Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and Kabbala Part 28

At thirteen years of age, a boy becomes bound to observe the (613) precepts of the law.

_Avoth_, chap. 5.

Rabbi Ishmael says the law is to be expounded according to thirteen logical rules.

_Chullin_, fol. 63, col. 1.

The thirteen rules of Rabbi Ishmael above referred to are not to be found together in any part of the Talmud, but they are collected for repet.i.tion in the Liturgy, and are as follows:--

1. Inference is valid from minor to major.

2. From similar phraseology.

3. From the gist or main point of one text to that of other pa.s.sages.

4. Of general and particular.

5. Of particular and general.

6. From a general, or a particular and a general, the ruling both of the former and the latter is to be according to the middle term, i.e., the one which is particularized.

7. From a general text that requires a particular instance, and _vice versa_.

8. When a particular rule is laid down for something which has already been included in a general law, the rule is to apply to all.

9. When a general rule has an exception, the exception mitigates and does not aggravate the rule.

10. When a general rule has an exception not according therewith, the exception both mitigates and aggravates.

11. When an exception to a general rule is made to substantiate extraneous matter, that matter cannot be cla.s.sed under the said general rule, unless the Scripture expressly says so.

12. The ruling is to be according to the context, or to the general drift of the argument.

13. When two texts are contradictory, a third is to be sought that reconciles them.

Rabbi Akiva was forty years of age when he began to study, and after thirteen years of study he began publicly to teach.

_Avoth d'Rab. Nathan._

Thirteen treasurers and seven directors were appointed to serve in the Temple. (More there might be, never less.)

_Tamid_, fol. 27, col. 1.

Thirteen points of law regulate the decisions that require to be made relative to the carca.s.s of a clean bird.

_Taharoth_, chap. i, mish. 1.

A man must partake of fourteen meals in the booth during the Feast of Tabernacles.

_Succah_, fol. 27, col. 1.

Traditional chronology records that the Israelites killed the Paschal lamb on the fourteenth day of Nisan, the month on which they came out of Egypt. They came out on the fifteenth; that day was a Friday.

_Shabbath_, fol. 88, col. 1.

The fifteen steps were according to the number of the Songs of Degrees in the Psalms. It is related that whosoever has not seen the joy at the annual ceremony of the water-drawing, has not seen rejoicing in his life. At the conclusion of the first part of the Feast of Tabernacles, the Priests and Levites descended into the women's ante-court, where they made great preparations (such as erecting temporary double galleries, the uppermost for women, and those under for men). There were golden candelabra there, each having four golden bowls on the top, four ladders reaching to them, and four of the young priests with cruses of oil ready to supply them, each cruse holding one hundred and twenty logs of oil. The lamp-wicks were made of the worn-out drawers and girdles of the priests. There was not a court in all Jerusalem that was not lit up by the illumination of the "water-drawing." Holy men, and men of dignity, with flaming torches in their hands, danced before the people, rehearsing songs and singing praises. The Levites, with harps, lutes, cymbals, trumpets, and innumerable musical instruments, were stationed on the fifteen steps which led from the ante-court of Israel to the women's court; the Levites stood upon the steps and played and sang. Two priests stood at the upper gate which led from the ante-court for Israel to that for the women, each provided with a trumpet, and as soon as the c.o.c.k crew they blew one simple blast, then a compound or fragmentary one, and then a modulated or shouting blast. This was the preconcerted signal for the drawing of the water. As soon as they reached the tenth step, they blew again three blasts as before. When they came to the ante-court for women, they blew another three blasts, and after that they continued blowing till they came to the east gate. When they arrived at the east gate, they turned their faces westward (i.e., toward the Temple), and said, "Our fathers, who were in this place, turned their backs toward the Temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the East, for they worshiped the sun in the East; but we turn our eyes to G.o.d!" Rabbi Yehudah says, "These words were repeated, echoing, 'We are for G.o.d, and unto G.o.d are our eyes directed!'"

