Shemot. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated
- Title
- Shemot. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated
- Author
- Morais, Sabato
- Format
- 10 pages on 4 sheets
- Language(s)
- English
- Source
- Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
- Sabato Morais Collection, Box 9, Folder 10
- Has Format
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3765b16m/manifest.json
- Link to Colenda
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3765b16m
- Provenance
- Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.
- Is Format Of
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx9FF10_3.xml
- content
-
On Shemoth
[Hebrew]
In the palace of Rameses II, a princely reception was held. Foreign rulers came from afar to own al--legiance to their sovereign lord. They laid golden wreaths at the foot of his throne, in token of submission. Upon that festive occasion, high officials admitted the dis--tinguished visitors into the presence of the mighty dreaded king. For, the monarch of Egypt celebrated his birth-day surrounded by courtiers and vassals with barbaric pomp. He received their homage and, in return, graciously dispensed favors. of his courtiers, and vassals, and granted in return, approving smiles. Among the train of swelling a crowding nobility, two plebians opened their way to the royal gates. They are an--nounced. What is their errand? Have they also brought costly chaplets to crown bedeck adorn Pharaoh--the ruler of a thousand rulers?.. The strangers have no gift to offer. They must stand back and tarry, till the illustrious assemblage has departed. They cannot hope to be granted an audience amidst the grandees of the kingdom. The lowly shall not mingle with the lofty. So have the Sages portrayed the first scene of the grandest episode in human history--a scene of which the fifth chapter of the book that the Synagogue
began this Sabbath, gives an outline. We read: [Hebrew] [Hebrew "Afterward, Moses and Aaron went in". Pharaoh asked the strangers a reason for what he considered an intrusion. "A message form the Supreme Lord, has led our steps hither. He demands that thou shalt let thy slaves hold a celebration beyond the limits of thy land, in honor of Himself--Adonai, the Everlasting One--their God of Israel fathers' God" At these words, uttered by the strangers with manly composure, Pharaoh commands that a role of papyrus be unfolded. In it the names and famous deeds of deified heros are recorded. He will see if Adonaï, called the Ever--lasting, has a place, where national deities have received received an reverential honorable mention. He will seek for Israel's God where Isis and Osiris Milcom and Dagon are depicted. He [?] turns over the examines through that scroll, he finds what the Edomites worship, and that which the Ammonites supplicate entreat in their temples; what the Sidonians adore trust in, and that which the Philistines Moabites bow to. Adonaï is not in the superior nor in the inferior ranks of ancient gods. "Oh king, thou searchest for the living on a ground which is strewn with the dead. The Hebrews whom thou keepest in bondage,
descend from a father parent, who taught them to bend adore before the incorporeal Author of the Universe. That all-pervading spirit never put on flesh, that thou mayest write out his description. The witnesses of His existence are not memorials traced upon papyrus, but the hea--vens in their measureless extent; the earth in its count--less productions. They attest His power and eternity "and His power". Thus calmly spoke the two messengers, and Pharaoh curtly replied, "I know not Adonaï, neither will I let Israel go." Brethren. The story which I have just related is told in a book, where the legends of the Rabbis are collected. I fancied that its recital might be suggestive, while it entertained. For, Moses and Aaron forced into the rear of the nobility, as they went in to face a tyrant, become the central figures in the drama which, for some time, will be weekly represented. not a debasing stage, where a Unlike a late representation on a debasing stage, where a prurient curiosity for evanescent beauty is was to be gratified, this drama will be set to view but before the holy will, wherein they purifying word of the on a spot in which the word of the Eternal is expounded, to elevate Eternal, its enshrined and purify man. You, O seed of Jacob, should gaze upon those figures. in the drama, where so
A proud monarch, is brought led by them prostrate to the foot--stool of the Lord he had denied, and freedom for his slaves is wrested from his iron grasp. Who more than you should rivet their looks upon those apostles of the Omnipotent? Your deliverers?.. History is si--lent about the origin of privileges, which, to all ap--pearances, a few of the Hebrews singularly enjoyed. I cannot explain the causes which exonerated the champions of our liberty from the crushing burdens un--der which their people groaned. Our teachers assert, that the exemption was not peculiarly theirs. It extended to the whole tribe of Levy. But be it so or not; this is certain; and this you should weigh consider well at these times, which by try men's souls! The immunity was not the price of faithlessness disloyalty; of treason against the belief of Abra--ham and of his suffering progeny. It might have been easy for either brother to rise magnificently, by disowning affinity with the oppressed. The learn--ing of Moses would have gained for him access among the priests of Mezraim, of whom none exercised greater influence. The eloquence of Aaron would have secured him a seat in the high-toned society of Tanis and Memphis, whose chief inhabitants Isaiah pictured as the
mainstay of Egypt [Hebrew]...[Hebrew]...[Hebrew]. But what would Israel, the armor bearer of eternal Truths, be, if the sons of Amram had craved for self aggrandisement and refused to cast their lots with the lowly? If they Or if had shrunk back in dismay when thrust aside, and frowned upon and rebuked by a dreaded mighty ruler, they had taken counsel with worldly prudence, and desisted? What would society, that has stretched forth her hand to call choice fruits of Jewish planting, what would she now be, if those Levites, the determined avengers of our wrongs, had been terrified into inaction? How many ages would Our section civilization havve been retarded subjects brings Moses them to our close examination. I observe him Moses Moses--a humble shepherd, whilst he might have sat a king-- as he seeks to read the future of Israel in the bright flame of the typical burning bush, and he grows gigantic before my mind. I behold Aaron giving a fraternal kiss and setting forth girding up his loins to work out salvation, and his aspect assumes a grandeur superior even to that described in the glowing language of the Psalmist. I let my vision rest upon both, as they confront the enemy of justice, and, remembering how unflinchingly at their pleading for right, I recognize two characters preemi--nent in sacred history, preeminent because of their sublimest devotion to a national desperate most righteous cause.
