Talmud
Talmud (תִּלמוּד, talmud, doctrine; from לָמִד, "to teach"). :The Talmud-, "that wonderful monument of human industry, human wisdom,. and human folly" (Milman), is the work- which embodies the canonical and civil laws of the Jews. It consists of a Mishna (q.v.). as text, and a voluminous collection of commentaries and illustrations, called in the more modern Hebrew Horaa, and in Aramaic Gemara, "the complement" or "completion," from גּמִר, "to make perfect." Thence the men who delivered these decisive commentaries are called Gemarists, sometimes Horaim, but more commonly Amoraim.
1. History and Composition. —The Jews divided their law into the written and unwritten. The former contained the Pentateuch, πεντάτευχος, חמישה, חומשי, תורה, or the תורה שבכתב, verbum Dei scriptum, ἔγγραφος; the latter was handed down orally, the תורה שבעל פה, παράδοσις, verbum Dei non scriptum, ἄγραφος. Some Jews have assigned the same antiquity to both, alleging that Moses received them ῥon Mount Sinai, and that Joshua received the oral law from Moses, who transmitted it to the seventy elders; and these again transmitted it to the men of the Great Synagogue, the last of whom was Simon the Just (q.v.). From the men of the Great Synagogue it came into the possession of the rabbins till Judah the Holy (q. v), who embodied in the celebrated code, of traditional Jaw, or Mishna, all the authorized interpretations of the Mosaic law, the traditions and decisions of the learned, and the precedents of the courts or schools; or, as Moses Maimonides (q.v.) states, in his preface to the Mishna (Seder. Zeraim), "From Moses our teacher to our holy rabbi no one has united in a single body of doctrine what was publicly taught as the oral law; but an every generation the chief of the tribunal, or the prophet of his day, made memoranda of what he had heard from his predecessors and instructors, and communicated it orally to the people. In like manner, each individual committed to writing for his own use, and according to the degree of his ability, the oral laws and the information he had received respecting the interpretation of the Bible, with the various decisions that had been pronounced in every age and sanctified by the authority of the great tribunal. Such was the form of proceeding until our rabbi the holy, who first collected all the traditions, the judgments, the sentences, and the expositions of the law, heard by Moses our master, and taught in each generation." There is, no doubt, some truth in this as to a few elementary principles of Hebrew usage and practice, both civil and religious; but the whole of the unwritten law cannot have this primordial majesty, for, without referring to the trivial and foolish character of many of its appointments, we know that Midrashim, or explanations and amplifications of Biblical topics, were of gradual growth. Their commencement dates prior to the chronicle writer, because he refers to works of that nature (2Ch 13:22; 2Ch 24:27). The system of interpretation which they exemplify and embody existed in the age of the so called Sopherim, or scribes, who took the place of the prophets. — The men of the Great Synagogue promoted at. It prevailed from the Asmonsean period till that of Hadrian, i.e. about 300 years. The Midrash was naturally simple at first, but it soon grew more comprehensive and complicated under a variety of influences, of which controversy was not the least powerful. When secret meanings, hidden wisdom, deep knowledge, were sought in the letter of Scripture, the Midrashim shaped themselves accordingly, and a distinction in their contents could be made. Thus they have been divided into the Halakah, הלכה, "the rule," and Hagadâh, הגדה, "what is said." Legal prescriptions formed the Halakah, free interpretations the Hagadah. The one, as a rule of conduct, must be attended to; the other merely passed for something said. The one was permanent and proceeded from authoritative sources, from schools, the teachers of the law, etc.; the other was the product of individual minds, consisting of ideas which had often no other object than of being expressed at the moment. The oldest collection of Halakoth that is, the oldest Mishna-proceeded from the school of Hillel. Rabbi Akiba, who was slain in the Hadrianic war, is said to have composed Mishnic regulations. The school of R. Simon ben-Gamaliel (q.v.), A.D.
166, who was a descendant of Hillel, collected and sifted the existing materials of the oral law. The present Mishna proceeded from the hands of R. Judah the Holy (q.v.), son and successor of R. Simon ben-Gamaliel. The title of Judah's work is simply Mishnah, משנה, δευτέρωσις (from שנה, "to repeat"), "repetition," like the Arabic Mathani (Koran, 15:87; 39:34), that is, either (considering the divine law as twofold, written and traditional) the second branch of the twofold law, or else the law given in a second form, as an explicative and practical development of it (comp. Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, 4:419).
⇒See also the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
The work itself is composed of the following elements:
1. Pure Mishnah (משנה), the elucidation of the fundamental text of the Mosaic laws, and their application to an endless variety of particular cases and circumstances not mentioned in them.
2. Haldkâh (הלכה), the usages and customs of Judaism, as sanctioned and confirmed by time and general acquiescence.
3. Dibrey Chakalnim (דברי חכמים), law principles of the wise men or sages, i.e. the ancient, and at that time the more recent, teachers, to whose decisions the people's respect for them gave a greater or less weight.
4. Maassiyath (מעשיות), practical facts, conclusions arrived at by the course of events.
5. Gezirôth (גזירות), extemporaneous decisions demanded by emergencies.
6. Tekanôth (תקנות), modifications of usages to meet existing circumstances; and
7. Kelalîm (כללים), universal principles, under which a multitude of particular cases may be provided for.
According to Maimonides, there were five classes into which the traditional law is divided, viz.:
1. Pirushm (פירושים), "interpretations" given to Moses by God, the authority of'which has never been disputed (אין מחלוקת בהם בשום פנים).
2. Halakâh le-Mosheh mis-Sindy (הלכה למשה מסיני), "precepts delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai," a distinction which gained the applause of all the classical rabbins, because it belongs to the class of undisputed decisions.
3. Those which have admitted of discussion, and the value and weight of which have been mainly determined by an extensive consent among the authorities.
4. Gezarâth (גזרות), "decisions" which have been made by the wise men regarding some of the written laws, and which decisions are designed to insure more fully the observance of such laws (or to make a fence about the law, כדי לעשות סיג לתורה).
5. Tekanâth (תקנות), "experimental suggestions," referring to things recommended or enjoined by particular masters, which though they may not possess the stringent force of laws, nevertheless exert a great influence in the formation of social and religious habits and usages.
In constructing his work, Jehudah, or Judah, arranged these manifold materials under six general classes, called Sedarzim (סדרים), or orders. The first is called Zeraim (זרעים), or "seeds," and treats of agricultural laws; the second, Moed (מועד), or "festivals," or "solemnity," treats of the Sabbath and the annual festivals and holydays, the duties of their observance, and the various enactments and prohibitions thereunto pertaining; the third, Nashizm (נשים), or "women," treats of the intercourse between the sexes, of husband and wife, the duties of a brother-in-law towards his widowed and childless sister-in-law, the right of untying the shoe (De 25:5), of dowry and marriage settlements, of espousals, divorces, and of all the laws to these subjects respectively appertaining; the fourth, Nezikin (נזיקין, or "injuries," treats of the laws of property (movable as well as immovable) and of commerce; the tithe, Kodashim (קדשים), or "consecrations," treats of sacrifices and their laws; the sixth, Taharôth [or rather Tohoroth (טהרות), or "purifications," treats 'of the laws of pureness, legal cleanness, and that both positively and negatively. The initial letters of these titles combined, for the sake of memory, give the technical word Zemàn nekêt (זמן נקט), "a time accepted." The regulations thus generally classified are further arranged under a multitude of subsidiary topics, each Seder, or order, being divided into a number of tracts or treatises, called Massiktoth (מסכתות), and these were again subdivided into Perakîm (פרקים), chapters. The latter again are divided or broken up into paragraphs. Altogether there are 63 Massiktoth, with 525 chapters and 4187 paragraphs, in the Mishna. The whole is called Shas (ש ס), after the initials of סדרי ששה, i.e. the six orders. Since a general analysis of the contents of the Mishna has already been given under the art. MISHNA SEE MISHNA (q.v.), we must refer the reader to it, while a more minute analysis will be given farther on.
R. Judah's Mishna, however, did not contain all Midrashim. Many others existed, which are contained in part in the Siphra on Leviticus, Siphre on Numbers and Deuteronomy, Mechilta on Exodus, SEE MIDRASH, the Mishnas made by individual teachers for the use of their pupils, with the addition to the official Mishna collected by R. Chiya and his contemporaries. All the Halakoth of this sort, which were extra-Mishnaic, were called Boraithas. (ברייתות; Heb. חיצונות) or Tosiphtas (תוספתות). As has been stated, R. Judah the Holy collected the great mass of traditions in the work called Mishna; but even this copious work could not satisfy, for the length of time, the zeal of the rabbins for the law, for all casuistry is endless in its details. There were a great multitude of all kinds of possibilities which were treated in the Mishna, and yet, again, each single sentence left open divers possibilities, divers doubts, and considerations not yet finished. Thus it was an inner necessity of the matter that the text of the Mishna should again become the point of learned discussion. Partly by means of logic (that is, Rabbinical), partly with the help of the traditional matter, which had not yet been included in the Mishna, all open questions were now discussed. This task was carried out by the Amoraim, or Gemarical doctors, whose very singular illustrations, opinions, and doctrines were subsequently to form the Gemaras, i.e. the Palestinian and Babylonian: a body of men charged with being the most learned and elaborate triflers that ever brought discredit upon the republic of letters—
"For mystic learning, wondrous able In magic, talisman, and cabal Deep-sighted in intelligences Ideas, atoms, influences."
With unexampled assiduity did they seek after or invent obscurities and ambiguities, which continually furnished pretexts for new expositions and illustrations, the art of clouding texts in themselves clear having proved ever less difficult than that of elucidating passages the words or the sense of which might be really involved in obscurity.
"Hence comment after comment, spun as fine As bloated spiders draw the flimsy line!"
The two main schools where this casuistic treatment of the Mishnic text was exercised were that at Tiberias, in Palestine, and that at Sora (q.v.), in Babylonia, whither Abba Areka, called "Rab" (q.v.), a pupil of R. Judah, had brought the Mishna. In these and other schools (as Nahardea, Sipporis, Pumbaditha [q.v.], and Jabne or Jamnia), the thread of casuistry was twisted over and over again, and the matter-of traditions of the law thus took greater and greater dimensions. Abandoning the Scripture' text, to illustrate and to explain which the doctors and wise men of the schools had hitherto labored, successive generations of Genzarici now devoted& their whole attention to the exposition of the text of the Mishna; and the industry and cavillation were such that expositions, illustrations, and commentaries multiplied with amazing rapidity and to so portentous a degree that they eventually swelled into a monstrous chaotic mass, which was dignified by the name of Gemara, גמָרָא (supplement or complement), and this, together with the Mishna, was called "Talmud." Notwithstanding the uncertain paternity of this incongruous body of opinions, there were not wanting those who gave a preference to the Gemara over the Mishna, and even over the "written law." It was said by some that the ''written law" was like water, the Mishna like wine, and the Gemara like hippocras, or spiced wine. The "words of the scribes," said those supporters of the Gemara, are lovely above the "words of the law," for the words of the law" are weighty and light, but the "words of the scribes" are all weighty.
It was by R. Jochanan, rector of the Academy of Tiberias, that the minor chaos of comments and facetiae began to be collected; and these, being added to the Mishna, were termed the Palestinian Talmud, or Talmud Jeushali, i.e. Jerusalem Talmud. This Talmud, which was completed at Tiberias about A.D. 350, only contains four orders, viz., Zeraim, Môed, Nashuim, and Nezikin, together with the treatise Niddah and some other fragmentary portions. From the schools of Babylonia, also, a similar collection was in after-times made; but, as, upon the desolation of Palestine, the study of the law was chiefly prosecuted in Babylon, the college there were far more numerous, and far more ingenious and prolific were the imaginations of the Babylonian professors. To collect and methodize all the disputations, interpretations, elucidations, commentaries, and conceits of the Babylonian Gemarici was consequently a labor neither of one man nor of a single age. The first attempt was made (A.D. 367) by R. Ashi, elected at the age of fourteen to be rector of the school of Soras (q.v.), a teacher described as eminently pious and learned. R. Ashe labored during sixty years upon the rank, unwieldy work, and, after arranging thirty-five books, died in 427, leaving the completion to his successors. For 100 years longer did rabbi after rabbi, with undiminished zeal, successively continue this un-profitable application, until at length, after the lapse of 123 years (about A.D. 550), rabbi Abina, the sixth in succession to Ashb, gave the finishing stroke to this second Talmud. Denominated, from the name of the province in which it was first compiled, the Babylonian Talmud, this second Talmud is as unmanageable to the student on account of its style and composition as on account of its prodigious bulk. Composed in a dialect neither Chaldaic nor Hebrew, but a barbarous commixture of both of these and of other dialects, jumbled together in defiance of all the rules of composition or of grammar, it affords a second specimen of a Babylonian confusion of languages.
"It was a parti-colored dress Of patched and piebald languages, Which made some think, when it did gabble, They'd heard three laborers of Babel, Or Cerberus himself pronounce A leash of languages at once."
Abounding, moreover, in fantastic trifles and Rabbinical reveries, it must appear almost incredible that any sane man could exhibit such acumen and such ardor in the invention of those unintelligible comments, in those nice scrupulosities, and those ludicrous chimeras which, the rabbins have solemnly published to the world, and of which we will speak further on.
II. Form and Style. — In general, the Gemara takes the shape of scholastic discussions, more or less prolonged, on the consecutive portions of the Mishna. On a cursory view, it is true, these discussions have the air of a desultory and confused wrangle; but, when studied more carefully, they resolve themselves into a system governed by a methodology of its own. "Non vero sterilis in Mishnicam commentarius Gemara est; quae illius tantuim modo verba explicet. Sed prolixas in ear instituit disputationes,
queestiones proponendas et ad eas respondendo dubia movendo, eaque solvendo, excipiendo et replicando" (Wahner, Antiq. Hebr. 1, 339).
The language of the Talmud is partly Hebrew and partly Aramaic. The best Hebrew of the work is in the text of the Mishna, that in the Gemara being largely debased with exotic words of various tongues, such as Latin, Greek, Arabic, Coptic, and Persian (comp. A. Brull, Fremdsprachliche Redensarten in den Talmuden und Midrashim [Leips. 1869]), barbarous spelling, and uncouth grammatical, or rather ungrammatical, forms. The same remark will apply to the Aramaic portions, which, in general, are those containing popular narrative, or legendary illustration, while the law principles and the discussions relating to them are embodied in Hebrew. Many forms of the Talmudic dialect are so peculiar as to tender a grammar adapted to the work itself greatly to be desired. Ordinary Hebrew grammar will not take a man through a page of it. SEE RABBINICAL DIALECT.
In style the Mishna is remarkable for its extreme conciseness, and the Gemara is written upon the same model, though not so frequently obscure. The prevailing principle of the composition seems to have been the employment of the fewest words, thus rendering the work a constant brachylogy. A phrase becomes a focus of many thoughts, a solitary word an anagram, a cipher for a whole subject of reflection. To employ an appropriate expression of Delitzsch," What Jean Paul says of the style of Haman applies exactly to that of the Talmud: "It is a firmament of telescopic stars, containing many a cluster of light which no unaided eye has ever resolved" (Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Poesie [Leips. 1836], p. 31). But without regard to grammatical and linguistic difficulties and numberless abbreviations which crowd the pages of the Talmud, there are a number of so-called termini technici, which were current only in the Rabbinical schools, but have been incorporated in the Gemara, like joints and ligaments in its organization, so as to make the knowledge of them indispensable to the student. Such termini were—
1. The explication, or פירוש, which is introduced by the formulae ִמאי כ, "What is this?" מאי קאמר, "What does he say?" במאי איקמינן, "How is this to bte understood?" במאי עסקינן, "What is the matter here?" מאן דכר שמה, "Who could think of such a thing?" היכי דמי, "How have we to interpret this?"
2. The question, or שאלה. If a question is offered by one school to another, it is introduced by the formula איבעיא להו, "They propose to them;" if from several persons to one, the formula is בעו מיניה, "They ask of him;" or if the demand is made of one person to another, it is בעא מיניה, "I ask of him."
3. The response, or תשובה, which may Consist either in strong reasons (פשטא or תירווֹ) or in strong objections (פירכא or קושיא), is introduced by the formula מנא לן, "Whence have you this?" or מאי הוי עלה, "You wish to know the decision in this case."
4. Tosiphta, or תוספתא, an appendix to the Mishna. We have seen that R. Chiya, or, as some have it, R. Nehemya under his direction, composed a work of this descripttt6n in Palestine, the substance of which is diffused in citations throughout the Talmud. They are indicated by the sign-word Tana, תאנא, "He teaches," or Vetanialey, ותני עלי, "It is taught.hereupon," prefixed to the sentence.
5. Boraztha, or ברייתא, another kind of supplement to the Mishna. Such are the books Siphra, Siphre, and Mechiltha, mentioned above. When a citation is adduced from a Boraitha in the Talmud, it is introduced by one of these forms: Tanu rabbandn, תנו רבנן, '"Our rabbins have taught;" Tani chada, תני חדא, "A certain (rabbi) has taught," etc.
6. The suspense, or תיקו, is used when a case cannot be decided either pro or con, and thus this formula is used, which according to some contains the initials of יתרוֹ קושיות ואיבעיות תשבי, i.e. "the Tishbite (viz., Elijah, at his coming) will explain all objections and inquiries." Others, however, pretend that it is an abbreviation of תיקנם, "It remains in state quo."
7. The objection, or קושיא, a question not of a fixed Halakah, which is irrefragable, but of some position of the Amoraim or perhaps Tanaim, which is lawfully debatable, and is introduced by the formulae תא שמע, "Come and hear;" שמע מינה, "Hear of this;" אי הכי, "If so;" אלמא, "Therefore;" מחלוקת בזה, "There is a controversy in this case;" במאי קא מיפלגי, "What is the ground of the controversy?" ִסלקא דעת, "Thon couldst suppose."
8. The refutation, or תיובתא, is used in order to uphold the authority of the Bible (מן הפסוק) against a Tanaite, and to oppose the authority of a Tanaite against that of one of the Amolraim, and is introduced by the formula תיובתא, תיובתא, "This objection is truly of great weight."
9. The contradiction, or רמיה, an objection thrown against a sentiment or opinion by the allegation of a contrary authority, and is introduced by the formula ורמינהי, "But I oppose this."
10. The argumentation, or התקפתא, "an assailing or seizing upon," is a kind of objection in use only among the later Amoraim, and is introduced by ר פלוני מתקיŠ לה, "Rabbi N. objects to this." If this objection is not refuted, it takes the value of Halakah.
