IS 



Tlie Talmud. 



mud is derived from the Hebrew " lamad," to learn, to study, and may 

 best be rendered by the Latin " doctrina." 



In Babylonia the same want was felt about a century later. E. 

 Abina II, the head of the academy of (Sora), who nourished between 

 473 and 499, made the beginning with this great and tedious work, and 

 K. Assa and his successors, called the Sabaraim, i. e., the testing ones, 

 completed it (as far as it is completed) during the first half of the 

 sixth century. They added to the Mishiiah their Gemara, t. e., the 

 discussions that took place in the Babylonian academies. The two 

 Talmuds, though they do not differ essentially in their contents (for the 

 discussions in both are on the same subjects), differ altogether in their 

 language. The language of the Mishnah is a post-biblical Hebrew; 

 that of the Palestinian Talmud is the western Aramean dialect which 

 is more akin to the Hebrew, somewhat like that of the Targumim, the 

 Aramean translations of the scriptures: while the Babylonian Talmud 

 speaks the eastern Aramean language, more akin to the Syrian than 

 the Hebrew. Both Talmuds are not quite complete, that is to say, to 

 some parts of the Mishnah the Gemara is missing. As far as the Ba- 

 bylonian Talmud is concerned the missing parts of the Gemara were 

 probably never written. The Palestinian Talmud, however, being less 

 known to the occidental Jews, undoubtedly extended over many other 

 parts of the Mishnah than the existing manuscripts and editions con- 

 tain. It is a strange freak of history that the European Jews received 

 their traditional sources by way of Babylon, not from Palestine, and 

 thus it came to pass that the Babylonian Talmud was much better 

 known and more sedulously studied than the Palestinian Talmud. 



In regard to the contents of the Talmud, the Talmud itself distin- 

 guishes two component parts, viz.: first, the Halacha, and second, the 

 Hagada. The Halacha treats of laws and regulations that bear upon the 

 practice of religion. These include the ritual and ceremonial laws, and 

 also the chief heads of Ethics. The word Halacha is derived from " hal- 

 ach," to walk, and means the way to walk or live, i. e.,the established cus- 

 tom or law. The other part is the Hagada, derived from the Hiphel form 

 " higid," to announce, and means that which is narrated, preached or 

 announced. It contains all the many parables, fables, maxims, prov- 

 erbs and every thing that is of no general and binding authority, and 

 stands there only as a mere individual utterance. Heinrich Heine de- 

 scribes both in his own inimitable way (Romanzero, Song Juda Hal- 

 evi). I will attempt a paraphrase: " The Halacha, the intellectual 

 arena, where the dialectic athletes (of old Babylon and Pumpeditha) 

 wrestle, run and wrangle for the palm of victory spiritual." The Ha- 



