Studies in Life from Jewish Proverbs

and how deep the proverb goes, how swiftly it strikes home and excites the imagination. Rich and poor together, yes, in a sense—united within one city’s bounds; and yet how far apart they dwell from one another. How tragically far apart! But are they so greatly sundered as at first thought one imagines? In the things that matter ultimately—their manhood, womanhood; their tears and laughter; their loves; their sinning and repenting; their strength and health; their death and immortality? Perhaps there is just one meeting-place where rich and poor unite and stand absolutely equal; but it is there where earth and heaven fade away—the great white throne of God.

Mark how the sense of the individual man, with whom eventually all our plans to remedy the mischiefs in the body politic must come to terms, permeates the following proverbs:—

(No pious platitude this, but a keen-sighted observation of fact. It is seldom indeed that wealth is handed down through many generations, except in a morally “good” family; and on the other hand the sinner’s undisciplined children can usually be depended on to make ducks and drakes of their inheritance).

In the recognition of personal faults as the bane of society:

These few maxims might be multiplied with ease, but they are sufficient for our purpose. Is it not clear how profoundly humanistic are these Jewish proverbs in their outlook on social affairs? Except our science be tempered by the same redeeming grace, we shall succeed on paper but fail in fact.

2. The Jewish proverbs throw out a challenge to the present age in the demand they make for commercial honesty and consideration of the general welfare of the community. This claim is put forward in a variety of ways, and there is no mistaking its earnestness; as in the famous saying, A false balance is an abomination unto the Lord, and a just weight is His delight (Pr. 111), a maxim reiterated in similar language in Pr. 2010, 23. Again it is said, The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vapour driven to and fro: they that seek them seek death (Pr. 216)—Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity than he that is crooked in his ways though he be rich (Pr. 286); and memorably—Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice (Pr. 168); to which add this startlingly modern protest against the food-profiteer, He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him; but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it (Pr. 1126). “Ah! but the times have changed, and the complications and stringency of modern business often render the employment of perfectly honest methods impractical. In those byegone days a man of industry and ability had perhaps little temptation to double-dealing, or at least was not compelled to follow the tricks of the trade in order to squeeze out a livelihood.” But no! that shortcut out of the difficulty is barred. Ben Sirach puts the matter bluntly: A merchant, says he, shall hardly keep himself from wrong-doing, and a huckster shall not be acquitted of sin (E. 2629). “Well, then, have the proverbs any remedy to suggest? It is easy for the purist to talk. No one wishes to deny the courage of him who maintains a life-long protest against sharp practice, and we grant you the desirability of the protest; we can even admit the success of one here and there who has undertaken it. But it may seem doubtful if such unbending rectitude could be carried out generally; and at any rate, as matters stand, there must be thousands of well-meaning men who to keep themselves and their families from want and hunger must bow themselves slightly in the modern house of Rimmon”—so may a plea for a reasonable latitude be advanced.

What solution do the proverbs offer for the stern facts of present-day commerce? None; but that is no reason why we, following the spirit of their teaching, should not strive to find a remedy for our more complex problems, especially since the line along which progress can be made is surely not difficult to discover. The root of the matter is in the fact that whilst commercial dishonesty may benefit (in a material sense only) certain persons, it can only do so at the expense of the many, so that its elimination would necessarily conduce to the general welfare of organised society. Meantime it is hard for the individual to kick against the pricks of a system far greater than he, but it does not follow that the community of individuals is unable to fight the giant and slay him. Though the present situation is such that the guilt of the individual is lessened (it is of course still real), the guilt of the community in tolerating such a condition of affairs is the more increased. For union is immense strength. It is the imperative duty of modern man by collective action (which may require eventually to become world-wide) to check, diminish and abolish those evil and improvident conditions which now impose such pressure upon the integrity of individuals. A herculean task! What then? The resources of civilised man are already vast, and they increase with marvellous rapidity, We stand at the beginnings of organised achievement; yet already magnificent opportunities for the betterment of human life lie within our reach, and wait only the consent of mind and conscience for their realisation. False weights have continued, despite the Jewish proverb, these twenty centuries and more; it does not follow that they need continue to the twenty-first.

