i shed to form “ a Kingdom o f Pri ests and

Holy People ” to be the bearers of rel ig ion and of


the service o f God . As priests they rece ived a

system of ri tes,not binding upon the lay nat ions

,

bu t necessary to them in their p ontifical capacity.

Thi s system regulates above al l th ings the actions ;i t i s a guide how to regu late l i fe . The highestp itch of moral perfection is demanded by th is

system,to serve as a substratum on which to

base the rel igious requirements . That re l igio n does

no t cons ist i n the mere teaching of a system,i n

the mere exhortation to act i n a certain way,i n

a mere body o f maxims to po in t out the road,and

then let everyone sh ift for h imsel f in his attempts to

keep to them . The train ing method of the J ewish

re l igion,i s di fferent ; i t educates, which means i t

bend s the associati on of ideas into a certain directi on,

which adverse influences may slacken but n ever

entire ly unbend,much less force i nto the opposi te

di rection . The J ew has to practise that which i s

good,he has to perform acti ons which symbol ise al l

that i s good and pure,and has to perform them as

behests o f the divine wi l l . By practis ing them he is

being trained to understand that the thing he was to ld

to be good was good in real i ty ; and it gives h im the

impu l se to undertake for h imse lf other actions s imi larto them

,and

,therefore

,equal ly good . I n th i s way

action and thought come to affect each otherreciprocal ly . Constant practi ce gives a di st inct

d irect ion to hi s ideas and to groups o f ideas,and

di stinct groups o f i deas entai l d istinct ac tions. His


associa ti on s and groups o f associat ions receive a

dist in ct d irecti on . A single good or bad action does

not make a good o r bad man . The question i s

wh ich associat ions and groups o f associat ions pre

dominate . If they were directed from the first

on ly to the good,a bad thought

,and certain ly a

group of bad thoughts,wi l l have great d ifficul ty t o

overcome the predominan t good ass ociat i on s,and

the man trained in th i s way is a good man .

The J ewish Law is the educational med ium for

the J ew’

s service o f God ; i t protects h im who

observes i t from the arb i trary predominance of the

intel lect over th e o ther psych ical forces from the

attempts of crush ing the wants o f the body or rat ional

thought,or the emoti on s o f the heart . Everyth ing

harm on ises—and therefore,whi lst l i ft ing man up to

God,i s,at the same t ime

,so essent ial ly adapted to

human nature . Thi s i t i s which has not been under

stood,and which has so frequently been ignored

by J ews themselves at various peri ods o f the i r h istory.

This misapprehens io n cannot be better described

than in the words of Franci s Bacon . He says“ Prosperi ty i s the bless ing of the O ld Testament

,

adve rs i ty is the bless ing of th e New ; which carrieth

the greater benedict ion , and the clearer re lat i on o f

God’s favour . Yet even in the O ld Testament,f

you l i s ten to David’s harp you shal l hear as

many hearse-l ike airs as caro ls ; and the penci l

of the H oly Ghost laboured more i n descri bing


the affl ict i ons of J ob than the fel i ci tati ons o f

So lomon .

” Yet even . Thi s “ yet even

gives the c lue . Whilst in the J ewi sh Rel igion

God is so subl imely divine,and man never i s

asked to abrogate h i s human nature,other rel igion s

tend to dishumanise man and to humanise God .

This far I have on ly deal t with general aspects ,w i thout entering upon detai ls . I cann ot do morenow than add a catalogue o f topics whi ch would

require discussion in separate chapters .Ana logy with o ther nati ons . Simi lar customs o f

other nat ions . Simi lar creeds of other nations .

Revelati ons and divin e manifestations a l l eged to

have been rece ived by othe r nations . Such analogy ,such s imi l i tude is unavo idable . a wil l be equal to

a,but a ’

w ill not be equal to a x. The gross

amount o f un iversal ly human features wi l l be a , the

distinctive Jewish characteristi cs wi l l be x . We shall

have to invest igate the x i nherent in Judai sm . Our.a wi l l be equal to the un iversal human a

,but i t i s

the divi ne spark whi ch consti tutes our x. I n thi s

way we shal l find out what i t i s that makes our

Judai sm specifical ly J ewish . We shal l a lways find

that the leading idea is the fulfi lment o fGod ’s wi l l .

We should have to consider the documents in

which the system is contained,the source s from

which i t emanates,i ts h i stor i cal basis

,the results

wh ich i t has achieved both W i th in and w i thou t .We must cons ider what J udai sm reveals about God

,

A UN IV ERSA L RELIGION

Lecture read before the West End Jewish Literary Society ,

London,Februa ry ,

1 91 1

I INVITE you to cast with me a glance upon th e

good s ide o f human nature . A glance,and n o

more . No more than a glance i s poss ible . The

go od impulses o f the human heart are too numerous

and to o many-s ided to converge to the focu s o f

human comprehensi on . He who has experienced

the greatest number o f i ts man i festat i ons has on ly

witnessed a few of i ts aspects the most opt imist ic,

and the most experi enced wi thal,can on ly survey a

l imi ted tract wi th in i ts infin i te domain . Thi s may

be as true o f the bad s ide of human nature .

Perhaps so . But i t i s to one o r tw o o f the latter’s

functions in the good directi on that I ask you to

give your attent i on for a moment .

The wish to make others share the happiness we

enj oy i s not the least o f our good impulses . I n

valuable i s the desire to re l i eve others o f care and

sorrow,o f suffering and despai r . The inst inct to

find truth is one o f the nob lest endowments o f the

human soul . The subj ugati on of our carnal ln

c linations,so as to make them subservi ent to the

demands of eth i cs and rel igion,i s a glori o u s feature

67

68 A UN IVERSAL RELIG ION

in man’s exis tence . These,and many kindred

propensities,would be enough to give man the

exalted posi ti on he occupies in the world o f l iving

beings .

These superior qual it i es have amalgamated,they

have combined and formed one homogeneous

ent i ty . They have become the dominant powe r in

man,in groups o f men

,i n communities

,i n races .

Al l the members o f a people have consented to give

that growth the ful lest play,so that i t might strike

root,and from its ramificat ions

,which would shelter

al l mankind,shower i ts b l i ssfu l fru i t over al l

,and

bring i t wi th in the reach o f every one . They set

to work shoulder to shoulder,they engaged act ively

in the work of making the whole human race one

mass of happiness ; and cri es o f anguish ro se to

heaven from al l parts,human blood flowed like

water,unheard o f tortures were infl icted

,wholesale

massacres were inst i tuted,wars of extermination

supervened,the ho l iest bonds were di sso lved

,the

human heart became brutali sed for benefactors o f

mankind had reso lved to befri end al l the members

o f the human race,and to cause them to participate

in the h ighest good attainab le by man .

For these benefactors were convinced that they

had reached the pinnacle o f al l that is desirab le .They had persuaded themselves that the highest

good did no t consist in worldly possessi ons,i n

honour,i n grat ified ambit ion

,i n glory

,in i ndulgence

A UN IVERSAL RELIG ION 69

i n the desires o f the flesh . Their minds soared

higher. They Sought fo r that wh ich w as above

themselves . They recogn ized that they depended

on powers that were beyond their contro l . The

re l igious inst incts,i nnate in every one , asserted

themselves . But they asserted themse lves in d ifferen t

ways . Peoples acknowledged God,or acknow

ledged gods,each in hi s own way . The modes o f

worsh ip d iffered wide ly,ri tes and ceremon ies varied .

The notions abou t a d ivine power,or about divine

powers,found expressi on in various acts o f worsh ip .

Allow me to sketch briefly one o f these develop

ments,those o f the Chri st ian re l igion . Acts of

rel igious worship came to be cons idered by many

as i n fer i or man ifestat ions o f man ’s concepti on s o f

the divine,who

,they

‘

thought, ought to be concerned

about the concepti ons themse lves on ly . They

placed the whole weight of man’s duty towards God

in the acknowledgment o f these concept ions . They

assumed that,once acknowledge these concepti on s

,

you have abso lved al l your re l igious dut ies . Ph i lo

soph ical,or rather

,theosoph i cal speculat ions

,had

come to express that which was required to be

acknowledged under the term of “ the Word .

I t was preached that i n the beginn ing was theWord

,and the Word was wi th God

,and the Word

was God . No one could be sure that he who

acknowledged al l those noti ons which were attached

to that term th e Word ”w as real ly convinced o f


them in h i s heart . Bu t,at least

,l et h im pronounce

“ the Word,let h im assert hi s bel i ef in “ the

Word,l et -him utter the formula

,i.e.

,le t him

acknowledge the n otions which the term was

assumed to express,and he was cons idered to have

done h is duty.

Again,a ut i l i tarian motive stepped in . The

concepti on of a l ife after death became an inherent

factor i n the mental l i fe of mankind . I t took var i ousforms . Suffice i t for the pre sent to note that formaccording to which the sou l i s bel ieved to survive

after the decomposi t ion o f th e bodi ly remains .The soul i s bel ieved to be answerable afterdeath for the l i fe l ong mer i ts or aberrati onso f i ts bearer dur ing h i s l i fetime on earth . Afte r

death the sou l i s to be rewarded for the virtuesor to expiate the s ins of i ts bearer ; the soul

i s to enj oy the sweets o f heaven ly glory or to be

condemned for ever,or for a long durat ion of t ime .

The soul may b e saved from pe rdit ion for al letern i ti es by God’s mercy. Bu t such mercy couldon ly b e vouchsafed by an intermediary agency

,and

then on ly provided that agency had been ackn ow

ledged . Consider what interest o f paramountimportance was thus at stake . I t was e i ther b l i ssand beati tude for aye and eve r, o r perdi t i on and

inconceivab le suffer i ngs,perhaps for aye and ever .

Once convinced of the efficacy in th is direction of

the acknowledgment of “ the Word and the agency,

A UN IVERSAL REL IG ION 71

and who would hes itate to pronounce i t ? Whose

heart wou l d be so cal lous as to wi thhold fromothers that heal ing remedy that bears salvat i on in

its train

Aga in,th is desi re of benefit ing others

,by that

wh ich was bel i eved to be the practical resul t o f

rel igious duty fu lfi l l ed,gathered strength from

another powerful motive . The bel i ef gained ground

that the service of God,according to the ri tes and

act i ons o f a l imi ted commun ity,of a race o f men

,

was obj ecti onable . I t was erroneous ly assumed

that such servi ce o f a particular body o f men was

tantamoun t to a di sregard of the re l igi ous interes t

of al l those who sto od outside that body . Whatever

the rights of the matter may be,a convict i on spread

that there could not exi st re l igi ous dut ies in which

al l members o f the human race were not equal ly

bound to share . The duty o f one was the duty o f

al l . No attent i on should be paid to diversi ty o f

his tory and vi ciss i tudes of race,o f diffe rences o f

psycho logical endowments between one group o f

men and another. I t was thought that the re l igi ous

bel iefs,wh ich peop le had persuaded themselves to

be the on ly true ones,should be carri ed far and

wide,so that every s ingle member o f every variety

o f the human race should be made cogn izan t o f

th em . The duty was conceived o f carrying the

message,which was cal led the good message

,al l

over the world . On ly acknowledge the truth o f the


message,pronounce your adherence to the Word ,

and the n—you may hear the adage every day if youchoose—and “ then you are saved,

” by which they

mean to imply that your soul , which was otherwi se

lost,wou ld now be saved from perdi ti on . The idea

o f carrying the message was taken up with an

earnestness and a thoroughness which can on ly

disp lay i tsel f in a cause of that kind . The message

i tsel f became subj ect to different interpretat ion s,each o f which c la imed to be the so le true one .

There was to be a catho l ic ity of rel igious be l ief ;the universal i ty o f re l igious bel i ef which each o f

the representat ives of the message cons idered the

exclusively admiss ib le one,was to be not on ly a

un iversal i ty i n theory bu t a un iversal i ty i n fact .The motive power may have had its origin i n some

of the noblest impu l ses ; the impu lse to save one’s

fe l low men from the most heinous o f s in s,to induce

him to attain the h ighest Virtue to save him frometernal perdit i on

,and instead

,procure fo r him the

means o f securing eternal b l i ss and beati tude . Therepresentat ives o f the good message carried

,each

his ow n i n terpretat ion,far and wide

,and again the

bearers o f each interpretat i on strove to convert the

bearers o f al l o thers to their own views .

They tried to achieve al l thi s by sermons,by

curses,by minatory ebul l i ti ons

,by cold s teel

,by fire

and water, by refinement of cruel ty and torture, bywholesale massacres

,by holocausts of commun it i es


tions found i t a powerful weapon for the furtheranceo f their ow n i nteres ts . Ambiti on in the form o f

hierarchi cal dominati on found i t a godsend . I t

proved a mighty instrument at the service of

co lon is ing enterpri ses,o f the conquest and occupa

tion of newly d iscovered terri tories,of the satisfacti on

o f earth-hunger,that besetting sin from which many

powerfu l states are suffe r i ng . The mischi evous

effects o f re l igious miss i ons abroad,i n connection

either wi th the furtherance or the di sturbance o fpo l i t i ca l interests

,have never been so convincingly

set forth as by so great an authori ty as the late

Marquis o f Sal i sbury,whi lst he was Prime Min ister

o f England . On June 19th, 1900, the Society forthe Propagation of the Gospe l i n Foreign Parts metin Exete r Ha l l to ce leb rate the b i-cent enary of theirexistence . I t i s noteworthy to observe how

,on that

occas ion,Lord Sal i sbury would have l iked to express

h i s Whole hear ted approval o f the work of theSociety

,b ut how h is pol it ical consci ence constra ined

h im to utter some warn ings which must have sounded

very discordant to h i s audience . I n the course o fh is remarks he said : “ I am here perhaps rather astrange r

,for I must n ot conceal from you that at

the Foreign Office missionar i es are not popu lar, andthat perhaps the Fo reign Office may look upon merather as a de serter i n appear ing upon your platformat the pre sen t t ime . But

,as your pre s ident has

pointed ou t,the means of communication were no t


(i n former times) as they are n ow. Now th ings

are considerably altered,and that very increased

means o f communication,that very augmentation

of the power o f opi n ion and men to affect men by

the mere conquests we have achi eved in the materia l

domain—those very conquests,whi le undoubted ly

they are,as the A rchbi shop sai d

,an invitat i on from

Providence to take advantage of the means o f

spreading the Gospel,are also the means by which

the l ives o f many and the acts o fmany which are not

who l ly consistent with the ideal which is preached

in the pulp it,and which we read of in the holy book

,

are brought home to the knowledge o f the mi l l ion s

whom we seek to address . I f an evangel i s t or

an apostle,a Bon iface o r a Columba

,preached i n

the Middle Ages,he faced the d iffi cult ies and under

wen t the martyrdom,he braved the torments to

which he was exposed . But now,i f a Bon iface

or a Co lumba i s exposed to th i s martyrdom,the

resu l t i s an appeal to a Consul for the missi on o f a

gunboat i t give s men the opportun ity and the

temptation to attach a d i fferen t meaning to that

preach ing,and to suspect i t o f obj ects wh ich are far

away from the thoughts o f those who urge i t . They

have a proverb in the East : F i rst the M issionary,then the Consu l

,then the General . Speak ing o f

the attempts to convert the Mahommedans,Lord

Sal i sbury proceeded : “You wi l l no t convert them

I wi l l not sayyou wi l l never do so . God knows that

76 A UN IVERSAL RELIGION

that i s far from our fears . But,deal ing with events

of the moment,I th ink that your chances of con

version,as proved by our experi ence

,are infinitely

smal l compared to the danger o f creating great

peri l s and producing serious co nvuls i ons,and

,may

be,of caus ing bloodshed

,which wi l l b e a serious

and permanen t obstacle to that Chri s t ian rel igionwhich we desi re above all to preach .

”

But among these accessory motives,such as

statecraft and pri estcraft,the idea o f a un iversal

rel igion,though obscured

,i s n o t lost s ight o f.

And it may be enunciated as an aphorism ,that the

i dea o f a un iversal rel igion i s at the bot tom of al l

rel igious persecut i ons . Th i s i s the more curious,

because those very abuses would disappear of them

selves should the ideal be real ized,and because the

abol i t i on of those abuses i s one of the main obj ects

which the promoters o f a catho l ic i ty of re l igionseek to procure . Fo r

,cut the knot

,make an end

o f al l d ivers i ty o f re l igion and introduce un iversa l i ty,

al l re l igious hatred wi l l d i e o f i ts own accord . And

therefore let there be a un iversa l rel igion and

catho l ic ity o f worsh ip .

But at the very outset a d ifficul ty obtrudes itself

wh ich i t i s imposs ib le to surmount . What form o f

bel ief and worship i s it that i s to embrace the whole

of the human race,that i s to become cathol i c ?

With in Christ ian ity on ly,there is Roman Catho

licism, Greek or Orthodox Cathol ic i sm, Anglican


Catho l ic i sm,and several o ther denominat ion s who

bel ieve that their form o f fai th i s to conquer the

world . I s lamism professes to be the rel igion tothe adopt ion of wh ich al l mankind should be

compel led,even by force of arms . Kuenen took

for the subj ect o f his H ibbert Lectures, i n 1882,

“National Rel igions and Un ive rsal Religi on s,

” and i t

i s obvious,even from the plural form of the t i t le

,

that the word un iversal ” i s n o t taken in the sense

which the ideal i st ic benefactors o f mankind attach

to i t .

But I cal l ed the d ifficulty i n the way o f the

real izati on o f the ideal insurmountab le . I t i s true,

i t i s hoped to establ i sh a catho l i c i ty o f re ligi on

wi thout the aid o f an inqu is i t i on,without torture

,

without auto-da-fe ’

s, without kidnapp ing o f ch i ldren ,without test acts

,withou t c ivi l d i sab i l i t ies

,or

forced sermons,or pales o f sett lement

,without

spiri tua l i s ing cups o f tea,or salvat ion bearing boxes

o f pi l ls . The idea l i s t o conquer the world by

means which would be worthy o f th e nob le

prompti ngs that created i t,stripped o f a l l those

paraphern al ia wh ich are,after al l

,on ly an abuse o f

exal ted asp irat i ons . Man i s to be elevated to th e

h ighest concept ion o f th ings divi ne a l l d iversi ty i n

the region o f rel igi on i s to disappear.

But which is t o be that re l igion which is to

succeed in bringi ng al l members o f the human race

under its so le sway ? Where is the Moses w ho


wil l promulgate th i s new and al l-comprehens ive

creed,which wi l l establ ish a re l igious brotherhood

o f al l men,that wi l l appeal to the re l igious inst incts

o f every one

The question i s whether those who are zealousfor the establ ishment o f such heaven ly days uponearth have reckoned w i th human nature . Can it bepossib le that any creed

,or set of creeds

,or any

mode of divine worship,shou ld appeal with equal

force to al l men in every quarter o f the globe ?

The idea may be conceived as poss ible,but thi s

,I

th ink,i s as far as i t can go . I do not think that

it can ever reach the stage of actual existence .

Tw o factors are being neglected first,the i nfin ite

d ivers i ty prevai l ing in the nature of man,and

,

secondly,the intrins ic d iversi ty in the psychol ogical

consti tut i on of such aggregate s o f men as havebecome communiti es

,races

,peop les . Too much i s

bu i l t upon the circumstance that after al l we are all

members of the same species . The theory that al lmen are or should be a l ike before the law o f the

land,leads to the idea that al l are equal ly amenable

to certa in tenets which some peop le cons ider to bethe truth ; that the variati ons observable betweenmen and men touch on ly the outer forms of the

species,but that the sou l s of men are al ike i n their

nature,tha t the divers it ies are on ly influenced by

accidents o f so i l,cl imate

,surroundings

,and circum

stances,but that the soul s

,being in trinsical ly one


and al l o f the same nature,can be kneaded and

moulded to recognize truth and parti cul arly, the

Truth par excellence. Peop le who hold such

opin ions do not for a moment stop to enqu irewhether the variet ies exh ibited by men are no t of a

more i ntense essence also i n regard to their psychol ogica l endowments . They do no t consider the

possib i l i ty that the d ifferences not i ceable between

men and men i n d ifferent local centres,and in

differen t groupings,not only as regard s co lour,

bui ld,and anatomy

,b ut als o in regard to intel lect

uality, sympath ies, and propensi t ies, may be the

resu lts o f what i s cal led the law o f nature ; the

causes o f which are as much an enigma as the

causes o f variat i on i n the an imal and vegetab le

world . They do no t even take note o f the various

mental endowments between man and man within

the same domain,andfconsider the fricti ons conse

quent up on them as accidental and easy o f

adj ustment .

How then could peopl e who ho ld such views take

into account the characteri st i c d ifferences that obtain

between whole groups of individuals ; the constant

vari ety they di sp lay in respect to in tel lectual i ty,

asp irati ons,achievements

,ambit ions

,sympath ies

,

predi lect ions ? They wi l l no t be ab le to acknow

ledge , not on ly that the souls o f i ndivi dual s offer

variet ies wh ich are Innate and constant,but they

w i l l s tand aghast at the notion of constant variet i es

80 A UN IVERSAL RE LIG ION

exist ing i n the soul s o f nati ons—I do not use the

word i n a mystica l s ense—which no intercourse andb l ending

,no artificial ass imi lation

,wi l l be ab le to

efface . Yet,dist inct i ons of such type undoubtedly

exi st . J ust as variet ies o f type with in the same

species of p lants and animals o ccupy a dist inct

place in the economy of nature,i n the same way

character i sti c dis tinct ion s in the psycho logical eudowments of the diffe rent races of men occupy a

place in the economy of the human race at large ;and a comparat ively modern branch o f phi losophy

,

Valher-psycholog ie, ethn ical psycho logy, the p sycho logy of races, attempts to di scern the phenomena

that presen t themselves . I ndeed,i t were i rrat i onal

to say that vari ety was a law of nature . Nature i s

vari ety i tsel f. I n the beginni ng God created variety .

