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Article CURIOUS PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO THE JEWS. ← Page 6 of 7 →
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Curious Particulars Relative To The Jews.
The rabbins say , that if the bedstead of any married couple stands with the head to the North , and the feet to the South , -thethildren which are got thereon will be all boys . Their reason for this opinion is founded on the fourteenth verse of the seventee th psalm , which , in Hebrew , runs thus—Oozpbaneba temalay bitnam yisbebu bawnim . —I have given the Hebrew , that every person , who understands the languagemay judge how they interpret these wordsto make out
, , their opinion . Our . English bibles give a very different interpretation . The first time a . new married couple bed together , the bride must , after ever ) - act of connubial intercourse , observe whether there are any symptoms of the loss of her virginity ; and , as soon as she perceives itshe must tell her husband : anclif he agrees that he has
, , had the hymen , he must quit the bed , and sa ) 7 the following highly curious blessing : " Blessed art thou , 0 Lord our God , and the God of our Fathers , who hath planted a nut in the garden of Eden , and roses in the deep valley , for the sake of their being out of the power of a stranger , as is a well that is sealed up;—the loving hind , she hath" preserve . ! her
WELL ; it is a statute which she hath not destroyed . Blessed art thou , O Lord , preserver of the covenant . " ' Girls are deemed marriageable as soon as they- have but two hairs under their arm-pits ; which hairs , they-think ; do not appear before eleven years of age . Boys at thirteen years of age are called bar vrilzumb , i . e . sons of
ihe statutes , and are then thought sufficiently old to be married . On the new year ' s clay the ) - salute each other , with wishing them to he written for a good 3-ear ; from a belief ) that on this holiday , which lasts tvyo days , and the day of reconciliation , three books are laid open before the Almighty in heaven ; in one of which , the rig hteous are marked clown immediate !} , to live the following year ; , and , in the other , tlie wicked are marked down for death that year ; and the fate of the middling sort of livers is left undetermined and
unmarked in the third book , until the twenty-second day of thesame month , called Tisbri ; which day , in Hebrew , is called hosbana raba , i . e . the great salvation ; on which day , the conclusion , and last sentence of every man ' s . doom , is fixed . On the thirteenth of the month Aclar they have a holiday , called Purim , from the word Pur . Vide Esther , iii . 7 . It is a carnival for their deliverance from Hainan ; and in the evening and morning of
the same festival they read the whole book of Esther in synagogue At every time the reader pronounces the name of Ham an , all the young Jews knock on the benches and floor with hammers , by way of knocking Human down , it is done to render him as obnoxious as they can . All the ceremony out of tlie synagogue consists in feasting ; and he who gets so drunk , that he cannot distinguish between the blessing of Mordeeai and the cursing of Hainan , is esteemed a most valuable Jew . On the two first nights of their passover the } ' read the agaclah , i . e .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Curious Particulars Relative To The Jews.
The rabbins say , that if the bedstead of any married couple stands with the head to the North , and the feet to the South , -thethildren which are got thereon will be all boys . Their reason for this opinion is founded on the fourteenth verse of the seventee th psalm , which , in Hebrew , runs thus—Oozpbaneba temalay bitnam yisbebu bawnim . —I have given the Hebrew , that every person , who understands the languagemay judge how they interpret these wordsto make out
, , their opinion . Our . English bibles give a very different interpretation . The first time a . new married couple bed together , the bride must , after ever ) - act of connubial intercourse , observe whether there are any symptoms of the loss of her virginity ; and , as soon as she perceives itshe must tell her husband : anclif he agrees that he has
, , had the hymen , he must quit the bed , and sa ) 7 the following highly curious blessing : " Blessed art thou , 0 Lord our God , and the God of our Fathers , who hath planted a nut in the garden of Eden , and roses in the deep valley , for the sake of their being out of the power of a stranger , as is a well that is sealed up;—the loving hind , she hath" preserve . ! her
WELL ; it is a statute which she hath not destroyed . Blessed art thou , O Lord , preserver of the covenant . " ' Girls are deemed marriageable as soon as they- have but two hairs under their arm-pits ; which hairs , they-think ; do not appear before eleven years of age . Boys at thirteen years of age are called bar vrilzumb , i . e . sons of
ihe statutes , and are then thought sufficiently old to be married . On the new year ' s clay the ) - salute each other , with wishing them to he written for a good 3-ear ; from a belief ) that on this holiday , which lasts tvyo days , and the day of reconciliation , three books are laid open before the Almighty in heaven ; in one of which , the rig hteous are marked clown immediate !} , to live the following year ; , and , in the other , tlie wicked are marked down for death that year ; and the fate of the middling sort of livers is left undetermined and
unmarked in the third book , until the twenty-second day of thesame month , called Tisbri ; which day , in Hebrew , is called hosbana raba , i . e . the great salvation ; on which day , the conclusion , and last sentence of every man ' s . doom , is fixed . On the thirteenth of the month Aclar they have a holiday , called Purim , from the word Pur . Vide Esther , iii . 7 . It is a carnival for their deliverance from Hainan ; and in the evening and morning of
the same festival they read the whole book of Esther in synagogue At every time the reader pronounces the name of Ham an , all the young Jews knock on the benches and floor with hammers , by way of knocking Human down , it is done to render him as obnoxious as they can . All the ceremony out of tlie synagogue consists in feasting ; and he who gets so drunk , that he cannot distinguish between the blessing of Mordeeai and the cursing of Hainan , is esteemed a most valuable Jew . On the two first nights of their passover the } ' read the agaclah , i . e .