Ferozeshah

“ The other important towns and seats of commerce are Fazilka (pop. 8505) , Dharmkot (6731) , Moga (6725) , and Muktsar (6389) . Owing principally to the dryness of its climate, Ferozepur has the reputation of being an exceptionally healthy district. In September and October, however, after the annual rains, the people suffer a good deal from remittent fever. In 1901 the population was 958,072. Distributaries of the Sirhind canal water the whole district.
FEROZESHAH, a village in the Punjab, India, notable as the scene of one of the chief battles in the first Sikh War. ”

“ No, sahib, whatever comes, we must ride behind the general's escort. Had we not seen Ferozeshah, we should say that success to-morrow is impossible, for the intrenchments there were but dirt-heaps in comparison to the great works opposite. We can see with our own eyes how big and high they are. They say there are three lines of parapets for the infantry to fire over, besides all their guns. But now we know that nothing is impossible to the white troops, and believe that somehow, though we cannot say how, they will capture it, and drive the Sikhs across the river. ”

“ At the outbreak of the first Sikh war in 1845 he was in command of the Ferozepore division, ten thousand strong. Leaving half his troops to protect the ill-fortified cantonment, he marched with the rest to meet the Sikhs, when they first crossed the Sutlej on 11 Dec., but they declined the challenge although they outnumbered Littler's force by ten to one, and turned aside to Ferozeshah. He skilfully effected a junction with Gough's army on 21 Dec. ”

“ In an often-quoted passage from the treatise of the Mishnah called the Pirké Abōth, three sayings are ascribed to the Men of the Great Synagogue: "Be deliberate in judgment; make many disciples; make a hedge for the Torah." It will be of use at this point to consider these sayings, because they throw light upon the development of the religion of Torah in the particular direction indicated by the name Pharisaism.
To prove that these dicta were actually uttered by the Men of the Great Synagogue [23] is impossible. But it is admitted that they are very ancient ”

“ But the Halachah, as the reader will wish to [101] remind me, came very much more closely home to the Jew than a code of civil and criminal law could do. It was the rule of his private and domestic life, it defined his conduct both towards God and his fellow-man. Certainly it did. And the Pharisee would say, "Why not? Do I not need to serve God in everything I do, however small? And if the Torah can teach me exactly—yes, very exactly—what is most pleasing to Him, shall I not thankfully receive that teaching, and the more of it the better?" ”

“ Sir John Littler having left two regiments of Native Infantry to protect Ferozepore, and eluded the vigilance of the enemy's cavalry, who were posted to watch his division, effected a junction with the main column unmolested by the enemy.
The position of Ferozeshuhur was then hastily reconnoitred. The Sikh camp, consisting of a dense and confused mass of tents, encompassed the village of Ferozeshuhur, which occupied a rising ground, and was armed with batteries of heavy guns. ”

“ February 16.—Two Asian Shammar of the Jezireh came last night, and recognised us as having been in Ferhan Pasha’s camp, last year, in Mesopotamia,—a very pleasant meeting, though we have no distinct recollection of either of them. They gave us all the latest Jezireh news in politics. Ferhan and his brother Faris are now at open war, though Ferhan is no fighter himself, and leaves the conduct of affairs to his eldest son, Aassa. All the Shammar of the Jezireh are with Faris, except Ferhan’s own tail, and the Abde, and the Asslan, Muttany’s men, and our old friend Smeyr ibn-Zeydan. ”

“ The continuance of the Baal-worship, and that on the high places in Jerusalem and Judah, until the sixth or seventh year of Hezekiah's reign, will not much astonish us, if we consider that even before Ahaz the most pious kings had not succeeded in quite suppressing worship on the high places on the part of the people. The reopening of the temple, and of the Jahve-worship in it, Hezekiah might undertake and carry out in the beginning of his reign, because he had all those of the people who were well inclined upon his side. ”

