At Synagogue With Jesus / Part 2

Note: In the previous post I mentioned the priest who enters and leads the congregation in the benedictory prayers. This would have been a member of the Levitical priesthood. In our service I had the priest also lead the congregation in the Shema, then being seated and replaced by Jairus who was the ruler of the synagogue of Capernaum in Jesus's day. Jairus, then, would have continued the service. However, according to some ancient sources, the priest may have only led the benedictory prayers and one of the rulers of the synagogue may have replaced him at that point to lead in the Shema and beyond.

Jairus ascends the platform as we watch. He walks now, not to the lectern to face the congregation, but rather toward the ark at the innermost part of the room. He faces it and begins pronouncing the eulogies. Here is the first:

"Blessed be the Lord our God and the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; the great, the mighty, and the terrible God; the Most High God, who shows mercy and kindness, Who creates all things, Who remembers the gracious promises to the fathers, and brings a Savior to their children's children, for his own Name's sake, in love. O King, Helper, Savior, and Shield! Blessed are You, O Jehovah, the Shield of Abraham."

And all the people respond, "Amen." Then Jairus continues:

"You, O Lord, are mighty for ever; You, who make alive the dead, are mighty to save. In your mercy You preserve the living; You bring to life the dead; in Your abundant pity you bear up those who fall, and heal those who are diseased, and loose those who are bound, and fulfill your faithful word to those who sleep in the dust. Who is like unto You, Lord of strength, and who can be compared to You, Who kills and makes alive, and causes salvation to spring forth? And faithful are You to give life unto the dead. Blessed be You, Jehovah, Who brings the dead to life!"

Again, the congregation responds, "Amen." Jairus speaks again:

"You are holy, and Your Name is holy; and the holy ones praise You every day. Selah! Blessed are You, Jehovah God, the Holy One!"

The congregation again responds with an "amen."

Note:  At this point stop and consider the passage in Luke 4 where Jesus begins his public ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth where he grew up.  Luke records that the scrolls were brought to Jesus and that Jesus read a passage from Isaiah and then preached a sermon.  We are not yet that far into our service here, but Edersheim points out that often, when a guest reader and teacher (like Jesus would have been that day in Nazareth) was present, that many times he also would have been the one to pronounce the eulogies recorded above.  Luke 4 is just one instance in Jesus's ministry.  The gospels record that it was Jesus's practice to teach and preach in all the synagogues.  Now go back up to those three eulogies above and read them again, this time imagining that it is Jesus himself who is repeating them to the congregation.  He, himself, is the fulfillment of and answer to those prayers!  It's amazing when you think about it.  Only to have been there!

Now Jairus turns and faces the congregation and an invitation is extended for members of the congregation to come forward and offer their own prayers.  The respondents would only have been men who were properly clothed and it is unclear whether the prayers would have been pre-written or offered extemporaneously.  At any rate, this may have gone on awhile.  Note Jesus's warnings about the Pharisees in Mark 12 and other places when he mentions how for "a pretense (they) make long prayers."  This would have been the time for that.

When this is finished, Jairus steps forward again, faces the ark, and offers this:

"Take gracious pleasure, O Jehovah our God, in Your people Israel, and in their prayers.  Accept the burnt-offerings of Israel, and their prayers, with Your good pleasure; and may the services of Your people Israel be ever acceptable unto You. And oh that our eyes may see it, as You turn in mercy to Zion!  Blessed be You, O Jehovah, Who restores his Shechinah to Zion!"

And all the people respond, "Amen."  Then again:

"We praise You, because You are Jehovah our God, and the God of our fathers, for ever and ever.  You are the Rock of our life, the Shield of our salvation, from generation to generation.  We laud you, and declare Your praise for our lives which are kept within your hand, and for our souls which are committed unto You, and for Your wonders which are with us every day, and Your wondrous deeds and Your goodnesses, which are at all seasons--evening, morning, and mid-day.  You gracious One, Whose compassions never end; You pitying One, Whose grace never ceases--for ever do we put our trust in You!  And for all this Your Name, O our King, be blessed and extolled always, for ever and ever!  And all living bless You--Selah--and praise Your Name in truth, O God, our Salvation and our Help.  Blessed are You, Jehovah; Your Name is the gracious One, to whom praise is due."

"Amen," from the congregation.  Then, finally:

"Oh bestow on Your people Israel great peace, for ever; for You are King and Lord of all peace, and it is good in Your eyes to bless Your people Israel with praise at all times and in every hour.  Blessed are You, Jehovah, Who blesses His people Israel with peace."

