The Legends of the Jews, vol 1 - Louis Ginzberg (epub ebook reader txt) 📗

The steer is also one of the animals that have suffered a change in the course of time. Originally his face was entirely overgrown with hair, but now there is none on his nose, and that is because Joshua kissed him on his nose during the siege of Jericho. Joshua was an exceedingly heavy man. Horses, donkeys, and mules, none could bear him, they all broke down under his weight. What they could not do, the steer accomplished. On his back Joshua rode to the siege of Jericho, and in gratitude he bestowed a kiss upon his nose.[134]

The serpent, too, is other than it was at first. Before the fall of man it was the cleverest of all animals created, and in form it resembled man closely. It stood upright, and was of extraordinary size.[185] Afterward, it lost the mental advantages it had possessed as compared with other animals, and it degenerated physically, too; it was deprived of its feet, so that it could not pursue other animals and kill them. The mole and the frog had to be made harmless in similar ways; the former has no eyes, else it were irresistible, and the frog has no teeth, else no animal in the water were sure of its life.[186]

While the cunning of the serpent wrought its own undoing, the cunning of the fox stood him in good stead in many an embarrassing situation. After Adam had committed the sin of disobedience, God delivered the whole of the animal world into the power of the Angel of Death, and He ordered him to cast one pair of each kind into the water. He and leviathan together thus have dominion over all that has life. When the Angel of Death was in the act of executing the Divine command upon the fox, he began to weep bitterly. The Angel of Death asked him the reason of his tears, and the fox replied that he was mourning the sad fate of his friend. At the same time he pointed to the figure of a fox in the sea, which was nothing but his own reflection. The Angel of Death, persuaded that a representative of the fox family had been cast into the water, let him go free. The fox told his trick to the cat, and she in turn played it on the Angel of Death.[187] So it happened that neither cats nor foxes are represented in the water, while all other animals are.[188]

When leviathan passed the animals in review, and missing the fox was informed of the sly way in which he had eluded his authority, he dispatched great and powerful fish on the errand of enticing the truant into the water. The fox walking along the shore espied the large number of fish, and he exclaimed, “How happy he who may always satisfy his hunger with the flesh of such as these.” The fish told him, if he would but follow them, his appetite could easily be appeased. At the same time they informed him that a great honor awaited him. Leviathan, they said, was at death’s door, and he had commissioned them to install the fox as his successor. They were ready to carry him on their backs, so that he had no need to fear the water, and thus they would convey him to the throne, which stood upon a huge rock. The fox yielded to these persuasions, and descended into the water. Presently an uncomfortable feeling took possession of him. He began to suspect that the tables were turned; he was being made game of instead of making game of others as usual. He urged the fish to tell him the truth, and they admitted that they had been sent out to secure his person for leviathan, who wanted his heart,[189] that he might become as knowing as the fox, whose wisdom he had heard many extol. The fox said reproachfully: “Why did you not tell me the truth at once? Then I could have brought my heart along with me for King Leviathan, who would have showered honors upon me. As it is, you will surely suffer punishment for bringing me without my heart. The foxes, you see,” he continued, “do not carry their hearts around with them. They keep them in a safe place, and when they have need of them, they fetch them thence.” The fish quickly swam to shore, and landed the fox, so that he might go for his heart. No sooner did he feel dry land under his feet than he began to jump and shout, and when they urged him to go in search of his heart, and follow them, he said: “O ye fools, could I have followed you into the water, if I had not had my heart with me?

Or exists there a creature able to go abroad without his heart?”

