Now this is the book which is to the orthodox Jew in Poland and Russia what the Pope is to the Italian and Spanish peasantry. That it is binding upon the conscience of every believing Jew may be inferred from the following:
Whosoever transgresses any of the sayings of the scribes is guilty of death. *
The Talmud with its twelve large folio volumes, represents the national literature of the Jews for a long period of time. What its worth is, aside from the few scattered passages quoted above, may be seen from the following estimate:
But yet I venture to say that it would be impossible to find less wisdom, less eloquence and less high morality, imbedded in a vaster bulk of what is utterly valueless to mankind—to say nothing of those parts of it which are indelicate and even obscene—than in any other national literature of the same extent. **
* Eiruvin, fol. 21, col. 2.
** Dean Farrar, in A Talmudic Miscellany.
But what Canon Farrar says of the Talmud could with equal truth be said of the bulk of the bible. The Jews could ask for no better illustration of the baneful influence of the bible upon their national literature for long centuries than the worthless character of the Talmudic writings.
It would have been a real miracle for the Jews to have developed a great literature, or to have created a great civilization like that of the Hellens or the Latins, with an infallible bible, and its offspring, the Talmud, blocking their progress on every side. It is interesting to note that the only races of antiquity which blossomed morally, as well as intellectually, are those which had no revelation to hamper their free movements or to stunt their growth. The unfortunate Jews went through life carrying the burden of Jehovah. The Greeks made sport of their gods; Jehovah made sport of the Jews.
If in modern times the Jews have produced first-class scholars in nearly every branch of the activities of the mind, it is because, like the glorious Spinoza, the heretic Jew who was cursed and expelled from the synagogue, they have divorced barren Judaism and "taken for spouse" science—the only redeemer that redeems. I sincerely hope—and there are many signs that this hope will be realized in the not distant future—that even as the French after centuries of submission to Rome threw off its yoke and came out of Catholicism into modern thought—not a few individuals only, but the best part of the nation—government and all; and as Spain, the most Catholic country in the world, is preparing to follow the example of France; and as noble little Portugal has just reasoned and voted itself out of the papacy into freedom of thought and action, I earnestly hope that the Jews, too, after untold centuries of intellectual bondage to an Asiatic religion, which is inimical to culture and humanity, will come out of the synagogue en masse, thereby registering their protest against both bible and Talmud, and proving, as the French have done, for instance, that they are great enough to change their religion.
The fear that the decline of Judaism will bring about national disintegration is without foundation. If the Jew is an American in America, an Englishman in England, a German in Germany—how can his withdrawal from Judaism affect his nationality? Is Judaism the name of a nation or of a religion? It is argued that the Jews are compelled to cling to one another, and to keep together in a body, because of the general prejudice against them. Will I be forgiven if I were to say that Judaism is largely responsible for this fearful prejudice. Is there a text in bible or Talmud, which any rabbi could quote, to prove that Jew and Gentile should love and respect one another and dwell together in fraternal relations, taking and giving in marriage, as though they were one people? Produce such a text! And if there be not, is it any wonder that the Gentile, the world over, and in all the ages, has looked upon the Jew as an alien? It is not true that the cause of the prejudice against the Jew is the charge that his ancestors crucified Christ. That is a foolish argument. It is invented by the rabbis to throw dust into the eyes of inquirers. Then why did the ancient Romans, long before Christ, entertain a prejudice against the Jews? The Latin authors explained the reason for the prejudice: It was the religious scruple of the Jew against mingling cordially and honestly with people other than his own. Judaism shut up the Jew in his shell. To come in contact with a non-Jew, to treat him, in every respect, as a brother, was blasphemy. Is it any wonder that Cicero, writing about the Jews, said that the Romans were better acquainted with the Hindus who lived thousands of miles away, than with the Jews who lived next door to them? It was the exclusiveness of the Jew which created and which, alas, prevents from dying, the prejudice against them. It is far from my purpose to contend that this is the only source of the ill-feeling between Jew and Christian, but I am confident that were the Jews to abandon Judaism, an Asiatic religion which will not assimilate modern thought, and abandon also such rites and ceremonies which are unbecoming to a civilized people, and enter into the most intimate domestic relations with their neighbors, in a few generations the ugly sectarian and racial prejudices, lacking their daily nourishment, will waste away and die. "Ah, but if we do that, we will lose our Judaism," says the rabbi. Keep your Judaism, if you prefer it to humanity. Of course, the Christians, too, must outgrow their exclusive religion. But my point is that the Christians, as in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and America are coming out of the old faiths en masse, while there is as yet no such definite movement among the Jews. True enough, here and there one meets a Jew who has all but repudiated Judaism. As a representative of this class is the writer of the article on Judaism in Chambers' Encyclopedia—Doctor Krauskopf, of Philadelphia. This gentleman almost completely strips Judaism of all its biblical and Talmudic features. The program put forth by him is of so very radical a character as hardly to deserve the title of Judaism. It comes near leaving out supernaturalism altogether.
"We discard," says Doctor Krauskopf, "the belief in a God who is a man magnified, who has his abode somewhere in the interstellar spaces. We discard the belief that the bible was written by God, or by man under the immediate dictation of God, and that its teachings are therefore infallible.... We discard the belief in the coming of a human Messiah who will lead us back to Palestine, establish us as the rulers of the world, and make all nations tributaries to us. We discard the belief in bodily resurrection, hell-torments, Paradisian rewards, prophecy, superstitions, all biblical and rabbinical beliefs, rites and ceremonies and institutions, which neither elevate nor sanctify our lives." * Another step, and Judaism will be swallowed up in Rationalism.