iated from Palestine,
Jerusalem, and the Temple.

SELECTIONS FROM THE TALMUD

Translated by Joseph Barclay, LL.D.

Translator's Introduction

The Talmud (teaching) comprises the Mishna and the Gemara. The Mishna
("learning" or "second law") was, according to Jewish tradition, delivered
to Moses on Mount Sinai. "Rabbi Levi, the son of Chama, says, Rabbi Simon,
the son of Lakish, says, what is that which is written, 'I will give thee
tables of stone, and a law and commandments which I have written, that
thou mayest teach them'?(1) The Tables are the ten commandments; the Law
is the written law; and the commandment is the Mishna; 'which I have
written' means the prophets and sacred writings; 'that thou mayest teach
them' means the Gemara. It teaches us that they were all given to Moses
from Mount Sinai." From Moses the Mishna was transmitted by oral tradition
through forty "Receivers," until the time of Rabbi Judah the Holy. These
Receivers were qualified by ordination to hand it on from generation to
generation. Abarbanel and Maimonides disagree as to the names of these
Receivers. While the Temple still stood as a centre of unity to the
nation, it was considered unlawful to reduce these traditions to writing.
But when the Temple was burned, and the Jews were dispersed among other
peoples, it was considered politic to form them into a written code, which
should serve as a bond of union, and keep alive the spirit of patriotism.
The Jewish leaders saw the effect of Constitutions and Pandects in
consolidating nations--the advantage of written laws over arbitrary
decisions. Numberless precedents of case law, answering to our common law,
were already recorded: and the teachings of the Hebrew jurisconsults, or
"_Responsa prudentium_" which were held to be binding on the people, had
been preserved from former ages.

All these traditions Rabbi Judah the Holy undertook to reduce into one
digest. And this laborious work he completed about A.D. 190, or more than
a century after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. Rabbi Judah was
born on the day that Rabbi Akibah died. Solomon is said to have foretold
the event: "One sun ariseth, and one sun goeth down." Akibah was the
setting and Judah the rising sun. The Mishna of Rabbi Judah, afterward
revised by Abba Areka in Sura, is the text of the Babylon Talmud. The
commentaries written on this text by various Rabbis in the neighborhood of
Babylon,