The learned Woman has always been a favourite subject with Jewish students; and her intellectual capabilities have been fully vindicated in many an essay and even fair-sized book. Less attention, however, has been paid to woman's claims as a devotional being whom the Temple, and afterwards the Synagogue, more or less recognised. At least it is not known to me that any attempt has been made to give, even in outline, the history of woman's relation to public worship. It is needless to say that the present sketch, which is meant to supply this want in some measure, lays no claim to completeness; but I venture to hope that it will help to direct the attention of the friends of research to the matter, and that it may induce others to deal more fully with the subject and do it the justice it deserves.
The earliest allusion to women's participation in public worship, is that in Exodus xxxviii. 8, to the women who assembled to minister at the door of the “tent of meeting,” of whose mirrors the lavers of brass were made (cf. 1 Sam. ii. 22). Philo, who is not exactly enamoured of the emancipation of women, and seeks to confine them to the “small state,” is here full of their praise. “For,” he says, “though no one enjoined them to do so, they of [pg 314] their own spontaneous zeal and earnestness contributed the mirrors with which they had been accustomed to deck and set off their beauty, as the most becoming first-fruits of their modesty, and of the purity of their married life, and, as one may say, of the beauty of their souls.” In another passage Philo describes the Jewish women as “competing with the men themselves in piety, having determined to enter upon a glorious contest, and to the utmost extent of their power to exert themselves so as not to fall short of their holiness.”
It is, however, very difficult to ascertain in what this ministry of women consisted. The Hebrew term “Zobeoth”264 would suggest the thought of a species of religious Amazons, who formed a guard of honour round the Sanctuary. Some commentators think that the ministry consisted in performing religious dances accompanied by various instruments. The Septuagint again speaks “of the women who fasted by the doors of the Tabernacle.” But most of the old Jewish expositors, as well as Onkelos, conceive that the women went to the tent of meeting to pray. Ibn Ezra offers the interesting remark, “And behold, there were women in Israel serving the Lord, who left the vanities of this world, and not being desirous of beautifying themselves any longer, made of their mirrors a free offering, and came to the tabernacle every day to pray and to listen there to the words of the commandments.” When we find that in 1 Sam. i. 12, “Hannah continued to pray before the Lord,” she was only doing there what many of her sisters did before and after her. We may also judge that it was from the number of these noble women, who made religion the aim of their lives, that the “twenty-two” heroines [pg 315] and prophetesses sprang who form part of the glory of Jewish history. Sometimes it even happened that their husbands derived their religious inspiration from them. Thus the husband of the prophetess Deborah is said to have been an unlettered man. But his wife made him carry to the Sanctuary the candles which she herself had prepared, this being the way in which she encouraged him to seek communion with the righteous.
The language in which the husband of the “Great Woman” of Shunem addresses his wife: “Wherefore wilt thou go to him” (the prophet)? “it is neither New Moon nor Sabbath” (2 Kings iv. 23), proves that on Festivals and Sabbaths the women used to attend some kind of worship, performed by the prophet, though we cannot say in what this worship consisted. The New Moon was especially a woman's holiday, and was so observed even in the Middle Ages, for the women refrained from doing work on that day. The explanation given by the Rabbis is that when the men broke off their golden earrings to supply material for the golden calf, the women refused to contribute their trinkets, for which good behaviour a special day of repose was granted to them. Some Cabbalists even maintain that the original worshippers of the golden calf continue to exist on earth, their souls having successively migrated into various bodies, while their punishment consists in this, that they are ruled over by their wives. Rather interesting as well as complimentary to women is the remark which the Rabbis made with regard to the “Great Woman.” As will be remembered, it is she who says, “I perceive that this (Elisha) is a holy man of God” (2 Kings iv. 19). In allusion to this verse the Talmud says: “From this fact we may infer that [pg 316] woman is quicker in recognising the worth of a stranger than man.”