“ Hezekiah, the pious son of the godless Ahaz, recognised that it was to be the business of his reign to bring the kingdom out of the utterly ruinous condition into which Ahaz had brought it by his idolatry and his heathen policy, and to elevate the state again, both in respect to religion and morals, and also in political affairs. He consequently endeavoured, in the first place, to do away with the idolatry, and to restore the Jahve-worship according to the law, and then to throw off the yoke of subjection to the Assyrian. ”

“ The difference that does exist is due to the fact that Pharisaism was the religion of Torah. For here the divine approval or disapproval was necessarily associated in an especial degree with the "Mitzvōth," the precepts which expressed the will of God for the conduct of man. To say that there is a reward for doing a "Mitzvah" is no more out of keeping with true piety than to say there is a reward for praying to the Father which seeth in secret. ”

“ Serosh is the well-known god Çraosha. Feridun is not permitted to slay Zohak, because Azhi dahaka is also a demon.
Feridun has three sons—Salm (Çairima) , Tur (Tuirya) , and Yrej (Airyu) ; to the last, who was the youngest, Feridun gives Iran, the best part of his dominions, while Salm receives the West and Tur the North. Filled with envy at the favour shown to their youngest brother, Salm and Tur slay the pious Yrej. Feridun is deeply moved; but he gives the daughter whom Yrej has left in marriage to Pesheng. The son of Pesheng is Minocher, who grows up to avenge his grandfather's death. ”

“ The son of Hezekiah and Hephzibah was the worst of all the kings of Judah, and had the longest reign.
The tender age of Manasseh when he came to the throne may perhaps account for the fact that the [Pg 352] "forgetfulness" which his name implied [625] was not a forgetting of other sorrows, but of all that was noble and righteous in the attempted reformation which had been the main religious work of his father's life. In Judah, as in England, a king was not supposed to be of age until he was eighteen. ”

“ That separation is indicated by the name applied to them, Pherūshim, or Pharishaia in the common Aramaic speech. Their own name for themselves and each other was "Ḥaberim," "companions," as they were "banded together for a full obedience" to what God had enjoined in the Torah.
It is easy to make Pharisaism appear ridiculous, a mere extravagance of punctilious formalism. But that is only possible to those who look at it from a point of view which is not that of its devoted adherents, or who judge it by a standard which they never recognised. ”

“ That is a far-reaching saying, and gives the clue to the whole meaning of the Halachah, as the rule of right conduct deduced from the Torah, and applied by the Pharisees.
It is obvious that a theory like that lends itself to abuse, because it makes a severe demand for constant devotion on the part of the man who lives under it. Undoubtedly it could, and in some cases it did, lead to that mere formalism and hypocrisy which have been charged upon the Pharisees as a class. ”

“ It is the privilege of Israel to have been found worthy to receive the Torah, and his highest aim is to fulfil it, not only by doing what it sets before him as the divine will, but by taking to heart all that it teaches him concerning sacred things.
The Pharisee believed himself to be under the immediate care of God. Nothing happens [253] to him except by the divine permission. God sees, and knows all that he does and all that he is going to do. Nevertheless, his will is free. He is not compelled either to obey or to disobey. If he obeys, God is pleased with him. ”

“ Yet as the days passed a new jealousy came like seven devils to possess poor Feroza utterly.
What was this wisdom which inspired so many well-turned periods in the Meer's somewhat prosy letters? Beauty was beyond her, but women even of her race had been wise; passionate Nurjehan, and even pious Fâtma--God forgive her for evening her chances with that saintly woman's! The thought led to such earnest study of the Koran that old Mytâb's wrath was mollified into a hope of permanent penitence. ”

“ At the time when the kingdom of the ten tribes was destroyed, Judah found itself in a state of dependence upon the imperial power of Assyria, into which it had been brought by the ungodly policy of Ahaz. But three years before the expedition of Salmanasar against Samaria, the pious Hezekiah had ascended the throne of his ancestor David in Jerusalem, and had set on foot with strength and zeal the healing of Judah’s wounds, by exterminating idolatry and by restoring the legal worship of Jehovah. ”

