Sabbath before Passover (Shabat ha-gadol). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Mar 1890
- Title
- Sabbath before Passover (Shabat ha-gadol). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Mar 1890
- Author
- Morais, Sabato
- Date Created
- 1 March 1890
- Format
- 10 pages on 4 sheets
- Language(s)
- English
- Source
- Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
- Sabato Morais Collection, Box 10, Folder 4
- Has Format
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3t43jp0j/manifest.json
- Link to Colenda
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3t43jp0j
- Provenance
- Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.
- Is Format Of
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx10FF4_3.xml
- content
-
S. MORAIS,
546 N. Fifth St.
Philadelphia,
For Sabbath Ha-gadol
[Hebrew]
Philadelphia, March / 90
Brethren. The extraordinary unusual home-service of Passover, which a time-honored custom has made universal among observant Israelites, may be divided into three sections; namely, the historical, the legendary and, the devotional. The latter bears the palm in my judgment for fitness and for beauty. Na--turally, the young who are supposed to follow the head of the family in the recital of the events which gave occasion to the com--memorative bread lying then upon the table, will feel interested, the the most, in the stirring narrative of the suffering of bondmen, of in that of their redemption and the onward march to freedom. in the folk lore which it has brought forth originated. Childish as the idea may seem, I would even approve of a pictorial book, illustrating various passages read from the Pentateuch in the home service, so as to create a lasting deeper impression. Some of my hearers, may perhaps, remember how rivetted was their attention in their early days upon the woodcuts, representing, for instance, Joseph--, not ashamed of his descent parentage and connections, introducing his old father, and some five of his shepherd brothers to the mighty King of Egypt; or the burdens of the Hebrews under a new dynasty carrying heavy burdens, or the commanding looks of Moses in the act of lending forth the enslaved miraculously enfranchised tribes; or the Rabbis sitting the whole night to discuss God's miracles. Whatever is calculated to keep
alive among our offspring the memory of the common origin and marvellous preservation of a people, that reckons its age by thousands of years, is highly commendable, in my judgment from a Jewish stand point. Still, I consider as in my judgment I consider as the most important part of the home service, is that in which all the participants, raising the brimful cup, jointly say, "let us sing before God the national song: Hallelujah [Hebrew], The six magni--ficent psalms, to which the Talmudists rightly applied the name title of "Hallel"--hymn of praise--, have not come down to posterity with the name of their author, or authors. Accordingly, the Sages differ in their opinon in their opinions as to the persons from whose genius those poetical effusions issued emanated. At this distance of time, we do not feel specially dis--posed to search with critical acumen, whether David wrote them, as well as he undoubtedly penned very many others, embodied in the Psalter whatever the German school may assert to the contrary, or whether those compositions date from later periods. Enough, that we are mortal- -ly raised heavenward with our minds by the sublimity of thoughts and purity of diction and being So and for my being so & because we are so devotionally influenced, we recog--nize the wisdom that set those productions apart as a prominent feature in the ritual of Israel, on very memorable days in our annals. even the Hallel
What struck me forcibly in perusing the Talmudical discussions upon the authorship of the Hallel, is a sen--tence which evidences a broadness of views in the Sages, that few would be ready to give them credit for. I will tell relate the circumstance as stated. Rabbi Ishmael-- highly esteemed among his learned colleagues--was taken ill. Till a certain Until he had attained a mature age, he had sat at the feet of a parent, whose sayings had become authoritative. Hence a lively wish was entertained by his successors to get become acquaint-ted with all much which the departed Sage had taught his son. Judah the Prince--who laid out the plan for perpetuating the oral law as in the Mishnah--upon hearing of that Rabbi Ishmael in sickness his teacher was college academical associate, was sick, sent anxious inquiries with this message: "Since you are unable to come to the college, I beg that you will tell us two or three of the sayings in which your illustrious parent excelled." Rabbi Ishmael answered: "My father, commenting on the shortest of all psalms--which is the fifth in the Hallel-made the following remarks: 'It is not clear
why the inspired author should have invited hea--thens to sing to Israel's God, and ot have urged them to do so for the motive that he alleges, as we read: [Hebrew] "Praise the Lord all ye nations; extol him all ye peoples, for because His loving kindness towards us is surpassingly great, and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever." Is it reasonable to believe that those who denied the One God we adore, who oppressed us and sought our extermination for that very motive, will thank the Arbiter of human affairs, because their unrighteous schemes did not succeed, and we have outlived all manner of per-secutions? Aye: even so, a time shall arrive when nations that held us in bondage thraldom will come hesistatingly forward, doubting if we will consent to accept their offer of fraternal conciliation, but we will welcome it, just as read--ily from such, as, like the Egyptians, tyrannized over us, as from others that did not deny us all [?] from human right, and allowed us to thrive treat us so vilely". Brethren. A noble thought was this to which Rabbi Jose father of R. Ishmael gave utterance--a thought scarcely to be expected from a Sage who lived in times when nations, boasting of their enlightenment, called all peoples, except their own, "barbarians".