3. Much of the injustice and degradation still prevalent in our civilised society would be brought to an end by the force of public opinion, were it not for wide-spread ignorance of the facts. Sometimes the ignorance is wilful blindness and no true ignorance; men refuse to look or listen; but as a rule it is due to mere lack of interest and unimaginative carelessness. No decent man or woman could desire the appalling facts of child-labour in the mines and factories of this country during the first half of the last century, or, for the matter of that, the facts of sweated industries at the present day; but many respectable people wished not to know and vastly many more troubled not themselves to know, and so the horrible and disastrous iniquities went on year by year. Time and again the frank uncompromising proverbs of the Jews set us an example by their bold recognition of evil. They proclaim it for what it is, not mincing words but denouncing wickedness outspokenly and vehemently. A hundred illustrations could be taken from the maxims already quoted. Here, from sayings not yet mentioned, are three vigorous assaults on the hypocrite, the oppressor, and the morally perverted.

4. Of Riches and the deceitfulness thereof

“Believe not much them that seem to despise riches; for they despise them that despair of them.... Be not penny-wise; riches have wings, and sometimes they fly away of themselves, sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.”[127]

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches (Pr. 221).

“I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue. The Roman word is better, impedimenta. For as the baggage is to an army so is riches to virtue. It cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march; yea and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory. Of great riches there is no real use except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit.”

His riches are the ransom of a man’s life, but the poor heareth no threatenings (Pr. 138).

“But then you will say, they may be of use to buy men out of dangers or troubles. As Solomon saith, ‘Riches are as a stronghold, in the imagination of the rich man.’[128] But this is excellently expressed, that it is in imagination, and not always in fact. For certainly great riches have sold more men than they have bought out.”

Wealth gotten in haste shall be diminished, but he that gathereth slowly shall have increase (Pr. 1311).

“Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.”

Health and a good constitution are better than all gold, and a good spirit than wealth without measure (E. 3015).

Riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death (Pr. 114)—

whereat the shallow-minded may smile if it please them.

5. “Most gracious God, we humbly beseech Thee, as for this Kingdom in general, so especially for the High Court of Parliament: that Thou wouldest be pleased to direct and prosper all their consultations to the advancement of Thy glory, the good of Thy Church, the safety, honour, and welfare of our Sovereign and his Dominions; that all things may be so ordered and settled by their endeavours, upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us for all generations.”

How the Jewish proverbs would endeavour to give effect to the prayer for good government has been told already (p. 152), and it may be remembered that their teaching was described as a demand for a reign of justice extending from the highest to the lowest in the land. But that was an inadequate description. Examine more carefully what they say, and it will appear that the Jewish proverbs ask for more than bare justice; they enjoin mercy, they plead for honour, kindness, generosity, and affection between man and man; in a word they plead for humanity as the supreme solvent of human need. And are they not profoundly and rebukingly right therein? Justice may be the stones of the great building, but Love is the cement without which the fabric will not cohere. The stability of society depends on the good-will of well-intentioned men—By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, and it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked (Pr. 1111).

6. One other arresting feature concerning the relations of rich and poor. The poorer classes of Jerusalem must have had many faults, but the Wise were very gentle towards them; scarcely ever do they reproach the poor directly for their shortcomings. On the other hand they have no mercy for the sins of those in high places, their instinct seeming to be that the root of evil in the State is in the neglect of opportunity on the part of those who possess the means for well-doing: and this is the more significant and conscience-searching in that the speakers of these proverbs were themselves, as a rule, members of the “fortunate” classes. “The poor, forsooth, are thieves!” Are they? Then, why? If a ruler hearkeneth to falsehood, all his servants are wicked (Pr. 2912). “The poor are disloyal and jealous of their betters!” Are they? The king that faithfully judgeth the poor, his throne shall be established for ever (Pr. 2914).