The great woman, or women, continued to pray and to join in the public worship also after the destruction of the first Temple. Thus Esther is reported by tradition to have addressed God in a long extempore prayer before she presented herself before the throne of Ahasuerus to plead her people's cause; and women were always enjoined to attend the reading of the Book of Esther. When Ezra read the Law for the first time, he did so in the presence of the men and the women (Neh. viii. 3). In the Book of the Maccabees we read of “The women girt with sackcloth ... and the maidens that ran to the gates.... And all holding their hands towards heaven made supplication.” In the Judith legend, mention is also made of “Every man and woman ... who fell before the Temple, and spread out their sackcloth before the face of the Lord ... and cried before the God of Israel.” In the second Temple, the women, as is well known, possessed a court reserved for their exclusive use. There the great illuminations and rejoicings on the evening of the Feast of Tabernacles used to be held. On this occasion, however, the women were confined to galleries specially erected for them. It was also in this Women's Hall that the great public reading of certain portions of the Law by the king, once in seven years, used to take place, and women had also to attend at the function. On the other hand, it is hardly necessary to say that women were excluded from performing any important service in the Temple. If we were to trust a certain passage in the “Chapters of R. Eliezer,” we might perhaps conclude that during the first Temple, the wives of the Levites formed a part of the [pg 317] choir, but the meaning of the passage is too obscure and doubtful for us to be justified in basing on it so important an inference. Nor can the three hundred maidens who were employed for the weaving of the curtains in the Temple, be looked upon as having stood in closer connection with the Temple, or as having formed an order of women-priests or girl-devotees (as one might wrongly be induced to think by certain passages in Apocryphal writings of the New Testament). But on the other hand, it is not improbable that their frequent contact with the Sanctuary of the nation produced in them that religious enthusiasm and zeal which may account for the heroic death which—according to the legend—they sought and found after the destruction of the Temple. It is to be remarked that, according to the law, women were even exempted from putting their hands on the head of the victim, which formed an important item in the sacrificial worship. It is, however, stated by an eye-witness, that the authorities permitted them to perform this ceremony if they desired to do so, and that their reason for this concession was “to give calmness of the spirit, or satisfaction, to women.”
Still greater, perhaps, was “the calmness of spirit” given to women in the synagogue. We find in ancient epitaphs that such titles of honour were conferred upon them as “Mistress of the Synagogue,” and “Mother of the Synagogue,” and, though they held no actual office in the Synagogue, it is not improbable that they acquired these titles by meritorious work connected with a religious institution, viz.: Charity. There was, indeed, a tendency to exclude women from the synagogue at certain seasons, but almost all the authorities protest against it, many of them declaring such a notion to be quite un-Jewish. Some [pg 318] Jewish scholars even think that the ancient synagogues knew of no partition for women. I am rather inclined to think that the synagogue took for its model the arrangements in the Temple, and thus confined women to a place of their own. But, whether they sat side by side with the men or occupied a special portion of the edifice, there can be no doubt that the Jewish women were great synagogue-goers. To give only one instance. One Rabbi asks another: Given the case that the members of the synagogue are all descendants of Aaron, to whom then would they impart their blessing? The answer is, to the women who are there.
Of the sermon they were even more fond than their husbands. Thus one woman was so much interested in the lectures of R. Meir, which he was in the habit of giving every Friday evening, that she used to remain there so long that the candles in her house burnt themselves out. Her lazy husband, who stopped at home, so strongly resented having to wait in the dark, that he would not permit her to cross the threshold until she gave some offence to the preacher, which would make him sure that she would not venture to attend his sermons again.
The prayers they said were the Eighteen Benedictions which were prescribed by the Law. But it would seem that occasionally they offered short prayers composed by themselves as suggested by their personal feelings and needs. Thus, to give one instance, R. Johanan relates that one day he observed a young girl fall on her face and pray: “Lord of the world, Thou hast created Paradise, Thou hast created hell, Thou hast created the wicked, Thou hast created the righteous; may it be Thy will that I may not serve as a stumbling-block to them.” [pg 319] The fine Hebrew in which the prayer is expressed, and the notion of the responsibility of Providence for our actions, manifest a high degree of intelligence and reflection. It would also seem that some women went so far in their religious sensibility as to lead a regular ascetic life, and, according to the suggestion of some scholars, even took the vow of celibacy. Of these the Rabbis did not approve, and stigmatised them as the “destroyers of the world.” Perhaps it was just at this period that Judaism could not afford to give free play to those morbid feelings, degenerating into religious hysterics, which led some to join rival sects, and others to abandon themselves to the gross immorality we read of in the history of the Gnostics.
The same circumstances may have been the cause of public opinion being led to accept the view of R. Eliezer, who thought it inadvisable—it would seem on moral grounds—to permit woman to study the Law. This opinion was opposed to that of Ben Azzai, who considered it incumbent upon every father to teach his daughter Torah. But justified as the advice of R. Eliezer may have been in his own time, it was rather unfortunate that later generations continued to take it as the guiding principle for the education of their children. Many great women in the course of history indeed became law-breakers and studied Torah; but the majority were entirely dependent on men, and became in religious matters a sort of appendix to their husbands, who by their good actions insured salvation also for them, and sometimes the reverse. Thus there is a story about a woman which, put into modern language, would be to the effect that she married a minister and copied his sermons for him; he [pg 320] died, and she then married a cruel usurer, and kept his accounts for him.
