Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Dec 1887 · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Dec 1887

Author

Morais, Sabato

Date Created

1 December 1887

Location(s)

United States -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

United States -- Pennsylvania

Format

9 pages on 4 sheets

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?

Language(s)

English

Source

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Sabato Morais Collection, Box 10, Folder 7

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3r78671c/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3r78671c

Provenance

Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx10FF7_8.xml

content

74
A defense of the Pharisees
Dec. 87
It was lengthened & improved in delivering it

Brethren. The Synagogue is not the arena of polemics and and during my long ministration I have endeavoured to render it a vehicle of instruction, as God has given me to understand duty. I solemnly declare, once for all, that denunciations from here hurled from hence at the recreancy of Jews, are not the gratification of vulgar spite personalities. They are not in the least another, the indulgence of a rankling ill-will against any whom I consider deem inimical to the principles by which I live. I condemn desertions from the faith what I consider such,, but personal hatred does not harbor in in my breast. It is foreign to my nature. Besides; my course is nearly run; I have nothing to gain by trying to win a victory over religious antagonists, and secure by my public utterances, the plaudits of the very few who share my sentiments; by my public utterances, nor do I, at my age and after so many ineffectual trials to raise the stand--ard of traditional Judaism aloft, have a wish to engage in exciting controversies. I know but too well, that, as it was thrown in my teeth last Monday, and as told for to my vexation by Eastern correspondents of a Western Weeklies, I represent a cause which, to all appearances, has no longer a hold on the American born; that, barring some rare exceptions, I can boast of no following even among those, who see fit still to retain my ministerial services. Too It is sadly humiliatingly but true.

If I refer this day to another man's pulpit speaking, it is I do so to place myself aright before my congregants and vindicate no offended history. Indeed, this duty also I would also refrain from performing, lest I give room to apprehensions, to the idea lest I arouse the thoughts that petty jealousy dictates my words, were it not that some who attend the Synagogue in which I chant prayers and deliver talk lectures, frequent "temples" while I am misrepresented and where facts are inexcu--sably distorted. We may lament that the secular press should be made the vehicle for conveying im--ressions derogatory to the character of the custodians of our belief, but I shall not retaliate. I would not, at any pride, let the Christian world construe re-futations and rejoinders into clerical quarrels. Enough that we are aware of the sore plague of ritual Jewish divisions. But those who habitually listen to me from this desk, must do me justice. They will have observed how destitute of truth was the assertion that I "com-pared to Antiochus Epiphanes"--the arch fiend who vowed to exterminate Judaism--my brethren "who do not keep three separate sets of dishes, one for milk diets, one for meat diets and one for the

Passover Feast," and likewise "because commer--cial travellers" among my coreligionists "do not carry, in addition to their three or four trunks, one more yet, that shall contain a little miniature kitchen with Kosher supplies for a three months' trip." Refresh your memories, brethren; you will recall this fact. On the Sabbath commemorative of the deeds of the heroic Maccabees, I implored Israelites to honor the unselfishness of their old defenders, by the rehabilitation of Mosaic ordinances for the perpe--tuation of which Mattathias and his gallant sons staked their lives. I called friends of the Asmoneans those who strive to eternize the Torah, and enemies of the Asmoneans those who deliberately repudiate it. I was asked for but declined the full publication of my discourse, for my ambition never ran high, still from synopses inserted in various papers, Philadelphians may judge how well follow--ed was the subject brought forward last Sunday the first day of this week with a view to expose me to disgrace as an unmitigated bigot, and to ridicule me, as incapable of distinguishing between essentials in our religion, and matters of secondary importance; to make me a laughing stock in the presence of a thronged attend--ance at Sunday-services in our city, an assemblage who doubt-less will have learnt to consider me a dullard far behind the age. Enough But, no more of this.

Pained as I naturally felt at reading myself in the Ledger the butt of contempt, I was most deep--ly chagrined to see Israel's my people's history maligned beyond measure, as means a medium to extol the founder of Christianity and applauding his alleged mission. What the man of Nazareth really was; what he attempted to do, and the consequences of his endeavours, are points that I deem it inappropriate to discuss in a house devoted to the service worship of Israel's God. I contend that to tell Jews their duties, even at the risk of be--coming unpopular; to furnish the young with instruction in their past, and fit them as sincere upholders of their belief in the future, should con--stitute the purport of pulpit teachings in Syna--gogues. Our neighbors of another creed, have men who expound the origin and doctrine and the origin of the Church. But when a Hebrew preacher, A catching the spirit of the New Testament which calls the Pharisees "serpents and vipers," gives his sanction to those offensive ignominious appellations, and when he moreover pictures the materialistic Saddu--cees, as the exponents of the culture of the time, I must caution my Congregants against views that are

