I.
THE present paper makes no pretensions beyond its
title; but as the subject is not very familiar to the general reader, it
may be well to make a rapid survey of the field to be gleaned from, and to
indicate the principle that guides the selection.
The Talmud has little claim to be considered a book
beyond the mere fact of its consisting of so many volumes, for it is the
product of many minds and the growth of ! centuries. The scribes who
succeeded Ezra and Nehemiah in that misty period within which lies the
boundary line between Old Testament Scripture and tradition, rallying
round the Mosaic law, as the only means of preserving the people from
heathen contamination, on the one hand, and internal corruption, on the
other, made every effort to bring its precepts to bear upon all the
relations, civil and sacred, in which the colonists were placed. They made
a "fence to the law," as their own phrase has it; that is, they
endeavoured, by minor and detailed prescriptions, to secure the great
precepts of the law from infringement, and to apply them to all the
details of daily life. The hedge of prickly pear, seen everywhere in the
East, is a fair illustration of what that "fence round the law" became.
The few well-meant regulations of the scribes, like the blades of the
cactus first set in the soft sand, and liable to be displaced by a passing
footstep, became the starting-point for new developments, and bristled
over all their borders with a formidable array of prescriptions, till the
whole was grotesque in the extreme, and the hedge actually choked the law
which it was to have preserved.
We cannot trace here the expansion of this work of the
scribes and their successors, as, believing in the all-sufficiency of the
law, they sought in its compass authority for every new "fence" and ground
for every existing usage, and invented for this purpose methods of
connection — they cannot be called methods of interpretation — between the
written law and their own ordinances. Two institutions, with which the
reader is familiar, were the channels through which it operated. These
were the School and the Sanhedrim. Connected with the synagogues there
were common schools for primary education, and local courts for the
judgment of cases that might arise: the rabbins of distinction had also
their higher schools, and the highest court in the land was the great
Sanhedrim at Jerusalem. It was before this court that Christ was
arraigned, and Peter and John were tried; and it must have been in a
school in the Temple that the child Jesus was found, and in another such
that Saul of Tarsus studied under Gamaliel. The schools were the arena in
which the learned men and their pupils sharpened their wits in discussion;
and it will be readily understood how, while the Sanhedrim was occupied
with actual cases brought before it, the schools would be employed in the
solving of possible and imaginary cases—with casuistry, in fact. We have
already in the pages of the New Testament indications of a reverence for
the letter of the law to the neglect of its spirit in these casuistical
discussions; and this tendency, increasing to a prodigious extent, and
combined with a reverence for great names, kept alive the tradition of the
decisions of the courts and the opinions of the doctors, which in time was
invested with divine authority, as an unwritten law delivered to Moses on
Sinai, as an explanation of the written, and handed down in unbroken
succession from age to age.
In the troubles that came upon the Jewish people the
Sanhedrim suffered much, and was deprived of the power of enforcing its
sentences; but the activity of the schools continued, notwithstanding
persecution; and when finally the synagogue took the place of the Temple,
the college remained as the representative of the Sanhedrim, and study,
taking the place of judgment, ran riot in its handling of the law. The
schools of Babylon, swelled by refugees from Palestine, kept pace with,
and even outstripped, those of the Holy Land for a time; but when the
stricter edicts against the study of the law were relaxed, the College of
Tiberias again took the lead, and then for the first time, towards the
close of the second century a.d., under the presidency of Rabbi Judah the
Holy, the oral tradition was collected into an authoritative form. It was
called Mithna, or "teaching," from the formula by which the decisions of
the doctors of the period were conveyed, but came to be known as Mishna,
or "repetition," from the idea that it is but the expansion or iteration
of the written law. It consists of six treatises, in which are given,
under separate heads, the decisions of the doctors to the minutest details
on all the subjects of civil, criminal, and ceremonial law that had
occupied their attention; recording also, as a guarantee of the thorough
preservation of the tradition, the rejected decisions or opinions of the
minority.
