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The Wisdom of Israel by Edwin Collins [1910] Contents Start Reading Page I

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Bethany Beightol
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« on: November 22, 2012, 06:36:03 pm »

The Wisdom of Israel
by Edwin Collins
[1910]


This is a short anthology of passages from the Jewish wisdom literature of the Talmud and Midrash, part of the Wisdom of the East series. Unlike some similar compilations, Collins documents where possible the source of his quotations. He also apparently translated from the originals rather than reusing existing English renderings.

http://sacred-texts.com/jud/wois/index.htm
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« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2012, 06:37:14 pm »

Wisdom of the East Series
Edited by
L. CRANMER-BYNG
Dr S. A. KAPADIA.

THE WISDOM OF ISRAEL

WISDOM OF THE EAST
THE WISDOM OF ISRAEL
BEING EXTRACTS FROM THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD AND MIDRASH RABBOTH
TRANSLATED FROM THE ARAMAIC AND HEBREW, WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY EDWIN COLLINS
HOLLIER HEBREW SCHOLAR,
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON





SECOND IMPRESSION
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
[1910]

Scanned, proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com, February 2010, by John Bruno Hare. This text is in the public domain in the US because it was published prior to 1923.
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« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2012, 06:39:10 pm »

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« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2012, 06:39:26 pm »

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« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2012, 06:39:51 pm »

CONTENTS

 
   

PAGE

Introduction
   

9

Why God Permits Idolatry
   

17

The Lamp that Goes Out when its Light is Done, and the Figs that are Gathered in their due Season
   

18

The Labourers in the Vineyard
   

20

The Likeness of a Palm-Tree
   

21

The Tutor and the Naughty Princeling
   

23

Those Nearest
   

23

The Heritage of the Unborn Prince
   

23

The Traveller and the Tree in the Desert
   

26

Better Feed the Poor than Entertain the Angels
   

28

The Sand, and the Furnace that Purifies
   

28

The Stars are not envious!
   

29

The King talks with all His Servants, Small and Great
   

29

The Pavilion of the King's Daughter
   

31

The Greedy Prince: The Vine is not Watered with Wine
   

32

The Potter and his Wares: the Trials of the Righteous
   

33

The Education of the Prince
   

34

The Induction Robe of the Elder
   

35

p. 5
   

 

 
   

PAGE

The King and the Weary Travellers: The Righteous know what is in Store
   

36

Equality of all before God: and the Parable of a Princess Attacked by Robbers
   

37

The Father and His Son: The Bath and the Ocean
   

40

The Tutor who Corrupted the King's Son
   

41

The After-Life, and the Banquet of the King
   

42

Many Mansions in the Life to Come
   

44

The Labourers in the Garden
   

45

The Old Man and the Acorn
   

47

The Wise and the Foolish Guests at the King's Feast
   

47

The Briar Rose that Saved the Trees
   

50

The Two Pilots
   

51

R. Judah as Prototype of the Ancient Mariner
   

52

The Likeness of the King
   

53

Revelations of Mercy and of Punishment
   

53

The Citizen Married to the King's Daughter
   

54

The Father's Voice
   

55

The Parable of the Two Ships
   

55

The Child who Questioned though Carried by his Father
   

56

The King's Son without Rations
   

57

The Poor Woman's Mite
   

58

He Who Reproacheth the Poor Insults his Maker
   

58

The Voiceless Deeps that Praise the Lord: The Parable of the Mutes who Praised The King
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« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2012, 06:40:17 pm »

EDITORIAL NOTE

THE object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one. They desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and West—the old world of Thought and the new of Action. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the highest example in the land. They are confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour.

L. CRANMER-BYNG.
S. A. KAPADIA.

Northbrook Society,
      185 Piccadilly, W.
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« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2012, 06:40:34 pm »

p. 9
INTRODUCTION

THE extracts from the Midrash Rabboth and the Babylonian Talmud, given in this little vol., are not the work of one or two authors, or of one age. They belong rather to the speech and feeling of a whole nation than to its literature, properly so called. At first, impromptu utterances, or composed to be spoken in the course of sermons, popular addresses, the speeches of honoured rabbis at marriage feasts or in the houses of mourners, or in the rabbinic assemblies of Palestine and Babylon, these and thousands of similar parables, fables, legends, and more or less poetic playings of fancy around the facts of life, or round the popular thought and knowledge of their time and place of origin, lived in the mouths of the Jewish people, like the folk-lore and folksongs of other nations, and were orally transmitted from generation to generation for hundreds of years before being included in the compilations where we now find them, and in other works now no longer extant. Their survival, and their place in rabbinic literature, they owe to the fact that

p. 10

everything was brought into relation with the Bible or with the traditional laws of Israel; so that they became a part of the Midrash or study of Revelation.

