Pharisaism, Its Aim and Its Method

by R. Travers Herford

Here is another prayer from the second century (b. Ber. 16^b), and still in use:—"May it be pleasing in Thy sight, O Lord my God and the God of my fathers, that Thou wilt deliver me this day and every day from the shameless and from shamelessness, from the evil man, from the evil companion, from the evil neighbour, from evil chance, and from Satan the destroyer; from stern judgment and from the implacable adversary, whether he be a son of the covenant or no." This is merely a fragment of prayer, as indeed the others are which I have quoted. It is only a variation on the theme "Deliver us from evil," the evil being specified in concrete forms. And, since it has been incorporated in the liturgy, it was presumably intended for public use, and was not the private utterance of its author, who was R. Jehudah, the compiler of the Mishnah. This distinction is important, because it is often charged against the Pharisees that they reduced prayer, like so much else, to a mere mechanical routine; that they regulated, down to the minutest detail, the words and even the posture and the gestures of the worshipper; and that they left nothing to the spontaneous volition of the soul that would seek God. Certainly there are many such regulations in the Talmud, both as regards what should be said and how it should be said. But these all refer to the public worship of the congregation, and not to the private prayer of the individual. Moreover, they are indications of the process by which the liturgy was compiled, its contents determined, and the manner of its use appointed. The worshipper, using the liturgy, was concerned only with the finally completed order, and not with the stages of its preparation. When the Book of Common Prayer was compiled, there were discussions as to what should be included in it and what left out; whether this phrase or that was to be preferred; whether at such a point the congregation should stand or kneel; whether the minister should face the congregation or not; and so on.

Presumably, votes were taken, and resolutions passed upon hundreds of such points. Are these regulations a restriction upon worship? Does the worshipper know, or take any interest in knowing, the details of the process by which the liturgy was produced? He accepts the final result; and finds in it a help to his worship, unconscious of the fact that perhaps every line has been canvassed by a committee and settled after debate. Much the same might be said of the preparation of any liturgy; and what is found in the Talmud, which offends the piety of the Christian, is only the same kind of preparatory work as that necessary in the case of any liturgy. If the Pharisees were extremely careful, as they certainly were, in deciding what should go into their liturgy, and how it should be used, why are they more to be blamed than those who directed, "Here the minister shall say" so and so? The Pharisees produced a liturgy which, gradually enlarged, has lasted down to the present day; and though a case may be made out for its revision, still it has served, for many more centuries than the Book of Common Prayer can claim, as the expression of the united worship of Israel.

But, while public prayer was thus carefully regulated, there was never any restriction, imposed or thought of, upon private prayer. It is expressly said (M. Aboth. ii. 13), "When thou prayest, make not thy prayer a fixed form, but a prayer for mercy and an entreaty before God." I do not think that this refers to public prayer; but, even if it does, it would still show that the Pharisees were careful to keep the spiritual intention of prayer, while using the prescribed form. But I believe the reference is to private prayer; and it is certain that this was left to the spontaneous freedom of the worshipper himself. Prayer was always an essential element in the religious life of the Pharisee; not because it was required of him, but because it was the natural instinct of his soul. "Would that a man could pray all day," said R. Joḥanan (j. Ber. 2ª). Pharisees knew what it was to withdraw to their inner chamber, and "pray to their Father which seeth in secret." And it was not a Pharisee who added:—"Thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall recompense thee."

Of such entirely private prayers there is no written record. But several prayers are mentioned in the Talmud as having been composed for their own use by famous Rabbis. Here are some of them as they are found together (j. Ber. 7^d):—"May it be Thy will, O Lord my God and the God of my fathers, that Thou wilt not put hatred of us into the heart of any man, nor hatred of any man in our hearts; and that Thou wilt not put jealousy against us into the heart of any man, nor jealousy of any man into our hearts. And may Thy Torah be our employment all the days of our life; and may our words be entreaty before Thee." To which was added by another Rabbi: "And unite our heart to fear Thy name; and keep us far from all that Thou hatest, and bring us near to all that Thou lovest, and do with us righteousness for Thy name's sake."

