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The Encrypted Sermons of Sabato Morais+
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2015
Extract
In the course of researching the attitudes of nineteenth-century rabbis about American slavery, David Cobin found that the name Sabato Morais featured prominently among rabbis who had publicly expressed strong anti-slavery sentiments. This information sent Cobin to the American Jewish History Library where some of Morais's papers are archived to find original documents on the matter. There he found sermons from 1861 to 1862 with English script title pages and text all written in Pitman Shorthand, presumably by Morais himself. One of these, an undated document entitled The Slavery of the Bible, described as a lecture, seemed to be exactly on point. Cobin's first hurdle, however, was transcribing Morais's lecture. After a significant search he found Dorothy Roberts, who had become an expert on Civil War Pitman Shorthand specifically in order to engage in this kind of scholarly transcription. It was soon clear, however, that transcribing a more than one hundred and forty year-old shorthand written for oneself was not a simple matter. There were obsolete words, partial words, undecipherable words, words left out, references to obscure incidents, incomplete quotations, and words in multiple languages. Cobin enlisted the collaboration of his colleague Earl Schwartz as co-editor, and together they partnered in the transcription process with Dorothy Roberts. Roberts transcribed the shorthand as best she could. Cobin and Schwartz then researched the history, filled in the Judaic references and mined old dictionaries and their own imaginations for language of the times to fit the words Roberts could not fully transcribe. Roberts always made the final decision on the appropriateness of the editors' suggestions in light of the shorthand. This work yielded the transcribed lecture, The Slavery in the Bible that indeed spoke about slavery in the time of the Bible, but not about American slavery. Morais's focus was on a humane form of slavery in contrast to slavery in Sparta and Rome. Unlike Rabbi Morris Raphall's discourse on The Bible View of Slavery January 15, 1861 that was used by Southerners as a defense of slavery, Morais's lecture provided little material to fuel the conflagration then raging. The editors have concluded that Morais's lecture was likely delivered as a response to Raphall's widely publicized discourse. The Slavery of the Bible is included with the four transcribed Sabbath sermons published here.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2007
Footnotes
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Transcribed from Pitman Shorthand by Dorothy Roberts.
References
1. Special thanks go to Hilda ben Nun of Jerusalem, who labored mightily, though unsuccessfully, to transcribe this obsolete form of Pitman Shorthand before the editors discovered the amazing Dorothy Roberts, and to the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University for the support given to David Cobin, which led to his finding the Morais sermons in Pitman Shorthand and to Arthur Kiron for his sound counsel.
2. See e.g. Davis, Moshe, The Emergence of Conservative Judaism 110 JPS (1963)Google Scholar. See also Adler, Cyrus in the Dictionary of American Biography, Morais, VII at 150 (Am. Council of Learned Socy. 1934)Google Scholar who described Morais as “an ardent abolitionist.”
3. Morais did, in fact, speak against American slavery in an address on Thanksgiving, 1864. Even at that late date some influential members of his congregation tried to silence him as a result. See “Introduction” to On the Nature of The Slavery of the Bible, infra p. 158 Google Scholar.
4. Yudishe Gazeten 12 (quoted in Kiron, Arthur, “Dust and Ashes”: The Funeral and Forgetting of Sabato Morais, 84 Am. Jewish Hist. 155, 157 (1996))Google Scholar.
5. Cyrus Adler, Phila. Jewish Exponent 3 (Nov. 19, 1897) (quoted in Kiron, id. at 157).
6. N.Y Times 7 (Nov. 13, 1897) (quoted in Kiron, id. at 156).
7. Kiron, Arthur, Golden Ages, Promised Lands: The Victorian Rabbinic Humanism of Sabato Morais 32–33 (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Colum. U., 1999)Google Scholar.
8. Nussenbaum, Max Samuel, Champion of Orthodox Judaism, A Biography of the Reverend Sabato Morais, LL.D. 7 (D.Heb.Lit. unpublished dissertation, Yeshiva U., 1964)Google Scholar.
