Israel and Humanity - The Pentateuchal Toshav

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§ 2.

The Pentateuchal Toshav.

We find, indeed, the two adjectives together and applied to the same person. It was Abraham who speaks: "I am gher and thoschab among you," he said to the son of Heth But the two titles here means that the patriarch was then argued in its motion quality still respectable abroad and that of fellow citizen, domiciled in the country. The Exodus mentions thoschab next sachi or mercenary about the paschal lamb that neither the another are allowed to eat . What, in this case, that thoschab ? It is certainly not the Israelite who is justly held to celebrate the Passover, or the Gentile outright which is excluded by the previous verse: "No foreigner ( nechar bin ) n 'eat of . Nor is the converted pagan at a time can be no question, since the latter, in the same chapter is completely assimilated after circumcision, the Jewish birth . Moses can not speak of wanting a proselyte of the gate ( gher thoschab ) that Tradition obey only the law Noachide and not that of Israel and is specifically named in this passage while the ban is concerned is already implicitly contained in the rule to admit no uncircumcised defend to eat the paschal lamb, it can only be because his cult Noachide viewed as fair and legitimate to equal that Israel would have to believe allowed to take part, though uncircumcised, the celebration of Passover. Perhaps he really was circumcised according to the opinion of some rabbis that we have to examine further and submitting to the rite itself Noachide .

Anyway, this identity of thoschab text mosaic with the gher toschab or proselyte of the gate of the Rabbis must be reasonably extended to all cases where the name is mentioned in the Pentateuch. It is unacceptable that the same word is understood in quite different meanings and this passage concerning the Passover gives us once and for all its real meaning. In Leviticus XXV, 6, about the distribution of products of the sabbatical year, thoschab is also next to the city sachi means that the mercenary unquestionably Jewish. We see also in the same book the term used in similar conditions, but with a slight variation, it is those who can not eat the victims spent and the text includes in this number " toschab the priest and the mercenary "What sense can we give the first of these names? Since this verse sets the position of the Israelite mercenaries and the next deals with that of pagan slave bought by the priest: "A slave bought by the priest for money may eat ", thoschab in question can only refer to the nice idolater or a proselyte of the gate of Rabbis, the occupied either as mercenaries in the house of the priest. But why would he first called thoschab , citizen, although his position is pagan ignored? Do we not know that only as a slave without subsequent redemption, except with the consent of the master, that the alien is polytheistic placed under the control of an Israelite, while the subject to the condition of the proselyte Jew is precisely that of mercenary? "Thou shalt not oppress the hireling poor and needy, whether one of your brothers or one of your proselyte residing in thy land within thy gates " . These words, which seem superfluous, just serve to indicate the remains fixed and regular characterizes Noachide from Scripture and Tradition. So the latter and not the pagan that is, when Moses speaks of " Thoschab priest" at the same time as the mercenary Jew.

Another verse of Leviticus also deserves our attention: "If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells it to you, you lay your point did the work of a slave. He will be with you toma a mercenary ( sachi ), as a thoschab , so it will be at your service until the year of jubilee ". Although Rashi and Onkelos seem confused in their paraphrase of this passage the two names, it is not clear why two different names have been used to describe the Israelite only used as a mercenary. In our case however, the comparisons are understandable, the proselytes of the gate ( thoschabim ) are treated as Jews and mercenaries from each other and the Hebrew slaves with the law of redemption is described in this chapter. A few verses later he is spoken of gher and thoschab and the right accorded to them to buy the Israelites as slaves . The stranger said the second of these names may not be the gher toschab , the proselyte of the gate according to tradition, otherwise what need would there Here again, a dual qualification? And how these two categories of Gentiles can they differ, except in that the designation of gher applies to proselyte of justice and that of thoschab , the simple Noachide? Because we can not assume whether the Gentile polytheism which refers, according to tradition, the next phrase of the verse: "Someone's family gher ".

In Numbers XXXV, 15, the same two names appear again and, most remarkably, these two classes of aliens are mentioned after the Israelites: "These six cities shall be a refuge for the children of Israel, gher and toschab are among them, so that, according to the text, Jewish society was composed of the Israelite, the gher or proselytized Justice and toschab , which is equivalent to the nice Noachide to proselyte of the gate.

Before leaving this study of the word toschab , almost always accompanied in the Pentateuch of the gher , that we be allowed to draw the reader's attention an image that recurs frequently in the Bible and especially in the Psalms, by which human life is compared vis-à-vis God provided the gher or thoschab < / i>. "I am a pilgrim (<i> gher ) in front of you," cried David, a thoschab as all my fathers ". It seems that there is in these sacred words of the bard a reminiscence of the passage of the Pentateuch in which God said to Israel: "This to me that the land belongs, for you are with me as pilgrims ( ghérim ) and as toschabim ". Similarly, in the supreme prayer of David, we find a similar allusion: "Everything comes from You and Your hand we receive what we offer, we are strangers before Thee ( ghérim ) and hosts ( toschabim ) as all our ancestors ". So man on this earth as the Jewish Palestine are vis-à-vis God in the same situation as the gher or thoschab is ie the proselyte from Israel. There is a design intermediate between that of paganism and Christianity. Paganism, by just remark of Sainte-Beuve speaks of death by the mouth of Horace as an eternal exile, while for Christians it is rather a return to the eternal <ref> Page 585 < / ref> homeland. The pagan would place the country on this earth, the Christian does not see that in the sky. The Judaism recognizes that the present existence is a pilgrimage, but he does not leave it to believe that time is a moment of eternity, and that man is, even here, in communion with God is the sovereign master of the universe, he is now in possession of eternal life.