If a man brought a question like this to a Christian priest, the priest would certainly begin to expatiate in glowing terms on the duty of a man to sacrifice his life for another, to “bear his cross” in the footsteps of his “Messiah,” so that he might win the kingdom of heaven—and so forth. But the Jewish teacher weighs the question in the scales of objective justice: “Seeing that in either case a life must be lost, and there is none to say which of the two lives is more precious in God’s sight, therefore your own danger does not entitle you to break the sixth commandment. Be killed; kill you must not!” But suppose the case reversed; suppose the question to be “Another is going to be killed, and I can save him by giving my life instead of his, what shall I do?” Then Raba would have replied: “Let such a one be killed, and do not destroy thyself. For do what thou wilt there must here be a life lost; and who hath told thee that his blood is redder than thine? Perhaps thine own is redder.” From the standpoint of Judaism every man’s blood is as red as any other’s, every soul is “precious in the sight of God,” be it mine or another’s, therefore no man is at liberty to treat his life as his own property; no man has a right to say: “I am endangering myself; what right have others to complain of that?” (Maimonides’ Code, Laws of Murder, XI. 5). The history of Judaism can tell, indeed, of many acts of self-sacrifice, the memory of which will remain precious and holy for all time. But these are not cases of one life given for the preservation of another similar life, they are sacrifices of human life for “the sanctification of the Name” (the religious ideal) or for “the good of the community” (the religious goal).
And justice demands that we rise above sentiment not only in deciding as between the self and another, but also in deciding as between two other persons. Forty years ago Abraham Geiger—the man in whom our latter-day “Reformers” see their spiritual father—pointed out that the Jewish commandment “Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause” reveals a morality of unparalleled loftiness.[[171]] All other moral codes warn us only against favouring the persons of the rich and the powerful; and the Gospels, as is well known, favour the persons of the poor, and have much to say of their merits and their future greatness. All this is very well from the point of view of the heart; but a morality based on justice rises above sentiment, and teaches that it is our duty to help the poor man if we are able, but that mercy must not induce us so far to sin against justice as to favour the poor man in his suit.
Herbert Spencer anticipates, as the highest possible development of morality, the transformation of the altruistic sentiment into a natural instinct, so that at last men will be able to find no greater pleasure than in working for the good of others. Similarly Judaism, in conformity with its own way of thought, anticipates the development of morality to a point at which justice will become an instinct with good men, so that they will not need long reflection to enable them to decide between different courses of action according to the standard of absolute justice, but will feel as in a flash, and with the certainty of instinct, even the slightest deviation from the straight line. Human relations and social grades will not affect them in the least, because the “true judge” within them will pronounce justly on each deed, swayed by no human relation to the doer or the sufferer, considering not whether this one or that is the self or another, is rich or poor. And since Judaism associated its moral aspirations with the “coming of the Messiah,” it attributed to the Messiah this perfection of morality, and said that “he will smell and judge” (Sanhedrin, 93b), on the basis of the scriptural verse: “And shall make him of quick understanding [Heb. “smell”] in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes.” “Because the smell is a very delicate sense, he gives the name of smell to the most delicate feeling ... that is to say, the Messiah with little attention will feel which men are good, and which evil” (Isa. xi. 3, with Kimchi’s commentary).
But this development lies far ahead in the hidden future. At present the human race still lacks the instinctive “sense of justice,” and even the best men are apt to be blinded by self-love or prejudice, so as to be unable to distinguish between good and evil. At present, therefore, we all need some touchstone, some fundamental principle, to help each of us to avoid weighting the scales of justice to suit his own ends or satisfy his personal inclinations. Such a principle Hillel gave us: “What is hateful to thyself do not unto thy neighbour.” Altruism teaches: “What thou desirest that others should do unto thee, that do thou unto them.” In other words: take the circle of egoism, and put in its centre, instead of the “self,” the “other”; then you will know your whole duty. But Judaism cannot find satisfaction in this substitution, because it demands that justice shall be placed at the centre of the circle—justice, which makes no distinction between “self” and “other.” Now in the circle of egoism there is no place for justice except in a negative form. What egoism does not wish for itself—that, certainly it will be just not to do to another. But what egoism does wish for itself is something which has no limits; and if you oblige a man to do this to others, you are inclining the scales of justice to the side of the “other” as against the “self.”
Even that “great principle in the Law” (as R. Akiba called it), “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” though in form it appears to be positive, is in reality, if rightly understood, negative. If the Torah had meant that a man must love his neighbour to the extent of sacrificing his life for him, it would have said: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour more than thyself.” But when you love your neighbour as yourself, neither more nor less, then your feelings are in a state of perfect equilibrium, with no leaning either to your side or to your neighbour’s. And this is, in fact, the true meaning of the verse. “Self-love must not be allowed to incline the scale on the side of your own advantage; love your neighbour as yourself, and then inevitably justice will be the deciding factor, and you will do nothing to your neighbour that you would consider a wrong if it were done to yourself.” For proof that this is the real meaning we have only to look further in the same passage of Leviticus, where we find: “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself (Lev. xix. 33, 34). Here it is evident that to love the stranger “as thyself” means to carry out the negative precept “ye shall not vex him”; and if the stranger is expressly placed on the same footing as the native, this shows that in relation to the native also the intention is only that self-love must not prove a stronger motive than justice.