11. The solution, or פירוק, is the explanatory answer to the objection (see supra 7).
12. The infirmation, or שנוי, "disowning or shifting off," when a sage, sorely pressed in debate, shifts off his thesis upon another, introducing this by the formula מני הא, "But whose is this sentence."
13. The appui, or סיוע, "support," is a corroborative evidence for a doctrine or principle, introduced by the formula לימא מסייע ליה, "It can be said," "There is support for it."
14. The necessity, or הצרכה, This term is used in order to justify a sentence or a word, or even a single letter, which seems superfluous in the Bible or in the Mishna, and is introduced by the formula הא זו למה לי, "What is this for?" To which is answered, צריכא, "It is absolutely necessary."
15. The accord, or שוטה, "series," a catena or line of Talmudic teachers, cited against a given proposition.
16. Sugia, סוגיא, means the proper nature of a thing. By this word the Gemara refers to itself with regard to its own properties and characteristics.
17. Hilkatha, הלכתא, is the ultimate conclusion on a matter debated, henceforth constituting a rule of conduct. Much of the Gemara consists of discussions by which they are verified, confirmed, and designated. When the advocates of two opposing theses have brought the debate to an issue, they say, "The Halacta is with such a one" הלכתא כן וכן.
18. Maasah, or מעשה, factum, the establishment of a Halacta by cases of actual experience or practice.
19. Shematetha, שמעתתא, "to hear," describes a judgment or principle which, being founded on Holy Writ, or being of self-evident authority, must be hearkened to as incontestable.
20. Horaah, הוראה, "demonstration," doctrine, legitimate and authoritative.
21. Hagadah, הגדה, "a saying," incident related, anecdote or legend employed in the way of elucidation. Hagadah is not law, but it serves to illustrate law.
III. Literary and Moral Character of the Book. Since the Gemara is in general only a more complete development of the Mishna, it also comprises all the primary elements of the Mishna mentioned above, which are, however, intermixed with an endless variety of Hagadoth, i.e. anecdotes and illustrations, historical and legendary, poetical allegories, charming parables, with epithalamiums, etc., and thus making the Talmud contain all and everything, or as Buxtorf (in Praefat. Lex. Chald. et Talmud.) says:
"Sunt enim in Talmud adhuc multa quoque Theologica sana, quamvis plulrimis inutilibus corticibus, ut Majemon, licubi loquitur, involuta. Sunt inu eo) multa fida antiquiatis Judaicee collapsse veluti rudela et-vestigia, ad convincendam posterorum Judseorum perfidiam, ad illustraudam utriusque Testamenti historiam, ad recte explicandos ritsus, leges, consuetudines populi Hebraei prisci, plurimum conducentia. Sunt in eo multa Juridica, Medica, Physica, Ethica, Politica, Astronomica et aliarum scientiarum praeclara documenta, quae istius gentis et temporis historiam mirifice commendantlt. Sullti eoa illustria ex antiquitate proverbia, insignes sententise, acuta apophthegmata, scite prudenterque dicta innumera, quse lectorem vel meliorem, vel sapientiorem, vel doctiorem reddere possutlt, et ceu rutilantes gemmse non minus Hebrseam linguam exornant, quam omn.es Latii et Grseciea flosculi suas linguas condecorant. Sunt in eo multae vocum myriades, quae vel voces in Scripturse Sacrae usu raras illustrant, et native explicant,vel totins linguae Hebraicse et Chaldaese usum insigniter complent et perficiuut, qui alioqui in defectn maximno mutilus et mancls jaceret." In order to illustrate this, we will give a few specimens of such Hagadoth for the benefit of the reader:
God is represented as praying. R. Jochaana says, in the name of R. Josi, How is it proved that the Holy One, blessed be he, does pray? From Isa 56:7, "I will bring them to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer." Mark, it is not said, their prayer, but my prayer; therefore it is conclusively proved that he prays. And what does he pray? R. Zutra, the son of Tobia, said, in the name of Rav, the following is the divine prayer: "May it please me that my mercies shall prevail over mine anger, that the bowels of my compassion may be extended, that I may mercifully deal with my children and keep justice in abeyance." In corroboration of this, the following story is given. It is told by R. Ismael, the son of Elisha. Once I went into the Holy of Holies for the purpose of burning incense, and I saw Acathriel Jah, the Lord, sitting upon the high and exalted throne. And he said to me, Ismael, my son, bless me! and I addressed to him the above prayer, and he shook his head (Berakoth, p. 7, col. 1).
But if God prays, then he must, also put on phylacteries. Even upon this point the rabbins do not leave us in ignorance. Where is it proved that God puts on phylacteries? In Isa 62:8, where we read, "The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength." By the term right hand is meant the law, as it is written, "From his right hand went a fiery law for them" (De 33:2); and by the term arm of his strength is meant phylacteries, as it is written, "The Lord will give strength to his people," etc. (Berakoth, p. 6, col. 1). Moreover, God has actually shown his phylacteries to Moses. It is written, "And I will take away mine hands, and thou shalt see my back parts" (Ex 33:23). R. Chana, the son of Bisna, says, in the name of R. Shimeon Chasida, "From this passage we learn' that the Holy One, blessed be he, has shown to Moses the tie of the phylacteries, which lies on the back part of his head" (Berakoth, p. 7, col. 1).
If God prays, then, in the language of the rabbins, he is conscious of some personal feeling. They are not silent on this point. For example, the school of Ishmael have taught that peace is a very important matter, and that for its sake even God prevaricated. For it is written in Genesis 18:first that Sarah said, "My Lord is old;" but afterwards it is written she said, "And I am old" (Yebamoth, p. 65, col. 2; see as 7 Baba Metsia, p. 87, col. 1).
God is represented as needing a sacrifice to atone for himself. R. Shimeon, the son of Pazi, asked, It is written, "And God made two great lights;" and again, the greater light and the lesser light; how does this agree? Ans. The moon said to the Holy One, blessed be he-Lord of the universe, is it possible for two kings to use one crown?
He said to her, Go and make thyself smaller. She said to him again, Lord of the universe, because I spoke to thee reasonably, should I make myself smaller? He said, in order to comfort her, Go and rule day and night. She said to him, What advantage will this be to me? Of what use is a candle in the middle of the day? He replied, Go and let Israel number the days of the year by thee. She said, It is impossible even for the sun that the calendar should be reckoned after him only, for it is written, "Let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years?" He said to her, Go, and the righteous will be called by thy name; such as Jacob the little, Samuel the little, David the little, etc. But when God saw that the moon was not quite comforted with these promises, he said, Bring ye a sacrifice to atone for me, because I lessened the size of the moon. And this corresponds with the saying of R. Shimeou, the son of Lakish: Why is the monthly sacrifice distinguished from others, inasmuch as it is written concerning it, "And one kid of the goats for a sin-offering unto the Lord?" (Nu 28:15). Because God said, This kid shall be an atonement for that I have lessened the size of the moon (Chulin, p. 60, col. 2). Raba barbar Chana, in telling a long story, says, "I heard a Bath-kol crying, Woe to me that I have sworn! And now since I have sworn, who will absolve me from my oath? (Baba Bathra, p. 74, col. 1).
Occupation of God. On one occasion Abyathon found Elijah, and asked him. What does the Holy One, blessed be he, do? He answered, He is studying the case of the concubine of Gibea. [We do not give this excerpt in full.] And what is his opinion, about it? He says that Abyathon, my Son, is right; and Jonathan, my son, is also right. Is there, their, a doubt in heaven about it? No, not in-the least, rejoined Elijah; but both opinions are the words of the living God (Götting p. 6, col. 2).
Rabba, the son of Shila, met Elijah, and asked him, "What does; the Holy One, blessed be he, do?" Elijah replied, "He recites the lessons he hears from the lips of all the rabbins, with the exception of rabbi Meir. But why does he not want to learn from rabbi Meir?" Elijah answered, "Because rabbi Meir learned from one with the name of Acher." Rabba said, "But rabbi Meir found a pomegranate, and has eaten the inside, but thrown away the husks of it, i.e. he only learned from Acher, but did not practice his deeds." Elijah answered, "Now God says, Meir, my son" (Chagigah, p. 15, col. 2).
R. Abhu says, If there had not been a passage of Scripture for it, it would be impossible to make such a statement; but it is written, "In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond. the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard" (Isa 7:20).God appeared to Sennacherib in the form of an old man. Sennacherib said to him, If thou shouldst go to the kings of the east and the west, whose children I have taken away and killed, what wouldst thou say to them? He answered, I would say to them that this man, i.e. Sennacherib, sits also in fear. Sennacherib said, What then shall I do? God said, Go and disguise thyself, that they should not recognize thee. How shall I disguise myself? God said, Go and bring me a razor, and I will shave thee. Sennacherib replied, From where shall I bring thee a razor?' God said, Go to that house, and bring it me. He went there and found one. Then angels came, and appeared to, him in the form of men; and were grinding olive-seeds. He said to them, Give me a razor. They replied, Crush one measure of olive-seeds, and we will give the razor. He did so and they gave it to him. Before he returned to God it became dark. God said to him, Bring a light. And he brought coals of fire to make a light and while he was blowing them, the, flame took hold of his beard; and thus God shaved his head and beard (Sanhedrin, p. 96, col. 1).
The schools of Hillel and of Shammai were disputing for three years about a certain point in the law; each side maintained that it was infallibly right. At last a Bath-kol came down from heaven and said, The opinions of both are the words of the living God, but the law is as the school of Hillel (Erubin, p. 13, col. 2).
R. Joshua, the son of Levi, says, When Moses came down from the presence of God, Satan appeared before him and said, Lord of the universe, where is the law? God replied, I have given it to the earth. He went to the earth and asked, Where is the law? The earth answered, God understandeth the way thereof (Job 28:23). He went to the sea and asked, Where is the law? The sea, said, It is not in me. He went to the depth, and asked the same question. The depth said, It is not in me; Destruction and death said, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears (ibid.). So he returned to God and said, Lord of the universe, I have searched for it all over the earth, and have not found it. God said to him, Go to the son of Amram. He came to Moses, and said to him, The law which God gave thee, where is it? Moses replied to Satan, Who am I, that God should give me a law! Thereupon of God said to Moses, Art thou a liar? Moses answered, "Lord of the universe, thou hast a precious treasure, which is thy daily delight, and should I claim it for my own advantage? God said to him, Because thou didst think little of thyself, the law shall be called after thy name. As it is written, "Remember ye the law of Moses my servant"(Mal 4:4). Rabbi Joshua continues to narrate: When Moses went up to heaven, he found God occupied in twisting wreaths for the letters- (of the law). And he called, Moses! is there no peace in thy city? i.e. that thou didst not salute me with a salaam? Moses answered, Is it customary that a servant should salute his master? God said, Thou oughtest to have helped me; i.e. thou shouldst have wished me success in my work. Immediately Moses said to him, "And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord is great, according as thou hast spoken" (Nu 14:17) (Sabbath, p. 89, col. 1).
These are only a few of the many examples which crowd the pages of the Talmud. That these stories are extravagant, and often, when taken literally, absurd, no one can deny. But they must be merely regarded as to their meaning and intention. Much has been said against the Talmud on account of the preposterous character of some of these legends. But we should give the Hebrew literati the benefit of their own explanations. They tell us that in the Talmud the Hagadah has no absolute authority, nor any value except in the way of elucidation. It often-but not always-enwraps a philosophic meaning under the veil of allegory, mythic folk-lore, ethical story, Oriental romance, parable, and aphorism and fable. They deny that the authors of these fancy pieces intended either to add to the law of God or to detract from it by them, but only to explain and enforce it in terms best suited to the popular capacity. They caution us against receiving these things according to the letter, and admonish us to understand them-according to their spiritual or moral import. "Beware," says Maimonides, "that you take not the words of the wise men literally, for this would be degrading to the sacred doctrine, and sometimes contradict it. Seek rather the hidden sense; and if you cannot find the kernel, let the shell alone, and confess, 'I cannot understand this.'" But the impartial reader must at once admit that these suggestions are merely the after-thoughts of tender apologists, for some of these stories have no hidden sense at all, but must be taken literally, because meant so, as the following will prove. In the treatise Gittin, fol. 69, col. 1, we read the following prescription: "For the bleeding at the nose, let a man be brought who is a priest, and whose name is Levi, and let him write the word Levi backwards. If this cannot be done, get a layman, and let him write the following words backwards: 'Ana pipi Shila bar Sumki;' or let him write these words: 'Taam dli bemi keseph, taam li bemi paggan.' Or let him take a root of grass, and the cord of an old bed, and paper and saffron and the red part of the inside of a palm-tree, and let him burn them together; and let him take some wool and twist two threads, and let him dip them in vinegar, and then roll them in the ashes and put them into his nose. Or let him look out for a small stream of: water that flows from east to west, and let him go and stand with one leg on each side of it, and let him take with his right hand some mud from under his left foot, and with his left hand from under his right foot, and let him twist two threads of wool, and dip them in the mud, and put them into his nostrils. Or let him be placed under a spout, and let water be brought and poured upon him, and let them say, 'As this water ceases to flow, so let the blood of M., the son of the woman N., also cease." A commentary on this wisdom or folly is superfluous. That this direction to stop a bleeding at the nose is not a rare case in the Talmud, the following mode of treatment for the scratch, or bite of a mad dog will prove. In the treatise Yoma, fol. 83, col. 1, we read: "The rabbins have handed down the tradition that there are five things to be observed of a mad dog; his mouth is open, his saliva flows, his ears hang down, his tail is between his legs, and he goes by the sides of the ways. Some say, also, that he barks, but his voice is not heard. What is the cause of his madness? Ray says it proceeds from this, that the witches are making their sport with him. Samuel says it is an evil spirit that rests upon him. What is the difference? The difference is this, that in the latter case he is to be killed by some missile weapon. The tradition agrees with Samuel, for it says in killing him no other mode is to be used but the casting of some missile weapon. If a mad dog scratch any one, he is in danger; but if he bite him he will die. In case of scratch there is danger; what, then, is the remedy? Let the man cast off his clothes and run away. Rab Huna, the son of Rab Joshua, was once scratched in the street by one of them; he immediately cast off his clothes and ran away. He also says, I fulfilled in myself these words: 'Wisdom -gives life to them that have it' (Ec 6:12). In case of a bite the man will die; what, then, is the remedy? Abai says he must take the skin of a male adder and write upon it these words I, M., the son of the woman N., upon the skin of a male adder, I write against thee, Kanti, Kanti, Klirus.
Some say, 'Kandi, Kandi, Klurus, Jah, Jah, Lord of hosts, Amen, Amen, Selah.' Let him also cast off his clothes and bury them in the graveyard for twelve months of the year; then let him take them up and burn them in an oven, and let him scatter the ashes at the parting of the roads. But during these twelve months of the year, when he drinks water, let him drink out of nothing but a brass tube, lest he should see the phantom-form of the daemon and be endangered. This was tried by Abba the son of Martha, who is the same as Abba the son of Manjumi. His mother made a golden tube for him." In the face of such extravagancies, we are not surprised at the following statement made by a modern Jewish writer, H. Hurwitz, in an essay preceding his Hebrew Tales (Lond. 1826), p. 34 sq.
"The Talmud contains many things which every enlightened Jew must sincerely wish had either never appeared there, or should, at least, long ago have been expunged from its pages... Some of these sayings are objectionable per se; others are, indeed, susceptible of explanations, but without them are calculated to produce false and erroneous impressions. Of the former description are all those extravagancies relating to the extent of Paradise, the dimensions of Gehinnom, the size of Leviathan, and the shor habor, the freaks of Ashmbdai, etc., idle tales borrowed most probably from the Parthians and Arabians, to whom the Jews were subject before the promulgation of the Talmud. How these objectionable passages came at all to be inserted, can only be accounted for from the great reverence with which the Israelites of those days used to regard their wise men, and which made them look upon every word and expression that dropped from the mouth of their instructors as so many precious sayings well worthy of being preserved. These they wrote down for their own private information, together with more important matters, and when, in aftertimes, these writings were collected in order to be embodied in one entire work, the collectors, either from want of proper discrimination or from some pious motive, suffered them to remain, and thus they were handed down to posterity. That the wiser portion of the nation never approved of them is well known. Nay, that some of the Talmudists themselves regard them with no favorable eye is plain from the bitter terms in which they spoke against them [for example, Jehoshua ben Levi, who exclaims: "He who writes them down will have no portion in the world to come; he who explains them will be scorched"]... I admit, also, that there are many and various contradictions in the Talmud, and, indeed, it would be a miracle if there were none. For the work contains not the opinions of only a few individuals living in the same society, under precisely similar circumstances, but of hundreds, nay, thousands, of learned men of various talents, living in a long series of ages, in different countries, and under the most diversified conditions... To believe that its multifarious contents are all dictates of unerring wisdom is as extravagant as to suppose that all it contains is founded in error. Like all other productions of unaided humanity, it is not free from mistakes and prejudices, to remind us that the writers were fallible men, and that unqualified admiration must, be reserved for the works of divine inspiration, which we ought to study, the better to adore and obey the all-perfect Author. But while I should be among the first to protest against any confusion of the Talmudic rills with the ever-flowing stream of Holy Writ, I do not hesitate to avow my doubts whether there exists any uninspired work of equal antiquity that contains more interesting, more various and valuable information than that of the still-existing remains of the ancient Hebrew sages." But while we admire the candor of this Jewish writer, we must confess that not all of his coreligionists act on the same principle, as the sequel will prove. An article in the Quarterly Review for October, 1867, with the heading "What is the Talmud?" has taken the world by surprise. Such a panegyric the Talmud most likely never had. Written so learnedly, and in a style so attractive, about a subject utterly unknown to the world at large, the stir it has created is not to be wondered at, and the more: so because this article contained sentences which could not have emanated from a Jew. But the writer was a Jew, Mr. E. Deutsch (since deceased), and what Isaac said to Jacob, "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau," must be applied to the author of "What is the Talmud?" We cannot pass over this article by merely alluding to it; it deserves our full attention, on account of the mischief it has already wrought, and must work, in the minds of those who are not able to correct the erroneous statements contained in it.
