Talmudist

“ For not only was he the greatest Talmudist after his maternal grandfather’s death, hut he also added reading wide and varied to a stupendous memory and a marvellous power of combination, such, as appeared only again in the last century in the persons of R. Yehonathan Eybenschütz (ob. 1764) and R. Yeḥezkel Landau (ob. 1793) . ”

“ But when he perceived that Nathan, in expounding a passage in the Talmud, made a childish mistake, he modestly ventured to make some objections, in which he betrayed his scholarship. The audience in the school was astounded to find so thorough a Talmudist in the ill-clad captive who had just recovered his freedom. ”

“ The politician of the Kehillah discoursed learnedly on the European situation and the various problems of statecraft involved in the relations of 22the great Powers to each other, the philosopher shed the light of his wisdom on the great scientific movements of the day and the wondrous inventions which are revolutionizing civilization, while the Talmudist elucidated knotty and interesting questions of rabbinical law or lamented the downfall of religious sentiment in these evil days and contrasted these with the unyielding fidelity and loyalty of yore. ”

“ The Jew under his common clothing wears a mystic garment. Why he wears it, or when the practice arose, neither wise nor simple can tell. In vain is the Rabbi appealed to, the Talmudist consulted to explain the Tisit, which from Archangel to Suz, every Israelite puts on in the morning and takes off at night; or of the Talith which he wears in the synagogue when he prays. ”

“ It may strike one as characteristically Jewish that extravagant and truly oriental encomiums were passed upon such legalists and Talmudists as Isaac Alfazi, Rashi or Maimonides; none the less the medieval Jews were able to produce and appreciate excellent literature of the most varied description. In any case, the Talmud must be judged, like other authoritative religious literature, by its place in history and by its survival. ”

“ The legal, religious and other decisions formulated in the pontifical communications of one generation usually became the venerated teaching of the next, and a new class of literature thus sprang into existence. (See Gaon.) Meanwhile, as the Babylonian schools decayed, Talmudic learning was assiduously pursued outside its oriental home, and some Babylonian Talmudists apparently reached the West. However, the fortunes of the Talmud in a hostile world now become part of the history of the Jews, and the many interesting vicissitudes cannot be recapitulated here. (See Jews, §§ 44 sqq.) ”

“ Reb Lippe said America wanted a man like you to spread the holy Law here. Go and do it, my son, and the Uppermost will help us all for your sake."
The prodigy and his importer were the talk of the orthodox colony, and nothing was more pleasing to Asriel than to hear the praises of his daughter's fiancé sounded by the Talmudists. There came a time, however, when, in his own synagogue, at least, these encomiums ceased. ”

“ The keener intellects received wealthy brides as a reward for their mental exertions. Rich parents took pride in having sons-in-law educated in Talmudic schools, and sought for them at the fairs. The Polish Jews, by reason of this fervent zeal, acquired a Talmudic deportment, so to speak, which showed itself in every movement and every utterance, by ungraceful shrugging of the shoulders and a peculiar movement of the thumbs. Every conversation, whether of a perfectly indifferent nature or even upon matters of business, resembled a disputation upon the Talmud. ”

“ The Talmud by no means restricts this love of one's enemies to members of one's own people. As man is bidden to pray to God for sinners (Sohar to Genesis, fol. 67) , so God says to Moses: “Israelite or Gentile, man or woman, slave or free, all are alike for you” (Jalkut, c. 20b) . In accordance with this, and in agreement with Levit. xix, 9, the Talmud commands them not to prevent the Gentile poor from gleaning in the fields (Gittin, c. 5) , and repeatedly represents Abraham the Israelite as a model of tolerance. ”

“ We do not mean to ascribe any peculiar degree of folly to the rabbies. Persons calling themselves Christians have been just as foolish, have believed stories just as absurd, and have handed them down as religious truths. But then, we do not receive these legends as a part and parcel of our religion. We are as free to say of them, as of the Talmudic fables, that they are wicked falsehoods. But the modern Jews tell us that the Talmud is a divine book—that it contains their religion, and that without it Moses and the Prophets are unintelligible ”

