Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Nov 1890 · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Literary Production. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Nov 1890

Author

Morais, Sabato

Date Created

1 November 1890

Location(s)

United States -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

United States -- Pennsylvania

Format

11 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 9

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3571865r/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3571865r

Provenance

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

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx10FF9_5.xml

content

S. MORAIS,
546 N. Fifth St.
Philadelphia, Nov. 90

A bit at the opponents of Orientalism

Brethren. Among Oriental customs cried down with an astounding inconsistency in a spot which strikingly represents Orientalism-- namely the Synagogue with all its surroundings--there is one universally and undeviatingly followed in whatever part of the world, the descendants of Abraham--the typically Oriental Hebrew Hebrew--Congregate. Enter a place of their worship in Paris, or in Shang-Haï, in Corfu or in Sydney, in Teheran or in Copenhagen; make the round of the whole globe, and the same identical object will meet your vision, a shrine wherein a roll of parchment with oriental written characters is deposited. The copy manuscript which you will notice in Rome does not vary in the least from another which you will hear read in Jerusalem. Precisely alike are they in words and in form; the same rule governs each regarding the measurement of space to be left and the arranging of poetical passages; the letters of a larger size than ordinary, and those of a smaller kind are the same in all copies. How ancient far back those regulations are can be dated from, I will not venture to assert say with positiveness. That if they did not

actually emanate from the Archprophet himself, as some will contend, they may have issued from the Great Synod [Hebrew], early presided over by Ezra, after our ancestors' restoration to Palestine at the expi--ration of the Babylonian captivity, over upwards of two thousand and two hundred years ago, it is reasonable to suppose. For that illustrious priest President of an illustrious body of Sages is called in our Bible [Hebrew] [Hebrew] "A scribe skilled in the Law of Moses" and, beyond all doubts, he gave a strong impulse to the school of Sepharim that made numerous copies of the Pentateuch and taught its contents, or to quote the Rabbis, Ezra that noble priest and his associates, gave our crown again its former brightness [Hebrew] But But now it is seriously pro--posed that the Hebrew Oriental scroll so venerable for its high antiquity, and venerated because of the joyous and sad memories clustering around it, shall occupy no more the its conspicuous spot in the synagogue our minor sanctuaries, but that eliminating perhaps whatever clashes with modern thought, it shall be exchanged for a printed book volume suiting Western taste. That vandalism is advocated on the plea that the five books are not better than the rest of the Scriptures, which comes from the press continually, and is in use among all Israelites in Synagogues as well as in schools.

So Thus they reason to whom confessedly deem the narratives of Holy Writ of have no greater value than the histories of Xenophon and Herodotus, and who would fain class our prophets and moralists with Sophocles and Epictetus. But Not so Jews who believe in Divine inspiration. While regarding Holy Writ our Bible in its entirety with religious respect, they draw a wide line of demarcation between the volumes that tell of man's creation and of the birth, the growth, the training of a nation devoted by the God of Sinai to His service and eternized as the witnesses of His existence, Unity and almightness, between the Pentateuch I mean, and subsequent books which are made comprehensible only through the teaching of him, in whose soul were reflected the brightest rays of the Lord's glory [?] refulgently shone. [Hebrew] But is it simply a love for the antique a moment recalling the remotest times. Or, is it superstition; a species of fetish idolatry, as flippantly stated declared asserted, with a senseless adherence to Orientalism, that demands the retention of the Sepher Torah precisely exactly as traditionally received? No one who claims an acquaintance with the subject, should so assert. Were it not indeed for the extreme

scrupulousness observed by the Sages in transcribing the five books; had they not laid down exact fixed rules, given particulars as to the number of words, to those which begin each volume, to those which are in the middle and at the end thereof; had they not looked to the preservation of the scroll of the Law unalterably in the minutest details, who could have insured its genuineness, after thirty two centuries of countless vicissitudes to Israel, since the man of God [Hebrew] wrote it for the instruction of future generations? As early as Already in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, three hundred years before the common era, a number of Rabbis charged by that King to translate the Pentateuch in Greek, introduced their version some changes not borne out by the text, but designedly made--as the story goes to avoid controversies. tells--for political and other purposes. To those alterations, a few of which are now yet perceptible in the Greek rendition--the Septuagint--, have been added there now from time to time, very many, others from time to time, by ignorant writers, who either were unable to understand the original well, or who fancied that they could improve upon it. But even previous to long before previous that period, the Samaritans