The Mishna, compiled at Tiberias while the college
there had an acknowledged supremacy, was accepted by the schools of
Babylon and Palestine as their handbook of the oral law, and its
decisions, stated with all the terseness of legal sentences, were
canvassed in all their bearings, in order to show the process by which
they had been reached, their agreement with other apparently conflicting
decisions, and the illustration they derived from other quarters. The
interlocutor and appended note of a Scotch judge are but a faint
comparison of the result, for the free method of discussion in the schools
admitted of an endless variety of illustration; so that, when the whole
came to be written down, it had something of the character of a reporter's
notes of the sittings of the doctors and their pupils. The teachers of
this period are called Sayers, from the formula used in recording their
opinions, and the collection of their sayings is called Gemara, or
"completion." The combination of Mishna and Gemara forms the Talmud; and
as the schools of Babylon and Palestine were now distinct, the one Mishna
had its Gemara in each field, so that we have what are known as the
Jerusalem Talmud, collected about the. end of the fourth century a.d., and
the Babylonian Talmud, which belongs to the fifth century, the latter
being the more voluminous. On first approaching the study of the Talmud,
the reader finds himself in a strange world. A hard, condensed ordinance
of the Mishna is stated, referring to some precept of the written law,
though the reference may not be very clear. Then comes the Gemara,
commencing with some of those prescriptions collected after the redaction
of the Mishna, and then the doctors by name, and quoting the names of
their masters, step forward and proceed to the elucidation of the point in
hand. By question and answer, objection and solution, opposition and
reconciliation, the discussion goes on. The reader is bandied from one
authority to another, transported from one age to another, carried rapidly
through dry discussions on legal niceties and quaint applications of
Scripture texts, lifted to heaven, and permitted, from "behind the
curtain," to hear what goes on there, swept away to the abodes of the
dead, and informed what is done there, astonished by miracles, amused by
stories, tickled by proverbs, and thus borne along by a weird fascination,
till suddenly pulled up by the appearance of the next portion of the
Mishna, or as frequently made to pause and draw breath before facing it.
With a little patience, however, he discerns an order of its kind in this
apparent confusion. Certain catch-words denote certain transitions, which
have laws of their own; items of biography, picked up here and there, give
touches to the dim pictures of departed doctors; the daily life, domestic,
social, and scholastic, of the period, begins to emerge from the
obscurity, and he finds himself in a world of living men. The thing that
was of primary consequence to the men of the Talmud—the referring of
everything to some point in the written law—may fall into secondary
consideration; the artificial bond of traditionalism may be dissolved, but
what remains throws great light on the history of the time, and is, if
properly weighed, a deeply interesting chapter in the history of human
thought. Rabbinic authorities distinguish between two main currents of
thought running through the Talmud. Whatever pertains to the establishing
of a legal enactment or the solution of a legal question, is Halacha, and
the rest, in its endless variety, is Haggada. The former exhibits the
rabbis primarily in their professional character; and, as the law is the
backbone of the Talmud, the Halacha is endued with pre-eminent authority
and value, although, to an outside reader, the Haggada, admitting of the
free play of more mental faculties, has an interest equal, if not
superior, to the merely professional activity of the rabbis. It is not
always easy to disentangle Halacha from the mass of Haggada in which it is
embedded. It is said that two Edinburgh lawyers cannot meet on the street
without drawing up a minute; so it is scarcely possible for two rabbis to
exchange words without a reference to a text of Scripture, and as the law
was in their regard the basis of all Scripture, they were continually on
the watch for anything that might bear on a legal question, as the
following little incident will show:—
"Rabban Gamaliel had a Canaanite slave called Tabi,
whom he treated with great indulgence. Coming home with some friends on
the feast of Succoth (Tabernacles) Gamaliel found the slave sleeping under
his own bed, and said to his friends in jest, 'You see Tabi, my slave,
knows that he is not obliged to observe the feast of Succoth.' Whereupon
R. Simeon said, ' From Gamaliel's jest we learn two principles—(1) that a
slave is not bound to observe Succoth, and (2) that one who is bound would
not be observing it by sleeping under a bed.' And so R. Ache says, in name
of Rabh, 'Even the commonplace words of the wise men should be regarded.'