The writer accuses (p. 4 of the American reprint, contained in the Literary Remains [N. Y. 1874]) the investigators of the Talmud of mistaking the grimy stone caricatures over our cathedrals for the gleaming statues of the saints within. But, entering into the cathedrals of the Talmud and beholding these saints, we hear, in the treatise Aboda Sara, fol. 17, col. 1, of rabbi Elieser, שלא הניח זונה אחת בעולם שלא בא עליה (we dare not translate this sentence into English, but we give it in Latin: "Non erat meretrix in terra quacum non fornicatus esset"). When rabbi Nachman (we read Tr. Yona, fol. 12, col. 2) went to Shanuzib, he proclaimed רב כי מקלע לתרשיש מכריז מאן הויא ליומא (this also we dare not translate into English, but we give it in Latin: "Rab quum Tarsum intraret proclamabat quam vellet luxorem in diem"). Of rabbi Abuha we read (Tr. Berakoth, fol. 44, cl. 1) that he was such a strong eater that a fly could not rest upon his forehead; and (ibid.) of rabbi Ami and rabbi Assi that they ate so much that the hair fell from their heads; and of rabbi Simeon, the son of Lakesh, that he ate so much that he lost his senses. In Tr. Baba Metsia, fol. 84, col. 1, we read that rabbi Ismael, the son of rabbi Jose, and rabbi Eleazar, the son of rabbi Simeon, were so corpulent that when they stood face to face a pair of oxen could pass under them without touching them. Of the honesty of rabbi Samuel and rabbi Cahauna we read a nice story in Tr. Baba Kamma, fol. 113, col. 2, which we had better pass over, for enough has been said of some of the Talmudical saints.
The writer in the Quarterly is astonished at the fact that the Talmud has so often been burned. But it is an old saying, "Habent sua fata libelli." The followers of the Arabian prophet burned the great library at Alexandria, and they still do the same with every book which they believe is written against their religion. The Jews have burned and excommunicated the books of their own great Maimonides (q.v.), and considered him a heretic.
They have burned, and still burn, the Hebrew Old Test. because of the Latin headings and crosses, to say nothing of the New Test. The Roman Catholics burn the Protestant Bible. Why should the Talmud have escaped? Besides, ignorance and fanaticism, in all ages and countries, have burned the books which they supposed were against their system. This was especially the case with the Talmud, A.D. 1240, when a conference was held in Paris between Nicolaus Donin and some Jewish rabbins concerning certain blasphemies contained in the Talmud and written against Jesus and Mary. R. Jechiel, the most prominent of the Jewish rabbins at that conference, would not admit that the Jesus spoken of in the Talmud was Jesus of Nazareth, but another Jesus, a discovery which was copied by later writers. But modern Jews acknowledge the failure of this argument, for, says Dr. Levin, in his prize-essay Die Religions disputation des R. Jechiel von Paris, etc., published in Gratz's Monatsschrift (1869), p. 193, "We must regard the attempt of R. Jechiel to ascertain that there were two by the name of Jesus as unfortunate, original as the idea may be." The result of this conference was that the Talmud in wagon-loads was burned at Paris in 1242. This was the first attack. When, however, the writer in the Quarterly states that Justinian in A.D. 553 already honored the Talmud by a special interdictory novella (146 Περὶ ῾Εβραίων), we must regard such a statement as erroneous and superficial, for, as Dr. Gratz, in his Gesch. der Juden, 5, 392, shows, this novella has no reference to the Talmud at all (comp. also vol. 7 [1873],p. 441 sq.). In our days, such accusations against the Talmud as that preferred by Donin were impossible, because all these offensive passages have been removed not so much by the hands of the censor, as by the Jews themselves, as the following document or circular letter, addressed by a council of elders, convened in Poland in the Jewish year 5391 (i.e. A.D. 1631), to their coreligionists, which at the same time contains the clue why in later editions of the Talmud certain passages are wanting, will show. The circular runs thus in the translation of Ch. Leslie (in A Short and Easy Method with the Jews3 p. 2 sq. [Lond. 1812], where the original Hebrew is also found): "Great peace to our beloved brethren of the house of Israel. "Having received information that many Christians have applied themselves with great care to acquire the knowledge of the language in which our books are written, we therefore enjoin you, under the penalty of the great ban (to be inflicted upon such of you as shall transgress this our statute), that you do not, in any new edition either of the Mishna or Gemara, publish anything relative to Jesus of Nazareth; and you take special care not to write anything concerning him, either good or bad, so that neither ourselves nor our religion may be exposed to any injury. For we know what those men of Belial, the Munirim, have done to us, when they became Christians and how their representations against ns have obtained credit. Therefore, let this make you cautious. If you should not pay strict attention to this our letter, but act contrary thereto, and continue to publish our books in the same manner as before, you may occasion, both to ns and yourselves, greater afflictions than we have hitherto experienced, and be the means of our being compelled to embrace the Christian religion, as we were formerly; and thus our latter troubles might be worse than the former. For these reasons we command you that, if you publish any new edition of those books, let the places relating to Jesus the Nazarene be left in blank, and fill up the space with a circle like this, O. But the rabbins and teachers of children will know how to instruct the youth by word of mouth. Then Christians will no longer have anything to show against us upon this subject, and we may expect deliverance from the afflictions we have formerly labored under, and reasonably hope to live in peace." The writer in the Quarterly, while loudly praising the humane spirit which, as he tells us, pervades the "system and institutions set forth in the Talmud," endeavors at the same time to apologize for those parts of the Talmud which contain, as he admits (p. 12), "gross offences against modern taste," by telling us that, when compared with other ancient systems of jurisprudence, "the Talmud will then stand out rather favorably than otherwise." It is not necessary to say much on this painful and disgusting part of the subject; but we will say this, that it is one thing to point to the existence of mire, that we may warn the unwary, and another to wallow with delight in it. We heartily wish that some of the rabbins who wrote the Talmud had been content with discharging that which may be considered a duty, and not laid themselves open to the charge justly brought against them, of doing injury to the morals and minds of those who study their writings, by their unnecessary and improper statements and details, of which the treatise Nidda, which we have here especially in view, and which treats of the "'menstruating woman," is so full. When, in 1843, Messrs. De Sola and Raphall published a translation of a portion of the Mishna, they excused the omission of this treatise by saying, in the preface to their work, "The treatise Nidda, not being suited to the refined notions of the English reader, has not been printed." They did well and wisely to omit it in the list of portions selected for translation. It may be said, But this treatise, bad as it is, is only a commentary on some portions of the laws of Moses. To this we may reply, it was manifestly necessary that Infinite Wisdom should solemnly prohibit many atrocities then prevalent among the heathen nations. In order to prohibit them, they must of necessity be mentioned. No doubt, the proper feeling which leads us to turn with disgust from the very thought of the crimes thus forbidden is very much owing to those very laws which were given that the children of Israel should be distinguished from other nations, and thus, being ceremonially clean, should be fit to enter the tabernacle of God. But is there any proper excuse for writing or printing one hundred and seventy-eight folio pages in order to define all the forms in which imagination can suggest that only one of these crimes could be committed. Let us, as the, subject is so important, for a moment consider a parallel case. Murder is forbidden. This law is of inexpressible importance. It is impossible to dwell too largely on the enormity of this crime, or to speak too earnestly of the necessity of watching against anger, hatred, cruelty, and every possible form in which we can in any way participate in the guilt of this dreadful sin. Just so we cannot say too much about the necessity of personal purity and holiness, for God will be "sanctified in them that draw near him." But what would we say of a man who should write a large volume merely to describe all the various modes in which a 'murder can be carried out, and the symptoms of decay and dissolution which would follow the deed?
On page 26 of the article alluded to we are told: "There are many more vital points of contact between the New Test. and the Talmud than divines yet seem fully to realize, for such terms as 'redemption,' 'baptism,' grace," 'faith,' salvation,' 'regeneration,' 'Son of man,' Son of God,' kingdom of heaven,' were not, as we are apt to think invented by Christianity, but were household words of Talmudical Judaism, to which Christianity gave a higher and purer meaning." It requires, however, a very slender acquaintance with the Bible to enable any one to reply to this statement that many of these terms were familiar to the Jews long before the Talmud was in existence, for they are found in the Old Test. And not only so, but the New Test. itself is a much older book than the Talmud. Our author tells us that the Mishna was compiled about A.D. 200. The Gemara is of still later date. It-seems strange, indeed, that it did not occur to the learned author that it is impossible to suppose that the New Test. had no influence upon the rabbins, who rejected its authority. Unquestionably the reasonings of Paul and the writings of the other apostles greatly affected the whole tone of thought and manner of expression which prevailed among those who, nevertheless, refused to acknowledge their own Messiah. This is a common mistake among even learned Jews. Because some parts of the Talmud are unquestionably very ancient, they speak of the whole as a work of very great antiquity. They cannot altogether divest themselves of the fabulous notion that God gave the oral as well as the written law to Moses himself. Thus they habitually claim for the Talmud, as to antiquity, a degree of respect to which it is by no means entitled.
The most serious error, however, and that against which we must most distinctly protest, is this. We are told that "the Pentateuch remains in all cases the background and latent source of the Mishna" (p. 17). And again, "Either the scriptural verse forms the terminus a quo, or the terminus ad quem. It is either the starting-point for a discussion which ends in the production of some new enactment or one never before investigated is traced back to the divine source by an outward 'hint,' however insignificant" (p. 19). Now, although this is literally true as to many of the civil laws contained in the Pentateuch, it is by no means a correct representation of the actual state of the case as to the religious principles which form the substance and the foundation of the laws of Moses. If those men who wrote the Talmud really understood and followed out the teaching of Moses, why do they almost entirely ignore the teaching of the other prophets?' It is astonishing to see how very little mention is made in the Jerusalem Talmud and in the 5894 pages of the Babylonian Talmud of a great part of the Old Test.; and a perusal of the book called ספר תולדת אהרן, compiled by R. Aaron Pisaurensis, or Pesaro (q.v.), which contains an index of all the passages of Holy Writ quoted in the Talmud, will make good our assertion. Passing over some minor points, such as on astronomy or mathematics or the science of interpretation of dreams (a filthy specimen of the latter is especially given in Tr. Berakoth, fol. 57, col. 1), we will only touch another point, the Talmudical praise of women. Thus, we read on p. 56, among other moral sayings, "Love your wife like yourself, honor her more than yourself." Without arguing the question from what we know of the position of Jewish females in the countries where the Talmud is studied and its precepts obeyed — a position which proves the very contrary to the saying alluded to-it is well known to every student of the Talmud that the doctors of the Talmud in general do not hold in high estimation the female sex. They put them in the category with slaves and children. Again and again we read, "Women, slaves, and children are exempted." "You shall teach the law to your sons, and not to your daughters." "He who teaches his daughter the law is like as if he teaches her to sin." "The mind of woman is weak." "The world cannot exist without males and females, but blessed is he whose children are sons; woe to him whose children are daughters." We also remember the teaching of the Talmudical sages, that a man may consider his wife like a piece of butcher's meat. We also remember that in the morning prayer the husband thanks God "that he hath not made him a woman." As to the precept which the writer in the Quarterly Review quotes as one of the moral sayings of the Talmud, we must believe him on his word, or search over the 2947 pages of that stupendous work, since the writer has thought proper to conceal the treatise and the page of the Talmud from which he has translated the above sentence. We are inclined to believe that the reviewer had the following passage (Tr. Sanhedrin, fol. 76, col. 2) before him: "Rabbi Judah has said that Rab has said, He who marries his daughter to an old man, and he who gives a wife to his son when too young, and he who returns to the Goi (Gentile) the things the Gentile has lost, concerning him the Scripture says. In order to add drunkenness to thirst, the Lord will not forgive him" (De 29:18-19). They replied, He who loves his wife like himself, and he who honors her more than himself, and he who directs his sons and daughters in the right way, and gives them into marriage at the proper ages, concerning him the Scripture says, 'And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace; and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin' (Job 5; Job 24)." This, however, is not a command, but optional according to the Talmud and the following, as given in Tr. Yebamoth, fol. 62, col. 2:
"Rabbi Tanchuma said that rabbi Hanilai had said, Every man who is without a wife is without joy, without blessing, without goodness. Without joy because it is written, 'Thou shalt rejoice, thou and thine household' (Deat. 14:26); without a blessing, for it is written, 'That he may cause the blessing to rest in thine house' (Eze 44:30); without goodness, for it is written, 'It is not good that the man should be alone.' In the west they add that the man who is without a wife is also without a law and with it a wall.
Without a law, for it is written Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?' (Job 6:13); without a wall, because it is written 'A woman shall compass a man' (Jer 31:22). Rabba, the son of Olah, says, also without peace, as it is written, And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace, and shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin. He who loves his wife like himself, and he who honors her more than himself, and he who directs his sons and his daughters in the right way, and gives them into marriage at the proper ages, concerning him the Scripture says, 'And thou shalt know that thy tabernacle shall be in peace, and thou shalt visit thy habitation, and shalt not sin." We venture to think that these are the passages of the Talmud which the reviewer has picked out. We must, however, be allowed to observe that it is not the imperative, "Love your wife," but the participle with the article, "He who loves." It will be seen that we have not translated the whole paragraph; we dare not. We will leave that to the reviewer and his admirers, for what we have left out, and much of the following, belongs to the defiled and defiling portions of the work, in which the Talmud is so rich. From another, such foul page (Sanhedrin, fol. 22, col. —1) the reviewer has copied," He who forsakes the love of his youth, God's altar weeps for him." "He who sees his wife die before him has, as it were, been present at the destruction of the sanctuary itself. Around him the world grows dark." The sentences are badly rendered; and, even if they were not, seeing in what connection they stand and through what a quagmire the reviewer was obliged to wade to fish them out, they are worthless. Another such moral saying runs thus: "When the thief has no opportunity for stealing, he considers himself an honest man." Who of the Talmudical sages has said this? The Talmud relates that when Abishag the Shunammite was brought to king David she said to him, "Marry me;" the king replied, "It is not lawful for me to marry you." As a reproach to the king, the Talmud makes the Shunammite say, חסריה לגנבא נפש לשלמא נקיט (Sanhedrin, ibid.), which the reviewer translated as above. After all, it would be strange, indeed, if we could not gather from a work of 2947 pages some good sayings and sentences. But, unless the whole work be translated, it will never be known what the Talmud really is. For instance, in one of the treatises of the Talmud called Challah we find, almost verbatim, what our Lord says in Mt 5:28; and yet that portion of the Talmud is written in language so obscene and immoral that it would be difficult to meet its equal among the most licentious publications of ancient or modern times. We challenge any admirer of the Talmud to translate the treatise and publish it, and then every one will be able to give the right reply to the query so often raised by the reviewer, "What is the Talmud?" The article in question thus concludes: "When the masters of the law entered and left the academy, they used to offer up a short but fervent prayer; a prayer of thanks that they had been able to carry out their' task thus far, and a prayer, further, that no evil might-rise at their hands, that they might not have fallen into error, that they might not declare pure that which was impure, and impure that which was pure" (p. 58). Against this we offset the following:
"The wise men have informed us that when the teacher entered the house of learning, he said, 'May it please thee, O Lord my God, that. I may not be the cause of any offence, nor err in anything as regards the Halakah, that my companions may rejoice over me, and that I may not say of things unclean they are clean, and things clean that they are unclean, and that my companions may not err in anything as regards the Halakah, and that I may rejoice over them.' And when the teacher left the house of learning he said, 'I thank thee, my God, that thou hast given me my portion among those who sit in the house of learning and not among those who sit at the corners of the streets. For I rise up early, and they rise up early; I rise up early to occupy myself in things concerning the law, they rise up early to occupy themselves in things which are useless. I work and they work; I work and receive a reward, they work and receive no reward. I run and they run; I run to everlasting life, and they run to the pit of destruction.'" Is not this prayer like that of the Pharisee in the gospel? (Lu 18:11.) After having touched upon the most vital points of the Talmud-which, as we believe, has been done sine ira et studio, but in accordance with the old saying, Amicus Plato, amicus Aristoteles, sed magis amica veritas—we will now subjoin some of the opinions on the Talmud by different authors. D'Israeli, in his Genius of Judaism (p. 88), says:
"The Mishna, at first considered as the perfection of human skill and industry, at length was discovered to be a vast, indigested heap of contradictory decisions. It was a supplement of the law of Moses which itself required a supplement. Composed in curt, unconnected sentences, such as would occur in conversation, designed to be got by rote by the students from the lips of their oracles, the whole was at length declared to be not even intelligible, and served only to perplex or terrify the scrupulous Hebrew. Such is the nature of traditions when they are fairly brought together and submitted to the eye.
"The Mishna now only served as a text (the law of Moses being slightly regarded) to call forth interminable expositions. The very sons of the founder of the Mishna set the example by pretending that they understood what their father meant. The work once begun, it was found difficult to get rid of the workmen. The sons of the Holy were succeeded by a long line of other rulers of their divinity schools, under the title, aptly descriptive, of the Amoraim, or dictators. These were the founders of the new despotism; afterwards, wanderers in the labyrinth they had themselves constructed, roved the Seburatim, or opinionists, no longer dictating, but inferring, opinions by keen speculations. As in the decline of empire mere florid titles delight, rose the Geonim, or sublime doctors, till at length, in the dissolution of this dynasty of theologians, they sank into the familiar, titular honor of Rabbi, or master.
"The Jews had incurred the solemn reproach in the days of Jesus of having annihilated the word of God by the load of their traditions. The calamity became more fearful when, two centuries after, they received the fatal gift of their collected traditions, called Mishna, and still more fatal when, in the lapse of three subsequent centuries, the epoch of the final compilation, was produced the commentary graced with the title of the Gemara, 'completeness,' or 'perfection.' It was imagined that the human intellect had here touched its meridian. The national mind was completely rabbinized. It became uniform, stable, and peculiar.