The terms Midrash and Talmud mean this study and interpretation of Scripture, especially of the Mosaic Law, together with its application to the changing conditions—mental and material—of the Jewish people. So widely inclusive and so many-sided was this "Study of the Law," which formed the chief mental activity of the Jewish people from the times of Ezra and Nehemiah until long after the final redaction of the Talmud in the 5th century, that there is hardly a single subject of modern secular study that was not dealt with—at least incidentally; for life, as a whole, was meant to be regulated by the Mosaic Law. Says Zunz in his Gottesdienstliche Vorträge, still the chief authority on the subject:—"Whoever applied himself profitably to, the various branches of Midrash was a jurist, a theologian, a man knowing in the ways of the world, a linguist, an orator—and if nothing was to be neglected, he must have no slight acquaintance with history, natural science, and astronomy." As a matter of course, specialization became necessary. But the oldest subdivision of this "Study of the Law" is twofold:—into (a) Halacha—practical rule of life, judicial decisions, the results and finished products of Midrash; and (b) Agadah—that which is spoken, and placed before the hearer, not as binding and having authority to guide him, either in practical life or in belief, but as presenting a vivid picture of ethical truth, of

p. 11

beauty, or of thought, linking the less obvious meanings of Scripture with the newer ideas and with the customs of non-Jewish peoples, and providing for the spiritual or moral needs of the moment.

The Halacha was the transmission of the Mosaic Law in its application to material life; to civil and criminal law, practical hygiene, religious ceremonial, marriage and divorce, practical morality, the daily conduct of individuals and of the nation in every conceivable relation with each other, with the forces of nature, and with other nations of the world. Halacha claimed to be an exact and literal interpretation of the letter and spirit of the law given at Sinai, only modifying its details in so far as traditions dating from Moses and the prophets had provided for such modification, or where, hidden beneath the letter of Scripture, hints could be discovered, showing that its spirit actually demanded such modifications in foreseen changed conditions. Differences of opinion on Halacha must be discussed in the schools that combined the functions of a university and a parliament.

Not so the Agadah. Herein was room, and full liberty, for the freest play of individual thought and fancy. As in Halacha, everything must be referred in some way to the Scripture. But here there was no obligation to interpret the revealed word strictly in accordance with its real meaning. As often as not it is some new light, borne in upon the teacher from his own experience, for which he seeks a reflecting or intensifying medium in the revealed word. As a poet uses natural scenery

p. 12

to illustrate the thoughts or emotions its aspect or his mood suggests, so the Agadists used the texts of the Bible. The Agadata were not the authoritative teachings of the rabbinic schools, but the occasional utterances of individual rabbis and teachers. Remarkable was the freedom with which verses of the Bible were often used to support views in consonance, truly, with the general teaching of the Bible, but not at all contained in the words themselves. The same rabbi would even interpret the same verse in different ways to meet the requirements of the lesson he wished to enforce. No harm was done; for every one knew that this was not peshat—simple literal interpretation—but only drush, or the homiletic use of Scripture.

This method of dealing with Scripture flourished exceedingly among the teachers of the last century B.C. and in the succeeding two hundred years, and appreciation of this fact will help materially in the understanding of the New Testament. For instance, when the verse "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn" is interpreted as an admonition to support the preachers of the gospel, and it is added that "Moses took no care for oxen," this is simply an example of drush, and no one need accuse the New Testament writer of wishing to deny that, in peshat, this verse is one of the many strict injunctions to avoid all cruelty to animals—injunctions that form a prominent characteristic of both the Mosaic Law and the Talmud.

But from every point of view the Hagadic writings, from some of which the following

p. 13

extracts are translated, should prove of the greatest interest to students of the New Testament, and especially of the parables of Jesus.

