Volume 1

The Jewish encyclopedia : a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day / prepared ... under the direction of ... Cyrus Adler [and others] Isidore Singer ... managing editor.

Date:: 1901-1906

Credit: The Jewish encyclopedia : a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day / prepared ... under the direction of ... Cyrus Adler [and others] Isidore Singer ... managing editor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

179/752 (page 131)

$I 131 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA Abraxas Abrog'ation of Laws their commentaries on the word, doubtless obtained Judah's explanation from their Jewish teachers, I though Origen supplements his remarks by saying I that Abrech is to be literally rendered as yovaTil^Eiv \ (bending of the knee). This view is advocated by I Jewish grammarians from the time of Jonah ibn ! Gaual.i. An interpretation different from the fore- going, which is of Palestinian origin, is that given by Habylonian scholars, who explain the word as being a compound of “ab” (father) and “rak” (Old Per- sian (irjaka = king), signifying “ father of the king ” i (B. B. 4/7; Targ. O., Targ. Yer. ad loc.). The Baby- lonian etymology is followed by Peshito as well as by the Arabic translator, both rendering the word “ father and ruler” (seeBrlill, in Geiger’s “ Jiid. Zeit.” hi. 281 etseq.; Ginzberg, in “Monatsschrift,” 1899, j xliii. 545). L. G. ABREST, PAUL D’ (pen-name of FRIED- RICH KOHNABREST): Journalist; born at Prague, 1850; died at Voslau, near Vienna, in July, I 1893. He received his education at the Lycee Bona- ! parte in Paris, and on its completion he devoted him- 1 self to journalism. He was a frequent contributor to “Le Petit Journal,” “LaVerite,” “Le Rappel,” “Le Siecle,” and “L’Independance Beige.” Later he became correspondent of the “Temps” at Vienna, at the same time contributing to Austrian and Hun- garian journals. During the Russo-Turkish war he represented the “ Sificle ”; and afterward, at the in- stance of the French government, he went to Bosnia to investigate the economic condition of that coun- try. Besides his articles, several collections of , which have appeared in book form, Abrest wrote: “Vienne sous Francois Joseph,” a “Life of General Hoche,” and a history of the opera. I Bibliography : Jewish Chronicle, August 4, 1893, p. 6. B. B. ABROGATION OF LAWS: In Deut. xiii. 1 (xii. 32, A. V.) Moses is described as saying: “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou ' shall not add thereto, nor diminish from it. ” Taking this injunction literally, the Sadducees, and later the I Karaites, rejected the rabbinical development of Ju- ! daism, as additions to and modifications of the Mo- 1 saic laws. But the injunction could not have meant that for all future time, without regard to varying circumstances, not the least alteration or modifica- I tion should be made in the religious and civil laws I established for the people of Israel. The ancient rabbis claimed authority, not only to make new provisions and to establish institutions as a “ hedge ” for the protection of the I Rabbinical Biblical laws, but under certain cir- I Authority, cumstances even to suspend and to ab- rogate a Biblical law. They derived ' this authority from the passage in Deut. xvii. 8-11, in which mention is made of a supreme court con- i sisting of priests, Levites, and “the judge that shall 1 be in those days. ” Doubtful questions of law were ' to be brought before this court, and unconditional 1 obedience to this supreme authority in all religious, j civil, and criminal matters is emphatically enjoined I in the words: I “ According to the law which they shall teach thee, and ac- : cording to the Judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do; I thou Shalt not depart from the word which they may tell thee, ; to the right or to the left.” I In reference to this, Maimonides teaches in his [ celebrated code “Hilkot Mamrim,” i. 1: “ From the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, law and decision should I go forth to all Israel. Whatever it taught either as tradition or by interpretation according to the hermeneutic rules, or what- ever it enacted according to the exigencies of the time, must be obeyed.” “A later court has a right to reject a decision based on the interpretation of a former though higher court, for Scripture says: ‘Go to the judge who will be in those days,’ meaning, you shall go according to the authority of your own time ” (ibid. ii. 1). And again: “ Any religious court [kol bet din] has the power to set aside even a Biblical law as a temporary measure. If they find it necessary to suspend for the time being an injunction, or to permit one to act against a prohibition in order to bring the masses hack to the Torah, or in order to prevent a greater evil, those in authority may do according to the exigency of the time. Just as a physician is sometimes compelled to amputate the limb of a patient in order to save his life and general health, so those in authority [bet din] may at any time decree the temporary sus- pension of some laws in order to secure the fulfilment of the religious law in general ” Hbid. ii. 4). Although Maimonides here refers only to the right of temporarily suspending a law, there are cases mentioned in the Talmud, as will be seen later, in which a Biblical law was entirely abrogated. Be- sides, the simile used by jMaimouides in the pas.sage just quoted applies rather to the abrogation than to the temporary suspension of a law; for the am- putation of a limb to save the life and health of the patient is not a mere temporary separation. The Talmud contains the following maxims by which the religious authorities of various periods were guided in abrogating certain Talmudic laws: “The abrogation of a law is View. sometimes equivalent to the mainte- nance of the law ”; that is, to set a law aside is sometimes as meritorious as to establish it (Men. 99i). “ It is better that a single law be up- rooted than that the whole Torah be forgotten ” (Tern. 145). “There are times when the duty of working for the glory of God requires the abolition, of a law ” (Ber. 54a and 63u). “ The court [the relig- ious authority] may, under circumstances, decree to uproot a positive law of the Bible” (Yeb. 895). In citing some examples of suspension and of abro- gation of Mosaic laws in different periods, one may be recorded from the Bible. According to I Kings, xviii. 31, the prophet Elijah offered a sacrifice upon the altar erected on Mount Carmel. This was in contravention of the law in Deut. xii. 13, which forbade the offering of sacrifices outside of the cen- tral sanctuary. The rabbis defend the act of the prophet on the ground that it was a temporary measure necessitated by the circumstances (Yeb. 905). Of more importance are the following cases of the abrogation of a Biblical law as stated in the Talmud: Ezra (according to Yeb. 865, Hul. 1315) decreed that the first titbe should be given to the priests, contrary to the Mosaic Law in Num. xviii. 21, which ordained that they should be given to the Levites. In consequence of this abrogation another law had to be abrogated, namely, that which re- ferred to the solemn profession which, according to Deut. xxvi. 12-15, every farmer had to make annu- ally in the Temple; for the passage in this confes- sion, “ have given it [the tithes] to the Levite,” could not any longer be said in truth (Sotah, 475, after Tosef., Sotah, xiii. 10). Hillel the Elder enacted a measure, termed Pros- BUL, which was tantamount to an abrogation of the Biblical law in Deut. xv. 2, con- The Pros- cerning the release from debt in the bul. Sabbatical year. Finding that this law,which was intended to benefit the poor, proved in the course of time rather a disad- vantage to them, as no one was willing to lend them money lest he lose his claim at the approach of the Sabbatical year, Hillel, by virtue of his authority as head of the Sanhedrin, caused a law to be enacted$