7. In conclusion, a few memorable proverbs that will repay consideration. Here is an ambiguous maxim—from one point of view a platitude, from another a deep saying:

Does it mean that greed and evil ambitions incite nations to war, to conquest, and so to the acquisition of new territories? If so, we are none the better for the information. Yes, but sometimes the “transference” takes place the other way, and not as the covetous folk desire it should. There have been peoples whose blind lust for power overreached itself, to meet with disaster and condign punishment. Concerning them too might it be said, though with a different accent to our words, “Sovereignty is transferred from nation to nation, because of iniquities, violence and greed of gold.”

There is no ambiguity, and no indecision, in these fine sentiments, which are none the less admirable, because they do not tell us how to reach the Golden Age:

But of all that the Jewish proverbs have to say on the duties of our interrelated lives, this is the best in that it does show the gateway to the Golden Age, and allows no man to pass by unchallenged,

CHAPTER XVII

A Chapter of Good Advice

Suppose A Lecture (subject, Good Advice) to be given in The Large Lecture Hall, to-night, by the Venerable Rabbi Wiseman. We go, but with mixed feelings, assuring ourselves we do not care a straw for his advice, but we have nothing much better to do, the man has a reputation, and we wonder whether the hall will really be full to hear him. Somewhat to our surprise, the hall does fill rapidly, is full! Extraordinary how a well-known name will draw: doubtless the man has got a “following” in every town, prepared to drink in every word he says. But that will not altogether account for it; there must also be a big number here to-night who have come, like ourselves, out of mere curiosity. We wait the great man’s arrival with impatience, uncomfortably conscious that we are meant to be edified, expectant that we shall be merely bored. (A lecture of “Good advice,” forsooth. As if we haven’t a right to our own opinions, and are not competent to advise ourselves: it will take him all his time to impress us!) The Rabbi arrives, to the usual clap-clapping of his admirers in the hall.... We are a little surprised at his appearance—a strong face, but his best friends would not call him handsome. At the same time, to give him his due, one could not call him pompous.... Why doesn’t the Chairman stop talking? Who wants to listen to him? Seeing that we are “in for it,” let’s hear what the speaker has to say, and so get it over—

At last the Rabbi rises, and proves wiser than we have expected; wise enough to be also wily. He begins with a touch of humour; we smile, are caught off our guard, and for a few moments (it was all he needed) he has captured our attention.

Here is the thread of his remarks:

A brief lecture, but none the worse for that. Much Wisdom in small compass. Depart, as you must, whether touched or ostensibly indifferent. However that may be, whatever your feelings now, you cannot forget all his words; some of them are fastened in the memory. One day you may act upon them and discover that they were wise indeed, and then you will want yourself to move a vote of thanks to the lecturer.

CHAPTER XVIII

Conduct

This chapter will prove less ambitious than its title suggests. As the remarks made a few pages back, on The Body Politic were meant to be taken in conjunction with what was said in Chapter VIII. regarding social and family conduct, so here also only a few reflections will be given in summary or in supplement of the Wise-men’s ideal of personal character. It is perhaps as well that it seems superfluous to recapitulate the various attributes that the proverbs say are to be chosen or eschewed by the perfect man; for when the Vices have been assembled they form a dismal and depressing crowd, and when the Virtues are lined up over against them, they are a celestial host but they glitter on high beyond a modest man’s attainment. Moreover the art of noble living is best practised not by those who go spelling out the details, as if the Virtues were meant to be acquired singly or the Vices attacked and conquered one by one, but by those who from sound instinct or a wisely-trained intelligence have mastered a few great thoughts and assented to follow their guidance in the maze of life. It is the purpose of these pages to touch only on certain of these controlling facts, principles, or ideals of conduct. The task before us is therefore neither intricate nor long. It is simple, yet (for all its simplicity) serious.