I n the beginn ing God created harmony. Var iety i sa divin e inst itut ion

,and un i ty i s noth ing but the

harmony of variet ies This is the case with nature

as a whole,i t i s also the case wi th the innumerabl e

i tems o fwhich nature consists . I n every i tem,how

ever minute,there is a variety of varieties . The

var iety may offer i tself to our powe rs of observati onthe causes of such variati on are withheld from our

s ight . A chi ld can dist inguish a grape from anapple

,a grain o f wheat from one o f mi l let

,vegetable

substance from animal subs tance. A chi ld can,but a

scientist cannot ; for t he scienti st dives down into

the past h istory o f each substance and the deeper


of communi t i es,races

,peoples. I do not al lude to

such differences as are generated by accidents of

c ircumstances and environmen t,and which dis

appear with the removal o f thei r causes . I speak o f

such variation s as form an indi sso luble l ink that

keep a body of men together,and also keep i t apart

from other s imi lar bodies of men that are yet so

diss imi lar. Hence arise innumerable fr i ct i on s,and

i t i s here that the b lessed effects o f harmony step in

and promote un ity . The greatest b lessing of man

kind ln their socia l and po l it i cal intercourse i s

nothing but the real i sat i on of un i ty by means of the

harmony of varietie s . The term fri endship impl ies

i t,the term brotherhood impl ies i t

,the term love

imp l ies i t . Separateness i s a divine i nsti tuti on,and

over the mu l ti tude o f separate existences that de fyama lgamation hovers the sp iri t of God

,divine

harmony,and forms them into a un i ty . This

harmony between the endless mode s o f separate

powers has been so beauti ful ly expressed by themetaphor of the wo lf and the lamb that are at some

future t ime to crouch peaceably together . Greedwi l l no longer be satisfied at the cost o f i nnocence

,

the weakl ing wi l l no longer b e haunted by the fear

o f the vio lent . The ideal o f harmony betw een

Opposing,and even confl i cting motives

,i s p ictured

by the peace between the wolf and the lamb , but

not by the picture o f a cross-breed betw een wo lfand lamb

,which wou ld be neither wolf nor lamb

,


but an unnatural compound which might drag on

i ts existen ce for a t ime but would be unable to

propagate i ts kind .

I s i t,therefore

,id le to hope that the ideal of a

un iversal rel igion wi l l ever be reali sed ? Must we

renounce the hope that a t ime wi l l come when al l

men wi l l be one i n acknowledging the truth divin e

We Invo luntari ly turn to some o f the exi sting re

ligions . The J ewish rel igi on,which has outl ived

ages,has withstood so many untoward storms

,and

,

at the same time,s tamped o ther more recen t re

ligions with some o f i ts typ ical character ist i cs, does

no t asp ire after adoption by al l mankind . Strange,

for th i s i t has been cal led a rel igi on of separatism,

o f parti culari sm ; whi lst that rel igion which insi sts

that i ts bles s ings can on ly benefi t those who adopt

i t to the exclusion o f al l others i s sa id to be

universal % There are other re l igions which have

taken ho ld o f vast mult i tudes,such as have been

cal led by Kuenen un iversa l rel igions . None o f

these wi l l ever become universal i n the sense which

the term real ly impl ies . Nor wi l l a hybridi sati on of

a number of typica l features cul led from the vari ous

exi sting forms of be l i ef and worsh ip be otherwise

than steri le,without possessing any last ing vital i ty .

I may leave ou t of consideration the hopes o f those

who ho ld the highest accompl i shment of man ’s

eth ical nature to be tantamount to the final demands

o f re l ig i on . The most subl ime behests o f eth i cs


were known to severa l races in the remotest t imes

i t i s on ly their cu l t ivation that has fluctuated ; atsome time

,i n some lands

,they enj oyed obedience

i n great measure,at others they were more or l ess

neglected o r trodden under foot . But our eth ical

in st incts and our rel igiou s requirements are twodistinct factors

,the one of wh ich cannot poss ibly

sati sfy the innate cravings of both . The idea l of a

un iversa l re l igi on wou ld therefore have to presuppose that those who deny thi s

,who are convinced

of the al l-sufficiency of e th ical perfect ion , would

renounce thei r views in i ts favour. Again,we

should have to assume that al l those to whom evo

lnflou i s the one and al l o f every existence , that theagnosti c

,that the c lass of ph i losophers to whom a l l

notions of th ings divine are dec lared to be phasesof supersti t i on

,would a l l be brought wi thin the fo ld

of the un iversally professed rel igion . Will i t ever

come to pass ?

After al l that has been said the outlook seems

gloomy enough . We can on ly look upon man as

we find him,we can on ly reckon with the man of

the future by the l igh t of the man of history and ofthe present t ime . And ye t we need not de spair .

We need not discard the ideal o f a un iversal rel igionas a dream that lacks nothing except the possib i l i tyof rea l i sati on . The rel igious cravings o f man havebefore them a vi sta of un ive rsal grat ifica t ion . We

may firmly hop e , aye, confidently expect, the


un iversal acknowledgment of the'

one sub l ime

rel igious truth,a un iversal acknowledgment o f God .

But we must not extend our expectat ions beyond

the confines o f human nature . That rel igi on wi l l

be un iversal on ly in as far as i t wi l l be the one and

so le pervading motive . God,one God , abso lute ly

one,without any admixture o r associat i on

,wi l l be

the issue from which al l re l igi ous persuas ion wi l l

start,and to which al l re l igi ous persuasi on wi l l

return . When,as the prophet expre sses i t

,

“Al l

earth shal l be ful l o f the knowledge o f God,as th e

water covers the bed o f sea,

” the boldest asp irat i ons

towards a un iversal re l igion shal l have been real i s ed .

With thi s consummation the l imit wi l l have been

reached . Then a un iversal rel igi on wi l l have been

establ ished .

But there wi l l be no un iversal i ty o f worsh ip . Ihave already sketched forth the grounds upon whi chI hold such un iversal ity to be impossible . N or is

i t necessary . N o t that our conception of that wh ich

i s nece ssary or unnecessary would alter the facts

wh ich nature offers u s . But it i s possibl e that

nature might have shaped man different ly if thatwhich i s unattai nab le to us in our pres ent state

would const i tute a necess ity . But even as we are,

with al l the pecu l iari t i es o f our nature,which

,to my

mind,make a un iversal mode of man ifestati on o f

the un iversal ly acknowledged truth an impossib i l i ty,

th e i deal,with al l its l imitat i on s , i s worthy of our

86 A UN IVERSAL RELIGION

lo ft i est asp iration . The knowledge of God by al l

men,whom everyone wil l serve

,to whom every

m onth wi ll pray,before whom every knee wi l l

bend,in submissi on to whose ru le and sovereignty

the extremit ies o f the earth wi l l un ite,i s n o smal l

consummation of the ideal of universal ity of rel igion,

and which the much lauded humanity of the presentday i s far from having accompli shed . I t foreshadowsan ideal rea l i sat i on of the sway of harmony among

the d iversified expressions of the un iversal rel igioustruth

,a cessation of the di sastrous resu l ts which to

this very day mar the elevating influences which thegratificat ion o f our rel igious inst incts should exercise .

A brotherhood o f al l variet ies o f man in the worsh ipo f God

,acknowledged by al l . A un iversa l rel igion

without the l imitat ions that are marked ou t by thediversified characters that distinguish such variousaggregates of men as form clearly defined groups .I t wi l l be the fulfi lment o f that prophet i c predict ion

,

that the t ime wi l l come when al l earth wi l l be fu l lo f the knowledge of God as the water covers the bed

of the sea . That promise,which

,as I heard i t once

homil et ical ly expounded,chooses advi sedly the

figure o f the sea and its b ed . The bed of the sea

offers endless var iat i on,the nature o f i ts so i l differs

infin i te ly,i ts surface i s uneven

,with i ts mountain s

and hi l l s,i ts val leys and its ravine s the sea which

harbours a fauna and a flora,the numerous d ivers i t ies

o f which daz zle the imaginat ion . But al l th i s


mul ti formity is covered by the water o f the sea

which un ites i t,and const i tutes the e lement in which

i t exists,and changes

,and l ives

,and flouri shes

,and

by which i t i s l evel led,even in the way in which

the re l igi ous sp i r i t o f man wi l l find it s l eve l,and

wi l l l ive and thrive under the pi nnacle of th e

harmonisat ion o f human d ivers i ty,the knowledge

of God .

I have i n thi s lecture kept aloof from the theo

logical aspects o f the quest i on . I have not touchedupon such poin ts as revelat i on or any other

theo logical doctrin e or be l i ef . Nor have I taken

note o f any specifical ly J ewish characteri sti cs,of

Messian i c hopes ; top ics which might shed a flood

o f l ight upon the subj ect . I have not al luded tothat which stamps the J ewish re l igion as a wel l

defined phenomenon among the manifestat i ons of

the soul as moulded wi th i n the un ity o f a di stinct

aggregate of men . No repudiat i o n wi l l ever be ab le

to extinguish that re l igion so that its place in the

economy o f racial human nature wi l l know i t nomore ; and a hybr i di sat i on between some o f i t s

parts and portions taken from other eth ica l and

rel igious variet i es wi l l n ever form a homogeneous

who le ; i t may l ive for a t ime , but i s, i f on ly by

virtue of i t s hybrid character,foredoomed to steri l ity .

I have compressed with in the compass o f a lecturesome general reflect ions to elucidate a subj ect

,the

cons iderati on of wh ich should fi l l a book . Yet am


I convinced that the longer I were to study it,

the more I should become confi rmed in the views

which I have endeavoured to lay th i s evening before

you .

90 A DIRECT D IV INE REVELAT ION

subsi sting between fortress,warfare

,and garriso n

asserts i tself . They form a front from which al l

h ost i le mis s i les rebound .

Our J ewish rel igion i s such a fortress . I t exists

a nd wi l l ex i st, i n sp ite of al l attacks from without

and from with in . I t endures by force o f i ts

intrinsic strength by the necessi ty of i ts existence

by force o f i ts character,through which it is solely

and exclus ively adapted to i ts bearers ; i t enduresbecause i t i s one o f those facts i n the order of

things wh ich i t i s impossibl e to expe l from its

p lace in the economy of nature.

Do not ask me fo r a defin i ti on o f the term

Jewish Rel igion .

” I mean the J ewi sh rel igion as

i t has ex i sted since i ts in i t iat i on in hoary antiquity ;as i t has man ifested itself during a continuoussuccession o f ages . Rooted in the Book of Books ,borne upon the shoulders o f tradition

,the inheri t

ance o f a distinct people,overspread with the

glamour o f a holy coun try,nurtured by the ln

structi on o f God-en l ightened seers,upheld by the

teachings o f self-denying sages i t has promu lgatedto the world the un i ty of God in its absolu te oneness

,indicated the way towards the purest moral ity

,

moulded i ts bearers i nto a kingdom of pr i ests,

caused them to th ink it,to feel i t

,to l ive i t

,to

perform its p ontifical ri tes day and night, i n houses

and garments,In food and drink

,i n matrimonial

and fami ly l i fe . I t impregnated i ts bearers with

A D IRECT D IV INE REVELAT I ON 91

loyal ty to the demands o f a glorious and inglorious

h istory,of rej o ici ngs and su fferings , which latter

have surpassed everyth ing that has been undergoneby any compact body o f men ; that J ew i sh rel igion

which has outlasted the attacks level led again st

every one o f i ts aspec ts .

I do no t al lude for the moment to that class o f

opposit i on which has attempted to do away with

that rel igion by means o f crush ing out of ex i stence

those who profess i t,either by brutal force

,or by

coaxing prospects,or by wi ly kindness . I rather

refer to the b lows aimed against its doctrines ,against the foundat io ns upon which i t rests

,upon

the mode of l i fe i n which i t resu lts . Argumentfo l lowed argument purport ing to inval idate the

warran t for i t s exi stence,ei ther in regard to the

whole or some of i ts parts . Every age has con

tributed i ts share,every phase of human thought

has helped i n forging weapons o f attack,every fresh

acqu i s it i on of knowledge has been imagined to

supply addi t i onal strength to the offens ive .

I t n eed not be said that the defens ive has tried to

ward off the blows . Some vigorous attempts have

been made to meet the attacks against every s ingle

tenet o f the Jewish re ligion . The apo loget i c

l i terature i s considerable . The defenders e ither

endeavoured to inval idate the hosti l e arguments,

or they employed a conci l iatory method,and tried

to we ld together opposing form s of thought,often

92 A D IRECT D IV INE REVELAT ION

withou t inqu ir ing whether a conci l iati on was

possib le ; o r, again , i t took the more legit imateform of vindication

,and engaged in invest igating

that which the J ewish rel igion offers,bringing i t to

the l ight,and al lowing i t to be i ts own spokesman .

The Jewish re l igion has survived,but i ts survival

i s not a result o f such apologies ; at most i t hassurvived a long wi th them . I ts actual apology i t

bears with in i tself ; i f i t had no t with in i tse lf the

necessi ty o f i ts exis tence , no apo loget i c acumenwould be able to prop it u p . I t l ives because i t i s

a d istin ct factor in nature’s household,because i t

suppl ies,i n a way pecul iarly i ts ow n

,some of the

lofti er requi s i tes o f human existence,because i ts

fo l lowers ho ld a place o f the i r own among the

fami l i es of mankind . To know i t i s to vindi cate it .

Some of the apologies labour under two serious

defects . First,as al ready al luded to

,they fre

quently tried to reconci le the irreconci lable,to

harmoni se d iscord . Secondly , they attempted too

much,t hey thought to be ab le to annih i late al l and

every argument at one fe l l swoop . No one person

can comb ine within himse l f all the powers requisi te

to meet the obj ect ion s drawn from most divergent

regions of thought and knowledge . The highest

d ialect ical ski l l wi l l not avai l against obj ectionsbased upon historical cons iderations , nor wi l l

int imate acquaintance with text or language succeed

against j udgments derived from p hysical sci ence.


Before proceed ing with the subj ect I wish to

make a remark or tw o . When persons declare that

a certai n idea has become impossible to them,then

,

as far as they are concerned,noth ing further i s to

be said . Secondly, I do not know,nor do I ask

,

whether Mr . Montefiore i ntended to convey in

these words exactly what I understand them tomean . I t i s qui te unnecessary

,s ince i t i s n ot my

intention to controvert Mr. Montefio re personal ly .

My obj ect i s to controvert an idea,a conception

,

which I consider to be tersely an d clearly enunciated

in the sentences quoted . I see here a directdivine revelat ion disputed on account o f its

impossib i l i ty,and I wish to confine myself ex

clusively to that one point . I do not approach the

question o f evidence, of proofs that such a revelat ion

has actua l ly taken place . Nor would i t be logical

; to do so . Once assume the impossibi l i ty o f ai

direct revelat ion,the questi on o f evidence for i ts

actual occurrence becomes a quibble ; for how can

one assert that to have taken place which isi impossib le ?

I t i s posi ted that God does no t reveal H imself

in the abso lute way which the orthodox concepti on

conveys .” More than that : “ God cannot do so .

How can God have spoken loud human words,how

can He have spoken to Moses as a man may

speak to hi s fel low ”

The argument appears on the face o f i t p lausible


enough ; but plausibi l i ty must never determin e us,for p laus ibi l i ty i s the arch-enemy o f truth . Oncons idering i t

,however

,i t seems difficul t to meet .

The conception o f the Deity transcends everything

human . We conceive H im as abso lutely incor

p oreal. H is being i s devo id of al l,the sum total o f

which consti tutes man . Speaking , as we understand

it,i s a funct ion effected by the human organs of

speech,the mouth

,the t ongue

,the vocal chords ;

non e o f these instruments can be attri buted to God

i n the same sense . Hearing i s the functi on of

another set o f human organs ; th e greater or

l esser loudness of th e words ; the very cause o f

hearing i s understood to depend upon certain

vibrat ions of the a i r,as i t comes into con tact

,

through the ear,with a certa in set o f nerves .

Would i t n ot be blasphemous to say that God p ro

duced art iculated sounds with mouth and tongue and

vocal chords,by means of which he caused the ai r

surrounding Moses and the I srael i tes to vi brate insuch a manner as to make their ears hear H is vo ice

There i s no see ing without eyes, no speaking

without mouth,no hearing without ears . Loud

spoken words serve to convey the i deas o f one

person to another by means o f these instruments .

Thi s we experi ence,th i s we understand . H ow can

we then assume the poss ib i l i ty o f the same effect s

being produced by that Being to whom the

possess ion o f such organs cannot be attributed ?

96 A D I RECT D IV INE REVELAT ION

Are not these reflection s sufficien t to declare a

d irect revelat i on by God to be impossible ? Are w e

not faced by the fo l lowing a l ternat ive : ei ther wemust attribute to God o rgans o f communicationsimi lar to those we have

,or the possibi l i ty o f such

commun ication must be den iedBut the quest ion is

,may the re not be means o f

commun icat io n by spoken words other than those

which have come within the prec incts o f our ex

p erience ? Wou ld th is be the assumption o f an

impossi b i l i ty

I t i s the custom to declare al l that to be imposs ib lewhich doe s not accord with such concepti ons o f

causes and effects as come under our experi ence .This i s because the questi on o f poss ib i l i ty and impos sibi l i ty i s confused w i th the prob lem of evidenceof actua l occurrence . We w itness facts and incidents,and see them disp lay a series o f causes and effects

,

and we conc lude that th is i s the on ly one possible .We are in the habi t of cal l ing any conception o f

things and events which cannot b e explained by the

canon establi shed by our exper ience the conceptionof an imposs i bi l i ty . We argue , that for a succession

of ages noth ing has come under our cogn isance

except the existing proceedings . These we understand ; we comprehend the cause s that bring aboutthe effects w e witness . Then w e are prone to drawthe conclusi on that on ly the operati on s occasione d

by the agencies which we,and those before us

,have

98 A D IRECT D IVINE REVELAT ION

Now,the concepti on that there is a l iving Being

which differs substantial ly from anyth ing l iving that

has come under our experience,and that thi s Being

is possessed o f modes of communicati on with men,

by which ideas are brought to the latter’

s con

sciousness, s imi lar to the way in which man’s spoken

words awaken consciousness i n h i s fel low,i s

intel l igible and can be distinctly conce ived . There

fore it cannot be proved impossible . The saying

that God spoke to a man , as a man speaks to h is

fel low,does not app ly a predicate contrad ictory to

the subj ect .

I t i s true that our experience of conveying ln

formation by means of speech i s confined to

individuals endowed with organs of speech andhearing

,such as we find possessed by man . None

of us has an experience of individuals otherwi seorgan i sed

,that consi st of an abso lutely different

clay,or that cons ist o f no clay at al l . Consequently.

no one has ob servg i r

by ‘

hisw

organs of sensat ion theA D ’ 5 “ 5 P I

Di lly, “ inm who se e xistence,we may assume

,we

confidentlym b elieve . We conceive God as un

endowed,or

,rather

,unencumbered

,with those

i nstruments of sensibi l i ty without wh ich,our ex

p erience teaches us , man could not be what he i s .

Man’s modes of communication with man are the

only ones that come with in our experi ence . But

the fagt thatfi od exists , b ut i s “not possessed o f the

organs for commun cati on w i th which we w are


acquainted,and

fi th‘em p p erations o f which we under

stand,does not j ust i fy us i n assuming that God i s

powerless to convey notions to man by m eans,consonan t wi th

m

fg sn egsence , which 18 not understood

by us,so as to awaken within us a consciousnes s

such as i s conveyed to man by “

sp oken words . To

qIIOte Huxley’s words in another essay .

“ I f one

says that consci ousness cannot exi st,except i n

relat i on o f cause and effect with certai n organ i cmo lecules

,I must ask how he knows that and i f he

says i t can,I must put the same quest ion . Huxley

asks how he knows,but he admits the poss ib i l i ty .

I f i t be urged that the conveyance of i deas from

man to man by loud spoken words i s an operat ion

fu l ly understood by a l l who have an insight i ntophysi o logy o f sensatio ns

,whereas the operation o f a

conveyance of ideas by God to man by mean s o f

spoken words is above and beyond our under

standing,I repeat that th i s does not en ter into the

question of possibi l i ty,but thgp poblem i s rather one

for evidence ; IO~W II, whether an even t wh ich is

possib le i n Itsel f can be proved to b al m afizmallyoccurred .

But the po in t so urged requires a closer

examinat ion . I f i t is said that loud words spoken

by man,and heard by man

,and thus conveying ideas

i n the mind o f each other,consti tute an operation

which i s c learly understood by al l who have a know

ledge o f the physio logy o f sensati on,i t must be asked

100 A D IRECT D IV INE REVELAT ION

I s thi s real ly the case I s i t true that there i s any

body who has an understanding of how ideas are

awakened in the mind by means of the senses

Thus far no one has so lved the problem . No

one has fi l led up the gulf gap ing between the

phys ical process of speech and hearing and the

consci ousness which i t awakens i n the mind .

Scient i sts may be able to trace the physicaloperation o f cause and effect ; they may be

acquainted with the physio logical action o f speech

and hearing to the ir minutest detai l s,they may be

able to trace step by step the changes effected by

molecules upon molecu les they may have the lawsof acousti cs at thei r fingers’ ends

,and they may be

able to put thei r finger upon the portion o f thebrain affec ted by hearing . But no thing _ _

o f that

knowledge“

wil l“ expl ain ,

the next the” m i. m m

mind becomes consci ous To use agai n Huxley’s

1 words “ Consciousness i s n e ither matter,nor force

,

2nor any conceivab le modification of either, howeverthe manifestat ions o f the phenomena of consci ous

ness may be connected with the phenomena known

as matter and force .’ The science of p hysio logyfi

is“ m s-nu. M O,

unable to account for consc iousness . This i s the case

with al l consciousn ess awakened by our senses withthe feel ing of co lour

,of beauty

,whether conveyed

by the eye , or , as i n the case of music , by the ear .

We understand the physi o logical actions of the

organs and their in termediaries,by means of which

102 A DIRECT DIV INE REVELAT ION

awakened by means of sensi ferous organs,i n

conj uncti on with some outside natura l forces,even

i f we are unable to Span the last gap,to understand

how mechanica l actions affec t mental propert ies,

we do at least understand those mechanica l act i ons

themselves . We understand how causes and effects

fo l low each other,how every effect has i ts certain

cause ; we unders tand the nature of the causes , the

way in which they act,so as to be fol lowed by their

effects . Whereas, i n the case o f direct revelation

we do not know o f any mechan i ca l act ion we do

not know whether any such action takes place we

know of the recept ive faculty o f hearing , but we

have no knowledge o f the active mode o f speech .

