The most striking point of agreement between the Boswell of the fifteenth and him of the eighteenth century, is that they both use the same passage from the Talmud to excuse the interest in trifles which their labours of love betrayed. Thus Solomon prefaces his Collectanea with the following words: “It is written, His leaf shall not wither. These words were explained by our Sages to mean that even the idle talk of the disciples of the wise deserves a study. Upon this interpretation I have relied. In my love to R. Jacob the Levite, I collected everything about him. I did not refuse even small things, though many [pg 145] derided me. Everything I wrote down, for such was the desire of my heart.”
Thus far Solomon. Now, if we turn to the introduction to Boswell's Life of Johnson, we read the following sentence: “For this almost superstitious reverence, I have found very old and venerable authority quoted by our great modern prelate, Secker, in whose tenth sermon there is the following passage: ‘Rabbi Kimchi, a noted Jewish commentator who lived about five hundred years ago, explains that passage in the first Psalm, “His leaf also shall not wither” from Rabbins yet older than himself, that even the idle talk, so he expressed it, of a good man ought to be regarded.’ ”
Croker's note to this passage sounds rather strange. This editor says: “Kimchi was a Spanish Rabbi, who died in 1240. One wonders that Secker's good sense should have condescended to quote this far-fetched and futile interpretation of the simple and beautiful metaphor, by which the Psalmist illustrates the prosperity of the righteous man.” Now Kimchi died at least five years earlier than Croker states, but dates, we know from Macaulay's essay on the subject, were not Croker's strong point. But one can hardly forgive the editor of Boswell this lack of sympathy. Had he known what strong affinity there was between his most Christian author and the humble Jew Solomon, he would have less resented this condescension of Archbishop Secker.
As for the Jewish Boswell himself, we know very little about him. The only place in which he speaks about his own person is that in which he derives his pedigree from R. Eleazar ben Samuel Hallevi (died 1357), and says that he was generally called “Der gute (the good) R. Salman.” [pg 146] He well deserved this appellation. In his Will we find the following injunction to his children: “Be honest, and conscientious in your dealing with men, with Jews as well as Gentiles, be kind and obliging to them; do not speak what is superfluous.” And wisdom is surely rare enough to render inappropriate a charge of superfluousness against the work of those who in bygone times spent their energies in gathering the crumbs that fell from the tables of the wise.
VI. The Dogmas Of Judaism
The object of this essay is to say about the dogmas of Judaism a word which I think ought not to be left unsaid.
In speaking of dogmas it must be understood that Judaism does not ascribe to them any saving power. The belief in a dogma or a doctrine without abiding by its real or supposed consequences (e.g. the belief in creatio ex nihilo without keeping the Sabbath) is of no value. And the question about certain doctrines is not whether they possess or do not possess the desired charm against certain diseases of the soul, but whether they ought to be considered as characteristics of Judaism or not.
It must again be premised that the subject, which occupied the thoughts of the greatest and noblest Jewish minds for so many centuries, has been neglected for a comparatively long time. And this for various reasons. First, there is Mendelssohn's assertion, or supposed assertion, in his Jerusalem, that Judaism has no dogmas—an assertion which has been accepted by the majority of modern Jewish theologians as the only dogma Judaism possesses. You can hear it pronounced in scores of Jewish pulpits; you can read it written in scores of Jewish books. To admit the possibility that Mendelssohn was in error was hardly permissible, especially for those with [pg 148] whom he enjoys a certain infallibility. Nay, even the fact that he himself was not consistent in his theory, and on another occasion declared that Judaism has dogmas, only that they are purer and more in harmony with reason than those of other religions; or even the more important fact that he published a school-book for children, in which the so-called Thirteen Articles were embodied, only that instead of the formula “I believe,” he substituted “I am convinced,”—even such patent facts did not produce much effect upon many of our modern theologians.[108] They were either overlooked or explained away so as to make them harmonise with the great dogma of dogmalessness. For it is one of the attributes of infallibility that the words of its happy possessor must always be reconcilable even when they appear to the eye of the unbeliever as gross contradictions.