“They respected not the persons of the priests” (Lam. iv. 16); but it is equally applicable to the adherents of the oral law. Here and there a son of Levi may be a rabbi, and then he has the honour attached to the rabbinical office; but the Mosaic institution of the priesthood, as the appointed order of religious, teachers to Israel is utterly disregarded. Moses declares, as we have seen above, that it is the priest’s office “to distinguish between holy and unholy, and between clean and unclean;” but if a Jew has got a שאלה, a question or a difficulty, it is to the rabbi that he goes to get the decision. Moses says that the priests are appointed by God “to teach Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken to them;” but now men are made rabbies and Melamm’dim who do not pretend to be of the family of Levi: and there are congregations even where there is no Levite nor priest at all, and where, therefore, this command is utterly despised. But the worst feature in this disobedience is, that it is systematic. It is not one of the casualties of the captivity, but it is the deliberate aim of the oral law to degrade the priesthood, as established by Moses, and to set up above it another office, that of rabbi, of which Moses does not say one word. The oral law, instead of deprecating the possibility of an Israelite congregation existing without a priest a son of Levi, quietly layeth down the law for doing without them. When prescribing the order in which persons are to be called up to the reading of the law, it says— אין שם כהן עולה ישראל ולא יעלה אחריו לוי כלל ׃ “If there be no priest there, then an Israelite is to go up, but no Levite is to follow him.” (Ibid., c. xii. 19.) And again, ואם אין להם כהן כלל כשיגיע שליח צבור לשים שלום וכו׳ ׃ “But if the congregation has no priest at all, when the reader comes to that part of the prayers he is to say,” &c. (Ibid., c. xv. 10.) Now if the oral law were anxious to maintain the institution of Moses it could make no such supposition. On the contrary it would urge upon every congregation the indispensable necessity of having a priest or the family of Levi. The supposition shows that its authors cared but little about the commands of Moses, for where there is no priest it is plainly impossible for the people to obey that often-repeated precept to learn the law from the sons of Levi. And yet the authors of the oral law, who care so little for this commandment of Moses about the priests, command the appointment of Melamm’dim, or schoolmasters, wider pain of utter destruction— מושיבין מלמדי תינוקות בכל מדינה ומדינה ובכל פלך ופלך ובכל עיר ועיר , וכל עיר שאין בה תינוקות של בית רבן מחרימין את אנשי העיר יד שמושיבין מלמדי תינוקות ואם עוד לא הושיבו מחרימין את הציר ׃