"The Talmud, or the Doctrinal, as the whole is called, was the work of nearly five hundred years. Here, then, we find a prodigious mass of contradictory opinions, an infinite number of casuistical cases, a logic of scholastic theology, some recondite wisdom, and much rambling dotage; many puerile tales and Oriental fancies; ethics and sophisms, reasonings and unreasonings, subtle solutions, and maxims, and riddles; nothing in human life seems to have happened which these doctors have not perplexed or provided against, for their observations are as minute as Swift exhausted in his Directions to Servants. The children of Israel, always children, were delighted as their Talmud increased its volume and their hardships. The Gemara was a kind of a third law to elucidate the Mishna, which was a second law, and which had thrown the first law, the law of Moses, into obscurity." Dr. Isaac Da Costa, in his Israel and the Gentiles (N. Y. 1855, p. 116); says:
"The Talmud is a most curious monument, raised with astonishing labor, yet made up of puerilities. Like the present position of the Jew, away from his country, far from his Messiah, and in disobedience to his God, the Talmud itself is a chaos in which the most opposite elements are found in juxtaposition. It is a book which seems in some parts entirely devoid of common sense and in others filled with deep meaning, abounding with absurd subtleties and legal finesse, full of foolish tales and wild imaginations; but also containing aphorisms and parables which, except in their lack of the simple and sublime character of the Holy Writ, resemble in a degree the parables and sentences of the New Test. The Talmud is an immense heap of rubbish, at the bottom of which a few bright pearls of Eastern wisdom are to be found. No book has ever expressed more faithfully the spirit of its authors. This we notice the more when comparing the Talmud with the Bible, that Book of books, given to, and by means of, the Israel of God; the Talmud, the book composed by Israel without their God, in the time of their dispersion, their misery, and their degeneracy." Dr. Milman, in his History of the Jews (3, 13), says:
"The reader, at each successive extract from this extraordinary compilation (i.e. the Talmud), hesitates whether to admire the vein of profound allegorical truth and the pleasing moral apologue, to smile at the monstrous extravagance, or to shudder at the daring blasphemy. The influence of the Talmud on European superstitions, opinions, and even literature remains to be traced. To the Jew the Talmud became the magic circle within which the national mind patiently labored for ages in performing the bidding of the ancient and mighty enchanters who drew the sacred line beyond which it might not venture to pass." Mr. Farrar, in his Life of Christ (2, 485), says:
"Anything more utterly unhistorical than the Talmud cannot be conceived. It is probable that no human writings ever confounded names, dates, and facts with a more absolute indifference. The genius of the Jews is the reverse of what, in these days, we should call historical...." Some excellent maxims even some close parallels to the utterances of Christ may be quoted, of course, from the Talmud, where they lie imbedded like pearls in 'a sea' of obscurity and mud. It seems to me indispensable and a matter which every one can now verify for himself-that these are amazingly few, considering the vast bulk of national literature from which they are drawn. And, after all, who shall prove to us that these sayings were always uttered by the rabbins to whom they were attributed? Who will supply us with the faintest approach to a proof that (when not founded on the Old Test.) they were not directly or indirectly due toChristian influence or Christian thought?' 'Prof. Delitzsch,' in his lectures on Jiidisches Handwerkerleben zur Zeit-Jesu. (3rd ed. Erlangen, 1879, p; 35), says:
"Those who have not in some degree accomplished the extremely difficult task of reading this work for themselves will hardly be able to form a clear idea of this polynomial colossus. It is a vast debating club, in which there hum confusedly the myriad voices of at least five centuries. As we all know by experience, a law, though very minutely and exactly defined, may yet be susceptible of various interpretations, and question on question is sure to arise when it comes to be applied to the ever varying circumstances of actual life. Suppose, then, you have about ten thousand legal definitions all relating to Jewish life and classified under different heads, and add to these ten thousand definitions about five hundred doctors and lawyers, 'belonging' mostly to Palestine or Babylonia, who make these definitions, one after the other, the subject of examination and debate, and who, with hair-splitting acuteness, exhaust not only every possible sense the words will bear, but every possible practical occurrence arising out of them. Suppose that these fine spun threads of these legal disquisitions frequently lose themselves in digressions, and that, when one has waded through a long tract of this sandy desert, one lights, here and there, on some green oasis consisting of stories and sayings of universal interest. This done, you will have some tolerable idea of this enormous and, in its way, unique code of laws, in comparison with which, in point of comprehensiveness, the law-books of all other nations are but Lilliputian, and, when compared with the hum of its kaleidoscopic Babel, they resemble, indeed, calm and studious retreats." Mr. Alexander, in his book on The Jews: their Past, Present, and Future (Lond. 1870), p. 80 sq., says:
The Talmud, as it now stands, is almost the whole literature of the Jews during a thousand years. Commentator followed upon commentator, till at last the whole became an immense bulk, the original Babylonian Talmud alone consisting of 2947 folio pages. Out of such a literature it is easy to make quotations which may throw an odium over the whole. But fancy, if the productions of a thousand years of English literature, say from the History of the Venerable Bede to Milton's Paradise Lost, "were thrown together into a number of uniform folios, and judged in like manner; if, because some superstitious monk should write silly 'Lives of Saints,' therefore, the works of John Bunyan should also be considered worthless. The absurdity is too obvious to require another word. Such, however, is the continual treatment the Talmud receives, both at the hands of its friends and of its enemies. Both will find it easy to quote in behalf of their preconceived notions; but the earnest student will rather try to weigh the matter impartially, retain the good he can find even in the Talmud, and reject what will not stand the test of God's Word." In conclusion, while we acknowledge the fact that this great encyclopedia of Hebrew wisdom teems with error, and that in almost every department in science, in natural history, in chronology, genealogy, logic, and morals, falsehood and mistake are mixed up with truth upon its pages, we nevertheless confess that, notwithstanding, with all its imperfections, it is a useful book, an attestation of the past, a criterions of progress already attained, and a prophecy of the future. "It is a witness, too, of the length of folly to which the mind of man may drift when he disdains the wisdom of God as revealed in the Gospel; and in these respects it will always have a claim on the attention of the wise. When Talmudism, as a religious system, shall, in a generation or two, have passed away, the Talmud itself will be still resorted to as a treasury of things amazing and things profitable; a deep cavern of antiquity, where he who carries the necessary torch will not fail to find, amid whole labyrinths of the rubbish of times gone by, those inestimable lessons that will be true for all times to come, and gems of ethical and poetic thought which retain their brightness forever" (Etheridge, Introduction to Jewish Literature).
IV. Contents. — The six Sedarim, or orders, of which the Mishna is composed are also found in the Talmud, and the following is an analysis of the contents of each tractate of the six orders:
(I.) סדר זרעים, Seder Zeraim (Seeds). This Seder contains the following eleven tractates:
1. ברכות, Berakoth, or the treatise of blessings, and speaks in nine chapters of the daily prayers and thanksgivings, etc.
a. מאימתי (so called from the first word of the chapter) treats of the time when the Shema is to be said in the morning and evening, of the position of the body at prayers, and the benedictions to be said 'respectively (5 sections).
b. הוה קורא speaks of the sections and order of the Shema, of how the voice is to be used in saying the prayer, and of the occasions which exempt from prayer" (8 sections).
c. מי שמתו points out such as are exempted from prayer (6 sections).
d. תפלת השחר treats of the time during which prayers may be said, whether the Shemoneh Esreh (q.v.) are to be said in an abbreviated manner, of prayer as an opus operatumn, of praying in dangerous places, and of the additional prayer (7 sections).
e. אין עומדין refers to the outer and inner position at prayer; of prayer for rain; of the prayer on Sabbath evening; of the minister of the congregation; and mistakes in prayer (5 sections).
f. כיצד מברכין recites the different blessings to be said for fruits of the tree and the earth, wine and bread ; for wine before and after meals;' of the sitting and lying at the table; of blessings for the main meals and water (8 sections).
g. שלשה שאכלו expatiates on blessings pronounced conjointly; with whom a union for such a purpose may be entered upon; the form of prayer to be used in accordance with the number of persons, of different companies (5 sections).
h. שבין אלו דברים shows the differences between the schools of Hillel and Shammai concerning the washing of hands and the blessing at meals (8 sections).
i. הרואה names the prayer to be said at beholding signs and wonders, at the building of a new house; and treats of prayers offered in vain, of prayers at the leaving and going into a city; of the praising of God for the good as well as for the evil; how to approach the Temple mountain; of the using of the name of God at salutations (5 sections).
2. פאה, Peah, or the corner of the field, treats, in eight chapters, of the field corners, gleanings, etc., to be left to the poor, etc.:
a. אלו דברים, of the measure of the Peah, where, of what, and how large it must be given, and how long the fruit is exempted from tithe (6 sections).
b. ואלו מפסיקין, how fields and trees as to the Peah may be separated from each other (8 sections).
c. מלבנות, how large a field must be of which Peah must be given (8 sections).
d. הפאה, how the Peah must be given (11 sections).
e. גדיש, what belongs to the poor, and on the bunch left through forgetfulness (8 sections).
f. שמאי בית, what may be regarded as a bunch left through forgetfulness, and what not (11 sections).
g. כלזית, the same concerning olive-trees; on the right of the poor in the vineyard (8 sections).
h. מאימתי כל, how long the right of the poor lasts; what constitutes the poor, and who is not entitled to the right of the poor (9 sections).
3. דמאי, Demai, or doubtful, treats, in seven chapters, of fruits about which some doubts may be raised whether tithes should be paid for them or not, viz—
a. הקלין, which fruits are exempted from the rights of Demai; how the Demai tithe differs from other tithes, and as to the rights of Demai fruits (4 sections).
b. ואלו דברים מתעשרין, who may be regarded a strict Israelite, and to whom the performance of the Demai law belongs at buying and selling.
c. מאכילין, who may receive Demai for eating, and that nothing should be given away untithed (6 sections).
d. הלוקח, how a man may be believed concerning the tithes (7 sections).
e. הלוקח מן, how the tithe is to be given from Demai (11 sections).
f. רֶַטתנֶו in company, and of the fruits in Syria (12 sections).
g. המזמין, how to act with such as are not believed concerning the tithes; how to separate the tithes in diverse cases; and what must be taken into account when tithed and untithed fruits are mixed up (8 sections).
4. כלאים, Kilayim, or mixtures, treats, in nine chapters, of the prohibited mingling of fruit and grain crops on the same field, etc., viz.
a. החטים, which kinds of fruits, trees, and animals are. Kilayim, and how to graft and plant (9 sections).
b. כל סאה, what to do when two kinds of seed are mixed, or in case of sowing another kind on a field already sown, or in case of making beds of different corn in one field (11 sections).
c. ערוגה, of beds, their division: of cabbage and its distance (7 sections).
d and e. כרם and קרחת, of vineyards and their Kilayim (9 and 8 sections).
f. איזהו, of the rights of a vine raised on an espalier (9 sections).
g. ִהמברי, of the layering of vines, spreading of vines, etc. (8 sections).
h. כלאי, in how far Kilayim are forbidden among—animals, in yoking together as well as in copulating, and what to do with bastards and some other animals (6 sections).
i. אין אסור, of Kilayim in garments, especially of the mixture of wool and flax; of clothing-merchants and tailors; of felt and woven letters, etc. (10 sections).
5. שביעית, Shebiith, or the Sabbatical year, in ten chapters:
a. עד אימתי חורשין בשדה האילן, of fields with trees, and how long they may be cultivated in the sixth year (8 sections).
b. ע א ח בשדה הלבן, of open fields, and what may be done in them till the beginning of the seventh year (10 sections).
c. מאימתי מוציאין, of manuring the field: of breaking stones an d pulling down walls (10 sections).
d. בראשונה, of cutting and pruning trees; from what time on it is permitted to eat of the fruits of the seventh year which have grown by themselves (10 sections).
e. בנות שוח, concerning the white fig and summer-onions; which farm utensils cannot be sold and lent (9 sections).
f. שלוש ארצות, of the difference of countries concerning the seventh year, and what fruits cannot be taken outside of the country (6 sections).
g. כלל גדול, what things are subject to the right of the seventh year (7 sections).
h. כלל גדול, what use may be made of fruits which have grown by themselves; what must be observed at their sale and the proceeds thereof; how they-are to be gathered (11 sections).
i. הפיגם, of the fruits which may be bought, and of storing away the preserved- fruits (9 sections).
j. שביעית, of the remittance of debts (9 sections).
6. תרומות, Terumoth, or oblations, relates, in eleven chapters, to the heave-offering:
a. חמשה, what persons can give the Terumoth, and of which fruits; and of giving the Terumoth not according to number; measure, and weight (10 sections).
b. אין תורמין, the Terumoth cannot be given from the pure for the impure; of distinguishing whether something was done purposely or by mistake; and that one kind of fruit can supply the Terumoth of another (6 sections).
c. התורם, in which cases the Terumoth must be given a second time; how to determine the Terumah; of the Terumah of a Gentile (9 sections).
d and e. סאה and המפריש, of the quantity of the large Terumah; in which cases common fruit becomes not medumma (i.e. is to be given entirely as Terumah), in spite of having been mixed with Terumah (13 and 9 sections).
f. האוכל, of the restitution of the Terumah, when a person has eaten thereof by mistake (5 sections).
g. האוכל, when a person eats thereof with intention (7 sections).
h. האישה, of the care that a Terumah get neither unclean nor poisoned (12 sections).
i. הזורע, what is to be done in case Terumah has been sown (7 sections).
j. בצל, how common fruits by the mere taste can become Terumah fruit (12 sections).
k. אין נותנין, how the oil of a Terumah cannot be burned, when the priest cannot enjoy its light (10 sections).
7. מעשרות, Maseroth, or tithes, due to the Levites, in five chapters:
a. כלל אמרו, of the kinds of fruits subject to tithes, and from what time on they are due (8 sections).
b. היה עובר, of exceptions (8 sections).
c. המעביר, where fruits become tithable (10 sections).
d. הכובש, of preserving, picking out, and other cases exempted from tithes (6 sections).
e. העוקר, of removing of plants; of buying and selling; of wine and seed that cannot be tithed (8 sections).
8. מעשר שני, Maas-esheni, or second tithe, which the Levites had to pay: out of their tenth to the priests, in five chapters:
a. מעשר שני, that this tenth cannot be disposed of in any way (7 sections).
b. מעשר שני ניתן, only things necessary for eating, drinking, and anointing: can be bought for the money of the tenth; what to do when tenth-money and common money are mixed together, or when tenth- money must be exchanged- (10 sections).
c. לא יאמר, fruits of the second tenth, when once in Jerusalem, cannot be taken out again (13 sections).
d. ִהמולי, what must be observed at the price of the tenth, and how money and that which is found must be regarded (12 sections).
e. כרם רבעי, of a vineyard in its fourth year, the fruits of which are equally regarded as the fruits of the second tenth; and how the biur, or taking-away of the tenth, is performed in a solemn manner according to De 26:13 sq. (15 sections).
9. חלה, Challah, or dough, refers to the cake which the women were required to bring of kneaded dough to the priest, in four chapters:
a. חמשה דברים, which fruits are subject to Challah (9 sections).
b. and c. פירות and איכלין, of special cases which need a more precise definition concerning Challah, and of the quantity of meal and its Challah (8 and 10 sections).
d. שתי נשים, of counting together of different fruits, and the different rights of countries concerning Challah (11 sections).
10. ערלה, Orlah, lit. foreskin, of the forbidden fruits of the trees in Palestine during the first three years of their growth, in three chapters:
a. הנוטע, which trees are subject to the law of Orlah and which not (9 sections).
b. התרומה, what to do in case of fruits of Orlah or Kilayim being mixed with other fruits; of the law concerning leaven, spices, and meat; what to do in case of holy and unholy, or Chollin, having been mixed up (17 sections).
c. בגד, how the same law also concerns colors for dyeing purposes, and the fire used for cooking; and what is to be observed concerning the difference of countries (9 sections).
11. בכורים, Bikkurin, or first-fruits, in four chapters:
a. יש מביאין, who is not entitled to offer the first-fruits, or who can offer them without observing the formula prescribed (De 26:3); of what and when they are to be offered or repaid (11 sections).
b. התרומה והבכורים, of the difference of the first-fruits of the Terumah and the second tenth, especially of the pomegranate at the Feast of Tabernacles; of blood of men and of the animal Coi (probably a bastard of buck and roe), which must be distinguished from all animals (11 sections).
c. מפרישין כיצד, of the ceremonies to be observed at bringing the first- fruits to Jerusalem, and their rights (12 sections).
d. אנדרוגינוס, of the hermaphrodite (5 sections). (This chapter is Boraitha, or addition to the second chapter, and is wanting where only the Mishna is printed.)
(II.) סדר מועד, Seder Môëd (Festive Solemnity). This Seder, one of the most interesting, consists of twelve tractates:
12. שבת, Shabbath, containing twenty-four chapters, treats of the laws relating to the Sabbath, with respect to lights and oil used on that day, ovens in which articles of food were warmed on the Sabbath, and the dress of men and women used on the same day. It also enumerates thirty-nine kinds of work, by each of which, separately, the guilt of Sabbath-breaking may be incurred, viz.:
1, to sow; 2, to plough; 3, to mow; 4, to gather into sheaves; 5, to thresh; 6, to winnow; 7, to sort corn; 8, to grind; 9, to sieve; 10, to knead; 11, to bake; 12, to shear wool; 13, to wash wool; 14, to card; 15, to dye; 16, to spin; 17, to warp; 18, to shoot two threads; 19, to weave two threads; 20, to cut and tie two threads; 21, to tie; 22, too unite; 23, to sew two stitches; 24, to tear two threads with intent to sew; 25, to catch game; 26, to slaughter; 27, to skin; 28, to salt a hide; 29, to singe; 30, to tan; 31, to cut up a skin; 32, to write two letters; 33, to erase two( letters with intent to write; 34, to build; 35, to demolish;
36, to extinguish fire; 37, to kindle fire; 38, to strike with. a hammer; 39, to carry out of one property into another. It treats of the differences between the schools of Hillell and Shammai, etc., viz.
a. יציאות השבת, of removals on the Sabbath day; work to be avoided; discussion between tile schools of Hillel and Shanmmai as to what constitutes work: work allowed (11 sections).
b. מדליקין במה, of the lighting of a lamp; eve of the Sabbath (7 sections).
c. כירה, of different ovens, and preparing and warming the meat on Sabbath; of pails for retention of the dripping oil or sparks of the lamps (6 sections).
d. במה טומנין, of things to cover up pots to retain the heat, and of things not to cover up the pots (2 sections).
e. במה בהמה, with what a beast is led forth or covered, especially a camel (4 sections).
f. במה אשה, with what women and men may go out or not go out on the Sabbath of various styles; of pinning the veil; of ribbons, etc. (10 sections).
g. כלל גדול, of how many sin-offerings a man may be responsible for under certain circumstances for ignorantly trespassing against the Sabbath; the thirty-nine kinds of forbidden work; rule and measure for things the carrying of which makes liable to a sin-offering (4 sections).
h. המוציא יין, of the measure of fluids; of cords, bulrushes paper, and all possible portable things (7 sections).
i. אר ע, of things the carrying of which makes unclean, and of the measure of the portable things on the Sabbath day (7 sections).
j. המצניע, of different kinds of portable things; of carrying living or dead men, and of many other things (6 sections).
k. הזורק, of throwing over the street, ditch, and rock, river and land; of the distance how far it can be thrown, and the presumable error (6. sections).
l. הבונה, of building, hammering, planing, boring, ploughing, gathering wood, pruning, picking up, writing (6 sections).
m. רבי אליעזר, of weaving, sewing, cutting, washing, beating, catching game, etc. (7 sections).
n. שמונה, of catching game; of making salt-water; of forbidden medicines, toothache and pains in the loins.
o. אלו קשרים, of tying and untying of knots; of folding garments, and making the beds (3 sections).
p. כל כתבי, of saving things out of a conflagration; of extinguishing and covering, etc. (8 sections).
q. כל הכלים, of vessels which may be moved on the Sabbath 5 sections).
r. מפנין, what things may be moved for making room; of hens, calves, asses; of leading the child; of an animal that calves; a woman that is to be delivered, and of a child (3 sections).
s. רבי אליעזר, of circumcision on the Sabbath, and what belongs to it (6 sections).
t. תולין ר אליעזר אומר, of straining the wine; of fodder; of cleansing the crib; of straw on the beds and clothes-press (5 sections).
u. נוטל, of things permitted to be carried; of cleaning a pillow; the table, of picking up the crumbs; and of sponges (3 sections).
v. חבית, of casks, cisterns, bathing-clothes, salves, etc.; of emetics; of setting a limb or a rupture (6 sections).
w. שואל אדם, of borrowing; of counting from a book, drawing lots, hiring laborers; of waiting at the end of a Sabbath-way; of mourning-pipes, coffin, and grave which a heathen has dug; what may be done to the dead (5 sections).
x. ִמי שהחשי, of one who is overtaken by the dusk on the road; of feeding the animals; of pumpkins and carrion; of several things permitted on the Sabbath (5 sections).
