LETTER FROM ISRAEL
507
section in the Talmud dealing with crime and punishment. Unlike
English law, the Talmud seeks to prepare in advance an elaborate code
for every conceivable contingency. Since it was written two thousand
years ago, these applications now seem exotic, sometimes absurd, some–
times barbaric, like English and American legislation a hundred years
ago. But the principles involved, the reasoning by which the law is
decided, shows a delicate and humane attitude. It is written in a
dedicated spirit, with Mosaic Law as its essence and with the relation–
ship between religious faith and political living prominent in their con–
siderations. I should not like to see it rewritten by some keen brained
rationalistic modern lawyer. The young men with side curls are not
effeminate pedants. They drive tractors, are good soldiers, have first–
rate brains. On the Sabbath, since no flame may be kindled, the electric
lights are left on all night. There is a divinity in their apparent ab–
surdities. They firmly advocate the Sabbatical year which comes once
in every seven years and when they demand that all agricultural work
shall cease. They argue that if stock piles are laid in, no one will starve.
They urge that man must recognize that he is the tenant, not the
lord, of the earth. He must voluntarily cede back to God. This recogni–
tion of the supremacy of God, the necessity for man's humility, is the
reason for their constant prayers and observances. Man's disasters, they
claim, have all proceeded from his attempts to build codes of law on
expediency, enlightened self-interest, common sense, necessity, rational–
ism, and all the other names for the short term immediate advantage,
comfort and good business. Their theological pedantry is a safeguard
against the slightest backsliding, the thin edge of the wedge. They desire
the Torah-State, the state in strict conformity with the Mosaic law, the
Hebrew equivalent of the Church-State. I spent the Sabbath with
them. Despite their religious intensity, there is a relaxation, an ease
among them. A service came before the Sabbath Eve meal and after–
wards people sat in groups talking and drinking wine beneath the
lights hung in the trees. In the morning, prayers until eleven and then
breakfast. In the afternoon, singing, about fifty people joining in, some
of the most fervent and full-throated singing I have heard. When the
sun sets and the dusk grows, they sing the songs of farewell to the
Sabbath, sitting in the dark while the sun dwindles to a red tiddley–
wink and sinks into the sea. In the gloom, while the lamps are kindled,
is for them a sad moment. They regard the Sabbath as a bride, the
union with God, and many have memories of the European small
towns when it was the oasis in the week, when drudgery gave way
to the napery and the wine.