The disciples of R. Jannai used to say this (on rising from sleep):—"Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who quickenest the dead. Lord, I have sinned against Thee; may it be Thy will, O Lord my God, that Thou wouldst give me a good heart, a good portion, a good disposition, a good understanding, a good name, a good eye, a good hope, a good soul, a humble soul, and a contrite spirit. May Thy name not be profaned among us; and make us not a byword in the mouth of the people; may our latter end be not to be cut off, nor our hope the giving up of the ghost. Make us not to depend on human gifts, and give us not our sustenance by the hand of men; for their comfort is small and the shame they inflict is great. And grant our lot to be in Thy Torah, with those who do Thy will. Build Thy house, Thy temple. Thy city, and Thy sanctuary, speedily, in our days."

R. Ḥija b. Abba used to pray:—"May it be Thy will, O Lord our God and the God of our fathers, that Thou wouldst put it into our hearts to offer sincere repentance before Thee, that we may not be ashamed before our fathers in the world to come."

R. Tanḥum b. Iscolastiki used to pray:—"May it be Thy will, O Lord my God and the God of my fathers, that Thou wilt break and take away the yoke of the evil inclination from our hearts. For Thou didst create us to do Thy will, and we are bound to do Thy will. Thou desirest, and we desire it. And what hinders us? The leaven in the dough. It is revealed and known before Thee, that there is no strength in us to withstand it. But may it please Thee, O Lord my God and the God of my fathers, that Thou wilt cause it to pass away from us, and that Thou wilt subdue it; and we will make Thy will our will, with a perfect heart." R. Joḥanan used to pray:—"May it be pleasing unto Thee, O Lord my God and the God of my fathers, that Thou wilt cause love, goodwill, peace, and friendship to dwell in our habitations; that Thou wilt grant us a happy end and the fulfilling of our hope; that Thou wilt fill our borders with disciples, and that we may rejoice in our portion in Paradise. Make us to acquire a good heart and a good friend; and may we awake to find what our hearts have longed for, and may there come in Thy presence rest unto our soul."

I have translated these prayers as nearly literally as our language would allow, so that the reader may have them as far as possible in their original form. There is nothing very sublime about them, none of the eloquence of fervent rapture. But neither is there any of the vainglorious boasting supposed to be characteristic of the Pharisees. They are sincere, simple, and earnest, so far as they go, petitions for the granting of things necessary for the soul as well as for the body. They may fairly be taken as representative of Pharisaic piety, in the absence of what is not within our reach, namely, the devotional language of the Pharisee's prayer to God in the solitude of his own chamber.

The illustrations which have been given from the scanty remains of the literature of piety left by the Pharisees will have been sufficient to show a very considerable difference of tone, character, spirit, between what was produced under the religion of Torah and what is found in the New Testament. And the impression so created is confirmed by the other citations I have made, in the course of this book, from the Pharisaic literature. To one who is accustomed to the New Testament, there is a certain flatness about the Rabbinical literature, a want of the sublime, and still more of the beauty of holiness, the fervour of faith, the personal consecration which marks the New Testament. There is nothing in all the Rabbinical literature at all like the rapt utterance in 1 Cor. xiii. That belongs unmistakably to the new dispensation, and not to the old. The same may be said of much else in the New Testament. If I may so express it, there is a different "feel" about it, quite unlike what there is about any Rabbinical writing. As to the fact of this, I imagine there can be no dispute; but it is well worth the trouble to try and get at the meaning of it. For it cannot be dismissed at once as being due to the spiritual deadness of the Pharisees, the result of engrained hypocrisy and self-righteousness. I trust that enough has been said in previous chapters to show that the Pharisees were sincere and in earnest about their religion, however strange to Christians be the forms in which they expressed their ideas. The very strangeness of those forms may well prevent Christians from recognising the meaning and worth of the ideas expressed in them, since Christians could not use those forms for their own religious ideas.

The question is not whether the Christian or the Pharisaic conception is the better; because, both for Christian and for Pharisee alike, that is a foregone conclusion. The question is rather, why did the conception of Torah, which from the time of Ezra was the controlling factor in the development of Pharisaism, produce that particular type of piety and religious character generally, of which so many illustrations have been given? In what way did the influence of that conception make itself felt upon those who devotedly accepted it and shaped their lives in accordance with it? Here I get to the second main head of the present chapter.