“ It was for this reason that the Babylonian rather than the Jerusalem Talmud became the fundamental possession of the Jewish race, its life's breath, its very soul. It was a family history for succeeding generations, in which they felt themselves at home, in which they lived and moved, the thinker in the world of thought, the dreamer in glorious ideal pictures. For more than a thousand years the external world, nature and mankind, powers and events, were for the Jewish nation insignificant, non-essential, a mere phantom; the only true reality was the Talmud. ”

“ Asriel returned, with a sigh.
"Flora does not know what a treasure the Lord of the Universe has sent her."
"She will," he rejoined curtly.
VII
It was at the head of a dozen venerable Talmudists, including the rabbi of the congregation, that Asriel returned from the synagogue next Saturday morning. The learned company was entertained with wine, cold fish, and some of the lemon pie and genuine Yiddish pastry for which Tamara was famous.
60 "Here is life, Mr. Stroon! Here is life, Shaya!" each of the guests said, raising his glass.
"Life and peace! Life and peace!" was the uniform response. ”

“ Yet, even when the Shul'han Arukh will be forgotten, the Talmud will receive the respect and honor of all who love liberty, both mental and religious. It lives and will live, because of its adaptability to the necessities of every age, and if any proof were needed to show that it is not dead, the attacks that are with remarkable frequency made on it in Germany might be given as the strongest evidence. In its day the Talmud received, not the decisions, but the debates of the leaders of the people. ”

“ There is one circumstance in which Talma has every perfection which it is possible to conceive—in the power, and richness, and beauty of his voice. It is one of those commanding and pathetic voices which can never, at any distance of time, be forgotten by any one who has once heard it: every variety of tone and expression of which the human voice is capable, is perfectly at his command, and succeed each other with a rapidity and power which it is not possible to conceive. ”

“ Sometimes when I have felt full of shame at the behavior in public places of men and women with Jewish faces but with no Judaism in their hearts, I have wished that the simple, studious lives of the old men of the East Side could be the standard by which our race is judged, and that the Talmudic saying so aptly put into verse by Rabbi Myers was better known:
“Which is the path, both right and wise, That for himself a man should find? That which himself much dignifies, And brings him honor from mankind.” ”

“ God, says a significant Talmudic comment, dwells in a pure and loving home; and no one, aware of the evils that were rampant in the decaying paganism of the Græco-Roman Empire and persisted, still powerful though not unrebuked, in the slowly developing society of nominally Christian Europe, would deny that the isolated and often harassed communities of the Jews did their utmost to make that noble saying a reality, maintaining with amazing courage and pertinacity a splendid ideal of family and communal existence. ”

“ The proud feeling of self-sufficiency, the obsession for exclusiveness and separation—so distinctively a Jewish trait at that time—was inculcated at the maternal knee and emphasized in synagog and school. The Talmud, [22] which in codified form post-dates the time of Christ's ministry, enjoined all Jews against reading the books of alien nations, declaring that none who so offended could consistently hope for Jehovah's favor. [23] Josephus gives his endorsement to similar injunction, and records that wisdom among the Jews meant only familiarity with the law and ability to discourse thereon. ”

“ Talma has little of the formal automaton style in his acting. He has indeed that common fault in his countrymen of speaking as if he had swallowed a handful of snuff; but in spite of this, there is great emphasis and energy in his enunciation, a just conception, and an impressive representation of character. He comes more in contact with nature than our Kemble-school, with more of dignity than the antagonist one. ”

“ Among Christian peoples the Talmud is virtually unknown; to well-nigh every individual in the Christian nations it is but the shadow of a name, to the great majority scarcely even that; and yet the profound, the awful reverence for the Old Testament Scriptures which lives among all Christian folk, a reverence that often shades into a passionate love, though they guess it not, springs largely out of the teachings of that great Rabbinic book the Talmud, the very name of which so many have scarcely heard. ”