9. Kiron, supra n. 4, at 159.
10. Nussenbaum, supra n. 8, at 9.
11. For more about Mazzini, see Smith, Dennis Mack, Mazzini (Yale U. Press 1994)Google Scholar.
12. Elmaleh, Leon, Tribute, in Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of the Reverend Doctor Sabato Morais 58 (Congregation Mikveh Israel, n.p. 1924)Google Scholar.
13. Kiron, supra n. 7, at 125-128.
14. Id. at 133.
15. See The Jewish Encyclopedia Philadelphia 672–674 (Funk & Wagnalls 1905)Google Scholar.
16. Kiron, supra n. 7, at 135.
17. Meyer, Michael, Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism 242 (Wayne St. U. Press 1995) (originally published 1988)Google Scholar.
18. Id. at 254.
19. Meyer, supra n. 17, at 248.
20. Kiron, supra n. 7, at 157.
21. Howard, Jerome B., The Manual of Phonography (Cincinnati Phonographic Inst. 1855)Google Scholar.
22. For further reading, see Butler, E.H., The Story of British Shorthand (Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd. 1951)Google Scholar. Glatte, H., Shorthand Systems of the World (Polyglot Press 1959)Google Scholar.
23. Dorothy Roberts, an expert in Pitman Shorthand, notes that “I am able to transcribe a full page of my own shorthand in ten minutes, but it would take me much longer to read a colleague's.”
24. Morais was sympathetic to the idea of a less cluttered and redundant liturgy, though one that remained firmly rooted in traditional practice. See for example Kiron, supra n. 4, at 168 regarding a note in Morais's “Ledger” about liturgical reform.
25. On renaissance and early modern developments in Jewish preaching, see Ars Rhetorica as Reflected in Some Jewish Figures of the italian Renaissance and The New Style of Preaching in Nineteenth-Century German Jewry, in Altmann, Alexander, Essays in Jewish Intellectual History (Brandeis U. Press 1981)Google Scholar.
26. See Wilk, Garry, Lincoln at Gettysburg (Simon & Schuster 1992)Google Scholar. Wills cites Hugh Blair, an eighteenth-century writer who remained influential in the nineteenth as well, as one such critic who was commonly honored and ignored. Blair counseled, “The first rule which I shall give for promoting the strength of a sentence is to prune it of ail redundant words … The exact import of precision may be drawn from the etymology of the word. It comes from precidere, to cut off…” The dramatic contrast between Edward Everett's featured address at Gettysburg and Lincoln's “remarks” is often cited to indicate the dramatic difference between the florid oratory of the period and the extraordinary control of Lincoln's most mature speeches.
27. Note for example the closing lines of Address on the Sabbath Preceding Passover 5621, at 125 and The Necessity of Reverence in Education 131.
28. Danby, Herbert, Translated From the Hebrew with Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes, Mishnah Avot 2:4 (Oxford U. Press 1933)Google Scholar.
29. See supra n. 3.
30. Morais kept a 500 page scrapbook containing letters, lectures and sermons in newspaper clippings, pamphlets, circulars and typescripts pasted to its ledger size pages. None of the sermons included here appear in this scapbook, called the Morais Ledget. One can find the ledger and read its contents online at Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image, http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/morais/ (accessed Mar. 7, 2007).
31. Davis, Moshe, The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: The Historical School in 19th Century America 110 (Jewish Publication Socy. 1963)Google Scholar.
32. Referring to the abolition of slavery in Maryland, Nov. 1, 1864.
33. Phila. Inquirer (Nov. 25, 1864), found in Sabato Morais's ledger, http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/morais/ (accessed May 23, 2007).
34. Id.
35. Morais attached to the shorthand version of the lecture an undated, unlocated, newspaper article, from a column called “Once a Week,” entitled A Whip among the Romans. The title page of this lecture states “An article from the pen of Mrs. L. Maria Child also on the same subject.” It should be safe to assume this article was written by L. Maria Child.
36. A newspaper article, The Whip Among the Romans [From Once a Week] was physically attached to the original Pitman shorthand document. The authors assume that this newspaper clipping is the article from the pen of Mrs. L. Maria Child. The article is included immediately following the transcription.
37. Exod 21:2-9; Lev 25: 39-44 (all Biblical citations are taken from the Leeser version (1853)).
38. Maimonides, , Mishneh Torah, Book of Acquisition, Laws Concerning Slaves 1:9, English Translation in Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) Bk. 12 (Klein, Isaac trans., Yale U. Press 1951)Google Scholar [hereinafter Mishneh Torah].