This i s truly no cont radiction in terms,but does i t

no t sound very much l ike one ? How can we

speak of incidents,the supposed working of which

i s l ike a closed book to us,i n the same breath with

inciden ts o f the operations of which we have

examined every winch and l ever , the mechanism

of which is fu l ly understoodFu l ly understood I s i t

,i ndeed I ought to be

ashamed to repeat that which ought to be con

sidered a truism by al l w ho'

have done no more than

approach the boundaries of scientific research .

The physio logy o f sen sati on is on ly one sect ion of

the vast army o f phenomena,the exp lorat ion of

which occupies the attention o f the scien ti sts .

Science has outgrown the conception that there is

A D IRECT D IV I NE REVELAT ION 103

nothing in the un iverse except matter and force ;that matter and force can be

,and are

,understood as

to their substance and funct ions . Force i s the5 cause o f mot i on

,and how are we to understand i ts

effect on matter ? Does matter consis t o f atoms , o f

minute substances,so minute that they escape the

observat i on of the sharpest eyes ight,even when

armed with what Mr . Samuel We l ler would cal l a“ pair 0

’ paten t double mi l l i on magnifyin’ gas

microscopes of hextra power,

” and which are

compact,so l id

,and incapab le of further subdivis ion

I n that case matter i s a co l lecti on of separate ex

istence s,s i tuated one by the s ide of the other . I f

separate,there must be space between them . I n

other words,they are separated by nothingness .

And now we are a sked to assume,nay

,we are

supposed to understand,that these separate exi stences

attract and repel each other through th i s noth ingness .

I s then matter iden t ical with force,and does the

one differ from the other i n name on ly ? I n that

case the atoms would be someth ing that w as act ing

where i t i s not . Or has force an exi stence apartfrom matter ? I f so

,we shou ld be compel led to

assume the exi stence of ent i t i es,which are indivi sib le

,

and which nevertheless occupy space,and that one

atom affects the other by mean s o f force,which has

%its p lace i n noth ingness .

What then are matter and force after a l l They

are formulae , by the aid of which the sc ientists seek

4‘71

‘i

104 A DI RECT DIV INE REVELAT ION

to interpret the phenomena o f nature they belong

to the hypotheses by which the scient i st strives to

understand nature . But as l i tt le as we understand

how mechanical actio ns arouse consciousness i n the

mind,just as l i tt l e do we understand how the

assumed atoms affect one another by means o f the

assumed force .

Whilst reading on these subj ects,quotation s in

duced me to peruse a co l lection o f papers which

passed between the ph i lo sopher Leibn itz and Dr .Samue l Clarke

,Rector o f St . J ames’s

,i n 1715 and

1716. Dr . Clarke’

s obj ect was really to take up the

cudge ls for some of the proposit ions o f I saac

Newton’s . The question vent i lated there i s,whether

space i s a sub stance or no t space having been com

pared by New ton to the sensorium of God . I shal l

not trouble my readers any further wi th these l etters

beyond quoting a few sentences . Clarke aversthat “ nothing can any more act where i t i s n ot

present than i t can be where i t i s not .” Leibn itzmaintains that “ the attraction of bodies

,properly

so cal led,i s a miraculous th ing , s i nce i t cannot be

explained by the nature o f bodies . He is o f opin ion

that,

“ i f God made a general law that bodies should

attract each other,i t cou ld no t be put in to executi on

but by perpetual miracles .” Le ibn itz denies theexistence of both atoms and of a vacuum . He

holds that the least corpuscle i s actual ly sub

divided in infinitum .

“What reason,

” he says,

106 A DIRECT D IVINE REVELAT ION

by al l means le t u s firmly bel ieve i n the ir existence

as substance . But we cannot understand their

nature,much les s can we say that we are ab le to

comprehend how they affect each other . As Du

Boi s Raymond said,i t IS Imposs ible for us to

understand the substance of matter and force they

are transcendenta l ; they tran scend the capacity o f

the human understand ing. Shal l we ever be ab le to

understand them ? The same physio logi st answers

ignorabimus,We never shal l .

We conceive but canno t understand e ither re

pulsi on o r attraction . We conce ive but cannot

understand force,the cause of motion . We are

consc iou s o f causat i on ; we deny the exi stence of

uncaused effects,but we do not understand the way

in which causes produce effects . Suppose we are

attempting to speak loud human words to our

fri en ds ; they hear them,and become conscious of

the ideas which they presume to express . But

there are two th ings about them which we cannot

understand .

I n the firs t place,we do not understand how i t

come s to pas s that such words bring about such

consciousness in their minds,even were we able

to trace,step by step

,the phys ical phenomena

observable in the compl icated j ourney from those

organs within us that produce speech to the brains

o f our hearers .

I n the second place,the very physical move

A D IRECT D IV INE REVELAT ION 107

ments o f th e organs of speech and hearing, and o f

everyth ing that l i es between them ,tran scend our

understanding . Are we,therefore

,to assume that

such speaking and hearing cannot have any real i ty

i n fact,simp ly and so le ly because we can on ly

conceive them,but wi l l ne i ther be able to understand

them nor to prove the ir exi stence I f i t i s averred

that i t i s impossib le to understand that God speaks

out loud human words,that He spoke to Moses

what we read i n the Pen tateuch,as a man may

speak to h i s fel low,because we do not know the

nature o f His substance,the answer can on ly be

,

i t i s true,i t transcends our understanding . And i f

i t is averred that i t i s impossib le to understand how

a man speaks to h i s fe l low because we do not

know the nature o f h is substance,th e answer must

equal ly be,i t i s true

,i t transcends our understanding .

But if i t is said that “God cannot reveal H imself in

the abso lute way which the orthodox concepti on

impl ies,

’ I ask,how can th i s imposs ib i l i ty be

proved ? I t may be said, perhaps , that the proo fs

w hich I ventured to adduce for the poss ibi l i ty ” of

such an even tual ity are for the most part negative

proofs . This may be so . But the “ impossib i l i ty ”

canno t be proved either pos i tively or negat ively .

Or wi l l th is be brought forward as a proo f o f th i simposs ibi l i ty

,that we have never observed con

sciousness except in connecti on with matter,and

by means of the senses ? But,i n the first p lace

,

108 A D IRECT D IV I NE REVELAT ION

matter i tself i s on ly known to us as a form of our

consci ousness secondly,the circum stance a

thatmwe

such ex erience or that we or those who come

after us ture time .

We are here again landed in the region of evidence,

o r of probabi l i ty,and not o f possibi l i ty ; and thirdly,

do we not observe innum erab lep henom ena i n the

form of consciousness wh ich have n o existence i n

any form of matter we may,

conceive

t I n conc lusion,I maintain that there is no ground

j for saying that i t i s imposs ible for God to reveal

H imsel f i n the abso lute way which the orthodoxI

i concep tion impl ies .’ No such impossib i l i ty has

( been proved o r can be proved . I f we asked

granti ng the possibi l i ty o f a direct revel at ion,how

are we to explain such action ? I am qu i te wi l l ingto admit that we cannot explain i t . And

,i n the

same way,i f we are asked

,granting the possibi l i ty

of the physical phenomena,which we observe every

moment of our l ives,how are we to explain the

act ion o f which these phenomena are the results ?

We mus t again admit that we cannot explain i t .No human mind can grasp the nature o f God

,the

nature of His substance,the way in which He works .

No more do we understand the nature of thesubstratum

,the existence o f which we assume

,and

o f the activi ty o f which we bel ieve al l phys ical


evo lut ion or any simi lar to” m m “

exp la in the acql iisition byw

man of the p p reu notions

about God and H is uni ty. Many topics o f kindred

nature wou ld have to be investigated ; and by theconclusions thus arrived at the h istori ca l evidence

in our possess i on would have to be tested .

But th i s can be mentioned on ly by the way,i t

being outs ide the scope of thi s paper . The questi on

of possib i l i ty once being sett led , the question of

evidence fo l lows as a subj ect o f i ts own .

THE M ISHNAH

THE B ib le forms the point round which everyth ing

that refers to J ewish l i fe centres . The rad iati on s

that i ssue from it,and the rays that return to i t as to

a focus,have a twofo ld nature . They penetrate

both action and thought . The precepts enj o ined

and frequently al luded to i n the Bible by the merest

h in t exercised the mind o f the J ew,anxious as he

was to obey them,not merely to the letter but also

according to thei r i ntent ion . The laws which made

every act i on of l i fe,from the cradle to the grave

,an

act of p ontifical wor sh ip , were weighed and con

sidered . The letter never became a dead letter .

That which we cal l Tradit ion w as the li fe- long

practice by generat ion upon generat i on o f that

which,together wi th the letter

,consti tuted the l i fe

o f the Jew from time out o f memory . To study,

to teach,to observe

,to perform , w as not so much

the watchword o f the J ew as the J ews’ second nature .

The obj ection sometimes heard,as to how i t i s

poss ib l e for the Jew to fathom,within the short span

o f l i fe,the hundreds of precepts which

,with their

detai led Observances,come to number thousands

,i s

a futi le obj ect ion . The Jew,brought up from

infancy,by train ing and example

,i n the observance

I I I

112 THE M I SHNAH

o f the Law,spontaneously obeyed its behests and

shunned that which i t forbade .

But the meditat i on on God’s word was to the J ew

not less a d ivine inj uncti on than any other precept .The study of the B ib le for the sake o f elucidat ing

every detai l o f the divine Law was not merely thebusiness of a c lass but the duty of every Jew.

Theo logy there was,but there should no t be

theo logians .

This at once impl ies that a di sti nction was drawn

between the books o f th e Pentateuch and the other

parts o f the B i b le . The five Books of Moses were

considered the immediate w ord of God,whi lst the

other books contained on ly indirect revelat ion,ei ther

through prophecy o r through d ivine insp irati on .

The Books of Moses were the authori ty for the Lawa l l poss ibl e inj unct ions were

,by impl ication

,con

fained in these books,i n which there was nothing

e ither missing or superfluous . The study of theselaws was the study o f l i fe

,to be passed at the hands

of that d ivine guidance,and the results o f that

study were techn ical ly cal led the Halachoth in theaggregate the Halachah

,the way of l i fe .

Such men as made i t th e business of their l i fe to

scrutin ize the Book and al l that it contained were

in the earl i est t imes , cal led Soferim,

” “ Scribes .

Severa l theories have been put forward by modern

scho lars to explai n that t i t le,and I cannot he lp

th inking that some o f them shoot wide o f the mark.

1 14 THE M I SHNAH

bearer was at the same time recogni sed as the arm,

the “ Sage .

” On ly he w as an authori ty who hadr i sen above the mere knowledge of the words of thetext and their mean ing

,and had mastered the

intr i cacies of the arguments on which the Lawrested . W i thout such atta inment the Sofe r ranked

below the Sage . R . E l i ezer H agado l said that

s ince the destruction o f the ho ly temple the

Sages came on ly to be ‘Scribes . The greatness

o f R . Meir was said to consist in th i s that he com

b ined the qual i t i es of Sage and Scribe .1 For greatas the meri t was of h im who had mastered the Book

,

who could evo lve the Law from the wording of the

Text after the method of the M idrash— ln the o ldest

sense of the word - ln one word,however great one

may be as a Darshan,

” as an expert i n M idrash,i n

the hermeneuti c o f the Text,he was real ly great

who could,at the same t ime

,account for the

“ reasons on whi ch the deductions were based,

and for the arguments for preferring one deductionabove another—who was great i n Talmud—th i s wordagain taken in its o ldest sense—who was at thesame time a mm,

a Darshan,and a arm

,a Sage .

Thus were the great teachers in I srael,Shemaiah

and Ab talion,ca l led great Sages and great Darshanim .

(b . P e sachim 70b) .

I n the earl i est traceable t imes the Law waspropagated in the first i nstance as Midrash

,as an

I . b . Gittin, 67a .

THE M I SHNAH 1 15

exeges i s o f Holy Wr i t . Whenever the Law wasread in publ ic

,an oral interpretat ion accompan ied

i t . I t was the atom,the Sages

,the o ocptom t, the

e’

feyn'

ra i 7 63V vo'

uwv Of J osephus , 0 1‘ the 116q ép jtmveis Of

Phi lo,the Sages and the Scri bes

,that promulgated

the traditi onal laws to their hearers . The princip les

inculcated by these masters were stud ied by a

number of d i scip les,who sat at their fe et

,who

“ served them, who min istered unto them ,as i t

was termed . The D’DDH, the Sages, were the true

masters,who propagated the ir teach ings to their

fo l lowers . These were the D’DDI‘I w ho , the students

of the Sage s . Sages themselves,who min i st ered to

their masters,even as J oshuah

,the servant of Moses

,

became hi s successor, even as th e pro phet El i sha

was worthy to succeed h is Master El ij ah on whose

hands he had poured water .”

Great were the numbers o f s tuden ts who received

in this way the tradit i ons from the “Fathers

,

” the

7152 ? 0 1‘ the rumor: l

'

fi DD,the Otadoxfi, m apdboo rs 7 63V

wa‘re‘pwv o r from the “ Elders

,

”

u p eoflv‘repwv. The study of M ikra

,or the text

,and of

M idrash,which aimed at i ts i n terpretat ion i n al l i t s

D‘t i‘r,n apoldwm s 7 63V

manifold theoretical and pract i cal beari ngs,was

combined wi th Talmud ” and “ Mishnah .

” That i s

to say, the M i drash ic study of the Text in cluded theargumentat ive method

,

“ Talmud,

” and the concrete

enunciat ions o f the precepts,M i shnah M ishnah

i s the name of each law enunciated in preci se terms,

116 THE M ISHNAH

of which co l lect ions were made in ve ry ear ly t imes .These co l lect i ons were themselves ca l led Mishnah ,o r

,i n the plural

, Mishn io th . On ly scant notice sare extant of the Mishnio th of ant iqu i ty, of suchcol lecti ons as existed before Shammai and H i l lel .There must have be en a great amount ; as many assix hundred or even seven hundred separate Sedar im,

or arrangements,are mentioned ; figures o ften

looked upon as hyperbo l i cal,but on no sufficient

grounds . However,only one co l lection , the one

started at the in i tiative of R . jehuda Hanasi and his

associates and completed by them,has come down

to us i n i ts ent ire tyThat co l lect ion

,our M ishnah

,offers a body of

precise enunciat ions,ranging over the whole field o f

wri tten and tradit ional law . I t i s true i t contain s

passages which are altogether in the style of Midrash ,i n which the i ssue i s taken from a di st inct text . Wealso find occasional ly arguments and discussi ons i nwhich some scholars defend their views with greatacumen

,and which

,therefore

,belong to the region

of Talmud . There are also passages in which thel ine o f st r ict Halachah is deviated from

,and which

contain moral and re l igious reflections and thereforeproperly be long to the Agadah . Some B eraito th

were in serted after the work had been comp leted .

But a l l such passages taken toge ther are notnumerous ; moreover, wi th the exception o f one

treati se, that o f Ab o th, they are on ly th in ly scattered

118 THE M ISHNAH

whil st others bore,more o r l ess

,a Talmudic

,a

Midrash ic,or a Halach ic character, o r combined

two or more o f these aspects . This c ircumstance

acco unts for the fact that the Mishnah , althoughintending to codi fy and dist inct ly to enunciate thelaws

,does not outward ly bear that character i n a

stereotyped form,but encroaches frequently in i ts

style upon kindred methods . We meet wi th such

references as the first M ishnah,

” “ the Mishnah

o f R . Akiba,

” “ the M ishnah o f R . Eliezer ben

Jacob,etc .,but i t i s d iffi cul t to determine how much

of the more anc ient co l lect ions i s contained i n our

Mishnah . The re lation o f our Mishnah to R . Jehuda

Hanasi,of thi s Sage to R . Meir

,of the latter to

R . Akiba, i s c lear enough , yet i t i s d ifficult to al locatei n detai l the various e lements of our Mishnah .

I t i s recorded that every decis ion o f the Mishnah

i s,unless stated otherwise

,attributable to R . Meir

,

who himse l f reproduced the teach ing o f hi s Master,

R . Akiba . The latter was the fountain -head to whom

not only the Mishnai c doctrines must be referredback he was equally the authori ty upon whom theTo sefta

,the Si fra

,and the Sifre were based .

Every phase of R . Akiba’s career was of aun ique character. No particu lars abou t the yearso f hi s youth are known

,for the simple reason that

they were no t worth knowing . I t i s stated that he

was of pagan descent,untaught

,rude

,and possessed

by that aversi on which the uncultured feel against

THE M I SHNAH 1 19

the scholars o f the Torah . He was a shepherd ,and tended the herds of a certa in Ka lba Sabua

,a

ri ch and benevolen t man . He served hi s master

honest ly,and i t was h i s master’s daughter

,Rachel

,

who d iscovered the high quali t ies o f i n te l le ct and

mind that lay dormant i n her father’s servant .

The shepherd and the rich maiden loved each other,

but she made i t a cond it i on that she wou ld notbelong to him unless he changed hi s mode o f l i fe

and devoted h imsel f to the study o f the Torah . A

secret marriage took place,and R . Akiba

,who had

already reached the years of mature manhood,l eft

h i s bride to study under the great masters o f h i s

t ime . He had first to master the very elements,th e

Luach,the Alphab eth i n i ts vari ous combinat ions .

He was not discouraged by the consciousne ss of h is

ignorance . Once he stood by a wel l and saw astone that had been hol lowed out . He asked who has

made thi s stone ho l low ? The answer was,the rain

drops had done i t . Then he thought,i f so soft a

substance as raindrops can ho l low out a hard stone,

then surely wi l l the weighty words o f the Torah

penetrate my heart . During the years o f h is study he

had to struggle with the d irest poverty,for h i s father

inlaw,having heard of the clandest ine marriage

,had

dis inheri ted h i s daughter and driven her from h is

house . Poor as she was hersel f,she s trove to

support her husband,even by sel l ing her orna

menta l head-dress . After tw elve years of study,

120 THE M I SHNAH

when return ing with a large ret inue o f disciples,he

heard an o ld man say j eering ly to hi s (R . Akiba’s)

wife, How much longer wi lt thou p ine away thy l ifeas a husbandless wife ? The answ er was that

,i f i t

depended on her,she wou ld wi l l ingly wai t another

twelve years i f such delay tended to furtheraccompl ish her husband in the knowledge of Torah .

R . Akiba acted upon that wish,returned to hi s

studies,and came home at las t with a great

fo l lowing as a famous Master i n I srael . H is wife

went to meet h im and wished to prostrate herse lf

at h is feet,but

,poor ly clad as she was

,the servants

wanted to restrain her,but R . Akiba said Let thi s

noble woman come near,fo r whatever I am

,what

ever you are th i s day, i t i s al l due to her inst igationand self-sacrifice . Meanwhi le

,Kalba Sabua

,having

regretted h i s rash vow,on hear ing that a great Sage

had arr ived,wished to consul t h im as to i ts val idi ty .

He placed the matte r before R . Akiba, who asked

him whether he would have made his vow had heforeseen that h i s son-inlaw wo uld at some futuret ime dist ingu i sh h imself as a Master in the Torah ?The answer was that he wou l d have wi l l inglyconsented to h is daughter’s marriage i f hi s son-inlaw had a knowledge of one treati se

,or even one

Halachah . Know then,repl ied R . Akiba, that I am

that son- in- law whom thou hast rej ected on accounto f his ign orance . Needless to say that a completereconci l iat ion fol lowed .

122 THE M I SHNAH

of the M ishnah,the same relati on to R. Meir as the

latter bore to R . Ak iba . However carefu l the Sages

alw ays were never to fai l to menti on the source o f

their in format ion,yet i t i s reco rded that R . Meir

did not deem it necessary to give R . Akiba’s name,

although he scrup u l ous ly ment ioned R . I shmae l ’sname when his knowledge was derived from thatMaster . In the case o f R . Akiba i t was unnecessary ,because i t was

'

un iversal ly known that R . Meir hadacqu ired the bulk of h i s knowledge from h im .

(I. B erachot, The same i s the case with R .

Jehuda Hanasi i n reference to R . Meir . Vv’here no

authori ty i s named in our M ishnah,we know that ,

with few excepti ons,we have d irect ly R . Meir

’s

views and indirectly those of R . Akiba .

We have said that the M ishnah contained

principal ly the Law,or rather

,the Laws

,i n thei r

concrete enunc iat ion . I t might be expected,there

fore,that the M ishnah repeated in a cod ified form

al l the precepts contained in the Pentateuch . Bu tth i s i s by no means the case . We do not find suchenunciati ons as

,for instance

,The seventh day

shal l be kept holy,work i s prohibited on that day

,

the eating o f unclean animals i s prohibited,c lean

an ima l s are such as both chew the cud and arecloven-footed

,i t i s proh ib i ted to steal

,i t i s prohibi ted

to murder,etc ., etc . Noth ing o f the kind wil l be

found . The Mishnah does not contain the

e lementary notions o f precepts and proh ib it ions .

THE M I SHNAH 123

Take as an example the treat ise of Sabbath . The

Mishnaic enunciat ions start from a basi s which

posi ts,as already known

,not on ly the general

in j uncti ons regarding the Sab b athical laws, but

also the vari ous precepts that emanate from them .

The Mishnah presupposes as known the resultsarrived at by Tradit ion , and confines i tself to the

class ificat i on,the l imitat i on s

,and the defin i tions o f

these results . The M ishnah is no t a textbook for

the rel igious in struct i o n of the young,but i t i s a

book to guide laymen and j udges i n the execut ion

o f al l the Observances which comprise jewish l i fe , i n

it s re l igious,soc ial

,economical

,and domest ic

relat ions . The Mishnah does not deem it necessary

to tel l us that we must keep the Sabbath , nor even

that keeping the Sabbath means omitt ing th i s

and doing that . Al l thi s i s presumed to be known .