"
Another extract may give some idea of the distinction
between Halacha and Haggada, by showing how both may take their rise from
one and the same text:—
"R. Ame and R. Ase were both before R. Isaac Nafche.
One said, 'Let my lord tell us Halacha,' and the other said, 'Let my lord
tell us Haggada,' and when he tried to please the one, the other was
dissatisfied. He said, ' I will tell you what the thing is like. A man had
two wives, one young, the other old. The young one picked out all his grey
hairs, and the other pulled out all the black, so that between the two he
was left bald. What shall I do ? I will tell you something to please both.
It is written (Exod. xxii. 6), "If fire break out and catch thorns, so
that the corn should be consumed, he that kindleth the fire shall surely
make restitution." The Holy One, blessed be He, says, It is mine to make
good the loss of the fire which I kindled. I kindled a fire in Zion, as it
is said, He hath kindled a fire in Zion, and I shall again build it
with fire, as it is written, / will be to her a wall of fire round
about.' So much for Haggada, and now Halacha. The text begins with
damages of property and ends with damages of the person, to show you that
fire is in the same category as an arrow" [i.e. fire kindled at a
distance is like an arrow shot at a distance].
It is not easy to glean from the legal part of the
Talmud. When once the tendency of the rabbinic mind in this direction is
fairly seen, the ordinary reader is little interested in following it in
all its aberrations. It would be a marvel if the oral law did not exhibit
something of the spirit of the Mosaic Code on which it is based;
and, guided partly by that spirit and partly by their own good sense, the
rabbis have left us a system of prescriptions which will contrast
favourably with anything of its kind; but it is worth observing that much
which seems at first sight an excessive scrupulousness for fairness and
mercy, may, after all, be but a punctilious indecision which conjured up
innumerable possibilities, and could not make up its mind in the face of
them.
In general it may be said that nothing is easier than
to quote the Talmud in support of almost anything, and either to turn it
into ridicule or to give an extravagant idea of its contents. Great names
might be cited in favour of contradictory positions of the Halacha—it
could not well be otherwise— and on other matters there is still greater
freedom of opinion." [A Jewish rabbi (Soloweyczyk) is at present
publishing (under difficulties) a Hebrew Commentary on the New Testament,
with the view of showing the agreement of the Talmud with the Gospel. The
French translation (La Bible, le Talmud, et l'Evangile) is to be had at
Paris, Rue de Berlin II, and an English Translation at London, 109, Gravel
Lane, Houndsditch.] A saying of its own runs, "Turn it over, turn it over,
for everything is in it:" but let not that be taken to imply that the
Talmud is a storehouse of substantial truth unknown to the present age. On
some scientific subjects the rabbins may have been in advance of their own
time; but isolated passages, which at first sight look like anticipations
of modern discoveries, may probably be nothing more than the crude guesses
of intellects that had accustomed themselves to look for all possible
statements of a case, and all imaginable solutions of a difficulty. [M.
Deutsch finds the "gradual development of the Cosmos fully recognised by
the Talmud." But we might trace even Darwinism to a rabbinic source, for
Aben Ezra, in his Commentary on Gen. iii. 21, "The Lord God made coats of
skin," mentions the opinion of some that there was an animal in the
similitude of man, whose skin furnished clothing for Adam and Eve.]
The Talmud, as a whole, cannot fairly be taken to prove anything beyond
its own unique character.
Besides the complicated details of legal ordinance, and
the great mass of general information on manners and customs of the time,
which the Talmud contains, there is, in biographical and general
incidents, wayside hints and touches of nature, a rolling stream of life
flowing through its pages, proving that the rabbis were men as well as
doctors, or, we might say, men in spite of their being doctors, and men,
too, of great practical sagacity, of warm living hearts, of real humour,
and, in many cases, of deep religious feeling. And it is from this point
of view that we would offer a few gleanings, with no intention of showing
either the best or the worst of the Talmud, but in order, if possible
within the narrow limits of a paper like this, to bring the reader a
little closer to men and times so little generally understood.
