Page 45 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

the tractate Baba Kamma, fol. 1 1 3b, we read: "Deut 22:3 says: 'with
any lost thing of your brother', which means: you should give it
back to your brother, but you do not need to give it back to a heathen".
Rabbi Chanina said: "What does that mean which is written in Lev
25:17: 'one should not cheat one's neighbour'? Answer: one with
whom you are bound through the Torah and the regulations you
should not harm." 57 In other places it is taught that the prohibition
of stealing relates only to Jews among themselves, indeed that it is
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restricted to plagiarism".
The conversation of Jacob with Rachel recorded in the
Talmud may be called classic. Jacob said to Rachel: "Do you wish
to marry me?" She answered: "Of course, but my father is a deceiver
and you will not be able to deal with him". To which Jacob said: "I
am his brother in deception". Then she asked: "Is it then permitted
that a righteous man be great in deception?" To which he said: "To
the pure you show yourself pure, to the false faithless, see Ps
18:27". 59
In these maxims of their tribal progenitor Jacob the rabbis
obviously find nothing repulsive since they repeat this narrative
many times with pleasure. In another context too they are not
troubled by scruples: when Hainan tells Mordechai that one should
not rejoice in the fall of an enemy, the latter replies: "That is true
only of an Israelite, but of you it says in Deut 33:29: 'You will
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trample them down on their heights'" The entire form ofthe Jewish
concept of justice, however, emerges not only in these utterances
and regulations, but especially plastically in the narration of a
concrete event painted with visible pleasure. Rabbi Shila chastised
a man who had lived with an Egyptian woman. The latter went to
the king and slandered him with the words: "It is a man who judges
among the Jews without the permission of the king".

57 Bava Metzia, fol. 59a. [This, like the other tractates referred to below, is one of
the 63 tractates of the Mishnah, or the Judaic Laws that constitute the first part of
the Talmud, the second part being the Gemara, which provides an elucidation of
the Mishnah.]
58
Sanhedrin, fol. 86a.
59
Tractate Megillah fol. 12a.
m
Ibid„ fol.l5a,b.
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