III. The Bible and Judaism
IT is in examining the fundamental teachings of Judaism that we discover the blighting influence of the bible upon Jewish thought and conduct. In all the Old Testament there is not even a suggestion that it is a duty to love the Gentile, or to treat him justly at least. Judaism believed the world outside Israel lost, and rejoiced in it.
To Judaism the Gentile was not worth saving. A stranger might of his own accord, seeing the light of Israel, unite himself with the people of God, but it was no part of the Jewish religion to concern itself about the balance of mankind. Moses Mendelsohn, in an otherwise admirable letter to the celebrated French theologian Lavater, who had sought to convert him to Christianity, says that the religion of the Jew takes no thought of the salvation of people outside Israel:
"The religion of my fathers does not wish to be extended... Our rabbis unanimously teach that the written and oral laws which form conjointly our revealed religion are obligatory on our nation only." The bible then does not concern itself about enlightening any other people than the Jews. Not only all attempts to spread abroad the truths of revelation are strictly forbidden, but the Gentile who, of his own accord even, asks to share with the Jew the blessings of his religion is to be rejected. "Our rabbis," continues Mendelsohn in this same letter, "... enjoin us to dissuade by forcible remonstrances every one who comes forward to be converted." Evidently, then, Judaism was never meant for humanity at large. It was the religion of a tribe. People speak of the mission or the message of Judaism; but how could a religion have a message for mankind when it recognized no mankind outside Israel? Was not the doctrine of a chosen people, which is the spina dorsi of the bible, the negation of human brotherhood? Was not its severe prohibition of intermarriage calculated to keep the Jew separate and an alien in every land?
The bible-writers were shrewd enough to know that nothing would end their régime, or overthrow all race and creed wars by which that authority was maintained, quicker than intermarriage, and hence they did not hesitate to denounce it as an act of national suicide. It is a pity that after many hundred years of residence among Gentiles, the hold of the bible on the Jews in respect to getting into intimate relations with people not of their own faith and race is as firm as ever. In a Jewish catechism, in use in their Sunday-schools, we read:
Q. What other ordinances has God made to prevent our falling into sin?
A. Those which forbid our associating with bad men or intermarrying with wicked and idolatrous nations.
The child is thus taught to look upon all non-Jews as "wicked and idolatrous," and forming relations with them as "falling into sin."