The minds of children, too, are thus imbued with the commandments of men, and taught in the language of prayer to stamp the divine authority upon the invention of the Scribes and Pharisees. And this is done not only in the forests of Poland, or on the uncivilized coasts of Barbary, but here in England. This ceremony and this prayer are prescribed in the two editions of the Jewish prayer-book, published by Levi and Alexander. In this country, where full liberty of conscience prevails, the language of the synagogue is just the same as in the darkest and most oppressed regions of the habitable globe. The Jewish children are still taught to bless God for giving what he never gave, and the sacred voice of prayer still consecrates the intolerance, the errors, and the absurdities of the oral law. In other countries, where the circumstances were not so favourable, the Jews have made more than one attempt to renounce and repudiate the errors of the Talmud. But in England, whether from listlessness or from a love to these Talmudic doctrines, we do not presume to say, nothing has been done either by the German or the Portuguese Jews. In England the Talmud still maintains its empire of error and uncharitableness, and spiritual tyranny, and not one individual has dared publicly to protest against it. We ask the Jews seriously to consider this matter, and to compare the extracts which we give with Moses and the prophets; if the oral law agrees with that which is confessedly the Word of God, then we beg of them to explain the lawfulness of using guile, of inventing new commandments, and enforcing them with the severest punishments. But if they decide that these things are altogether forbidden by God, then we call upon them to protest aloud against these adulterations of revealed truth.

No. XVI.*

INTOLERANCE OF RABBINIC PRAYERS.

In our last number we ventured to say, that in the English synagogues "The sacred voice of prayer still consecrates the intolerance, the errors, and the absurdities of the oral law;" and we gave an instance in proof of our assertion. But to some

* The British Jews of Burton-street Synagogue have expunged from their prayers the intolerance here complained of.

ཡ 1:|:ཀ

Israelites, who have overlooked the contents of their Prayerbook, this assertion may require more proof; we therefore, proceed to give it, and first of all with regard to intolerance. In the ceremonial for the first two evenings of the Passover, in the midst of the rejoicings and thanksgivings, which the memory of their great deliverance naturally calls forth, we suddenly find the following prayer:—

שפוך חמתך אל הגוים אשר לא ידעוך ועל ממלכות אשר בשמך לא קראו : כי אכל את יעקב שפוך עליהם זעמך וחרון אפך ואת נוהו השמו . ישיגם. תרדף באף ותשמידם מתחת שמי ה' :

"Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name. For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place. (Psalm lxxix. 6, 7.) Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. (Psalm Ixix. 24.) Persecute them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord." (Lament. iii. 66.) Here are three passages of Scripture, taken from their context, and joined together to make one prayer. In their context, and with reference to the times for which those portions of Scripture were given by God, they are intelligible. After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, whilst the Jewish mind was still in a state of violent excitement against the authors of that calamity, such an imprecation may appear natural. During the persecutions of the Crusaders or the Inquisition it might be excusable, but in the present time and circumstances it is indefensible. Who are the heathen and the kingdoms, whom the offerers of these petitions wish to be pursued with God's wrath, and to be destroyed from under the heavens ? Are they the Christians, or the heathen idolaters of Africa and India? The Mahometans profess a faith in the Unity very similar to that of the later rabbies: they, therefore, cannot be intended. If it be said that the idolatrous heathen are here intended, we must still protest against the intolerance of this imprecation; why should the Jews wish for their destruction ? What evil did these poor ignorant people ever do to the Jews in England, that they should pray for their destruction rather than their conversion? If it be said, that nobody at all is intended in the present day, why, we would ask, is it still made a part of the Passover ceremonial? We have before us several copies of the Haggadah, some printed very lately, and it occurs in them all.

If this were the only passage of the kind to be found in the liturgies of the synagogue, it might perhaps admit of palliation or excuse, but it is only one of a similar class, all

breathing the same spirit. In the morning service for the second day of the Passover, as translated by D. Levi, we find another more fearful still.

ברח דודי אל לבך ועיניך שם. ואם זנחנו טוב מדשם. אנא שמע שאגת קול צורריך ורגשם. רוה ועפרם מחלב ידשם. ופגריהם יעלה מדם גושם

באשם :

66

Hasten, O my beloved, to where thy heart and eyes are; and though we have cast off that that is good and pleasant, yet hear the roaring raging voice of those that oppress thy people; satiate the clods with their blood; manure the earth with their fat; and let the stench of their carcasses ascend." (Levi's Prayers, vol. 5, fol. 142.) The translation is D. Levi's, so that it cannot be said, that the sense has been misrepresented or distorted for polemical purposes. It is the translation of a Jew, and of a Jew in England, and the title-page tells us that it is the second edition "carefully revised and corrected, and illustrated by Isaac Levi." The title-page also says, "As read in their synagogues and used in their families." Is not this prayer intolerant ? Is there any thing like it in the New Testament, or in our Christian Prayer-books? And yet we are told that modern Judaism is more tolerant than Christianity, and that it teaches charity to all men. Let not the Jews think that we impute this spirit to the whole nation. No such thing. This passage is quoted as a specimen of the spirit of the oral law and its authors, who not only were possessed of this spirit of resentment, but so overwhelmed with it, as to transfuse it into their addresses to the God of mercy, and to prescribe it as a part of the public worship of the congregation. Whenever introduced, there it still remains, as a testimony to the spirit of the first opposers of Jesus of Nazareth, and as a portion of the liturgic service of the synagogue. In these passages, however, it does not appear what nations are intended; no name or particular characteristic is given, though the allusion, in the last quoted prayer, to Isaiah xxxiv., naturally leads the reader to think of Edom; but in other places a more definite form is prescribed, from which we find that Edom is the great object of hatred.

