'Would you have me break the Fourth Commandment?'
'I do not understand.'
'And yet you hold a Rabbinic diploma, I am told. Does not the Fourth
Commandment run: "Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work"? If
I were to close on Saturday I should only be working five days a week,
since in this heathen country Sunday closing is compulsory.'
'But you don't keep the other half of the Commandment,' said the
bewildered minister. '"And on the seventh is the Sabbath."'
'Yes, I do--after my six days the seventh is my Sabbath. I only sinned
once, if you will have it so, the first time I shifted the Sabbath to
Sunday, since when my Sabbath has arrived regularly on Sundays.'
'But you did sin once!' said the minister, catching at that straw.
'Granted, but as to get right again would now make a second sin, it
seems more pious to let things be. Not that I really admit the first
sin, for let me ask you, sir, which is nearer to the spirit of the
Commandment--to work six days and keep a day of rest--merely changing
the day once in one's whole lifetime--or to work five days and keep
two days of rest?'
The minister, taken aback, knew not how to meet this novel defence. He
had come heavily armed against all the usual arguments as to the
necessity of earning one's bread. He was prepared to prove that even
from a material point of view you really gained more in the long run,
as it is written in the Conclusion-of-Sabbath Service: 'Blessed shalt
thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.'
Simeon Samuels pursued his advantage.
'My co-religionists in Sudminster seem to have put all the stress upon
the resting half of the Commandment, forgetting the working half of
it. I do my best to meet their views--as you say, one should not dig
down a wall--by attending their Sabbath service on a day most
inconvenient to me. But no sacrifice is too great to achieve prayerful
communion with one's brethren.'
'But if your views were to prevail there would be an end of Judaism!'
the minister burst forth.
'Then Heaven forbid they should prevail!' said Simeon Samuels
fervently. 'It is your duty to put the opposition doctrine as strongly
as possible from the pulpit.' Then, as the minister rose in angry
obfuscation, 'You are sure you won't have some whisky?' he added.
'No, I will take nothing from a house of sin. And if you show
yourself next Sabbath I will preach at you again.'
'So that is your idea of religion--to drive me from the synagogue. You
are more likely to drive away the rest of the congregation, sick of
always hearing the same sermon. As for me, you forget how I enjoy your
eloquence, devoted though it is to the destruction of Judaism.'
'Me!' The minister became ungrammatical in his indignation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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