The fish replied: “Come, come, thou art fooling us.” Whereupon the fox: “O ye fools, if I could play a trick on the Angel of Death, how much easier was it to make game of you?” So they had to return, their errand undone, and leviathan could not but confirm the taunting judgment of the fox: “In very truth, the fox is wise of heart, and ye are fools.”[190]

ALL THINGS PRAISE THE LORD

“Whatever God created has value.” Even the animals and the insects that seem useless and noxious at first sight have a vocation to fulfil. The snail trailing a moist streak after it as it crawls, and so using up its vitality, serves as a remedy for boils. The sting of a hornet is healed by the housefly crushed and applied to the wound. The gnat, feeble creature, taking in food but never secreting it, is a specific against the poison of a viper, and this venomous reptile itself cures eruptions, while the lizard is the antidote to the scorpion.[191] Not only do all creatures serve man, and contribute to his comfort, but also God “teacheth us through the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wise through the fowls of heaven.” He endowed many animals with admirable moral qualities as a pattern for man. If the Torah had not been revealed to us, we might have learnt regard for the decencies of life from the cat, who covers her excrement with earth; regard for the property of others from the ants, who never encroach upon one another’s stores; and regard for decorous conduct from the cock, who, when he desires to unite with the hen, promises to buy her a cloak long enough to reach to the ground, and when the hen reminds him of his promise, he shakes his comb and says, “May I be deprived of my comb, if I do not buy it when I have the means.” The grasshopper also has a lesson to teach to man. All the summer through it sings, until its belly bursts, and death claims it. Though it knows the fate that awaits it, yet it sings on. So man should do his duty toward God, no matter what the consequences. The stork should be taken as a model in two respects. He guards the purity of his family life zealously, and toward his fellows he is compassionate and merciful. Even the frog can be the teacher of man. By the side of the water there lives a species of animals which subsist off aquatic creatures alone. When the frog notices that one of them is hungry, he goes to it of his own accord, and offers himself as food, thus fulfilling the injunction, “If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink.”[192]

The whole of creation was called into existence by God unto His glory,[193] and each creature has its own hymn of praise wherewith to extol the Creator. Heaven and earth, Paradise and hell, desert and field, rivers and seas—all have their own way of paying homage to God. The hymn of the earth is, “From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, glory to the Righteous.” The sea exclaims, “Above the voices of many waters, the mighty breakers of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty.”

Also the celestial bodies and the elements proclaim the praise of their Creator—the sun, moon, and stars, the clouds and the winds, lightning and dew. The sun says, “The sun and moon stood still in their habitation, at the light of Thine arrows as they went, at the shining of Thy glittering spear”; and the stars sing, “Thou art the Lord, even Thou alone; Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are thereon, the seas and all that is in them, and Thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth Thee.”

Every plant, furthermore, has a song of praise. The fruitful tree sings, “Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy, before the Lord, for He cometh; for He cometh to judge the earth”; and the ears of grain on the field sing, “The pastures are covered with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.”

Great among singers of praise are the birds, and greatest among them is the cock. When God at midnight goes to the pious in Paradise, all the trees therein break out into adoration, and their songs awaken the cock, who begins in turn to praise God.

Seven times he crows, each time reciting a verse. The first verse is: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” The second verse: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory.” The third: “Arise, ye righteous, and occupy yourselves with the Torah, that your reward may be abundant in the world hereafter.” The fourth: “I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord!” The fifth: “How long wilt thou sleep, O

sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?” The sixth: “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.” And the seventh verse sung by the cock runs: “It is time to work for the Lord, for they have made void Thy law.”

The song of the vulture is: “I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them, and they shall increase as they have increased”—the same verse with which the bird will in time to come announce the advent of the Messiah, the only difference being, that when he heralds the Messiah he will sit upon the ground and sing his verse, while at all other times he is seated elsewhere when he sings it.

Nor do the other animals praise God less than the birds. Even the beasts of prey give forth adoration. The lion says: “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man; He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war; He shall cry, yea, He shall shout aloud; He shall do mightily against his enemies.” And the fox exhorts unto justice with the words: “Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; that useth his neighbor’s service without wages, and giveth him not his hire.”

Yea, the dumb fishes know how to proclaim the praise of their Lord. “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters,” they say, “the God of glory thundereth, even the Lord upon many waters”; while the frog exclaims, “Blessed be the name