There is one quality that is not so much a part of character as the very soil out of which it grows—Honesty of purpose; if absent or only fitfully present, moral growth is either stunted or cut off; if present, then a multitude of imperfections are found pardonable. Wise therefore is the Jewish proverb that says of Deceitfulness, using a realistic metaphor more eloquent than many words, Bread of falsehood is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel (Pr. 2017). Over against it set this strong simple plea for Sincerity: Strive for the truth, unto death, and the Lord God shall fight for thee (E. 428); and then consider the implication in the contrast of those maxims—that Evil is first sweet then bitter, and Good first painful then joyous. Sometimes those propositions are visibly, demonstrably, true in their entirety; sometimes the second part of them to be credited requires faith in the spiritual nature of man. But of the first part there can be no question; ’tis a matter of universal experience—moral victories at the first are difficult, moral defeats easy, The way of sinners is smooth without stones, but at the end thereof is the pit of Hades (E. 2110), a glissade to the precipice and over; facilis descensus Averno.

Setting aside for the moment the influence of religious belief on conduct (the next chapter will have something to say upon the point), it would seem that there is one outstanding quality to which the Jewish proverbs recur again and again, as if to tell us that here is the supreme secret. That quality may be called Receptivity, but it has many aspects for which other titles might more fittingly be used: it is the willing mind, the open eye and the hearing ear; in youth it is zeal to learn, in manhood more often the grace to profit by mistake. So from teachableness it is wont to pass into penitence, the recognition of error and imperfection—not passive penitence, however, but the active desire to improve—and then from this virile penitence it should rise into that disposition of Charity or Love towards others, which is the highest virtue, without which a man may have many talents and yet profit nothing. Let us trace the sequence in the proverbs, commencing with the desire for knowledge:

To him that is willing to learn, the proverbs promise rich and wonderful reward, and the New Testament repeats the promise:

Thus far the subject is familiar. Twice already reference has been made to this virtue of Learning-Ever. Impenitently we bring it up again, seeing that the Jewish proverbs are most urgent on the matter and also that men to-day stand in no small need of the counsel. For all its vaunted liberty of thought, our age is by no means patient of personal criticism, doubtless because owing to the swift and amazing increase in control of material resources it has been peculiarly successful in certain directions (not, however, the most important); and the success has made us vain. To know a little about the universe (and we know no more) is a very dangerous thing.

But observe how from the initial grace of an eager, receptive attitude towards life, other virtues naturally appear. Frankly and patiently to recognise one’s errors is to increase in wisdom, to learn before it is too late, to see the pitfalls one has narrowly escaped, and so to be humbled, to feel the sense of a great forgiveness vouchsafed to the simple-hearted, and accordingly to be grateful and to be happy:

This experience, if at all intense, has a profound effect on character; he that knows he has been forgiven much will love much, and his gratitude towards the Giver of all mercy will spontaneously show itself in mercy towards other men. Others will wrong him and disappoint him often, but, remembering his own imperfections, he will want to judge them gently and never to despair of helping them; to him it seems as if “they know not what they do.” But this is the very disposition required of us in the prayer “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us,” and the question must surely be rising in the reader’s mind, What relation can possibly be discovered between these high thoughts and the Jewish proverbs? This surprisingly intimate relation—that whilst the manifestation of perfect forgiveness in Christ’s own Person made His Prayer a new power in the world, the thought in this petition was not new; it goes back to these words of Ben Sirach, He that taketh vengeance on his neighbour will meet vengeance from the Lord, and his sins will surely be confirmed. Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he hath done thee, and then shall thy sins be pardoned when thou prayest (E. 281, 2)! Who dares withhold his approval from the condition in the abstract? If we are Christians at all, our conscience must welcome its eternal justice, recognising that we can ask no greater mercy to be extended us by God. And so we are wont to repeat the Prayer willingly without reservations or misgivings ... just until the day come when “our neighbour” has gotten him a name and we lie dazed and bleeding from the hurt that he hath dealt us. That is the moment for which these words were spoken—Let not mercy and truth forsake thee, bind them upon thy neck (Pr. 33). Know that—By mercy and truth iniquity is purged away, and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil (Pr. 166). By the time a man has schooled himself to put those exhortations into practice, he will be in no danger of treating forgiveness lightly: true forgiveness is conditioned by the Moral Law, is no futile shutting-of-the-eyes to uneradicated sin, and may therefore call for faithfulness unto death and necessitate the greatest sacrifice earth knows, even the Cross of Christ.