39. Mishneh Torah 1:1.; Lev 25:39.
40. Mishneh Torah 1:3.
41. See Rashi, , Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary on the Torah, Leviticus, XXV, 39 Google Scholar, Pentatuch with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth and Rashi's Commentary (Rev. M. Rosenbaum & Dr. A.M. Silbermann trans., Feldheim 1973).
42. Mishneh Torah 1:7.
43. Mishneh Torah 1:9.
44. Mishneh Torah 2:5.
45. Mishneh Torah 2:12.
46. See Mishneh Torah 3: 3, 4 & 12.
47. Mishneh Torah 3: 6.
48. Deut 15:14; Mishneh Torah 3:14.
49. See Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashana 8b.
50. Mishneh Torah 4:2.
51. Mishneh Torah 4:1.
52. Mishneh Torah 1:9.
53. “Matrix” was an archaic term for the womb. Job 31:13.
54. Symbol of imperial Rome.
55. Ps 105:6.
56. A-E indicate Sabato Morais's own footnotes.
57. Ezek 29:9.
58. Alexander the Great,. also known as Alexander III, king of Macedon (336-323 BCE).
59. Conflicting sentiments—about Hellenism.
60. Antiochus. A. Pharoah. B. Sennacherib. C. see Byron. D. Babylon. E. Herod.
61. See supra n. 53.
62. From Latin, operosus—labor, usually used as an adjective, wrought with labor, tedious.
63. Passover hagadah.
64. Gen 12:2
65. Reinstituted by Pope Pius IX.
66. Mass wailing at the kidnapping of a 6-year-old Jewish child, Edgardo Mortara, on the order of the Pope's Inquisitor, June 23, 1848. Edgardo became the special charge of Pope Pius IX, and later became a priest. The kidnapping became an international scandal. See Kertzer, David I., The Kidnapping of Eduardo Mortara (Alfred A. Knopf 1997)Google Scholar. Morais stopped giving a prayer for the Government to protest President Buchanan's passive acquiescence to the kidnapping. See Davis, Moshe, Sabato Morais: A Selected and Annotated Bibliography of His Writings (reprinted from 37 Publications of Am. Historical Socy. 83 (1947))Google Scholar.
67. Pope Pious IX.
68. Father Pier Gaetano Feletti, the Pope's Inquisitor. In May, 1860, Feletti was charged and tried for the kidnapping. He successfully argued that he was following the Pope's orders, and was acquitted.
69. To Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Risorgimento Movement. A new kingdom of Italy was proclaimed on Mar. 17,1861, a week before Morais gave this sermon.
70. Garibaldi was associated with King Victor Emanuel II, King of Piedmont-Sardinia, who became the first King of Italy. In 1848, his father, King Charles Albert, promulgated a new constitution for Piedmont-Sardinia that emancipated the Jews in his realm. Following emancipation 180 Jews joined the Sardinian army. In 1859, 12,000 Jews fought with Garibaldi. Furthermore, the Risorgimento Movement followed the vision of Giuseppe Mazzini. Mazzini was Morais's friend in England. All of this may explain the reference to the “guardian of Israel.”
71. Dan 5:25.
72. The Teutonic Order of Knights once ruled Prussia and eastern Baltic lands. By the mid-nineteenth century the order was limited to charitable and pastoral activies in the City of Vienna. Similarly, by 1861, the Papal State had been reduced to the City of Rome and surrounding territories.
73. Passover Hagadah.
74. Hebrew for “merit.”
75. Exod 25:9.
76. Isa 54:13.
77. Isa 2:20-21 conflated.
78. Exod 13:8.
79. Hebrew for “freewill-offering.” According to rabbinic tradition, the destitute could substitute a small offering of flour in place of a more expensive sacrificial animal.
80. Prior to its use after the Second World War to describe the mass murder of European Jews by the Nazis, “Holocaust” (Greek for “completely” [holos] “burned” [kaustos]) referred to burnt offerings.