Trench writes * as follows:—"The parable, as St Jerome has noted, is among the favourite vehicles for conveying moral truth throughout the East. Our Lord took possession of it; honoured it by making it His own, by using it as the vehicle for the very highest truth of all. But there were parables before the parables which issued from His lips." "There cannot be a doubt that our blessed Lord so spake as that His doctrine, in its outward garb, should commend itself to His countrymen. . . . Thus He appealed to proverbs in common use among them. He quoted the traditionary speeches of their elder rabbis. . . . When He found the theological terms of their schools capable of bearing the burden of the new truth . . . He willingly used them. . . . 'Thy kingdom come' formed already part of this Jewish liturgy. . . . Nor less is it certain that the illustrating of doctrines by the help of parables, or briefer comparisons, was greatly in use among the Jewish teachers, so that it might be said of them, as of Him, that without a parable they spake nothing."

Trench quotes several examples of rabbinic parables—among them one dealing, in another way, with the subject of the one I give on pp. 19, 20, "Why the good so often die young." It is answered that God foresees that if they lived they would fall into sin. "To what is this like?

p. 14

[paragraph continues] It is like a king who, walking in his garden, saw some roses, which were yet buds, breathing an ineffable sweetness. He thought, 'If these shed such sweetness while they are yet buds, what will they do when they are fully blown?' After a while the king entered the garden anew, thinking to find the roses now blown, and to delight himself with their fragrance, but . . . he found them pale and withered and yielding no smell. He exclaimed with regret, 'Had I gathered them while yet tender and young, and while they gave forth their sweetness, I might have delighted myself with them, but now I have no pleasure in them.' The next year the king walked in his garden, and finding rosebuds scattering fragrance, he commanded his servants, 'Gather them, that I may enjoy them before they wither as last year they did.'" *

"Again," he says, "there is one of much tenderness to explain why a proselyte is dearer to the Lord than even a Levite. Such a proselyte is compared to a wild goat which, brought up in a desert, joins itself freely to the flock, and which is cherished by the shepherd with especial love; since, that his flock, which from its youth he had put forth in the morning and brought back at evening, should love him, was nothing strange; but that the goat, brought up in deserts and mountains, should attach itself to him, demanded an especial return of affection." Moreover, there are very numerous parallels between the parables scattered through the Babylonian and Jerusalem

p. 15

[paragraph continues] Talmud and the Midrashic writings, and those found in the New Testament.

Much in the same spirit as the last parable cited by Trench, and offering a curious parallel with New Testament examples, is the agadic passage in the Babylonian Talmud stating that "the degree of blessedness of the sinner who repents is much higher than that of the righteous man who has never sinned, because those who have never tasted the sweets of a sinful life have not the same difficulty in abstaining from sins."

But few, if any, of the following extracts have ever been translated into English, and it is a matter of regret to me that the limits of space compel the omission of at least ten times as many equally interesting examples of agada that still remain inaccessible to the English reader in their original Aramaic and Hebrew.

Edwin Collins.
Footnotes

13:* "Notes on the Parables of our Lord," by Richard Chevinix Trench, D.D., Dean of Westminster.

14:* Compare the parable of the figs which are gathered in their due season, p. 18.
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« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2012, 06:41:10 pm »

p. 16 p. 17
THE WISDOM OF ISRAEL
WHY GOD PERMITS IDOLATRY. *

THEY asked our sages in Rome, says the Babylonian Talmud, "If your God is displeased with men's worship of other gods, why does He not make it void by destroying all idols and objects of false worship?"

"If the objects of false worship," replied our sages, "were things unnecessary to mankind and to the world, then this might be. But, behold, they adore the sun and moon, and the constellations; plants and animals; and the trees and the streams, and many other things both useful and beautiful. Shall the Creator destroy His world because of the fools?"

Then said they of Rome:—"But there are among the objects of what you call false worship some that are useless to mankind: stones and blocks of wood, and hideous effigies. If your God be, as your prophet says, 'a consuming fire,' why does He not burn up these, and spare only such as the world really needs?"

p. 18

"If God were to destroy some of the idols," replied our sages, "and were to spare others, this would strengthen the hands of the idolaters. For then, indeed, would those whose gods had been spared, exclaim: 'Behold ours are proved to be trite gods; for all the false ones have been destroyed.'

"Nor is this all. God has formed a world full of beauty and order; a universe full of exquisitely adjusted laws, that work together for good. There is nothing in it useless or evil, or even superfluous. Shall God destroy His world, or interfere with its order and the regular working of His perfect laws, because of the fools that abuse His gifts?