The fact that women were exempted from certain affirmative laws, which become operative only at special seasons—e.g., the taking of the palm branch on the Feast of Tabernacles—must also have contributed to weaken their position as a religious factor in Judaism. The idea that women should vie with men in the fulfilment of every law, became even for the Rabbis a notion connected only with the remotest past. This is the impression one gains when reading the legend about Michal, the daughter of Saul, putting on phylacteries, or the wife of the prophet Jonah making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the three Festivals. It would indeed seem as if women were led to strive for the satisfaction of their religious wants in another direction. Yet it was said of Jewish women, “The daughters of Israel were stringent and laid certain restrictions on themselves.” They were also allowed to form a quorum by themselves for the purpose of saying the Grace, but they could not be counted along with males for this end. It was also against the early notion of the dignity of the congregation that women should perform any public service for men.
One privilege was left to women—that of weeping. In Judges xi. 40, we read of the daughters of Israel that went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah; while in 2 Chronicles xxxv. 25, we are told how “all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations.” Of this privilege they were not deprived, and if they were not allowed to sing any longer, they at least retained the right to weep as much as they pleased. Even in later times they held a public office as mourning [pg 321] women at funerals. In the Talmud fragments of compositions by women for such occasions are to be found. Indeed, woman became in these times the type of grief and sorrow. She cannot reason, but she feels much more deeply than man. Here is one instance from an old legend: Jeremiah said, “When I went up to Jerusalem (after the destruction of the Temple) I lifted my eyes and saw there a lonely woman sitting on the top of the mountain, her dress black, her hair dishevelled, crying, ‘Who will comfort me?’ I approached her and spake to her, ‘If thou art a woman, speak to me. If thou art a ghost, begone.’ She answered, ‘Dost thou not know me?... I am the Mother, Zion.’ ”
In general, however, the principle applied to women was: The king's daughter within the palace is all glorious (Psalm xlv. 14), but not outside of it. In the face of the “Femina in ecclesia taceat,” which was the ruling maxim with other religions, Jewish women could only feel flattered by this polite treatment by the Rabbis, though it meant the same thing. We must not think, however, that this prevented them from attending the service of the synagogue. According to the Tractate Sopherim, even “the little daughters of Israel were accustomed to go to the synagogue.” In the same tractate we find it laid down as “a duty to translate for them the portion (of the Law) of the week, and the lesson from the prophets” into the language they understand. The “King's daughter” occasionally asserted her rights without undue reliance on the opinion of the authorities. And thus being ignorant of the Hebrew language women prayed in the vernacular, though this was at least against the letter of the law. And many famous Rabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth [pg 322] centuries express their wonder that the “custom of women praying in other (non-Hebrew) languages extended over the whole world.” It is noteworthy that they did not suppress the practice, but on the contrary, they endeavoured to give to the Law such an interpretation as would bring it into accord with the general custom. Some even recommended it, as, for example, the author of The Book of the Pious, who gives advice to women to learn the prayers in the language familiar to them.
At about the same period a lengthy controversy was being waged by the commentators of the Talmud and the codifiers, about woman's partaking in the fulfilment of the laws for special seasons, from which, as already remarked, they were exempted. To the action itself there could not be much objection, but the difficulty arose when women also insisted on uttering the blessing. Now the point at issue was whether they could be permitted to say, for instance, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, etc., who hast sanctified us by Thy Commandments, and hast commanded us, concerning the taking of the Palm branch,” since in reality the women had not been commanded to do it. To such logical and systematic minds as Maimonides and R. Joseph Caro, the difficulty was insurmountable, and they forbade women to use the formula; but with the less consistent majority women carried their point. Rather interesting is the answer received by R. Jacob, of Corbeil, with regard to this question. This Rabbi is said to have enjoyed the mysterious power which enabled him to appeal in cases of doubt to the celestial authorities. Before them he put also this women's case for decision. Judgment was communicated to him in the verse from the Scriptures, “In all that Sarah saith unto Thee, hearken [pg 323] unto her voice” (Gen. xxi. 12). Nor was it unknown for a pious Jew to compose a special hymn for his wife's use in honour of the Sabbath.
