Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-12-21
The TalmudisIs.


To those doctors OF the law, the Old
Testament, from beginning to end, was
congeries of riddles, to the solution OF
which they dedicated their lives. In
comparison with their own tortuous ana
mystical explanations, the plain gram
NAUTICAL sense had little interest Tor
them. The inspired text they nsed to
compare to water, but their Mishna, or
oral tradition to wine, and their Gemara'
or commentary to spiced iwine.. Every
verbal resemblance, however suPern-
cial, every variation of spelling and Pc
culiarity of arrangement or order, sug.
gested to them q mystery; out OF texts
arbitrarily pieced together. meanings
were evolved for which not a shadow
of warrant could be found; from the
mere metaphors latent in common
speech portentous conclusions were de-
duced in the numerical values of the
letters of which words were composed
occult meanings were discovered. The
results may be imagined, and were per-.
haps surprising even to the scrlbes them
selves in their~~saner moments, for
among their traditions is one which de-
picts the amazement Of Moses, when in
vision he saw some Rabbi of the future
extracting whole bushel-loads of mean
ings and decisions from every angle,
curl, and horn of every letter Of the law.
We shall try, by few specimens OF the
more quotable sort, togive an idea OF the
Rabbinical style ofhand1ing Scripture. It
might seem to an lunsophisticated reader
rather difficult to determine from the
text-"The OK knoweth his owner, and
the ass his masters crib but Israel doth
not know, my people doth not consider"
what kind of sconrge should be used.
to inf1ict the 'sforty stripes save one" on
those who broke the law. But the in
genuity of the Rabbis was not to be
foiled. Ought not the men whoknow not
to be beaten by the animals whose
knowledge shames them? Then twist
together thongs of ox-hide and ass-hide,
and lay the compounded lash on the
back of the guilty. Out of Laban's
invitation to Abraham.s :. servant
'.Come in, for have prepared the
house, and room fer the camels''-evi-
dence was extracted to show. that the
piety of the treat father of the faithful
was so transcendent aud contagious as
to be shared even by his camels, for by
imagining some occult connection be-
tween the phrases for s'making ready
the house" and. ''remQYing eido1s,'' the.
meaning was reached that the camels
piously declined to enter till the en-
blems of itloIatry had been cleared out.
In praise of tine phylacteries or little
leathern boxes containing texts from the
law, which the Jews were accustomed
to bind on the brow and left arm, a
proof that they we're worn by Jehovah
Himself was found in the text: "Jeho-
yah hath sworn by His right hand and
the arm of his strength. e., the left
arm bound with one of those curious
amulets. But on entering a cemetery
it was ruled that they should be taken
off, on the ground that those who wore
them in the presence of the dead would
be. guilty of the insolent ostentation con-
demned in the passage, "Whoso mock
eth the poor reproacheth his Maker
On the narrative which, relates that the
news of the capture of Lot was brought
to Abraham by some that had escaped
the curious myth was founded of the
escape of Og, the King of Bashan, from
the Deluge, his gigantic stature being
supposed to have enabled him to wade
beside the ark till the waters subsidized.
-Bidchavood's Magazine. |