Page 168 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg
P. 168
The Track of the Jew through the Ages
III The Jewish mind
The Talmud
Ifwe wish to form for ourselves ajudgement on the character
of the Jewish mind we must necessarily go back to that work which
is the monumental expression of it and which even today, as we
said, is respected by two-thirds of the entire Jewry as absolute and
untouchable: the Talmud.
Something has already been said about it, that is, its moral
laws were briefly mentioned. Now I would like to illuminate some
other pages. And even if disgusting things must be set down in
writing, that is unavoidable if one wishes to see all that can be found
in a "religious book".
It is indeed the strange thing about the judgement of our
contemporaries that they consider the Talmud as a religious book
fighting against which would be backwards and indicative of
intolerance. But if one reads the innumerable tractates, one is
astonished to find next to nothing of religion, or at least of religion
as we understand it. There no metaphysical thought emerges, no
search for a solution of the riddle of life, no image that can illustrate
our secrets to us, no insight, no mystery. Everything is self-evident
and clear. The world has been created out of nothing by the god of
the Jews, the people who should rule the world and to whom every
created thing belongs by right. That is the "religious" foundation.
Alongside moralising absurdities and crudities appear hair-splittings
of a quasi-pathological madness that one would resist taking
seriously if they did not come from the mouths of the rabbis revered
by the Jews. Some examples of this: "When Solomon was in his
mother's womb he started singing a song as it says in Ps. 103,1:
'Let my soul praise the eternal and my entire inner being thy holy
name'". "When he sucked at his mother's breast and observed the
329
breast, he started to sing a song, v.2 : 'Let my soul praise the
eternal and not forget all his good deeds' . According to Rabbi Abahu,
329
[Ps 103:2]
145