Faults of the Talmud.— While claiming high rank for the Talmud among the works that have influenced millions of people, it is not necessary to glorify it out of all proportion and assert its absolute perfection. There are faults in this encyclopedia, which records the opinions of a thousand disputants of different climes, conditions and eras, their after-dinner talk, as it were, and their more serious utterances. These faults are given as four-fold by the Jew ish historian Graetz (History, II, p. 633, Am. ed.). The Talmud contains much that is im material and frivolous, it reflects the supersti tions and views of its Persian birthplace, with their magic, incantations, miraculous cures, de moniacal medicine and mystic dreams—all op posed to the spirit of Judaism. Then, too, it contains occasional instances of harsh judg ments and decrees against other nations and re ligions; and, finally, it seems to favor an in correo exposition of Scripture, accepting, as it does, often tasteless interpretations. What Graetz asserts is not to be denied; yet these defects are not organic. The Talmud is not one book hut a collection of books; is not by one author, but by a thousand authors; is the work not of one age, but seven centuries. What wonder, then, that there are faults in such a composite creation, which Graetz compares to a literary Herculaneum and Pompeii, compris ing the sublime and the common, the great and the small, the grave and the ridiculous, the altar and the ashes, things Jewish and heathenish side by side. The expressions of uncharitable ness, often nothing but the utterances of ill humor and righteous indignation of some sin gle teacher, preserved by over-faithful pupils, are more than counterbalanced by the breadth and humanity that often illuminate the Talmud; and by its recognition of genuine religion as something higher than race or creed. One must also consider that the rabbis never enjoyed se curity for any prolonged period. The Roman, the Greek, the Persian and the rest were ever them, and persecutions were constant. If their utterances were human and expressed their agony and passion in times of bitter dis tress, the spirit of broad humanity was never wholly absent from their complaints. It was a sage of the Mishna who said: heathen who occupies himself with the law of God stands in the same rank as the high priest?' Commentaries on the first to write a commentary on the Mishna was Maimonides (12th century), originally in Ara bic. Manuscripts of this work are in the Bod leian and have been translated into Hebrew by some scholars of the 13th century. R. Tanchum
of Jerusalem followed Maimomdes by writing a lexicon of the Mishna in Arabic. This has never been published, but manuscript copies ex ist in the Bodleian. A large number of com mentaries have appeared upon the Mishna in whole or in part, usually clear and simple in aim, concise and exact in expression. As com mentator on almost the whole of the Talmud, Rashi of Troyes (1040-1105) is most eminent, and his very clear and systematic exposition ap pears in every edition of the Babylonian Tal mud. The supplements and additions to Rashi's commentary were written by his relatives and pupils. A collection of notes and discussions called Tosafoth, additions, appears in all Tal mud editions, whose authors called eTosafists,B lived in France and Germany during the 12th and 13th centuries. Three of the more import ant later commentators whose expositions are printed in many Talmud editions are Solomon Luria (16th century), Samuel Edels (d. 1631) and Meir Lublin (d. 1616).
Helps to Talmudic These consist of lexicons from the oldest, the Aruch of R. Nathan ben Jechiel of Rome, of the 11th cen tury, recently revised and enlarged by Kohut as the 'Aruch Completuip,) to Fischer's revised and enlarged edition of Buxtorf, Levy's 'Dic tionary of the Talmuds and Midrashim' (in German) and Jastrow's 'Dictionary of the Tal mud,' etc. (London and New York, 1886-1903), an admirable and scholarly work. Then must be mentioned grammars, like Luzzatto's and Levias', which aid in the study of the idiom of the Babylonian Talmud, chrestomathies for be ginners and more elaborate introductory works and treatises from Samuel Hanagid's fragment (11th century) and Maimonides' introduction, translated into German by Pinner, to modern authors like Brill', Frankel and pre-eminently J. H. Weiss. There are other works of refer ence, but the best help is the living teacher, who is obviously the most trustworthy pilot through the "sea of the Mielziner, 'Introduction to the Deutsch and Darmesteter, 'Es says) (Jewish Publication Society of America) ; Schechter, 'Studies in Judaism); Ginzberg's 'Legends of the Isaac's, 'Stories from the Graetz, 'History, Vol. De-: Sola and Raphall's 'Eighteen Tractates from the Mishna.) An exhaustive bibliography in English, German and French is given in Miel ziner's work. The various volumes of the 'Jew ish Encyclopedia) furnish ample material.