13. ערובין, Erubin, or mingling, in ten chapters, deals with those ceremonies by which the Sabbath boundary was extended; "mingling" a whole town into one fictitious yard, so that carrying within it should not be unlawful:
a. מבוי, concerning the entry to an alley (10 sections).
b. עושין פסין,concerning enclosures (6 sections).
c. מערבין בכל, concerning a holyday or a Friday (9 sections).
d. מי שהוציאוהו, concerning the stepping beyond the Sabbath limit (11 sections).
e. כיצד מערבין, concerning the enlarging the bounds of a city (9 sections).
f. and g. חלון,etc., הדר, concerning the neighborhood (10 and 11 sections).
h. כיצד משתתפין, concerning what may be done in a yard (11 sections).
i. כל גגות, concerning roofs, etc. (4 sections).
j. המוצה תפילין, concerning some different Sabbath laws (15 sections).
14. פסחים, Pesachim, in ten chapters, treats of the paschal festival and things- connected with its celebration:
a and
b. כל שעה and אור לארבעה, of searching for leaven; how to put it away; of the Easter-cake, and the herbs for the bitter herbs (7 and 8 sections).
c. אלו עוברין, of the care to avoid leaven (8 sections),
d. מקום שנהגו, of the works on the day before Easter, and what kinds of work are permitted (9 sections).
e. תמיד נשחט, when and: how to kill the paschal lamb; of cleaning and skinning the same, and how it becomes disallowed (10 sections).
f. אלו דברים בפסח, how the Passover abrogates the command against work on the Sabbath; of the offering of festival sacrifices; of a sacrifice having been changed with another (6 sections).
g. ביצד צולין, .of roasting: the lamb; how it becomes unclean; what to do with the remaining parts (13 sections).
h. האשה בזמן, what persons are allowed to eat it and what are not; of companies (8 sections),
i. מי שהיא, of the second Easter; of' the Easter in Egypt, and of divers cases when paschal lambs have been exchanged (11 sections).
j. פסחי ערבי, of the order at the Easter-meal after the four cups of wine which are necessary for it (9 sections).
15. שקלים, Shekalim, or shekels, in eight chapters, contains laws relating to the half-shekel which was paid for the support of public worship:
a. באחד באדר, how the money-changers take their seat at the money- tables, on the 15th of Adar, where the people exchange their money (7 sections).
b. מּצרפין, of changing, and of coins used ins former times; of the remaining money (5 sections).
c. בשלשה פרקי, how the paid shekels may be taken again from the treasury (4 sections).
d. התרומה, how they are to be spent, and what to do with the balance (9' sections),
e. אלו הן הממינין, of the offices in the sanctuary, and of the seals (6 sections).
f. שלשה עשר, how often the number thirteen occurred in the sanctuary(6 sections).
g. מעות שנמצאו, of money and other things which are found, when it is doubtful to whom they belong (7 sections).
h. כל הרוקיו, of other dubious things; resolution that the shekel and firstlings have ceased with the Temple (8 sections).
16. יומא, Yoma, or the Day of Atonement, in eight chapters:
a. שבעת ימים, of the preparations of the highpriest (8 sections),
b. בראשונה, of casting lots, and of the offerings (7 sections).
c. אמר להם, of the beginning of the Day of Atonement; of bathing, washing, and dressing the high-priest, and of presenting the bullocks and goats. (11 sections).
d. טרŠ בקלפי, of casting the lots upon the goats, and the confession (6 sections),
e. הוציאו לו, what was to be done in the Holy of Holies (7 sections).
f. שני שעירי, of sending forth the goat (8 sections).
g. בא לו, what the high-priest was meanwhile to do, and until the end of his service at night (5 sections).
h. הכפורי יום, of the privileges of fasting; how man is forgiven, and how he is not forgiven (9 sections).
17. סוכה, Sukkah, or the Feast of Tabernacles, in five chapters:
a. סוכה שהיא, of the size and covering of the Sukkah (11 sections).
b. הישן,l how often meals should be eaten in it; exemptions (9 sections).
c. לולב, of the palm-branches, myrtle-boughs, willows, Citrons; what constitutes their fitness, and what not; how to tie and stake them (15 sections).
d. לולב וערבה, how many days these ceremonies last; of the pouring-out of the water (10 sections).
e. החליל, of the rejoicings; how to divide the offerings and shew-bread on this festival among the orders of the priests (8 sections).
18. יום טוב, Yom Tob, i.e. good day, or, as it is generally called, ביצה, Betzah, i.e. the egg, from the word with which it commences, containing five chapters:
a. שנולדה ביצה, whether an egg laid on the festival may be eaten thereon. On this question the schools of Shalnmai and Hillel are divided; the former decide in the affirmative, the latter in the negative (10 sections),
b. יום טוב, or ערוב תבשילין, i.e. of connecting the meals on the Sabbath and other subsequent holydays. Maimonides gives the following account, which will enable the reader to understand this expression: "The rabbins, in order to prevent cooking or preparation of food on the festival for the following working-days, have prohibited it even for the Sabbath immediately following. They are ordered, however, that some article of food should be prepared on the day before the festival, to which more may be cooked, in addition, on the festival; which has-been ordered with the intention of reminding the general mass that it is not lawful to prepare any food on the festival which is not eaten thereon. It is called ערוב, or mixture, because it mixes or combines the preparation of food necessary for the festival with that required form the family's use on the Sabbath" (Hilchoth omn Tob, ch. 6.)"
c. אין עדין, of catching and killing animals; how to buy the necessary things, without mentioning the money (S sections).
d. המביא, of carrying, especially wood not required for burning (7 sections).
e. משילין, enumeration and precise definition of classes of things which cannot be done on a feast day, still less on a Sabbath day (7 sections).
19. ראש השנה, Rosh Hash-shanah, or New-year, in four chapters:
a. ארבעה ראשי שנים, of the four New-years (9 sections).
b. אם אינן, of examining witnesses who witnessed the new moon, and of announcing it on the top of the mountains by fire (9 sections).
c. ראוהו, of announcing the new moon and new year with cornets (8 sections).
d. יום טוב של, what to do in case the New year falls on the Sabbath, and of the order of service on the New-year (9 sections).
20. תענית, Taanith, or fasting, in four chapters:
a. מאימי, of prayer for rain, and proclamations of fasting in case the rain does not come in due season (7 sections).
b. סדר תעניות, of the ceremonies and prayers on the great fast-days (10 sections).
c. סדר תעניות אלו, of other occasions of fasting; of not blowing alarms; when to cease fasting, in-case it rains (9 sections).
d. פרקי בשלשה, of the twenty-four stations or delegates; their fastings, lessons ; of bringing wood for the altar; of the 17th of Tammuz and of the 9th and 15th of Ab (8 sections). The Mishna tells us the following concerning these dates: "On the 17th of Tammuz the stone tables were broken and: the daily offering ceased, and the city was broken up, and Apostemus (i.e. Antiochus Epiphaales) burned the law, and he set up an image in the Temple. On the 9th of Ab it was proclaimed to our fathers that they should not enter the land, and the house was ruined for the first and second time, and Bither was taken, and the city was ploughed up." Rabban Simon, the son of Gamaliel, said, "There were no holydays in Israel like the 15th of Ab, or like the Day of Atonement, because in them the daughters of Jerusalem promenaded in white garments, borrowed, that no one might be ashamed of her poverty. All these garments must be baptized. And the daughters of Jerusalem promenaded and danced in the vineyards. And what did they say? Look here, young man, and see whom you choose; look out for beauty, look for family. 'Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised;' and it is said, 'Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates' (Pr 31:30-31). And it is also said: 'Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart" Song 3:11).
21. מגילה, Megillah, or the roll of the book of Esther, in four chapters:
a. מגילה, of the days on which the Megillah is read (11 sections). The Gemara, on the fourth section of this Mishna (fol. 7, col. 2), tells us that the Jews are directed to get so drunk on the Feast of Purim that they cannot discern the difference "between" "Blessed be Mordecai and cursed be Haman" and "Cursed be Mordecai and blessed be Haman." On the same page we read, "Rabba and rabbi Zira made their Purim entertainment together. When Rabba got drunk, he arose and killed rabbi Zira. On the following day he prayed for mercy, and restored him to life. The following year Rabba proposed to him again to make their Purim entertainment together; but he answered, "Miracles don't happen every day."
b. הקורא, how to read the Megillah; what can only be done by day, and what can be done by night (6 sections).
c. בני העיר, of the sale of holy things;' of the lessons for the Sabbath during the month of Adar, and for other festivals (6 sections).
d. הקורא את המגילה עומד, of the persons required for the lessons; how many verses each person may read; who must be silenced in public prayer; of the passages which at the public reading are to be omitted, or at least not to be interpreted (10 sections). For these passages; see the following article, SEE TALMUD, THE, IN THE TIME OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
22. מועד קטון, M5ed Eaton, or small holyday, in three chapters, treats of the half-holydays between the first and the last day of the Passover, and of the Feast of Tabernacles:
a. משקין, of working in the field; of graves, and of making coffins; and what pertains to a building (10 sections).
b. ִמי שהפ, of the work done on fruits: what may be carried and bought (5 sections).
c. ואלו מגלחין, of shaving, washing, writing, and mourning (9 sections).
23. חגיגה, Chagigah, or feasting, in three chapters, speaks of the voluntary sacrifices-other than the paschal lamb offered by individual Jews on the great feasts:
a. חייבין הכל, of the persons who. are obliged to appear at the feasts (8 sections).
b. אין דורשין, of sundry ordinances having no direct connection with the subject indicated by the title of the treatise: thus the first section of this second chapter opens with "Men must not lecture on matters of incest (or adultery) before three persons, nor on matters of the creation before two, nor on the chariot before one, unless he be wise and intelligent by his own knowledge," etc.; of laying-on of hands (7 sections).
c. חומר בקדש, in how far the rules for holy things are more weighty than for the heave-offering; in how far certain persons may be credited; how the vessels of the sanctuary were cleaned again after the feast (8 sections).
(III.) סדר נשים, Seder Nashim (Women). This Seder is composed of seven treatises, viz.
24. יבמות, Yebamoth, enters into the minutest details as to the peculiar Jewish precept of yibbûm, or the obligation of marrying the childless widow of a brother, with the alternative disgrace of the performance of the chalitsdh, or removal of the shoe of the recalcitrant, referred to in the book of Ruth. It contains sixteen chapters, in 123 sections.
a. The opening section of this treatise will give a good idea of the subject treated there. "Fifteen women free their rival wives and their rival's rivals from the chalitsah and yibbûm ad infinitum, viz. his daughter (the dead brother's wife being the daughter of a surviving brother), son's daughter, or daughter's daughter; his wife's daughter, wife's son's daughter, or wife's daughter's daughter; his mother-in-law, mother of his mother-in- law, the mother of his father-in-law; his maternal sister, his mother's sister, or his wife's sister; the widow of his maternal brother, or the widow of a brother who was not alive at the same time with him, and his daughter-in- law. All these free their rival wives and their rival's rivals from the chalitsah and yibbûm. If, however, any of these had died, or refused her consent, or had been divorced, or is unfit for procreation, their rivals may be married by yibbûm; yet refusal of consent or unfitness [to procreate] cannot be applied in respect to his mother-in-law, or the mother of his father-in-law." This Mishna is called חמש עשרה נשים (4 sections).
b. כצד אשת, of cases where a brother was born after the married brother's death; of cases where a brother is to be freed either according to the command or for the sacredness of the person; of the equal right of brothers and sons; of betrothing to persons who cannot be distinguished from each other; of wives who cannot be married (10 sections).
c. ארבעה אחין, of hypothetical cases e.g. when brothers married sisters, etc. (10 sections).
d. החול, of the sister-in-law who was found to be pregnant; when she gets the heritage; of her marriage contract; of her relatives; how long she must wait; what constitutes a mamzer, i.e. an illegitimate child; that the sister of the deceased wife may be married (13 sections).
e. רבן גמליאל, of the rights of a marriage contract and divorce (6 sections).
f. הבא על, whom the high-priest cannot marry; what constitutes a barren woman, or a prostitute; of the duty of begetting children (6 sections).
g. אלמנה, who is entitled, under these circumstances, to eat of the heave- offering or not (6 sections).
h. הערל, of one that is wounded in the stones, and of one that has his privy member cut off; of the Ammonites and Moabites; of the hermaphrodite, etc. (6 sections).
i. יש מותרון, of women, or brothers-in-law, who, on account of their relationship, can neither marry nor be married, and of the prohibited degrees (6 sections).
j. שהל ִהאשה, of false news that one or the other died; of the carnal intercourse of one who is not yet marriageable (9 sections).
k. נושאין, of violated women, proselytes, and interchanged children (7 sections ).
l. המצות, of the ceremonies of the chalitsah (6 sections),
m. ב ש אומרים, and
n. חרש, of the refusal of one who is not of age to marry a man; of the right of deaf persons (13 and 4 sections).
o. האשה שה לכה, and
p. ִבעלה האשה שהל, how-the evidence that one is dead receives credence, and its validity as to the right of the wife marrying again; and the Levirate (q.v.) (10 and 7 sections). Several portions of this treatise are so offensive to all feelings of delicacy that they have been left untranslated by the English translators, and are either printed in Hebrew or represented by asterisks alone.
25. כתובות, Kethuboth, in thirteen chapters, contains the laws relating to marriage contracts:
a. בתולה, of such as are regarded as virgins, and of the sum promised by the bridegroom to the bride (10 sections).
b. האשה, whether a person may testify of himself, and of the credibility of the witnesses (10 sections).
c. אלו נערות, of the penalty for violating a virgin (9 sections).
d. נערה, to whom the fine belongs; of the rights of a father over his daughter; of a husband over his wife; what the husband owes the wife; of the heritage of sons and daughters (12 sections).
e. אŠ עלפי, of the addition to the kethubah or the sum stipulated in the marriage contract); of the duties belonging to the wife; of conjugal duties; to how much a wife is entitled for her living (9 sections).
f. מציאת, what the wife owes to her husband, and what belongs to him; of assigning against the sum which the wife has brought in, and of the dowry of a daughter (7 sections).
g. המדיר, of the vows of a woman, and of the defects which cause a divorce (10 sections);
h. האשה שנפלו, of the rights of the husband to the property which fell to his wife during her marriage, and vice versa (S sections).
i. הכותב, of the privileges at the meeting of creditors, and before whom the wife has to swear that she has received nothing of her kethubah (9 sections),
j. מי שהיה נשוי of cases where a man has more than one wife (6 sections).
k. אלמנה ניזונת, of the rights of widows, and of the sale of the kethubah which is invested in immovable property (6 sections).
l. הנושא את האשה, of the right of a daughter of a former husband, and of the right of a widow to remain in her husband's house (4 sections).
m. שני דייני, different opinions of two judges of Jerusalem; how a wife may not be taken from, one place to another.; of the privileges in living in the land of Israel and at Jerusalem; as to the money in which the kethubah must be paid (11 sections).
26. נדרים, Nedarim, or vows, in eleven chapters:
a. כל כנויי, of the expressions for vows, since a person is obliged to keep them, even if the words were wrongly and not correctly pronounced (4 sections).
b. ואלו מותרין, what words do not constitute a vow; how they are to be distinguished from an oath; what restrictions and ambiguities may occur (5 sections).
c. ארבעה נדרים, of four kinds of vows which are regarded as void; of the vows made to robbers, publicans, etc. (11 sections).
d. אין בין המודר, and
e. השותפין שנדרי, of the case where a person has consented to derive no advantage from another or to be to him of no use, and how one can make something prohibited to the other (8 and 6 sections).
f. הנודר מן המבושל, and
g. הנודר מן הירק, of different kinds of eatables, in case they have been renounced, etc. (10 and 9 sections).
h. קונס יין, concerning the time over which the vow extends (7 sections).
i. רבי אליעזר, of diverse causes for which a vow may be made (9 sections).
j. נערה, who has the right of making the vow of a wife' or daughter void (8 sections),
k. ואלו נדרים, what, vows can be made void by the husband or father, and what in case of ignorance or error.(12 sections).
27. נזיר, Nazir, in nine chapters, relating to vows of abstinence:
a. כל כנויי נזירות, of the form in which such a vow can be made; of the difference of Samson's' vow of abstinence from others (7 sections).
b. נזיר הריני, what vows are binding and what not (10 sections).
c. מי שאמר, of the time of shaving (7 sections).
d. שאמר מי, of the remission and removing the same (7 sections)
e. בית שמאי, what is to be done in cases of error, and other dubious cases (7 sections).
f. אסורין שלשה, of things prohibited to a Nazarite (11 sections).
g. כהן גדול, for what uncleanness he must shave himself (4 sections).
h. שני נזירים, of some doubtful cases (2 sections).
i. העכום, of the power which, in divers cases, leads to the supposition that he is unclean; whether Samuel was a Nazarite (5 sections).
