After this full exposition, it can only be necessary to refer in briefest manner to those other observances which orthodox Judaism had received to hold.' They connect themselves with those eighteen decrees, intended to separate the Jew from all contact with Gentiles. Any contact with a heathen, even the touch of his dress, might involve such defilement, that on coming from the market the orthodox Jew would have to immerse. Only those who know the complicated arrangements about the defilements of vessels that were in any part, however small, hollow, as these are described in the Mishnah (Tractate Kelim), can form an adequate idea of the painful minuteness with which every little detail is treated. Earthen vessels that had contracted impurity were to be broken; those of wood, horn, glass, or brass immersed; while, if vessels were bought of Gentiles, they were (as the case might be) to be immersed, put into boiling water, purged with fire, or at least polished. [3362]
Let us now try to realise the attitude of Christ in regard to these ordinances about purification, and seek to understand the reason of His bearing. That, in replying to the charge of the Scribes against His disciples, He neither vindicated their conduct, nor apologised for their breach of the Rabbinic ordinances, implied at least an attitude of indifference towards traditionalism. This is the more noticeable, since, as we know, the ordinances of the Scribes were declared more precious, [3363] [3364] and of more binding importance than those of Holy Scripture itself. [3365] But, even so, the question might arise, why Christ should have provoked such hostility by placing Himself in marked antagonism to what, after all, was indifferent in itself. The answer to this inquiry will require a disclosure of that aspect of Rabbinism which, from its painfulness, has hitherto been avoided. Yet it is necessary not only in itself, but as showing the infinite distance between Christ and the teaching of the Synagogue. It has already been told, how Rabbinism, in the madness of its self-exaltation, represented God as busying Himself by day with the study of the Scriptures, and by night with that of the Mishnah; [3366] and how, in the heavenly Sanhedrin, over which the Almighty presided, the Rabbis sat in the order of their greatness, and the Halakhah was discussed, and decisions taken in accordance with it. [3367] Terrible as this sounds, it is not nearly all. Anthropomorphism of the coarsest kind is carried beyond the verge of profanity, when God is represented as spending the last three hours of every day in playing with Leviathan, [3368] and it is discussed, how, since the destruction of Jerusalem, God no longer laughs, but weeps, and that, in a secret place of His own, according to Jer. xiii. 17. [3369] Nay, Jer. xxv. 30 is profanely misinterpreted as implying that, in His grief over the destruction of the Temple, the Almighty roars like a lion in each of the three watches of the night. [3370] The two tears which He drops into the sea are the cause of earthquakes; although other, though not less coarsely realistic, explanations are offered of this phenomenon. [3371]
Sentiments like these, which occur in different Rabbinic writings, cannot be explained away by any ingenuity of allegorical interpretation. There are others, equally painful, as regards the anger of the Almighty, which, as kindling specially in the morning, when the sun-worshippers offer their prayers, renders it even dangerous for an individual Israelite to say certain prayers on the morning of New Year's Day, on which the throne is set for judgment. [3372] Such realistic anthropomorphism, combined with the extravagant ideas of the eternal and heavenly reality of Rabbinism and Rabbinic ordinances, help us to understand, how the Almighty was actually represented as saying prayers. This is proved from Is. lvi. 7. Sublime through the language of these prayers is, we cannot but notice that the all covering mercy, for which He is represented as pleading, is extended only to Israel. [3373] It is even more terrible to read of God wearing the Tallith, [3374] or that He puts on the Phylacteries, which is deduced from Is. lxii. 8. That this also is connected with the vain-glorious boasting of Israel, appears from the passage supposed to be enclosed in these Phylacteries. We know that in the ordinary Phylacteries these are: Exod. xiii. 1-10; 10-16; Deut. vi. 4-10; xi. 13-22. In the Divine Phylacteries they were: 1 Chron. xvii. 21; Deut. iv. 7-8; xxxiii. 29; iv. 34; xxvi. 19. [3375] Only one other point must be mentioned as connected with Purifications. To these also the Almighty is supposed to submit. Thus He was purified by Aaron, when He had contracted defilement by descending into Egypt. [3376] This is deduced from Lev. xvi. 16. Similarly, He immersed in a bath of fire, [3377] after the defilement of the burial of Moses.