"Suppose a man steals a measure of wheat and sows his field with it: according to judgment and religion it ought not to grow. But Nature goes on her orderly course as fixed by the Creator, and those that treat His laws with contempt are destined to have to render an account."
Footnotes

17:* Abodah Zarah [the section of the Talmud dealing with "Strange Worship"—Idolatry, etc.], p. 54b. I have rendered this freely; somewhat expanding the Mishnah, from the Commentaries and otherwise, and condensing the Gemorrah.

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« Reply #8 on: November 22, 2012, 06:41:32 pm »


THE LAMP THAT GOES OUT WHEN ITS LIGHT IS DONE, AND THE FIGS THAT ARE GATHERED IN THEIR DUE SEASON.

What is the difference between the death of the aged and the death of the young?

Rabbi Judah says:—"When a lamp goes out of itself, it is good for the lamp and good for the wick, for the lamp is not broken and the wick does not form coal; but when men extinguish it, it is bad for the lamp, and bad for the wick."

p. 19

Rabbi Abahu said:—"When you pluck figs at their proper season, it is good for the figs, and good for the fig-tree. But if figs be gathered before their time, it is bad for the figs and bad for the fig-tree."

Then why do we often see the righteous die young?

A story told of Rabbi Chiya bar Aba and his disciples, and according to others of Rabbi Akiba and his disciples, and of Rabbi Joshuah, and also of Rabbi Josi ben Chalafta and his disciples, explains this, by a parable.

It was their custom to rise early in the morning, and to sit and teach under a certain fig-tree. And the owner of the fig-tree used to rise early and gather the figs. The scholars thought that they were suspected, and that the figs were gathered early lest the Rabbi and his disciples might eat some of them. What did they? They changed their place of meeting.

Then the owner of the fig-tree went after them, and when he found them he said:

"My masters, You were wont to confer a Mitzvah * upon me. You used to show me

p. 20

honour, and give me a share in your reward for the study of God's word, and give me the privilege of contributing my share to your deeds of piety, by coming and studying under my fig-tree. Will you now rob me of this privilege, this honour, this religious duty; and so make void all your former kindness? Why have you changed your meeting place?"

Then they told him that they thought perhaps he suspected they might eat some of the figs, because he always rose so early in the morning to gather them.

"God forbid," exclaimed the owner of the fig-tree; "I rise early to gather the figs because, if the sun shines brightly upon them, they breed worms."

So he persuaded them to return and study under his fig-tree. That morning he did not gather the figs, and the sun shone on the fig-tree, and the ripe fruit bred worms, and was no longer fit to gather.

Then said the Rabbi and his students:

"The master of the fig-tree knows the season of each fig, and when it ought to be gathered, and gathers it. Thus the Holy One, blessed be He, knows the season of the righteous, and when it is best to remove them from this. world."
Footnotes

19:* Mitzvah, from tzivah, to command, to permit (comp. Æthiopic use of the root), is quite untranslatable by any single word, in the sense in which it is here used, and in which it is commonly used by modern Jews. Mitzvah means here something commanded by God, or sanctioned by tradition and religious practice, which it is an honour and a pleasure to do; something that benefits the doer by giving him an opportunity for holiness; some ethical or ceremonial activity pleasing to God, or imparting a proud sense of self-satisfaction to the doer. Thus a rich man will thank a beggar for the Mitzvah of giving the latter a Sabbath meal; and, when the Warden of a Synagogue calls on a congregant to carry the Bible up to the reading desk, this is "conferring a Mitzvah on him."

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« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2012, 06:41:54 pm »

THE LABOURERS IN THE VINEYARD.

A pious and learned Rabbi, who died quite young, was the subject of this parable.

"A certain king had a vineyard, and he hired a great number of labourers to work in it. There

p. 21

was among them one labourer who worked better and more quickly than all the others, and even more than was necessary. What did the king? He took him by the hand and walked about the vineyard talking with him. And at eventide, all the labourers came to receive their reward, and that labourer came with them, and the king paid him for the full day.

"Then the other labourers complained. They said: 'Behold we have worked all the day while this one only worked two hours, and the king has given him a full day's pay!'

