“ There is to-day no branch of human activity in which his influence is not felt. Interesting himself in the affairs of the world, he has been enabled to bring a degree of intelligence and industry to bear upon modern life that has challenged the admiration of the world. But with the Talmud it is not so. That vast encyclopædia of Jewish lore remains as it was. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The attacks on the Talmud have not been made by the enemies of the Jews alone. Large numbers of Jews themselves repudiate it, denying that they are Talmud Jews, or that they have any sympathy with it. Yet there are only the few Karaites in Russia and Austria, and the still fewer Samaritans in Palestine, who are really not Talmud Jews. ”

“ Could a work be accused of frivolity and pettiness that defines wickedness to be [paragraph continues] "the action of a rich man who, hearing that a poor man is about to buy a piece of property, secretly overbids him"? ”

“ We, however, deem it a duty to say a few words, so that the reader may understand our position and the reason why we have undertaken a work which will probably be productive of much adverse criticism in certain quarters. ”