4. That which the prophet Ezekiel had attempted in his proposed constitution[1106] was accomplished in a far more thorough manner by the Holiness Code, which emanated from his school and became the central portion of the Mosaic books, and by the so-called Priestly Code, which followed later. The object was to bring about the sanctification of [pg 346] the entire people upon the holy soil of the national land, through institutions embodying the ideal of the holiness of God in the life and cult of the people. Circumcision, idealized by the prophetic author of Deuteronomy,[1107] was to be made the sign of the covenant to mark as holy the progeny of Abraham;[1108] strict laws of marriage were to put an end to all heathenish unchastity; the Sabbath rest was to consecrate the labors of the week, the Sabbatical month and year the produce of the soil.[1109] The prohibition of unclean foods, heretofore reserved, as among other nations, for the priests and other consecrated persons, was now applied to the whole community in order that Israel should learn “to set itself apart from all other nations as a holy people.”[1110] Even their apparel was to proclaim the priestly holiness of the people by a blue fringe at the border of the garments.[1111]
Whereas from the time of Ezra to Simon the Just priestly rulers endeavored to promote the work of educating the people for holiness, the pious men from among the people made still greater efforts to assert the claim of holiness for the entire Jewish people as a priest-nation.[1112] The repasts of these pious fellowships should be in no way inferior in sanctity to those of the priests in the Temple. New ceremonies of sanctification were to open and close the Sabbaths and festivals. Symbols of priestly consecration should adorn forehead and arm in the form of the phylacteries (tefillin), and should be placed at the entrance of every house in the so-called mezuzzah. “God has given unto all an heritage (the Torah), the kingdom, the priesthood, and the sanctuary”[1113]—this became the leitmotif for the Pharisaic school, who constantly enlarged the domain of piety so that it should include [pg 347] the whole of life. Whoever did not belong to this circle of the pious was regarded with scorn as one of the lower class (am ha-aretz).
5. The chief effort of the pious, the founders of the Judaism of the Synagogue, was to keep the Jewish people from the demoralizing influences of pagan nature-worship, represented first by Semitic and later by Greek culture. The leaders of the Pharisees “built a fence about the law”[1114] extending the prohibition of mingling with the heathen nations so as also to prohibit eating with them and participating in their feasts and social gatherings,—not for the preservation of the Jewish race merely, as Christian theologians maintain, but for the sake of keeping its inner life intact and pure.[1115] “God surrounded us with brazen walls, hedged us in with laws of purity in regard to food and drink and physical contact, yea, even to that which we see and hear, in order that we should be pure in body and soul, free from absurd beliefs, not polluted by contact with others or through association with the wicked; for most of the peoples defile themselves with their sexual practices, and whole lands pride themselves upon it. But we hold ourselves aloof from all this”—so spoke Eleazar the priest to King Ptolemy Philadelphus, according to the Letter of Aristeas, thus giving expression to the sentiment most deeply rooted in the souls of the pious of that period.[1116] They strove to build up a nation of whom the Tannaim could say, “Whoever possesses no sense of shame and chastity, of him it is certain that his ancestors did not stand at Sinai.”[1117]
Naturally enough, the Greek and Roman people took offense at this aloofness and separation from every contact with the outer world, and explained it as due to a spirit of hostility to mankind. Even up to the present it has been the lot of Jewry and Judaism to be misunderstood by the world [pg 348] at large, to be the object of either its hate or its pity. The world disregards the magnificence of the plan by which an entire people were to be reared as a priest-nation, as citizens of a kingdom of God, among whom, in the course of centuries, the seed of prophetic truth was to germinate and sprout forth for the salvation of humanity. If, in complete contrast to heathen immorality, the Jew in his life, his thinking, and his will was governed by the strictest moral discipline; if, in spite of the most cruel persecutions and the most insidious temptations, the Jewish people remained steadfast to its pure belief in God and its traditional standards of chastity, exhibiting a loyalty which amazed the nations and the religious sects about, but was neither understood nor followed by them, this was mainly due to the hallowing influences of the priestly laws. They steeled the people for the fulfillment of their duty and shielded them against all hostile powers both within and without. The very burden of the law, so bitterly denounced by Christianity since the time of Paul, lent Judaism its dignity at all times, protecting it from the assaults of the tempter; and that which seemed to the outsider a heavy load was to the Jew a source of pride in the consciousness of his divine election.[1118]