"Then the king said: 'What right have you to be envious? This one did more in his two hours of proper work, than you did, who toiled all day.'

"Thus Rabbi Bun bar Chyia learned more of the Torah in his twenty-eight years of life than many another is able to learn in a hundred years."

Midrash Koheleth on the verse, "Sweet is the Sleep of the Labourer." Comp. Shir hashireem Rabbah on "My Beloved went down to his Garden," etc.
     Bereshith R., Chap. LXII.
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« Reply #10 on: November 22, 2012, 06:42:16 pm »

THE LIKENESS OF A PALM-TREE.

"The righteous shall grow like the palm-tree," says the Psalmist (Ps. xcii. 13).

Just as the palm-tree, because of its great height, and because its branches are high up, casts its shadow a long way off, while lower trees have their shadow on the earth, just beneath

p. 22

them; so the righteous have their reward in the far-off world of the after-life.

Just as the palm-tree will produce fine dates and some that are bad, and not fit to be gathered, so among the people of Israel, some are pious and learned in the Law of God, others are ignorant, stupid, and wicked.

In another way Israel may be likened to a palm-tree. Nothing that grows on the palm-tree is useless. It bears dates for food, Lulabs * that are brought into the house of prayer, for rejoicing before God when The Praise * is sung; the branches serve for shade, and the fibres are made into ropes; while the wood serves for the beams of houses. Thus, in Israel, no one is without his aim in life, and his proper function. Some are masters of Scripture, others of the study of the traditional law, others of Hagadah. † The mission of others is good works and of others charity; and others have lower, but no less useful, work in the world. None need be without his life-work. But as the central stem, the heart of the palm-tree, always grows up straight towards heaven, so the heart of the whole people, and of every individual, should be constantly turned towards their Father which is in Heaven.

Footnotes

22:* "The Praise," Hallel, consists of Psalms cxiii.–cxix. inclusive, and is sung in the Synagogue on every new moon and festival. During the eight days of Tabernacles, palm branches, bound up with myrtle and willows (Lulabs), are waved during this part of the service, as commanded in Exodus.

22:† See Introduction.
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« Reply #11 on: November 22, 2012, 06:42:39 pm »

p. 23
THE TUTOR AND THE NAUGHTY PRINCELING.

The world, with all its wonderful growths, was made to teach man and to nurture him. Therefore when man falls into sin, and breaks the laws of nature and of God, nature and the material world suffer with him, for his sin. It is like a young prince entrusted to the care of a tutor. Whenever the prince was naughty the tutor was punished.

Bereshith Rabbah in explaining the destruction of the world at the flood.
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« Reply #12 on: November 22, 2012, 06:43:05 pm »

THOSE NEAREST.

The punishments that come upon Israel are greater than those that come on the peoples of the world. Because those that are nearest to God are bound to be more holy than those that are far off. To them were given more laws, and from them more is expected. "In those that are near Me I will be sanctified."
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« Reply #13 on: November 22, 2012, 06:43:29 pm »

THE HERITAGE OF THE UNBORN PRINCE.

Six things preceded the creation of the world (says Bereshith Rabbah, Chap. I.). Some of them were created; some existed as ideals, as part of the thought of the Creator, to emerge, created, in the future; so that their real being (noumena) was in existence, although ages should pass before their appearance as phenomena.

p. 24

The Torāh * was created; for we read (Prov. viii. 22-36), "The Lord possessed † me at the beginning of His way . . . or ever the earth was, etc."; so, also, was the throne of glory, as we read (Ps. xciii. 2), "Thy throne was established from of old (Kedem in front), Thou art from everlasting."

The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the people of Israel, the sanctuary and the name of the Messiah, existed in ideal. For it is written (Hosea ix. 10), "I saw your fathers as the first ripe fruit on the fig-tree, at the beginning of time," and of Israel (Ps. lxxiv. 2), "the congregation which thou didst possess before all things." The sanctuary is spoken of (Jer. xviii. 2) as "a glorious throne on high, from the beginning"; while of the name of the Messiah, who is the subject of the whole of Psalm xxii., it is written (verse 17), "His name existeth eternally." R. Ahabah Bar Rabbi Zengirah says, "Also repentance, the coming back of the sinner to his God, existed in ideal, before the creation of the world; as it is written (Ps. xc.), 'Before the mountains were brought forth'; from that very hour Thou turnedst man to contrition, ‡ saying, 'Return, ye children of men.'"