The M ishnah o f Sabbath starts at once with

definit i on s,qual ifications

,and l imitat i ons . There

certain ly i s an enumerat ion of th irty-n ine actions

which const itute work i n a Sab b athical sense,but

these are only categories or Fathers,

” as the

M ishnai c idiom terms them,under wh ich al l

varieties of work have to be classified . Besides,the

enumerati on itse lf i s o n ly incidental . Namely,the

Law draws a dist inct l ine of demarcat ion betweenthat which i s

,i ndeed

,proh ibi ted but the commissi on

o f which has no further practi ca consequences,and

that which entai l s i n terference by the authorit i es o r

124 THE M I SHNAH

some expiatory acti on on the part o f the sinner. A

person may be an offender i n the former d irection

without being accountable in the latter sense . Hemay even be l iable

,but not for each action

,s everal

o f wh ich may entai l on ly one l iab i l i ty . I t i s on ly

inc identa l on the considerat ion o f these aspects that

the th irty-n ine categori es are enumerated so as to

describe them and t o fix their l imitat ions . The

Mishnah does not say “ do not bui ld on the Sabbath ,”

do no t prepare food on the Sabbath ,” but i t

defines that which const i tutes bu i lding o r preparingfood , and tel l s us when such act ions have, or have

not,penal or expiatory consequences . That which

i s explained here— rather fu l ly,for the sake of giving

an example— in regard to the Sabbati cal inj unct ions,

appl i es equal ly to the who le body of the l aws . We

thus never find that Mishnah and Pentateuchoverlap each other , whi le M ishnah and Talmudo r Mishnah or Midrash

,do so on ly in the minori ty

of cases .

Our M ishnah,the M ishnah of R . Jehuda Hanasi ,

presents,i n i ts present shape

,a compact body

,and

is as homogeneous as a compi lat ion ever can be .

The Language of the Mishnah is new Hebrew ; a sa matter of fact

,i t is a d istinct dialect o f Hebrew .

Taking the Hebrew o f the B ib le as the standard

specimen o f pure Hebrew,o r

,rather

,of Hebrew in

i t s living form,the language of the M ishnah presents

Such a modification as follows.

natural ly,when

126 THE M I SHNAH

Shisha,meaning six

,and Sedarim

,meaning

arrangements,th e work obtained the designat ion of

Shas .” Each o f th ese parts i s divided into Treati ses

(rum ors) , each of which i s subdivided into chapters

(p pm) . The first arrangement i s cal l ed “ Zeraim ”

(b um) , Seeds I t contains the laws incidentalupon agriculture . At the head of th is port ion

,and

therefore at the head of the w hole Shas,i s p laced

the treati se of “B eracho th (mam) B less ings .” I t

worthi ly heralds the great structure of divine legis

lation . The worsh ip o f God that pervades the

whole of J ewish exi stence must i ssue from the

heart ; which to d irec t again to God is the ult imateobj ect o f the wh ole l egis lat i on . I t i s said : H ow

doe s the service of the heart manifest i tse l f ? By

prayer . The treat i se that heads the co l lecti on

deals,therefore

,with the regulat i ons connected with

the “ service of God with the heart .” I t first treats

o f the duty o f the reading of the Sh’

ma . (Deut .

6,4-9 z -11

,13 -21 : Numbers 15, 37 As i t

was po inted out before,the M i shnah neither enters

upon an explanation o f these Pentateuchal secti ons,

nor does it give an exposi t i on o f the re l igious

bearings o f the regular,dai ly rec i tal . All that i s

assumed to be known . I t p lunges at once in medias

res,i t starts wi th concrete enunc iat ions of regulation s

about the time with in which such rec ita l can be saidto be a fu lfi lment o f the duty o f

“ Read ing the

Sh’

ma,

” and the benedicti on s that are to precede

THE M I SHNAH 127

and fo l low the Reading,the formulae of the

benedicti ons again no t be ing given,but supposed to

be known . This i s fol lowed by an enumerati on o f

dut ies of such urgency that on their account the

reading may be interrupted,or even suspended . O f

these,the dut ies attendant upon burying the dead

are the foremost . Regulati ons about prayers fo l l ow,

a few of which are worthy of particular mention .

We must no t ri se to pray except in a sp irit o f deep

humi l ity . The pious men o f o ld used to pause an

hour before praying,so as to d irect their hea rts to

God . Even should the king greet h im he should

not an swer,even shou ld a snake co i l round h is ankle

he should not be interrupted . The man i festat ion

of God’s power in rain must be mentioned i n the

benedict ion for the revival of the dead ; a prayer

for dew and rai n is in serted in the prayer fo r a

fert i le year . The subsequent chapters deal with

benedicti on s before and after food,and with those

to be pronounced on vari ous occasions . Fo r

b eneficent rains , and on hearing good tidings, the

formu la i s “ Blessed be He who i s good and

b eneficent, and on hearing evi l t i d ings,i t run s

,

Blessed be the true j udge .” H ew ho prays regard ing

things which have already happened utters a vain

prayer. We are bound to bless God for evi l,i n the

same way as for benefi t received,for i t is said

Thou shalt love the Lord,thy God

,with al l thy

heart,with al l thy sou l

,and with al l thy might .

128 THE M I SHNAH

With al l thy heart means wi th both thy

incl inati ons,with the good and evi l i n cl inations ;

with al l thy soul—even i f He take thy l ife ; with

al l thy might—with al l thy property . No

one may behave i rreverent ly before the Easterngate of the temple

,which i s in a l ine with the Holy

o f Hol ies % No one must wa lk on the templemountai n with his st i ck

,his gird le o f money

,or

with dust on h is feet,he must not make i t a

thoroughfare ; much less may he spit the re. I t

was ordained that one shou l d greet h i s fr iend withthe name of God

,a s i t i s said : (Ruth And

Boaz came from Beth lehem,and said unto the

reapers,the Lord be with you

,and they answered

him,the Lord bless thee ”

; and further i t i s said

(j udges The Lord be with you,thou

‘

mighty

man of valour . Moreover,i t i s said (Prov .

“ De spi se not thy mother when she is o ld and

(Ps . I t i s t ime for the Lord to work they

have made vo id thy Law. R . Nathan explains th is

verse thus “ They have made vo id thy Law becausei t i s t ime to work for the Lord Thus the treati seends .

These brief excerpts from the first treati se mustsuffi ce i t i s impossible to do more now than to give

the genera l drift o f the six Sedarim,except for

making a few remarks in reference to one or tw otreat ises . The Seder Zeraim

,

“ Seeds,

” gives after

the above named treatise the rel igious laws con

130 THE M I SHNAH

to insert moral reflections,historical a l lusions

,and

sparks o f re l igious fervour. But so i t i s . The

architectural dimensions of that temple of J ewishlegis lature are frequently out l ined by a pleasingdisp lay of flora l decoration s . But the Mishnah

does no t stop there . One of the courts of thetemple consi sts o f a beauti ful ly la id out garden

,

where the mind of the Jew i s refre shed,i nsp ired

,

consoled,and elevated . I t i s the col lec ti on known

as the treati s e o f “Ab o th

,

” “ The Chapters o f the

Fathers .” This treatise may,o r

,perhaps

,must have

originally presented a somewhat different form from

that which it has now in our co l lecti on ; but on the

whole i ts arrangement was essenti al ly the same as i t

i s now. I t i s unnecessary to dwel l on the con

jectures o f those who endeavour to assign certain

parts o f the Treati se to certain di st inct sages .

Suffice i t to say that the assumptio n which recom

mended i tself to many scholars,that the so le purpose

for which the first two chapters were written was

to give a chrono logy o f the first Sages,and to show

thereby the con tinuity o f the Traditi on,cannot

,i t

appears,stand the test of further reflection . The

sayings of these Sages were no t recorded for the

purpose o f register ing their names i t was the weightand impressiveness o f the sayings that was the

motive for recording them .

The treati se opens with the statement tha t the

Torah,received by Moses on Sinai

,was transmitted

THE M ISHNAH 131

by him to J oshuah , from him to the E lder s , then to

the prophets and the men of the great assembly,o f

whom Simon the Just w as one o f th e last survivors .

He (Simon the Just) used to say th at the world i s

stayed on three supports : on the Torah on the

Worship,and on acts o f benevo lence . O f his

successor,Antigonus o f Socho

,the fo l lowing di ctum

i s menti oned “ Be not l ike servants,who min ister

to the Lord wi th a view o f rece iving recompense,

but l ike servants who mini ster to the Lord withouta view of rece iving recompense , and let the fear o f

Heaven be upon you .

” Sayings of the five pairs

fo l low. Namely,i n previ ous generati on s

,up to

Shammai and H i l le l,there had been on ly one dis

p uted law,referring to a detai l o f sacerdotal practices

,

and th i s d isagreement w as cont inued in the di scus

s ions o f five successive pairs o f Sage ss , one o f whom

was the Nasi,and the o ther the Ab -Beth-Din (Pres i

dent of the court) . A maxim of each o f these ten

Sages i s preserved . They are couched in an

aphori st i c form,bri ef

,conci se

,fu l l of wisdom

,of

sel f-den ial,of love of God

,o f love o f the Torah

,l ove

of one’s fel low men . Let thy house be a meetingplace for the wise .” Let thy house be openedwide

,and let the poor be thy household

“ Judge every man i n the scale of meri t .

Keep free from an evi l n eighbour,and associate

no t with the wicked .

” Whi le the l i t igants

stand before thee,l e t them be i n th ine eye s as gui lty

,

132 THE M I SHNAH

and when di smissed from thee,l et them be i n th ine

eyes as righteous .” Make a fu ll examinat ion

o f the wi tnesses,and be guarded in thy words

,l est

from them they might l earn to l ie . (These two

last aphor i sms refer to Judges) . Ye wise

men,be guarded in your words

,l est you i ncur the

pena l ty o f exi le . “ Be of the di scip les o f

Aaron , loving peace, and bringing men n igh unto

the Torah .

” “ Say l i ttl e and do much,and

receive every man with a pleasant expression ofcountenance .

After the five Pairs four generations are

mentioned,which group themselve s round the name

of R. Jehuda Hanasi , the ch ief compi ler of our

Mishnah,name ly

,hi s grandfather

,hi s father

,

himsel f,and hi s son . R . Jehuda Hanasi said ,

Which i s the r ight course which one should choosefor himsel f ? That which tends to honour h im

who pursues i t,and for which others honour him .

Be as scrupulous about a l ight precept as about agrave

,and reckon the loss incurred by the ful

filment of a duty against i ts reward,and the gain

from a sin against i ts loss . And consider three

th ings,and thou wi lt be preserved from sin .

Know what i s above thee : an eye that sees,an

ear that hears,and al l thy deeds being written i n a

book .

” After some maxims o f R . Gam l ie l,R .

Jehuda Hanasi’s son

,the sayings o f the o lder

Tannaim are resumed,commencing with H i l lel ’s

134 THE M I SHNAH

but some say i t is the character of Sodom ; who

says'

,Mine i s th ine and th ine i s mine

,i s ignorant

who says,Mine and th ine are thine

,i s p ious Mine

and th in e are min e,i s wicked .

A few words on two more treat i ses . Tamid or

Olath Tamid,

” “ The Dai ly O fferi ng,bears a

two-fo ld character. I t i s at the same time legislatoryand descript ive . I t graphical ly and h istorical ly sets

forth the ri tes regarding the dai ly offerings . The

pri ests on duty slept in the temple the young men

on the ground,the e lders on l edges

,holding the

keys of the court i n thei r hands . The first duty i n

the morn ing was the cleari ng of th e altar of i ts

ashes . The various dut ies were assigned to the

individual priests by lot , the cast ing of which was

superintended by the ch i ef (Memunna) . An in

sp ection was made to ascertai n that al l utensi l s were

i n their proper places the laver was rai sed up from

the wel l i nto which i t was let down every eveningand the required ablut ion s were made . A detai led

description fo l lows as to how the wood for the altar

was brought in,how the fire w as la id

,and the lamb

produced . Ninety-three go ld and si lver vessels

were used,the slaughtering place was fitted with low

stands cal led dwarfs,

” which had blocks o f cedar

wood , provided on the top with iron hooks . As

soon as the great gate was Open,the clean ing o f the

go lden altar and the candlesti ck w as proceeded wi th .

The lamb was offered,the prayers read

,and

,after

THE M I SHNAH 135

some preparation,the incen se was burned . When

ever the h igh pri est entered the H echal— the part

which lay between the court and the ho ly o f ho l i es—to prostrate h imsel f

,three (pri ests) held h im,

one

on h i s right hand,one on his l eft , and one over the

preci ous stones (which were on the shoulder p ieces

o f the Ephod) . When the Memunna heard the

sound of h i s footsteps,he l i fted the curtai n fo r h im .

Then the high pri est entered the H echal,prostrated

h imsel f,and went out

,after which hi s brother priests

did the same . After the prayers had been read ,and the afore-menti oned servi ces performed

,the

pri ests blessed the people (Numbers 6. 24 The

treati se concludes with a descript ion of the last acts

o f the offerings for the day , and an account o f the

psalms that were sung on the d ifferen t days of the

week . On the Sabbath they recited Ps . 92. A

psalm,a song for the Sabbath day . A psalm

,a

song for the world to come,for the day o f comple te

res t and tranqui l l i ty in the eternal l i fe .

Sti l l more remarkable i s the treat ise of Middo th,

Measurements .” The treat i se i s very o ld . Whi l st

R . Meir i s tacit ly adopted as the authori ty in the

greates t part o f the M ishnah,R . Eliezer ben Jacob ,

who l ived before h im,i s named as the bearer of thi s

treati se . Like Tamid , the M ishnah of Middoth starts

with a description o f the watch kept i n the temple

during the n ight . The pri ests watched in three,and

the Levites i n twenty-one places . The sup erin

1 36 THE M I SHNAH

tendent patro l l ed the vari ous points,and woe to the

sentine l who was found asleep at h is post . The

situation and measurements o f the gates are given

in detai l,as also those of the place of fire

,the

temple mount,the inner and outer courts and

wal l s,the altar

,the slaughtering place

,the laver

,

the temple proper,with al l its vari ous chambers

,

offices,appo intments

,and gangways ; particu larly

the “Lishkath Hagaz ith, the chamber o f hewn

stones . The descript ion and measurements of the

temple,as given in the treati se of Middo th

,are

minute,and what i s more

,they are correct . They

have stood the test of age s they have been ver ifiedby modern research and excavat i on s on the spot .I t i s true that J osephus also produced a descript iono f the temple , but—says S ir Charle s Warren (Under

g roundf em sa lem,London

,1876, pp . 73 -79)

“ The

temple i s not wel l descr ibed by J osephus ; theaccount i n the Mishnah is far more expl ic i t and

appears to be very correct . The Talmudic account

can be taken in preference,for

,whenever there i s a

disagreement with J osephus,the internal evidence

shows the latter to be in error . The Mishnah

measurements appear to have been taken on the

spot . The gates,according to the Talmud

,

were 46% cubits from centre to centre , and this

en tirely agrees with the posi tion of the tunnel s onthe ground .

”

We have here only touched the fringe o f the

RA SH I A S AN EXEGETE

A Lecture read before the Jews’College Literary Society ,

Februa ry ,1906

THE Rabbin ical precepts about mourn ing enj o in

that the loss o f men who duri ng their l i fetime had

propagated the knowledge of the Torah in I srael be

bewai led in the same way as the loss o f th e nearest

and dearest b lood relat ion . The mourn ing for such

a man is no t to be confined to h is kindred on ly,but

i t i s the duty o f the who le congregati on o f I srael .We know how the sacred ri te o f commemorating the

lo ss of a paren t i s performed at every ann iversary of

the death by the chi ldren as long as they l ive . But

one generat i on goeth and one generat ion cometh ,but I srae l abideth for ever . And thus i t i s that ,whi lst the memory o f the most beloved o f parents

mus t ult imate ly be consigned to o b hvron,i n spi te o f

the warmest fi l i al p iety,the congregat ion of I srae l

i s ab le to commemorate i ts great departed even after

the lapse o f century upon century .

Noble i s the duty the fu lfi lment o fwhich co incides

with the spontaneous promptings of the heart . The

duty of commemorati ng the death o f a paren t is to

the ch i ld an impulse of the heart rather than a matter

o f obedience to prescribed law . I t i s the same whenI 39

140 RASH I AS AN EXEGETE

I srael mourns the loss of one or the other of its grea t

sons . Witness at the present day the spontaneous

outburst of fi l ial p iety among J ewry al l ove r th eglobe at the remembrance of the death of Rashi

,

which took place e ight hundred years ago . J ewish

scholars of n ote have striven,o n th i s occasion , to

rescue from ob l ivion rel i cs o f the mind of the greatmaster which were lying bur ied among the fo rgottenparchments o f the great l ibrari es . Meetings havebeen organ i sed in numbers o f J ewi sh centres , in

order to make known far and wide the debt whichI srael owes to Rash i . Here W e no tice a remarkab le

,

and,i ndeed

,a un ique phenomenon . I t was not

necessary to revive or to resusci tate the memory ofthat man

,who died eight hundred years ago . Rash i ’s

memory does not stand in need of reviving . Eve r

s ince Rash i ’s death,one generati on went and one

generat ion came,and Rashi has been abiding with

us . I t i s perplexing to see how Rash i has enteredin to the very l i fe of the J ew

,and the quest ion almost

forces i tse l f upon us : What then was the J ew beforeRash i l ived P That quest ion can

,o f course

,be easi ly

answered,but w e must pass i t by . Enough for us

that the B i ble was henceforth studied with Rash i as

a guide ; that no Jewish commentator who has s ince

arisen cou ld afford to ignore him ; that m edimval

Chr i st ian commentators based thei r knowledge uponhi s teachings. And as for Mishnah and Talmud

,

for u s,as for the generations which immediate ly


that appeared obscure and difficul t of understanding

in the words of the ma ster. Secondly,Rashi

,i n

h i s commentaries on the B i b le,and more especial ly

i n those on the Pentateuch , i n s ists that his so le

obj ect i s to set forth the Pshat,i.e.,the sober

mean ings of the words,the connecti on o f the

sentences,and hence

,the natural mean ing of the

text according to the letter ; and yet, i t has been

said—and apparent ly j ust ly so—that he w as no

more than a tradit i onal and Midrash ic exposi tor of

the Bible . Thirdly,there i s the glaring difference

of method between h is bibl i cal commentaries on

the one hand,and those on the Ta lmud on the other

hand . And for al l that , there i s an oneness in the

man and hi s methods which,i f correct ly understood

,

accounts for al l seeming incongruiti es .I f I were to say that al l these difficu lties disappear

when we bear in mind that Rash i was a J ew,you

might th ink that I w as trifl ing with my audience .

Of course Rashi was a Jew ; but there have been

mi l l i ons upon mi l l ions o f J ews,without any o f them

having been a Rash i . I am afraid that I do not

amend my proposi ti on when I say that Rashi

was a J ewi sh commentator,for so w as Saadiak

,

Rashb am,Ramban

,and a host o f others o f greater

o r lesser s ign ificance,i n whose works

,however

,

such apparently contradictory aspects cannot be

observed . I must,therefore

,be somewhat more

expl i ci t to make myself understood . What I mean

RASH I AS AN EXEGETE 143

t o convey i s,that Rash i , endowed with gifts which

made him an ideal i n terpreter , represented , at the

same time,i n h i s person

,a l l that which stamps the

J ewish race with the sea l o f i ts i ndividual i ty . The

Jewish race has i ts B ible ; the Bible i s i ts book ;certai n ly

,outward ly ; but to the J ew the Bible i s

l i fe i tsel f . I n theory as in pract ice,i t was h i s great

obj ect to read the Bib le,to study the Bib le ; i t was

h is greater obj ect to l ive the Bible . I t i s h is flesh

and blood i t i s to him what the atmosphere i s to

terrestria l beings what water i s to the fishes .

When once the tyrann i cal powers made a decree by

wh ich the J ews were forb idden to occupy themselveswith th e study of the Torah

,R . Akiba di sregarded

i t,and he j ust ified his d i sobedience by the fo l lowing

fab le . “ A fox walked once on the brink of the

river,and saw the fishes darting backwards and

forwards in great perturbation . The fox as ked the

fishes ‘Why do you flee They answered We

flee because men are cast ing out nets in order to

catch us .’ The fox thereupon said Come on dry

land,and you and I wi l l l ive amicably together as

our ancestors used to do .’ And the fishes said‘And they cal l the e the most cunning animal

I ndeed,thou art a fo o l . I f w e have so much reason

for go ing in fear, when we are i n the element wh ich

support s our l i fe , how much worse would i t be for

us were we to go outs ide our element,where death

i s certain .

’

Thus R . Akiba pronounced that the


l i fe of the Jew with the Torah may be precarious ,but that without i t there would be no existence for

h im .

Certain ly the Bible i s a book . Like every

wri tten document i t requires e lucidation form andcontents have to be scrutin ised ; i ts language ,grammar

,diction have to be investigated in order

to arrive at a clear understanding . This wou ld be

sufficient,to the exc lus ion of al l i nd irect modes o f

interp etation, i f the B i b le w ere a l i te rary productand no more . But i t becomes qu i te di fferent wheni t i s considered as a gu ide to our conduct

,per

m eating al l phase s of J ewish l i fe . Then i t i s no

longer a product of l i te rature of i nteres t to thestudent on ly

,but i t i s of inte rest to everybody .

The anxie ty to shape l ife scrupulously upon the

pattern of i ts conten ts makes i t imperative to try to

understand i ts meaning for the purpose of practi ca lappl ication . Bu t more than th i s . The usages ofcentury upon century gave sanctionto certain normswhich regu late l i fe according to the book . They

are ca l led the oral law,the trad itional law

,the

Halacha,the way of l i fe . They form a trad it ional

commentary on the book they are a l iving exegesi s

which shows how the book has been understoodfrom time s immemor ia l . During the wander ings o fthe J ews the l iving commentary accompan ied the

dead parchmen t and ink,and the dead letters and

words had to account for the l iving usages .


them and their ow n land empty of them . The

J ew was precluded from fe ed ing hi s poet ical andimaginative impulses with that nouri shment w hichhuman ity at large derives from sky and land andwater . But

, 5mm% 7735s sh, I srael is not forsaken ;God has provided u s with a substi tute, wmnnnsa pump .

a hidden treasure i n our luggage,that aecom

p anied u s in a l l our wande r ings , our Book of Books ,our Torah . From the pages o f that book flowersblossomed forth

,bright sunsh ine cheered our paths

from between i ts l ines we heard the tuneful caro lsof the birds

,the warning sounds of thunder

,the

soothing murmurs of brook and ri l l .

This i s our M idrash,the Agadic exposi ti on o f our

Torah,the manna from heaven on which the

poetical and imaginat ive instincts of the Jew fed ;and al l brought in connect ion with , al l evolved

from,that book which constitutes the soul of the

J ew,the Torah .