How long this custom of women praying in the vernacular lasted, we have no means of ascertaining. Probably was already extinct about the end of the fifteenth century. For R. Solomon Portaleone, who lived in the sixteenth century, already regrets the abolition of “this beautiful and worthy custom.” “When they prayed in the vernacular,” he says, “they understood what they were saying, whilst now they only gabble off their prayers.” As a sort of compromise we may regard the various “Supplications”;265 they form a kind of additional prayers supplementary to the ordinary liturgy, and are written in German. Chiefly composed by women, they specially answer the needs of the sex on various occasions. These prayers deserve a full description by themselves, into which I cannot enter here; I should like only to mention that in one of these collections in the British Museum, a special supplication is added for servant-maids, and if I am not quite mistaken, also one for their mistresses.
It is also worth noticing that the manuals on the “Three Women's Commandments” (mostly composed in German, sometimes also in rhymes), contained much more than their titles would suggest. They rather served as headings to groups of laws, arranged under each commandment. Thus the first (about certain laws in Lev. xii. and xv.) becomes the motto for purity in body and soul; the second (the consecration of the first cake of the dough) includes all matters relating to charity, in which women were even reminded to encourage their newly married husbands not to withhold from the poor the [pg 324] tithes of the bridal dowry, as well as of their future yearly income; whilst the third (the lighting of the Sabbath lamp) becomes the symbol for spiritual light and sweetness in every relation of human life.
As another compromise may also be considered the institution of “Vorsugern” (woman-reader) or the “Woilkennivdicke” (the well-knowing one) who reads the prayers and translates them into the vernacular for the benefit of her less learned sisters. In Poland and in Russia, even at the present time, such a woman-reader is to be found in every synagogue, and from what I have heard the institution is by no means unknown in London. The various prayer-books containing the Hebrew text as well as the Jewish-German translation, which appear in such frequent editions in Russia, are mostly intended for the use of these praying women. Not uninteresting is the title-page of R. Aaron Ben Samuel's Jewish-German translations and collections of prayers which appeared in the beginning of the eighteenth century. He addressed the Jewish public in the following terms: “My dear brethren, buy this lovely prayer-book or wholesome tonic for body and soul, which has never appeared in such German print since the world began; and make your wives and children read it often, thus they will refresh their bodies and souls, for this light will shine forth into your very hearts. As soon as the children read it they will understand their prayers, by which they will enjoy both this world and the world to come.”
An earlier translator of the prayer-book addresses himself directly to the “pious women” whom he invites to buy his book, “in which they will see very beautiful things.” Recent centuries seem, on the whole, to have been distinguished [pg 325] for the number of praying-women they produced. The virtues which constituted the claim of women to religious distinction were modesty, charity, and daily attendance at the synagogue morning and evening. In the memorial books of the time hundreds of such women are noticed. Some used also to spin the “Fringes,” which they presented to their friends; others fasted frequently, whilst “Old Mrs. Hechele” not only attended the synagogue every day, and did charity to poor and rich, but also understood the art of midwifery, which she practised in the community without accepting payment for her services. According to R. Ch. J. Bachrach women used also to say the “Magnified” prayer in the synagogue when their parents left no male posterity.
In bringing to a close this very incomplete sketch, perhaps I ought to notice the confirmation of girls introduced during this century in some communities in Germany, which the “Reformed” Rabbis recommended, but of which the “Orthodox” Rabbis disapproved. It would be well if in the heat of such controversies both sides would remember the words of R. Zedekiah b. Abraham, of Rome, who with regard to a certain difference of opinion on some ritual question, says: “Every man receives reward from God for what he is convinced is the right thing, if this conviction has no other motive but the love of God.”
Roman Judaism has disappeared from our guide-books. Civilisation has levelled down the walls of the Ghetto, and its former inhabitants are not any longer “a people that dwell alone.” But with this well-deserved destruction a good deal of the interest was also destroyed which the traveller used to attach to “the peculiar people” enclosed in that terrible slum of Rome.
Still, if there is anything eternal in the “eternal city,” which was neither reconstructed by the Cæsars, nor improved upon by the Popes, it is the little Jewish community at Rome. It has survived the former; it has suffered for many centuries under the latter, and, partaking in the general revival which has come upon the Italian nation, it may still be destined for a great future. Indeed, the history of the relation of Israel to Rome is so old that it is not lacking even in legendary elements. On the day on which King Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh, the Rabbis narrate, there came down the angel Gabriel. He put a reed into the sea, which, by means of the slime that adhered to it, formed itself, in the course of time, into a large island, on which the city of Rome was built—an event with which the troubles of Israel began. These [pg 327] were the evil consequences of the first mésalliance. Even more unfortunate for Israel (and it is not impossible that this is the meaning of the legend) were the results of that spiritual mixed marriage between Judaism and paganism which took place at a much later period, whereat a blunt soldier, who sympathised with neither, and “who dealt in salvation as he dealt in provinces,” acted as best man. As a fact, the parties concerned never understood each other properly. The declaration of love, and the final proposal, were made in an Alexandrine jargon, strange to both, the obscurities of which only grew with the commentaries each successive generation added to them. Under such circumstances, a happy union was not to be expected, and the family quarrel which fills the annals of civilised Europe soon broke out. Judaism, more particularly Roman Judaism, witnessed this struggle from the beginning, and its fortunes were greatly dependent on the chance which of these two elements, the Jewish or the pagan, won the ascendency.
