58
CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD
has often been cited as showing the laxity of the
Rabbinical views on the question of divorce,
especi-
ally as held by the school of Hillel. And the charge
has been met by maintaining that the phrase
I
burns
his food' means, ' brings dishonour upon him,'
brings his name into disrepute.' Whether or not
the phrase may have some such figurative meaning,
there is good ground for taking it literally in this
famous passage of the Mishnah. It has been well
shown in a recent work,' by Amram, that Hillel
and Aqiba, and the school in general who sided with
them, were declaring not what was their ethical ideal,
but what in their view the law permitted. They
had to declare the law, not to make it ; and the
reason why they did not-as they probably could
have done-lay down an interpretation of the law
more in accordance with their own ethical view,
was that the ancient custom of Israel assumed the
absolute liberty of a man to divorce
his wife at his
will, and without giving reasons for his action. The
law could not attempt more than slightly to restrict
that liberty, except at the cost of remaining a mere
dead letter. Hillel, in this passage, declares that,
as a matter of fact, the law, in his opinion, does allow
a man to divorce his wife, even for such a trivial
offence as burning his food. But Hillel and his
school, did not, on that account, approve of such
liberty of divorce. On the very same page of the
Gemara, where this
Mishnah is explained, b. Gitt.
gob, a Rabbi of the school of Hillel says, 1¹
He who
divorces his first wife, the altar of God sheds tears
thereat." To the above argument in favour of the
'
The Jewish Law of Divorce. London, 1897, p. 33 fol.
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