In the case o f nature the pure scienti st in

vestigates i ts phenomena , apart from al l emotional,poet ica l

,eth ical

,or rel igious bear ings ; his equ i

valent i n regard to the Bible i s the phi lo logical,

historical,

archmo logical expounder, who keeps

exclusively and strictly to the Pshat. The

mechan ical scientist tries to discover how the

secre ts of nature can be made subservient to man ,how they can be made the gu ides to his practicall ife thi s

,as regards the B ib le , corresponds with the


Talmud in i ts Halachi c portions . In nature , thepoet and the arti st attempt to give express ion to the

i nfluence which i t exerc i s es upon the emot i ons,the

poeti cal impul ses,and the sentimental i n st i ncts ;

th i s i s the Talmud in i ts Agadi c porti ons . The

combinat ion of thes e three elements,i n greater o r

l esser completeness,i n more or less hom ogeneity,

formed for ages the l i fe o f the J ew . The har

m onisation o f these e lements into such homogenei ty

as i s withi n the reach o f one ind ividual w as effected

by Rashi i n h is exeges i s o f the Bible . This is what

I meant to convey when I said that Rashi’s

s ign ificance l i es in the fact that he w as a J ew .

H is natura l qual ifications were those wi thout

which he would never have atta ined an influence

which outlasted ages . There was,in the firs t place

,

the impulse to impart the fruits o f his ow n ao

quisitions to h i s brethren . Secondly,there w as h is

se lf-den ial,which amounted almost to se l f-efface

ment ; i n the mass o f hi s exeget ical remarks,the

cases in which he ment i on s h imsel f can,so to say,

be counted on one’s fingers . Third ly,h is was the

gift wh ich the ideal teacher pos sesses ; an in

exhaust ib le pat i ence ; he hardly ever re fers readersto other passages in h i s commentaries ; there are

scarcely any cross references ; open a book which

i s accompan ied by his commentary on any page,

and you wi l l almost always find the desired in

formati on,although several times given elsewhere in


para l le l passages . Four th ly, there is that concisenesso f expression which never uses two words w hereone suffices ; an economy and sobrie ty which gave

ri se to the saying that Rash i wrote with a pen o f

gold,a saying on ly s ign ificant before the i nvention

o f fountain pens with go lden n ibs , implying, as i t

did,that he wrote as i f afraid of wearing ou t his

pen . Another proverb to the same effect was,that

at Rashi ’s t ime a drop of ink must have cost a

go lden piece .The task w hich Rash i had set h imself

,i n h is

exege s i s o f Scripture,of doing j ust ice to al l three

elements,was prodigious beyond description . I t

cannot be den ied that the Halachic and Agadic

interpretat ion comes frequently into seri ous confl i ct

with the sober l ingu istic explanat ion of the Pshat .

I t was no t Rashi ’s plan to p lace the results o f thesevari ous hermeneutical methods one by the s ide of

the other,but to blend them into one harmon ious

whole . I n the former case i t wou ld have meant thej uxtaposi tion o f different commentari es, each taken

from one of these different po ints of view ; some

such method as , for instance , was appl ied by I bn

Ezra to h is commentary,or rather

,commentaries

,

on the Song o f So lomon . But such was not Rashi’s

obj ect . H is aim was to expound the Bible,and

particularly the five books o f Moses,according to

the Pshat,and to the Fshat on ly . He was fu l ly

al ive to the n ecess i ty of explain ing the text accord


pressi ons,a h int that something more was impl ied

than that which l ies on the surface . Secondly, that

which I cal led before the l iving commentary o f theTorah

,the tradi ti onal exegesis which had swayed

the l ife o f the Jew for ages, and which was not less

hi s Torah than the written document,was to Rashi

no t on ly irrefragable truth,but was considered by

h im in the l ight o f a true exposit ion of the word

d ivi ne . And it is here that Rash i draws his d i s

tinctions ; he separates such Agadic and Halach ic

explanations as are Pshat from such as are not

Pshat . He ca l l s Fshat such Agadic and Halachicexplanation s as adapt themselves to the wording of

the text without do ing vio lence to grammar,to the

mean ing of the terms used,and to the context . I

do no t mean to say that Rashi does not also cal l

Pshat the plain mean ing o f the sentences which

fo l low natural ly,without regard to indirect Mid

rashic notions . He certain ly i ns ists on that method

and cal ls i t Pshat . But he includes in the term such

Midrash im as adapt themselves to the text . He

only excludes,as not deserving the name of Pshat

,

such Midrash im as do,i n his opin ion

,vio lence to

the mean ing o f the words and the sequence o f the

sentences . He admits the legitimacy o f the m ost

forced explanat ions,but is of opin ion that

,admiss ib le

as they are,they are not Pshat.

This theory wi l l have to be proved,and i t cannot

b e done be tter than by Rash i'

s own words . He


him se lf sketches out that mode o f proceeding, as

usual,i n h i s terse s tyle and economical phraseology,

i n several passages . Thus, he says i n h is comm entary

on Genes i s i i i . 8 : “There are many Agadic M idrashim

on th i s verse,but they have already been arranged

methodical ly by our Sages i n Beresh ith Rabba and

in other M idrash ic co l lect i on s ; my task i s on ly to

explain the P shat o f the text,and to give such Agada

as elucidates the words of the text,i n accordance

with the natural sequence o f the sentences .”

The princ ipal passage i n which he explains h i s

method is hi s short introduction to h is commentary

on the Song of So lomon . He starts wi th the words

o f the Pslam ist (62, Once God has spoken ,tw i ce I have heard th is

,o r as i t i s taken here : God

has spoken on e th ing,and I have heard two th ings .

One verse,

” he says,

“ branches out into several

mean ings,but

,when everyth ing has been considered

,

there is no verse which loses i ts p lain and s imple

meaning. I t i s true,the prophets spoke thei r words

to serve as parabl es, but the parab le must be adaptedto the word ing according to i ts context

,and to the

sequence of the verses as they appear in thei rarrangement

,one after the other . In regard to the

present book (the Song o f So lomon) I have seenseveral M idrash im to i t

,some of wh ich compri se the

whole book i n one continuous Midrash,whi lst o thers

spl i t i t up into several M idrash im,according to the

separate verses,which latter M i drashim adapt them


selves nei ther to the wording nor to the sequence

o f the sentences . Therefore I reso lved to grasp thel i teral meaning of the verses

,to expound i t according

to the sequence of the sentences ; and as for the

M idrash ic explanati ons o f our Sages,I shal l subj o in

each Midrash to the passage to which i t n atura l lybelongs .

Thus we see that to Rash i the Pshat i s the true

interpretat ion,and so i s the Midrashi c explanat ion .

Both are al lowed authori ty,one by the s ide of the

other . Modern scholars some t imes sneer at this

method of ascribing equal admiss ib i l i ty to suchdifferent modes of i nterpretation . O thers goodhum ouredly smi le at i t as a na ivete

’

which they con

s ider chi ldish,and yet so amiable . But there i s

nothing to der i de and noth ing to condone . With thesame right migh t the geo logi st and the chemist smi leat the physic ian prescrib ing for his p atients a changeof scenery and surroundings to a more salubri ousso i l . To Rash i , as to many other commentators, i n

fact,to every Jew throughout centur i es, to every

preacher w ho i ncu lcates mora l and re l igious lessonswith the B ib le i n h i s hand

,such manifo ld considera

t ion of the B ible i s not on ly legi t imate but also

indi spensable . But Rash i shows himse l f the soberminded Darshan and expositor o f the letter. He

accepts in h is commentari es as Pshat the M idrashi cexplanati ons wh ich adapt themse lves to the letter.He does not deny the legitimacy o f such M idrashim


I must i ndulge here i n a rat her lengthy quotat ion ,first

,for the purpose of hearing from Rash i h imsel f

what h is atti tude was towards the autho r i t i es and ,secondly

,to give a spec imen of what I shou ld l ike

to cal l Rash i ’s Agadic Pshat . You al l rememberthe passage i n Exodus

,v i. 2-8 :

“ And God spake

unto Moses and said unto h im,I am the Lord .

And I appeared unto Abraham,unto I saac

,and unto

Jacob,as God Almighty

,but by my name J HVH ,

I was not known to them . And I al so have

establ i shed my covenant with them to give them the

land of Canaan,the land of their soj ourn ings in

which they soj ourned . And moreover, I have heardthe groan ings o f the ch i ldren of I srael whom theEgyptians keep in bondage

,and I have remembered

my covenant . Wherefore say unto the chi ldren o f

I srael I am the Lord,and I wi l l bring them out from

under the burdens o f the Egyptians,and I wi l l r id

you out of thei r bondage,and I wi l l redeem you

with a stretched out arm and with great j udgments,

and I wi l l take you to me for a people,and I wi l l be

to you a God and ye shal l know that I am the Lord

your God, which bri ngeth you ou t from under theburdens of the Egyptians . And I wi l l bring you

unto the land concern ing which I l i fted up my hand

to give i t to Abraham,to I saac

,and to Jacob

,and I

wi l l give i t to you for an heritage,I am the Lord .

Rashi so lves several d ifficulti es o f th is passage in h is

way, especial ly the one regard ing the name J HVH .


Here i t seems to be impl ied that th i s name was no t

known to the Patriarchs,whi lst we find i t i n Genes i s

i n God ’s revelat ion s to them . Rash i explains that

the name o f four letters i ndicates the abso lute truth

vested i n Go d , and the certa in ty o f God making

good h i s d ivi ne promises . Rash i supports th i s

theo ry i nduct ive ly by Bibl ical passages,i n which

that name occurs i n thi s sense,especial ly when the

formula,

“ I am JHVH ,i s added either to promises

or to threats . Here we have also the introductory

phrase,

“ I am J HVH,

” and Rash i explains i t thus

I have made the Patriarch s many promi ses wh ichI prefaced with the words

,

‘I am God Almighty,’ but

they have never experienced the fulfilment o f my

promi ses ; o r, i n other words , my name JHVH has

not become known unto them . Rash i supportsthi s further by o bserving that i t is no t said here“ I have no t communi cated that same unto them

,

but i n the pass ive “ my name has n ot become

known unto them .

” The verse,

“ I have establi shedmy covenant with them

,

” i s explai ned by Rash i“ I have said to Abraham

,I am God Almighty

and I shal l give thee and thy seed after thee the land

of thy soj ourn ings To I saac : I shal l givethee and thy seed al l these lands

,and I shal l

establ i sh the oath wh ich I have sworn to thy father

Abraham an oath which was sworn with the

words—‘I am Go d Almighty .

’

To J acob I amGod Almighty

,be fruitfu l and mu l t iply and the

156 RASH I AS AN E XEGETE

land which I gave to Abraham and I saac I shal l give

to thee,and to thy seed after thee I shal l give the

land .

” “ And I heard the groan ing of the chi ldrenof Israe l

,I am JHVH ,

namely,i n the slavery foreto ld

in the covenant between the pieces ; and I rememberthat covenant . There fore te l l the chi ldren of I sraelI am JHVH ,

He in whom the truth fu l fulfi lment ofpromises i s vested

,the promi se s which he made to

the Patr iarchs as God Almighty .

” Rash i then quotes

in support of h is in terpre tat i on a verse,referred to

by R . Baruch b . R . El ieze r,from J eremiah xv1

The refore I wi l l cause them to know my hand andmy might

,and they shal l know that my name i s

JHVH . Thus God i nd icates the fu lfi lment of H i sthreats by that name ; and how much more so thefu lfi lment o f H i s promises . Rashi proceeds OurSages expla i n the passage as fo l l ows They say thati t i s meant to be a rebuke to Moses

,who had com

plain ed to God (v . saying : ‘Lord,wherefore

hast thou evi l entreated thi s peop l e ’ God,in H is

mention ing the Fathers,said W o e I For those that

are lost and have not been replaced % I t i s a misfo rtune that the Fathe rs are dead % Many a timehave I appeared to them as God Almighty

,and they

said not,what is Thy name ? as thou hast asked

What i s Thy name I have establ i shed my covenant

with them,to give them the land ; and ye t, when

Abraham wished to bury Sarah,he cou ld not do so

t i l l he had bought a grave at great cost ; and I saac,


tations, does no more than record certain hom ilectic

observat ions la id down in the Talmud ; but for

himse l f he has selected his method and adheres to i t .

I n h is pursui t of P shat,Rash i pays

,of course

,

great attenti on to grammar . I t seems that, o f the

grammatical researches of h i s predecessors,on ly

those o f Menahem and Dunash were accessible to

him , al though he sometimes c i tes Sandiah wi thgreat respect . But he is by no means their

s lavish fol lower . He frequent ly disputes theirderivati ons

,and d i scusses hi s grammatica l po ints

w i th great acumen . Of the host o f super

commentaries on Rashi,that by R . I saac Auerbach

,

enti tled Beer Recho b o t,deals very lucid ly with

Rash i ’s grammatical notes on the Pentateuch .

Nowadays,Rashi ’s grammatical po in ts are looked

down upon,but not a lways with j ust ice ; but i t i s

true that,as far as we can ascertain

,the researches

of men l ike I bn Ganach and others w ere unknown

to him . Many modern scholars do not deign to

go to Rash i for i nformation . Gesenius said that he

was no more than a traditional and Talmudic

exegete,and occup ied a place much below I bn

Ganach . For al l that,there are in stances that even

Gesenius would have done wel l to consult Rashi .

To give an example . On the word ‘lY‘JD

, i n the

first chapter o f Daniel,Ge senius said that the usual

way o f taking th is word as a proper noun , Hame lz ar,

was an error, but that the word means“ cel lar


master i f he had consulted Rash i he would have

found that explanation there .

Were i t possib le to do so with in the compass of alecture

,i t would here be the place to cast a glance

upon the translat ion s o f several of Rashi’s works i nto

Lati n,made by Chr i sti ans

,and upon the use made

by some Chri stian wri ters o f Rash i i n their ow n

works . One i nstance must suffice . Nicho las de

L i ra was a voluminous commentator of the Bible

the fo l i o s contain ing hi s wri t ings are of a forb idding

s ize . And what d id the great J ohann Renchlin say

about h im ? He was o f opin ion that i f you took

away out o f Nicho las de L ira’s books al l that

wh ich he had taken from Rashi , n ot much would

be left . I n Reuchlin’

s own words “ Und wann

di e we'

rter und Red en,des Rabbi Salomonis

,der

uber die bibel geschri eben hat,uss unserm N icko la

de Lyra,der auch uber d ie b ibel geschrieben hat

,

cantz e llirt und ausgethan werden , so wolt i ch das

uberig, so derselbe N ico las de Lyra aus sein em

eygen haupt uber die bibel gemacht hatte , gar i n

wenig b le tter com prehendiern und b egre iffen .

There are many points which can here on ly be

indicated,but which deserve an exhaustive di s

cussion the Talmudical and Rabbin ical writers,i n

thewidest sense o f the word , and the other author i t i eson which Rash i based his exegesi s ; h i s predecessors

and teachers ; hi s assoc iates and di sc ip les , some of

whom,i n a manner , co l laborated wi th him ; the


Targumim,i n as far as they were avai lable by

him,

- for i t seems that he di d not know the so

cal led Targum of J onathan to the Pentateuch . A

compari son wou ld be required between bibl icalexegesis

,as exercised by the Spanish schoo l

,and

that of the French schoo l founded by Rashi .Abraham Geiger

,whose sympath ies did not natura l ly

inc l ine tow ards the Halach ic and Midrashic expositi onof the B ib le

,i s yet constrained to ass ign , on the

whole,the superiority to Rash i and his fo l lowers .

He is of opin ion that Bible exegesi s does not

a lw ays gain by en l ightenment and expansion o f

view that the view s are forced upon the Bible by

twist ings and contorti ons . He says that the schoo l

founded by Rashi w as super i or to the Spani shschool in profound investigat ion of the spiri t o f the

language , i n a clear grasp o f the detai led contents o fa book

,and in a genera l and cr i t i ca l i ns ight in the

ideas and concept ions of antiqu i ty .

Besides the Pentateuch,Rashi wrote commentaries

on the other books o f the B i b le , with the except ion

of the books o f Chron ic les and some verses o f the

book o f J ob . But the greatest attention o f the

scho lars and criti cs has al l along been particu larlydirec ted towards the Pentateuch . This i s, above al l,the case in reference to the hi s tory o f Rashi ’s text

in h is commentary on that book . I t goes without

saying,that i n the course o f t ime inaccurac ies and

interpolat ions had sl ipped in,and addi t i ons belong


thing away . He never wants to soften harsh ex

press ions ; on the contrary, i f they are harsh , he , as

the faithful exegete,i s at pains to bring the harsh

ness out and make i t understood . I f there are

passages which appear to others crude,and which

they therefore want to explai n away,by al legorising

,

by symbol ising,or by other means

,Rash i i s uncon

cerned,and only wishes to make h is readers under

stand what hi s text impl ies . He guides them in the

in tri cacies o f Talmudic d ialect ics,and with a few

strokes and i n the fewest o f words unravels the

most tangled skein o f argumentat ion . With Rash i

for a gu i de en igmati ca l sayings become clear,and

with one word he forestal l s quest ions wh ich even

the To safists sometimes spend pages to answer .

Besides thi s,he was the great cri t i c of the text o f

the Talmud . Our Talmuds present us essential lywith Rash i ’s text . For Rashi l ived a long time

before printi ng was invented . Every letter i n everysingle copy had to be separately produced byhand . Parchment

,which w as the principal wr i ting

mater ial o f the time,was very expensive . Whatever

money the J ews had avai lab le for procuring the

costly sheets was i n the first i nstance expended on

wri t ing the scro l l s of the Torah , or on prayer books .

The copyist had to make a l iving out of h i s art o f

transcrib ing ; and, however low the remunera tion ,the cost of preparing a copy of the Talmud musthave mounted up to a considerable sum . Imagine

RASH I AS -AN EXEGETE 163

on ly the labour and the expense of transcrib ing the

who le o f the Talmud % Roger Bacon,who l ived

over a century after Rash i,enumerates the obstac les

he had to surmount when he wanted a copy o f a

book prepared .

“ How many parchments,

” he says,

and how many copyists were required,and how

many proo f copies had to be prepared,before one

copy could be produced in a fin ished form to stand

the final test % Many ass istants were wanted , the

merely mechan ical work had to be entrusted to anumber o f lads

,and many readers must be em

ployed to purge the text from errors ; i n spectors

were needed to prevent the copyi sts from committ ing

frauds,and to superintend and account for the

Iexpenses .’ We may assume that on ly i n a few

cases copies of the Talmud were manufactured i n

such w el l regulated copying estab l i shments . I n mostcases the eager and pious students procured cop ies

i n the best way they could, w hich m eans in the

worst poss ib le way . One inaccurate copy becamethe text from which to procure a st i l l more

corrup ted copy. Marginal notes,extracts from the

Halachoth Gedo lo th,and other ancient works

,were

embodied in the text . And it was copies o f such

character wh ich Rash i undertook to expound and

correct . I t i s true Rash i ’s predecessors had a lready

done good work in that d irect ion i t appears that a

P en is/e existed wh ich had acqu ired authority o n all

s i des . But after Rash i’s efforts al l such previous


attempts became superseded . I t became an abso luteimpossibi l i ty to study the Talmud withou t Rashi .His became the Konteros

,the commentary par

excellence. Never before nor after has a commentary

o f thi s character been written to any book . Rash i’s

corrections are almost al l taken up in our copies,so

that the read ings which Rashi rej ected are for themost part lost ; a circumstance which i s deplored

by some as a loss to the h is torical crit ique o f the

Ta lmudic text,and which is only partly remedied

by the newly d iscovered manuscript i n Munich,

which has been co l lated by Rab b inow icz .

How is i t then that Rashi,who

,i n h i s comm en

taries on the Bible,intermingl ed pure exegesis with

i ndirect hermeneuti cs to such a great extent, was ,i n regard to the Talmud

,the sober dragoman who

wished for noth ing more than the clear understand

ing of the t ext ? The ground is th is,that both i n

the Bible and in the Talmud Rash i represented

that which stamps the J ew with i t s i ndividuali ty.

I n the B i b le he had to find how J ewish l ife has to

be evo lved out of the wri tten document he had to

introduce that wh ich I cal l the l iving commentary

of ages,and show i ts i dent i ty with the text of the

B i ble . But the Talmud,both i n i ts H a lach ic and

i ts Agadic parts,mirrors the l i fe of the Jew i n

al l i ts phases ; i t i s i tsel f that l iving commentarywhich had accompanied the Jews in a l l theirwanderings from times immemoria l

,and of that


the h ighways and by-ways of the Talmud . He was

int imately acquainted with al l that had becomeaccessible to him of the Targumim

,the works of the

Geon im,the ancient Rabbin ica l wri tings

,and the

grammarians . H e brought upon his exegetica l efforts

mental powers to bear that are not easi ly surpassedhe was pervaded with noble sympath ies

,which

always made h im forgetful of se l f and mindfu l o f thein te l lectual needs of o thers ; he mirrors in h is comm entaries al l that had come down to him o f the

most e levated s ides of J ewish l i fe,which h is exegesis

reproduced . We are to ld that i n advanced age hedeclared that i f he w ere not too o ld he would wri te

other commentari es,more str i ctly in accordance

with Pshat pure and simple . I t i s i dle to speculate

on the aspect such commentaries might have pre

sen ted . We may doubt whether they would have

been the same reflex of comprehensive J ewish l i fe

and thought as those which we possess from his

hand . I t i s the latter feature by which hi s exeges i s

has entered into Jewish l ife and has become part o f

i ts existence . Thus have the commentarie s of the

sm iwm,the Exegete o f the Law

,l ived with us for

eight hundred years,and wi l l continue to l ive with

us and to inspi re us with re l igi ous l ife .

PUBLIC D IS PUTATIONS IN S PA IN

THE tale o f J ewish suffering s ince the exi le furn ishesmonotonous reading to the cal lous

,and heartrending

reading to th e humane . Flashes o f l ight have

occas i onal ly broken through the gloom,at certain

t imes,i n certain local iti es . These were hai led by

Jewish optimism as the harb ingers of happier t imes,and magnified in to l egi t imate grounds for tr iumph

and rej o icing . But soon the sky was agai n overcast ;persecuti on s were once more the order o f the day ,whether they be on a large or smal l scale , result ing

in massacre and expu l s i on,or in petty

,mal icious

and annoying moles tat i ons .