Again, the congregation agrees with an "amen."

Next comes the meat and potatoes of the service and we shall describe that in a subsequent post.  But before we do that, stop and consider how full of praise are the prayers and how God-centered the focus thus far has been.  Keep in mind that this is not Scripture.  In other words, in the synagogue service we do not find God's exact commands for how a worship service should be conducted.  We are simply observing how it was done by others who lived at a time of great tragedy and yet of expectancy.  Note how Messianic the prayers are.  How do our prayers compare?  How similar or how different is the focus?  Is that necessarily good or not?  Could our prayers and our worship be more pleasing to God?  Should we be open to that?

The Synagogue of Capernaum

(I originally wrote this a little over four years ago and according to blogger it has been seen over 700 times since then, which tells me it must have, somehow, shown up in searches at least for awhile. I re-post it now because I think it is still good information and helps to better set the scene in Luke 4.)

The city of Capernaum is now mainly an archeological site and attraction for tourists and pilgrims. Once it was the adopted home town of Jesus of Nazareth.

According to Matthew:

Matthew 4:[12] Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. [13] And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali,

First century Capernaum was a sleepy little fishing village of about 1500 people. Houses would have been one-story structures made of basalt rock and thatched roofs. Walls would have been several feet thick with dirt floors and scant furnishings. The people would have eked out a meager existence from the village's main trade--fishing. From this town Jesus chose his first four disciples, Peter, Andrew, James, and John. It is very likely that Jesus lived in Peter's house while staying here.

The town had one synagogue, built by a Roman centurion. According to Luke:

Luke 7:[1] After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. [2] Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. [3] When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. [4] And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, [5] for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.”

This strongly implies they had only one synagogue and the archeological evidence bears this out.

To the right is a photo of the remains of a later synagogue that was used in Capernaum, built on the same spot as the one that Jesus would have worshiped in in the first century.

Synagogue worship was both formal and informal. There was a dress code. There were strict rules of decorum. The congregation would have been seated, probably on benches, and always situated so as to be facing Jerusalem. Men were separated from women by a partition and separate entrances. Beyond the middle of the synagogue was a platform and upon the platform was a lectern made of wood. Scripture was read from behind the lectern and prayers were offered. According to Edersheim, readers stood, while preachers sat. In other words, a man would stand behind the lectern to read a passage, then sit down to explain it. Witness this passage which takes place in the synagogue at Nazareth at the very beginning of Jesus's ministry:

Luke 4:[16] And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. [17] And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

[18] “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
[19] to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

[20] And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. [21] And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” [22] And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

Jesus stands to read a passage from the prophets, then sits to preach his sermon. "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" can be seen as a title or a summary of the sermon he preached.

Here I should point out that the reading of the Scripture was seen as something of primary importance in the synagogue. With no printing press and only hand-copied editions of the Scriptures available you can imagine that these were strictly cared for and handled by only a select few. Many of the people did not have the Scriptures in their homes. The synagogue was the place where the people went to hear them read aloud. The Torah was divided up into portions and read systematically over a period of time, probably three or three and a half years at the time of Christ. While one man would read the Scripture aloud in Hebrew, another individual would stand by and give a running translation into Aramaic--the language of the people. Following this was a reading of the Prophets and then a sermon as described in the passage above. I will give more details on this in my next post.

In fact, I think in my next post I will attempt to take us into a synagogue worship service and have us go through the entire liturgy to see what it would have been like to attend "church" with Jesus as a boy or young man in first century Galilee.

About Synagogues

About four years ago I did a series of blog posts on the first century synagogue. The impetus for these posts was my reading of Alfred Edersheim's Sketches of Jewish Social Life.

In the youth Sunday School class that I teach we have been traveling slowly through the life of Jesus and we find ourselves with him as he is entering his hometown of Nazareth for the first time since his baptism and initial entrance into itinerant ministry. Rabbi Yeshua has been making noise in other towns, performing miracles and stirring up the crowds down south in Jerusalem, preaching in synagogues in and around Galilee. Now he comes home to the town where he grew up.

What must it have been like to go to 'church' and have Jesus show up? What would he say? How would they react? In order for us to grasp what is going on in Luke 4 there is a lot of information we need. Edersheim supplies a lot of that information in his Sketches and also in his classic work The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. I have gleaned from these sources and put together what I think is a pretty accurate picture of what first century Galilean synagogue worship was like and what it would have been like to 'go to church' with Jesus.