The biographical details scattered up and down the
Talmud, in all shades of colouring, from broad farce to deepest pathos,
present a variety of individual character in the rabbis in striking
contrast with the uniformity of their scholastic processes. There is
Hillel the great struggling upwards through poverty to the highest
eminence, distinguished from his irascible colleague by a proverbial
equability of temper. There is Rabbi Jochanan, son of Zaccai, who lived in
the exciting times of the fall of Jerusalem, and whose pupils were so
famous. There is the second Gamaliel, whose unfortunate temper led to
repeated "scenes" in the school of Jabneh, and the long succeeding line of
famous men, of whom we have portraits more or less distinct. The history
of Rabbi Akiba, involving a romantic love story, may be given in some
detail as a specimen.
In early life he was a shepherd in the service of the
richest man in Jerusalem. His master's daughter fell in love with him, and
they were betrothed (or married, according to one account) secretly, and
on condition that he was to devote himself to the study of the law. The
father, becoming aware of the engagement, vowed that his daughter should
never inherit a penny of his property, and drove her from the house. For
twelve years she suffered great hardships, being compelled to sell her
long hair to buy bread, and never hearing, as it would appear, from her
absent lover. At the end of that time Akiba, now a rabbi and master of
twelve thousand pupils, returned, and contrived to get, unnoticed, within
hearing of his bride. An old man was remonstrating with her to this
effect: "You have remained in this unnatural widowhood for twelve years,"
when she interrupted him, "If he follows my inclination, he will remain as
he is engaged for another twelve years." Akiba concluded that he had her
consent to pursue his studies, and returned to the school. At the end of
the second twelve years he returned—now called master by twenty-four
thousand pupils —and his bride prepared to go out and meet him. Some of
her female friends advised her at least to borrow a decent dress, in which
to show herself to the great rabbi; but she said, "A merciful man
regardeth the life of his beast," and went as she was. The pupils who
attended Akiba would have thrust away the tattered creature who threw
herself at his feet; but he rebuked them, saying, "Let her alone; all that
I have and all that you have is due to her." Meanwhile the father's heart
had begun to relent, and hearing of the arrival of a great doctor (for he
knew not that it was his old servant), he propounded to him the difficulty
of his rash vow. " Did you vow," said the rabbi, "that even if she married
a learned man you would disinherit her?" "No," said the father. "Had the
man known one section or one ordinance of the law, I would have given her
to him." Then, of course, Akiba revealed himself, and there was a general
rejoicing. The story has a curious pendant, to the effect that Akiba's own
daughter had a similar romance with her husband, thus fulfilling a proverb
of the Talmud, "As one sheep follows another, so a daughter goes in the
steps of her mother." Akiba was a man of great composure of mind, and when
any trouble befell him was wont to repeat the motto of his master, "All is
for good." Once, in the course of a journey, he arrived towards night at a
certain village, the inhabitants of which refused him lodging. He calmly
said, "All is for good," and proceeded to make arrangements for spending
the night in the open field. He had with him a donkey to ride on, a lamp
to read by, and a cock to waken him in the morning. The wind blew out his
lamp, a fox carried off the cock, and a lion made away with the donkey.
"All is for good," said the imperturbable rabbi; and so he found in the
morning, for a band of robbers had fallen upon the inhospitable village
and carried off the inhabitants as slaves. His death was a very mournful
one. He had joined the rising of Bar Cochba, and when that impostor was
subdued, Akiba, as one of his foremost followers, was called to suffer the
penalty of revolt. He preserved his tranquillity in prison, continuing to
give advice and comfort to his pupils; and when brought out to suffer an
excruciating death, proclaimed aloud his profession of the Hebrew
faith—"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One," his spirit departing with
the utterance of the last word One.
