The Burning Question

Julius T. Loeb, “The Burning Question,” Birmingham Age-Herald (Birmingham, AL), Nov. 21, 1909. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85038485/1909-11-21/ed-1/seq-15/ 

THE BURNING QUESTION

BY RABBI JULIUS T. LOEB.

    “Lo, this only did I find that God hath made man upright; but they have sought for many devices.” This wonderful admonition by the old philosopher-moralist, Ecclesiastes, may well be applied to the present-day reformers, who in seeking a way for the solution of certain problems, or in striving for an eradication of the existing evils, they are so prone to overstep all limits by their “many devices,” and they would fain overthrow the whole scheme of creation. Filled with an erroneous zeal, these would-be reformers propose to remove the ancient landmarks which the early ones have set up, and to outroot the very foundation upon which human society has grown and flourished throughout the onward course of its progression. Taking man as a bit of mechanism upon which they may freely exercise their experimental reforms, they will simply forget about his individuality, his natural inclinations, his habits, customs and propensities, even his natural demands. By mere action of the solons of legislature they can with one stroke of the pen make man straighter than God Almighty has formed him.

    Such a radical reform blunder is the so-called prohibition wave that is now sweeping over the states with irresistible force, surging and seething and boiling over to the brim, carrying off man, horse and dragon. The religious as well as those who have no pretensions on religion are alike affected by the tremendous onrush of this wave of dryness. Has it ever occurred to the advocates of the prohibition movement that the extreme measures they endeavor to instil [sic] cannot but have a contrary effect; that one extreme is sure to bring on another; that abstention will always cultivate lust, and teetotalism in any direction will add to the excesses and degeneracy of the age?

    But inasmuch as prohibitionists base their motives chiefly upon the moral instruction of Holy Writ, it may not be amiss to present in brief order the religious view of the subject.

    From the point of morality and religion, inordinate drinking will cause unhappiness. But one must not ignore the fact that the same rule holds good with every earthly blessing. There is not a thing in existence but whose use and abuse are weighed on the same scale. Whatever is good and beneficial in its due place and season, is also destructive in its misapplication. All things essential to the prosperity of mankind will become the means of man’s undoing. If carried to extremes and abnormality. The same with thoughts and ideals that are ill-used or misdirected. Anarchism is only a miscarried bit of idealism. Passion is just the characteristic trait by which worlds are torn down, and worlds are built up. Without the due amount of passion not a single enterprise would succeed; without the necessary zeal and enthusiasm the world would soon come to a standstill and perish of stagnation. So the rule of government will become a misrule, and the established order will soon be turned into chaos and confusion, should the human power be permitted to govern inimitably. Though government, you will admit, is a positive necessity, even a blessing amid human society; yet with all this so, no free American will tolerate an excess of government, or an over-production of law. Freedom, too, is a godly privilege; and yet, it is often carried into licentiousness. Will you, therefore, propose to kill freedom? Home is perchance the sweetest term in human language; and yet, home is made the blackest h— by the sheer misuse of its blissful privileges. In brief, everything that exists is a composite of the good and bad, while the whole of nature is only “give and take” process, and whatever is endowed with the highest quality is at the same time possessed of lowest constitutent. [sic] The philosophy of Judaism leaches that man, the crown of creation, even he in his own makeup, is a composite of the most high with the most low. Woman, in truth, is the better part of man, the gentler creature of the two, the helpful, administering angel of man, made to share in his joy, to soothe him in sorrow, and to labor for his continual uplifting and moral advancement. Yet woman is ordinarily the more vain, and the more frivolous creature, and when these womanly characteristics are let loose in unlimited measure—then God save man! This noblest of creatures, with all the good qualities and charms of her gentle being, is nevertheless the worst enemy of man. From the very day in which she tempted Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit, even to the present moment, woman above all else is the means of man’s undoing, the cause of his disgrace and death. Will you say, let woman pass out of existence and put an end to human suffering? Yes, there were sects and creeds who really attempted such method of extermination. They are extinct, while the world is alive. So the old Essenes (to which sect belonged John the Baptist and his disciple, Jesus,) they undertook to prepare for the future world and to ignore entirely the requirements of earthly life; while on the other hand the Saduccees all rioted in the present and believed not in the hereafter. Both fell short of life's purpose, and the sect of totalists on the one side met with the same fate which overtook the extremists on the other side.

    Of the world’s good things money seems to be the most desirable. And while everybody knows that money is the source of nearly all the human troubles, none has yet attempted a crusade against the evil of the filthy lucre, with the suggestion to strike the money out of existence. Neither the ministers of the gospel, nor the layman, neither the church, nor the laity, would give any heed to an unreasonable demand of this kind. For it must be known that money is not altogether without its uses. It can do the most good, as it can do the most evil.

    Salt is said to be a poison no less than a food, and the excessive use of it is likely to kill. Physicians have even traced the sickness of the cancer and other horrible blood diseases to excessive salt-eating. Yet the salt Is a most important element in nature, a preserver of health and life, and a “covenant everlasting with God.”

    The fact of the matter is, the more precious an object the more conspicuous its faults. And thus the wine, in spite of the peril attending its misuse, still is nature’s most laudable product, and the greatest boon of a bountiful Providence. Recognizing this fact, the founders of the ancient faith had set apart a special benediction for the wine in preference to all other articles of drink and food.

