Alluding to the laws inimical to the heathen, Rabbi Mosha says:  “What wise men have said in this respect was directed against the ancient idolators, who believed neither in a creation nor in a deliverance from Egypt; but the nations among whom we live, whose protection we enjoy, must not be considered in this light, since they believe in a creation, the divine origin of the law, and many other fundamental doctrines of our religion.  It is, therefore, not only our duty to shelter them against actual danger, but to pray for their welfare and the prosperity of their respective governments."[56]

   [56] Introductory Essay to Hebrew Tales, by Hyman Hurwitz;
        published at London in 1826.

Let the impartial reader compare these teachings of the Rabbis with the intolerant doctrines and practices of Christian pastors, even in modern times as well as during the Middle Ages:  when they taught that out of the pale of the Church there could be no salvation; that no faith should be kept with heretics, or infidels:  when Catholics persecuted Protestants, and Protestants retaliated upon Catholics: 

  Christians have burned each other, quite persuaded
  That all the Apostles would have done as they did!

It will probably occur to most readers, in connection with the rabbinical doctrine, that it is unlawful to over-reach any one, that the Jews appear to have long ignored such maxims of morality.  But it should be remembered that if they have earned for themselves, by their chicanery in mercantile transactions, an evil reputation, their ancestors in the bad old times were goaded into the practice of over-reaching by cunning those Christian sovereigns and nobles who robbed them of their property by force and cruel tortures.  Moreover, where are the people to be found whose daily actions are in accordance with the religion they profess?  At least, the Rabbis, unlike the spiritual teachers of mediaeval Europe, did not openly inculcate immoral doctrines.

II

LEGENDS OF SOME BIBLICAL CHARACTERS.

There is, no doubt, very much in the Talmud that possesses a recondite, spiritual meaning; but it would likely puzzle the most ingenious and learned modern Rabbis to construe into mystical allegories such absurd legends regarding Biblical personages as the following: 

Adam and Eve.

Adam’s body, according to the Jewish Fathers, was formed of the earth of Babylon, his head of the land of Israel, and his other members of other parts of the world.  Originally his stature reached the firmament, but after his fall the Creator, laying his hand upon him, lessened him very considerably.[57] Mr Hershon, in his Talmudic Miscellany, says there is a notion among the Rabbis that Adam was at first possessed of a bi-sexual organisation, and this conclusion they draw from Genesis i, 27, where it is said:  “God created man in his own image,