ורעד החילם • חיל כיולדה הבהילם • סערו וחרדו וסר צלם • ואצל קמואל באו כולם • לנחש בקסמי קלקולם • ושאלו לו מה זה בא לעולם : שמא היום למימיו חוזר עולם :

"When he came down to speak to the immortal people, the people of the world were moved, dread seized them, and trembling laid hold on them; pain troubled them as a woman in travail: they were shaken and disturbed, and their shadow departed from them; they all came to Kemuel, to divine with their erroneous divinations, and asked him, What is this that hath happened to the world? Perhaps the world is this day to return to its chaos." The preceding story told us what happened to Israel, the allusion in this sentence tells us of the terror which came upon the Gentiles; but to understand the allusion, we must again refer to the Talmud.

וישמע יתרו כהן מדין מה שמועה שמע ובא ונתגייר ר' יהושע אומר מלחמת עמלק שמע שהרי כתב בצדו ויחלש יהושע את עמלק ואת עמו לפי חרב ר"א המודעי אומר מתן תורה שמע שבשנתנה תורה לישראל קולו הולך מסוף העולם ועד סופו וכל אומות העולם אחזתן רעדה בהיכליהן ואמרו שירה שנ' ובהיכלו כולו אומ' כבוד נתקבצו כולם אצל בלעם הרשע ואמרו לו מה קול ההמון אשר שמענו שמא מבול בא לעולם אמר להם ה' למבול ישב וישב המלך לעולם כבר נשבע הקב"ה שאינו מביא מבול לעולם אמרו לו מבול של מים אינו מבי' אבל מבול של אש מביא שנ' כי הנה באש ה' נשפט אמר להן כבר נשבע שאינו משחית כל בשר ומה קול ההמון הזה ששמענו אמר להן חמדה טובה יש לו בבית גנזיו שהיתה גנוזה אצלו תתק"צד דורות קודם שנברא העולם וביק' ליתנה לבניו שנ' ה' עוז לעמו יתן פתחו כולם ואמרו ה' יברך את עמו בשלום :

"And Jethro the priest of Midian heard.' (Exod. xviii. 1.) What was it that he heard which induced him to come and be a proselyte? R. Joshua says, he heard of the war with Amalek, for immediately before it is written, And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of his

sword.' (Exod. xvii. 13.) R. Eliezer, the Modite, says, he heard the giving of the law, for when the law was given to Israel, his voice went from one end of the world to the other, and all the nations of the world were seized with trembling in their temples, and they repeated a hymn, as it is said, 'In his temple doth every one speak of his glory.' (Psalm xxix. 9.) They gathered themselves together to Balaam the wicked, and said to him, What is the voice of the tumult which we have heard? Perhaps a flood is coming upon the world. He replied, "The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea the Lord sitteth King for ever.' (Verse 10.) The Holy One, blessed be He, has sworn long since that He will not bring a flood upon the world. They replied, He will not bring a flood of waters, but He will bring a flood of fire; for it is said, By fire will the Lord plead.' (Isaiah lxvi. 16.) He answered them, He has sworn long since that He will not destroy all flesh. What, then, is the voice of the tumult which we have heard? He said to them, God has had a most desirable good in the house of his treasures, which has been treasured up with him for nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the creation of the world, and he now seeks to give it to his children, for it is said, 'The Lord will give strength to his people.' Then they all began and said, 'The Lord will bless his people with peace."" (Ps. xxix. 11.) (Zevachin, fol. 116, 1.) This is the fable to which your prayers refer, and which all Israel throughout the world is taught to believe, and to commemorate in the solemn act of public worship. That it is a mere fable is very easy to prove. First, it contradicts the narrative given by Moses. fable says that the tremendous noise made at the giving of the law, brought Jethro to Moses-that this was what he heard. But if you will read the whole verse, from which the Talmud quotes a few words, you will find that there was