This preponderance o f darkness over l ight, of evi l

over good,ari ses on ly from the environments i n

which the Jew i s dest ined to move . But there is

another aspect o f our h i story in wh ich the l ight

dispels the gloom,i n wh ich the good i s real

,essential ,

enduring ; to whi ch the bad , however deplorable ,bears only a s l ight proporti on .

This i s the aspect o f our fai th and race observablefrom with i n ; o f the vo lume of capacity wh i ch the

body J ewish,

has produced al l a l ong . There we see

superior gi fts o f head an d heart,moral and rel igious

i ntensi ty reaching unsurpassable heights,puri ty

,love

and self-sacrifice o f the h ighest order .167

168 D I SPUTAT IONS IN SPA IN

On the o ther hand,i t cannot be denied that the

same body J ewish has had much to suffer from

malignant growths ; that i t o ccas ional ly developed

venomous sores ; which , i t i s true, never succeeded

in penetrat ing to the core,yet were often i n strumental

i n attracting the inj ur ious miasms which con stantly

threatened us from without . I n every generationsome men appeared

,who had broken loose from the

commun i ty of I srael,thrown o ff the ir fai th

,and

adopted that o f the people that surrounded them .

Having d ivested themselves of allegiance to their

race and their re l igious inheri tance,and having been

spurred on by covetousness,ambition

,and renegade

z eal,j o ined their new brethren

,not on ly i n sub

scribing to thei r doctrines,but also

,

in the bai ting

and persecution of their former co -rel igi on i sts . More

than that,they not only assi sted them in thei r cruel

designs , but instigated them to fresh attempts and

aided them i n thei r efforts . I n these nefarious

devices they had an advantage over thei r fel lowtorturers . They possessed a more o r l ess i nt imate

acquaintance with the l i terature o f the J ews,with

their r i te s and usages,which

,however l imited in

some cases,surpassed that of those

,who considered

i t a meritorious work to harass the J ews,and

/

t o try

to exterminate them,or

,at any rate

,thei r rel igious

convictions . “Your rel igion or your l ives

,

” was the

challenge thrown at the J ews,at whole communit ies

o f J ews,at J ews o f entire countri es ; thrown at them

170 DI SPUTATIONS IN SPA IN

time we have in view took the form of public di s

p u tations, which the J ews were summoned to

attend, to reply to charges l evel led against them,

against thei r wr i ti ngs,and against their convict ions .

The al ternat ive ostensib ly offe red was : either con

vince us that we are wrong, or turn Christians . The

Jew s knew ful l wel l that another alternative loomedbehind , to wit : e ither submit , or be prepared forthe direst persecuti ons of yourselves and al l your

co -rel igion ists .

And the method of persuas i on by means ofpubl i c di sputat ion s was on a par with the tendency

that cal l ed them forth . Not for noth ing does the

Am z

'

a’ak for the New Year and the Day of Atone

ment contain the prayer : “ Grant open ing of the

mouth to those who abide in Thee . The J ews

were browbeaten,i nsulted , threatened at every

turn . Prominent in the inso len t treatment o f theJ ews was the hardened effrontery of the renegades

,

who had indirectly inst ituted the disputations,and

now improved the opportun ity o f flaunting the i r

part/emu zeal for their new rel igi on . Thus,there

were three principal levers at work to make

disputati ons a source of pain and peri l to the J ews .

First,there were the Chri st ian prelates and poten

tates,to whom the convers ion and torture of the

J ews were of paramount importance second ly,the

perverts,who j o ined them ; and, th irdly, the

help lessness o f the J ews,who were unable to avert

D I SPUTATIONS IN SPAI N 171

the terrible consequences that hung over thei r

heads and over tho se of their brethren i n fai th .

Spain was no t the firs t country where publ i c

d isputation s had been forced upon the J ews . We

need on ly remember the d i sputati on in France,

which had such fatal consequences,i n cluding the

publ i c burn ing of wagon loads o f the most cher i shedJewi sh books . The first di sputati on held i n Spa in

was that in which one of the great luminaries,who

have shed such brightness upon the gloom o f the

exi l e,s tood on the defence against the attacks o f the

friar,Pablo Chri st ian i .

Amidst the tal e o f so much sadness i t i s a s o lemn

pleasure to refer to one o f t hose men whose

exi stence outbalanced a number of calamit i es and

rendered them worth submi tt ing to .

Moses ben Nachman,cal led by h is fel low country

m en B onastruc de Portas,quoted by the J ews by

the i n i tial s o f hi s name as Ramban,and known in

l i terature as N achmanides, was born in Gerona i n

1195. I t i s n o t easy to descr ibe the con tents o f a

mind o f a man l ike Nachmanides ; i t i s d ifficult to

sketch the superi or powers of h i s i n te l lect ; i t i s

more difficult to estimate the e levated qual i t i es o f

his heart ; and most d ifficu l t to comprehend thenature of a soul i n wh ich al l these endowments

were un i ted and formed a harmon ious who le . His

re l igious convi ctions were based upon al l that

J ewish tradit ion offered,and th i s gu ide d him i n h i s

172 DI SPUTAT IONS IN SPAIN

rel igious and humanitarian acts . Hi s dispos it ion

was kind and gentle,the puri ty o f his heart can on ly

be indicated negatively ; al l impurity w as far from

h im . He was wise,he was learned

,he was always

active for the good o f h i s brethren .

He had mastered the Bib le,the Talmud

,and

the Rabbin ica l writings . This, i n the case of

Nachmanides,means that he was a master in these

d i scip li nes and had gained an independent j udg

ment al l along the i r h ighways and byways . At the

age o f fi fteen he commenced writ ing supplements to

the rel igi ous code of R . I saac Alfasi. Not longafter he wrote a defence o f that master

,under the

t i tl e o f“ The Wars o f the Lord

,

” against the

cri ti que o f the eminent Talmudic scholar,R . Zerahya

Halevi .

From these beginn ings he proceeded to compose

commentaries upon a number of Talmudical treati ses,

and wrote on several top ics connected with the

rel igious duties o f the J ews . He always shows

h imself the clear thinker,the acute controversial i st

,

and withal the man o f fee l ing . The spiri tual

motives underlying the rel igious precepts made the

tender fibres o f hi s heart vibrate in sympathy . His

mysti ca l theories abou t the power of the soul tomou ld the body

,and about retribution after death

,

breathe the tenderness of his feel ings for the l iving.

Nachmanides was a ph i losopher . This has been

denied by some writers . The truth is , he was no t

174 D ISPUTAT IONS IN SPA IN

physi cian,and probably made h i s l iving by his

profess ion .

Now let us cast a glance upon the person whoifhad the effrontery to j o in issue wi th him . He was

an apostate J ew,who had assumed the name o f

Pablo Christian i,and had entered the o rder of the

Domini cans . He used to travel backwards andforw ards i n h i s attempt to pervert the J ews

,

endeavouring to prove Chr i s tian ity from B i b le and

Talmud . He was supported by the Genera l of h i s

order,Raym undus de Pefiaforte . The latter had

made i t the obj ect o f h i s l i fe to estab l i sh papal

supremacy,and to torture J ews and Mahommedans

into Christ iani ty. For th is purpose he foundedseminaries for the study o f Hebrew and Arabic , a

mode o f proceed ing resore td to by that class o f

Chr i st ian i sers up to the present day . He was the

spiri tua l d irector o f Jayme,King of Aragon

,who

was submissive to Raymundus ; and no wonder, fo r

he was sorely i n need of the indulgences o f his

confessor . Jayme wi l l ingly supported the p ro

selytisng measures of Raymundus . Here we have

the three personages requisite to enact the drama

of such disputations : the ruler of the countrydependent upon the Church

,the zealous and

unscrupulous prelate,and the renegade J ew .

Raymundus contr ived to institute a publ i c d isputation

,at the Court of the king

,between Moses

ben Nachman and the friar Pablo,o r Paul

,Christian i .

D I SPUTATIONS IN SPA IN 175

Nachmanides was summoned to be the responden t

to the arguments which Pablo was to bring forward .

Pablo had assured the king that he would be able

to prove the Mess ian ic c laims for J esus fromTa lmud and M idrash . Nachmanides was permitted

to make some stipulat i o n s regard ing the course o f

the debate . I t was the latter’s obj ect that an agenda

should be c learly enunciated , and that the di sputants

should not swerve from the po ints submitted for

d iscussion . The po in ts were : first,whether th e

Mess iah had already appeared ; secondly , whether

the Messiah,as foreshadowed by the prophets

,w as

to be a divi n e king or a man born of human paren ts

and,th irdly , whether the J ews or the Chri stians

possessed the true fai th . Nachmanides further

demanded complete freedom o f speech . The king

accepted the terms,but Raymundus wished to

qual i fy them by the proviso,that the freedom of

speech should no t be abused so as to lead to

b lasphemous remarks against Chri st ian i ty . Nach

manides repl ied that he was fu l ly wel l acquainted

with the ru les of courtesy . Raymundus,evident ly,

did not evince the same concern lest b lasphemies

be uttered again st the J ewish rel igion .

The d isputat ion Opened at Barcelona on the 20th

of July,1263

,i n the king’s palace

,i n the presence

o f the whole court . The atte ndance included a

number o f clericals,nobles and others

,and

, o f

course,many Jews had to be presen t. The disputa

176 D I SPUTAT IONS IN SPAIN

tio n lasted four days (non -consecutive) . After the

third s i tt ing a wi sh was expressed in severa l quarters

to terminate the discussion . The Jews of Barcelona

entreated Nachmanides to discontinue the debatefo r fear o f the Dominicans . A Franciscan monk

,

Fray de Genova, j o ined them for reasons of hi s

own . The Christians of Barcelona desired the

same . Nachmanides communicated th i s general

wish to the king,but the latter ordered the

d isputation to proceed .

The course of the d i scussion showed how badly

Pablo was equipped for crossing swords with

Nachmanides . His whole armament cons isted in

some Agadic passages of no weight . He argued

that the Talmud impl ied that the Mess iah,had

already come,for there was an Agadic saying that

the Messiah was born on the day when the temple

o f J erusalem was destroyed . Nachmanides repl ied,

that,i n the first place

,he di d not attribute any

authori ty to that Agada ; and , secondly, i f the in

formation were correct i t would prove the contraryo f that which Pablo wanted to deduce from i t .

Pablo thought that h i s opp onent had givenhim an

opening . Beho ld,he exclaimed

,how th i s man

himse l f denies the au thori ty of J ewish traditi on .

”

Nachmanide s proceeded,that th i s Agada ei the r

contained an untrue statement or i t bore an inter

p re tation ,symbol ical or al legorical

,which would

render i t acceptable. But when taken in its crude,

178 D I SPUTATIONS IN SPAIN

sixth century) as coincident with the first year of

the l i fe o f J esus . And the author’s concluding

remark ran thus For my own part I fee l at

present somewhat without an abso lutely authoritat ivenegat ive to the very strange ques tion : Did Jesus

l ive 100 B .C .—and shal l continue to feel so unti l

al l s ides o f the question have been again rigorously

scrutin ised by the ever finer cri t ical equipment

which the twentieth century must in evitably develop,

and in the l ight of the great to leration which the

ever-growing human ism of our day i s extending to

the most intractab le quest ions of theology .

”

The po int raised by Pab lo as to the al leged proof

o f Christianitv contained in the Talmud,i s met by

Nachmanides as fol lows I t i s,

” he says,

“wel l

known that al l the i ncidents related about J esus,about

h is b irth and his death,would fal l wi th in the period

o f the second temple . The Talmudic Sages l ived after

the destruction o f the temple . Now,suppose i t were

true that they bel i eved in the Messian ic character ofJ esus

,that they bel i eved in h im and his rel igion

,

why then did they not adopt the latter,but

,i n stead

,

remained adherents o f the J ewi sh fai th and persisted

in practis ing its Observances ?

As to Nachmanides’

s bel ief i n the authori tat ive

value of Agadic statements—a point on which Pablo

thought he had scored against h im—he explainedthat our books were to be d ivided in to three classes .

F i rst, there was the Bible, i n which al l o f us beli eved

D I SPUTAT IONS IN SPAIN 179

with perfect fai th . To the second class belonged the

Talmud,which conta in s the exposi ti on of the precepts

of the Torah . A l l the s ix hundred and th irteenprecepts of the Torah w ere exp lained i n the Talmud ,and we bel i eve i n these explanati ons . The third

c la ss compr i sed the M idrash,which contai ns

sermorzes,homi l i es . Our fai th nei ther stands nor

fal ls with the bel i ef or d isbel i ef in their authori ty .

Against the Agad ic passage under cons ideration,

other Sages averred that the Messiah would not be

born t i l l the approach o f th e time for h im to work

our del iveran ce from the dispersion . Therefore, I

do not bel i eve in th i s Agadic statement .

Omitting the var i ous arguments propounded andconfute d dur ing the di sputati ons, the wrangles aboutthe true mean ing of th i s or that b ib l i cal verse

,i t i s

here on ly necessary to reproduce two o r three

observations o f Nachmanides . He says : The

quest ion o f the Messiah i s not o f that paramount

importance for our re l igion . Thou,O King

,art for

m e o f greater importance than the Mess iah . Thou

art a king,and he wi l l be a king thou art a Gen ti le

king,and he wi l l be a king o f I srael fo r the Mess iah

wi l l be flesh and blood as thou art . It I serve myCreator now

,permitted by thee to do so

,i n

exi le,in affl i ct i on , i n servi tude, subj ect to general

scorn lavi shed upon me by al l,my action s are

meri torious , and wi l l meet with reward in the world

to come . But when the king o f I srae l shal l ru le, I

180 D ISPUTAT IONS IN SPAI N

shal l perforce have to abide by the J ewish Torah ,and my reward wi l l no t be so great .

”

As for Jesus’

s al leged divine nature : Thou , a

king,hast

,as long as thou l ivest

,heard priests, and

Franciscans,and Dominicans

,talk about h i s b irth ,

and thy whole existence has become saturated wi th

that bel ief . But i t i s opposed to reason , to nature .No prophet has ever said i t ; neither J ews , nor any

man can adopt i t that the Creator of the Un ive rseand al l that i s con tained therein entered the body of

a certa in J ewess,there developed for severa l months

,

was brought forth into th e world a human infant,

grew up,and was handed over to hi s enemies

,

condemned to death,ki l led

,and then

,as you aver

,

l ived,and returned to h is original place .

”

I saiah prophe s i ed that at the t ime of the Mess iah,

nat ion shal l not l i ft sword against nation,they wi l l

no longer learn war. But ever since the birth of

Chr i stian ity,up to the present day

,the whole world

i s ful l of Violence and devastati on ; the Christ iansshed more b lood than other peop le s . H ow bad

w ou l d i t b e for thee,O king

,and for thy kn ights

,

were the art of war no longer learned .

”

These few quotations must suffice . Need i t besaid that the Dominicans spread the report that

Nachmanides had been utterly worsted,and fled

the city for shame ? The truth i s,that Raymundus

was far from being sati sfied w i th the resul t o f thedi sputat ion

,and i t w as conti nued the next Saturday,


recorded here in de tai l . The gross outcome was

that the copies of the Talmud were confiscated,and

numerous passages,which the censors that were

appo inted for the purpose con sidered to al ludeadverse ly to Chris t ian i ty

,were expunged .

But th is was not sufficient for the Domin icans ;they des ired to reach the person of Nachmanides

h imself. The latter had composed a truthful and

sober report of the proceedings in Barcelona,copies

of wh i ch reached the J ews in severa l countr ies .This came to the knowledge of the pope . He

upbraided King Jayme for harbouring such a personi n h i s land . The king was enj o ined to dismiss a l lJ ewish officials and to puni sh Nachmanides . Where

would the venerable scho lar,who was then over

seventy,turn for an asylum ? Whither does the

J ewish heart d irect the footsteps o f the J ewi sh

wanderer ? To the land of I srael,of course . I t i s

impossible here to enlarge upon h i s activi ties i nPalestine

,upon his grief at the conditi ons pre

vai l ing there,upon th e pathet ic letters he directed

to h is sons . He succeeded in col lect ing about h im

a number of discip les,eager to l i sten to his teachings

,

and i t was i n J erusalem that he wrote h i s com

m entaries to the B ib le . He died after having

carried on his b l i ssful activi ty i n the Holy Land for

more than three years .

I have dwel t upon the disputat ion at Barcelona

at too great a length, perhap s , chiefly because i t w as,

D I SPUTAT IONS IN SPA IN 183

comparat ive ly speaking,conducted i n a rather gentle

way ; and was, i n i ts con sequences , however sad

they were,mi lder than most o f the subsequent ones .

The next di sputation to be noted was that he ld at

Val ladol id,i n 1336 . The inst igator was Abner o f

Burgos,a man o f J ewish and of some secu lar

learn ing,but o f no princip les . He was indifferent

to rel igion,but was partia l t o a l i fe of luxuri ous ease .

H is l i terary attempts i n the fie lds o f astro logy and

phi l osophy did not sati sfy hi s des ires . He was

already advanced in years,when he w as successfu l

i n improving his worldly p osi t i on by turn ing

Christ ian,and obtain ing the post o f sacri stan at an

important church at Val lado l id . He explai ned h i s

acti on by a theory which den ied free wi l l,and

assumed the sway of inexorab le necess i ty as ordained

by the stars . He took the name o f Alfonso,

and was henceforth known as Alfonso B urgensis de

Vallodo lid . He made it the business o f his remain ing

years to denounce the J ews in a number o f writings,

some ofwhich evoked sp irited rej o inders from Jewish

scho lars . A later wri ter referred to h im , not as A bner

(Father o f Light) but as A b Choshech (Father o f

Darkness) . Besides these l i terary attempts, he raised

an accusati on against the J ews before Alfonso IX ofCasti l e

,reviving an old charge

,as i f the J ewish ri tua l

con tained a prayer,cursing the God o f the Chri stian s

and h is worsh ippers . The Jews o f Valladoli d

den ied the charge, and j ustly objected that the p rayer

184 D I SPUTATIONS IN SPA IN

did not al lude at al l to the Chr i st ians . But AbnerA l fonso persi sted , and pre vai led with the king to

summon the J ewish communi ty to a publ ic d isputa

t ion . I t to ok place i n the presence of high officials

and the Dominican clergy,and Alfon so had the

sat isfact i on to obtain from the king an edict pro

hib iting the recit ing o f the incriminated prayer , under

a penal ty of one hundred maravedis .

The disputations held at Burgos and Avi la mustbe recorded next . At that time the usurper

,Henry

I I,occupied the throne o f Cast i l e

,which he had

wrested from hi s half-brother Pedro,after a series

o f sangu i nary struggles . The Jews,whom Pedro

had befri ended throughout h is reign,amp ly repaid

hi s kindness by their staunch l oyalty . They had

j oined his armies,fought brave ly for him

,and per

si sted in their fidel i ty to the last . During theviciss i tudes of that struggle they had to endure

i ndescribable sufferings at the hands of that hordeof bloodth irsty cut-throats

,

'

called“ the White Com

pany,

” whose services Henry I I made use of againstPedro . King Henry owed very much to theChurch ; the populati on also hated the J ews . Both

these bod ies demanded that the king shou ld decree

degrading and oppress ive restri ct ion s against theJ ews . But Henry

,i n spite of the strenuous res i st

ance the Jews had offered h im before,w as too much

o f a state sman to dispense with the services of such

J ews as he cou ld make use of . So he steered a


should have the form of t: (744) final . This excep

tional form o f the n (m) , says the apostate, points to

Mary,and i s clear evidence o f the dogma o f the

virgin ity .

The debate terminated after four meetings . Butthen another apostate

,a discipl e o f Alfonso o f

Burgos,chal lenged R . Moses to another di sputation

on Talmud and Agada, accompan ied by the threat,i n case o f a re fusal

,he wou ld denounce the Talmud

to be an empor ium o f attacks upon Christ ian ity . R .

Moses had once more to undertake the repu l s ivetask . He wrote a report o f the debates

,which he

ca l l ed The Suppo rt o f the Fai th,

” and which he

sent to the J ews o f Toledo,to serve them as a guide

in case they should be summoned to carry on adi spute . During these di sputat ion s R . Moses pre

served a ca lm and composed demeanour,and never

indu lged in invect ive ; for , as he wrote to hi sbreth ren in Toledo After al l

,the Chri st ians wie ld

the power,and are ab le to si len ce truth w i th thei r

fists .

I t is not worth whi le dwe l l ing upon ficti t ious

records of disputations,and o f such which may be

based upon fact but have not been histori cal ly

authenticated . All the more attent ion must be

given to the last of the pub l ic disputat ions in Spainthe last

,but the most deplorable of al l .

The disputation at Tortosa presents a picture o funsurpassable anguish . I t was p receded by suffer

D I SPUTAT IONS IN SPA IN 187

i ng,i t was fo l lowed by affl ict i on , and w as i t sel f a

crushing martyrdom . I t was an event encased i n

harrowing torment . The monotony of i t,the

cruel ty of i t,the benumbing accumulati on of woe

Again we have the inexorab le prelate,the um

scrupulous renegade,the defenceless respondents

,

who trembled for thei r own fate and that of thei r un

fo rtunate brethren . The disputat i on showed , m ore

over,a novel feature i n the person o f a maniacal

preacher,whose portentous practices equal led h i s

capt ivat ing el oquence and his unflagging zeal .

The prelate th i s t ime was no l ess a person than

Pedro de Luna,afterwards Pope Be nedi ct X I I I ; i t

i s true,on ly one of the rival popes o f the period

,

bu t who,for the t ime be ing

,d ischarged the ful l

papal functions i n the countri e s which acknowledgedhi s claims and who was powerfu l enough to l et i na sea of troubles over the heads o f the unfortunate

J ews . When yet a Card ina l, he summoned Shem

Tob ben Shapru t to a di sputat i on , which took place

in Pampeluna in the presence o f pri ests and scho lars .

