system where it occurs. In the Talmud, in the Treatise Pesachim, fol. 49, col. 2, we read as follows:—
(
Hebrew characters)
Rabbi Eleazar says, "It is lawful to split open the nostrils of
an amhaaretz (an unlearned man) on the Day of Atonement
which falls on the Sabbath. His disciples said to him, Rabbi,
say rather that it is lawful to slaughter him. He replied,
That would require a benediction, but here no benediction is
needful." It is hardly needful to remind the reader that the
law of Moses says, (Hebrew characters) "Thou shalt not kill." But
there is in this passage a sneering contempt for the unlearned,
which is utterly at variance with the character of Him "whose
mercies are over all his works," the unlearned and the poor, as
well as the mighty and the learned.
Indeed the passage is so monstrous, that one is almost inclined to think that it must have crept into the Talmud by mistake; or, at the least, to expect that it would be followed by reprehension the most explicit and severe. But no, a little lower down another of these "wise men" says,—
(Hebrew characters)
"It is lawful to rend an amhaaretz like a fish;" and, a little above, an Israelite is forbidden to marry the daughter of such a person, for that she is no better than a beast. But the whole of the preceding passage is so characteristic of the spirit of Rabbinism, that it is worth inserting—
(Hebrew characters)
"Our Rabbies have taught. Let a man sell all that he has, and marry the daughter of a learned man. If he cannot find the daughter of a learned man, let him take the daughter of the great men of the time. If he cannot find the daughter of a great man of the time, let him marry the daughter of the head of a congregation. If he cannot find the daughter of the head of a congregation, let him marry the daughter of an almoner. If he cannot find the daughter of an almoner, let him marry the daughter of a schoolmaster. But let him not marry the daughter of the unlearned, for they are an abomination, and their wives are vermin; and of their daughters it is said, 'Cursed is he that lieth with any beast.'" Here, again, one is inclined to suppose that there is a mistake, or that these words were spoken in jest, though such a jest would be intolerably profane; but all ground for such supposition is removed on
