As to the origin of these legends, the main features of which are already to be found in the Talmud, I must refer the reader to the researches of Löw and others.[238] Here we have only to watch the effect which these legends had upon the minds of Jewish parents. The newly born child was in consequence looked upon by them as a higher being, which, but a few seconds before, had been conversing [pg 286] with angels and saints, and had now condescended into our profane world to make two ordinary mortals happy. The treatment which the child experienced from its parents, as well as from the whole of the community, was therefore a combination of love and veneration. One may go even further and say that the belief in these legends determines greatly the destination of the child. What other destination could a being of such a glorious past have than to be what an old German Jewish poem expressed in the following lines:—
Geboren soll es wehren
Zu Gottes Ehren.
“The child should be born to the honour of God.” The mission of the child is to glorify the name of God on earth. And the whole bringing up of the child in the old Jewish communities was more or less calculated to this end. The words of the Bible, “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests,” were taken literally. Every man felt it his duty to bring up his children, or at least one member of his family, for this calling. How they carried out this programme we shall see later on.
Now, regarding almost every infant as a predestined priest, and thinking of it as having received a certain preparation for this calling before it came into this world, we cannot wonder that the child was supposed to show signs of piety from the days of its earliest existence, and even earlier. Thus we read that even the unborn children joined in with the chorus on the Red Sea and sang the Song (of Moses). David, again, composed Psalms before perceiving the face of this world. On the Day of Atonement they used to communicate to the unborn child, [pg 287] through the medium of its mother, that on this great day it had to be satisfied with the good it had received the day before. And when a certain child, afterwards named Shabbethai, refused to listen to such a request, R. Johanan applied to it the verse from the Psalm, “The wicked are estranged from the womb.” Indeed, Shabbethai turned out a great sinner. It will perhaps be interesting to hear what his sin was. It consisted in forestalling the corn in the market and afterwards selling it to the poor at a much higher price. Of a certain child the legend tells that it was born with the word emeth (truth) engraved on its fore-head. Its parents named it Amiti,[239] and the child proved to be a great saint.
The priest, however, could not enter into his office without some consecration. As the first step in this consecration of the child we may consider the Covenant of Abraham. But this was prefaced by a few other solemn acts which I must mention. One of the oldest ceremonies connected with the birth of a child was that of tree-planting. In the case of a boy they planted a cedar, in that of a girl a pine; and on their marriage they cut branches from these trees to form the wedding-canopy. Other rites followed, but they were more of a medical character, and would be better appreciated by the physician. In the Middle Ages superstition played a great part. To be sure, I have spoken of saints; but we ought not to forget that saints, too, have their foolish moments, especially when they are fighting against hosts of demons, the existence of which is only guaranteed by their own over-excited brains. Jewish parents were for many centuries troubled by the fear of Lilith,[240] the devil's mother, who was suspected of stealing children and killing them. The precautions they [pg 288] took to prevent this atrocity were as foolish as the object of their fear. I do not intend to enumerate here all these various precautions. Every country almost has its own usages and charms, one more absurd than the other. It will suffice to refer here to the most popular of these charms, in which certain angels are invoked to protect the child against its dangerous enemy Lilith. But of whatever origin they may be, Judaism could do better without them. The only excuse for their existence among us is to my mind that they provoked the famous Dr. Erter to the composition of one of the finest satires in the Hebrew language.
Of a less revolting character was the so-called ceremony of the “Reading of the Shema.”[241] It consisted in taking all the little children of the community into the house of the newly-born child, where the teacher made them read the Shema, sometimes also the ninety-first Psalm. The fact that little children were the chief actors in this ceremony reconciles one a little to it despite its rather doubtful origin. In some communities these readings took place every evening up to the day when the child was brought into the covenant of Abraham. In other places they performed the ceremony only on the eve of the day of the Berith Milah[242] (Ceremony of the Circumcision). Indeed, this was the night during which Lilith was supposed to play her worst tricks, and the watch over the child was redoubled. Hence the name “Wachnacht,” or the “Night of Watching.” They remained awake for the whole night, and spent it in feasting and in studying certain portions of the Bible and the Talmud, mostly relating to the event which was to take place on the following day. This ceremony was already known to Jewish [pg 289] writers of the thirteenth century. Nevertheless, it is considered by the best authorities on the subject to be of foreign origin. Quite Jewish, as well as entirely free from superstitious taint, was the visit which was paid to the infant-boy on the first Sabbath of his existence. It was called “Shalom Zachar,”[243] probably meaning “Peace-boy,” in allusion to a well-known passage in the Talmud to the effect that the advent of a boy in the family brings peace to the world.