81. Exod 4:22.
82. Num 15:38.
83. Deut 6:8.
84. Lev 23:24. Morias could be understood as referring here to the “silver trumpets” used during the Biblical period (Num 10:1-10). However, the fact that all of the other references in the sentence refer to practices still observed by traditional Jews in Morais's day indicated that he has in mind the ram's horn (shofar), which continued to be used on New Year's Day and the Day of Atonement.
85. Num 6:23-27. “Sacerdotal” means “priestly.” Though Morais's choice of the more obscure term may be attributed to his tendency toward extravagant terminology, it may also reflect a preference for words with Italian cognates.
86. Exod 25:9. A rabbinic tradition construed the wording of the verse to imply that Moses was actually shown a model of the tabernacle, the construction of which is described in the following chapters.
87. References in the preceding verses to teaching one's children “when they are lain down and when they wake,” drawing their attention to one's own commitment to having a mezuzah (literally “doorpost”; a small scroll inscribed with Deut 6:4-9 & Deut 11:13-21) on one's door and tefillin (phylacteries) on one's arm, and impressing upon them the need for reverence for the synagogue, all allude to Deut 6:4 ff.
88. Deut 32:2.
89. Morais provides here a short litany of the “republican virtues” whose inculcation he identified as a Jewish education priority as well.
90. Morais the idealist is drawing a distinction here between the cultivation of active idealism through humble adherence to a traditional Jewish way of life with the positivist attitudes of many a fallen away Jew.
91. Jer 46:3.
92. Isa 60:21.
93. Deut 34:1.
94. From a passage in the traditional weekday evening service known as “Hashkivenu/Make us to lay down in peace.”
95. See 1 Sam 4:19-22, where the name “Ichabod” is taken to mean “without glory.”
96. Jer 22:29. “Erez” is Hebrew term for “land” used in the passage Morais cites.
97. Swift, graceful horses, especially war horses; e.g., “So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too” ( Moore, Clement C., A Visit from St. Nicholas (Simon & Schuster 1822))Google Scholar.
98. Gen 42:21.
99. As used in the 14th amendment to the Constitution (1868), “immunities” referred to basic constitutional protections. Morais uses “promotion” here to indicate the condition of being advanced.
100. One who rallies others.
101. Prov 21:31.
102. Ps 46:10.
103. Id.
104. Exod 32:12. The Biblical text reads “… concerning thy people.”
105. Gen 4:16.
106. Ps 67:4, 6. The Biblical text reads “… peoples.”
107. Isa 63:16. Here and elsewhere in this sermon, Morais indicates Biblical quotations by A) a notation in the margin; B) the reference in Hebrew, either in ftill or with ellipsis. Following the reference from Ps 103 (infra n. 105), Hebrew citations are discontinued, though empty quotation marks remain through the balance of the manuscript, indicating where the Hebrew was apparently intended; C) an English translation of the word or passage. He does not employ this method of citation in the other sermons. In citing this first reference he adds that the translation is from the “Leeser bible (sic) p. 735.” For the first four Biblical citations in this sermon Morais also notes chapter and verse in English in the body of the text.
108. Hos 13:14.
109. Hos 13:4; Isa 43:11.
110. Isa 59:20.
111. Ezek 37:22.
112. I.e., “redeemer”; the term appears in Hebrew letters in the text.
113. Ps 103:4.
114. Ps 69:19.
115. Num 35:24.
116. Ps 72:14
117. Jer 31:10.
118. Isa 59:17.
119. Ezek 34:24.
120. Perhaps alluding to the shepherding imagery in Ezek 34.
121. Rabbi I. Horowitz, Vol. 1, p. 298 (trans. & annotated by Eliyahu Munk & Max Munk, Lambda Publishers 1999).
122. Jewish law, referring to Maimonides? Mishneh Torah.
123. Mishneh Torah, Hilchot M'lakhim 11:4.
124. Isa 45:1.
125. Dan 9:9.
126. Isa 35:10, 51:11.
127. From Maimonides' Thirteen Principles, based on his Mishnah Commentary, Perek Helek.
128. Dan 8:19.
129. The reference is almost certainly to Sanhedrin 97b, but Morais's rendering is unclear.
130. Isa 55:10-11.