Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/432



"There are some things which the wise men have pronounced unlawful, although they have no foundation for the prohibition in the law, as bread of the Gentiles, even though an Israelite should have baked it for him—and cooked victuals, which the Gentiles have cooked. They have also pronounced it unlawful to drink at a Gentile table, even those drinks of which there can be no suspicion that wine of libation is mixed with them. And they pronounced these things unlawful to prevent the possibility of intermarriage," &c. (Ibid. 112.) There are many remarks suggested by this passage, but at present we limit ourselves to the prohibition of Gentile bread. It is here confessed that there is no foundation for it in the law of Moses, and that therefore the rabbies have no authority for the prohibition; and yet a very little consideration is sufficient to show that great inconvenience may arise. For instance, if a poor Jew is travelling in this country, exhausts his stock of money, and goes to a farm-house to ask relief, he cannot accept any meat—he is not to drink any milk on pain of a flogging. Suppose, then, that the people offer him some home-baked bread, even this is forbidden:—

"Bread baked by a private house-keeper is eternally forbidden." The poor man, therefore, may starve. But the inhumanity appears still more in the discussion of the question, whether and when it is lawful to eat baker's bread. The rabbies are divided. Some allow it, because the rule is—

"He that has fasted three days may lawfully eat Gentile bread, and as in many places of our captivity there is no Israelite baker, this case is considered parallel to that of him who has fasted three days. But there are others who say that it is unlawful, unless he has fasted three days, in the strictest sense of the word." (Ibid.) One would think that, in a case of doubt, men that had the fear of God would naturally incline to the side of mercy; but here we find teachers of religion forbidding what God has allowed, unless the victim of poverty has first endured the torment of starvation for three days; and in one case actually determining that a fellow-creature shall die