In listening to a. Jew expatiating on such subjects, one is forcibly reminded of the saying of our Lord, — ' Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and ye neglect the weightier matters of the law,— judgement, mercy, and faith.' Such questions are discussed in the Talmud, and the first desire of an ambitious youth amongst the Jews is to study the Talmud. An acquaintance with several of the sciences is necessary to success; and in general the student devotes himself to the study of these with the closest application, that he may afterwards overcome the difficulties to be encountered in his subsequent progress.
They appear to have a passion for such pursuits; even boys at school challenge each other to a trial of skill in expounding the Talmud. In such cases they go to the Rabbi, and inform him of their design; he then appoints them a passage, and they seat themselves at the extremities of the room, or in different apartments, to perform their task. In a given time they each produce a written exposition of the passage prescribed. These are submitted to the Rabbi, and the contest is determined by his decision on their respective merits.
It occasionally happens, when the children of wealthy Jews marry, that the father of the bridegroom challenges the father of the bride to support the newly married pair and their family for twenty years, or some other terra of years, on condition of his doing the same. If the challenge be accepted, contracts are executed, and the young man generally devotes himself with close application to the study of the Talmud. If his success be considerable, his friends boast of his achievements, and congratulate themselves sa3'ing, ' Aye, he'll be a Rabbi yet!'
To attain this dignity it is necessary in some provinces to go through a protracted course of severe study. It is rarely the case that this can be completed before the student has reached his thirtieth year. If it be accomplished at an earlier age, the hair of the student, prematurely grey, generally testifies to his mental effort.
II does not appear to be avarice, or ambition, or the desire of usefulness, which alone prompts to the laborious and self-de lying life of a student of the Talmud. Combined with one or more of these motives, is the hope of having made some attainment whereof they may glory before God. ' They have a zeal of God, but not according to the thing which is good; in which case they themselves might have had to give to him that needeth. And the peasantry complain that they are impoverished, they know not how, while their Jewish neighbours have enough and to spare. It is so in part, if not entirely, through their wasting their earnings upon intoxicating drinks which, like many of Anglo-Saxon descent living amongst people easily tempted to indulge in such stimulants, the Jews who have invested their capital in suitable premises are willing, and more than willing, to sell to them; but which they need not buy or consume unless they choose. Others, influenced by patriotism, or by philanthrophy, or by loss coming upon them indirectly from the evil, may have some right to complain; but the immediate victims have none — they are reaping the rewards of their own doings.
Of the extent to which the fathers and mothers, wives and children, and brothers and sisters, of drunken peasants have occasion to complain of the drink traffic, and of the drink traffic carried on by the Jews in Russia, some idea may be formed from facts stated by Madame Novikoff in an article in the Nineteenth Century, of September 1832, based on statements in a valuable work entitled L' Empire des Tzar, et les Russes, by M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu.
From the sixteenth century onwards efforts have been made by patriotic Russians to restrain the indulgence of the people in intoxicating drink. It is within my personal knowledge that not a little was done by the Emperor Nicholas. More was done in more propitious circumstances by his successor, the emancipator of the serfs. From a tabulated statement in the Novoie Vremia it knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God,' said Paul of his brethren in his day, and so may seem to devout Christians, and many of the Jews in the present. The zeal of God is there, and in this it makes itself seen.
It seems, then, to be most desirable that some, at least, of those who devote themselves to labour amongst the Jews, should be prepared to cope with the most learned in the discussion of the most subtile of Talmudical speculations, otherwise contempt for the intellectual attainments of the missionary may prevent an attentive consideration being given to the doctrines which he teaches in the name of Jesus.