“ His chief point for malicious attack was the Talmud, which he represented as the stronghold and storehouse for Jewish crime, stupidity, and superstition. He invented his examples to prove his rule. And the Talmud, for such an object, was well chosen. It is extremely easy to make assertions against a book which very few people can read. Those who were ignorant of the real contents of the Talmud naturally did not like to confess to their ignorance. Jews were an unpopular subject, and it looked so wise and dignified to agree in a condemnation which was apparently founded on much learned research. ”

“ Talmadge as Recorder was too kind and lenient, but he erred on the side of humanity, which is preferable to err on the side of a pale and icy and bloodless liver, though we should steer between the heart and liver, and consign the culprits to the pits and gulches of the navel, where the voracious worms could soon devour them. The valor of Talmadge conquered the ruffians of Astor Place, and he has a Roman and Spartan nature, and is as generous and magnanimous as Clay or Webster, whom he loved as his own big heart. No man ever had a more genial or sympathising bosom, than Frederick A. Talmadge. ”

“ In this very difficult passage Talma is eminently successful; no vehemence of manner accompanies the desperate resolution he expresses, the recollection of the misery he has suffered, and the dread of the greater misfortunes which his present intentions must bring upon him, seem wholly to overpower him, and his countenance, marked with the utmost dejection and wretchedness, appears still to appeal for mercy to the power which persecutes him. ”

“ He alone possesses the power of expressing that impatience under suffering—that restless, constant wish for relief, which produces so strong an impression of the truth and reality of the affliction with which you are called upon to sympathise.
His attitudes and action are uncommonly striking, seldom in the exaggeration of the French stage, and never running into that immoderate expression of passion in which dignity of character is necessarily sacrificed. Talma appears to understand the use and management of action better than any actor on the French stage ”

“ Talmage says it is easily destroyed. "I can give you a recipe for its obliteration," he cries; and it is this—"Read infidel books; have long and frequent conversations with sceptics; attend the lectures of those antagonistic to religion." Yes, faith is a tender plant. The believer is a hot-house production. He dies in the open-air. The Bible can be read by Freethinkers, and it confirms them in their scepticism; but if a Christian reads infidel books he is lost. Hearing the other side is fatal to his faith. It is Talmage who states so, and, as old Omar Khayyam says, he knows, he knows. ”

“ Most important of all, however, is Joseph Caro's Shulḥān ‘Ārūk (“prepared table”) , which came in the age of printing (1565) , leapt into popularity, and has been, in its turn, the subject of many commentaries and hand-books. This great work systematized Talmudic law in all its developments, ancient and modern, written and oral (I. Abrahams, Jew. Lit., London, 1906, p. 147 seq.; see also Jew. Ency., iii., 584 sqq.) . The lengthy history of the written and oral law thus reached its last stage in a work which grew out of the Talmud but had its roots in a more distant past. ”

“ It breathes charity to all men. If we except a few items of coarseness, such as must occur in every legal code, it is all good; at least, it is never bad; it deserves all possible respect and even reverence. Such, in a condensed form, is the account of the Talmud which Deutsch asks us to accept.
But it cannot be admitted that the defects of the Talmud are trivial, any more than that the spirit of the Rabbins towards Christianity was tolerant. Nor can it be admitted that the Talmud owes nothing to the Christian Scriptures. ”

“ So, clad in an all-concealing overcoat, the unshaven philosopher might be seen in a coffee-house or on an ale-house bench, scribbling at odd moments his profound essays on Transcendental Philosophy, the leaves flying about and losing themselves, and the thoughts as ill-arranged, for the Hebrew Talmudical manner still clung to his German writing as to his talking, so that the body swayed rhythmically, his thumb worked and his voice chanted the sing-song of piety to ideas that would have paralyzed the Talmud school. ”