“ But the Prophet Isaiah sent this message to Hezekiah: "Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the King of Assyria have blasphemed Me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."
So Rabshakeh returned, and when he found fresh troubles in his own land, he sent a message by letter to Hezekiah, saying they were not to rejoice that they had escaped their enemy! For they would surely come and fight against them another time! ”

“ Hersh's sonorous voice.
"They will put us to the plough and order us to cultivate the country of exile!" shouted Rabbi Nohim.
"They will open for us the treasures of the earth, and they will order her to be our fatherland!" screamed Hersh.
"They will forbid us kosher," cried Rabbi.
"They will make of Israel a cedar tree instead of a hawthorn!" answered Hersh.
"Our son's faces will be covered with beards before they may marry!"
"When they take their wives, their minds and strength will be already developed." ”

“ Jemshid, sawn asunder, mockingly performing obeisance; then for hours a mighty throng of youths and maidens, sighing as they passed along, “We are the serpents’ victims”; and Iblis, too, appeared before the Serpent King, assuring him, as he rubbed his hands and laughed in fiendish glee, that he should continue to live so—on and on in torture—for a thousand years. So was the wicked Zohak punished for his evil deeds.
But as for Feridoun, for five hundred years he ruled the world gloriously, and all his days he did that which was beneficent and good, his heart being ever open unto his people. ”

“ There is an element of sober matter-of-fact in Judaism, and especially in Pharisaic Judaism, which may not be sublime, but has great value, nevertheless, in the practical conduct of life, even the religious life. Some of the items included in the Pharisaic list may seem to be of but little importance, such as those having immediate [330] reference to the study of Torah—argument with disciples, attendance on the wise, and the repeating a saying in the name of him who said it. These, and similar items, have to be judged, of course, by the standard of the supreme worth of the Torah. ”

“ The Rabshakeh proved himself, indeed, "an affluent orator," and evinced such familiarity with the religious politics of Judah and Jerusalem, that this, in conjunction with his perfect mastery of Hebrew, gives colour to the belief that he was an apostate Jew. He began by challenging the idle confidence of Hezekiah, and his vain words [567] that he had counsel and strength for the war. Upon what did he rely? On the broken and dangerous bulrush of Egypt? [568] It would but pierce his hand! On Jehovah? But Hezekiah had forfeited his protection by sweeping away His bamoth and His altars! ”

“ And the authority of Halachah was the will of God. It is easy to pick out from the Mishnah [103] instances of minute regulation upon points of no apparent importance—such, for instance, as the rules for dealing with an egg laid upon the Sabbath. If a Pharisee were challenged upon that, or any similar case, he would say: "The Torah, the divine revelation, extends over the whole of life; and its principles, when drawn out and applied to that particular case, yield the results stated in the Halachah, bearing thereon. ”

“ The inquiry is by no means an easy one. For, while it is only necessary to open a [245] volume of the Talmud, or of one of the great Midrashim, to find on almost every page some Haggadic utterance, often indeed a great mass of Haggadah, it is wholly unwarranted to say "this" and "this" is what the Pharisees believed. It may be; and, of course, if it were not in some way acceptable to Pharisaic minds, according to their canons of judgment, it would not be found in their books. ”

“ When Hezekiah, thoughtless and vain, had shown his treasures to the Babylonians, a nation then of little account in comparison with the Assyrians, Isaiah appears before him, and says, ‘Behold the time cometh, when all that is in thine house and all that thy fathers have collected unto this day shall be carried away to Babylon, nothing shall remain saith Jehovah.’ [54]
“To Hezekiah succeeded his son Manasseh, a prince wholly unlike his father, who, as a punishment of his offences, was carried away to Babylon, and brought back when he repented and returned to Jehovah. ”