By such details one is allowed to see the rabbis in
their daily lives.—one going to the school carrying his chair on his
shoulder, another sitting among his pupils with his little child on his
knee, some plying a trade, others engaged in commerce; some in the deepest
poverty, others rolling in wealth; all devoted to the law. And to have
seen them thus, in their homes, in the school, in the market-place, in the
world—to read their curious adventures, to listen to their rollicking
humour, their painstaking discussions, their mournful aspirations, their
fervid prayers —all this induces a sympathy so strong that it seems
unkind, even in a meagre sketch like this, to thrust away their pictures
without a word of notice.
II.
OTHER characters appear in the pages of the Talmud,
although the interest attaching to them can scarcely; be called
historical. There is such a tendency to read all events in the light of
the Jewish political and. religious life, that anachronisms and glaring,
misstatements are everywhere found. History, in short, becomes legend, and
such names as those of Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander of Macedon,
and Titus, no less than the,; great names of the Jewish people themselves,
are surrounded with a mass of legend," with a view of furnishing a foil to
the wisdom of the doctors, or enhancing the glory of the law. With legend
in itself we are at present little concerned, except so far as it shows
the method in the madness of the wildest nights of the rabbis. Let one
passage, relating to Alexander's journey into Egypt, suffice:—
He said (to the wise men of the south), "I wish to go
to Africa." They replied, "You cannot go, because the dark mountains lie
between." But he would not rest contented till they told him how he must
proceed. They said, "Take Libyan asses that can walk in the dark, and lay
down thick ropes as guiding-lines for the way back." He did so, and
proceeded till he came to a place where there were none but women, and was
going to make war upon them. The women said to him, "If you conquer us,
people will say, 'You conquered but women;' and if we conquer you, they
will say, 'That was a king that women killed.'" He asked them to bring him
provisions, and they set before him bread of gold on tables of gold. Said
he, "Are there people that eat bread of gold?" They rejoined, "Had you no
bread at home that you came hither in search of it ? '' So when he went
away from the place he wrote on the gate, "I, Alexander of Macedon, was a
fool till I came to the land of Africa, and learned wisdom from women." As
he journeyed he came to a little stream, and ate there. As he was washing
some salt-fish in the stream a good flavour came to them (others explain
life returned to them), and he said, "Now I understand that this stream
comes from the garden of Eden;" and he followed it upwards till he reached
the gate of the garden of Eden, at which he knocked, and called out, "Open
the door for me." They answered, "This is the gate of God; the
righteous enter here." But he said, "I am a king; I am esteemed; at
least give me something." They gave him the skull of a man, which he
weighed against all the silver and gold that he possessed, but it
outweighed all. He asked the wise men the meaning of this, and they told
him that this was the skull that had contained the eye of flesh and blood,
which is never satisfied. "How shall it be satisfied?" he asked, and they
replied, "Sprinkle a little earth on it, and it will be light enough."
Of special interest, from our present point of view,
are the numerous incidents and anecdotes of ordinary life, in which the
Talmud abounds. The following is told of Rabbi Eleazar, son of R. Simeon
ben Jochai (the reputed author of the Zohar):—
R. Eleazar was coming home from Migdol Gedur, where he
had been attending the lectures of his master. He was riding at leisure on
his donkey, and his heart was lifted up within him because he had learned
much that day. He overtook a person who was very ugly and mean-looking,
and when this person saluted him with "Peace be with you, rabbi!" he did
not return the salutation, but said, "Raca, what an ugly fellow! are all
the people of your town as ugly?" The man replied, "I don't know, but go
to the Workman that made me, and tell Him what an ugly vessel He made."
Feeling himself rebuked, the rabbi dismounted, prostrated himself before
the man, and begged forgiveness. But the man persisted, "I will not
forgive you till you tell the Workman who made me what an ugly vessel He
made." And thus they went on, the rabbi entreating and the man refusing,
till they reached the town where R. Eleazar lived. The people thronged the
sides of the road, calling "Peace be with you, rabbi, rabbi! master,
master!" The ugly man asked them whom they were saluting thus, and they
replied, "The person that is walking behind you." "If this," said he, "be
a rabbi, may there be few such in Israel;" and on being questioned he
related all that had occurred. "Nevertheless," said they, "forgive him,
for he is a man of great learning;" and for their sakes he forgave him, on
condition that he would not accustom himself to such airs. Whereupon R.