unjewish, untrue, and heretical.
I should would repeat myself, if I undertook to explain in details the nature of the three sects existing in Judea, during the latter part of the second com--monwealth, for it may be remembered that in the course of my post-biblical series, which I hope to resume, I offered all the information that I could reliably draw about the Essenes, the Sadduccees and Pharisees. Those who heard me then know that the first named were never numerous, and their asce--tisism, ill according with the religion of Moses which is eminently practical, must have sprung from the mistaken idea that to shun the corruption fos--tered by Roman domination, a life of retirement and voluntary privations was virtue. The very opposite of the Essenes were the Sadducees. They re--presented, not the culture--as asserted--but the depraved notions of the time. They did not leave testimonies of their intellectual powers; we only meet with their disputations regarding traditions not spiritual advancement predicated on the belief in an all-seeing and perfect Judge. Pleasure seeking was to them the aim of existence, for for they held that God is too exalted to take cognizance of human affairs, and that beyond the grave eternal silence alone has dominion. No reckoning of our deeds, no remorse for a mispent life, no joys for virtues practised. Punctilius were they the Sadducees about the letter of the Law in support of their skepticism, but they cared they cared not for its spirit. nothing for the inner sense of Holy Writ.

Those epicureans; deniers of a hereafter, could not entertain fellow-feelings for the poor and the lowly stationed, and they were deservedly dis--liked by the multitudes. The Pharisee, on the con--trary, exercised great influence over the masses, be--cause they were the friends of the of their fellow-beings humbly situated, & sought their elevation, & infused into their souls fortitude in sorrow; gratitude for Providential favors. The Pharisees taught that there is an eye which is never closed over our actions, an ears ever opened to the cry of oppression, a book in which all we do is registered, and that a strict account will be asked, verily: None have ever been more maligned calumniated than the conservators of the oral interpretations of the Scriptures, yet to them we owe all which is of valueable after the closing of the sacred canon; such sublime maxims as embodied in Aboth, or the Ethics of the fathers, such a civil and criminal legislation as incorporated in the Talmud, and before which the twelve tables and the [?] of the Romans lose their prestige; such astronomical calculations as reflected in a calendar marvellous in its construction and utility.

A person must deliberately wipe out from our annals, the names of a Simeon the Just, of a Hillel the meek teacher of a Johanna ben Zacchaï, the restorer guardian angel of our sacred lore nationality academical lore, the names of hosts of Sages, and moralists, and historians and chiefs of Academies; he must ignore centuries of mental activity who decries the Pharisees as foes to progress, making life "one constant burden," denying it all joys. While the Grecian [?] for philosophy with which the Sadducees were permeated produced no good, and the ex--travagant pietism of the Essenes, yielded no advantage, the learning and sagacity of the Pharisees have given us a literature which forms even now the study of archaeologists, philologists lexicographers and scientists. But more than that we do owe the Pharisees. We are in--debted to them for the Synagogue, which has maintained us alive through an unparalleled dispersion, for the correct understanding of the unpunctuated Torah, for national prayers, for home worship, fastening the family ties, and promoting those domestic vir--tues, which were wont to form our well founded boast, but which, alas! are being cast away.

There were hypocrites among the Pharisees,--and I wonder if modern our liberal "Reformers" claim exemption from that sin--but the Talmud which is essentially the work of Phariseism, points to such with a finger of scorn. It enumerates several kinds of imposters in their ranks, and does not spare them, but exposes their falsity as found unequivocally as the man of Naza--reth when he reproached his contemporaries for making their phylacteries broad, and enlarging the board of their garments, in order to gain the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the Chief seats in the Synagogues, and receive greetings in the markets, and be called "Rabbis Rabbi". It is the Talmudists who declare, that among those whom against whom the portals of heaven will be found shut, are [Hebrew] the sect of hypocrites.
In sorrow, not in anger, I say it. The fruits of Western planting has been now engrafted also on our tree. I am made to swallow their taste its bitterness taste, and the field which Israel's sages have cultivated would become poisoned therewith, were it not that history and truth are the Cherubim keeping it, and thrusting back intruders. And so may it always be. Amen.

Identifier

p3r78671c

identifier

SMBx10FF7_8