However, I am theologising too much, whilst I am deviating from the subject of these lines. Nor could I think of giving here, even in outline, the history of the oldest Jewish community in Europe. This has been already admirably done by Dr. A. Berliner, who has made the history of the Jews of Rome the subject of his studies for nearly a quarter of a century. I intend only to reproduce here, in a stray fashion, some of those impressions and reflections which, I am certain, must occur to every Jewish traveller in Italy.
Now I do not think for a moment that we Jews should have a point of view of our own for looking at things and men in this paradise of Europe. It would be as silly to [pg 328] have a Jewish Baedeker as to think of orthodox mathematics or an ecclesiastical logic or a racial morality—though unfortunately there exist such things. But on the other hand, if we have not, like the fox in the fable, left our heart at home, let us not do violence to our feelings by passing over everything Jewish, over sights which might remind us of our history, with a certain indifference which would be affected on our part. We are not all little Goethes, nor even little Ruskins, and our artistic enjoyment is hardly so intense as to shut our hearts against impressions which force themselves upon us either by the way of remembrance of the past, or even as a living contrast in the present.
It so happened that my first visit to the Vatican was on a Friday. After doing my work in the Vatican Library, which is open till noon, I went into the adjoining Church of St. Peter.
One should be, like the angel of death in the legend, full of eyes, properly to see all the wonders of art and marvels of architecture at which human genius and piety laboured busily through centuries, in adorning the grandest of sacred buildings in the world. But there is Baedeker or Murray serving at least as a pair of good spectacles to the layman, and it was by their aid that I made my round in St. Peter. But lo, whilst you are observing the celebrated Pietà by Michael Angelo, and, according to the instruction of your guides, admiring both the grief of the Mother and the death of the Son, you notice in its vicinity a little column, surrounded by rails to which the pilgrims approach with a certain awe; for “Tradition affirms it to have been brought from Jerusalem.” Naturally, one is instantly reminded of the report, given by the [pg 329] famous traveller of Tudela, of the curiosities of Rome, which among other things records, “That there are also to be seen in St. Giovanni in Porta Latina (probably meant for Lateran) the two brazen pillars, constructed by King Solomon of blessed memory, whose name, Solomon, the son of David, is engraved upon each; of which he was also told that every year about the 9th of Ab (the anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem), these pillars sweat so much that water runs down from them.” So far Benjamin of Tudela in the twelfth century. In our days pillars weep no longer, and even of men it is considered a special sign of good breeding to behave pillar-like; but a sigh is still permissible at the sight of this temple-column, which in its captivity symbolises, not less than the Pietà, the grief of a whole people. Of course, not possessing on the spot either the Itinerary or even Urlick, one is unable to establish the connection between these two traditions and their claim to authenticity. Perhaps one may even comfort oneself on the same ground on which the famous curé tried to appease his flock who were sobbing bitterly at his telling them the Passion story. He exclaimed: “My children, do not weep so much; it happened long ago, and even perhaps is not quite true.”
However, the Vatican is the last place in the world to exercise your critical faculties; you are so deeply absorbed in seeing, that you have no time to think. So on I went, from aisle to aisle, from niche to niche, from chapel to chapel, looking, staring, and admiring, till of a sudden my eyes were struck by a large statue, on which the words, “Thou shalt have no other God before me,” are engraved. There I stood before a question of exegesis, where one is [pg 330] permitted to use his right senses without any regard to the æsthetic side. Yet not all the manifold expositions of the Decalogue, nor all the talk about the subjective-objective, the absolute and the real, with which metaphysicians have tried to confuse the notion of the Unity of God, will reconcile one to the meaning which Mediæval Art has impressed upon the Ten Commandments. The truth has to be sought elsewhere, and thus my thoughts were turned to the synagogue, and thither I went.
