Shemini. Morais, Sabato. Undated · Sabato Morais Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Shemini. Morais, Sabato. Undated

Author

Morais, Sabato

Format

6 pages on 3 sheets

Rights

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

Language(s)

English

Source

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Sabato Morais Collection, Box 9, Folder 21

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3833nj2n/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3833nj2n

Provenance

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

Is Format Of

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx9FF21_3.xml

content

For Parashat Shemini
about the prohibition of eating oysters.

134

I have no wish to animadvert on the actions of any of my hearers. They who knowingly feed upon objects, which the Mosaic code forbids, and still claim to be the adherents of that legislation, need not be shown the inconsistency. It rests with themselves to reconcile their habitual practice with their avowed professions. But I have heard that among my brethren some fall short in their obedience to the dietary laws, and believe they do not violate any of the injunctions set forth in the lessons of Leviticus we have recited this Sabbath. Those of my coreligionists I would fain afford some information which may correct an error of judgment, and be the means of preventing further transgressions.
I observe that the sentence, which prohibits Israelites to eat of certain fishes, employs various expressions to apparently signify the same ordinance. It reads as follows: [Hebrew] [Hebrew] "All that have not fins and scales in seas and in rivers" [Hebrew] "of all that move in the water" [Hebrew] "And of all living things that are in the water" [Hebrew] "they are an abomination to you."

A slight reflection will bring home to our minds the conviction that the seemingly unnecessary repetition was intended to explain il in all its bearings the design of the legislator. We are first told that the Hebrew people must consider as loathsome for food any fish found in large bodies of water, lacking the requisite marks just--named. But lest persons argue that only such creatures are meant by the statutes, which enable us by their size to perceive whether they are deficient of the prescribed signs, and that whatever is so small as to render it impossible for us to ascertain its exact conformation, cannot be under--stood as pertaining to that nomenclature; in other words; lest persons permit themselves diminutive creatures with which lakes and ponds abounded; the sentence next cautions us against partaking of anything that moves in the water, whether it be of huge or of little dimension, until we have positively learnt that it possesses the required tokens.
So far the Bible extended its prohibition to every kind of acquatic animals inhabiting the water, and wanting of fins and scales. But there exists in nature creatures that do not necessarily abide or move in water, yet they will not thrive except in places where water flows.

To that nature we may consider to belong that beb being furnished with a bivalve shell, and known by the name of oyster. Has the Mosaic code left any direction applicable to its case? Is it included in the family of fishes and forbidden, or excluded from it and permitted? I believe that our Bible has been very explicit concerning it, when it stated in the last part of our sentence "any living thing which is in the water, shall be an abomination unto you." I shall not now launch into a disquisition touching the character of the aforenamed creature. Naturalists have differed widely with regard to it, and it would be presumption on my part to treat the subject on from a scientific point of view. I know that while some have confidently asserted that the oyster is motionless, and that it adheres with tenacity solely to stones and rocks by the water, others have brought forth their observations and experience as proofs that it is endowed with locomotion, and it has the power of throwing itself backwards and forwards in the water by sudden jerks. To me the words of Holy Writ are amply sufficient for the rejection of that animal for our aliment. Because it clearly comes in the category of living things which are in the water, and which Moses declared unfit for the use of Israelites, by an emphatic repetition

in general terms of the ordinance at issue. "Whatever has no fins and scales in the water, that shall be an abomination unto you." But aside from the plain unvarnished words of the text, tradition, I think, has a right to be consulted in the premises. I say in the present instance, as in all other instances; a practice which has been uni--versally accepted among Hebrew communities, bears with it the stamp of high authority. Now: I have not once read or heard that Jews observant of the ancestral religion deem it lawful to feed on shell-fish; nor have I ever seen, save in cases of rapidly failing health, a consistent Israelite act as if he regarded the eating of oysters quite permissible. So perfect a conformity to the observance among our coreligio--nists dispersed in innumerable countries, could not have been brought about except by oral tradition instruction from father to son. This is not denied by the teachers of the new school. Their preaching that we may freely sa--tisfy our appetites with whatsoever natured created for food, does not emanate from any objection to the traditio--nal rendering of our text, but from an aversion against all

ceremonial laws. They desire to abrogate the statutes we have perused this morning in Leviticus, on the same principle by which the disciples of another creed were guided, when they wrote. "There is nothing from without a man, which entering into him, can defile him." But I direct my words to men and women, who have not cast off the salutary yoke of the law. I speak to Hebrews who have not made common cause with the changelings, but who still believe that what the son of Amram proclaimed an abomination, does defile the soul. Them do I exhort to exercise some self-restraint which cannot fail to be beneficial to the moral as well as to the spiritual weal of their offspring. To them I say: you have hitherto been noted for your attachment to the precepts, be not now inveigled by specious reasonings. Let not your houses heretofore kept Jewishly be defiled; let not your table formerly free from pollution be sullied, by presenting thereon to your children and guests what the Mosaic code prohibits. The ordinance I have urged is not simply a Rabbinical fence to prevent trespassing on the written law, but a prescription obviously deducible from the text. Act then consistently. Continue Put not a stumbling block in the way of the rising generation. Continue to prove the light, and they will also "keep the commandments precepts, the statutes and ordinances commanded to our fathers."

Identifier

p3833nj2n

identifier

SMBx9FF21_3