the Law Sacred or Introduced The Form of Cherem or Anathema BY the Decree of Cities Command of the Holy we Anathematize Adjure Exterminate Excommunicate Curse and Execrate God being willing his Church by the Book of this Law by the 600 Precepts therein written by the Anathema with which Josua Anathematized Hiericho by the Curse wherewith Elisha cursed the young men by the Curse wherewith Gehezi cursed his Boy and by the Excommunication with which Barach Excommunicated Meroz and by the Excommunication which Rab. Jehuda Son of Rabbi Jehezkiel used in this matter and by all the Anathemata Imprecations Curses Excommunications and Exterminations which have been made from the time of our Master Moses and since by the name of Acetheriel Jah the Lord of Hosts by the name of Michael the Great Prince by the name of Mittatron whose name is as the name of his Master by the name of Sandalipon who tieth the hands of his Lord by the name of forty two Letters by his name who appeared to Moses in the Bush by the name with which Moses divided the Sea by the name I am what I am by the Mystery of the name Tetragrammaton by the Scripture that was written upon the Tables by the name of the Lord of Armies the God of Israel sitting upon the Cherubin by the name of the Sphears and Circles and living Creatures Saints and ministring Angels by the name of all the Angels which wait upon the most High God every Israelite and every Israelitess who willingly and knowingly violates any of those which are now denounced to be observed let him be Cursed of the God of Israel who sitteth upon the Cherubin Let him be cursed by the bright and glorious name which the High-Priest in the day of Expiations expresseth with his mouth Let him be cursed by Heaven and Earth Let him be cursed from God Almighty Let him be cursed of Michael that Great Prince Let him be cursed of Mittatron whose name is as the name of his Master Let him be cursed of Acetheriel Jah the Lord of Hosts Cursed be he of the Seraphin and the Orbs of the holy Animals and Angels who wait before the most High God of Israel in holiness and purity If he was born in the month Nisan which the Angel Vriel as the Prince of the Classes under which it is governeth Let him be cursed of him and of all his Order And if he was born in the month Ijar which the Angel Tzephaniel governeth Let him be cursed of him and his whole Order And if he was born in the month Sivan c. The like imprecation is made in the same words by the Angel of this month and so forward by the Angel of every month Let him be cursed of the seven Angels set over the seven Weeks and of all their Order and helping Power Let him be cursed of the four Angels which govern the four Seasons of the Year and of their Order and helping Power Let him be cursed of the seven Palaces Let him be cursed of the Princes of the Law by the Name of the Crown and the Name of the Seal Let him be cursed of the Great God Strong and Bright Let him receive confusion from his Embraces Let him fall with swift Ruine Let the God the God of Spirits destroy him to all Flesh Let the God the God of Spirits put him under all Flesh Let God the God of Spirits lay him prostrate to all Flesh Let God the God of Spirits cut him off from all Flesh Let the Wrath of the Lord and violent Whirlwinde fall upon the Head of the Wicked Let the destroying Angels run upon him Let him be cursed in every thing he puts his Hand unto Let his Soul depart in terrour Let him die of the Quinsie Let not his Breath come or go Let him be smitten with a Feaver Driness the Sword Rottenness the Jaundise Neither let him be delivered from them before Destruction Let his Sword enter his own heart and let his Bows be broken Let him be as the dust before the wind and let the Angel of the Lord drive him away Let his ways be darknesses and slipperiness and let the Angel of the Lord persecute him Let sudden desolation come upon him and his net which he hath laid let it catch himself They shall drive him from light to darkness and exterminate him from the habitable World Tribulation and anguish shall make him afraid and his eyes shall see his destruction and he shall drink the fury of the Lord. He shall cloth himself with cursing as with a garment Let him eat the strength of his skin God shall scatter him for ever and pull him out of his Tabernacle The Lord will not rest that he may be propitious to him but the Wrath of the Lord and his Zeal shall smoak against him and upon him shall rest all the Maledictions written in the Book of this Law and the Lord shall blot out his name from under Heaven Also the Lord shall separate him to mischief out of all the tribes of Israel according to all the Curses of the Covenant which are written in the Book of this Law But you who adhere to the Lord your God are all alive this day He that blessed Abraham Isaac Jacob and Moses and Aaron David and Solomon and the Prophets of