Eleazar in his sermon, said, "A man should always be pliable as the green
reed, and not stiff as a cedar; because of its humility the reed
has the honour to be made into pens for the writing of the law and
Tephillin and Mezuzoth."
The following, mutatis nominibus, might refer to
the reformed law-courts of Turkey at the present day :—
Gamaliel II. and his sister Emma Salem had a lawsuit in
regard to patrimony, the sister claiming an equal share with the brother.
The case was tried in the civil {i.e. heathen) court, before a
judge who was also a philosopher, and had the reputation of taking no
bribe. Emma Salem went to the judge privately beforehand, and made him a
present of a fine lamp. The case was called, the judge declared that the
inheritance ought to be divided, but was prevailed upon to grant an
adjournment on the promise of Gamaliel to bring legal evidence that the
Mosaic law had not in this particular been set aside by the civil power.
Meanwhile Gamaliel sent to the judge a donkey of a fine breed. When the
case was again called, Emma Salem, relying on her strongest argument,
addressed the judge, "My lord, let the light of thy decision shine forth
as a lamp." The judge, however, declared that since the adjournment he had
read further on in the civil code, and found that in the matter of
inheritance, when there was a son, the daughter had no share. And so, when
they left the court, Gamaliel said to his sister, "My donkey kicked over
your lamp."
The following is given by the Talmud itself as a model
of faithful love:—
A young woman, on going home, strayed from the path,
and fell into a pit; and a young man, attracted by her cries for help, and
making sure that she was a human being and not an evil spirit, promised to
release her if she would marry him. She consented, and he contrived to
rescue her from her perilous position. They then formally plighted their
faith, and, no person being near, they took to witness their sincerity the
pit from which she had been delivered and a rat that happened to cross the
path, exchanged addresses, and parted. The young man soon forgot the
adventure and married another; but the young woman remained
faithful to her promise, and, though courted by many lovers, rejected all
addresses. To all entreaties and remonstrances of her friends she turned a
deaf ear, and at last, to save herself from importunity, she pretended to
be mad, as indeed she well-nigh was from grief. In this miserable plight,
with tattered clothes and dishevelled hair, no one would now look at her.
Meanwhile her faithless lover was the father of two children, one of whom
fell into a pit and was killed, and the other was devoured by rats. His
wife said to him, "Surely some unnatural sin lies upon our house, that our
children die so unnatural deaths;" and he was constrained to confess the
whole story of the pit and the rat. The wife ordered him to divorce her,
and seek out his lawful bride and marry her. When he found his betrothed,
and declared to her friends his desire to marry her, they said to him, "It
is in vain; we have talked to her of marriage till she is crazy." "Let me
only see her," he said; and no sooner did he mention the pit and the rat
than she returned to her reason and married him.
The following is a fair illustration of the Talmudic
view of the Sabbath:—
There was a man named Joseph, "the honourer of the
Sabbath," because he spared no expense in his preparation for the Sabbath
meal. He had a rich neighbour, to whom it was revealed by astrology that
his poor neighbour would become possessor of all his wealth. So he went
and sold all his lands, and bought with the money a pearl of great value,
which for greater safety he always carried in his hat. One day, as he was
crossing a ferry, the wind blew off his hat, and a large fish swallowed
it. Some time afterwards the fishermen, finding a fish of unusual size on
the day before the Sabbath, and thinking of no more likely purchaser than
Joseph, who always provided the best he could get for his Sabbath dinner,
offered the fish to him for sale. He readily bought it, and on opening it
found the pearl which represented all the miser's wealth. On the thing
becoming known, an old man said to him, "He that lends to the Sabbath is
repaid by the Sabbath."