    Wine is used in every instance as a “drink-offering to the Lord,” and a choice gift in solemnity of every kind. The Psalmist points to it as a necessary essential, an indispensable within nature, and he places it on a par with bread and other vegetable food, as is clearly shown from the following lines in the 104th chapter of the Book of Psalms: “He causeth grass to grow for the cattle and herbs for the service of man, that he bring forth bread out of the earth; and wine that maketh joyful the heart of man.”

    From earliest civilization down to the present day wine has accompanied man, and has aided him in his moral, mental and physical advancement. Noah, the first planter known to history, became the “comforter of mankind, concerning the work and the toil of the hands of man, because of the ground that the Lord hath cursed.” (Gen. v:29.) It is Noah who first introduced the vineyard to the world, with Its laudable product preferred as a much-needed medium for human consolation. At the same time the lesson was taught by Noah, “the righteous man,” who was unaware of the nature of the grape juice, that an inordinate use of this mystic fluid—as of all the good things—will lead to unhappy results, and will entail the curse upon man; as it happened in the case of his own son, Ham, whereas the moderate use of the same was to be regarded everywhere in the history of civilization as a blessing, and not a curse.

    Malki-Zedek, king of Salem (Jerusalem of after times) brings out bread and wine, the two noblest gifts of nature, wherewith he blesses Abraham by the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth. When Isaac is about to bless Jacob, he eats of the delicacies and drinks of the wine, in orde [sic] to feel happy and pleased with God and all the world; as according to the sages, the Divine Presence can only rest upon a blissful soul. And thus he blesses Jacob with “the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth, and an abundance of corn and wine.”

    In the blessings of the patriarchs wine is always coupled with corn. The land of Israel is characterized as a land of corn, wine and oil (Deut. viii:8; xxxiii:23; II Kings, xviii, 38; Isaiah xxxvi, 17; Chronicles, xxxii:28, etc., etc.)

    In that portion of Scripture wherein the Israelites are enjoined upon visiting the Holy City thrice in a year, rejoicing before the Lord in the prosperity granted to them, it is said: “And thou shalt eat. . . . the tithe of thy com, or thy wine, and of thy oil ,et cetera.” (Deut. xiv:23.) “And thou shalt lay out that money for whatsoever thy soul longeth after, for oxen or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever thy soul asketh of thee; and thou shalt eat It before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thy household." (Ibid. :26.) And the same be given “to the Levite, with the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates, and they shall eat and be satisfied; in order that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thy hand which thou doest.” (Ibid:29.) (Of course, such purchases and giving away of wine and strong drink would be made a misdemeanor under the Fuller bill of the Alabama state legislature.)

    There is not a single instance in the Judaic faith wherein teetotalism should be commended as a virtue, and there is not a single person from among the Jewish patriarchs, prophets and sages, who should have made a practice of abstention from wine, or from the honorable enjoyment of any other earthly pleasure. The two solitary cases of Samson and Samuel recorded in the Bible may be regarded as exceptions; and even here there is nothing in the eventful careers of both of these two leaders in Israel to indicate that they by themselves were to abstain from wine and strong drink. On the contrary, the arrangement and attendance by Samson of the customary drinking bouts for seven days (Judges xiii:5; xvi:17), as well as the attendance by Samuel of a public festivity (I Samuel, chapter ix), which among the Israelites of ancient days had never occurred without wine—both of these instances go to prove that even these two ordained Nazarites were not total abstainers from wine. Their mothers during pregnancy did abstain, and they themselves let their hair remain in unshorn state. The third rule relating to Nazaritism; i. e., the keeping from a dead body, also may have applied to Samuel. Tradition likewise ascribes Nazaritism to Absolom, son of David, who was peculiarly noted for his unshorn locks, and he had the hair of his head shaven but once a year (II Samuel, xiv:26; Talmud, Nazir:4); and he, too, is never spoken of as an abstainer from wine.

    The Rachabites, in the 35th chapter of Jeremiah, are pointed to as a noble example of obedience to their fathers’ bidding, and nothing else. Amos, chapter 2, verses 11-12, is simply an excitation against the excesses which were then rampant in the kingdom of Israel.

    Drinking wine was prohibited under the Mosaic law only to the priests during worship; to the Nazarite during the period of his Nazariteness which, if unspecified, implied 30 days (Nazir. 5), and for all Israelites on occasions of mourning or penitence, as in vogue among most of the Jewish communities even to the present day, and when, according to “Shulchan-Aruch,” no weddings, festivities or rejoicings of any kind are permitted to be held.

    Barring these instances, “Nazaritism,” or "total abstinence,” was never encouraged in the Jewish faith and Biblical teaching.

    The terms by which the drink articles are named in the Bible, and which in effect, good or bad, are equal to the various beverages of the present day, are the following: “Yayin,” meaning ordinary old wine; “Tirosch,” vintage, first year’s wine; “Chemer,” a red, foaming wine of excellent quality; “Shechar,” strong drink: any intoxicating liquor prepared or distilled from barley, honey or dates (see Gossenius); “Mezog,” or “Mesoch,” a wine mingled with spices; “Sove,” wine, or drink in general.

    These terms are used mostly in a good sense, and often also in a disparaging sense; which goes to prove that the “two-wine theory” by which some would make us believe that in Bible times there was a distinction known between intoxicating wine and a sort of unfermented wine, which latter, they aver, was in use among the worthy and respectable for sacred purposes—this is such a flimsy argument that it is really not worth the while to discuss. Every Bible student will readily discover the fallacy of it.

    If the Bible be taken as criterion in the matter the whole prohibition scheme must fall to the ground; as the wine in Holy Writ is invariably regarded as a divine blessing, a boon from the bounties of Nature’s God.