Lecture 55. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Lecture 55. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated

Author

Morais, Sabato

Location(s)

United States -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

United States -- Pennsylvania

Format

13 pages on 6 sheets

Rights

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

Language(s)

English

Source

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Sabato Morais Collection, Box 12, Folder 5

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3kw58337/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3kw58337

Provenance

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

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx12FF5_12.xml

content

S. MORAIS,
546 N. FIFTH STREET,
PHILADELPHIA.

Post Biblical
55

In the course of my post Biblical lectures, which do not lay claim to any thing approaching com--pleteness, but which are confessedly only brief sketches, I have found it necessary incidentally to introduce some points foreign to the main subject. In that manner, I tried to make clear what I principally wished to elucidate. The subject which I intend to set forth this morning, will be marked by the same character. We have seen Nachmanides rise nobly to the defense of his religion and we felt grateful. We must have admired his indefatigableness in striving to illustrate the the writings of Hebrew Sages, and, whatever opinion we may have formed about his speculative mysticism, we could but honor the sincerity of a man, who from conviction preferred the Kabbalah to the philosophy of the Greeks and the Arabs. Now: none can be surprised that persons who had sat at the feet of such a master, became tho--roughly imbued with the identical ideas which he himself cherished. Among the disciples of the renowned Moses of Gerona, no one surpassed in mental acquirements a native of Barcelona

who travelled far in quest of knowledge.
Solomon Ben Adereth or Rashba, born in the year 1235 of the common reckoning, laid strong hold of the standard which his preceptor had set up. Talmud was his delight. The ritualistic To gain a perfect mastery of all which it contains, was his highest ambition. The ritualistic department of that immense work, he resolved to expound by productions, relative to dietary ordinances, to the holiness of days set apart for religious convocations, to the sanctity of marriages, as well as to the solution of casuisitcial questions. But great as that achievement assuredly was, Ben Adereth aspired to attain another which I deem still greater. He made an effort to that effect and partly succeeded. Every Israelite, without possessing an intimate acquaintance with the Talmud, knows that it is not a systematically arranged legislation, where rules belonging to the same category, are so classified, as to enable the student readily to discover what he may be in search of. All are aware that in the course of a discussion, respecting a certain law, new topics are introduced and frequent--ly digressions are indulged in upon strange and

quaint notions. These also the Barcelona Rabbi under--took also satisfactorily to explain. Too profoundly he revered the Sages ,to admit even tacitly that anything could have emanated from them, against which the human understanding rebels. But the task which he assumed in that direction, presented greater more serious difficulties than he or and others who tried it, could overcome. How- Still -ever, in many several instances Ben Adereth labored to a purpose. I will cite an easy illustration of an easy sentence in the legendary portion of the Talmud. Rabbi Helbo is reported to have said, that whosoever offers prayers in a regularly settled place, will obtain the help of Abraham's God, and when he dies people will lament his loss in the following language: alas, that the pious and humble one, among the disciples of the founder of our the Hebrew people, has gone. In his comment, Ben Adereth remarks that it is reasonable to agree with the Talmudist; namely, that by communing with the Lord in an appointed locality and not anywhere uphazard, as spiritual advantage will be derived, for a degree of sanctity holiness will be attached to that spot,

so that when there, we may experience a reverent--ial awe. Considering that we are standing in the presence of a Supreme Being, we will realize our own insignificance, in contrast with the almightiness of Him whom we ad--dress. This influenced, we must grow devout and meek and deserve those appellations. On the con--trary, prayers recited wherever we may chance to be, would seem the discharge of perfunctory obli--gations, very unlike the conduct of Abraham, of whome we read: "He rose up early in the morning to go to the place, in which he had stood before the Lord" to stand before the Lord, meaning to pray with fervor. Now: In connection with this elucidation by Solomon Ben Adereth, of a legendary saying, by Moses of Gerona Solomon Ben Adereth, I recall what one of his predecessors--a deep thinker and an incomparable poet--wrote in the 12th century. Judah Hallevi in the famous Ciozari, answering his suppositious imaginary interlocutor tells us, that were it not for the spiritual associations clustering round a structure where people congregate for religious exercises, the idea of pronouncing a building holy and believing that the Shekinah rests thereupon and angels hover above it, might seem a species of idolatry. The thought

therefore it is, which imparts sanctity to us ap- a place -pointed place for set apart for devotional purposes. Coming back to Now the Barcelona Rabbi I will say that he closely followed Nachmanides, his venerated teacher, in another respects, besides his evincing great fondness for Talmudism. He became enamored with Kabbalism, and his love for it, he manifested in several of his writings. Cau--tious was, indeed, the wise scholar not to expose his partiality for the mystic to the animadversion of its opponents, but he clung to his belief that the Kabbalah can boast of al very ancient and sacred origin, forgotten during the vicissitudes that befell our f nation after the dispersion under the Romans. The views advanced by Ben Adereth, are shared by Adolphe Franck, the nonaoctogenarian ex-professor of phi--losophy in the Charlemagne college at Paris. In his volume "La Kabbale, on la philosophie religieuse des Hebreux," the French savant dilates upon that topic. The curious read--er will find in the work just cited, what will may furnish him with a fund of information regarding the disputed merits of a mysterious science, which claims to be founded on the highest authority.