6. But most significant in the character and development of Judaism is the fact that all the leading ideas and motives which emanated from the priesthood of the Jewish people were concentrated in one single focus, the hallowing of the name of God. Two terms expressed this idea in both a negative and a positive form, the warning against “Hillul ha Shem”—profanation of the name of God—and the duty of “Kiddush ha Shem”—sanctification of God's name. These exerted a marvelous power in curbing the passions and self-indulgence of the Jew and in spurring him on to the greatest [pg 349] possible self-sacrifice and to an unparalleled willingness to undergo suffering and martyrdom for the cause. These terms are derived from the Biblical verse, “Ye shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel; I am the Lord who halloweth you.”[1119] This verse forms the concluding sentence of the precepts for the Aaronitic priesthood and warns them as the guardians of the sanctuary to do nothing which might in the popular estimation degrade them or the divine cause intrusted to them. When, however, during the Maccabean wars, the little band of the pious proved themselves to be the true priesthood in their Opposition to the faithless Aaronites, offering their very lives as a sacrifice for the preservation of the true faith in God, the Scriptural word received a new and higher meaning. It came to signify the obligation of the entire priest-people to consecrate the name of God by the sacrifice of their lives, and also their duty to guard against its profanation by any offensive act. In connection with this Scriptural passage the sages represent God as saying, “I have brought you out of Egypt only on the condition that you are ready to sacrifice your lives, if need be, to consecrate My name.”[1120] From that period it became a duty and even a law of Judaism, as Maimonides shows in his Code, for each person in life and in death to bear witness to His God.[1121] “Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and I am God”[1122]—and witnesses being in the Greek version martyrs, the word afterward received the meaning of “blood-witnesses.”—This passage of the prophet is commented on by Simeon ben Johai, one of the great teachers who suffered under Hadrian's persecution, in the following words, “If ye become My witnesses, then am I your Lord, God of the world; but if ye do not witness to Me, I cease to [pg 350] be, as it were, the Lord, God of all the world.”[1123] That is to say, it is the martyrdom of the pious which glorifies God's name before all the world. Or, as Felix Perles says so beautifully, “As every good and noble man must ever bear in mind that the dignity of humanity is intrusted to his hand, so should each earnest adherent of the Jewish faith remember that the glory of God is intrusted to his care.”[1124] The Jewish people has fulfilled this priestly task through a martyrdom of over two thousand years and has scornfully resisted every demand to abandon its faith in God, not consenting to do so even in appearance. Surely historians or philosophers who can ridicule or commiserate such resistance betray a hatred which blinds their sense of justice. As a matter of fact, it was the consciousness of the Jewish people of its priestly mission that has made it a pattern of loyalty for all time.
7. Moreover, the fear of profaning the divine name became the highest incentive to, and safeguard of the morality of the Jew. Every misdeed toward a non-Jew is considered by the teachers of Judaism a double sin, yea, sometimes, an unpardonable one, because it gives a false impression of the moral standard of Judaism and infringes upon the honor of God as well as that of man. The disciples of Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach once bought an ass for him from an Arab, and to their joy found a precious stone in its collar. “Did the seller know of this gem?” asked the master. On being answered in the negative, he called out angrily, “Do you consider me a barbarian? Return the Arab his precious stone immediately!” And when the heathen received it back, he cried out, “Praised be the God of Simeon ben Shetach!”[1125] Thus the conscientious Jew honors his God by his conduct, says the Talmud, referring to this and many similar examples. Such lessons of the Jew's responsibility for the recognition [pg 351] of the high moral purity of his religion have ever constituted a high barrier against immoral acts.
The words, “Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” form significantly the introduction to the chapter on the love of man, the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, placed at the very center of the entire Priestly Code. “Your self-sanctification sanctifies Me, as it were,” says God to Israel, according to the interpretation of this verse by the sages.[1126] In contrast to heathendom, which deifies nature with its appeal to the senses, Judaism teaches that holiness is a moral quality, as it means the curbing of the senses. And in order to prevent Israel, the bearer of this ideal of holiness, from sinking into the mire of heathen wantonness and lust, the separation of the Jew from the heathen world, whether in his domestic or social life, was a necessity and became the rule and maxim of his life for that period. All the many prohibitions and commands had for their object the purification of the people in order to render the highest moral purity a hereditary virtue among them, according to the rabbis.[1127]
8. It is true that the accumulation of “law upon law, prohibition upon prohibition” by the rabbis had eventually the same injurious effect which it had exerted upon the priests in the Temple. The formal law, “the precepts learned by rote,” became the important factor, while their purpose was lost to sight. The shell smothered the kernel, and blind obedience to the letter of the law came to be regarded as true piety. It cannot be denied that adherence to the mere form, which was transmitted from the Temple practice to the legalism of the Pharisees and the later rabbinic schools with their casuistry, impaired and tarnished the lofty prophetic ideal of holiness. It almost seems as if the clarion notes of such sublime passages as that of the Psalmist,
“Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord,
And who shall stand in His holy place?