So here are, more or less those posts from four years ago, this being the first with three or four more to follow. I hope they will open the Scripture to you so that you will see Jesus more clearly than ever before. God bless.

_________________________________________________________________________________

 I wanted to wrap up my reading of Alfred Edersheim's Sketches of Jewish Social Life before delving into Isaiah very deeply. So last night I was attempting to scramble up those last three chapters and get to the top. That's when I realized it was just not going to be that easy--there's just too much enlightening information in those last chapters to pass over them so . . . lightly. I find myself compelled to go back and look at them more closely. These chapters, which deal with the first century Jewish synagogue, simply open up too many gospel passages to not stop and marvel for a bit. I don't know how many blog posts I will make out of it, but it's just too interesting to pass up.

No one knows for sure when the first synagogues came to be, but most scholars believe it must have been at or about the time of the Babylonian exile and dispersion. The English word "synagogue" is of Greek derivation and means "gathering together" for religious purposes. These synagogues probably started out in homes as rooms set aside for prayer. As public, corporate prayer was something to be encouraged, the people would have met in these places for that purpose--hence the name. By the time of Christ, these worship places had evolved into organized prayer and teaching centers for the Jewish faith.

The worship of the Old Testament was typical and centered around, first, the tabernacle and, later, the temple in Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC. Most of the people were then, or already had been carried away captive to Babylon.  Of those remaining, a large portion fled to Egypt.  Solomon's temple was razed and the vessels of the temple stolen and taken to Babylon as spoils of war.

Around what, now, would the Levitical priests attempt to organize their religion in a foreign land?  The answer, through natural social evolution, was the synagogue.

When the people began returning to their homeland it would take a while for a new temple to be built.  In the meantime, the people needed places to meet and pray and propagate their faith.  By the time a new temple was built, and desecrated, and re-built, the synagogue had established itself as a quintessential part of Jewish life.  Each had its rulers, its rules, and its daily litany.  By the time of Christ, nearly every town had several of them--cities had hundreds--and thousands dotted the countryside.

Witness the words of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15:

Acts 15: [21] For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

According to the rabbinical sources, there were as many as 480 synagogues in Jerusalem at the time of its destruction in 70 AD.

In the next few days I will give some information about synagogue design and worship and tie it in to the gospel narrative, shedding light on some of the events of Jesus's ministry.

At Synagogue With Jesus / Part 3

First there were the benedictory prayers. Then there was the recitation of the Shema. Next came the eulogies of praise for God. Now for the reading of the Torah.

According to Edersheim, this would have been divided up into regular readings so that the entire Law would have been covered in a given time period. In Edersheim's day the custom was to read the entire five books aloud each year. However, in Jesus's day it was likely that it took three or three and a half years for an entire cycle to take place. This would only have amounted to a little more than a chapter a week.

A chosen individual, perhaps the ruler or one of the rulers of the synagogue, or maybe a member of the congregation, or even a guest would walk to the platform. The chosen scroll would be taken from the ark and handed to him. He would unroll it to the correct place and begin to read aloud . . . in Hebrew.

At the time of Christ Hebrew was no longer the spoken language of the Jews of Palestine. The language of the people was Aramaic--the language of the empire (Medio-Persian) they had served under during their captivity in Babylon. Although Aramaic was the spoken language (probably Jesus's first spoken words were in this language), the traditionalists of their ecclesiastical hierarchy were very slow to translate the Scriptures into it. Thus, the Law was still being read aloud in Hebrew and a translator would have been standing right beside the reader giving a running translation into the Aramaic.  Later, in the post-temple period following the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD, these translations were done in writing and made official.  They were known as targummim or the Targum. Our translator could have been an official or, in a small town like Capernaum, may have been just a layman or even a boy.  As long as he was capable of the task he was qualified.

One at a time they came forward and read their portion.  The translator would translate each.  Then would come the reading from the Prophets.  This would be less methodical.  Sometimes a portion might be chosen which was connected somehow with the Torah readings of the day.  Sometimes a synagogue might be engaged in the systematic reading of them similar to that of the Torah.  Sometimes, as in the case of Jesus at the synagogue of Nazareth in Luke 4, the teacher would choose whichever portion he wished and expound upon that.  Observe:

Luke 4:[16] And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. [17] And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

[18] “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
[19] to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

[20] And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. [21] And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

That day Jesus was the one who stood up (on the platform) to read from the prophets. This would have been set up ahead of time, as Jesus was already an itinerant rabbi with a growing reputation. They brought him the Isaiah scroll and he reads his chosen portion. Observe that no translator is present. Reading from the Prophets was less formal than the reading of the Torah (influence of the Sadducees) so often the readers from the Prophets simply provided their own translation as they read, which is likely what Jesus did here. What we have, then, in our Lukan passage, is a translation into Greek of what Jesus had translated into Aramaic from what he was reading in Hebrew.

