Behar-Bechukotai 5781

January, 1861 - New York

1. Noah did not bestow any blessing on his son Ham, but uttered a bitter curse against his descendants, and to this day it remains a fact which cannot be gainsaid that in his own native home, and generally throughout the world, the unfortunate negro is indeed the meanest of slaves. Much has been said respecting the inferiority of his intellectual powers, and that no man of his race has ever inscribed his name on the Pantheon of human excellence, either mental or moral.

2. I next request your attention to the question, "Is slaveholding condemned as a sin in sacred Scripture?" How this question can at all arise in the mind of any man that has received a religious education, and is acquainted with the history of the Bible, is a phenomenon I cannot explain to myself, and which fifty years ago no man dreamed of. But we live in times when we must not be surprised at anything.

...slaveholding is not only recognized and sanctioned as an integral part of the social structure, when it is commanded that the Sabbath of the L-rd is to bring rest to Avdecha ve'Amasecha, "Thy male slave and thy female slave" (Exod. xx. 10; Deut. v. 14). But the property in slaves is placed under the same protection as any other species of lawful property, when it is said, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, or his field, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his ass, or aught that belongeth to thy neighbor" (Ibid. xx. 17; v.21).

...And if you answer me, "Oh, in their time slaveholding was lawful, but now it has become a sin," I in my turn ask you, "When and by what authority you draw the line?" Tell us the precise time when slaveholding ceased to be permitted, and became sinful?"

...My friends, I find, and I am sorry to find, that I am delivering a pro-slavery discourse. I am no friend to slavery in the abstract, and still less friendly to the practical working of slavery. But I stand here as a teacher in Israel; not to place before you my own feelings and opinions, but to propound to you the word of G-d, the Bible view of slavery.

3. ...There were, however, slaves among the Hebrews, whose general condition was analogous to that of their Southern fellow sufferers. That was the heathen slave, who was to be bought "from the heathens that were round about the land of Israel, or from the heathen strangers that sojourned in the land; they should be a possession, to be bequeathed as an inheritance to the owner's children, after his death, for ever" (Lev. 25:44-46.) Over these heathen slaves the owner's property was absolute; he could put them to hard labor, to the utmost extent of their physical strength; he could inflict on them any degree of chastisement short of injury to life and limb. If his heathen slave ran away or strayed from home, every Israelite was bound to bring or send him back, as he would have to do with any other portion of his neighbor's property that had been lost or strayed. (Deut. 22:3.)

...This, indeed, is the great distinction which the Bible view of slavery derives from its divine source. The slave is a person in whom the dignity of human nature is to be respected; he has rights. Whereas, the heathen view of slavery which prevailed at Rome, and which, I am sorry to say, is adopted in the South, reduces the slave to a thing, and a thing can have no rights. The result to which the Bible view of slavery leads us, is—1st. That slavery has existed since the earliest time; 2d. That slaveholding is no sin, and that slave property is expressly placed under the protection of the Ten Commandments; 3d. That the slave is a person, and has rights not conflicting with the lawful exercise of the rights of his owner.

March or April, 1961 - Baltimore

We have before this had occasion to admire Dr. Raphall's originality, but never would we have credited him with such originality as is displayed in the carefully prepared address delivered on the 4th of January (1861) and published in the New York, "Herald," in which he positively claims that slavery is sanctioned in the Bible...

...it took Dr. Raphall, a Jewish preacher, to concoct the deplorable farce in the name of divine authority, to proclaim the justification, the moral blamelessness of servitude, and to lay down the law to Christian preachers of opposite convictions. The Jew, a descendant of the race that offers daily praises to God for deliverance out of the house of bondage in Egypt, and even today suffers under the yoke of slavery in most places of the old world, crying out to God, undertook to designate slavery as a perfectly sinless institution, sanctioned by God...

...Moreover, Dr. Raphall made an awkward blunder, at least in the estimation of the intelligent portion of his auditors, in his attempt to carry slavery back to the deluge, thereby proving the very contrary of what he aimed at. Does it not appear as a very doubtful compliment to the God-sanctioned institution of slavery to attribute it—as related in Holy Scriptures—to a world filled with robbery, and which owing to its viciousness was swallowed up by the deluge?...

...For if Noah, as a prophet, had foretold the slavery of Canaan—would it not be ridiculous, even blasphemous, to inquire: what gave Noah the idea of slavery, unless he knew of it through his own perception of it? Who is it that speaks through the prophet? God! And should God not be able to proclaim something—whether good or evil—that had not existed before? Yes, the speaker forgets himself to the extent of expressing his regret that Noah in his anger allowed himself to inflict this curse of slavery....

[Quoting another Biblical Scholar]: ...For if we consider the inhabitants of Canaan according to their descent, nationally they would be classed as Semites closely related to the other Semites, especially to the immigrant Hebrews from Aram. Canaan signifies son of Ham i.e., Egypt...

...In order not to lessen this conception of property, only one half of the Biblical verse, Ex. 20, 14, and Deut. 5, 18, is given and the preceding sentence: "thou shalt not covet the wife of thy neighbor" is omitted; for by no means is the wife considered the mere property of the husband, like the ox and the ass, and thus the man-servant and maid-servant would in spite of the companionship with asses still have been able to pass as a tolerable person...

...Then we beg Mr. Raphall to instruct us about the following: According to Deuter. 21, 15-17, it is directed: A man possessing two wives, and loving the one and hating the other.... Is the justification of an institution, the immorality of which Dr. Raphall will scarcely deny, and whose propagation Rabbenu Gershom sought to check through a ban, not here affirmed in the most positive manner?...

Oh, you infidels!—our Rabbi exclaims in his pious fervor—were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Job not slaveholders?—This is certainly true, but it is just as true that among these pious and enlightened men there were some who had more than one wife, and it is difficult to perceive why they should serve as models to us as slaveholders more so than in this respect...

Had Dr. Raphall searched for the spirit of the law of God, he would have given due honor to it; instead of going back to the deluge merely in order to produce a slave, he would have preferred to trace his way as far back as the history of creation, where the golden words shine: God created man in His image. This blessing of God ranks higher than the curse of Noah. A book which sets up this principle and at the same time says that all human beings are descended from the same human parents, can never approve of slavery and have it find favor in the sight of God. A law, which recognizes slavery, in its present day meaning, neither according to the conception of the institution of it, nor in its literal sense, and prescribes that the Hebrew, who after six years will not cease from serving as a slave, must as a sign of shame, submit to having his ear pierced, considers no human being to be property. A religion which spares the feeling of the animal mother as the order regarding the bird's nest proves, certainly objects to having the human mother forcibly deprived of her child. The ten commandments, the first of which is: "I am the Lord, thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt,—out of the house of bondage" can by no means want to place slavery of any human-being under divine sanction...

...I am no politician and do not meddle in politics. But to proclaim slavery in the name of Judaism to be a God-sanctioned institution—the Jewish-religious press must raise objections to this, if it does not want itself and Judaism branded forever. Had a Christian clergyman in Europe delivered the Raphall address—the Jewish-orthodox as well as Jewish-reform press would have been set going to call the wrath of heaven and earth upon such falsehoods, to denounce such disgrace, and חלול השם And are we in America to ignore this mischief done by a Jewish preacher? Only such Jews, who prize the dollar more highly than their God and their religion, can demand or even approve of this!