a few small remnant of of whose ancient sect still lives in Shechem, or Napluse, audaciously transposed sentences, and transformed them in the interest of their belief, according to which Moses should have ordered that a temple be erected on Mount Gerizim, and sacrifices be offered only there. Imagine now that the roll of parchment on which are traced letters, wi--thout any division of words or verses, without vowel points, or singing accents, without the least sign to guide to the reader, but save the traditions tenaciously kept in the memory of olden preceptors and orally transmitted to their disci--ples with the strictest jealousy fidelity; imagine, I say, that four hundred years ago, when the art of printing was disco- invented, -vered, our Sepher Torah was had been put away as orientally antiquated and finally lost, and a printed copy of the Pentateuch furnished with the separation of paragraphs, of periods, and all dia--critical points had taken its place supplanted it, how easy for the Chruch to surreptitiously introduce into the press a phrase, a term, a letter, a mark here and there, fa--voring its belles creed! dogmas! Instead of using events and ordinances,--as it is wont to do as far-fetched has always used absurdly used--in the nature of veiled allu--sions to the man-god, and his advent, it would have

foisted in into the Pentateuch Mosaic writings, deliberate corruptions, in the original, and I need not tell how typographical blenders intentionally or unintentionally made, are transferred from copy to copy, until they become irremediable errors, engrafted on the people's minds. That I am not maligning my neighbors of another persuasion creed, I can prove by merely two illustrations. Thus, in one of their books entitled "The epistle of Paul, the apostle, to the Hebrews," in Chapter XI. v. 21, an event in our Bible is distorted, to make it tally with that it may give a colour to Christian ideas. It reads so as follows: "By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff"--a state--ment equally untrue both from an historically and philologically stand point; for it was after Joseph had promised by a solemn oath to have his father buried in Canaan, that Jacob bowed at the head of the bed, whereon he was lying, sick but it suited the vulgate, or Latin translation sanctioned by Catholicism, to alter facts and substitute Mattea [Hebrew] stick for "Mittah" [Hebrew] bed, availing itself of the want of vowels in the text, to intimate that on the staff the cross was engraved and to it and which our patriarch anticipatedly paid homage. Another instance of wilful perversion of the original is found in Deuteronomy the King James authorized version of the 26th verse of chap XXVII

chapter XXVII v 26 in Deuteronomy, where by the insertion interpolation of the word all, which is not in the Hebrew, the Church declared us accursed under a curse from God because we cannot fulfil all every the word of the His Law,--and as falsely stated for so it is declared accursed we are pronounced by reason of that in the "Epistle of Paul, the Apostle to the Galatians" Chap. III v. 10. (I think that both errors are in the Septuagint) Now, could Romanism or Protestantism, have suppressed our Sephar Torah--hap-Providen- -pily -tially left intact as the inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob--and substituted a printed and punctuated copy, or a translation; depend upon it, a flood of "pious frauds"--as they are termed styled--would have flowed in to give glory to Jesus glory and to Moses the lie. Call that not superstition, but loving wisdom, which prevented such a profanation. Never shall our heirloom be alienated; never shall it be defaced, changing its venerable aspect into a modernism ill-comforting with its high antiquity. Let the despisers of Orientalism destroy in their "Temples" every trace of the spot in which the Torah is enshrined; let them occidentalize the worship as they will, we who are not ready to sunder apart the bond of union in Israel, we, who owe allegiance to the Sages--those restless watchers over the preser--vation of the five holy books--will revere their

memory by holding maintaining unalterably for over the Sepher Ha Torah. Suffer me to quote--however though in imperfectly prose--from a Hebrew transale metrical translation in Hebrew--a few lines of Gabriel Reisser's touching poem on the elevation of the sacred scroll at the Synagogue.
"This is the Law, this the word that God has given, as for His people's heritage. Keep it, guard it well Hold it dear, keep it safely unchanged, while a breath stirs up your thy soul. Raise it af aloft, O Israel it is thy boast, O Israel! show it to all, thou mayest, you thou gavest a price thy all for it a price which exceeds all value Liberty, and peace, fortune and fame was the price." One word more, my brethren, it will not be to lament a sad defection, where devotion to duty ought to rule, but rather to give offer thanks that faith is met, where it can pro--mote its glory. The youth whom his country has commissioned with a high trust was cradled in ancestral Judaism doctrines. In this house of our God he learned to worship; in Philadelphia was he reared and taught, therefore we share with him the honor he received. That he may fully realize the confidence reposed in his early matured judgment, I eagerly wish, but that in his career, so creditably begun and so hopeful, he may shed lustre on Judaism,

is my ardent prayer. In the native land of Moses and in that where Cyrus reigned, may he discover what will associate his name with a national celebration destined to form an epoch in the annals of America. May he live and a prosperous life, as a Hebrew without guile.

Identifier

p3571865r

identifier

SMBx10FF9_5