Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/437

 Gentile, or even if a Gentile has touched it, and that not only to drink it, but to make any use of it, or to sell it, or to be in any way employed about it, so as to make any profit by it.

"The wise men have been very strict with respect to the common Gentile wine, and have pronounced its price to be unlawful, as that of wine which has been consecrated to idolatry; therefore, if a Gentile have an Israelite to labour with him, in any thing concerning wine, his wages are unlawful. In like manner, if he hire an ass, or a ship, to carry wine, the hire thereof is unlawful: and if it be given to him in money, he is to throw it into the salt sea. But if the hire be given him in clothes, or vessels, or fruits, he is to burn them, and to bury their ashes, that no profit may arise therefrom. But if an Israelite has hired an ass to a Gentile to ride upon, and he lays upon it bottles of wine, then the hire thereof is lawful." (Ibid., c. xiii. 15, &c.) For all this there is no authority whatever in the law of Moses,—it is a pure invention of the rabbies, who had but little respect for the Divine law, and no consideration at all for the necessities of man. It is evident that these additions must, in many cases, become so many impediments in the way of earning a subsistence. The proprietor of a ship, or the owner of cattle, is cut off from one source of employment and profit. Now, even in the case of the rich, though they may feel it less, this is an unjustifiable severity; but in the case of the poor, it becomes a most cruel oppression. In the wine-countries, for example, a poor Jew might perchance find employment with some of the growers of that article; but the rabbies have declared that honest industry, in a matter which God has nowhere forbidden, is unlawful, and the fruits of it so abominable, as to be fit only for destruction. In this city, also, many examples of the absurdity and cruelty of this law might be found. Suppose that a Christian wine-merchant should wish to employ some one or more of those numerous Israelites, who are destitute of the means of earning a livelihood, and should therefore offer him a situation, either in his cellar or