The old paths, or the Talmud tested by Scripture: Being a comparison of the principles and doctrines of modern Judaism with the religion of Moses and the prophetsMcCaul, Alexander
Religion
The old paths, or the Talmud tested by Scripture: Being a comparison of the principles and doctrines of modern Judaism with the religion of Moses and the prophets
McCaul, Alexander
Judaism -- Works to 1900
If this were the only passage of the kind to be found in the liturgies
of the synagogue, it might perhaps admit of palliation or excuse, but it
is only one of a similar class, all breathing the same spirit. In the
morning service for the second day of the Passover, as translated by D.
Levi, we find another more fearful still.
ברח דודי אל לבך ועיניך שם , ואם זנחנו טוב מדשם , אנא שמע שאנת קול צורריך
, רוה מדם גושם , ועפרם מחלב ידשם , ופגיהם יעלה באשם ׃
“Hasten, O my beloved, to where thy heart and eyes are; and though we
have cast off that that is good and pleasant, yet hear the roaring
raging voice of those that oppress thy people; satiate the clods with
their blood; manure the earth with their fat; and let the stench of
their carcasses ascend.” (Levi’s Prayers, vol. 5, fol. 142.) The
translation is D. Levi’s, so that it cannot be said, that the sense has
been misrepresented or distorted for polemical purposes. It is the
translation of a Jew, and of a Jew in England, and the title-page tells
us that it is the second edition “carefully revised and corrected, and
illustrated by Isaac Levi.” The title-page also says, “As read in their
synagogues and used in their families.” Is not this prayer intolerant?
Is there any thing like it in the New Testament, or in our Christian
Prayer-books? And yet we are told that modern Judaism is more tolerant
than Christianity, and that it teaches charity to all men. Let not the
Jews think that we impute this spirit to the whole nation. No such
thing. This passage is quoted as a specimen of the spirit of the oral
law and its authors, who not only were possessed of this spirit of
resentment, but so overwhelmed with it, as to transfuse it into their
addresses to the God of mercy, and to prescribe it as a port of the
public worship of the congregation. Whenever introduced, there it still
remains, as a testimony to the spirit of the first opposers of Jesus of
Nazareth, and as a portion of the liturgic service of the synagogue. In
these passages, however, it does not appear what nations are intended;
no name or particular characteristic is given, though the allusion, in
the last quoted prayer, to Isaiah xxxiv., naturally leads the reader to
think of Edom; but in other places a more definite form is prescribed,
from which we find that Edom is the great object of hatred.
ליל שמורים אל חצה , בחצות לילה בתוך מצרים כיצא , גבור על אדום יחצנה כחצה
׃
“God divideth the night of preservation, when in the midst of the night
he went forth through the _land_ of Egypt: may the mighty God also
divide it concerning Edom.” (Levi, ibid. fol. 7.) This is a petition
that God would do to Edom as he did unto Egypt. Again, a little further
on we read,
פסח חרב חרה על אדום , ביד צח ואדום , כימי חג פסח ׃
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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