The parables and fables of the Talmud are a common
vehicle of the moral and religious sentiment of the rabbis. The thought of
the following parable is pretty well known, but we give it as it stands in
the Talmud:—
Antoninus Pius said to Rabbi (i.e. Judah the
Holy): "Both body and soul may evade the judgment of the world to come;
the body may say, 'It was the soul that sinned, for from the time I parted
from it I have lain still as a stone in the grave;' and the soul may say,
'It was the body that sinned, for since I left it I have flown about in
the air like a bird.' Rabbi said to him, " I will tell you what the
thing is like. A human king had an orchard of fine fruit, in which he
placed two watchmen, one lame and the other blind. The lame man said to
the blind, 'I see fine fruit on the trees, let me mount on your shoulders
that we may get it.' So the blind man carried the lame man on his back,
and they ate all the fruit of the garden. After a time the king returned,
and demanded the fruit of the garden. The blind man said, 'I have no eyes
to see any fruit,' and the lame man said, 'I cannot move to take any
fruit.' What did he do with them? He made the lame man ride on the
shoulders of the blind, and punished them both as one. So the Holy One,
blessed be He ! will bring the soul and make it enter the body, and judge
the two together, as it is written, 'He will call to the heavens from
above and to the earth, that He may judge his people'—'call to the
heavens,' i.e. He will bring the souls, 'and to the earth,' i.e.
He will raise the bodies."
Here are another two parables, which may remind the
reader of some of those of the New Testament:—
Rabbi Jochanan said: "A king once invited his servants
to a feast, but did not specify the hour. They that were wise prepared
themselves, and sat in the king's gate, saying, 'In a king's house things
are always ready, and we may be called at any moment.' They that were
foolish went to their occupations, saying, 'A feast takes time in
preparation, and we shall receive, notice.' On a sudden the servants were
summoned, and the wise welcomed by the king; but the foolish were not fit
to appear as his guests, and were made to stand and look on while the
others feasted."
It is written, "The spirit shall return to God as He
gave it:" if it was given pure, let it be returned pure. A king
distributed dresses of state to his servants, the wise of whom folded up
theirs and laid them away in chests; but the foolish: went to their work
with their dresses on. After a time the king required the dresses, and the
wise brought theirs clean as if from the fuller's, but the foolish
presented theirs soiled and spotted. So he said, "Take the dresses of the
wise into my storehouse, and let their owners go home in peace; but let.
the dresses of the others be sent to the fuller, and. let the wearers be
kept bound in prison."
But nowhere do the. wisdom and common-sense of the
doctors appear more conspicuous than in the proverbs and common sayings
which are ever recurring in the Talmud. The reader has already noticed how
a, story is condensed into a proverb at the end. Very significant, also,
is the manner in which some "saying of the people" is adduced as
convincing proof, when the usual methods of interpretation fail to give
scriptural authority for a point in hand; and, striking as the proverbs
are in themselves, they generally gain in force when taken in connection
with the context, e.g.:—
Moses and Aaron were once walking, Nadab and Abihu
behind them, and all Israel following. Nadab said to. Abihu, "When shall
these two old men die, that we may be the leaders of the age?" The Holy
One, blessed be He! said, "We shall see who will bury whom." And referring
to this R. Pappa said, "This is what people say, Many an old camel
carries a load of young camels' skins."
Again:—R. Huna had found some fine dates, and was
carrying them in. his handkerchief when he met his son, and gave them to
him. In a little the son's son. appeared, and Hum's son gave the dates to
the child. Huna said, "My son, you have gladdened my heart, though you
have set my teeth on edge." And this is what people say, A father loves
his son, and the son loves his son.
Collections of Talmudic and Rabbinic proverbs have been
published both by Jewish and Gentile authors, and the Talmud itself
contains one whole treatise of moral sentences, often quoted from, and
another on politeness, which contains some good maxims. All we can do
here, as in the preceding sections, is to offer a mere handful, by way of
illustrating some of the prominent aspects of rabbinic life and character.
Of proverbs relating to home life, we have many such as these:—
Ten measures of talk came down to the world, nine were
taken by women, and one by all the world beside. A woman, even when she is
talking, goes on with her spinning. Women understand guests better than
their husbands. Let the husband be as small as an ant, the wife sets her
chair among the greatest ladies. The mark of a bad wife: she sets her
husband's table in nice order, and sets her tongue a-going in nice style.