However, Solomon Ben Adereth, owed the wide repu--tation which he gained, to his rare familiarity with Talmud and kindred works learning, more than to aught else. Wherever Jews had settled during the thirteenth century, the solution of theological questions was sought at the hands of the Barcelona Rabbi. The queries multiplied vastly, and as the answers were sure to be satisfactory and couched in a friendly style, the kind instructor won universal admiration and esteem. It is easily conceived that a far reaching renown will bring in its train to the possessor thereof un--looked for demands upon one's time and means. So it happened, more than once, with regard to Ben Adereth. Notable was the case of in reference to a grand-son of Maimonides. David, born in Egypt, where his immortal progenitor had honorably exercised the medical profession, stood well with the govern--ment and employed his influence to benefit his coreligionists. But at one time, he lost cast with the ruler, who, greedy of gold, removed all Jews from public offices, and thus exposed them thus to the ill-will and annoyances of the low populace.

David Maïmon, who knew that only by re--plenishing the coffers of the unrighteous Sultan Prynce Prince, he himself and his brethren in faith could hope to live unmolested, turned eagerly anxiously to the Barcelona scho--lar for assistance. He felt that rich Israelites, would not refuse a person so distinguished for learning lore Jewish lore and piety, when soliciting assistance aid, in behalf of a lineal descendant of the greatest Rabbi, whom that Spain had produced. Nor was the expectation ill-founded. At Toledo resided a certain Samson Ben Meir, trust- worthy of Ben Adereth's confidence. He was assigned the charge to travel through Castile, Navarre and Italian cities, and gather the offerings of the faith--ful. The appeal met with a most generous response everywhere, and covetousness once gratified changed its frowns into gracious smiles. Now, if like Moses Ben Nachman, Solomon Ben Adereth excelled in Talmudism and like him remained attached to Kab--balism, the copied Spanish Jew rivalled also his illustrious preceptor in the moral courage manifested in vindicating the an--cestral belief. Catholicism, aiming at univer--sal conquest, has sought converts at different times

with different means agencies, now persuasive, anon coer--cive. That Church must be credited, at all events, with having promoted the cultivation of Hebrew and its lite-rature, with the ultimate objects that its priests exponents may go forth well quipped to fight its battles, and it were unjust to deny that many did and as they do yet exhibited erudition. In the thirteenth century paper wars against the Jewish people were waged with scholastic weapons. But the trenchant swords were blunted a by a keener steel, which such combatants as our Barcelona Rabbi weilded. He wrote and spoke and publicly debated to prove Moses true and his disciples correct. Noteworthy especially is a controversy which he held with an anonymous Mohammedan. That Moslem had apostatized from his religion and become a Deist. With much force he sought to over-throw the whole fabric of Revelation. In his effort to he spared neither Islam, nor Christianity, nor Judaism. Against our Scriptures, he asserted that during a thousand years, the original Pentateuch had remained in the ex--clusive possession of the priests and Levites,

who may have shaped it as they chose; that finally it was forgotten its existence fell into oblivion through the evil examples which of kings of Israel and also of Judah showed by set who relapsed into idolatry, till Ezra, after the restor--ation from the Babylonian exile, presented it as the verit--able Law, while it was not so, and that hence the authority of the five books is based upon the testimony of a single man. But the unbeliever, who abjured the Koran, met more than his match in Solomon Ben Adereth. In a pamphlet entitled "a treatise against Ishmael," the Rabinnical disputant showed the unreason--ableness of presuming that all Jews, the largest num--ber left behind, like the comparative few who returned from the exile captivity, would accept the rigorous ordinances of the Pentateuch, alleged to have been altogether or largely invented by Ezra. He demonstrated from internal evidences the untenableness of the arguments advanced, and victor--iously pointed out from a literary, historical and soundly logical standpoint, the impossibility of at--tributing to the Scribe who wrote ten ceu centuries after Moses, the authorship of any of the holy volumes, accepted by Christians and Mohammedans, as the genuine emanation

of the inspired son of Amram. In reading of the attempt of a descendant of Hagar in the thir--teenth century to fight attack the religion of the seed of Abraham's posterity one is reminded of what some of the would critics of the nineteenth century boldly advance. They too wish to strip Moses of the mantle of glory donned at Sinaï, and array with it, one of his disciples born many ages later. but in all truth, we might as well more readily accept the sense--less theory that lord Bacon composed the Shakes--perian plays, as to believe that Ezra penned in any shape or from the code in which antediluvian, patriarchal, and Hebrew bondage times are recorded, whose desert wandering peregrination, rules concerning the wander--ing tribes, their complaints and their life and their worship and their conquest of East-Jordanic tribes are minutely described. Nay, infinitely less credible is that notion such an absurdity, since language, circumstances and surroundings stand up and proclaim that idea the summary of follies. To believing Israelites I will say with Ben Adereth. The genuineness legitimacy of the Torah is testified by a people who have

received by a chain of traditions, coming down from the summit of Horeb, & who have lived through it and by it and who to this day, firmly declaring: "This is the Law which Moses set before the Children of Israel." "Moses commanded us a Law, it is the inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob."

Identifier

p3kw58337

identifier

SMBx12FF5_12