Part 42 (2/2)

(Signed) ”Moses Montefiore.”

CHAPTER XLV.

1846.

REPORT TO COUNT OUVAROFF ON THE STATE OF EDUCATION AMONG THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND--VINDICATION OF THE LOYALTY OF THE JEWS.

The report to Count Ouvaroff, Minister of Public Instruction at St Petersburg, was as follows:--

”To His Excellency, le Comte Ouvaroff, Ministre de l'Instruction publique de sa Majeste l'Empereur de Russie, &c., &c., &c.

”May it please your Excellency,--The zealous and untiring energy which your Excellency evinces in continual efforts to promote education, and to diffuse amongst all cla.s.ses of His Imperial Majesty's subjects that important blessing, Knowledge, will, I feel a.s.sured, induce you to pardon me if I venture to lay before your Excellency such observations on the present condition of my brethren in Russia, with respect to their educational establishments, as by your Excellency's favour I have been enabled to make.

”Previously to my doing so, I beg leave to present my warmest acknowledgments for the very kind and condescending manner in which your Excellency was pleased to convey to me the sentiments of His Imperial Majesty's Government. I shall ever remember with grat.i.tude the a.s.surances your Excellency gave me, that the Russian Government was anxious to promote only such education as is based upon pure religion; that it did not entertain sentiments inimical to the Jewish faith; that on the contrary the Government was anxious to inst.i.tute with respect to the Israelites such measures as would tend to prove to them the paternal kindness of His Majesty; and that for this reason the Government had called together a Committee of Chief Rabbis, eminent for their piety, in order to gain the perfect confidence of all their brethren.

”These a.s.surances enabled me with pleasure to undertake the task, the result of which I now have the honour to submit to your Excellency, feeling convinced that your Excellency's n.o.ble and enlightened sentiments will induce you to give a due consideration to a subject of such infinite importance.

”It must be to your Excellency a source of the highest gratification to hear that His Imperial Majesty's Hebrew subjects are far from depreciating the advantages which the human mind in general derives from education. Wherever and whenever I had an opportunity of addressing them on that subject, they a.s.sured me that they were ever ready most zealously to a.s.sist in the promotion of their mental and social improvement, and they joyfully hailed every opportunity presented to them of enriching their minds by pure and wholesome knowledge. 'An Israelite,' they said, 'cannot underrate the value of knowledge. Every page in our history proves the reverse. Our ancestors, from the earliest period of that history, have been remarkable for their zeal to uphold science and literature as the greatest and holiest acquisitions. We refer the enquirer to the works of Bartholocci, Wolf, De Rossi, Rodriguez de Castro, by which it will be at once ascertained that Israelites have always kept pace in useful learning with their neighbours, and that all circ.u.mstances considered, they possess in most instances fully as much general knowledge as falls to the share of their non-Israelite fellow-subjects in a corresponding grade of society.' And in corroboration of this statement, I beg to inform your Excellency that many of the Israelites in His Imperial Majesty's dominions have distinguished themselves by their writings in Hebrew theology and literature, and that their works are very highly appreciated by the learned in Germany. 'To improve the mind and promote every kind of useful and sound information which tends to elevate a man before G.o.d and his fellow-creatures, they deem to be an important injunction of the sacred law.' I therefore had no difficulty whatever in persuading them of the good intentions which His Majesty's Government entertained with respect to the organisation of schools for their benefit.

They overwhelmed me with quotations from the sacred writings, tending to show that with the Israelite it is an imperative duty to give the best effect to such benevolence.

”Their notions of religion in general, and of the sacred books which treat thereon, are not less correct, and I had opportunities of hearing them frequently elucidate many Scriptural texts, in a manner which proved to me that they were possessed with the true spirit of their religion, and that they derive from the perusal of the Oral Law such beneficial instruction as must tend to make them faithful to their G.o.d, loyal to the Government of the country in which they live, and good men to all their fellow creatures.

”Their arguments on this subject, and the excellent quotations which they advanced in support of them, appeared to me to be of so much importance that I cannot forbear submitting them to your Excellency's kind consideration, bearing particularly in mind that the adherents to the Oral Law, as the sacred and only authorized commentary to the holy Scripture, have been represented to your Excellency in a light certainly not calculated to throw much l.u.s.tre on Israel at large.