The day was already drawing to its close, and, by a marvellous coincidence, I arrived at the synagogue just as the congregation was intoning the words: “The Lord is one, and His name is one to His renown and glory.” Here was sound, simple exegesis, though sadly lacking in the illustrative matter in which the Vatican is so rich. But what need was there of any real or artificial “aid to the believer,” in the presence of such a living faith, as enabled this little community to maintain its protesting position in the teeth of the mistress of the world! And this even at a time, when it only required a hint from the successors of the old Roman Emperors to make the whole world renounce its right of thinking and judging, and, were we to believe Herr Janssen, even to feel perfectly happy in this torpor.
But, by the way, are our own times much better? As I write these lines (October 1893) I hear that a Bill has been brought into the German Diet, asking that the Talmud should be submitted to a Commission (which en passant, has been sitting in unbroken session in that country since the days of Pfefferkorn in the fifteenth century) with the purpose of examining its contents, while in the Vatican the very pupils of Loyola are offering every convenience [pg 331] and comfort to the student who should care to devote his time to Rabbinic literature. Does not the work of a great number of our poets, historians, theologians, and so-called seers in this blessed century of ours, in many respects prove but a strained effort to destroy the few humanitarian principles which were established a few generations ago, as well as to deify every brutal warrior who was successful in his day? Again, is the national idea so much sublimer, so much grander, than that of a universal religion, that we would willingly permit the former to employ the means which have been denied to the latter as inhuman and barbarous? Every age has its own idolatry, and the eternal wandering Jew will always be the chosen victim of the Moloch in fashion.
Let us, however, return to the synagogue, which withstood many a cruelty, both ancient and modern. The place where the synagogue stands is near the Ghetto, now called Piazza di Scuola. It is, besides a few other communal houses, the only building left there,—all those narrow, dirty, and typhoid-breeding streets which formed the old Ghetto having been demolished by a sage and humane government, which by this action wiped out the last stain from its history. There, on this vast blank is the synagogue, a comparatively small, insignificant building, laden with heavy age and looking down on her children whom she has been nursing, consoling, and protecting for centuries, but who, now grown old, have forsaken her and scattered to all the ends of the city. Of all her former acquaintances there appears to be left only father Tiber, who would seem to be murmuring to her many an old tale of the times before she was called into existence. And if he listened to the special prayers [pg 332] recited within her walls by the deputies of the Jewish communities, when preparing themselves to go to the court of the Pope, the Tiber heard many a sigh and cry, wrung out from the heart of a Jewish captive who, preferring death to slavery even under the masters of the world, found his last repose in its waters. But insignificant as this synagogue appears, she proved the spiritual bulwark against all the attacks of the time, and you admire her brave resistance all the more when you look at that multitude of churches and cloisters in the closest vicinity of the Ghetto, impressing you as so many intrenchments, all directing their missiles and weapons against this humble, defenceless building, threatening it with death and destruction. One of these churches, probably founded by some Jewish convert, who gained in it both salvation and a good living, bears on its gates in Hebrew letters the inscription: “I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in the way that was not good, after their own thoughts. A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face” (Isaiah lxv. 2, 3). Menace is followed by persuasion, the cited verses being accompanied by the Latin words: “Indulgentia plenaria quotodiana perpetua pro vivis et defunctis.” Theologians who like to quarrel most about things they can know least, have for ages discussed the question, whether prayers for the dead are of any use; here the matter is decided by a simple advertisement. It is not to be denied that one would enjoy the fortunes accumulated by one's late sinner of an uncle all the better for being sure that a few pennyworths of prayer enable the legatee to make one's benefactor in Hades comfortable and happy.
[pg 333]The thought is very consoling indeed, and it is not to be wondered at that the Roman synagogue could not entirely withstand its temptations, and introduced into the offering-blessing after one is called up to the Torah, the words: “To the advancing of the soul of the departed.” Of course much of this tendency may be attributed to the Ford Jabbok,266 which was and is still very popular in that country; but the fact that the author of this Jewish “Book of the Dead” was an Italian (from Modena), shows clearly that there was some Catholic influence at work, from which even the fellow-countrymen of Azariah de Rossi and Judah Messer Leon could not entirely emancipate themselves.
I ought to have spoken of Roman synagogues, since the building in the Ghetto to which I have been constantly alluding comprises four prayer-houses devoted to Spanish and Italian rites. It says much for Roman Judaism, that they did not consider ritual differences of such importance as to prevent them from forming one community for all charitable and congregational purposes. In Verona and in Modena some congregations even retained the German rite, which their ancestors who immigrated from the Rhine provinces brought with them, whilst they accepted the Spanish pronunciation. I wish that the Anglo-Jewish community could see their way to imitate their example. Not that I think for a moment that the Spanish pronunciation is more correct than the German. Each system has its own mistakes and corruptions; and it is more than probable that the prophet Isaiah, or even the author of Ecclesiastes, would be as little able to follow the prayers in Bevis Marks as in Duke's Place. But since the non-Jewish scientific world has, though only by pure [pg 334] accident, accepted the Spanish way of reading the Hebrew, I should like to see this trifling difference of Baruch over Buruch at last disappear, by pronouncing the camets-vowel a instead of o, and accepting similar little changes, which are of no real importance to us.