28. סוטה, Sotah, or the erring woman, in nine chapters:
a. המקנא, what constitutes an erring woman; who must drink the bitter water; how she is to be presented in public, etc. (9 sections).
b. היה מביא, of writing the curses, and the ceremonies connected with it (6 sections).
c. נוטל היה, of the offering of the sotah, and the fate of the woman found guilty (8 sections).
d. ארוסה, where the bitter water is not to be used (5 sections).
e. כשם שהמים, that the bitter water should also be taken by the adulterer (5 sections).
f. מי שקינא, of the required testimony (4 sections).
g. אלו נאמרין, of formulas to be spoken in the holy tongue, and of such not to be spoken in that tongue (8 sections).,
h. משוח, of the address of the priest anointed as king (7 sections).
i. עגלה, of killing the heifer for expiation of an uncertain murder; of different things which have been abolished, and what will be at the time of the Messiah (11 sections). The last sections of this Mishna are very interesting because they foretell the signs of the approaching Messiah, and wind up with the following remarkable words: "In the time of the Messiah the people will be impudent and be given to drinking; public-houses will flourish and the vine will be dear; none will care for punishment, and the learned will be driven from one place to the other, and no one will have compassion on them; the wisdom of the scribes will be stinking; fear of God will be despised; truth will be oppressed, and the wise will become less. The young men will shame the old, the old will rise against the young; the son will despise the father; the daughter will rise against the mother, the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household. The face of that generation is as the face of a dog; the son shall not reverence the father!"
29. גטין, Gittin, or divorce bills, in nine chapters, treats of divorce, and the writing given to the wife on that occasion; how it must be written, etc.
a. המביא גט, of sending a divorce, and what must be observed in case the husband sends one to his wife (6 sections).
b. ממדינת המביא גט, when, how, and on what it must be written (7 sections).
c. כל גט, that it must be written in the name of the wife (8 sections).
d. השולה גט, sundry enactments, made for the better existence of the world (9 sections).
e. הנזיקין, enactments for the sake of peace (9 sections). f. האומר, sundry cases of the bill of divorce (7 sections). g. מי שאחוו, of additional conditions (9 sections). h. הזורק גט, of throwing the divorce bill, its different effects; what constitutes a bald bill of divorce (i.e. one which according to the Mishna has more folds than subscribing witnesses) (10 sections).
i. המגרש, of the signature of witnesses, and of the cause that constitutes a divorce, of which the school of Shammai says, "No man may divorce his wife, unless he find in her scandalous behavior, for it is said (De 24:1), Because he found in her some uncleanness; but the school of Hillel says, 'Even if she spoiled his food, because it is said some uncleanness.' Akiba says, Even if he found one handsomer than she, for it is said, if it happen that she found no favor in his eyes.'
30. קדושין, Kiddushin, or betrothals, in four chapters:
a. האשה נקנית, of the different ways in which a wife is acquired, and how she regains her liberty; of the difference of prayers which are incumbent upon the man and wife, in and outside of the land of Israel (10 sections).
b. מקדש האיש, of valid and invalid betrothals (10 sections).
c. האומר לחברו, of betrothals made under certain conditions; of children of different marriages (13 sections).
d. עשרה יוחסין, of the different kinds of families which may intermarry and which cannot; of the evidence of a known or unknown lineage; rules according to which a man ought not to be in a secluded place alone with women; counsels as to the trade or profession in which an Israelite should bring up his son; occupations which an unmarried man should not follow, on account of the great facilities they offer for unchaste practices. It also states that all ass-drivers are wicked, camel-drivers are honest, sailors are pious, physicians are destined for hell, and butchers are company for Amalek (14 sections).
(IV.) סדר נזיקין, Seder Nezikin (Damages). This Seder contains ten tractates:
31. בבא קמא, Baba Kamma, or the first gate, so called because in the East law is often administered in the gateway of a city. It treats, in ten chapters, of damages:
a. ארבעה אבות, of four kinds of damages, restitution and its amount (4 sections).
b. כיצד הרגל, how an animal can cause damage, and of the owner who is obliged to make restitution (6 sections).
c. המניח, of damage caused by men; of goring oxen (11 sections).
d. and e. שור, continuation, and of damage caused by al open pit <9 and 7 sections).
f. הכונס, of damage caused by negligent feeding of cattle and by fire (6 sections).
g. מרובה, of restitution, when it is double, twofold or fivefold (7. sections).
h. החובל, of restitution for hurting or wounding (7 sections).
i. הגוזל, what to do, in case some change happens with something robbed; of the fifth part above the usual restitution, in case of perjury (12 sections).
j. הגוזל ומאכיל, of sundry cases, applicable to the restitution of stolen goods (10 sections).
32. בבא מציעה, Baba Metsiah, or the middle gate, in ten chapters, treats of claims resulting from trusts:
a. אוחזין שנים, and
b. אלו מציאות, what to do with goods which were found (8 and 11 sections).
c. המפקיד, of deposits (12 sections).
d. הזהב, of buying, and different kinds of cheating (12 sections).
e. איזהו, of different kinds of usury and overtaxing (11 sections).
f. השוכר, of the rights of hiring (8 sections).
g. השוכר את הפועלי, of the rights of laborers concerning their eating, and what they may eat of the eatables they work on; of the four kinds of keeping, and what is meant by ones, i.e. casus fortuitus (11 sections).
h. השואל, continuation, and again of hiring (9 sections).
i. המקבל, of the rights among farmers; of wages, and taking a pledge (13 sections).
j. הבית, of diverse cases when something belonging to two has fallen in; of the rights of public places (6 sections).
33. בבא בתרא, Baba Bathra, or the last gate, in ten chapters, treats of the partition of immovables, laws of tenantry, joint occupation, and rights of common:
a. השותפין, of the partition of such things as are in common; what each has to contribute, and how one can be obliged to make a partition (6 sections).
b. לא יחפור, of divers kinds of servitude; what and how far something must be removed from the neighbor's premises for different causes (14 sections).
c. חזקת, of superannuation of things, and its rights (12 sections).
d. המוכר את הבית, what: is sold along with the sale (9 sections).
e. את הספינה המוכר, continuation) and how a sale may be made void (11 sections).
f. המוכר פירות, for what a person must be good; of the required size of different places and the right of passing through (8 sections).
g. האומר, of becoming security for a sold acre and of other things pertaining to it (4 sections).
h. יש נוחלין, of inheritances (8 sections).
i. מי שמת, of the division of property (10 sections).
j. גט פשוט, what is required in order to make a contract legal (8 sections).
34. סנהדרין, Sanhedrin, or courts of justice, in eleven chapters:
a. דוני ממונות, of the difference of the three tribunals of, α, at least three persons; β, the small Sanhedrin of twenty-three persons; and, γ, the great Sanhedrini of seventy-one persons (6 sections).
b. כהן גדול, of the privileges of the high-priest and king (5 sections).
c. ממונות דיני, of appointing judges; unfitness for being judge and witness; of hearing the witnesses and publishing the sentence (8 sections).
d. אחד, of judgments in money and judgments in souls; a description how they sat in judgment (5 sections).
e. היו בודקין, again of examining witnesses, and what must be observed in capital, punishments (5 sections).
f. נגמר, of stoning in special (6 sections).
g. ארבע מיתות, of the other capital punishments; those that were to be stoned (11 sections).
h. בן סורר, of stubborn sons and their punishments, with, so many restrictions, however, that this case hardly could ever have occurred (7 sections).
i. ואלו הן, of criminals who were burned or beheaded (6 sections).
j. כל ישראל, of those who have part in the world to come, viz. "all Israel" (6 sections). But the following have no share: he who says that the resurrection of the dead is not found in the law, or that there is no revealed law from heaven, and the Epicurean. Besides, there are excluded from the world to come, Jeroboam, Ahab, Manasseh, Balaam, Doeg, Ahitophel, and Gehazi. So, likewise, the generation of the Deluge; that of the Dispersion (Ge 11:8): the men of Sodom, the spies, the generation of the wilderness, the congregation of Korah, and the men of a city given to idolatry. In the Gemara a good deal is spoken, of the Messiah.
k. אלו הן הנחנקין, of those that are strangled, especially rebellious elders and their punishment (6 sections).
35. מכות, Makkoth, or stripes, in three chapters, treats of corporal punishments:
a. כיצד העדים, in what cases false witnesses are inflicted with the stripes, and of the mode of procedure against false witnesses in general' (10 sections).
b. אלו הן, of unintentional murders, and the cities of refuge (8 sections).
c. ואלו הן, of criminals deserving the stripes; how they should be inflicted; why forty save one (?); of stopping in case the delinquent is regarded as too weak; that such as have suffered this penalty are free from the punishment of extermination; of the reward of those who keep the law; why so many laws were given to Israel (16 sections).
36. שבועות, Shebuoth, or oaths, in eight chapters:
a. שבועות שתי, of different kinds wherein a person is conscious or unconscious of having touched anything unclean (because it is treated under the head of oaths, Le 5:2); of the atonement through sacrifices; what sins were atoned by the different kinds of sacrifices (7 sections).
b. ידיעות, how far the sanctity of the court of the Temple reaches (5 sections).
c. שבועות, of forswearing, its kinds and degrees (11 sections).
d. שבועת העדות, of the oath of witnesses; of blasphemy and cursing (13 sections).
e. שבועות הפקדון, of the oath mentioned in Le 6:3, and of the perjurer (5 sections).
f. שבועת הדיינין, of the oath demanded by the court, when it must be taken or not, and what ought to be testified (7 sections).
g. כל הנשבעין, of such oaths as are for the benefit of him that swears (8 sections).
h. ארבעה שומרין, of the different watchmen who must be security for goods; how far it goes; in what cases they must replace it or swear; what in case they lied (6 sections).
37. עדיות, Edayoth, or testimonies, in eight chapters. It is so called because it consists of laws which tried and trustworthy teachers attested to have been adopted by the elder teachers, in Sanhedrim assembled:
a. שמאי, enactments in which the other sages deviate from the schools of Shammai and Hillel, or wherein the school of Hillel is followed, or wherein the school of Hillel has given way to that of Shamnmai (14 sections).
b. רבי חנינא, enactments of different rabbins, especially of R. Ishmael and R. Akiba on mostly unimportant things (10 sections).
c. טמאין כל המאּ, enactments of R. Dosa on divers defilements (12 sections).
d. אלו דברים, laws in which the school of Shammai is more lenient than that of Hillel (12 sections).
e. רבי יהודה, laws which R. Akiba would not take back (7 sections).
f. רבי יהודה בן, of different kinds of defilement on which disputes have taken place with R. Eliezer (3 sections). g and
h. העיד ר יהושע; of some minor points which cannot be brought under one common nomenclature; at the end we read that Elijah the Prophet will finally determine all disputed points of the sages and will bring peace (9 and 7 sections).
38. עבודה זרה, Abodah Zarah, or idolatry, in five chapters. This treatise is wanting in the Basle edition of 1578, because severe reflections upon Jesus Christ and his followers were found therein by the censor:
a. לפני אידיהן, what must be observed concerning idolatrous feasts, and of things not to be sold to idolaters (9 sections).
b. מעמידין אין, of divers forbidden occasions which tend towards a near relation with idolaters; of the use that can be made of their goods, especially eatables (7 sections).
c. כל הצלמים, of idols, temples, altars, and groves (10 sections).
d. רבי ישמעאל, of what belongs to an idol, and of desecrating an idol; prohibition of wine of libation, and of every wine which was only touched by a heathen, because even the slightest libation could have made it sacrificial wine (12 sections).
e. השוכר, continuation of things with which wine could have been mixed and; how to cleanse utensils bought of a heathen for eating purposes (12 sections).
39. אבות, Aboth, or פרקי אבות, Pirkey Aboth, contains the ethical maxims of the fathers of the Mishna. It is impossible to give an analysis of the six chapters, because they all contain maxims without any chronological order. This treatise speaks of the oral law, its transmission, names of the "receivers," and contains maxims, apothegms, and the wisdom of the wise. The first chapter has 18, the second 16, the third 18, the fourth 22, the fifth 23, and the sixth 10 sections. A more detailed account of it has been given in the art. PIKEABOTH SEE PIKEABOTH (q.v.).
40. הוריות, Horayoth, or decisions, in three chapters, treats of the manner of pronouncing sentences and other matters relating to judges and their functions, but which, though erroneous, still were observed, and for which a sin-offering was to be brought according to Le 4:13:
a. הורו, in what cases and under what circumstances such offerings were to be brought by the congregation or not (5 sections).
b. הורה כהן, of the sin-offering of an anointed priest and prince (7 sections).
c. כהן משיח, who is meant by an anointed priest and prince; of the difference between an anointed priest and one only invested with the priesthood: of the prerogatives of a high-priest before a common priest; of the male sex before the female; finally, of the order of precedence among those who profess the Jewish religion, that a learned precedes an unlearned (8 sections).
(V.) סדר קדשים, Seder Kodashim (Consecrations). This Seder contains eleven tractates:
41. זבחים, Zebachim, or sacrifices, in nineteen chapters:
a. כל הזבהים, in how far-every sacrifice must be regarded with the intention that it shall be such a sacrifice (4 sections).
b. כל הזבחים שקבל, and
c. כל הפסולין, how it becomes unfit or an abomination (5 and 6 sections).
d. בית שמאי, of sprinkling the blood (6 sections).
e. איזהו מקומן, of the difference between the most holy sacrifices and those of less holiness (8 sections)
f. קדשי קדשי, of the place of the altar where every sacrifice has to be offered (7 sections).
g. חטאת העוŠ, of the sacrifice of birds (6 sections).
h. כל הזבחים שנתערבו, Of cases where something of the sanctified has been enmixed with the other parts (12 sections).
i. המזבח, how the altar sanctifies the offered part (7 sections).
j. כל התדיר, of the order in which sacrifices must be brought; which precedes the other (5 sections).
k. חטאת דם, of washing the dress, etc., on which the blood of a sin- offering has come (5 sections).
l. טבול יום, to whom the skins belong and where they go (6 sections).
m. השוחט, of divers trespasses, when trespass has been committed unconsciously during the sacrificial service (8 sections).
n. פרת חטאת, of the different places of sacrificial service during different periods (Gilgal, Shiloh, Nolih, Gibeon, Jerusalem), and of the difference between the altar and the heights (10 sections).
42. מנחות, Menachoth, or meat-offerings, in eighteen chapters:
a. כל המנחות, of taking a handful; what corresponds in sacrifices to the act of sacrificing, when it becomes unfit or an abomination (4 sections).
b. and c. הקומ, and d. התכלת, according to the different kinds of meat- offerings (5, 7, and 5 sections).
e. באות כל המנחות, and
f. אלו מנחות, of these different kinds and their treatment (9 and 7 sections). g. התודה, of the thank-offering and of the Nazarite's offering (6 sections). h. כל קרבנות, whence the necessary good things were taken (7 sections). i. שתי מדות, of the measures in the sanctuary; of the drink-offerings and the laying-on of hands (9 sections).
j. רבי ישמעאל, of the wave-loaf (9 sections).
k. שתי הלחם, of the Pentecostal and shewbreads (9 sections).
l. המנחות, of changes in the offering (5 sections).
m. הרי עלי, of indefinite vows; of the Onias temple in Egypt; a correct exposition of the words "a sweet savor" (11 sections).
43. חולין, Cholin, or unconsecrated things, in seventeen chapters:
a. הכל שיחטין, who may slaughter; wherewith and where it can be slaughtered (7 sections).
b. השוחט אחד, of cutting through the windpipe and (esophagus, in front or at the side, and how the slaughtering becomes unfit (10 sections).
c. אלו טריפות, what animals are no more kashdr, i.e. lawful, but trephsh, i.e. unlawful: the signs of clean fowls, grasshoppers, and fishes (7 sections).
d. בהמה המקשה, enactments concerning an animal fetus (7 sections).
e. אותו ואת בנו, of the prohibition against slaughtering an animal and the young on the same day (5 sections).
f. כיסוי הדם, the precept of covering the blood of wild animals and fowl (7 sections).
g. גיד הנשה, the precept concerning the prohibition of eating the sinew which shrank (6 sections).
h. כל הבשר, the prohibition to boil any kind of flesh in milk (6 sections).
i. חעור והרוטב, pollution communicated by a carcass or trephah (5 sections).
j. הזרוע, of the oblations due to the priest from the slaughtered animal (4 sections).
k. ראשית הגז, of the firstlings of the fleece (2 sections).
l. שלוח הקו, the precept of letting the parent bird, found in the nest, fly away (5 sections).
44. בכורות, Bekoroth, or first-born, in nine chapters:
a. הלוקח עובר, of the redemption of the first-born of an ass; how to redeem it (7 sections)
b. פרתו הלוקח עובר, when the first-born of an animal is not to be given; of some defects of a sanctified animal; of sundry dubious cases as to what Constitutes the first-born (9 sections).
c. הלוקח בהמה, of the sign of the birth of the first-born; of the wool of a first-born (4 sections).
d. כמה עד, how long the first-born must be raised up before it is given to the priest; what must be paid for the inspection (10 sections).
e. כל פסולי,
f. על אלו מומין, and
g. מומין אלו, of the defects which make a first-born unfit for sacrifice or service in the sanctuary (6,12, and 7 sections).
h. יש בכור, of the rights of the first-born concerning a heritage; in what cases he forfeits such a right or the priest forfeits the right on the first-born, and of what property he has to receive his heritage (10 sections).
i. מעשר בהמה, concerning the tithe of the herd; of what, when, and how the tithe has to be given; what to do in dubious cases (8 sections).
45. ערכין, Erakin, or estimates, in nine chapters:
a. הכל מעריכין, who has to make this estimate and on what (4 sections).
b. אין בערכין, what constitutes herein the minimum and maximum (6 sections).
c. יש בערכין, how such a valuation may be more difficult to the one than to the other (5 sections).
d. השג יד, how the valuation has to be made according to the means, age, etc. (4 sections).
e. האומר משקלי, valuation according to weight, and how the treasurer takes a forfeit (6 sections).
f. שום היתומים, of proclaiming and redeeming (5 sections).
g. אין מקדישין, and
h. המקדיש, of the banished (5 and . sections).
i. המוכר את שדהו, of redeeming a sold field; of houses in a city surrounded with a wall (Le 20:27); of the privilege of the houses and cities of the Levites (8 sections).