After he reads his portion he sits down in the seat next to the podium. Recall that all Scripture was read while standing, but teaching was always done from a sitting position. So Jesus sat and began to teach. Sermons would have been an exposition of any or even all of the passages that had been read that day with an application into everyday life. Jesus chooses to expound upon his own text from Isaiah. Observe that the teaching was perhaps a bit less formal than what we might think, for Jesus responds to some questions and remarks from the congregation.

So how does our service end? Perhaps we should end it in the way the service ended that day in Nazareth. The congregation, being offended by the words of Christ (not his manner, but his truth), left the service abruptly, carrying him out to the edge of a hill to be thrown off. They were attempting to stone him for pointing out that in previous times in the biblical narrative, when the Hebrews were in rebellion to God, God had shown grace to Gentiles. They did not want to hear this.

And so official Judaism rejected her Messiah. But true Judaism lives on, not in bloom, but in full flower, and those who are the children of Abraham by faith, both Jews and Gentiles, are among her congregants--including our friend Mr. Alfred Edersheim. And witness Paul's words in Romans 11:

11:[1] I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. [2] God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? [3] “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” [4] But what is God's reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” [5] So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.

Acts of the Apostles, the Early Church, Jews of the 1st Century, etc.

I correspond with my Sunday School teacher from time to time and the following post is gleaned from one of the emails I sent to him awhile back pertaining to our studies in the book of Acts. I hope it makes sense.

I wrote:
Anyway, I wanted to throw some things at you about Acts, the early Church, the Jews of the first century, the whole circumcision controversy, and why those Jews rejected their Messiah. That's way more of a bite than either one of us could chew in one sitting, but there are a couple of things that the average modern reader doesn't quite see or get that make the whole thing more understandable. Most of this you probably already know and some of it you may have already covered in class before I got there, but let's start anyway because it is interesting and important.

The religious Jews of Jesus's day were strong, strong, strong in their ethnic pride, probably stronger than anything we could compare them to in modern times. A lot of this had to do with their history between the Testaments.

Ever heard of a man named Antiochus Epiphanes? He was a Greek general, ruler, and descendant of Alexander the Great. He had conquered Palestine, sacked Jerusalem, appointed the high priest that he wanted, and then, in 167 BC, when he became angry and suspicious, he went on a murdering spree killing some 80,000 Jews--men, women and children--in a four-day span. This is recorded in the Maccabees. He then proceeded to desecrate the Holy of Holies by sacrificing a pig on the altar, following this up with the outlawing of such quintessentially Jewish things as sabbath-keeping and circumcision. Several Jewish mothers who had defied this law against circumcision were paraded through town with their infants at their breasts and then pushed off the city wall to their deaths. Many such atrocities were committed including the burning of sabbath-keepers--I could go on.

All of this served to solidify his victims in their zeal for those rites which made them uniquely the children of God. Thus, when we get to the New Testament, these Jews are brazenly proud of their nation, their law, their religion, their circumcision, their Jewishness. No one was going to take that away from them and they despised these foreign intruders and everything about them.

According to Alfred Edersheim, Jews of the first century were so proud of their ethnicity and their homeland that immediately upon return from a Gentile-occupied territory they would ceremoniously shake the dust off their feet, not wanting to pollute their own holy land with dirt from the Gentiles. (Sort of gives you an enlightened perspective of Jesus's command to his disciples to shake the dust off their feet when leaving the house of anyone who would not receive them in his name, does it not?)

What did they think of Gentiles? Gentiles were dogs. And "dog" was the worst pejorative you could call anyone. With that in mind take a fresh look at a passage like . . .

Mark 7:

[24] And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. [25] But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.

[26] Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. [27] And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” [28] But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” [29] And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” [30] And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone. (ESV)

Tyre and Sidon were heavily populated with Gentiles and this woman was a Gentile. She begs for Jesus's help and he responds to her the way any Jewish rabbi of his day would have--he gives her the Jewish attitude toward Gentiles . . .

And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”

The "children", of course, are the Jews and the "dogs" are the Gentiles.  This is a test.  She, as a Gentile, has approached a Jewish rabbi seeking a miracle.  Will she get it?  Will she pass the test?  How will she respond?

