Clearly the multiplication of rules obscures principles.
The object of codification, to get at the full meaning
of principles, is defeated by its own success.
For it is always easier to follow rules than to apply
principles. Virtues are more attainable than virtue,
characteristics than character. And while it
is false to assert that Judaism attached more importance
to ritual than to religion, yet, the two being placed
on one and the same plane, it is possible to find
in co-existence ritual piety and moral baseness.
Such a combination is ugly, and people do not stop
to think whether the baseness would be more or less
if the ritual piety were absent instead of present.
But it is the fact that on the whole the Jewish codification
of religion did not produce the evil results possible
or even likely to accrue. The Jew was always distinguished
for his domestic virtues, his purity of life, his
sobriety, his charity, his devotion. These were
the immediate consequence of his Law-abiding disposition
and theory. Perhaps there was some lack of enthusiasm,
something too much of the temperate. But the facts
of life always brought their corrective. Martyrdom
was the means by which the Jewish consciousness was
kept at a glowing heat. And as the Jew was constantly
called upon to die for his religion, the religion ennobled
the life which was willingly surrendered for the religion.
The Messianic Hope was vitalised by persecution.
The Jew, devotee of practical ideals, became also
a dreamer. His visions of God were ever present
to remind him that the law which he codified was to
him the Law of God.
CHAPTER III
ARTICLES OF FAITH
It is often said that Judaism left belief free while
it put conduct into fetters. Neither half of
this assertion is strictly true. Belief was not
free altogether; conduct was not altogether controlled.
In the Mishnah (Sanhedrin, x. 1) certain classes
of unbelievers are pronounced portionless in the world
to come. Among those excluded from Paradise are
men who deny the resurrection of the dead, and men
who refuse assent to the doctrine of the Divine origin
of the Torah, or Scripture. Thus it cannot be
said that belief was, in the Rabbinic system, perfectly
free. Equally inaccurate is the assertion that
conduct was entirely a matter of prescription.
Not only were men praised for works of supererogation,
performance of more than the Law required; not only
were there important divergences in the practical rules
of conduct formulated by the various Rabbis; but there
was a whole class of actions described as ‘matters
given over to the heart,’ delicate refinements
of conduct which the law left untouched and were a
concern exclusively of the feeling, the private judgment
of the individual. The right of private judgment
was passionately insisted on in matters of conduct,
as when Rabbi Joshua refused to be guided as to his
practical decisions by the Daughter of the Voice,
the supernatural utterance from on high. The
Law, he contended, is on earth, not in heaven; and
man must be his own judge in applying the Law to his
own life and time. And, the Talmud adds, God
Himself announced that Rabbi Joshua was right.
