Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala by Various
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page 18 of 575 (03%)
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He who forgets one thing that he has learned breaks a negative commandment; for it is written (Deut. iv. 9), "Take heed to thyself ... lest thou forget the things." _Menachoth_, fol. 99, col. 2. A proselyte who has taken it upon himself to observe the law, but is suspected of neglecting one point, is to be suspected of being guilty of neglecting the whole law, and therefore regarded as an apostate Israelite, and to be punished accordingly. _Bechoroth_, fol. 30, col. 2. It is written (Gen. xxviii. ii), "And he took from the stones of the place;" and again it is written (ver. 18), "And he took the stone." Rabbi Isaac says this teaches that all these stones gathered themselves together into one place, as if each were eager that the saint should lay his head upon it. It happened, as the Rabbis tell us, that all the stones were swallowed up by one another, and thus merged into one stone. _Chullin_, fol. 91, col. 2. Though the Midrash and two of the Targums, that of Jonathan and the Yerushalmi, tell the same fanciful story about these stones, Aben Ezra and R. Shemuel ben Meir among others adopt the opposite and common-sense interpretation which assigns to the word in Gen. xxviii. ii, no such occult meaning. The psalms commencing "Blessed is the man" and "Why do the heathen rage" |
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