This

no occasion for asking what Jethro heard, for Moses himself expressly tells us what he heard, and why he came. "When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt, then Jethro," &c. (Exodus, xviii. 1-5.) If you will read the whole chapter, you will find that Jethro was come and gone before the law was given, and consequently before the tremendous noise was made; so that it is certainly false that this was the cause of his coming. Secondly, that all the nations heard the voice of God is false, for it also contradicts the language of Moses, who makes it the peculiar privilege of Israel, that they alone heard the voice. "Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?" (Deut. iv. 33.) Lastly, this story is palpably absurd. The Talmud represents Balaam and his Gentile contemporaries quoting Scripture like two rabbies, and that, hundreds of years before the portions which they quote were written! They both quote the xxixth Psalm, a Psalm of David, about 500 years before he was born, and the Gentiles quote the lxvith of Isaiah above 700 years before it was written! And And your rabbies have not been content to keep this absurd and foolish story in the Talmud, but have inserted it in the prayers for the solemn festival of Pentecost. According to these prayers, you are taught to believe that, at the giving of the law, God turned mount Sinai over the people of Israel like a tub, and compelled them to receive the law against their will; and yet that, for their ready obedience, six hundred thousand angels were sent down to crown each man with two crowns. You are taught to believe that when the commandments were given, Israel walked backwards and forwards two hundred and forty miles. And that the voice of God was so loud that it was heard by all the nations

of the world, who all went to Balaam, and all knew and quoted the Psalms and the prophets, centuries before they were written. This is what you have got by following the oral law. It is in vain for you to say that you do not believe these things-there they stand in your Prayer-book. If you do not believe them, why do you leave them there? But whatever individuals may say, it is evident that the compilers of the Jewish Liturgy heartily believed every word of them, and therefore introduced them into their prayers. And it is equally certain that, wherever the Talmud maintains its authority, these fables form part of the faith of Israel. But some will say, We do not believe them. Why not; Do you disbelieve them because they are true? No, but because they are false. Then you confess that the oral law contains downright palpable falsehoods, and that in many of its narrations it is not worthy of credence. Of what value, then, is the oral law, and what credit can we give to the authors of it, who did not scruple to invent these foolish stories?

No. XX.

LEGENDS IN THE PRAYERS FOR PENTECOST.

NEARLY eighteen centuries have now elapsed since a large portion of the Jewish nation deliberately chose Rabbinism in preference to Christianity. The great question between Jews and Christians is, whether those persons made a right choice. The means of answering the question are The oral law exists, diffused through the volumes of the Talmud, and compressed in the prayers There we can look for it, and judge of

within our reach.

of the synagogue.

its spirit and its intrinsic excellence and evidence. The

P

Rabbinists say, that the oral law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and that the oral law which they now possess, is identically the same as that then received; and they appeal in proof of this assertion to the continuity of its transmission from father to son down to the present day. The Christian objects that this oral law is full of fables. The Talmudist replies by making a distinction between the the laws and the Agadah, or legendary part: and the Christian is satisfied or silenced until he opens the Jewish Prayer-book, and finds that the most absurd and improbable of all the Talmudic legends are there recognised as undoubted verities, and integral parts of modern Judaism. Many of these, and sufficient to annihilate all claims which the oral law can make to truth, have been examined, but as this part of the subject is important, two more must be considered before we can at present take leave of them. In the sentence immediately following our last extract from the Jewish prayers we read as follows:—

וכל דור ודור ומנהיגיהם • אשר עמדו לפניהם • והעתידים לעמוד אחריהם : כולם העמידם בסיני עמהם : להודיעם כי דור דע נחשק מכולהם : טוב טעם ודעת להשכיליהם •

וכל מום לא היה בהם • כי שלמים ומושלמים היו כולהם :

Which D. Levi thus translates, "And every generation, and its governors that existed before them, and those that rose after them, were all placed at Mount Sinai with them, to let them know, that the intelligent generation was more acceptable than them; to make them understand good judgment and knowledge: there was no blemish in them, for they were entirely perfect." (Pentecost Prayer, p. 87.) The assembling of the living nation of Israel, to hear the voice of the Creator, was not grand enough for the rabbies, they have therefore added that the souls of all the unborn generations were present to hear and receive the law. The comparison of this tradition with some already considered