Israel and those who were pious among the Nations let him bless all this Holy Congregation with all Holy Congregations except the man onely who hath violated this Anathema God of his mercie keep them make them safe and deliver them from all evil misery and affliction and prolong their daies and years and send his blessing and happie success to every work of their hands and avenge them quickly with all other Israelites And so let it be his will and decree Amen CHAP. XXIV Concerning the present Judicature among the Jews COncerning the Ecclesiastical and Civil Consistories among the present Jews little of moment is now observable And though the Synedrion of old related to Civil Matters as the Synagogue to Ecclesiastical Yet the affairs of Religion and the World now do both fall under the cognizance of one and the same Court But that which is the subject of the present remark is the manner of legal proceeding in the case of Meum and Tuum which is plainly and compendiously thus When any contest ariseth among them concerning Debts Bargains Contracts c. a Juncto of Sabios Chachams or Masters are appointed to hear and determine in the Cause This Court of Chachams consists of 11 9 7 5. and can never be of fewer than three To these the party promovent makes his address in a short and plain Allegation of the Case which the Judges examine by Witnesses who must be persons well reported of and very sober For so much is required by their 212 Precept In case of want of Witnesses the bare Oath of the party producent is sufficient if he be a man of
they understand Esay 50.10 11. At the Entrance of the Synagogue they either make clean or put off their shooes in obedience to Eccles 4.17 and Exod. 3.5 Put off thy shooes c. And this saves them the uncovering of their Heads for their little black brimless Caps are never moved all the time they stay in the Synagogue At their stepping into the Synagogue they first spend a few minutes in the meditation of his Attributes whom they come to invoke which is to beget in them a Deportment humble and reverend And when they have duly possessed their minds with an awful reverence of Gods Majesty they repeat to themselves Numb 24.5 How goodly are thy Tents O Jacob and thy Tabernacles O Israel And Psalm 26.8 O Lord I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honour dwelleth And the 6 th Verse of Psalm 95. O come let us worship and bow down let us kneel before the Lord our Maker This Meditation being ended they lay the right hand upon the heart and bowing their bodies toward the Chest where the Law is laid up they begin the publick Service with the 7 th of the fifth Psalm I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercies and humble my self with fear in the Temple of thy Holiness So it is Verbatim in an old Spanish Translation of the Jewish Lyturgie They Pray standing girt with their faces toward Canaan their heads moderately bowed down and hands upon their heart They utter their Prayers in a sort of Plain-Song sometimes straining their Voices to a very harsh and unpleasant Note and then on a sudden letting it fall into a kind of whisper Their bodies are always in a wagging unsteddy posture which they say expresses joy and satisfaction in Devotion But to him that knows not the intent hereof this wavering and sometime exulting of the body will seem very careless and negligent and that they Pray with none or very little intention and devotion of mind Those which cannot read the Service in Hebrew who are but few are bound to learn when to say Amen A thing the more easily attain'd unto because they have a prescript Form And how heedless soever they may appear in other parts of Prayer yet they use a signal diligence in the right timing and pronouncing of the Amen Because whosoever saith it with all his might the Gate of the Garden of Eden is open'd to him In time of Prayers none are permitted openly to spit belch yawn or blow the Nose All which they do with great Secrecy in the Synagogue when they have occasion Neither may they spit or any such thing to the right hand or before them because of the Angels which have made those places their Situation in the Synagogue And from this short Account of the Jews entering and behaviour in the Synagogue we come to take a general view of the Prayers made therein And here we shall follow the Breviary in present use with the Jews in Barbary which was Printed at Venice in the 1622 Year of Grace And first of all they begin the Morning-Service with the eighteen Benedictions of which saith Moses Maimon Ezra was the Author For when the Israelites returned from the Captivity their Native Language was so corrupted with that of their Bondage that they were not able to praise or serve God in a continued Speech And upon this occasion Ezra is thought to have composed eighteen short Benedictions wherein they might praise God and beg at his hands the supply of his