But the sojourning proselyte[42] receives scant consolation, as he may not be received when the Jubilee cannot be observed (Hilchoth Issure Biah, xiv. 7, 8); and this ceased after Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh were led away captive, or in b.c. 884, according to common chronology. Add to this 1,873, and we have 2,757 years since the last feast of the kind, and we have twenty-seven centuries and a half since any Gentiles were converted from the errors of idolatry to the religion of the sons of Noah.
Those who transgress any of the Commandments transgress them all.[43] The goods of Gentiles who have not conformed to the Noahite code, that is to say, all now living, are lawful to the Hebrews. This right was first conferred by Jehovah during the Exodus from Egypt, and it was confirmed to the descendants of the wanderers by the Talmud (Baba Masiaah, or Middle Gate, second of the fourth order, and Abodah Zarah, eighth of the same).
Rabbinical religion is rampant in the kitchen. Blood first forbidden to Noah (Gen. ix. 4), and afterwards to all the sons of Abraham (Lev. iii. 17 and vi. 30)—because it was supposed to contain the vital principle which it does not—must be drained out of the meat before this can be eaten. The usual practice is by macerating it in water for thirty minutes, and leaving it in salt for an hour. It is then taken out and washed again, a peculiar wooden tub and sieve being used for the purpose. In Morocco the Jews also pound the flesh till the fibre is broken, and thus it becomes more tender and less able to be kept—this, however, is a local practice unknown to the Jews elsewhere. The Talmud declares that there are two kinds of blood pleasing to the Lord—viz. (1) that of the Paschal holocaust; (2) that of circumcision. In the books of Moses we find that blood is used as a purifier. For instance, the Lawgiver (Exod. xxiv. 6-8) took half of the blood drained from victims and put it in basins, with which he sprinkled the people to cleanse them from the abominations of the Egyptians, and the other half he sprinkled upon the altar. Human blood is not used by us in its pure state; nor can we[44] call it human, for the Gentiles are mere vermin, and of their daughters it is said, “Cursed be he that lieth with any beast.” It must also mostly undergo through manipulation a change of essence.[45] Nor is it administered indiscriminately, but only to the most zealous. On the eve of the Passover the chief Scribe attends the oven, and mixes what he pleases with the cakes, which are then sent round to the congregation.
A Jew abandoning the faith of Israel must die the death; also he should be surely slain for all such breaches of the Law as committing adultery. All who admit the doctrine of the Trinity, whether they be Jewish perverts, Christians, Muslims, or Pagans; all Hebrews who have violated the secrets of the Synagogue;[46] and all those especially who speak against or who injure a co-religionist, have forfeited their lives. In these days minor offenders are usually excommunicated;[47] but those who have been informers or who proved themselves hostile to Israel must be killed at all risks, either by the Jews themselves, or, better still, through the local authorities. This is an invariable rule.[48]
We read in the tract Sanhedrin (fourth of fourth order, p. 58) that the Gentile who strikes a Jew has committed a capital offence; this ordinance is as old as the sojourn of Moses in Egypt. He who strikes a Jew strikes the Deity. The “sons of Noah” may be slain by the sentence of a single Rabbi, or upon the testimony of a solitary witness, although the latter be a relation. A descendant of the Hebrews who, learning the true God in the days of Abraham, thereby separated themselves from and exalted themselves above the rest of humanity, may not be put to death but by the decision of twenty Rabbis and on the testimony of two witnesses. A Gentile forfeits life if he cause a pregnant Jewess or her fruit to perish; a Jew is not to be punished capitally for such crime, but he must pay for the loss of the child (p. 57). The “son of Noah” who blasphemes the Holy Name, who has committed adultery with or who has slain a co-religionist, ceases to merit death by becoming a sojourning proselyte; but he must not be suffered to escape if he has slain a Jew, or if he has committed adultery with a Jewess (p. 71). The Jew must not contract friendship with Gentiles, lest, an oath being necessary, he be compelled to swear by an idol (p. 63). He may not eat bread prepared by the heathen, for fear of undue intimacy being the result. Market bread may be bought and eaten, but on condition that it was made for sale, not for private use and then sold—it is usual to burn a bit of such bread before using it. A Jew may not eat victuals cooked by Gentiles, although vessels from a Jewish house were used in the presence of Jews—this extends even to a roasted egg.