The inside of these synagogues is even more simple than their outside. I was told that the synagogue which was burned down last winter, and which also formed a part of this building, could boast of many fine decorations and carvings, etc., but I could observe nothing of the kind in the synagogues I had occasion to frequent. Nor is there much of natural decorum in them, and they reconcile one perfectly to the worst of the Small Synagogues elsewhere. I venture to think that in this respect, too, we have to recognise Catholic influence. It was, I think, one of the leaders in the Oxford Movement who expressed his delight at seeing in Italy a woman poorly-dressed coming into the church, who, after putting down the basket from her back, kneels before one of the many altars and says her prayers. A good deal of this familiarity in the place of worship may also be noticed in the Roman synagogues, where I have seen a woman come into the partition for men, notwithstanding their having a separate gallery, without bonnet or hat on her head, and with an infant in her arms, and listen there to the prayers, till she walked home with her husband. The other people were also very restless, coming and going often, whilst, as soon as the reading of the Law was over, the greater part of the worshippers left the synagogue. It was not a very delightful sight. A minus of decorum does not always mean a plus of devotion; just as little as a maximum of respectability and stiffness are to be taken as signs of true piety.
[pg 335]It is not uninteresting to notice that the Roman synagogue, in spite of its old traditions, did not entirely shut itself against modern reforms. Among them there is that of “calling up the people to the Torah” by the simple formula, “Let the Priest” (or “the Levite”) “step forth,”267 and so on, not mentioning either names or titles, which I should like to recommend most strongly to our congregations. I hope that no man will suspect me of such heresy as that of questioning the wisdom of the Synagogue Regulations. But I am inclined to think that the business of conferring the degrees of Rabbi, “Associate” or “Master,” does not exactly fall within the sphere of activity of the Wardens. The matter could only be decided by a proper Board of examination. As the Council is not provided with such a Board, nor is every aspirant to this honour prepared to undergo the examination required, the wisest course would be to give up titles altogether, calling up all people alike in the way indicated.
The robes the ministers wear (somewhat similar to those of the Greek clergy), are probably also an innovation of modern date,—the old orthodox Rabbis looking at any special vestment for the Preacher or Reader with the same feeling of disgust which the old Puritans entertained for surplice or mitre. But the principle of “The Beauty of Holiness” proved too strong for resistance, and it was only a pardonable vanity when the reformers applied it to their own persons; “Vanity of vanities,” saith the preacher, so often, that he gets rather to like it. This vanity is greatly redeemed by the fact that the preacher does not grudge his uniform to his humbler brother, the beadle, who is in most cases to be distinguished from the officiating ministry only by the brass-plate on his breast, [pg 336] on which the word “Servant” is engraved. Considering the great confusion arising from the meaningless “Reverend” and the universal white neck-tie, such a label, indicating the proper office of the bearer, might, perhaps, prove as useful among the English Jews as it is among the Jews of Rome.
It was with a pupil of the Rabbinical College, in company with his friends, that I took my first walk through ancient Rome. I felt attracted to him by his striking face of that peculiar fine Jewish type, which is more common among the Jews in the East than among us. And when he was reading the lesson from the Prophets in the synagogue, where I made his acquaintance, he reminded me of that Jewish boy with bright eyes, black curls, and features strikingly beautiful walking as a captive from Jerusalem through the streets of Rome some seventeen centuries ago, whose proficiency in the words of Isaiah caused his redemption. It would be an exaggeration to say that my companion's remarks were very instructive from an artistic point of view. Being born and bred in Rome, he passed with utter indifference many objects which we are bidden to admire, whilst at others he actually shouted out “Image,” or made some other prosaic remark. But in a country where one is determined to play the heathen for so many weeks, to worship superannuated deities, to get into raptures at every reminiscence of superseded and vanishing religions, and to be delighted at the sights of “greasy saints and martyrs hairy,” there can be no great harm in being called back to one's true nature.