ליל שמורים אל חצה. בחצות לילה בתוך מצרים

גבור על אדום יחצנה כחצה : כיצא

"God divideth the night of preservation, when in the midst of the night he went forth through the land of Egypt: may the mighty God also divide it concerning Edom." (Levi, ibid. fol. 7.) This is a petition that God would do to Edom as he did unto Egypt. Again, a little further on we read,

G

כימי פסח חרב חדה על אדום. ביד צח ואדום

חג פסח :

"On the Passover, a sharp sword shall fall on Edom, by the hand of him who is white and ruddy, as in the days of the feast of Passover." (Ibid. fol. 10.) And so throughout the prayers there are frequent allusions to this subject, as for instance

ערד מחציו תתמלא תיבתו.

שם יקרא ככתיבתו תתנשא מלכותו. וכסאו יכון במלאתו. בכדי שעיר בהכותו. באויביו יתן כקמתו :

"Then will his name be pronounced as it is written: when the other half will complete the word; his dominion also will be greatly exalted, and his throne be completely established; when he shall smite the descendants of Esau, and take vengeance on his enemies." (Ibid. fol. 214.) But these are sufficient to show that Edom is the great object of antipathy, and of course the great question is, whom do the Jews understand by Edom? Let the most famous of their rabbies instruct us in this matter, and first let us hear Maimonides :

אדומים עובדי עכו"ם הם ויום ראשון הוא יום אידם לפיכך אסור לשאת ולתת עמהם בא"י: יום חמישי ויום ששי שבכל שבת ושבת ואצ"ל יום ראשון עצמו שהוא אסור בכל מקום :

"The Edomites are idolaters, and the first day of the week is the day of their festival; therefore it is forbidden to have commerce with them in the land of Israel, on the fifth and sixth day of every week. It is not necessary to say that the first day itself is every where unlawful." (Hilchoth Accum. c. ix. 4.) There is but one class of religionists who observe the first day of the week as sacred. Now let us hear Kimchi. In his commentary on Joel iii. 19, " Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land:" he says,

זכר מצרים בעבור ישמעאלים ואדום בעבור מלכות רומי. ואלה שתי האומות הנה הגוברות זה ימים רבים ותהיינה עד עת הגאולה והיא חיותא רביעאה במראות דניאל .... ואמר זה בעבור כי מלכות רומי רובם אדומים ואעפ"י שנתערבו בהם עמים רבים כמו שנתערבו גם כן במלכות ישמעאלים נקראים על

העיקר :

"The prophet mentions Egypt and Edom: Egypt, on account of the Turks, and Edom, on account of the Roman empire ; and these two have now had dominion for a long time, and will continue until the redemption. This is the fourth beast in the visions of Daniel. .... And this is said, because the majority of the Roman empire is composed of Edomites. For although many other nations are mixed among them, as is also the case with the Turkish empire, they are called after the root." Kimchi then fixes Edom upon the Roman empire, in which he evidently includes the Greek empire, for he wrote in the 12th century, long before the Constantinopolitan dynasty was overturned. Aben Esra gives a similar interpretation on the blessing of Esau.

ורומי שהגלתנו היא מזרע כתים וכן אומר המתרגם וצים מיד כתים והיא מלכות יון בעצמו כאשר פירשתי בספר דניאל והיו אנשים מתי מספר שהאמינו באיש ששמוהו אלוה וכאשר האמינה רומי בימי קונסטאנטין שחדש כל הדת ושם על דגלו צורת האיש. ולא היו בעולם שישמרו התורה החדשה חוץ מאדומים מעטים על כן נקראה רומי מלכות אדום :

"Rome, which led us away captive, is of the seed of Kittim, and so the Targumist has said, in Numbers xxiv. 24, And ships shall come from the coast of Kittim.' And this is the same as the Greek monarchy, as I have explained in the book of Daniel; and there were very few who believed on the man of whom they made a god. But when Rome believed in the days of Constantine, who changed the whole religion, and put an image of that man upon his standard, there were none in the world who observed the new law except a few Edomites, therefore Rome is called the kingdom of Edom." (Comment. on Gen. xxix.) We do not now stop to refute the false statements which Aben Ezra here makes. Every one that knows anything of history, knows that in less than a century after the time of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christian religion had made great progress in the whole Roman empire, and that the propagation of the new law, as Aben Ezra calls it, before the time of Constantine, was more rapid and more extensive than after his conversion. Our business at present is with his interpretation of the word Edom; he says plainly that Edom and Edomites mean the Christians. Now let us hear Abarbanel:

ומזה תדע שלא לבד על ארץ אדום הסמוכה לא"י נבא הנביא כ"א גם על האומה שנסתעפה משם ונתפשטה בכל העולם והיא אומת הנוצרים היום הזה שהם מבני אדום :