The tract Abodah Zarah, before alluded to, asserts (p. 4) that all the commandments kept by Jews[49] shall bear friendly and favourable witness in heaven before all the assembled souls of men, and to the confusion of every other faith. Hebrews dwelling out of the four Holy Cities are as idol-worshippers, but without blame. A Jew going to a Gentile marriage feast eats impure food, although the meats be cooked by Jews and served by Jews in the presence of Jews; he even commits a sin if he enters the house within thirty days of the coming ceremony (p. 8). Gentiles should be prevented as much as possible purchasing immovable property. It is not allowed to speak well of a Gentile, man or woman, and it is a sin to make a present to them (p. 20), to greet or to approach them; and the Jew becomes as ceremonially impure by handling anything touched by them, by drinking out of the same cup, or by sleeping under the same roof, as if eating with them. Hebrews should never tether their beasts in places not belonging to them, at least without locking them up, lest the heathen plunder or pollute them. Gentiles preferred the Jews’ beasts to their own women, because evil entered into Eve on the day when the serpent (demon) committed adultery with her. A Jewess may not live amongst the heathen, because possibly the latter do not hold adultery to be a sin; a Jew should also beware for fear of their killing him, as they probably will do. Israel was purified of every sin upon Mount Sinai; but the descendants of the peoples not present there preserve their perversity (p. 22). If a Hebrew wayfarer meet a Gentile armed with a sword (worn on the left), he should pass on the other’s right side, and vice versa if the stranger has only a staff, so that the arm can be seized before the weapon can be used; he must also name a distant place when asked his journey’s end, in order that the Gentile may defer slaying him till too late (p. 25).[50] The better to prevent all intimacy, the Jew must not buy wine or vinegar from a Gentile, who also may perhaps have used it in pagan rites. If a Christian, a Muslim, or an idolater touch a cup containing wine, the Jewish owner must throw away the wine or sell it to the heathen, and cleanse the cup. The same is the case with grapes. The Law forbids the Israelites to marry the daughters of the Seven Tribes that held the land before the conquest—namely, the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. This, say the writers of and commentators on the Talmud, arose from the fact of these women being impure from their childhood upwards. Others, however, whilst including all Gentiles in these Seven Tribes, assert that the prohibition was not on account of any special impurity, such women being vermin or brute beasts not subject to the normal feminine infirmities. Thus the learned restrain their weaker brethren who might suppose that an impure Gentile woman is pure to them, and who might even extend it to the case of a Jewess. Hence again the deduction that only the Hebrews are human beings (p. 35).[51]
Tract Arubim (second of the second order, Seder Moed, Of Appointed Seasons) declares (p. 62) that if a Jew live under the same roof with a Gentile who breaks the Sabbath (Saturday),[52] the former, lest he be robbed, should drive out the latter by hiring the whole house. But he may expel the heathen as he can or as he pleases; all tenements inhabited by others than Jews are dens of beasts which cannot become householders. The “son of Noah” who steals even a farthing should be put to death—one of ten commandments given by God in His covenant with Noah—and he cannot be pardoned unless he restore the stolen goods. But God enjoined this restitution only upon Gentiles becoming Israelites (i.e. sojourning proselytes); all other thieves must be instantly and pitilessly slain.