46. תמורה, Temunarah, or exchanges (Le 27:10,33), in seven chapters, treats of the way exchanges are to be effected between sacred things:
a. הכל ממירין, to what persons and things this right may be applied or not (6 sections).
b. יש בקרבנות, of the difference between the sacrifice of an individual and a congregation (3 sections).
c. אלו קדשים, of the exchange of the young of a sacred animal (5 sections).
d. ולד חטאת, of sin-offerings which were starved, or which were lost and found again (4 sections).
e. כיצד מערימין, of the means to cheat the priest out of the first-born ; how young and old can be sanctified at the same time or separately (6 sections).
f. כל האסורין, what is prohibited to be brought upon the altar (5 sections).
g. יש בקדשי, of the different rights of things sanctified for the altar and for the Temple; what may be buried or burned of the sanctified (6 sections).
47. כריתות, Kerithoth, or cutting off, in seven chapters, treats of offenders being cut off from the Lord, provided the offences were wantonly committed; but if inadvertently committed, entail the obligation to bring sin-offerings:
a. שלשים ושש, of the sacrifice of a woman in childbed, after the birth is certain or uncertain (2 sections).
b. ארבעה מחוסרי, and c. אמרוֹ לו אכלת, of cases where one or more sin-offerings were to be brought (6 and 10 sections).
d. ספק אכל, of a doubtful sin-offering (3 sections).
e. אכל דם שחיטה, of eating blood and divers doubtful eatings, and what they cause (8 sections).f. המביא אשם, of cases where the secret sin became known; of the efficacy of the day of expiation; of shekels which were used separately and for other purposes (9 sections).
48. מעילה, Meailah, or trespass (Nu 5:6,8), in six chapters, treats of things partaking of the name of sacrilege:
a. קדשי קדשים, what sacrifice causes a trespass (4 sections).
b. חטאת העוŠ, from what time it is possible according to the nature of the sanctified (9 sections).
c. ולד הטאת, of things which were given from such trespass (8 sections).
d. קדשי מזבח, how far the addition of different things takes place (6 sections).
e. ההקדשהנהנה מן, in how far the wear and tear, by spoiling something of it, or the use thereof, is to be considered (5 sections).
f. השליח שעשה, in how far a man may trespass by means of a third person (6 sections).
49. תמיד, Tamid, or daily sacrifices, in seven chapters, treats of the morning and evening offerings:
a. מקומות בשִלִשִה, of the night-watch and of the arrival of the captain, when the gate was opened and the priests went in (4 sections).
b. ראוהו אחיו, of the first work, how the altar was cleared from the ashes, the fagots were brought and the great and the small fire were arranged; the former for the members and the coals of the sacrifices, the latter for the coals of the incense (5 sections).
c. אמר להם הממונה, allotting services for the offering of the lamb; of finding out whether "it brightens;" of fetching the lamb and the vessels; of the lamb-chamber, opening the Temple and cleansing the inner altar and candlestick (9 sections).
d. לא היו כופתין, of slaughtering and sprinkling the blood; of skinning, cutting, and dividing the parts (3 sections).
e. אמר להם המונה, of the morning prayer of the priests; of offering the incense (6 sections).
f. עולי החלו, again of cleansing the inner altar and the candlestick; of putting on the coals and of lighting the incense (3 sections).
g. בזמן שכהן, of the entering of the high priest and of the other, priests; of the blessing of the priests; when, the high-priest offered the sacrifices; of the chant which the Levites intoned in the sanctuary (4 sections).
50. מדות, Middoth, or measurements, in five chapters, treats of the measurements of the Temple, its different parts and courts:
a. בשלשה מקומות, of the nightwatches in the Temple, the gates and chambers (9 sections).
b. הר הבית, the mountain of the Temple, its walls and courts (6 sections).
c. המזבח, of the altar and the other space of the inner court to the hall of the Temple (8 sections).
d. פתחו, computation of the measures of the Temple (7 sections).
e. כל העזרה, of the measure of the court and its chambers (4 sections). This tractate has no Gemara or commentary.
51. קנים, Kinnim, or bird's-nests, in three chapters, treats of the mistakes about doves and beasts brought; into the Temple for sacrifice:
a. חטאת העוŠ, how the blood of these birds was sprinkled in different manner that of the sacrifice above the altar, that of the trespass offering below the red line which stretched around the altar (4 sections).
b. קן סתומה, of the so-called indefinite nest (5 sections);
c. במה דברים, of possible mistakes of the priests and the offering women (6 sections).
(VI.) סדר טהרות, Seder Taharoth (Purifications). This order has twelve tractates.
52. כלים, Kelim, or vessels, in, thirty chapters, treats of those which convey uncleanness (Le 11:33):
a. הטומאות אבות, of the main kinds of uncleanness according to their ten degrees, as well as of other ten degrees of un-cleanness as well as of holiness (9 sections).
b. כלי ע, c. שיעור כלי, and d. החרס, of earthen vessels, which are the least capable of uncleanness, but which become clean as soon as they break wholly or partly (8, 8, and 4 sections).
e. תנור, f. םהעושה g. הקלתות, h.תנרו שחצצו, and
i. מחט, of the divers kinds of ovens made of earth (11, 4, 6,11, and S sections).
j. אלו כלים, of vessels which by cover and binding are protected against uncleanness (8 sections).
k. כלי מתכות, l. טבעת אדם, m. הסייŠ, and
n. כלי מתכות כמה, of metal vessels which become unclean, and how they get clean (9, 8, 8, and 8 sections).
o. כלי ע, p. כל כלי ע, and
q. כל כליבעלי, of vessels of wood, skin, leather, bone, glass, and the size of the hole whereby they become clean; also of the size of things used as a measure (6, 8, and 17 sections).
r. השיד, and
s. המפרק, of beds (9 and 10 sections).
t. הכרים, of things which become unclean by sitting thereon (7 sections).
u. הנוגע, of things fastened to a loom, plough; etc. (3 sections).
v. השלחן, of tables and chairs (10 sections).
w. הכדור, of things which become unclean by riding thereon (5 sections).
x. שלשה תריסין, of a great many things by which three modes of uncleanness take place (17 sections).
y. כל הכלים, of the outside and inside of vessels, the handle and the different duties belonging to them (9 sections).
z. סנדל, of vessels which have straps (9 sections).
aa. הבגד מטמא, and
bb. שלש על, how large something must be in order to become unclean; also, that something which is three inches long and wide may be called a dress (12 and 10 sections).
cc. נומי, of cords on different things (8 sections). dd. כלי זכוכית, of vessels of glass which are fiat or a receptacle (4 sections).
53. אהלות, Ohaloth, or tents (Nu 19:14), in twenty-two chapters, treats of tents and houses retaining uncleanness, etc.
a. שנים טמאים, of the different modes and degrees of uncleanness over a dead body; of the difference of uncleanness in men and vessels; of the measure of the limbs of a dead body, or carcass, and of the number of the members of man (8 sections).
b. אלו מטמאין, what be comes unclean in a tent through a corpse, and what only by touching and carrying (7 sections).
c. כל המטמאין, of adding together divers kinds of cleanness; what is not unclean in a dead body (teeth, hair and nails, provided they are no more on the corpse); of the size of openings whereby uncleanness can be propagated (7 sections);
d. מגדל, of vessels into which uncleanness does not penetrate (3 sections).
e. תנור, when the upper story may be regarded as separated from the lower part (7 sections).
f. אדם וכלי, how men and vessels form a cover over a carcass; of the uncleanness in the wall of a house (7 sections).
g. הטומאה, of a woman giving birth to a dead child (6 sections).
h. יש מביאין, of things conveying and separating uncleanness, and of others which do not (6 sections).
i. כוורת, how far a large basket separates (16 sections).
j. ארובה, and k. הבַית, of openings in a house and cracks on a roof (7 and 9 sections).
l. נסר, of uncleanness in parts of the house and roof (8 sections).
m. העושה מאור, of the measure of a hole or window which may propagate uncleanness (6 sections).
n. מביא הזיזּ, and o. סגום, of cornices and partitions in a house; of graves (7 and 10 sections).
p. כל המטלטלין, continuation of graveyards (5 sections).
q. החורש את, and r. כיצד, of the beth happras (field in which a grave has been detected, or must be presumed, etc.); how far the houses of the heathen must be regarded as unclean (5 and 10 sections).
54. נגעים, Neggaim, or plagues of leprosy, in seventeen chapters, treats of leprosy of men, garments, or dwellings:
a. מראות נגעים, of the four indications of leprosy and their kinds (6 sections).
b. בהרת, of the inspection of leprosy (5 sections).
c. הכל מטמאין, of the time and signs when uncleanness is pronounced (8 sections).
d. בשער יש, of the difference between the different signs of leprosy (11 sections).
e. כל ספק, of dubious cases when uncleanness is pronounced (5 sections).
f. נופה, of the size of the white spot, and the places where no leprosy occurs (S sections).
g. אלו בהרות, of the changes of the spots of leprosy, and when they were rooted out (5 sections).
h. הפורח, of the growing of the spots (10 sections).
i. השחין, of the difference between a boil and a burning (3 sections).
j. הנתקים, of scalds (10 sections).
k. כל הבגדים, l. כל הבתים, and
m. עשרה בתים, of the leprosy in houses and garments (12, 7, and 12 sections).
n. ביצד מטהרין, of cleansing a leper (13 sections).
55. פרה, Parah, or the red heifer, in sixteen chapters, directs how she is to be burned, etc.
a. ר א אומר, of the heifer's age, and ages of other offerings (4 sections).
b. ר א אומר פרת, blemishes which make her unfit (4 sections).
c. שבעת ימים, separation of the priest for burning the red heifer; procession of heifer and attendants; pile for burning; gatherings the ashes (11 sections).
d. פרת חטאת, how the sacrifices may become unfit under these rites (4 sections).
e. המביא, of the vessels for the sprinkling-water (9 sections).
f. המקדש, of cases where the ashes or the water becomes unfit (5 sections).
g. חמשה שמלאו, how this rite cannot be interrupted by any kind of labor (12 sections).
h. שנים שהיו, of keeping the water; of the sea and other waters with regard to the sprinkling-water (11 sections).
i. צלוחיֹת, continuation (9 sections).
j. כל הראוי, how clean persons and vessels may become unclean (6 sections).
k. שהניחה צלוחית, of the hyssop for sprinkling (9 sections).
l. האזוב, of the persons fit for sprinkling (11 sections).
56. טהרות, Taharoth (prop. Tohoroth), or purifications, in fifteen chapters, teaches how purifications are to be effected.
a. שלשה עשר, of the carrion of a clean and unclean fowl (9 sections).
b. האשה שהטיתה, of the uncleanness of the person who has eaten something unclean; of the effect of the different degrees of uncleanness (8 sections).
c. הרוטב, of beverages; of the estimation of an uncleanness after the time of its detection (8 sections).
d. הזורק, e. השר, and
f. מקום שהַיה, of doubtful cases of uncleanness (13, 9, and 10 sections).
g. הקדר, how a layman makes something unclean; of the care to be taken in preserving the cleanness of dresses and vessels (9 sections).
h. הדר, how to keep victuals clean (9 sections).
i. זיתים, of the cleanness in pressing the olives (9 sections).
j. הנועל, of the same in the treatment of wine (S sections).
57. מקואות, Mikwaoth, orpools of water (Nu 31:23), in fifteen chapters, treats of their construction, and the quantity of water necessary for cleansing:
a. שש מעלות, of the six different grades of pools of water, where one is purer than the preceding, from the water in the pit to the living water. (8 sections).
b. הטמא, of doubtful cases concerning bathing; how much and how far drawn water makes a mikvâh, or bathing-place, unfit for bathing (10 sections).
c. רבי יוסי, how a mikvâh becomes clean again, (4 sections).
d. המניח, how rain-water is to be led into a mikvâh, so as not to become drawn-water (5 sections).
e. מעין, of different kinds of water-spring water, river and sea water (6 sections).
f. כל המעורב, what is regarded as connected with a mikvâh, and how mik-vaoth may become united (11 sections).
g. יש מעלין, what makes a mikvâh complete and fit, and where the change of the color has to be considered (7 sections).
h. אר ישראל, of some uncleanness of the mikvâh (5 sections).
i. חוצצין אלו, of the difference between bathing the body and a vessel (7 sections).
j. כל ידות, of vomiting when eating and drinking, whether it be clean or unclean (8; sections).
58. נדה, Niddah, or separation of women during their menses, after childbirth, etc., in fifteen chapters:
a. אומר שמאי, of computing the time of the sliddih, and where it is to be supposed (7 sections).
b. כל היד, of the uiddas itself (7 sections).
c. המפלת, and
d. בנות כותים, of women in childbed (7 and 7 sections).
e. יוצא דופן, of the different ages of children according to their sex (9 sections).
f. בא סימן, of the blood-spots (14 sections).
g. דם הנדה, what makes unclean if it be damp or dry (5 sections).
h. הרואה, and
i. האשה שהוא, of recognizing the blood-spots; their origin; of changes in the menses (4 and 11 sections).
j. תנוקת, of all kinds of suppositions concerning cleanness and uncleanness (8 sections). This treatise should be read only by persons studying medicine, it being devoted to certain rules not ordinarily discussed, although they appear to have occupied a disproportionate part of the attention of the rabbins. The objections that our modern sense of propriety raises to the practice of the confessional apply with no less force to the subject of this tract, considered as a matter to be regulated by the priesthood.
59. מכשירין, Makshirinsor liquors that dispose seeds, and fruits to receive pollution, in six chapters:
a. משקה כל, of the precaution by the fault of which something has become wet (6 sections).
b. זיעת, of sweating and steaming; of different rights of cities in which Jews and heathen reside (11 sections).
c. שק, of cases where fruits are moistened unintentionally (8 sections).
d. השוחה; of the regulations of rain-water in similar cases (10 sections).
e. מי שטבל, of cases where eatables, although they have become wet, do not change (11 sections).
f. המעלה, of the seven liquors, their variety; and of such: liquors as at the same time make clean and unclean, or: not (8 sections).
60. זבים, Zabim, or bodily fluxes that cause pollution, in five chapters:
a. הרואה, of computing this uncleanness (6 sections).
b. הכל מיטמאין, of examining whether such an issue is not enforced (4 sections).
c. הזב, and
d. רבי יהישע, of the power and different motions towards pollution (3 and 7 sections).
e. הגוגע, comparison of divers pollutions and what makes the heave- offering unclean (12 sections).
61. טבול יום, Tibbul Yom, or baptism on the day of uncleanness (Le 22:6), in four chapters:
a. המכנם, when cakes of bread, grain, and seeds become unclean, or remain clean through the touch of a tibbil yôm (5 sections).
b. משקה, how far the dampness of a tibbil yôm is not to be treated as strictly as that of other unclean things; how the union of unwashed hands with those of a tibbull yôm made to be discerned; how the uncleanness through a tibbul yôm differs from another uncleanness in all kinds of boiled things and vessels of wine (8 sections).
c. כל ידות, of the chibbfor, or connection of the parts and the whole concerning the uncleanness through a tibbil yom in fruits, eggs, herbs, boiled things, and eatables of all kinds (6 sections).
d. אוכל מעשר, the same in separating the heave-offering, cakes, etc., according to older more lenient and recent more strict laws (7 sections).
62. ידים, Yadaïm, or hands, in four chapters, treats of the washing of hands before eating bread, though dry fruits are allowed to be eaten without such washing:
a. מי רביעית, how much water is required for ablution of the hands; what kind of water; of the vessels for the same; who may pour it out (5 sections).
b. נטל ידו, of the two ablutions whereby the unclean first water is washed ,away; how the ablution must take place (4 sections).
c. המכנים, whether and how the hands become unclean in the first degree, and how in the second; whether and how far the touching of straps of phylacteries and of holy writings defiles (5 sections).
d. בו ביום, of some special discussions; of the defilement by the Chaldee in the Bible, and of the Assyrian; disputes between the Pharisees and Sadducees (7 sections).
63. עוקציו, טּ catsin, or stalks of fruit which convey uncleanness, in three chapters:
a. כלשהוא, of the difference between the stalks and husks of fruits (6 sections).
b. זתים שכבשן, what is added to the whole from stones, husks, leaves, etc. (10 sections).
c. יש צריכין, of different classes of things, how and when they are apt to absorb an uncleanness (12 sections).
In addition to the treatises, which compose the Geinara, there are certain minor ones which are connected with it as a kind of Apocrypha or appendix, under the title of Mesiktoth Ketanoth (מסכתות קטנות), or smaller treatises. These are:
1. סופרים, Sopherim, concerning the scribe and reader of the law (21 chapters). This treatise is important for the Masorah. A separate edition, with notes, was published by J. Muller (Leips. 1878). See also the article SOPERIM.
2. כלה, Kallah, relates to marriages (1 chapter).
3. אבל רבתי הנקרא שמחות Ebel Rabbathi,or Semachoth, concerning the ordinances for funeral solemnities (14 chapters).
4. דר ִאר, Derek Brets, on social duties (11 chapters).
5. דר ִאר זוטא, Derek Erets Sztta, rules for the learned (10 chapters).
6. פרק השלום, Perek ha-Shailom, on the love of peace (1 chapter).
7. גרים, Gerim, concerning proselytes (4 chapters).
8. כותים, Kuthim, concerning Samaritans (2 chapters).
9. עבדים, Abadim, concerning slaves (3 chapters).
10. ציצית, Tsitsith, concerning fringes (1 chapter).
11. תפילין, Tephillin, concerning phylacteries (1 chapter).
12. מזוזה, Mezuzah, concerning the writing on the door-post (2 chapters). See art. MEZUZAH.
13. ספר תורה, Sepher Thorah, concerning the writing of the law (5 chapters). Nos. 7-13 were published together by R. Kirchheim, under the title Septem Libri Talmudici Parvi (Frankf. — on-the-Main, 1851).
To these treatises are sometimes added:
14. הלכות אר ישראל, Hilkoth Erets Israel, relating to the ways of slaughtering animals for food after the Jewish ideas, a treatise which is much later than the Talmud.
15. אבות דרבי נתן, Aboth di-Rabbi Nathan, a commentary on, or amplification of the treatise Aboth (21 chapters). For the author of this treatise, see the art. sEE NATHAN HA-BABLI.
