[6475] In general palm-trees and their fruit are dangerous, and you should always wash your hands after eating dates. __________________________________________________________________
THE ORDINANCES AND LAW OF THE SABBATH AS LAID DOWN IN THE MISHNAH AND THE JERUSALEM TALMUD.
(See Book III. ch. xxxv. in vol. ii. p. 52.)
The terribly exaggerated views of the Rabbis, and their endless, burdensome rules about the Sabbath may best be learned from a brief analysis of the Mishnah, as further explained and enlarged in the Jerusalem Talmud. [6476] For this purpose a brief analysis of what is, confessedly, one of the most difficult tractates may here be given.
The Mishnic tractate Sabbath stands at the head of twelve tractates which together from the second of the six sections into which the Mishnah is divided, and which treats of Festive Seasons (Seder Moed). Properly to understand the Sabbath regulations, it is, however, necessary also to take into account the second tractate in that section, which treats of what are called commixtures' or connections' (Erubin). Its object is to make the Sabbath Laws more bearable. For this purpose, it is explained how places, beyond which it would otherwise have been unlawful to carry things, may be connected together, so as, by a legal fiction, to convert them into a sort of private dwelling. Thus, supposing a number of small private houses to open into a common court, it would have been unlawful on the Sabbath to carry anthing from one of these houses into the other. This difficulty is removed if all the families deposit before the Sabbath some food in the common court, when a connection' is established between the various house, which makes them one dwelling. This was called the Erubh of Courts.' Similarly, an extension of what was allowed as a Sabbath journey' might be secured by another commixture,' the Erubh' or connection of boundaries.' An ordinary Sabbath day's journey extended 2,000 cubits beyond one's dwelling. [6477] But if at the boundary of that journey' a man deposited on the Friday food for two meals, he thereby constituted it his dwelling, and hence might go on for other 2,000 cubits. Lastly, there was another Erubh,' when narrow streets or blind alleys were connected into a private dwelling' by laying a beam over the entrance, or extending a wire or rope along such streets and alleyways. This, by a legal fiction, made them a private dwelling,' so that everything was lawful there which a man might do on the Sabbath in his own house.
Without discussing the possible and impossible questions about these Erubin raised by the most ingenious casuistry, let us see how Rabbinism taught Israel to observe its Sabbath. In not less than twenty-four chapters, [6478] matters are seriously discussed as of vital religious importance, which one would scarcely imagine a sane intellect would seriously entertain. Through 64½ folio columns in the Jerusalem, and 156 double pages of folio in the Babylon Talmud does the enumeration and discussion of possible cases, drag on, almost unrelieved even by Haggadah. [6479] The Talmud itself bears witness to this, when it speaks(no doubt exaggeratedly) of a certain Rabbi who had spent no less than two and a half years in the study of only one of those twenty-four chapters! And it further bears testimony to the unprofitableness of these endless discussions and determinations. The occasion of this is so curious and characteristic, that it might here find mention. The discussion was concerning a beast of burden. An ass might not be led out on the road with its covering on, unless such had been put on the animal previous to the Sabbath, but it was lawful to lead the animal about in this fashion in one's courtyard. [6480] The same rule applied to a packsaddle, provided it were not fastened on by girth and back-strap. Upon this one of the Rabbis is reported as bursting into the declaration that this formed part of those Sabbath Laws (comp. Chag. i. 8) which were like mountains suspended by a hair! (Jer. Shabb. p. 7, col. b, last lines). And yet in all these wearisome details there is not a single trace of anything spiritual - not a word even to suggest higher thoughts of God's holy day and its observance.