Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Hebraic Literature, another volume in the "Universal Classics Library"

[ Originally written and posted on MySpace on July 12, 2009 ]
     
Hebraic Literature is one of the more intriguing volumes in the "Universal Classics Library," a rather helter-skelter set of 30 volumes published by W. M. Dunne at New York in 1901, which are to be found on the shelves of innumerable public libraries.  It includes selections from the Talmud, Midrashim, and Kabbala, introduced and annotated by a Reform rabbi, Maurice H. Harris.  What is remarkable about this work is its candor.  Any such work edited for popular consumption today would be much more shaped and selected, if not outrightly bowdlerized, to promote the end of good intergroup relations.
 

Consider the frankness of the following, selected from page 31:
 

" If the ox of an Israelite bruise the ox of a Gentle, the Israelite is exempt from paying damages ; but should the ox of a Gentile bruise the ox of an Israelite, the Gentile is bound to recompense him in full. Bava Kama, fol. 38, col. i.
     

" When an Israelite and a Gentile have a lawsuit before thee, if thou canst, acquit the former according to the laws of Israel, and tell the latter such is our law ; if thou canst get him off in accordance with Gentile law, do so, and say to the plaintiff such is your law ; but if he cannot be acquitted according to either law, then bring forward adroit pretexts and secure his acquittal. These are the words of the Rabbi Ishmael. Rabbi Akiva says, (( No false pretext should be brought forward, because, if found out, the name of God would be blasphemed ; but if there be no fear of that, then it may be adduced." Ibid., fol. 113, col. I. "
 

Read the last sentence very carefully.  Does it not say that false pretexts in legal pleadings are acceptable if there is no danger of their discovery?
 

Again, on page 31, we are advised:  "  If one find lost property in a locality where the majority are Israelites, he is bound to proclaim it ; but he is not bound to do so if the majority be Gentiles. Bava Metzia, fol. 24, col. i.  "

Read the last sentence very carefully.  Does it not say that false pretexts in legal pleadings are acceptable if there is no danger of their discovery?
 

At the foot of page 31, we read:  " If a Gentile smite an Israelite, he is guilty of death ; as it is written (Exod. ii. 12). " And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw there was no man, he slew the Egyptian. Sanhedrin, fol. 58, col. 2.  

On page 11, we are told that: " Adam was created one without Eve. Why? That the Sadducees might not assert the plurality of powers in heaven. Ibid., fol. 37, col. i."
 

What is truly illuminating here is Rabbi Harris's commentary:
 

" As the Sadducees did not believe in a plurality of powers in heaven, but only the Christians, in the regard of the Jews, did so (by their profession of the doctrine of the Trinity), it is obvious that here, as well as often elsewhere, the latter and not the former are intended. "
  
 


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