But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

She responds in humility and faith.  She is undeserving and admits as much, yet she asks anyway. Her request is based, not on her own merit, but on the mercy and goodness of the Giver.

(There's a lesson in that, though none of it, of course, has anything to do with your Sunday School lesson--ok, maybe a little--but I get easily sidetracked.)

My point is that pride was the sin of the Jews of Jesus's day.  It blinded them to what God was doing at the time.  True, they expected their Messiah to come very soon. They may have understood Daniel's prophecy of 70 weeks, even. They knew the times and seasons, but they expected the Messiah to come, partly, because they believed they deserved him. He was going to come and throw off this Gentile rule and re-establish the throne of David in perpetuity. Now was the time.

O come, o come Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel.

They had no idea of their spiritual destitution. Neither did they understand the nature and scope of the Messiah they were getting. Their hatred of Gentiles blinded them, even, to the numerous passages indicating the world-wide messianic kingdom that was coming. What they got was the opposite of what they wanted in almost every respect.

But there was one more thing about Jesus that sealed the deal for why no self-respecting Jew would ever follow him, something that should be obvious but doesn't even stand out to you and me. Something that was a complete deal-breaker for them. You might already know what it is, but I'll save it for the next email.

Alfred Edersheim--19th Century Jewish/Christian Scholar

One of the books I am reading right now is Sketches of Jewish Social Life by Alfred Edersheim. I cannot overstate how valuable Edersheim's scholarship can be to understanding the Bible, especially the New Testament. When we pick up the Bible, even the New Testament, we are reading a Jewish book, written by Jewish authors steeped in Jewish culture and history, men who followed first-century Jewish thought patterns. It is essential to understand this, and them, in order to more fully understand what they wrote. As I read this book, passage after passage of the New Testament is revealed in new light and old familiar passages become fresh and interesting again as I realize I never quite fully grasped them before. Perhaps I will give an example or two of this later.

Here is a bit about Alfred Edersheim copied and pasted from his Wikipedia page:

Edersheim was born in Vienna of Jewish parents of culture and wealth. English was spoken in their home, and he became fluent at an early age. He was educated at a local gymnasium and also in the Talmud and Torah at a Hebrew school, and in 1841 he entered the University of Vienna. His father suffered illness and financial reversals before Alfred could complete his university education, and he had to support himself.

Edersheim emigrated to Hungary and became a teacher of languages. He converted to Christianity in Pesth when he came under the influence of John Duncan, a Church of Scotland chaplain to workmen engaged in constructing a bridge over the Danube. Edersheim accompanied Duncan on his return to Scotland and studied theology at New College, Edinburgh and at the University of Berlin. In 1846 Alfred was married to Mary Broomfield. They had seven children. In the same year he was ordained to the ministry in the Free Church of Scotland. He was a missionary to the Jews at Iaşi, Romania for a year. On his return to Scotland, after preaching for a time in Aberdeen, Edersheim was appointed in 1849 to minister at the Free Church, Old Aberdeen. In 1861 health problems forced him to resign and the Church of St. Andrew was built for him at Torquay. In 1872 Edersheim's health again obliged him to retire, and for four years he lived quietly at Bournemouth. In 1875 he was ordained in the Church of England, and was Curate of the Abbey Church, Christchurch, Hants, for a year, and from 1876 to 1882 Vicar of Loders, Bridport, Dorset. He was appointed to the post of Warburtonian Lecturer at Lincoln's Inn 1880-84. In 1882 he resigned and relocated to Oxford. He was Select Preacher to the University 1884-85 and Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint 1886-88 and 1888-89. Edersheim died at Menton, France, on March 16, 1889.

His writing is not just educational, it is also devotional, as befits the Christian writing of his time-period. His most famous work was/is The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. I have this one also, as well as his The Temple--Its Ministry and Services and Bible History--Old Testament. When I am finished with Sketches of Jewish Social Life I am going to pick up Life and Times.

Here is an interesting note from Sketches:

'A few further quotations bearing on the dignity of labour may be appropriate. The Talmud has a beautiful Haggadah, which tells how, when Adam heard this sentence of his Maker: "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee," he burst into tears. "What!" he exclaimed; "Lord of the world, am I then to eat out of the same manger as the ass?" But when he heard these additional words: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," his heart was comforted. For herein lies (according to the Rabbis) the dignity of labour, that man is not forced to, nor unconscious in, his work; but that while becoming the servant of the soil, he wins from it the precious fruits of golden harvest.'--Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, Updated Edition, Hendricksen Publishers, p.176