A woman is always armed. If your sister's son is a policeman, don't show
yourself too much in the street. A man's foes are the people of his house.
When the barley-barrel is empty, it makes a loud sound in the house.
Whatever a child says abroad, it must have heard at home. When a rabbi is
going to betroth a wife, let him take a man of the world with him.
When goods are cheap, gather and buy. While the sand is
still on your feet, sell what you have bought. Put the money into your
purse, and then deliver the goods. If you have goods to sell, take them to
a market where they are plentiful. A small cucumber now is better than a
large pumpkin afterwards. Better sell your daughter than borrow money at
interest. If a man owes you money, take payment in bran. A man's money is
his best broker. Whoever looks after his property, every day gains a
shekel.
A physician at a distance is blind of an eye. A
physician for nothing is worth nothing. The most of muleteers are bad
characters; the most of camel-drivers are inoffensive; the most of,
sailors are superstitious; the best of butchers is a partner with
Amalek; the best of physicians goes to Gehinnom. Don't stay in a town the
head men of which are rabbis. The emulation of the scribes increases
wisdom. A doctor may give himself a certificate in a place where he is not
known. A wise man should have an eighth of an eighth of pride. Even a
weaver is master of his own house. If a man of Narash kisses you, count
your teeth; if a man of Nahar Pekuda accompanies you, be sure he has seen
a good coat on your back; if a man of Pumpeditha follows you, change your
inn.
We can give only a few of the many maxims embodying
religious sentiments:—-
The Shechinah rests only when there is gladness. Evil
thoughts are at first like gossamer threads, but at last like cart-ropes.
The imagination of evil is worse than the evil itself. If a man repents,
his sin becomes a good deed. One act of submission in the heart is better
than a hundred stripes. May my portion be with the man that is unjustly
suspected. A proud man cannot dwell in the same world with God. Bury me
neither in white clothes nor in black. No man can affect the lot of
another. Even the man in charge of a well is appointed by God. The greater
a man, the greater his temptations. He was immersed in water, but held an
unclean reptile in his hand. Over three men God weeps : over one who has
the means to observe the law and does not; over one who observes it though
he has not the means; and over a president who lords it over the
community. The Sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, that is,
humility is as good as all offerings. Before sleeping, forgive all who
have offended you. The best of incense is silence.
Speak part of a man's praise to his face, and the whole
behind his back. A myrtle, even if it grows among thorns, is a myrtle, and
is called so. The camel went in search of horns, and had his ears cut off.
The life of three men is no life; the compassionate, the passionate, and
the fastidious. The duck walks with its head down, but its eyes look far
ahead. When you go out to war, go out last that you may come home first.
One green stick is burned with two dry ones. When the faults of the
servant are increased,'the master punishes all with one rod. Hired
witnesses are despised by those who hire them. It is not the mouse that
steals, but the hole. An open window -invites the thief. Impudence is a
kingdom without a crown. If a man says, "What shall I eat to my bread?"
take his bread from him. Simeon ben Bo knew the names of all precious
stones, but had not bread to eat. At the shop-door a man has brothers and
friends when his money is spent he has neither brother nor friend. Any
complaint but a bowel complaint; any trouble but a heart trouble; any ache
but a headache; any evil but an evil wife. Work is good, for it honours
the workman. Where there is no man, strive to be a man. A priceless pearl
is depreciated by words spoken in its praise. When Rabh, the great teacher
of Babylon, went day by day to the court where cases were heard by him, he
used to say, "With my own consent I go out to be killed" (referring to the
responsibility resting on him as a judge), "and neglect the concerns of my
own house, and return empty. May it only be the will of Heaven that my
coming back be no worse than my going out." And in the spirit of this
prayer we conclude, with the hope that, this little excursion into a
neglected field may not have been injurious to the memory of departed
doctors nor unprofitable to the reader, and so bid both farewell.
JAMES ROBERTSON. M.A.