And with the thought let us return to that saying of Ben Sirach, Strive for the truth unto death. “The Truth” is here to be interpreted in the fullest sense of the term; it means Righteousness or Justice; it denotes sincerity in things great and small, in thought word and deed. The proverb then may serve as a reminder of the uncompromisingly stern and perilous element in human experience. Until three years ago many men had no lively sense of that aspect of things. The sinister possibilities were not absent, but often they were fallaciously concealed. When a man catches the same train to town day after day and his outward circumstances are uneventful and regular as some slow-moving stream, he may easily be deluded into thinking that his inner, spiritual self is likewise pursuing the even tenor of its way; whereas in reality it may be waging a desperate battle against increasing pride, prejudice, hardness of heart, and a whole battalion of the Fiend’s picked legionaries. The Prosperous, consulting his bankbook, may easily be betrayed into saying “I shall not want,” whilst the soul within him is choking. If our essential life is spiritual and consists in our love of the True, the Good, the Beautiful, riches are likely to prove a thin armour against the enemy. But three long and terrible years of war have transformed the situation, and there are few to-day who do not know that there is “a striving for the truth unto death.” Little need now to emphasise the dark side of life; myriads are but too well acquainted with its tragedies.

The Jewish proverbs offer no philosophy of Suffering; for that one must go to the Christian religion, which has faced the worst of the problem and is unique in having found a reassuring answer. When, however, we turn to the immediate question, how best to meet and deal with hardship, physical or mental, behold! Christianity is content to appropriate the language of a Jewish proverb and reiterate its counsel, though with a glorious new confidence: Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.... For consider Him who endured such gainsaying of sinners against himself that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which reasoneth with you as with sons,

It is for discipline that ye endure; God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father doth not discipline? (Hebrews 121-7). To use or to refuse this idea of the educative opportunity in suffering makes an amazing difference to life. Says a commentator of the older school writing upon this passage in Proverbs: “First, Despise not the discipline.... Do not meet sorrow by a mere hardihood of nature. Let your heart flow down under trouble, for this is human: let it rise up also to God, for this is divine. And secondly, Faint not.... This is the opposite extreme. Do not be dissolved, as it were—taken down and taken to pieces by the stroke. You should retain presence of mind and exercise your faculties. If the bold would see God in his afflictions, he would not despise; if the timid would see God in them, he would not faint.... The same stroke may fall on two men and be in the one case judgement, in the other love. You may prune branches lying withered on the ground, and also branches living in the vine. In the two cases the operation and instrument are precisely alike; but the operation on this branch has no result, and the operation on that branch produces fruitfulness.”[152]

Never in living memory has there been greater need for wise and persuasive advice how to conduct oneself in time of anxiety and affliction. In the gales of life many a ship is flung on the rocks for lack of a little good seamanship on board. But ships need care even when they are sailing summer seas; and so, because one hopes that brighter days are coming to the world and coming soon, there is room for one more counsel in conclusion. Religion, and particularly Christianity, has been robbed of half of its power over men’s souls, by reason of the absurd and tragical notion that it bears chiefly on the woes of man and very little on his joys. On this score also the Jewish proverbs preach a useful and pleasant sermon, with their natural honest desire for the good things of life and their strong and salutary conviction that in Wisdom—being that fear of the Lord which is to depart from evil—will be found a never-failing source of refreshing happiness:

CHAPTER XIX

Faith