The Torah was created before the throne of

p. 25

glory, and Rabbi Jeremiah says, in the name of Rabbi Samuel, bar R. Isaac, the ideal Israel—God's witness in the world, to keep His law and spread His truth—preceded all else, even the Torah.

This may be likened to a king married to a noble and honourable woman, who had borne no children to him. One day the king was seen passing through a thoroughfare, when he called to his attendants and said: "Bring me writing materials and draw up documents dedicating this street to my son. It shall be named after him, and all that pass through it shall know that they are walking in the way that I have given to my son."

Then all the people exclaimed: "But he has no son, and yet he tells us 'Give this street to my son, name this street after my son.'"

Then some returned and explained to them: "This king is a great astrologer. If he did not see into the future, and perceive the vision of his son that is to be born to him by his queen, he would not have spoken thus."

In like manner, if the Holy One, blessed be He, had not seen, in the future, the people of Israel who were destined to accept the Torah, he would not have inscribed in that Torah the words: "Command the Children of Israel."

Bereshith Rabbah, Chap. I.

(The ideal law of right and justice, including the laws of life, the path in which all mankind will one day walk, formed the ideal aim of the whole

p. 26

creation. The only reason why it is dedicated to the people of Israel, as if it were given to them alone, is because the Creator knew, from the beginning, that while the other nations would, for centuries, reject it, Israel would at once accept it. Something of the same idea is expressed in the parable of "The Traveller and Tree in the Desert.")
Footnotes

24:* Torah, "instruction," "Law," here means the spiritual, intellectual, and moral contents of revelation as a whole.

24:† The Midrash rendering, though forced, is here quite permissible; for the word rendered in the A. V. "purchase," really means "to acquire," "to possess," while that rendered "of old time," Kedem, really means "before," "in front."

24:‡ "Contrition" is the correct translation of dakka, which the A. V. erroneously renders in this verse "destruction," a rendering entirely inconsistent with the context and not warranted by the etymology of the word.
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« Reply #14 on: November 22, 2012, 06:43:49 pm »

THE TRAVELLER AND THE TREE IN THE DESERT.

Rabbi Levi spoke this parable in the name of Rabbi Johanan.

A certain traveller went forth, and for days he wandered through the desert and found no town, no village, no oasis, no tree and no water, and no living thing. And he went on, day after day, for ten days. And after he had gone on for ten days, he espied one tree in the distance. And he said to himself, "Perhaps beneath that tree there may be water." When he came up to it he found that it stood by a living spring. And when he saw that it was a beautiful tree, with ripe fruit upon it, and beautiful leafage, he rested and cooled himself beneath its shade and ate of its fruits, and drank of the water from the fountain. And it was very pleasant to him, and his soul was refreshed.

When he arose to go on his way, he said:

"Oh tree, how can I bless thee, and what can I say unto thee? If I say, may thy wood be finely grown, it is so already; if I pray that thy shade may be pleasant, it is so already; that thy foliage may be beautiful, it is already beautiful; that thy

p. 27

fruit may be sweet, behold it is already sweet; if I would pray for thee that a spring may bubble up beneath thy roots to water thee, behold the spring is already there, beneath thy roots. If I would say, mayest thou stand in a lovely place, behold thou dost already stand in a lovely place. What blessing, then, is there left for me to wish thee? Only that every tree that is planted from thee may be like thee."

Thus, when the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, ten generations came and went and none of them was good, and none of them produced a perfectly righteous man, and in the tenth generation, God saw Abraham and tried him, and it was found that his righteousness had deep roots, watered by a perennial spring of faith. He withstood temptation and persecution for the sanctification of the name of the One true God. He fed and sustained passers-by, and helped the penitent. He brought some of his fellow-creatures under the wings of the Divine Presence, and made known the glory of God in the world.

Then said the Holy One, "What blessing is there left that I can give thee, Abraham? If I would say, thou shalt be a righteous man before Me, or that Sarah thy wife shall be a righteous woman before Me, or that all the children of thine house shall be righteous in My sight, behold all this is so already! I will bless thee in that all those destined to be of thy seed shall be like thee, a blessing to all the world, and as the stars of heaven spread light for all, so shall thy seed, who shall be like the stars for multitude.

Barmidbar Rabbah, Chap. II.

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