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE DIFFERENT TREATISES AS FOUND IN THE BABTYLONIAN TALMUD. The first column gives the names of the treatises; the second indicates the volume of the Talmud where the treatises may be found; the third shows the Seder or division under which they are given; and the fourth the numerical order in which they stand in the Mishna.
Having given an analysis of the contents of the Talmud, we will now give a specimen of its text, which will present to the reader a faint idea of the mode of procedure as we find it in that wonderful work. We open the very first page of the Talmud, the treatise Berakoth, on blessings, commencing מאימתי.
Mishna. — "At what time in the evening should one say the Shema? From the time that the priests go in to eat of their oblation till the end of the first night-watch. These are the words of the rabbi Eliezei; but the wise men say until midnight. Rabbian Gamaliel says till the morning dawn ariseth. It came to pass that his sons were returning from a feast; they said unto him, 'We have not yet recited the Shema.' He answered and said unto them, 'If the morning dawn has not yet arisen, ye are under obligation to recite it.' And not this alone have they said, but everywhere where the wise have said 'until midnight,' the command is binding till the morning dawn ariseth; and the steaming of the fat and of the joints is lawful until the morning dawn ariseth, and so everything which may be eaten on the same day it is allowed to eat until the morning dawn ariseth. If this is so, why do the wise say 'till midnight?' In order that men may be held far away from sin."
Gemara. — "The Thanna (i.e. rabbi Judah the Holy), what is his authority that he teaches, from what time onward? And, besides that, why does he teach on the evening first, and might he teach on the morning first? The Thanna rests on the Scripture, for it is written, 'When thou liest down and when thou risest up,' and so he teaches, the time of reciting the Shelna, when thou liest down, when is it? From the time when the priests go in to eat of their oblation. But if thou wilt, say I, he hath taken it out of the creation of the world, for it is said it was evening and it was morning one day. If this is so, it might be the last Mishna, which teaches. In the morning are said two blessings before and one after, and in the evening two before and two after, and yet they teach in the evening first. The Thanna begins in the evening, then he teaches in the morning; as he treats of the morning, so he explains the things of the morning, and then he explains the things of the evening." This is less than one fourth part of the comment in the Gemara on that passage in the Mishna, and the remainder is equally lucid and interesting.
Subsidiaries to the Talmud, printed either in the margin of the pages or at the end of the treatises, are
(1) the Tosaphoth, exegetical additions by later authors;
(2) Masorah ha-shesh Sedarim, being marginal Masoretic indices to the six orders of the Mishna;
(3) Ain or En-Mishpat, i.e. index of places on the rites and institutions;
(4) Ner Mitsvoth, a general index of decisions according to the digest of Maimonides; and
(5) Perushim, or commentaries by different authors.
IV. Literary Uses. — The Talmud has been applied to the criticism and interpretation of the Old Test. Most of its citations, however, agree with the present Masoretic text. It has probably been conformed to the Masoretic standard by the rabbins, at least in the later editions. For variations, SEE QUOTATIONS OF THE OLD TEST. IN THE TALMUD; for the interpretation, SEE SCRIPTURE INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS.
The Talmud has also been used in the illustration of the New Test. by Lightfoot, Schöttgen, Meuschen, Wettstein, Gfrorer, Robertson, Nork, Delitzsch, Wünsche. But in this department, also, its utility has been overestimated, and by none more than by Lightfoot himself, who says, in the dedication prefixed to his Talmudical exercitations, "Christians, by their skill and industry, may render them (the Talmudic writings) most usefully serviceable to their students, and most eminently tending to the interpretations of the New Test." But not so Isaac Vossius, who said Lightfoot would have sinned less by illustrating the evangelists from the Koran than these nebulae rabbinicae, and exclaimed, "Sit modus ineptiendi et cessent tandem aliquando miseri Christiani Judaicis istiusmodi fidere fabellis!" ("Let Christians at length cease from playing the fool and trusting to such wretched Jewish fables as those contained in the Talmud!") The mistake of Lightfoot is repeated by Wünsche, in his Neue Beitrage zur Erluterung der Evangelien aus Talmud und Midrash (Gött. 1878 ), whose modus illustrandi et interpretandi is like a Jew writing an apology for Judaism'; hence great caution must be exhibited in the perusal of the latter's work. There is only one way of using the Talmud for the New Test., for which SEE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND THE TALMUD. For the Old Test. as it was in the time of the Talmud, see the next article.
V. Apparatus for Study of the Talmud. —
1. Manuscripts. — Like the text of the Old Test., the Talmud was copied with the greatest care during the Middle Ages; but, like a good many other works, these MSS. have become the prey of time, and only a few of them are extant. All that is known is (1) the first division of the Jerusalem Talmud in possession of the Jewish congregation at Constantinople; (2) a complete copy of the Babylonian Talmud from the year 1343 in the Royal Library at Munich; (3) a fragment of the same, evidently older than No. 2, in the same place; (4) a fragment: of the same from the year 1134 in the- Hamburg City Library; (5) the treatise Sanhedrin according to the Babylonian redaction, and belonging to the 12th century, in the Ducal Library at Carlsruhe; (6) some fragments with valuable variations, preserved at the University Library of Breslau. There is no doubt that in some libraries fragments may yet be found, if the covers of old books should be properly examined, for which they have been used by ignorant binders. That such, was the case we not only know from the fragments at: the Breslau University, but from a more recent discovery of W.H. Lowe, who published the Fragment of the Talmud Babli Pesachim of the 9th or 10th Century, in the University Library at Cambridge, with Notes and Ca Facsimile (Lond. 1879).
2. Editions. — Like the Old Test., at first only parts of the Talmud were published, on which see De Rossi,. Annales Haebraeo-typographici Sec.
XV (Parmse, 1795). The first part of the Talmud, the treatise Berakoth, was published at Soncino in 1484; but the first complete edition (the basis of later ones) was published by Bomberg (Venice, 1520-23, 12 vols. fol.) (a complete. copy of which is in the libraries of Cassel and Leipsic). Since that time editions have been published at different places, which are enumerated by R. N. Rabbinowicz, in his מאמר על הדפסת התלמוד, or Kritische Uebersicht der Gesammtund Einzelausgaben des babylonischenTalmuds seit 1484 (Munich, 1877) (with the exception of the German title-page, the rest is in Hebrew). The Jerusalem Talmud was first published by D. Bomberg (Venice, 1523); then with brief glosses (Cracov. 1609;. Dessau, 1743; Berlin, 1757; Schitomir, 1860-67,4 vols fol.; Krotoschin, 1866, fol.). A new edition of Bomberg's, with commentaries, was commenced by the late Dr. Z. Frankel, of which, however, only the first division was published (Vienna, 1875-76).
3. Translations. — There exists as yet no complete translation of either of the Talmuds in any language. The Arabic translation, said to have been prepared in A. D. 1000, at the will of king Hashem of Spain, is no longer extant. A large portion of the Jerusalem Talmud is found in a Latin translation in Ugolino, Thesaur Antiq. Sacr., viz. Pesachim (vol. 17), Shekalim, Yoma, Sukkah, Rosh Hashshanah, Taanith, Megillah, Chagigah, Bezah, Moed Katon (vol. 18), Maaseroth, Challah, Orlah, Bikkurimr (vol. 20), Sanhedrin, Makkoth (vol 25), Kiddushin, Sotah, Kethuboth (vol. 30). In thesame work we also find three treatises of the Babvlonians Talmud, viz., Zebachim, Menachoth (vol. 19), and Sanhedrin (vol. 25). Into French, the treatises Berakoth, Peah, Dema', Kilayim, Shebiith, Terumoth, Maaseroth, Maaser Sheni, Challah, Orlah, Bikkurim of the Jerusalem Talmud were translated by M. Schwab (Paris, 187279). The treatise Berakoth according to the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds was also translated into French by L. Chiarini (Leips. 1831) and into German by Rabe (Halle, 1777). Of the Babylonian Talmud we have German translations of Berakoth by Pinner (Berlin, 1842); of Baba Metsia by A. Sammter (ibid. 1876-79); of Aboda Zarah by F. Chr. Ewald (Nuremb. 1868).
These are all the translations, which are known to us.
4. Monographs. — Since the Talmud is the great storehouse of all and everything, different branches of science and religion, have been treated in monographs.
Thus, on
a. Botany: by Duschak, Zur Botanik des Talmud (Leips. 1870).
b. Civil and criminal law: by Frankel, Der gerichtliche Beweis nach nos. — talmudischem Rechte, Ein Beitrag zur Kentniss des mos. — talmudischen Criminal u. Civilrechts (Berlin, 1846); Duschak, Das mosaisch- talmudische Eherecht, etc. (Vienna, 1864); Thonisson. LaPeine de Maort dars le Talmud (Bruxelles, 1866); Bloch, Das mosaisch talmudische Polizeirecht (Leips. 1.879 ) Lichtschein, Die Ehe nach mosaisch- talmudischer Auffassung und das mosaisch-talmudische Eherecht (ibid. 1879); Fassel, Das mosdisch-rabbinische Gerichts- Verfamhren itrr icioilrechtlichen Sachen, etc. (Vienna, 1858); Frankel, Grundlinien des mosaisch-talmudischen Eherechts (Breslau, 1860); Mielziner, Die Verhiatnisse der Sklaven bei den alten Hebraern nach bibl. u. talmud. Quellen dargestellt (Leips. 1859).
c. Coins and weights: by B. Zuckermann, Ueber talxnudische Münzen und Gewichte (Breslauj 1862).
d. Education; S. Marcus, Zur Schul-Pddagogik des Talmud (Berlin, 1866); Simon, L'Education et l'Instruction des Enfants chez les Anciens Juifs d'apres la Bible elle Talmud (Leips. 1879); Sulzbach, Die Pddagogik des Talmud (Frankf.-on-the-Main, 1863). SEE SCHOOLS in this Cyclopaedia.
e. Ethics mniaxims, proverbs, etc. Lazarus, Zur Charakteristik der talmudischen .Ethik (Breslau, 1877 ); maxims and proverbs are given by Dukes, Rabbinische Blumenlese (Leips. 1844), in ספר מלין דרבנן (Warsaw, 1874), and by A. Franck, Les Sentences et Proverbes du Talmud et du Midrash, in the (Paris) Journal des Savants, Nov. 1878, p. 659-676; Dec. p. 709-721.
f. Geography: by A. Neubauer, La Geographie du Talmud, Memoire couronne par I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres (Paris, 1868).
g. Mathematics:, by Zuckermann, Das mathematische him Talmud (Breslau, 1878); id. Das jiidische Mass System (ibid. 1867).
h. Medicine: Wunderbar, Biblisch-talmudische Medicin (Riga, 1852-59); Halpern, Beitrdge zur Geschichte der talmudische Chirurgie (Breslau, 1869).
i. Magic Brecher, Das Transcendentale, Magie u. magische Heilarten in Talmud (Vierina, 1850).
j. Psychology: Jacobson, Versuch einer Psychologie des Talmud (Hamburg, 1878).
k. Religious philosophy: Nager, Die Religions philosophie des Talmud (Leips. 1864).
l. Zoology: Lewysohn, Zur Zoologie des Talmud (Frankf. — on-the-Main, 1858).
m. Labor and handicraft: S. Meyer, Arbeit und Handwerkim Talmud (Berlin, 1878); Delitzsch, Jüdisches Handwerkerleben zur Zeit Jesu (3d ed. Erlangen, 1879). The latter wrote also on the colors in the Talmud in Nord und Süd, May 1878.
n. Biblical Antiquities: Hamburger, Biblisch- Talmudisch. Worterbuch (Neu-Strelitz, 1861).
o. Textual Criticism. — Lebrecht, Kritische Lese veribes serter Lesarten zum Talmud (Berlin, 1864); Rabbiowicz, Varice Lectiones in Mischnam et in Talmud Babygonicum quum ex aliis Libris Antiquissimis et Scriptis et Impressis tumn e Codice Monacensi Pracstantissimo collecicae, Annotationibus instructee (pt. 1-8, Munich, 1868-77).
6. Bibliography. — Pinner, in his preface to Berakoth, p. 9 sq.; Beer, in Frankel's Monatsschrift, 1857, p. 456458; Lebrecht, Handschriften und erste Gesammtausgaben des babyl. Talmud, in den wissenschaftlichen Blttern des Berliner Bethha Midrasch (Berlin, 1862); Steinschneider, Bebraische Bibliographie. (1863), 6:39 sq.; De Rossi, Annales Hebraeo- typographici Sec. XV (Parma. 1795); id. De Hebraicce Typographice Origine ac Primitiis, etc. (ibid.1776).
7. Linguistic Helps. Buxtorf, Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum et Rabbinicum (Basil. 1640, fohl.; new ed. by B. Fischer, Leipsic, 1869-75); Lowy, Neuhebrdisches uend chaldaisches Wörterbuch, etc. (ibid. 1875; in the course of publication); ruch, by Nathan ben-Jechiel; new critical edition by A. Kohut, Plenum Arich Targum Talmudico-Midrasch Verbale et Reale Lexicon (Vienna, 1878 sq.); Brull, Fremdsprachliche Redensarten, etc. (Leipsic, 1869); Geiger, Zur Geschichte der talmudischen Lexicographie, in Zeitschri td. D. M. G. 1858. 12:142; Stein, Talmudische
Terminologie (Prague, 1869); Zuckermandel, in Gratz's Monattsschrift, 1873, p. 421430, 475-477; 1874, p. 30-44, 130-138, 183-189, 213-222; Rüilf, Zur Lautlehre der aramadisch-talmudischen Dialecte, i, Die Kehllaute (Leipsic, 1879); Berliner, Beitrage zur hebrqischen Grammatik im Talmud und Midrash (Berlin, 1879); Kalisch [I.], Sketch of the Talmud, including, the Sepher Jezirah, with Translation, Notes, and Glossary (N.Y. 1877).
8. Literature in General. — Treatises on the Talmud have been written in different languages, and their number-is legion. To enumerate them would be not only tedious, but useless, because, written from a certain standpoint, they only give one side of the question. Such are the treatises of Deutsch, written for the glorification of modern Judaism, and repeated by Schwab in his introduction to his treatise Berakoth (Paris, 1871), and of Rohling and Martin, written in a hostile spirit against Judaism, because more or less dependent on Eisenmenger's Entdecktes- Judenthum (Königsberg, 1711, 2 vols.). Quite different is the work of A. M'Caul, The Old Paths (Lond. 1854), and the Pentateuch according to the Talmud (vol. 1, Genesis, ibid. 1874) by P. J. Hershon, because tending to show how Pharisaism has made the law of God void by a multitude of traditions. We therefore confine ourselves to such works as will give the reader the necessary information on the Talmud, viz. Wihner, Antiquitates Ebrceorum (1743), 1, 231-584; Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraea, 2. 657-993; 4:320 456; Brill, Die Entstehungsgeschichte des babyl. Talmuds, in his Jahrbücher (Frankfort- on-the-Main, 1876), 2, 1-123; Auerbach, Das jüdische Obligationsrecht, 1, 62-114; Frankel, Introductio in Talmud Hierosolymitanum (Breslau, 1870 [Heb.]); Wiesner, Gib'eth Jeruschalaim, ed. Smolensky (Vienna, 1872 [Heb.]); Fürst, Literaturblatt des Orients, 1843, No. 48-51; 1850, No. 1 sq.; id. Kultur u. Literaturgeschichte der Juden in Asien (1849), vol. 1; Zunz, Die Gottesdienstlichen Vortrage der Juden, p. 51-55, 94; Jost. Gesch. d. Israeliten, 4:222 sq., 323-328; id. Gesch. d. Judenthums u.s. Secten, 2, 202-212; Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, 4:384, 408-412 sq.; Frankel, Monatsschrift, 1851-52, p. 3640, 70-80, 203-220, 403-421, 509-521; 1861, p. 186-194, 205-212, 256-272; 1871, p. 120-137; Geiger, Judische Zeitschrift, 1870, p. 278-306; Pinner, Compendium des hierosolym, und babylon. Talmud (Berlin, 1832); id. Einleitung in den Talmud, in his translation of Berakoth, fol. 1-12; Schurer, Handbuch der neutestam. Zeitgeschichte (Leipsic, 1874), p. 37-49: Pressel, art. Talmud, in Herzog's Real-Encyklop.; Davidson, in Kitto's Cyclop. s.v.; Mausseaux, Le Juif, le
Judaisme, et la Judaisation (Paris, 1869), p. 76 sq.; Bernstein, אדר חכמים, an apology for the Talmud (Odessa, 1868); Waldberg, השנוי דרכי, or explanation of the logic of the Talmud (Lemberg, 1876). The expurgated passages are collected by Meklenburg in קבוצת ההשמטות; the difficult passages of the Talmud, which are explained by Raschi, are found.in שפת הים (Schitomir, 1874); Jacob Brill, דורש לצוין, or Mnemotechnik des Talmuds (Vienna, 1864 [Heb.]); Bacher, Die Agada der babylonischen Amorder, AEin Beitrag zur Geschichte der Agadd und zur Einleitung in den babylonischen Talmud (Strasburg, 1878); Friedlander, Geschichtsbilder aus der Zeit der Tanaiten und Ainorder, Ein Beitrag zu Geschichte des Talnmuds (Brinn, 1879). The Hagadoth contained in both Talmuds are collected in Jacob ibn Chabib's עין יעקב (latest edition Wilna, 1877). See Fürst, Bibl. Jud. 1, 151; Wolf, Bibl. Heb. 1, 590 sq.; 3, 456 sq.; 4:866 sq.; and in Jafe's יפה מראה (comp. Wolf, ibid. 1, 1204; 3, 1109; Furst, 2, 9,96); the Tosephta is now in course of being edited by Dr. M. S. Zuckermandel (Berlin, 1876 sq.); Schwarz, Die Tosifta der Ordnung Moed in ihremn Verhdltniss zur Mischna kritisch untersucht, Pt. 1, Der Tractat Sabbath (Carlsruhe, 1879.); Jellinek, Hagadische Hermeneutik mit Midrasch-Coommenfar (Vienna, 1878); Placzek, Die Agada unnd der Darwinismus, in the Juid. Literaturblattf vol. 7 No. 1, 6, 8,11, 13,16,17, 23-31; Mihlfelder, Rab: ein Lebens bild zur Geschichte des Talmud (Leips. 1871); Fessler, Mar Samuel, der bedeutendste Amora, Ein Beiträg zur Kunde des Talmud (Breslau, 1879); Hoffmann, Mar Samuel, R.ector der jüdischen Akademie zu Nehardea in Babylonien (Leips. 1873). (B. P.)