”The Talmud distinctly forbids us appropriating unlawfully from our neighbour, whether he be Israelite or non-Israelite, any object whatever, even of the smallest value. ('Khoshen Mishpat, Halakhot Genebah,' ch.

ccclxxviii., secs. 1, 2.) Every kind of deception is interdicted without respect to the person subject thereto being Israelite or non-Israelite. (Maimonides, 'Halakhot Deot,' ch. ii., sec. 6.) By the same authority we are bound to act with equal fairness in the sale of any article, be the purchaser Israelite or the follower of any other faith. ('Khoshen Mishpat,' ch. ccxxviii.; Maimonides, 'Halakhot Makhiva,' ch. xviii., sec. 1.) That every temptation to do wrong may be avoided, an Israelite is enjoined not to keep under his roof any bad coin, unless he deface it so that it cannot be used as current coin in dealing with any person, whatever be his religious faith. ('Peroosh Hamishnayot teharambam Tract Kelim,' ch.

xii., Mishna 7.) The prohibition of such practices is understood in the sacred text in Deuteronomy, ch. xxv., v.

16: 'For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy G.o.d.'

”Principles like these must surely tend to create good feeling between all Israelites and their neighbours of every faith.

”Sincere attachment and perfect obedience, the strictest loyalty we are enjoined to evince towards the Government of the country in which we live, and this is a truth, my brethren rightly aver, prominently taught in our sacred writings. Therefore, in the first place, we look upon the monarch, though of another faith and nation, as the anointed of the Lord (Isaiah ch. xlv., v. 1), and consider his Government as a resplendence of the heavenly Government ('Tract Berakhot,' p. 58). We are enjoined to fear the Eternal Being and the King, and not to confederate with those who are given to change (Proverbs xxiv., v. 21). The prophets, in speaking of a non-Israelite ruler, say: 'Serve the King of Babylon, and ye shall live;' and they also command us to 'seek the peace of the city whither the Almighty has caused us to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it'

(Jer. xxix., v. 7). The reverence we are enjoined to testify towards our earthly sovereign is further shown in our glorifying the Almighty Power for conferring a similitude of His boundless Majesty upon a mortal. We are enjoined not to swear against the King even in thought (Kohelit ch. x., v. 20), and to regard the decrees of the Monarch as inviolable ('Tract Baba Kama,' p. 112). We are distinctly ordered not to act in opposition to the King's laws relating to the customs and excise, _even though the Israelite be the most heavily taxed_ ('Baba Kama,' 112; 'Pesakhim,' cxii. p. 2; Maimonides, 'Halakhot Melakhim,'

ch. iv., sec. 1; 'Khoshen Mishpat,' ch. ccclxix., sec. 6); and from the same authority it is inc.u.mbent on us to show the same veneration to those who are representatives of the monarch as to himself ('Tract Shebuot,' xlvii. p. 2).

”The high esteem in which the Israelite holds every human being who is distinguished by moral and mental qualities, is clearly stated in Maimonides, 'Halakhot Shemita Weyobel,' ch. xiii., sec. 13, and of this the most striking confirmation is found in the words of our Talmud ('Baba Kama,' x.x.xviii. p. 1), where we are told that a Gentile who applies himself to the study of the sacred law is to be held in equal esteem with the High Priest, which is likewise declared in the book 'Tana debe Eliyahoo,' in the beginning of the ninth chapter.

”I had another most gratifying instance of the sound and clear perceptions which they have of the pure doctrines of our religion and the traditional commentary to the sacred Scripture, in the sublime elucidation which they gave to that most important point in our creed which refers to the Messiah.

”'We are praying for a time,' said they, 'when the ideas of mankind at large are to be n.o.ble and sublime; for a time when, as the prophet describes, Gentiles will come to the light of Zion and kings to the brightness of her rising (Isaiah lx., v. 3); when nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth His glory (Psalms ch. cii., v. 10; Daniel ch. vii., v. 27).

”Our sentiments are more distinctly stated by the immortal Maimonides in the following words ('Halakhot Melakhim,'

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