The feelings crowding upon one, when entering that part of the ancient city which probably was in the mind of the Rabbis when they spoke of “Guilty Rome,” are [pg 337] of a conflicting nature. Every stone and every brick there saw the humiliation of Israel, in every theatre and every circus the Jew served as a comic figure, and was held up to ridicule, whilst there was, perhaps, hardly a single lane or gate through which those who resented the yoke of the “anti-Semites of Antiquity” did not pass, in order to “be butchered to make a Roman holiday.” What concerns a Jew most in this perished world of ruins, and at the same time causes him the deepest grief, is the triumphal arch of Titus, “commemorating the defeat of the Jews, and dedicated to him by his successor, Domitian.” Enough has been said and written about it both by antiquarians and theologians, the former admiring the workmanship of the reliefs, the latter perceiving in it a proof of the fulfilment of the well-known passages in the New Testament about the destruction of the Temple, which came to pass in spite of the efforts made by Titus to save it. Those who have read Bernay's essay on the “Chronik des Sulpicius Severus” know that the behaviour of “the delight of the human species” on that occasion is rather open to doubt, and it is more probable that, instead of trying to rescue it, he commanded that it should be set on fire. Josephus, who witnessed the shame of his compatriots and co-religionists, has left us a full account of the triumphal procession. Only a flunkey like Josephus could maintain that calm indifference with which he describes the events of the “bitter day,” the perusal of which makes one's blood boil. His description fairly agrees with the famous relief on the arch, showing that part of the procession in which the table with the shewbread, the candlestick with the seven lamps, and the golden trumpets figure as the chief objects. [pg 338] The only thing which we miss is the “Law of the Jews,” which, according to Josephus, was carried in the triumph as “the last of all the spoils.” Was it only an oversight of the artist, or had he no place for it, or is it Josephus who committed the error, mistaking some other object for the Scroll of the Law? I dearly hope that this last was the case, and that Heine was under the impulse of a true and real and poetic inspiration when he wrote (speaking of the Holy Scripture to which he owed his conversion): “The Jews, who appreciate the value of precious things, knew right well what they did when, at the burning of the second temple they left to their fate the golden and silver implements of sacrifice, the candlesticks and lamps, even the breastplate of the High Priest adorned with great jewels, but saved the Bible. This was the real treasure of the temple, and, thanks be to God! it was not left a prey to the flames, nor to the fury of Titus Vespasian, the wretch, who, as the Rabbi tells us, met with so dreadful a death.”
However, there were others who brought the glad tidings of the Old Testament to Rome long before there existed a New one. And this is, on the other side, what makes Rome a sort of Terra Sancta even to the Jew. It is true that we have not to look for the footprints of the prophets, for whom even tradition never claimed “the gift of missionary-travelling.” But might not the ground there have received a sort of consecration by the fact that it was traversed by the ambassadors of Judas Maccabæus (about 161 b.c.) “to make a league of amity and confederacy” with the Roman Senate? Of the embassy of Simon the Maccabee (about 140 b.c.) there is actual historical evidence that they began to propagate in Rome the Jewish [pg 339] religion. Some seventy or eighty years later the Jews had already their own quarter in Rome, with their own synagogues, which they were in the habit of visiting, “most especially on the sacred Sabbath days, when they publicly cultivate their national philosophy.” That many of the oldest teachers of Israel, the Tannaim, went to Rome as deputies, and that one of them (R. Mathia ben Chares) founded a school there early in the second century, is also an authenticated fact. One would like to know what they taught, and in what way they expounded their national philosophy. Most of all one would like to know what were the spiritual means they employed in their proselytising work, in which they were, according to the testimony of history, so successful. Did they preach in the streets? Or did they hold public controversies? Or did they even send out Epistles which, in form at least, served as a model to apostles of another creed? How many a problem would be solved; how many a miracle would disappear; how many a book would become superfluous, if we could obtain certainty about these points! The Talmud tells us little, almost nothing, about these important things, whilst we get from the Roman writers only sneers and raillery. To these respectable Romans the Jews were only a mob of unlettered atheists. Indeed, to a good orthodox heathen, a religion without images and statues, with a God without a pedigree and without a theogony, was an impossible thing. Those poor metaphysicians!
However, why dwell so long on a past world? A famous Rabbi once exclaimed: “If a man would ask thee, ‘Where is thy God?’ answer him: ‘In the great city of Rome.’ ” The underlying idea was the mystical notion [pg 340] that wherever Israel had to migrate, they were accompanied by the Divine presence. And Rome was, in the times of the Rabbis, the point to which the streams of Jewish migration from the Holy Land chiefly converged. But now, instead of to Rome, might we not point to London and New York as centres of Jewish migrations?