dayly blessings But others are of opinion that these eighteen Benedictions were composed as a Directory whereby they might guide themselves both in the private and publick Service of God to which purpose they are imployed at this day After the Benedictions follows a large Office for Sacrifice and Oblations which begins with the History of Abraham's going to Offer up his Son To this succeeds a long course of Psalms then a tedious Thanksgiving Then a Confession of Sins at the saying whereof they throw themselves prostrate and express a great sense of their own vileness and misery and that they have no strength but in the Almighty Then all on the sudden they start up and comfort themselves with the Oath God made unto Ahraham when he went to Sacrifice his only Son And now with great chearfulness they bless their Lot that God has chosen them for his Heritage and the people of his Covenant But besides all this they have in this Office a peculiar Thanksgiving for the Delivery of the Law and a Prayer which they say with a low voice for the restauration of the Temple That in their dayes God would rebuild the House of his Sanctuary which they hourly hope for And they shut all with praying that God would lead them in his righteousness and make plain his way before them And this is the sum of their dayly Morning-Service for whose more regular Celebration there are Rubricks intermingled with it directing them to the Responses Praises and how every part must come in course This Morning-Office as was said is very long for which they make sufficient amends in the brevity of the other two In some places they have a Custom for those to shut the prayer-Prayer-Book who are at Variance with their Neighbours thereby signifying that they will not Pray at all because they cannot pray aright till the difference be reconciled At the saying of Give Ear O Israel the Lord our God is one God they turn themselves East and North at the pronouncing of Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbath they jump up three times They dare not turn their Backs on the Chest where the Law is deposit and lest they should do otherwise they go backward out of the Synagogue having their eyes always fixed thereon They are very careful that nothing may interrupt them in their Devotions at which if they sneeze they account it a lucky token of being therein accepted but to break wind preposterously is a very unhappy abodement I have omitted in the former Paragraph to observe that after the appointed course of Psalms they have two Lessons the first out of the Law which is always read by the Chasán or some eminent Jew The second Lesson is taken out of the Prophets and is read by any ordinary Jew who is able to read distinctly And in the difference of the persons imployed in these Lessons they show the great value and esteem which they have for the Law above the Prophets There is an universal Agreement among the Jews of all Countries that they ought every day to repeat a hundred Benedictions which they thus compute At wâ—shing in the Morning twenty three At their Entrance into the Synagogue six At putting on of the Zizith or Fringes one At putting on the Tephillim one At every one of the three Offices in the Synagogue eighteen Three after dinner and two before night At going to sleep two and as many at
dinner and supper Which if they reckon right make up the sum At the saying of the Benediction for Gods giving them the Law they stand up with their heels joyn'd together and their toes opened bowing their heads toward Hierusalem They have also a Prayer which is said by the Priest alone wherein he desires God that he would be pleased to pardon all those who have been negligent and unattentive at the time of Prayer But I could not finde this Prayer in their Breviary though with some curiosity I perused it to that purpose Besides the Sabbath they keep Monday and Thursday as weekly Holy days On each of which they read three Sections of the Law the first by a Koên whom they suppose to be descended of Aaron the second by a Reputed Levite and the third Section by a Common Jew As concerning the keeping of Monday and Thursday Holy and reading the Law thereon as well as on the Sabbath after a more Solemn manner the Vulgar Jews give no other account thereof but Custom and the Pleasure of the Masters But those who pretend to give a Rationale of their Rites refer it to an Institution of Ezdras grounded upon the peoples wandring three dayes without water in the Desart of Sur in memory whereof he appointed the Law to be thrice solemnly read every week Now to be without water say they is to be without the Law for which interpretation they bring Esay 55.1 Others think that Thursday and Monday are set apart for the solemn Lesson of the Law in memory of Moses's going the second time into the Mountain to renew the Tables of the Law which hapned say the favourers of this Opinion upon