I t induced Shem Tob to write a po lemica l work

ent it l ed A ben B ochari (Touchstone) , for the purpose

o f provid ing his brethren with weapons o f con

troversy, i n view o f the mach inat i on s o f the apostates

to ca l l forth publ i c d isputat i on s . I t was Benedict

who planned , with the assi stance o f hi s body

physic ian , the apostate J oshua Lorqui , the disputati on

at Tortosa . Benedict was p lay ing fo r a great stak e

188 DI SPUTATIONS IN SPA IN

a wholesale co nversion of J ews,o f the Rabbis and

the masses,would have been a trump card i n hi s

gamble for the papal throne .

J oshuah Lorqu i was one of the most dangerousspecimens o f h i s type. He had assumed the name

of Geron imo de Santa Fe,J erome of the ho ly fai th

,

and evinced venomous mal ign i ty against hi s former

brethren . He was wel l vers ed in Rabbin ica l lore,

and was able to quote from the great commentators

and exponents of J ewish law,such as I bn Ezra

,

Rashi,Maimon ides and Nachmanides . He was a

mas ter of soph istry, and of misconstruing and

distorting casual Talmudica l sayings of mino r

importance . Like several other enemies of the Jews,

he paraded the Talmud at the same t ime as the

j udge on the bench and the felon i n the dock . He

undertook to prove that the Talmud contained clearevidence that the Mess iah had already arrived i n the

person o f J esus,but

,on the other hand

,should the

J ews prove obdurate,and refuse to embrace

Chri stian i ty,a war to the death would be declared

again st the same Talmud , as being nothing b u t a

sink o f abominat i on and the prin cipal cause ofJ ew i sh obstinacy . He composed a b o ok let (Tracta z

‘as

contra j a a’aeori im perfia

’iam) , contain ing noth ing

bu t vi tuperations,sophistr i es

,and distorti ons of the

simple mean ing o f i nnocent passages . Even such

utter nonsense as the reference to the final 1: (m) in

the verse of I saiah i s repeated .


to attend . There he thundered at them,surrounded

by armed so ldiers and h is maniacal horde of

fl age llants, with a cross in one hand, and a scro l l ofthe Torah in the other. What direst persecut i ons

had been unable to accomplish,sufferings

,coupled

with the spectacle o f rel igious mania,partly

succeeded in effect ing . During Ferrer’s act ivi ty

numbers of J ews succumbed in many towns andaccepted Christi an ity . Frenzy begets frenzy

,and

who lesal e de l i rium is not less i nfectious than scarletfever or smal l-pox .

The edict came forth,i n 1412

,that the most

learned Rabbi s and Jewish notab i l i ti es shou ld repairto Tortosa for a disputati on

,in which Geron imo de

Santa Fe would undertake to prove,from the

Talmud,that the Messiah had already appeared in

the person o f J esus . Non -compl iance with the

invitat ion w as to be severely pun ished . The

champions of J udaism thus summoned were one

and al l men o f l earn ing,o f s incere rel igious fervour

and nobi l i ty of character . They were penetrated by

a sense o f the dangers to themselves and their

brethren,whatever the i ssue o f the discussi on might

be ; or rather they were ful ly convinced that thediscuss i on could on ly have one i ssue : the triumpho f the sword over right

,of the des igns of the pope

and the malevolence of the apostate over s ingle

minded honesty.

I t would be to o much to give here the names o f

DI SPUTATIONS IN SPA IN 191

al l the respondents,or to enter upon the detai ls o f

the debates, or upon the so-cal led arguments

propounded . These parti culars ar e given i n the text

books that deal with the subj ect .

Two men were prominen t among the defenders o f

th e J ewish cause . Vidal ben B envenisti ibn Labi

and J oseph Albo . The d i sputat ion spread over a

per i od of one year and three months—one year and

three months of cont inuous tor ture . There were

s ixty-eight meetings—s ixty-eight s tages of acute

agony . Although the respondents had agreed upon

a un ited course o f act ion,upon maintain i ng a calm

demeanour,the racking n erve stra in caused them

frequent ly to yie ld to the impulse of the moment .

Nothing was neglected that cou ld overawe the

J ews . Before the commencemen t o f th e d i sputation

they had to come before the pope to regi ster thei r

names he was gracious and affable,and promi sed

them complete freedom of speech . The disputat i on

started the fo l lowing day . The pope w as surrounded

by cardinals and pre l ates,decked in thei r gorgeous

vestments the audience numbered over a th ousand .

The pope opened the s i tt ing with a speech,i n which

he pointed out that the quest i on before them w as

no t that o f the truth o f Chri st ian i ty or Judaism,

because Christian ity w as above dispute . I t w as

merely a quest i on whether the Talmud recogn ised

J esus as the Messiah . He was fo l lowed by Geron imo,

whose speech was long-winded , replete wi th so

192 DI SPUTATIONS IN SPAIN

phistical subtlet ies and fulsome flattery o f the pope .

He threatened the J ews,applying to them the verse

o f I saiah “ I f you consent and obey you wi l l enj oy

the good of the land,but should you refuse and

disobey you wi l l be devoured by the sword .

”

Vidal ben B envenisti,who

,o n account of hi s

knowledge o f Latin had been chosen by the J ews as

t heir princ ipal spokesman,repl ied i n that language

pointing out,inter a lia

,that they had been threatened

by Geronimo before a s ingle argument pro or contra

had been uttered . This was met by the pope with

the remark that th i s was certain ly wrong,but that

the misdemeanour must be accounted for by h is

J ewish descent . The J ews requested the pope to

rel ieve them,on the ground that Geronimo based

his arguments on scholast ic dialectics,whereas their

fai th rested o n tradit ion and not on syl l ogi sms . I t

i s needless to say that the pope refused their request .The disputation proceeded under the presidency

o f the pope,unti l h i s own troubles n ecessi tated his

frequent absence . The J ews had answers in p lenty

to Geron imo ’s nonsens ical soph istries,but thei r

words were twi sted as soon as they were uttered .

They were incessantly being terrorised,and at length

the pope threatened them with death . The ir re

s istance proving unbroken,the ir enemies turned on

to the other tack,namely

,that o f accusing the

Ta lmud of being a storehouse of in iquities o f everydescripti on Geron imo w as assi s ted here in by o ther


even thi s l i ttle . They declared their bel ief i n the

author ity of the Talmudic Agada on ly the passagesin question must be properly unders tood

,and must

not be condemned on the strength of their l i teralmean ing . In one word

,the disputation at Tortosa

was for the instigators an utter fai lure . The couse

quence was obvious . Al l the slu i ces of persecut ionand cruel ty were thrown open

,and the text-books

o f J ewish h i story have a dreadfu l tal e to tel l o f

suffer i ngs which the d iscom fiture o f the attempts

to occas i on a wholesale apostacy of the J ews had

in i ts train .

There i s one feature which runs l ike a red thread

through al l these d isputat ions,i n Spain as every

where else . Whi lst the J ews cou ld on ly rest on

thei r convict ions,their opponents re sted thei r argu

ments upon the sword . They fel t themselves to be

the pow erful party,and knew no t on ly how to use

their power but also how to abuse i t t o the utmost .

I n every case the J ewish cause was lost,not by its

weakness but by the power o f the sword . The

Gau l s,after the batt le on the banks o f the All ia

,had

the Romans at their mercy . The latter had to buy

the withdrawal of their foes fo r a l arge amount o fgo ld . The legend te l l s us that

,whi l st the gold was

being weighed out,the Romans suspected the

correctness o f the weight s put in the scales,and when

they pro tested,B rennus

,the leader o f the Gauls ,

placed his sword also in the scales . The Roman

D I SPUTAT I ONS IN SPA I N 195

Tribune asked him what he meant by thi s ? B rennus

answered : “ Thi s means Vae Victis (Wo e to the

conquered l) . Thi s describes part ly, but on ly part ly,the mutual posit i on o f the J ews and those who

chal le nged them to these d isputat ions . The latter

never fai led to put the sword in to the scales,and i t

meant Woe—Woe unspeakable,immeasurable

,cal

cu lated to crush,to extirpate . But “ Wo e to the

conquered ” No ; w ho was conquered Not the

J ews . They were degraded,robbed

,massacred

,

forced to wander not knowing whither . They had

to go through the whole gamut o f sufferi ng . But

they were not conquered . Albo,one o f the hero ic

defendants o f Tortosa,composed afterwards his

phi lo soph i cal work,The B ook of P rincip les , i n which

he purposed to fix the fundamental bases o f the

J ewish re l igi on . Phi losopher,Talmudist

,physic ian

,

he was ful ly equipped for the task . He was no t

prepared to fo l low obediently the footsteps of the

J ewi sh phi l osophers who had preceded h im . He

examined thei r conclus ion s,and

,in stead o f the

th irteen princ ip les o f Maimon ides,he assumed on ly

three God’s exi stence,Revelation

,and reward and

pun ishment . Another champion at the same d is

putati on,Vidal B envenisti, wrote a de fence o f the

Talmud against Gero nimo ’s aspersi ons,under the

t i t le o f The H oly of H olies . The po lemical writ ings

o f th is period deserve to form the subj ect of a spe cial

enquiry .


Nei ther were the Jews conquered,nor w as the

much mal igned Ta lmud . That wonderfu l record,

i n wh ich are deposi ted the thoughts,the feel ings

,

the rel igious practi ces,civi l and criminal legi slat ion

,

moral le sson s,re l igi ous lessons

,trad iti ons

,narratives

,

parab les,proverbs

,and many more subj ects ; that

compi lati on depi ct ing the l i fe o f the J ews dur ing anumber of centuries

,and regulat ing the l i fe o f the

J ews for many centur i es to come ; that Talmud hadbeen treated in the same way as the Jews . I t has

been calumniated , persecuted , publ ic ly burned .

Whole l ibrari e s of th is,and other J ewi sh books

,

have been wanton ly destroyed . What has been its

fate in the end ? The Talmud survives . I n our

own time edi ti on fo l lows edit ion . Taking the last

hundred years,we find that

,bes ides copies o f

separate treat i ses,the who le of the Babylon ian

Talmud has been pri n ted during that period more

than twenty-five t imes,which

,taking that figure

,

wou ld make an average of one edi ti on for every fouryears .

The Talmud survives,so do the J ews . The

persecutions,and the se -cal l ed d i sputation s

,have

exte rminated ne ither them nor their fai th . And the

words o f Deuteronomy (iv . which our l i tt le ones

are taught to utter as soon as they are deemed

capable o f praying,remain unshaken “

You who

cl ing to God,your God

,you are al ive

,al l o f you ,

th i s very day .

198 PFEFFERKORNIANA

for sale a copy of the extremely rare first

ed i t ion o f Margaritha’

s book,and embel l ished

h is notice with a reproduction o f Margaritha’

s

woodcut o f“ Kappara . The same woodcu t

appears a lso in the j ewish Encyclopcedia , s .v .

Kappara,

” which work also contain s another s .v .

Synagogue,

” and,I bel ieve

,al so a third o f

these i l l ustrat ion s,al l taken from Margaritha

’

s book

o f 1530. The view of the j ewish Encyclopceclia

i s fo l low ed in the catal ogue o f j uda ica and

H ebra ica (No . i ssued thi s year by Maggs

Bro thers .

Harry Bresslau,i n an art icle on Jo sel ofRoshe im

I

briefly ment ions Professor Ludwig Geiger’s referenceto the woodcuts

,which appeared in the second edi tion

o f Margaritha’

s book— the first edit ion no t having

been accessib l e to Geiger—and says that those o f

the second edi ti on are reproducti ons of the i l lustrations in the first . Geige r

’s reference appears i n the

second volume o f the Z eitschrift (1888 , p .

Having given the ti t l e of Margaritha’

s book,he says

that the text contained some woodcuts representingthe b lowing of the Shofar , Kappara, Tash l i ch , andthe blessing by the pri ests

,and adds

,that a

reproduction of one o r two o f them wou ld proveinstructive for the history of J ewish usages .

We see that one and al l ascribe the original

.

I . Z ez tschrift fur d ie Geschich te d er J uden m Deutschland ,edited by L. Geiger, V , 1892 , p . 310, n. 2 .

PFEFFERKORN IANA 199

i ssue o f these four i l lustrati on s to Margaritha, i n

whose book they made thei r first appearance i n

1530. We need not be surpri sed at th i s . The

book aroused great i nterest,and i t was reprinted

several t imes . Some of the l ate r ed it i ons omitted

the p ictures,but the scho lars i nterested in the

subj ect turned to the earl i er i ssues and saw no

reason why they should not connect them with

Margaritha .

The truth o f the matter is that,as regards

Margaritha, they are a plagiar i sm . He plagiar i sedthem from Pfefferkorn ’s pamphlet

,which appeared

i n 1508,i n German : I ch heyss e i n b uechlyn der

Juden B eicht,etc .

,and in Lati n : Libellas de

Judaeonum confess i one,etc . A copy in h igh

German,two in low German

,and two Lati n trans

lations were prin ted in the same year . Professor

Ge iger’

s biography o f J ohann Reuchl in appeared

i n 1871 , i n which he observes i n reference to

the pamph lets (p . that they al l contai ned

pi ctures r idicul ing the J ewi sh ri tes . I n the Z eit

schrift, also he refers to Pfeffe rkorn’s J na

’enbeiclzt

,

on ly two pages before men t ion ing Margaritha’

s

woodcuts . Evident ly,when wri ti ng in 1888

,that

which he had wri tten in 1871 had sl ipped his

memory. Such things wi l l happen ; a wri ter is

only human .

I n order to enable the reader to j udge for h imself,

a reproduct ion of the four woodcuts are given here,

PFEFFERKORN IANA

THE BLOWING OF THE TRUMPET

PFEFFERKORN IANA

THE PRIESTS BLESSING THE PEOPLE

203

204 PFEFFERKORNIANA

t aken from one o f those extremely rare pamphlets o f

1508 . I t i s not necessary to give here a translat iono f the scurri lous and frequently untrue comments o f

Pfefferkorn . A glance wi l l show the difference

between the original s and Margaritha’

s imitat ions .

The pictures in Pfefferkorn’s booklet d isplay some

ski l ful draughtsmanship ; the figures are correct i n

their out l ines and show carefu l handl ing . Those

in Margaritha’

s book are the work of a bungler,and

are not on ly a cari cature of J ewish ceremon ies butalso o f the pictures copied . Bes ides

,the copies

were taken from the originals d irec t on the wood

block from which they were pr i nted in Margaritha’

s

book . The consequence i s that those parts o f the

pictures which appear in the original s o f 1508 on the

right show in the Copies o f 1530 on the left, and

vice versa ; rec/rte H and linlee H and A lles oertansclzt,

as the German doggerel has i t .

I n my article on Pfefferkorn,

I I dw el t on someefforts made to whitewash that pervert . I al luded

briefly to the attempts made by one,D . Reich l ing

,

2 i n

his de fence of the notori ous Ortvinus Gratius,one

o f the pr i ncipal aiders and abettors of Pfefferkorn inhi s nefarious machinat ions against the J ews . I t i strue

,the ordeal Ortvmus Gratius had to undergo

through Reuchlin’

s l ess del icate champions was

I S ee my Book o f Essays, p p . 73-1 15.

2“Ortvinus Gratius, S ein Leb en und Wirken,

”by Dr.

D.Reichling.

206 PFEFFERKORN IANA

Petrus Ravennas . Thi s I tal ian j uri st had been

received i n Co logne with open arms . Bu t thepraise soon turne d in to hatred

,and Jacob van

Hoogstra ten,soon after h i s appoin tment as Grand

I nqu i si tor,won hi s firs t spurs in the persecution of

that scholar. H i s crime was that he had g1ven i t as

h i s opin ion that the authori t i e s of German States

acted i n opposi ti on to natural and d1vine j ust ice,

nay,that they committed a deadly s in when they

al lowed the corpses of hanged persons to ro t on the

gal low s . Reichl ing neither den ies,nor does he

defend,the practi ce i tself he on ly maintains that

,

Ravennas being an al ien , i t was no business of hi s .

Was i t r ight for the al i en immigrant to attack German

i nsti tut ions,and German usages

,and to declare

that those w ho practi sed them were doomed to

eternal pun ishment ? The cogency o f such a l ineof de fence i s obvious

,a lthough

,unfortunate ly

,i t i s

by no means unusual i n our time .Professor Geiger frequently attempts to extenuate

P fefferkorn’s mach inations and those o f his abettors,

nor i s he a lways fair i n po inting out Reuchlin’

s

del inquencies . The question at is sue was whether

the J ewi sh books contained matter antagon isti c to

Chri st ian i ty o r not . The Archbishop of Mayence

received i n 1510 a mandate to submit the questionto the Un iversi t ies o f Cologne

,Mayence

,Erfurt and

Heidelberg,to the Grand I nquisi tor, Jacob van

Hoogstraten , to J ohann Reuch l in , and to other men


acquainted with Hebrew l i terature and who were

not J ews . Pfefferkorn was appo in ted the agent to

transmi t the reports to the Emperor .

Geiger correct ly remarks (p . 236) that the reports

o f H oogstraten and of the Un iversi ty o f Co logne

were i dent i cal i n tendency . Excerpts from the

J ewish books should be made for examinat i on,and

the advisabi l i ty of burn ing the latter wou ld become

evident . What was to be the nature o f that

examinat i on Geiger quotes H o ogstraten’

s words

et institueretur contra j udaeos solemnis inquisitio , et

super articulis extractis ma ture examinarentur.

“ A so lemn inquisitio should be inst ituted again st

the J ews,and they should be heard and examined

concern ing t hese excerpts . The words are c l ear

enough . They i ndicate that a tribuna l o f the

inquis i t i on should be insti tuted,before which the

J ews shou ld be cal led to an swer for the suspected

passages . This in terpretation o f the words wh ich

Gratz gives i s undoubtedly correct . Sure ly solemnis

inquisitio means an inqu is i toria l invest igat ion , i n

the sense which the word inquisitio bore in those

days,especial ly i n a report of a Grand I nquisi tor.

Geiger,however

,takes Gratz to task for imputing

to the Grand I nquis ito r a desi re to i nst itute aninquis i torial tri bunal . He says that Hoogstraten

merely demanded a measure,not at al l i nhuman

,to

i nquire from the J ews what they mean t by the

incriminated passage s ; j u st to have a l i tt l e con


tab u lation,to ascertain how the J ews understood

them . Geiger, i n proof of hi s Vi ew ,points out

that in the report of the Co logne Universi ty,which

essent ial ly agree s wi th that of Hoogstraten,the

words are : vocentur publice j udaei et super lz is

(articulis) audiantur et examinarentur. The word

inquisitio i s not used, and Geiger i s o f opin i on

that these mi lder terms explain that Hoogstraten,

with h is brusque expressi on o f solemnis inquisitio,

meant n oth ing worse .

I t i s strange that Geiger (p .258) attaches to the”

i dentical term,inquirere , the mean ing which i t a lways

has when coming from such a quarter . After

Reuchlin’

s A ug ensp ieg el (Spectacles) had appeared ,i t was submi tted to Hoogstraten and some o f his

co l leagues for adj udication,and Reuch l in was

warned o f the danger that threatened him from thei rdeci sions quidam , quia libellas combureretur

,

quidam , quia auctor inquireretur . Some were for

burn ing the booklet,others thought the author

inquireretur. Here Geiger translates inguireretur

be examined under torture (pein l ich befragt) . But

why should inquirere here mean : i nvestigati on

under torture , and in the other passage : a cross

examinati on devoid o f al l unkind in tention ? The

Grand I nquisi tor used the term in ei ther passage,

and the words of the Cologne Un ivers i ty cannot

explain away H o ogstraten’

s grim intentions . The

reverse is the case . H o ogstraten’s words throw


posed as medical men without possess ing any

knowledge whatever o f the art.“ Do not imagin e that I wish to impart honour

to such J ews as al lowed themselves to be bapti sed,

or moistened,or immersed in water

,e i ther because

they wanted to escape pun ishment for crimes com

m itted,o r to increase their income

,o r to i ndulge

in their l i centious desires . I would not apply to

such vagabonds the honourable t i t le o f phys ician .

You find many of them wi cked beasts,devo id o f al l

shame , posing as members o f your body, or fo ist ing

themselves upon us as theologian s and Hebraists,

being in ei ther case as ignorant as they are p erfidious .

Both you and I have had to suffer at the hands o f aconvert of that c lass

,each of us was obl iged to

chasti se one o f that sort . N o t a word is said

here against the general body J ewish or thei r

medi cal men .

Reuchl i n was not devoid of numerous fr i ends ;some of them eagerly undertook his defence . One

“

o f them,Petrus Galatinus, wrote a voluminous work

in dialogue form,

I the assumed speakers being

Reuchl i n (under his Latin ised name o f

Galatinus,and Hoogstraten . H is ci tat ions from the

Talmud and other Hebrew books are for the most

parts p lagiari sed from Porche tus and Raymundus

1 Opus christianae Reip ub licae maxime utile de arcanis

catholicae ve ritatis contra ob stinatissimam Judaeorum nostrae

temp estat is p erfidiam , etc. Orthonae Man s, 1518


Martin i . The book was printed by H ieronymus

(Gershon ) Sonc ino , and i s prefaced by some laudatory

verse s i n Hebrew . Here i s one o f them reproduced,

mistakes and all,exactly as i t appears i n the

volume

3151: seen at

are 555 amen who

we: 13 were win

wuw’

“

113155m1 as

meanness nine Diary

at; nee 131311951

p imps 5e ninth : mm

at T IP? 53 be min Be

I t requ ires some explanat ion how i t i s thatGershon Soncino al lowed such an eulogy o f an anti

J ewish book to be printed by him,no t to speak o f the

book itsel f. Stein schneider,i n h i s catalogue of the

Hebrew books in the Bodleian l ibrary,quotes some

observati on s of Almanz i,who found some ambigu i ty

i n one or tw o expressions, and thus suggests a

covert d isapproval o f the book . He says that the

word “113, whi lst mean ing

“ he decides m s the truth,

”

bears also the mean ing o f “ he cuts off the truth,

and that ment-m 5s mm,

“ the wal ls of al l wisdom,


hints a l so ambiguously at the obstacle s against

so that i t i s precluded from singing inpubl ic

,as required in Proverbs i . 20. Alm anz i also

thought to have discovered simi lar ambiguit ies inanother of these eulogist i c poems . However thi s

may be,the above poem is noth ing but an imitat ion

o f the laudatory poem prefacing the editio princeps

of I bn Tib b on’

s translat ion of R . Jehuda Halevi’s

Kuz ari The exact reproduction is

wisdom,

’

flawmi: mean u;

are 535 3119 Bar; 111

111mm 5e main: s in

a; nap? 5e min 5s

eiwipiasb Dim

-11 nine

an 1 751s 15

nip-gm niiw

’

in

mien 5e wan 11111119

I t seems that at the Soncino prin ting offices a

number of poems o f that kind were kept i n stock,

or, at least, that such a poem once used was

preserved to be remodel led and used again as theoccasion requ i red . That such praise o f Ga latin and

I S ee Giacomo Maneonz'

,Anna lz tzpograficz

'

dez Soncino, III , 464.


a prodigious remunerati on , s ome even must havethought i t an outrageous impos iti on . So i t would

have been i f i t had been paid in Germany. But

account must be taken of the difference between

Germany and I taly . We might as wel l app ly the

standard of remunerat ion for professional servicesobtain ing not so long ago in some smal l town o f

Germany o r Russ ia to that o f London or New York .