If we have a cause to admire the author of the psalm, who anticipated of by many centuries for having enunciated the sublime principle of a final universal brotherhood, flowing from a the knowledge of a Divine fatherhood, which Christianity unjustly unwarrantedly claims as its own creation, we must give all honor to the expositor of the psalm for the broad--ness of his views. In his mind gentilism and Judaism will in future ultimately finally sit together in unison of feelings to rehears the glory of the One all-saving God, heralded throughout the world by a race [?] unjustly proscribed. [Hebrew] I admit that the Rabbis subsequent qualification, seem to destroys in a measure his liberalism, for after having shown that Israel, restored to salvation by the enduring truth of the Lord, will forget past wrongs and harmonize with its former oppressors, he sets a limit to that cosmopolitan idea, by excluding one nation from that universal fraternization--Rome, under the pseudonym of Edom. But in order to account for that exclusion, we must recall back to memory what Rome was then to Judea. Egypt had indeed enslaved us cruelly from for fear that as we increased in number we might ally ourselves to her foreign enemies, yet, Moses
recommended not to despise the Egyptian, since our ancestors found once a home in his land [Hebrew] Assyria, and Babylon her successor, had dragged us into exile captivity, through to punish a shortsighted policy which led our ancient rulers to make a league with the political foes of those formidable Powers; yet, Isaiah declared our captors God's handiwork [Hebrew], but the boastful mistress of the known world in the days of antiquity from wicked Rome--had forced herself by stealth upon our own country, trod on our liberties with an iron heel; send sent her cohorts to trample on our dearest rights. Her spies were ubiquitous to discover imaginary causes which might incite carnage a slaughter. Who more ferocious than Pilate at the rising leader of Christianity; who more monstrous than [?] Rufus, the procurations of Judea, slaughtering cutting down our people when flocking from all parts of the land to the Temple on Passover and [?] other high holidays. Mothers carried to the rack, would be asked: Of what crime they had have you been convicted?, and the reply was: "We determined that our male children shall enter the covenant of Abraham." Aged, Sires, subjected brought to the cross, would answer to the querist, that they suffered martyrdom because they preferred to obey the law of God rather than submit Moses to the despotic ordinances of a Trajan or a Hadrian. Rabbi Jose him--self, the Talmudical expositor of the psalm to which I have referred, escaped torture and death by flight. Under circumstances so insufferable, it would have been
more than human to have looked upon the tyrannic empire which throttled Judaism, with kindly, with friendly sentiments. For the maxims that we must love our enemies, and pray for them that persecute us, sounds glorious sublime most glorious in theory, but it is impracticable, and there--fore it has no room in the Hebrew cannon; it belongs to the impossibilities of the new testament, though it is absolutely untrue that we have been Moses has asked us to hate our enemies. An intelligent young acquaintance of mine remarked last week in my presence, while speaking of the home ritual for the Passover evenings, that he strongly objected to a sentence occuring in it, namely: "Pour forth Thy wrath upon heathens who know Thee not, and upon kingdoms who call not on Thy name." He consider--ed it that utterance as dictated by a spirit of vindictiveness, ill-agreeing with the teachings of our Bible, urging us to assist him that hates us to unload his burden, to give him bread if he is hungry, and water if he is thirsty, but I drew the attention of the youth who objected, to the origin of that verse, emanating as it did originally at first from Jeremiah & copied from by an Hebrew who lamented exile who naturally most keenly felt the destruction of his native land and a cruel banishment, for so the passage ends in psalm 79th. "They have consumed Israel Jacob and made his comely habitation desolate."
We cannot, without sinning of hypocrisy, use endearing terms towards those who occasioned our national or personal ruin, though we must try to suppress our feelings of resentment, in order to help such when in distress. The compiler of the Hagadah may have introduced that sentence, for which, however, he did not have Talmudical authority, because unhappily Pass--over was in his time, and is even now in some benighted localities, a plea for devouring our people's substance and overthrowing tearing down their homes, under an infamous blood accusation. But we American Jews, reading that Biblical verse simply in conformity with the accepted ritual, have no allusion even to the Antisemites, to [?], to [?], to [?] who fain would put us ostracise us and drag force us into ghettos. In the language of attributed to their man god we exclaim "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." Joyful for the fran--chises here enjoyed, thankful to Providence for blessings innumerable in this country consecrated to liberty, we raise the typical cups of wine at our festive board, saying to one another "let us sing together the national song Hallelujah." May we always so extol the Lord, whose truth endureth for ever, for His gracious favor unto us so has been surpassingly great, and may joyfull the triumphant day speedily dawn, when men of all nations, recognizing the truths in our sake keeping, will shall say: "We will go with you for we have heard that God is with you." - Identifier
- p3t43jp0j
- identifier
- SMBx10FF4_3
Part of Sabbath before Passover (Shabat ha-gadol). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Mar 1890
Morais, Sabato, “Sabbath before Passover (Shabat ha-gadol). Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Mar 1890”, Sabato Morais Digital Repository, accessed September 19, 2024, https://judaicadhpenn.org/legacyprojects/s/morais/item/91157