The Jew's Longevity

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 2, 1882

The Jew's Longevity.

"THESE are the beasts of which ye shall eat." So says the portion of the law and though the text be old and oft used there may yet remain something to be said.

That the Jews are the physical superiors of their neighbors is unquestioned. The best scientists admit the fact which, to skeptics, statistics will prove. The Jews are longer lived and less susceptible to contagious diseases than any other people. Subject as they are to the same climatic influences, "heated and cooled by the same summer and winter," liable, from without, to the same dangers of disease, there must be some point of difference between this people and others to cause the superior longevity. That it is not the result of accident is self-evident, for Nature works by law; and the very first principle of science teaches us to seek a cause for effects which we observe. The only physical point of difference between Jew and Gentile is the former's observance of the dietary laws, and with only this difference—the Jew outlives his neighbor. Is it not, then, the logical conclusion that this observance has caused the increased longevity?

It may be argued that within recent years these laws have been neglected, and that there has been no decrease in the average of Jewish life. True enough, but the steady growth of thirty-five centuries cannot be checked in one or even half-a-dozen generations. Those who to-day violate the dietary laws, sin less against themselves than against their descendants. Just as observers of the laws have been blessed "to the thousandth generation" by longer lease of life, freedom from disease and consequent increased happiness; just so will non-observers be punished. It will need no especial intervention of providence to bring the penalty. We can well foresee it for ourselves. By the same immutable law that attention to health laws brings health, will their disregard cause disease.

It is not true that these laws were designed for only a certain clime and time. They are eternal truths, as is proven in the two thousand years of Israel's dispersion through all lands, in which time and countries the laws have been observed and their observance rewarded, and it is for us to decide whether we will lengthen or shorten our children's lives by obeying or neglecting these laws of the "animals which we may eat."—American Hebrew.