What was the monetary value o f l earn ing and i ts

advancement in I ta ly during,and for a long t ime

after,the renascence of letters ? Let us hear

Macaulay’s description,i n h i s essay on Macch iavel l i .

“From this t ime

,he says

,the admirati on o f l earn ing

and gen ius became almost an ido latry among the

people of I taly. Ki ngs and republ i cs,cardinal s

and doges,vied with each other in honour ing and

flattering Petrarch . To co l lect books and

antiques,to found professorsh ips

,to patron ise men

of learn ing, became almost un iversa l fash ion amongthe great . The spiri t of l i terary research al l i editself to that o f commercial enterpri se . Every place

to which the merchant princes of Florence extended

their gigantic traffic,from the bazaars of the Tigris

to the monasteries o f the Clyde,was ransacked for

medals and manuscripts . Architecture, painting and

sculpture were magnificent ly encouraged . I ndeed,

i t would be difficu l t to name an I tal ian o f eminence ,during the period o f which we speak

,who

,whatever

may have been h is general character, did not at least

PFEFFERKORNIANA 215

affect a love of l etters and of the arts—knowledgeand publ i c prosperi ty continued to advance together .

Both attained their meridian i n the age o f Loren z othe Magn ificent .”

I t was about the time when Lorenzo d ied thatReuch l in entered upon hi s embassy to Rome . He

sol ic ited instruct ion from a man o f high posi t ion

and considerable atta inments . Sforno,used to the

condi ti ons in vogue i n I ta ly,certai n ly must have

charged an ambassador from a ru l ing prince a fee

compatib le both with the posi t i on o f the teacher and

the dign i ty o f the pupi l . Sforno wou ld no doubt

have been aston ished at umbrage being taken by the

Germans at the amount charged , i n the same way

as the fee w as deemed extravagant in penuri ous

and pars imon ious Germany,which on ly just began

to open i ts eyes to a cul ture which had already

long ago found i ts home in I taly.

218 I NDEX

Baruch , R.,ben R. E l iezer

,156.

Beer Rechob o t , I 58 .

B en Sira , 1 1 3 .

Benedict XI I I , Pope , fo rmerly Pedro de Luna , 1 87 at

the Disp utation at Torto sa , 191 , 192 .

Benvenisti, Vida l b en , author of TheHoly of Holies , 195see a lso Disputations.

B erachot, J .,1 2 2 .

B era choth, 1 2 6.

Beraitoth in the Mishnah,1 1 6.

B ereshith Ra bba , 1 61 .

Berl iner , Dr. A . , 1 6 1 .

Berke ley, Bishop , 1 05.

Bible,The , The H ebrew of, 1 2 4 .

Black Art , see Cabbala .

Behme , Jacob , Cobble r of Go rl itz , 2 5,2 7 , 32 .

Bonastruc de Portas , see Mose s b en Nachman .

B ook of Essays, A ,by S . A. Hirsch

,2 04 , note s .

Book of Principles, The, 195.

B rennus , 194 ,195.

Bresslauer, Martin,197 .

Brow ning , Robe rt , 3 1 .

Bruno,Gio rdano

, 3 2 .

Buckle,T . H .

, 56-

7 .

Buddha,Teach ings of, 53 .

Burgos , Disputations at , 1 84 , 1 85.

Cabbala , Jewish , 1 artic le on, by Prof. L. Ginsberg , inThe Jew ish Encyclopcedia , 2 Az ilut, 2 0 Bahir, 2 0

Black Art and,1 consulted by Christ ian m ediaeva l

mystics , 6 ; Chri stian mystics influenced by , 2 8 ;

gene sis of the , 2 -

3 j udgm ent on, 3

-6 magic and ,

1 ; neo -Platonism in connection with ,15 ; reve

lation of doctrines o f, 19 ; the term , rise o f, 2 ;

witchcraft and ,1 Yetz ira , 1 8 , 2 0 .

Cabbal istica l books manufactured by renegade Jews , 2 8.

Christ ian re l igion , The , Deve lopm ent o f, see Re l igion .

Christiani , Pablo , apo state Jew and Dom inican , 1 7 1 ,1 74 ; arguments of

,for Christianity

,1 76 , 1 78 , 1 8 1

authorised to summon meetings for Disputations ,

INDEX 219

1 8 1 Disputation between,and Moses ben Nach

man, 1 74 , 1 76.

Christianity compared wi th Jewish notions , 54 .

Christ ians,The

,of Barce lona and the Disputation

, 1 76.

Clarke , Dr. Samue l , Rector of St . Jame s’s , Le tters of, toLeibnitz

,1 04

-

5.

Clement IV, Pope , origina l ly ca l led Gui Legros , or

Gui Foulque s , 1 8 1 up bra ids King Jaym e of Aragonand enjo ins h im to punish Nachmanides , 1 82 .

Darshan,

” A , 1 14 ; Rashi as , 1 52 .

Darshanim . Shemaiah and Ab talion,1 14 .

Darwin, 55 the o ries se t up by , 44 .

De Arte Ca ba listica,by Johann Reuch l in

, 3 1 .

De N obilita te et Praecellentia Foeminei SexusDec lama tia,

30 .

De Verbo Mirifico ,by Johann Reuch l in , 3 1 .

Descent of Man, The , 55.

Deuteronomy ,196 .

Did j esus Live I OO B .C . ? See Meade,G. R . S .

, 1 77-8.

Dionys ius , The A .D . of, 1 77 .

Disputations,apostate Jews summoned to the , at To rto sa ,

193 at Aragon inst ituted , 1 8 1 at Avi la,1 84, 1 85

Benedict XI I I at the ,at To rto sa ,

191 , 192 V ida lb en Benvenisti ibn Lab i take s part in , at To rto sa ,

191 , 192 ,1 93

-

4 at Barcelona , 1 76 in the

synagogue , 1 8 1 Geronimo de Santa Fe take s partin

,at To rtosa

,191

-

3 the Jewish Rabb is summonedto Tortosa for

,190 Johann of Val lado l id s ummons

the Jews to , 1 85 ; Joseph Albo takes part in,at

Tortosa,191 , 193

-

4 ; at Va l lado l id,1 83 .

Doctr ine s of Cabba la, Preva lence o f,in Jewish

myst icism ,1 8 see a lso Cabba la .

Du Bois-Raymond , Em i l , 1 0 1 , 1 06 Die Grenz en der

Na turkenntniss, b y, 1 1 prop osit ions of, cha l lenged ,1 2 The Seven Riddles of the Universe , by, ref. 1 1 .

Duran , R. Simon , first sa laried Rabb i , 1 73 .

E ckhardt,Master , Chr istian mystic , 2 1 -3 , 2 5, 2 7 .

E l iezer b en Jacob , R . , 1 35 see a lso Mishnah .

E l iezer Hagadol , R ., on Sage s and Scribes , 1 14.

220 I NDEX

E l ijah de l Medigo of Candia , 2 8 .

Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum , 2 05.

Erz iehung des Menschengeschlechts D ie, by Lessing, 34.

Exiguus, 1 77.

Ezra the Scribe , 1 1 3 .

Ferrer,Vincente , 1 89-

90 , 193 .

Fichte ,1 3

- 14 , 43 .

Five Pairs,The , 1 3 1

-2 .

Foulques , Gui, see Clem ent IV .

France,Publ ic Disputations in , 1 70 .

Franke l , Zachariah ,1 65.

Fray d e Genova , 1 76 .

Friedman , 1 65.

Galatinus , Pe trus , 2 1 0 , 2 1 2 .

Gam l iel,R . ,

1 3 2 .

Gaonim , The , 1 66 see a lso Jewish Mysticism .

Gauls,The ,

see Al l ia .

Ge ige r, Abraham ,2 1 3 on Rashi

,1 60 .

Geiger , Pro f. Ludw ig , on J udenbeicht, 199 on Margaritha

’s book , 1 98 on Pfe fferkorn

,2 06 on

Reuch l in , 2 09- I o ; note,198 note, 2 1 3 .

Geronimo de Santa Fe, o therwise Jo shua Lorqui ,

physic ian to Benedict XI I I , renegade Jew , 1 87-8 ,

190 ; author of Tra cta tus contra J uda eorum P er

fidiam ,1 88 take s part in Disputation at To rto sa ,

191-

3 .

Gesenius on Rash i , 158-

9.

Ginsberg , Prof. L .,article on Cabbala in Jewish Encyclo

poedia , 2 .

Gittin, b . ,note

,1 14 .

Gom e z , Archb ishop o f To ledo , present at a Disputation,

1 85.

Gratius , Ortvinus, 2 04 , 2 05.

Gratz,2 0 7 .

Greeks , The ancient , 8 , 52 .

Haecke l , 1 2 .

Ha lacha , 1 1 2 ,1 14

- 15, 148 , 149, 150 ,153 .

222 I NDEX

Jehuda Hanasi , R. ,1 1 6

,1 1 7 ; comments on R . Akiba

,

1 2 1 re lation of, to R. Me ir,1 1 8 , 1 2 1 -2 quoted ,

1 3 2 .

j esus of N az areth, Date of b irth , discussed , 1 77-8 .

Jewish , Christ ianity compared with , no tions , 54 com

mentators , 1 42 ; concep t1ons o f God and re l igion ,

53-

5 endurance o f the , re l igion , 90 mandate concerning , books , 2 06 Rabbis summoned to Tortosafor a Disp utation , 190 .

JewishEncyclopazdia ,The

,on Cabba la

,2 ; onMargaritha

’s

book , 1 97 , 198 ; on Yetz ira ,2 0 .

Jewish Mysticism , see Mysticism .

Jewish Mystics , see Mys tics .

Jews , Apostate , summoned to To rtosa,193 ; loya lty of

the, to Pedro of Casti le , 1 84 .

Jochunan b en Zakk a i , R., 1 33 .

Johanne s o f Va l lado l id , 1 86 ; summons the Jews to a

Disputation , 1 85.

Jonathan ,The Targum of

,160 .

Josel of Roshe im , see Harry Bres lau ,Jo sephus and the de scrip tion of the Temp le , 1 36 ; on

the Sages and Scribe s , 1 15.

Joshua b en Perachya , R . , 1 77 .

Ka lba Sabua,1 19, 1 2 0 .

Kant , Immanue l,1 3 , 14 , 4 1 , 43 , 47

-8 .

Kapp ara , 197 , 198 , 2 0 2 .

Konteros, The , 1 64 .

Kuenen, 77 , 83 .

Kaz ari o f R. Jehuda Ha levi , 2 1 2 .

Legros , Gui, see Clement IV .

Le ibn itz, 42 , 43 letters o f, to Dr . Samue l Clarke , 1 04 5.

Le ibnitz-Wolffian p hi losop hy , 42 -

3 .

Le ss ing ,Go ttho ld Ephraim , on immorta l ity of the soul ,

3 -4Libelli

zis de j uda eorum confessione , see Pfefferkorn .

Life af ter death , Conception of , in the Christian re l igion ,see Re l igion .

Lira , Nicho las de , 159.

Lishka thHagaz ith, see Mishnah , under Middoth.

INDEX 223

Lorqui , Jo shua , see Geronimo de Santa Fe .

Louisa of Savoy, 30 .

Loyo la , Ignatius , 73 .

Luna , Pedro de , see Benedict XI I I .

Macaulay, quoted , 2 14- 15.

Ma imonides,Principles of , 195.

Manzoni , Giacomo , note, 2 1 2 .

Marafios , The , 1 89.

Margaritha, Anthonius , apostate Jew ,author of Der

Gantz j udisch Glaub , e tc ., 197.

Martini , Raymundus, 2 1 0 .

Meade,George R . S . , 1 77

-8 .

Mechilta ,The, 1 65.

Meir , R . , Sage and Scribe , 1 1 4 ,1 35 re lation of, to R .

Jehuda Hanasi and R . Akiba , 1 1 8 , 1 2 2 .

Me lanchthon , Phi l ip , 2 1 3 .

Mendesohn , Moses , 42 , 57 on Kant, 4 1 , 43 .

Middoth, 1 35.

Midrash , 1 46 , 149, 150 , 152 -

3 .

M ISHNAH ,THE

, 1 1 1 .

Mishnah , The , Aboth, 1 30-4 ; Agada in, 1 16 ; of R .

Akiba , 1 1 8 Berachoth,126 Beraitoth in , 1 1 6

defined,1 15

- 16 ; o f R . El iezer b en Jacob,1 1 8 ;

The First , 1 1 8 ; the language o f, 1 2 4-5 influenceof Aramaic on the language of, 1 25 Lishkath

Hagaz ith ,described inMiddoth, 1 36 ; measurements

of the Temp le in , 1 36 Rashi and , 1 40 - 1 the Shas ,1 2 6 Sedarim of, 1 25

-

9 Ta lmud in , 1 1 6.

Mishnioth. of antiquity , 1 1 6.

Missions , Re l igious , abroad , see Re l igions .

Montefiore,Mr . C laude , 93 -

4 .

Moses ben Nachman , Nachmanides , The Ramban ,

Bonastruc de Portas , physician and Rabb i , 1 7 1 .

Moses Hakk o ten of Tordes i l las,Rabb i , author o f The

Support of the Fa ith, 1 86 takes part in a Disputation , 1 85, 1 86.

Mysterious powers of the Hebrew alphabet,Doctrine

o f the,1 8 .

Mystica l turn of m ind , Eduard Ze l ler on the , 14.

224 I NDEX

Mystic ism, 3 a l ink , 2 5-2 7 Ze l ler on , 1 4

- 1 6 .

Christian,m ediaeva l , 6 Master E ckhardt and ,

2 1 -3 influenced by the Jewish Cab b lists,

2 8 the rise o f systematic,2 5.

Jewish , in Baby lon and I ta ly, 1 8 , 2 0 influenceo f the Torah on

,1 7 ; preva lence o f

doctrines of, 1 8 ; the rise o f,1 7 ; in the

t ime o f the Geonim , 1 8 , 19, 2 0 ; Yetz ira ,

as re lated to , 1 8 .

Mystics,The , 1 3 ; treatment by Christian writers of

the ir,6 .

Christian, 1 4 ; Jacob Behme , 2 5,

2 7 ; consultthe Jewish Cabba la ,

6 ; Giovanni Picode l la Mirando la

,2 8-

9 Agripp a von

Ne tteshe im , 2 9-

30 Johann Reuch l in , 2 9.

Jewish , Azrie l , 2 1 , 2 3 I saac the Bl ind , 19, 2 0Jacob Ha-Nazir , 19 ; j udgment on, 1 6 ;p lace of, in the history of ph i losophy , 3 2 .

Nachmanides , 1 7 1 and R . Isaac Alfasi, 1 72 ; authoro f The Wa rs of theLord , 1 72 expe l led from Spain ,1 82 ; perm itted to make stip ulations with regardto the Disputations

,1 75 Publ ic Disputation with

Pablo Christiani,1 74 ; rewarded by King Jayme ,

1 8 1 takes part in Disputation at Barce lona , 1 75the Jews entreat , to discontinue Disputation , 1 76in Jerusa lem

,write s commentarie s on the Bible ,

1 82 quoted , 1 78 , 1 79-80 see a lso Mo se s ben

Nachman .

Na tiona l Religions and Universa l Religions, Kuch en , 77 .

Neo-Platonism,see Cabbala .

Netteshe im , H e inrich Corne l ius Agrippa von , Christianmystic , 29-

30 .

Numbers,2 9 Pythagorean Schoo l and ,

1 7 , 1 8 quoted ,1 2 6 ; ref , 1 35.

‘1

Offerings , Procedure , 1 34-

5.

Ontology , 42-4 .

Ortvinus Gra tius, sein Leben and Wirken, by Dr . D.

Re ich l ing ,note 2 ,

2 04 .

Pablo Chr istiani , see Christiani .

226 I NDEX

Re ich l ing , Dr . D .,De fence of Ortvinus Gratius

,2 04 ,

2 05 on Pe trus Ravennas , 2 05, 2 06.

Re l igion , Conception o f l ife afte r death in the Christian ,70

- 1 ; connect ion o f, and p hi losophy , 9- 1 0 ; developm ent of the Christian

,69

-

76 ; endurance of

the Jewish , 90 -1 Jewish conceptions of God and ,53

-

5 Unive rsa l , 59-60 .

Re l igious Miss ions abroad , The Marquis of Sa l isbury onthe m isch ievous effects of, 74-6.

Re l igious pe rsecut ions , idea l at bo ttom of, 60 .

Reuch l in, Johann , humanist and mystic , 2 9, 30 ; Am

b assador at Rome , 2 15 ; autho r of Augenspiegel ,2 08 and the Jewish books , 2 06 ; opinion o f

, on

Nicho las de Lira , 159 on the science of medicine,

2 09 ; studied H ebrew under R. Obadiah Sfo rno,2 1 2 trans lato r of Hippocra tes de pra epa ra tionehominis ad P tolema eum regem ,

2 09 ; quoted ,159,

2 09-1 0 .

Riddle of the Universe, The , Haecke l , 1 2 .Romans

,The , 52 see a lso Al l ia.

Rub ianus , Crotus , 2 05.

Saadiak , 1 42 .

Sages , The Scribes as , 1 14 R . E l iezer Hagadol on the ,1 14 ; Josephus on the , 1 15 Phi lo on the , 1 15.

Sal isbury,The Marquis of, qouted , 74-6 .

“ Sam Weller ,”quoted , 1 03 .

Sche l l ing, turns mystic , 1 4 .

Scribe,Ezra the , 1 1 3 R. Me ir

,and Sage , 1 14 the

ready , 1 1 3 .

Scribes,The (Sofer im) , 1 1 2 -14 R. E l iezer Hagadol on ,

1 1 4 ; Jo sephus on , 1 1 5 ; Phi lo on ,1 15 as Sage s ,

1 1 4 ; Wisdom of the Scribes , 1 1 3 .

Sedarim, Shisha , The , sec Mishnah .

S efiro t , The ten ,1 7

- 1 8 .

Seven Ridd les of the Universe , The , 1 1 .

Sforno , R . Obadiah ,2 1 3 , 2 15.

Shammai,1 3 1 Mishnioth be fore the time of, 1 16.

Sha s,The

,see Mishnah .

Shem Tob b en Shap rut , author of A ben Bochan,1 87 ;

summoned to a Disputat ion , 1 87.

INDEX 227

Shisha Seda rim , The , see Mishnah .

Sh’loh (R. I saiah Hurwitz) , 33 .

Sh’m a

’

, The , see Mishnah .

Sho far , The , 197 , 2 00Sifra ,

The,1 65 see a lso R. Akiba .

Sifre , 1 65 see a lso R . Akiba .Simon the Just , quoted ,

1 3 1 .

So fe r, Definition of, 1 1 3 , 1 1 4 .

Soferim ,1 1 2 - 14 the fam i l ie s of the , 1 1 3 the word , in

the Ta lmud,1 1 3 see a lso Scribes .

Soncino , Hieronymus (Gershon) , 2 1 1 , 2 1 2,2 1 3 ; note,

2 1 1 .

Socrate s , 8 .

Ste inschne ider , Observations of, 2 1 1 .

S toccarus , Johann , physician to the Duke of Bavaria ,2 09.

Stokes , Mr . Gri ffin and the Epistolae Obscurorum

Virorum,note , 3 , 2 05.

Support of the Fa ith, The, 1 86.

Talmud , The , copie s o f, confiscated and p assagesexpunged , 1 82 and the date of the b irth of Jesus ,1 77 Rash i and

, 1 40- 1 , 1 6 1 quoted , 1 1 3 .

Ta lmud,The Baby lonian

,

Tannaim,The o lder , 1 3 2 -

4 .

Targum of Jonathan , The , 1 60 .

Targum im ,1 1 3 , 1 60 , 1 66.

Tash l ich , 197 , 2 0 1 .

Temp le , The , Measurements of, ‘

1 36

Torah , The , Influence on myst ici sm o f, 1 7 trans11118510 11 of

,1 3 1 .

To rquemada , 73 .

Tortosa,Disputations at

, 1 86,191

-

4 apostate Jewssummoned to the , 193 Benedict XI I I at , 191 , 192Geronimo de Santa Fe takes part in

, 191-

3 ; theJewish Rabb i s summoned to

, 1 90 .

Tosafists , The , 1 62 .

Tosefta Za bim , 1 2 1 .

Tra cta tus contra J udaeorum perfidiam, 1 88 .

Trad ition,1 1 1 .

Traditiona l Judaism , 36.

228 I NDEX

Transm igration of the soul , The doctr ine of the , 33-4.

Underground Jerusa lem, see Sir Char le s Warren .

Universa l ity o f worsh ip , 85-7 .

Va l lado l id,Disp utations at , 1 83 .

Va l lado l id , Johannes o f, see Johannes of Va l lado l id .

Warren , Sir Charle s , quoted ,1 36 .

Wa rs of the Lord ,The

,1 72 .

Wh ite Comp any,” The , 1 84 .

Wisdom of the Scribes, 1 1 3 .

W i tchcraft,see Cabba la .

W o lff, 42 , 43 .

Yetz ira,2 0 as re lated to Jewish mysticism ,

1 8 .

Zeitschrift fur die Gerchichte der j uden in Deutchsland ,

198 ,199 ; note 1 98 .

Ze l le r, Eduard , on the medimval German mystics , 1 4 ;quoted , 1 4 , 15

-1 6,2 3

-

4 , 42 .

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