At last the dawn of the great day of the Berith came. I shall, however, only touch here on the social aspects of this rite.
Its popularity began, as it seems, in very early times. The persecutions which Israel suffered for it in the times of Antiochus Epiphanes, “when the princes and elders mourned, the virgins and the young men were made feeble, and the beauty of women was changed, and when certain women were put to death for causing their children to be circumcised,” are the best proof of the attachment of the people to it. The repeated attempts against this law, both by heathen and by Christian hands, only served to increase its popularity. Indeed R. Simeon ben Eleazar characterised it as the law for which Israel brought the sacrifice of martyrdom, and therefore held firmly by it. In other words they suffered for it, and it became endeared to them. R. Simeon ben Gamaliel declares it to be the only law which Israel fulfils with joy and exultation. As a sign of this joy we may regard the eagerness and the lively interest which raised this ceremony from a strictly family affair to a matter in which the whole of the community participated. Thus we find that already in the times of the Gaonim the ceremony was [pg 290] transferred from the house of the parents to the synagogue. Here it took place after the prayers, in the presence of the whole congregation. The synagogue used to be specially illuminated in honour of the event. Certain pieces of the daily prayer, of a rather doleful nature, such as the confession of sins, were omitted, lest the harmony of the festival should be disturbed. As a substitute for these prayers, various hymns suitable for the occasion were composed and inserted in the liturgy for the day. As the most prominent members among those present figured the happy father of the child and the medical man who performed the ceremony, usually called the Mohel or Gozer,[244] both wearing their festal garments and having certain privileges, such as being called up to the Reading of the Law and chanting certain portions of the prayers. It is not before the tenth century that a third member suddenly emerges to become almost as important as the father of the child. I refer to the Sandek or Godfather. In some countries he was also called the Baal Berith (Master of the Covenant). In Italy they seemed to have had two Sandeks. This word was for a long time supposed to be the Greek word σύνδικος. But it is now proved beyond doubt that it is a corruption of the word σύντεκνος used in the Greek church for godfather. In the church he was the man who lifted the neophyte from the baptismal waters. Among the Jews, the office of the Sandek was to keep the child on his knees during the performance of the rite. The Sandek's place was, or is still, near the seat of honour, which is called the Throne of Elijah, who is supposed to be the angel of the covenant. Other angels, too, were believed to officiate at this rite. Thus the angel Gabriel is also [pg 291] said to have performed the office of Sandek to a certain child. According to other sources the archangel Metatron himself attended. Probably it was on this account that later Rabbis admonished the parents to take only a pious and good Jew as Sandek for their children. Christian theologians also declared that no good Christian must render such a service to a Jew. The famous Buxtorf had to pay a fine of 100 florins for having attended the Berith of a child, whose father he had employed as reader when editing the well-known Basel Bible. The poor reader himself, who was the cause of Buxtorf's offence, was fined 400 florins. Of an opposite case in which a Jew served as godfather to a Christian child, we find a detailed account in Schudt's Merkwürdigkeiten der Juden, a very learned and very foolish book. When the father was summoned before the magistrate, and was asked how he dared to charge a Jew with such a holy Christian ceremony, he coolly answered, because he knew that the Jew would present him with a silver cup. As to the present, I have to remark that with the Jews also the godfather was expected to bestow a gift on the child. In some communities he had to defray the expenses of the festival-dinner, of which I shall speak presently. In others, again, he had also to give a present to the mother of the child.
Much older than the institution of the Sandek is the festival-dinner just alluded to, which was held after the ceremony. Jewish legend supplies many particulars of the dinner the patriarch Abraham gave at the Berith of his son Isaac. This is a little too legendary, but there is ample historical evidence that such meals were already customary in the times of the Second Temple. The [pg 292] Talmud of Jerusalem gives us a detailed account of the proceedings which took place at the Berith dinner of Elisha ben Abuyah, who afterwards obtained a sad celebrity as Acher. Considering that Elisha's birth must have fallen within the first decades after the destruction of the Temple, and that these sad times were most unsuitable for introducing new festivals, we may safely date the custom back to the times of the Temple. The way in which the guests entertained themselves is also to be gathered from the passage referred to. First came the dinner, in which all the guests participated; afterwards the great men of Jerusalem occupied one room, indulging there in singing, hand clapping, and dancing. The scholars again, who apparently did not belong to the great men, were confined to another room, where they employed themselves in discussing biblical subjects. In later times special hymns, composed for this festival, were inserted in the grace after dinner. After the dinner, sermons or speeches used also to be given, the contents of which were usually made up of reflections on biblical and Talmudical passages relating to the event of the day. Sometimes they consisted of a kind of learned puns on the name which the child received on this occasion.