“Teachers of children are to be established in every province and district and city. And every city in which there are not school children the men of that city are to be visited with the Cherem, and if they still neglect, the city itself is to be devoted.” (Hilch. Talm. Torah, c. ii.) When we see them enforce this commandment of their own with such zeal and severity, and yet appear so careless and negligent about the commandment of Moses, we justly infer that this neglect was intentional, and that the object was to exalt themselves, and to depress that office which God himself had ordained, And this inference is abundantly confirmed by הלכות כבוד רבו, the numerous and minute laws respecting the honour due to a rabbi, whilst the respect due to the family of Levi is almost entirely disregarded, and his office evidently depreciated below that of the former. As, for instance, in establishing the order in which captives are to be redeemed, the oral law says the priest is to be redeemed before the Levite, and the Levite before the Israelite, but then adds— במה דברים אמורים כשהיו שניהם שוין בחכמה , אבל אם היה כהן גדול עם הארץ וממזר תלמיד חכם תלמיד חכם קודם ׃ “In what case does this hold good? In case that they were both equal in wisdom. But if the high priest be an unlearned man, and an illegitimate child be the disciple of a wise man (chacham), the latter is to have the precedence.” (Hilchoth Matt’noth Aniim, c. viii. 17.) Here the office of the priesthood and even of the high priesthood itself is put below that of the rabbi or chacham, and the intention of the Rabbinists to exalt themselves, and their utter disregard for the law of Moses and his commandments, is especially apparent. The high priest was the chief person in the whole Mosaic dispensation. Without him the blood of the offering could not be carried into the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement, and yet the oral law says, that if he and an illegitimate child, that is, the least honoured person in Israel, be both in captivity, and the latter be the disciple of a rabbi, he is to be redeemed first. It is needless to add any further proof of the fact that the command of Moses, respecting the family of Levi, is systematically and intentionally transgressed by the authors and adherents of the oral law. The priests, the Levites, have been thrust out of that office which God gave them, and others have been made the religious teachers of Israel who have no right at all to this appointment. How then can the modern Jews pretend to be zealous for the law of Moses? They are living in plain and systematic violation of one of his plainest commands. It will not do to say that the office of rabbi is also of divine appointment. An assertion which nullities a Mosaic institution must have the most unexceptionable evidence. Its proof must be at least as clear as the original appointment. To persuade any real lover of the Mosaic law that the rabbies have a right to thrust out the family of Levi from