But in the Gospels the commandment “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” receives an altruistic sense: it means that your own life is less important than your neighbour’s. Hence it is possible to find some small justification for the habit which Christians have of attributing this verse to the Gospels, as though it appeared there, and not in the Mosaic Law, for the first time. It is true that the meaning which they put on the verse belongs not to our Law, but to the Gospels.[[172]]
But it must be remembered that in addition to the relation of individual to individual, there is another and more important moral relation—that of nation to nation. Here also some “great principle” is needed to keep within bounds that national egoism which is fraught, perhaps, with even greater danger to the collective progress of humanity than individual egoism. If we look at the difference between Judaism and Christianity, in regard to the basis of morality, from this point of view, we shall see at once that the altruism of the Gospels is in no way suited to serve as a basis for international relations. A nation can never believe that its moral duty lies in self-abasement, and in the renunciation of its rights for the benefit of other nations. On the contrary, every nation feels and knows that its moral duty is to keep its position and use its powers as a means of creating for itself satisfactory conditions of life, in which it can develop its potentialities to the utmost. Since, then, Christian nations could not base their relations one with another on the moral basis of their religion, national egoism inevitably remained the sole determining force in international politics, and “patriotism,” in the Bismarckian sense, attained the dignity of the ultimate moral basis.
But the Jewish law of justice is not confined within the narrow sphere of individual relations. In its Jewish sense the precept, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” can be carried out by a whole nation in its dealings with other nations. For this precept does not oblige a nation to sacrifice, for the benefit of other nations, its life or its position. It is, on the contrary, the duty of every nation, as of the individual human being, to live and to develop to the utmost extent of its powers; but at the same time it must recognise the right of other nations to fulfil the like duty without let or hindrance, and “patriotism”—that is, national egoism—must not induce it to disregard justice, and to fulfil itself through the destruction of other nations.[[173]] Hence Judaism was able thousands of years ago to rise to the lofty ideal expressed in the words, “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.” This ideal is, in fact, only an inevitable logical consequence of the idea of absolute justice, which lies at the foundation of Judaism.
Many pages might be filled with the further development of these general ideas; and as many more might without difficulty be given to an exposition of the differences between the two doctrines in points of detail, in such a way as to show that the detailed differences are but the outcome of the broad and fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity, and that all the compromises and concessions whereby Mr. Montefiore tries to make peace between the two creeds have no real value, either theoretical or practical. But it is not my purpose here to write a book, and I will content myself, so far as general principles are concerned, with the brief hints above set forth. As for details, I will touch here on only one point, to which our author himself attaches more than ordinary importance, and will leave the reader to draw his own conclusions as to the rest.
The Gospels, unlike Judaism, forbid divorce, either absolutely, as in the version of Mark (x. 2-12), or with an exception in the case of unfaithfulness, as in the version of Matthew (xix. 3-12). At the present time, when all Christian nations are struggling with the prohibition of divorce, which came to them from the Gospels, and are trying to annul it or restrict its operation within narrow limits, it may be taken as fairly evident that the recognition of divorce, even on other grounds than unfaithfulness, is demanded by the conscience of society. Nor is it surprising that Judaism, with its essentially social aim, has been true to its general spirit in its attitude on this question, and has decided, with the school of Hillel, that divorce is permissible not alone on the ground of unfaithfulness, but also when there is from other causes a rupture of the bond of sympathy between man and wife. The important thing here is not the cause, but the effect—the rupture within the home, which must lower the moral tone of the life of the family, and interfere with the proper upbringing of the children. Long experience has taught Judaism that there is no reason to go back on this decision. Even the enemies of Israel cannot deny that Jewish family life has reached a high level of morality; and a result like this does not come about by a miracle, in the teeth of the national code of law, least of all in the case of the Jews, whose life has always been so profoundly influenced by the prescriptions of the Torah.[[174]] It must indeed be admitted that at first only the husband had the right of divorce, and no wife could divorce her husband. In conformity with the primitive view (a view still widely accepted all over the world) that man alone is important, and woman is but “an help meet for him,” it was demanded above all things of the husband that his position in the home should correspond to his moral obligations as the father of the family, and that he should not be compelled by law to live with a woman who was distasteful to him, and to become the father of “children of a hated wife.” But when once it came to be recognised that married life cannot tolerate constraint, this recognition, limited at first to the side of the husband, was bound to be gradually extended to the wife. Hence arose the provisions under which a man may be compelled to divorce his wife (K’thuboth, ch. vii). These provisions enabled the wife to obtain a divorce against the husband’s will, by decree of the courts, on many and various grounds. Thus it is impossible to assert that Judaism does not allow a woman to divorce her husband. In the cases just mentioned it is, in fact, the wife who divorces, though the bill of divorcement is technically given by the husband. What matters is not who performs the legal action, but whose wish it is that brings about the divorce. This tendency to emancipate the wife reached its highest development in the dictum of Maimonides, that if a woman says “My husband is distasteful to me, and I cannot live with him,” although she gives no specific reason for her dislike, the husband is yet compelled to divorce her, “because she is not like a captive woman, that she should consort with a man whom she hates” (Laws of Marriage, xiv. 8). Here we see the Jewish attitude to marriage in its full development. Marriage is a social and moral cord, the two ends of which are in the hearts of husband and wife; and if the cord is broken at either end—whether in the husband’s heart or in the wife’s—the marriage has lost its value, and it is best that it should be annulled. It is true that the jurists who came after Maimonides could not rise to the conception of so perfect an equality of the sexes, and did not wholly accept his dictum. But the mere fact that the greatest authority deduced this decision from the Talmud (and the Talmud, in fact, affords ground for his view—see Maggid Mishnah ad loc.) is proof conclusive as to the real tendency of the Jewish law of divorce, and shows whither it leads in the straight line of development.