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Treasures of the Talmud, Being a Series Of r-He WeLLread mason 'i,..'-I:~I=-•I el••IILcJ,==-¡•• Dear Reader, This book was referenced in one of the 185 issues of 'The Builder' Magazine which was published between January 1915 and May 1930. To celebrate the centennial of this publication, the Pictoumasons website presents a complete set of indexed issues of the magazine. As far as the editor was able to, books which were suggested to the reader have been searched for on the internet and included in 'The Builder' library.' This is a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by one of several organizations as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online. Wherever possible, the source and original scanner identification has been retained. Only blank pages have been removed and this header- page added. The original book has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books belong to the public and 'pictoumasons' makes no claim of ownership to any of the books in this library; we are merely their custodians. Often, marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in these files – a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Since you are reading this book now, you can probably also keep a copy of it on your computer, so we ask you to Keep it legal. Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book to be in the public domain for users in Canada, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in 'The Builder' library means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. The Webmaster TREASURES OF THE TAL~IUD, BEING A SERIES OF CLASSIFIED SUBJECTS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER Fnml "A" TO "L", COillPILED FROM TIlE BABYLONIAN TALlIUD A..'iD TlUY8LATED By PAUL ISAAC HERSHON, Al'lIIOR 01' .. OI!!!lrESISAt'<.'ORDISO ro TBE TALXt'D," ".A TÁLlIlTDIC lUl:lCELU~II" ETC. taitJ) ~ottS an'b 31n'be.res, an'b AN INTRODUCTORY PREFACE BY TKE REV. H. D. )1. SPE:XCE, n.s., ""JCAR OF ST. l'ANeRAS ASD Rl"RAl. Dt:AIII; DO!'!, CASt)~ u.· GLOlTE.'ITt.n, AS"IJ EXAlUNlSG CUAPU1.lil TO TUE LORD BIIIKOP OF OLOl'CII:dTl:lt A~D BltlllTOL. LONDO~: JAMES NISllET & CO., 21 llEUXEllS STREET. MIICCCLXXXII. [AIJ ri"glzls riSt,..v.-,I.] /{)-1t¡-37 PREF ACE. - THE Iearned author of the present work, "Treasures of the Talmud," has been for years engaged in the study of the vast collection of commentaries, notes, reflections, and traditions known as the Talmud-that strange, mysterioua, mighty book, of which so many know the name, so few the contents. This voIume will give the general reader sorne know• Iedge respecting the vast work. The extracts are well chosen, and 1 think will excite great interest. The field is a new one, untrodden save by a few schoIars. 1 can• not heIp feeling surprised that in the present age, when commentaries on tbe Holy Scriptures are so sought after, that more attention has not been given, in the case of tbe Old Testament books, to this most ancient and venerated work. It is no doubt full of wild tradition. It contains com• ments, many of them untrue and mischievous, but em• bedded in tbese, the patient scholar will find many a gem of thought, many a beautiful story handed down from remote antiquity, many a wise saying spoken by the great Teachers oí the chosen peopIe in far-back days. An inteUigent study of the Talmud will indisputabIy throw light on much of the Old Testament, and will help us to understand more of that imperishabIe race once the peopIe of God, the last ehapter of whose eventful story ias yet to be written. Some fifteen years have passed since Emanuel Deutsch .. vi PREFACE. in his famous article awokc the popular curiosity respect• ing the unknown and mysterious Jewish Talmud. Tbe name "Talmud" was a familiar one, but few, evcn scholars, were able to give a olear explanation what thnt book or collection of books really was. Men knew it had a share in the long and bitter persecution.e-ouduring for centuries,-of that great, undying race whose cherished work it was. Men knew that again and again it had been forbidden, hunted out and burned with all public marks of shnme and ignominy, but that, líke that marvel• lous race, which loves it perhaps with a strange unreason• ing love, the Talmud had survived these centuries of ignominy and persecution, and that it was still regarded as the great storehouse of Hcbrew learning ancl thought, that it was even read and studied by the chosen people with greater care and attention in this than in any pre• ceding age. But this is, in fact, a11that tbe ordinary acholar knows of this vast collection of exposition, rules, traditions, comments, the results of centuries of study, meditation, and teaching. Tbe great encycloprodias and a few of the more important books of reference te11us that tbis vast mysterious co11ec• tion of expositions and traditious=-the so-called Babylon Talmud, first printed between 1520-23, consisting of twelve folio volumes-is divided into two divisions-l\Iishnah and Gemara. The first, Mishnah, was the result of some eight hundred years of study and teaching, The word er Mishnah" explains in sorne way the uature of the great compilation, being derived from ehanah, to repeat, This title, then, is best paraphrased as the fr Repetition (of the Law)." Thc Gemara-from ya.mar, to complete-significs the completion of the Mosaic codeo The meaning of the two terms mny.be sumrnarised t1111S: The Pcntateuch remains in all cases the background. and latent source of the Mishnah ; the Mishnah develops and enlarges the original text, The Gemara, again, taking the PREFACE. vii :lIishnnh expansion as its text, develops and still further enlarges it. The Pentateuch thus remained and was through a11the ,Jewish ages known as the changeless written law; the Mishnah and the Gemara were called the unwritten or oral la w, and were known as the Talmud. The literal meaning of the famous "Talmud" is "The Study." Tha learned translator of the tabulated extracts from the Talmud contained in this volume is the jirst who has seri• ously projected to open the gates of this hitherto closely• sealed book to the world of English biblical students. The reader wiIl find in it many gems of thought, many rare and curious traditions, the date of which must indeed lie far back in the stormy history of the chosen race, But alongside these he will see, too, not a few puerile remarks, apparently foolish and pointless; and had not the translator exercised a wise discretion in his selection, other feelings besides those of astonishment and regret would have been aroused in the mind of the superficial student. 1 say advisedly "superficial," for to form any true appreciation of the teaching of the Talmud, the acholar must have made its peculiar phraseology the subject of long and patient study. Much is written in cryptograph, a mysterious and peculiar cypher, so that to the ordinary reader one train of thought is conveyed, while to the initiated the sama sentence or group of sentences suggests a completely different class of ideas. Hence it is that so much to the superficial student of the Talmud appears simply childish, at times even profane and grossly coarse. 'Ve must remember the terrible and awful persecution to which, during so many centuries, the chosen people were subjected, It was often, thcn, stern necessity whích obliged them in their sacreu teaching to have recourse to this strnnge secret method of instruction. Mr. Hershon has cxcrcised in this present volume a wise discretion; he has, while omitting the more puzzling viii PREFACE. of these cryptographs, stillleft sufficient for the student to judge for himself something of the nature of this strange, mighty work. Amongst other deeply interesting tracli• tions and pieces of teaching quoted in this learned and striking volume, he will see how deeply the earnest though often mistaken Jewish Rabbis mourned over the terrible corruptions of J erusalem ; how they attributed, with touching sorrow, the awful misfortunes which befell the loved city to the cup of ita iniquity being at last full. In sorne of the extracta, again, he will catch a glimpse of the intense reverence with which the Jew has ever loved to guard even the Name of the God who chose Israel as His own peculiar people ; will see something too of the venera• tion whích, among the J ewish race in all ages, has sur• rounded the lost treasures of the House of the Lord. But perhaps what will interest the general reader most will be the quaint beautiful sayings of the great teachers in the matter of charity to the poor and suffering. A curious and instructive comparison might indeed be made between the teaching of the Talmud respecting " charity" and the teaching on the same subject of the great Pagan moralista, who were contemporaries with many of the sages whose words-embedded in the Talmud-have been selected as specimens of ancient Jewish teaching in this volume.
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