a Thursday and to have returned thence upon a Monday Upon which dayes some of the preciser sort keep a strict Fast like those in St. Luke 18. and in all probability for the same end On these two dayes they have besides the usual Office a proper Prayer which from the first words thereof bears the title of Vehu-rachum which is said with singular attention Of old this Prayer used to work Miracles but by reason of some great delinquency in the present Jews it has lost this Efficacy CHAP. XV. Their Ceremonies about the Book of the Law Their Manner of Celebrating the Sabbath The Offices which thereon are Solemniz'd c. IT is a Canon strictly observed by the Jews That a Book of the Law is necessary to the Constitution of a Synagogue And therefore the first thing they provide in order to set up a Synagogue is a Copy of the Law and a Chest or Ark wherein to lay it up Now that which is called the Book of the Law is The Pentateuch written in a large Character on Parchment which is dressed according to the manner of the Phylacteries The Parchment is rolled up upon two staves to make it the more convenient to be carried in Procession It is also usually wrapt up in a covering of Linnen Silk Tissue c. As for the piece of Tapistry pictured with divers Birds which was the old-fashion'd Covering of the Ark the Jews in Barbary use no such thing for they abhor all manner of Imagery in their Service as minding them of the Idolatry of their Fathers for which they conceive themselves to be still punished and also out of an averseness to be thought to imitate those Christians who have offensively introduced Pictures into their Oratories not only for Ornament but Veneration But to return to the Law The Jews pay the five Books of Moses so great a Reverence that they never suffer them to be taken out of the Chest or looked upon but on three dayes namely Monday Thursday and Sunday when they are read and this too in the Morning because it is esteemed the purest part of the day 'T is true they use also to show the Law to the people on the Sabbath-night but it is because the whole day is hallowed The taking out of the Law belongs to a Noted Rabbi or in his absence to one of the more ancient and Devouter Jews But to carry it in Procession within the Synagogue is sold to him who is able to give most for the Place As we have observed in the Officers of the Synagogue At the taking out of the Law the Officer turns himself to the people and repeats this Versicle Come and extol God with me and let us praise his Name together And at the Elevation of the Law the people bow their Faces toward it and make a long Respond wherein they declare their own vileness and magnifie the Majesty of God And when the Rabbi holds up the Law and opens it he speaks these words This is the Law which Moses laid before the Children of Israel and which proceeded from God whose ways are all just The word of the Lord is pure and a defence to all those who believe it When the Law is carried from the Ark to the place where it is appointed to be read all the people there present sing the Hymn of Moses Numb 10.35 Rise up Lord and let thine Enemies be scatter'd and let them that hate thee flee before thee By which they wish and pray for the Destruction of all those who are not of their Religion When they carry the Law either to the Reading-place or in Procession there is always one who steps up to him that carries it and kisseth the Covering thereof for it were to defile the Law to kiss either the Letters thereof or the Parchment whereon they are written And he who doth this with a Voice moderately elevated blesseth God for having made the Jews his peculiar people and that he hath given them his Law When the Book returns from Procession and has put on its Coverings all the Males in the Synagogue kiss it in Order as the Papists do their Pax and when they have done the Officer gives the Book an Elevation and so lays it up in the Chest And as it returns thither they say the words of Moses at the resting of the Ark Numb 10.36 Return O Lord unto the ten thousand thousands of Israel The Pentateuch is divided into fifty two Sections to the end that it may be read over upon the fifty two Sundaies in the Year And in reading it they are bound to be very plain audible and articulate Because every tittle thereof is of singular weight and moment The last Lesson constantly falls upon September the twenty fifth which immediately follows the Feast of Tabernacles And when this Section is read over the Chasans or those who read the Law declare a great joy and satisfaction that they lived to make an end of the Annual Lesson They also praise God that notwithstanding the many Miserie 's befaln them they are still in possession of the Law in which all other Blessings are abridg'd On the day when this last Section is read all the Copies of the Law are brought forth of the Ark about which the people dance in