and many of which flatly contradict others, all proceed from the God of mercy and truth? The temple must first be cleansed of all defilement before the glory of God can enter. It is therefore a matter of the first and highest importance, to every Jew who wishes well to his nation, to examine that system, whose constant companion for so many centuries has been misery; and if they are convinced of its falsehood, then to use every exertion to deliver their brethren, from that which is mischievous as well as false. We might urge its tendency to produce and perpetuate an unfriendly separation between the Jews and their neighbours: not that we are ignorant of God's declaration,

הן עם לבדד ישכון ובגוים לא יתחשב :

"Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." (Numb. xxiii. 9.) We know it and believe it, and are therefore fully convinced, that all the wit and power of man will never be able to effect what some so ardently desire, an amalgamation with the nations where Israel is dispersed. We have no desire to contravene the declared will of God, and to degrade Israel from their position as a holy nation to the rank of an inconsiderable religious sect. But still we might urge against the oral law, that it goes beyond God's intention by producing an unfriendly separation and an estrangement between man and man, which is injurious to the welfare of both Jew and Gentile; we leave this, however, to the consideration of those Israelites who feel, or profess to feel, a love and affection for all men; and content ourselves at present with the indubitable fact, that the laws concerning slaughtering are most oppressive to the poor and enslaving to the minds of all. It is not merely the bodily grievance of starvation to which we now allude, though that is wicked and vexatious to the last degree, and should therefore not

be tolerated for a moment by the humane and the merciful. There is something that is worse than any bodily suffering, and that is, to be tempted to do violence to conscience by professing what we do not believe, or by concealing our real sentiments. And yet in many a Jewish congregation this is frequently the case. It pleases God to give to the poor the power of reasoning as well as to the rich, and thus some of this class are occasionally led to see the absurdity of the oral law, and to detest those inventions which doom them and their families to starvation, but yet they would not dare either to avow or to act upon their conviction. To eat any other than Rabbinical food would at once cut them off from the bounty of the synagogue, and from the sympathy of its worshippers. To express their convictions would be sufficient to have them numbered with the profane and ungodly, and therefore they conceal their real sentiments, and pretend to be what they are not, that they may not deprive their families of the little assistance which an apparent conformity to Rabbinic usages may procure. Here then is another and more unequivocal badge of slavery. The oral law deprives the poor entirely of liberty of conscience. He not only must not eat, he must not think, at least he must not express a thought, no, nor even a doubt, about that system which is the cause of his misery. It is true, that those who profess or suppress religious sentiments merely to serve their temporal interests, are either very weak or very guilty. But we must make some allowance for the infirmity of human nature, and especially in the case of a poor man, who has no bread for his children, and whose mind has been debased from his youth by such bondage. It is to the system that we are to impute these debasing effects. It not only torments the body, but degrades the mind; and, therefore, every Israelite who loves and respects liberty of conscience, should endeavour to

procure it for his

brethren. According to the law of the land they have it. They They are free to worship and serve God as they think most agreeable to his will; but the oral law steps in between, and deprives them of the benefit. The Jewish poor dare not serve God according to their conscience, nor even express the convictions of their heart. All the legislators in Christendom could not set them free. The duty as well as the possibility of delivering them from this bondage rests with their brethren. But they, alas whatever the motive, decline the glorious task.

No. LII.

LAWS CONCERNING MEAT WITH MILK.

It is recorded of the Cutheans and those other nations whom the King of Assyria placed as colonists at Samaria, that they endeavoured to combine the service of the true God with the worship of idols. "So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven images, both their children and their children's children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day." (2 Kings xvii. 41.) Every one can see that this conduct was as foolish as it was wicked. It was wicked to dishonour the true God by associating him with them that were no gods; and it was foolish to imagine that God could be pleased with a partial homage and a divided heart. Total idolatry would have been more reasonable and less offensive to the Divine Being, for he, whom we acknowledge as God, must necessarily have the whole of our fear, our love, and our obedience. And yet there is perhaps a way of serving God more unreasonable still, and that is by giving to sinful

and fallible men the honour that is due to God alone. The Cutheans falsely thought that God was one amongst many; and if they worshipped the many, it was under the impression that they were really Gods. But suppose a nation to acknowledge the one true God, and then to fix upon a certain number of men to be honoured and served with the same degree of reverence and obedience; none can doubt that this nation would be far more irrational than that of the Cutheans, inasmuch as to pay Divine honours to a number of our fellow-men is more extravagant still than to worship a plurality of imaginary deities. Some may think that such a degree of absurdity is impossible, but fact shows that it is not only possible, but that it has actually occurred. When men exalt the inventions of their teachers to a level with the known and acknowledged laws of God, and make obedience to these inventions an essential part of their religion, they confer upon men the highest degree of honour and of service that can be rendered to God. The unreserved submission of the heart and conscience to the will of God is the highest act of worship, and when it is given to the will of men, in that degree men are made gods. Whether these

,הלכות בשר בחלב remarks apply to those who make the

i.e., "The constitutions concerning meat in milk” a part of their religion, it is for the adherents of the oral law to inquire.

The general principle of these constitutions is thus expressed

בשר בחלב אסור לבשלו ואסור לאכלו מן התורה ואסור בהנאה וקוברין אותו • ואפרו אסור כאפר כל הנקברין • ומי שיבשל משניהם כזית כאחד לוקה שנאמר לא תבשל גדי בחלב אמו • וכן האוכל כזית משניהם מהבשר והחלב שנתבשלו

כאחד לוקה ואע"פי שלא בשל :

"It is unlawful to boil meat in milk-according to the

law, it is also unlawful to eat it; it is likewise unlawful to make any profit by it, and it is to be buried. Its ashes are also unlawful, like the ashes of other things that are buried. Whosoever boils together a quantity of these two things, equal to an olive, is to be flogged, for it is said, 'Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.' (Exod. xxiii. 19.) In like manner, he that eats a quantity of the flesh and the milk, which have been boiled together, amounting in value to an olive, is to be flogged, even though he did not boil them." (Hilchoth Maakhaloth Asuroth, c. ix. 1.) Here the oral law determines generally, that it is unlawful to boil meat in milk, or to make any use of meat so boiled, and sentences the transgressor to a severe and degrading corporal punishment, and yet this determination is altogether an invention of men, for which there is not the slightest authority in the Word of God. The prohibition of Moses is confined to one single case, which is exactly defined: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk," but there the prohibition ends, for the specification of one particular shows that that alone is intended, and necessarily excludes all others. To give some colour to the unwarranted extension, it is asserted that

וגדי הוא כולל ולד השור ולד השה ולד העז עד שיפרוט

ויאמר גדי עזים :

"Kid includes the young of kine, of sheep, and of goats, so that to particularize, the word goat is added as a kid of the goats."" And so Rashi also affirms in his commentary. Aben Ezra, however, has saved us the trouble of giving a refutation of our own, for he says

ואיננו כן כי גדי לא יקרא רק שהוא מהעזים ובלשון ערבי הוא גדי ולא יאמר על מין אחר רק יש הפרש בין גדי ובין גדי עזים כי גדי גדול מגדי עזים כי עודנו צריך היותו עם העזים וככה שעיר ושעיר עזים וחכמים קבלו שלא אכל ישראל בשר

בחלב :