Oh the pigmies of our days, who skulk behind the subterfuge of fictitious names, to hide their com--mon extraction with the persecuted? Come forward ye knights of self-assertion! Come and measure your moral height stature with that of your people's lawgiver, and his coadjutor. You will sink into nonentity. Yet Still, you imagine that you will gain in moral height by exchan--ging your parent's heritage for a smile of the pre--judiced. Samaritan-like you belong to Israel when the scale of our prosperity turns up rises. You are not of us, when modern Hamans make conjure up anti-Semi--tism popular to vex and harass us. But the icy cold wave of in--humanity which surged up in Germany, and rolled on farther into distant lands, and stopped the warm throbbings beatings of the heart for of fraternal kindness, and compassion willsometime have spent itself. The Stoeckers and the Treitchkes may yet be made to feel ashamed of their offences against civilization, and the Munisens and Firckows[?] may rejoice over the vindication of liberality. Then those among the Hebrews, who did not change sides, when the finger of scorn was pointed at us, will
be acknowledged worthy disciples of the two self-denying champions of our race. Then shall the time-serving and disloyal, who courted the acquaint--ance of the prejudiced illiberal, shall wear as their badge, public contempt. Not in the sroll scroll, which set in array Pharaoh's dead gods, but in the volume which trained mankind in the knowledge of one ever living and Universal Father, is written that finally righteousness shall wax strong, and iniquity melt away. And history--the real reliable chronicler-- verifies that divine imparting...But it is never--theless the duty of incumbent upon every Israelite, to stand by his brethren, and make the hand that now throttles them, palsied. According to a recent ordinance Jews dare not practice as chemists in Russia; according to another they dare not act as physi--cians, and but yesterday the wires across the ocean, announced to the world, "that railway companies have ordered the discharge of their Jewish employis; that the no indulgence shall be shown to Jews resi--ding in the capital without official leave; that no court can authorize the transfer of land to a Jew".
In these trying times, I who, in my eagerness anxiety for a reign of tranquillity peace & good will when my sorefooted brethren may enjoy rest, study current events, note the faithful and the faithless among my people. True to the cause of the oppressed are those who, with the intense earnestness of the miser, watch over their wealth affluence, that it may not help not a coin drop may fall to help on the wheel of grinding tyranny. All honor to the Jewish firm Efrussi, which, after the carnival of butchery in the doomed realms of the Czar, closed up its banking house, of fifty years standing in Odessa, and, regardless of losses, removed to the capitals of Austria and France. Would that I could bestow the same meed of praise on the princes kings of the money-market! But their last transaction forbids it. The negotiation of a loan on behalf of the Pharaoh of the nineteenth century, is a treason. To you, my brethren, whom a beneficent Providence has lifted placed beyond the reach of kingly hatred; to you American Hebrews, I say: Hold constantly in view the two central characters in the drama, which opened this sabbath. Gaze intently on their unselfishness on their love for the sufferers. You will then bear with your fellow-believers, when if despotism has put them on below your
standard. As God lifted up you up, so must you raise the lowly and fit them for civilization. It is your bounden duty before mankind, and before Him who declared what was has been registered in the Haftorah prophetic chieftan portion we have read. [Hebrew] "Holy Israel is holiness unto the Lord, the first fruits of His yeilding, whosoever shall all that devour him will offend." - Identifier
- p3765b16m
- identifier
- SMBx9FF10_3
Part of Shemot. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated
Morais, Sabato, “Shemot. Morais, Sabato. Philadelphia, PA. Undated”, Sabato Morais Digital Repository, accessed September 19, 2024, https://judaicadhpenn.org/legacyprojects/s/morais/item/91217