_Succah_, fol. 51, col. 1, 2.

Rabbon Shimon ben Gamliel has said there were no such gala-days for Israel as the fifteenth of Ab and the Day of Atonement, when the young maidens of Jerusalem used to resort to the vineyard all robed in white garments, that were required to be borrowed, lest those should feel humiliated who had none of their own. There they danced gleefully, calling to the lookers-on and saying, "Young men, have a care; the choice you now make may have consequences."

_Taanith_, fol. 26, col. 2.

Rabbi Elazar the Great said, "From the fifteenth of Ab the influence of the sun declines, and from that day they leave off cutting wood for the altar fire, because it could not be properly dried (and green wood might harbor vermin, which would make it unfit for use)."

_Taanith_, fol. 31, col. 1.

He who eats turnips to beef, and sleeps out in the open air during the night of the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the months of summer (that is, when the moon is full), will most likely bring on an ague fever.

_Gittin_, fol. 70, col. 1.

A lad should, at the age of fifteen, begin to apply himself to the Gemara.

_Avoth_, chap. 5.

"So I bought her to me for fifteen" (Hosea iii. 2), that is, on the fifteenth day of Nisan, when Israel was redeemed from the bondage of Egypt. "Silver;" this refers to the righteous. "An homer and a half-homer;" these equal forty-five measures, and are the forty-five righteous men for whose sake the world is preserved. I don't know whether there are thirty here (that is, in Babylon), and fifteen in the land of Israel, or _vice versa_; as it is said (Zech. xi. 13), "I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord." It stands to reason that there are thirty in the land of Israel, and, therefore, fifteen here. Abaii says that the greater part are to be found under the gable end of the synagogue. Rav Yehudah says the reference is to the thirty righteous men always found among the nations of the world for whose sake they are preserved (but see No. 103 _infra_). Ulla says it refers to the thirty precepts received by the nations of the world, of which, however, they keep three only; i.e. they do not enter into formal marriage-contracts with men; they do not expose for sale the bodies of such animals as have died from natural causes; and they have regard for the law.

_Chullin_, fol. 92, col. 1.

Rabbi Cheyah bar Abba says, "I once visited a house-holder at Ludkia, and they placed before him a golden table so loaded with silver plate, basins, cups, bottles and gla.s.ses, besides all sorts of dishes, delicacies, and spices, that it took sixteen men to carry it. When they set the table in its place they said (Ps. xxiv. 1), 'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,' and upon removing it, they said (Ps.

cxv. 16), 'The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's, but the earth hath He given to the children of men.' I said, 'Son, how hast thou come to deserve all this?' 'I was,' replied he, 'a butcher by trade, and I always set apart for the Sabbath the best of the cattle.' 'How happy art thou,' I remarked (adds Rabbi Cheyah), 'to have merited such a reward, and blessed be G.o.d who has thus rewarded thee.'"

_Shabbath_, fol. 119, col. 1.

Rash Lakish said, "I have seen the flow of milk and honey at Tzipori; it was sixteen miles by sixteen miles."

_Meggillah_, fol. 6, col. 1.

Rashi explains the above as follows:--The goats fed upon figs from which honey distilled, and this mingled with the milk which dropped from the goats as they walked along. On the spot arose a lake which covered an area of sixteen miles square. (See also Kethuboth, fol. iii, col. 2.)

A cedar tree once fell down in our place, the trunk of which was so wide that sixteen wagons were drawn abreast upon it.

_Bechoroth_, fol. 57, col. 2.

Who can estimate the loss the world sustains in its ignorance of the trees of the Talmud? What a sapling in comparison with this giant cedar of Lebanon must the far-famed Mammoth tree have been which was lately cut down in California, and was the largest known to the present generation!

Rabbi Yochanan plaintively records, "I remember the time when a young man and a young woman sixteen or seventeen years of age could walk together in the streets and no harm came of it."

_Bava Bathra_, fol. 91, col. 2.