“Rambam has written expressly, In case that it should be found in the house; but, if he find it in the street, or on the dunghill in the house, it is forbidden. The Baal Haittur has given the same judgment: but my lord my father of blessed memory says, the meat is lawful, even if it be found on the dunghill in the house, and has not pronounced it unlawful, except when found on the dunghill in the street; and Rashba is of the same opinion.” (Joreh Deah., 1.) Here, then, we have the most learned of the rabbies, disputing as to what is the law; the one party pronouncing that to be unlawful which the other party declares lawful. What, then, are the unlearned to do in this case? Or how can it be said that there is an oral law which gives the true meaning of the written law? Or, if there be an oral law, what use is it, when it is itself a subject of dispute? Every one who has looked into the oral law knows that this difference of opinion is by no means a rare case; and that it cannot be said that the difference of opinion is in matters of minor importance. Let us, for example, consider the case of an Israelite who is accustomed to eat unlawful meat, and does so to vex Israel—is it lawful to eat the meat which he has killed?
כתב הרשב׳׳א שאין מוסרין לו בתחלה לשחוט אפילו אם ישראל עומד על גביו , ואם שחט בדיעבד כשר ע׳׳י בדיקת סכין תחילה או סוף וא׳׳א הרא׳׳ש ז׳׳ל כתב שדינו כגוי ׃
“Rashba has written that it is not lawful to give him a beast intentionally to slaughter, even if an Israelite should stand by. But if he has slaughtered the beast, it may be declared lawful by means of examining the knife, either at the beginning or at the end; and my lord my father of blessed memory has written that in the case of such a person the law is the same as in that of a Gentile.” (Ibid. 2.) Now the difference here is very great and very important. The one opinion says, that, under certain circumstances, such meat is lawful. The other, that it is unlawful as that killed by a Gentile—that is, what the one allows, the other pronounces to be so unlawful as to deserve the flogging of rebellion, as we saw in No. 49. Here, then, is a case involving severe corporal punishment, and yet the rabbies are not agreed as to which is the law. How, then, can men of sense and reflection give themselves up to a system, the doctors of which cannot agree upon a question so simple as this, What sort of food is lawful, and what is unlawful? and who, nevertheless, require unlimited obedience under the heaviest penalties temporal and eternal? The oral law does not suffer a wise man to be contradicted, and declares that all their sayings are “the words of the living God;” and yet here they contradict one another so widely, that if a man follow the one, he will be sentenced to a flogging by the other—and if from fear of the flogging he should agree with the latter, he will then be contradicting the former, and thereby incur the sentence of excommunication, and even run a risk of losing his soul. But in every case he must give up his judgment and his reason, and submit to be led by those, who are still disputing about the right road: yea, and if he would obey the oral law, must confess that they are both in the right. If this be not moral and intellectual slavery of the worst kind, we have yet to learn the meaning of these words. It will not be a pertinent reply to say that Christians also differ in opinion on important points. We confess that they do, and will continue to do so, as long as they continue to be fallible men: but then these persons do not profess to have an oral law given by God in order to preserve them from a wrong interpretation. There is one Christian Church that has followed the example of the rabbies in this particular, and has therefore fallen into many of their absurdities. Difference of opinion amongst those who make no such pretensions is no argument against the truth of the original records, whence both professedly draw their religion. Two men may differ as to the sense of a verse in the law of Moses, and yet we know that the verse itself contains the truth. But when each of these persons tells us that his interpretation is an inspired tradition, and that both, though contradicting each other, are equally true and correct, then it is evident that they say not only what is false, but what is absurd, and that they are labouring under a delusion. If it be a mere speculative delusion it is to be deplored—but if it be a practical delusion, involving the happiness and welfare of thousands, it must be combated and exposed—and this is precisely the case with the oral law. The particular part of it which we have now been considering seriously affects the temporal comfort of many thousands of the poor in every part of the world. The general principles enslave the minds of the whole nation, and thus prevent the state of happiness and glory which the prophets have promised. The Jewish nation is in a state of dispersion, and in some parts of the world victims of a cruel oppression, simply because they are the willing slaves of superstition. Until an intellectual and moral change is effected, they never can appear as “the peculiar people, the kingdom of priests, the holy nation.” High and holy is their destiny, and great is the providential mercy of God in still preserving them, when they refuse obstinately to fulfil it. But neither their destiny nor God’s forbearance can be of any avail, until they reassert the glorious liberty of the children of God. The chains of Rabbinism must be broken, and the mild yoke of Messiah taken upon their shoulders, before national independence and liberty can return. How could a nation exist, whose moral and intellectual energies are all crampt by the endless subtleties of the rabbies? How could a people maintain national liberty whilst they are such perfect slaves to superstition as to believe that traditions, which are the curse of the poor, 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 congealing 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 ether 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 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 craven 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 remarks apply to those who make the הלכות בשר בחלה , 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׳׳פ 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 mothers 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 be did not boil them.” (Hilchoth Maakhaloth Asuroth, c. ix. i.) 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