In tract Ohaleth (second of the sixth order, called Seder Taharoth, or Of Purification) we read (§ 6) that the graves of Gentiles cannot be held impure because they are not tenanted by human beings, and that when the law declares sitting upon tombs a cause of defilement it alludes only to those of Jews. Chapter Baba Bathra (third tract of the fourth order) declares (§ i, p. 10, also repeated in another part of the same tract) that all alms given by Jews are acceptable to God, whereas those of the Gentiles are so many sins because their objects are ostentation and the preservation of their children. If, however, the Jew declare that his alms-deeds are meant to save his family and to win Paradise, still they are grateful to Jehovah—a privilege allowed only to the children of Israel. In the same tract we are also informed that Esau, the son of Isaac, sinned five times in one day, by committing adultery with a heathen, by slaying his neighbour, by profaning the name of his God, by insulting the resurrection of the dead at the coming of the Messiah, and by degrading the rights of primogeniture.[53] Rabbi Shalomon argues, from the fact of Ishmael laughing when his brother Isaac was born, that Sarah concluded therefrom, either that he held her to be an adulteress, or that she saw him commit a murder; thus he draws the deduction that Ishmael had broken the Seven Commandments, and that consequently his descendants cannot bear witness against Jews (p. 16).
Tract Bechoroth (on Primogeniture, fourth of the fifth order, Seder Kodashim, Of Holy Things) gives (i. 17) the formula of the Scribes’ prayers, and tells us that there are two things which hinder men from keeping the law of God—the action of demons and dependence upon Gentiles. The Lord explains to the angels that usury is permitted only to the Hebrews, who, being ordered to give thanks after food, praise their Creator even when they have eaten only an egg or an olive (p. 20). A Jew may not pray before a naked Gentile, though the latter be in the category of a wild beast (p. 25). This tract relates that a Jew, beaten by a Scribe when detected in adultery with an Egyptian woman, complained to a Gentile ruler that the law had been taken into private hands. The Scribe pleaded that he had surprised the criminal with a she-ass, and called the prophet Elijah to bear witness. “Why didst thou not slay him?” asked the magistrate. The reply was that, since the children of Israel had been driven from their own country, such a punishment could not be inflicted by them, but that the judge could do as he pleased. When both left the court, the Jew charged the Scribe with having called Elijah as a witness to a lie. “Wretch!” exclaimed the learned man, “and are they not the same as she-asses?” But as the Jew was about to return and report this explanation, the Scribe slew him with his staff (i., p. 58). Hence it appears that this tenet is a religious secret whose violation merits death. When a Jew looks upon the grave of a brother Jew, he must say: “Blessed is He who hath created us by law, who has promised to raise us again by law, and who knoweth our number; blessed is He who revives the dead.” But if the tomb be that of a Gentile, he must say: “Shame upon thy mother, cursed be she that bare thee; for the end of the heathen shall be dry and desolate as the soil of the desert” (p. 58). It also explains earthquakes by the lamentations of the Lord, who bewails the miseries of the Jews (p. 59). If a Jew find an object lost, we will say, by a Muslim, he must not restore it, even though he knew the proprietor. Also, if a Gentile make any mistake in accounting with the Jew, or leave property in his house, the latter, when not in fear of the authorities, must rob him. At all times, in fact, the Jew should spoil the Gentile as much as possible. If one Jew injure another, though even his personal enemy and the greatest villain in the world, especially if such injury be to the advantage of a Gentile, the Jew shall surely die (chap. 388 of the Khalehah Orah Haím Meshat, one of the most accredited parts of the Oral Law). All those present are bound to put the denouncer to death before he can do the deed; and if he has done it, they must remove him from this world, every Israelite in the place contributing to pay the assassin. The oath of a Gentile or a Samaritan cannot be taken in evidence against a Jew. If a dispute occurs between two Israelites, they must go before their own judge.[54] It is sinful to have recourse to foreign tribunals, and all the decisions of the latter, when adverse to Jews, must be quashed. Although the heathen court pass sentence according to Hebrew Law, the plaintiff or denouncer becomes impious, sacrilegious, and religiously excommunicated, whilst the Rabbi is bound to make him lose his cause by every possible contrivance, even by suborning false witnesses against him. And at last due punishment must be dealt out. The latter is not a Biblical command, but it results from the commentaries on the Talmuds. When these works were written Muhammadanism did not exist; Muslims therefore are now included amongst the Gentiles. They are not, however, like the Christian idolaters.