Various Authors

Talmud


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Russia and Austria, and the still fewer Samaritans in Palestine, who are really not Talmud Jews. Radical and Reform, Conservative and Orthodox, not only find their exact counterparts in the Talmud, but also follow in many important particulars the practices instituted through the Talmud, e.g., New Year's Day, Pentecost (so far as its date and significance are concerned), the QADDISH, etc. The modern Jew is the product of the Talmud, which we shall find is a work of the greatest sympathies, the most liberal impulses, and the widest humanitarianism. Even the Jewish defenders have played into the enemy's hands by their weak defences, of which such expressions as "Remember the age in which it was written," or "Christians are not meant by 'gentiles,' but only the Romans, or the people of Asia Minor," etc., may be taken as a type.

      Amid its bitter enemies and weak friends the Talmud has suffered a martyrdom. Its eventful history is too well known to require detailing here. We feel that every attack on it is an attack upon the Jew. We feel that defence by the mere citation of phrases is useless and at the best weak. To answer the attacks made upon it through ludicrous and garbled quotations were idle. There is only one defence that can be made in behalf of the Talmud. Let it plead its own cause in a modern language!

      Nothing could be more unfair, nothing more unfortunate than to adopt the prevailing false notions about this ancient encyclopædia. Do not imagine it is the bigoted, immoral, narrow work that its enemies have portrayed it to be. On the very contrary; in its statements it is as free as the wind. It permits no shackles, no fetters to be placed upon it. It knows no authority but conscience and reason. It is the bitterest enemy of all superstition and all fanaticism.

      We continue our labors in the full and certain hope that "he who comes to purify receives divine help," and that in our task of removing the additions made by the enemies of the Talmud we shall be purifying it from the most fruitful source of the attacks made on it, and thereunto we hope for the help of Heaven. As we have already said, we feel that this work will not be received everywhere with equal favor. We could not expect that it would. Jewish works of importance have most usually been given amid "lightning and thunder," and this is not likely to prove an exception.

      We are always ready to accept criticism, so long as it is objective, and we shall gladly avail ourselves of suggestions given to us, but we shall continue to disregard all personal criticism directed not against our work but against its author. This may serve as a reply to a so-called review that appeared in one of our Western weeklies.

      At the same time we deem it our duty to render to Dr. Isaac H. Wise, the venerable President of the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati, our heartfelt thanks for the several evenings spent in revising this volume, and for many courtesies extended to us in general.

      THE EDITOR.

      CINCINNATI, May, 1896.

      Footnotes

      BRIEF GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD.

       Table of Contents

      ON this, the appearance of our latest literary undertaking, we deem a few explanatory remarks necessary. The brief outline of the origin of the Talmud that follows may suggest the thought