No. XLIX.
RABBINIC LAWS CONCERNING MEAT.
Conscientious adherence to the dictates of true religion is
one of the noblest traits that can adorn the human character,
and this trait has appeared in its most vivid light in not a few
of the Israelite nation. Elijah the prophet, for instance, is a
bright example of religious constancy. At a time when all Israel
had forsaken the true God, and zealously professed a false
religion, neither the allurements of self-interest, nor the power
of universal example, nor the natural desire of self-preservation,
could draw him aside from the paths of truth and righteousness.
Daniel and his three friends in Babylon exhibit the same unwavering
firmness in the assertion of truth. The Royal dainties
could not prevail upon them to partake of food offered to
idols. The fiery furnace could not terrify Hananiah, Mishael,
and Azariah, to commit idolatry; the lions' den possessed no
terrors that could move Daniel to omit the worship of his God.
But as constancy for the truth ennobles and adorns, in the very
same degree an obstinate perseverance in error diminishes from
man's moral or intellectual value. It shows either that his
moral perception is so blunted as to be unable to discern between
truth and error, or his moral taste so perverted as not
to care for the difference—or that there is some intellectual
deficiency which renders the moral powers inoperative. It
leads to the suspicion that there is something wrong either
with the head or the heart. There is, however, a class of
persons, who persevere in error, not because the head is weak,
or the heart sick, but because they have never fairly beheld the
light of truth. They have grown up in a mist of error, and
circumstances have prevented them from emerging into a purer
atmosphere. To this class, we would hope, the professors of
modern Judaism belong. That they have been for centuries
in error is certain. Many incontestable proofs of this have
been already advanced; The rabbinic laws concerning (
Hebrew characters)
or the slaughtering of animals, will add another link to the
chain of evidence. The Rabbinists have an idea that wherever
they may be wrong, in this doctrine they are infallibly in the
right; and yet, if the force of education did not afford some
aid, it would be impossible to imagine how they can be deceived
by a doctrine so manifestly false, and so entirely devoid of
Scriptural foundation. In the first place, the slaughtering of
beasts is, like eating, of every-day and universal concernment—a
matter that affects the poor and unlearned as much as the
studious; and yet the rabbinic rules are so many and so intricate
that either a man must be learned himself, or employ
