I spent seven years at it, not counting the several years of Talmud
which I had had at the various cheders
What is the Talmud? The bulk of it is taken up with debates of
ancient rabbis. It is primarily concerned with questions of
conscience, religious duty, and human sympathy--in short, with
the relations "between man and God" and those "between man and
man." But it practically contains a consideration of almost every
topic under the sun, mostly with some verse of the Pentateuch for a
pretext. All of which is analyzed and explained in the minutest and
keenest fashion, discussions on abstruse subjects being sometimes
relieved by an anecdote or two, a bit of folklore, worldly wisdom,
or small talk. Scattered through its numerous volumes are
priceless gems of poetry, epigram, and story-telling
It is at once a fountain of religious inspiration and a
"brain-sharpener." "Can you fathom the sea? Neither can you
fathom the depths of the Talmud," as we would put it. We were
sure that the highest mathematics taught in the Gentile
universities were child's play as compared to the Talmud
In the Preacher's Synagogue, then, I spent seven years of my
youthful life.
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