it is the arena for the debating and investigating of
subjects growing out of the Mishna, or suggested by a literature
developed along with the Talmudic literature. These discussions,
debates, and investigations are the opinions and arguments of the
different schools, holding opposite views, developed with rare acumen
and scholastic subtlety, and finally harmonized in the solution reached.
The one firm and impregnable rock supporting the gigantic structure of
the Talmud is the word of the Bible, held sacred and inviolable.

The best translations--single treatises have been put into modern
languages--fail to convey an adequate idea of the discussions and method
that evolved the Halacha. It is easier to give an approximately true
presentation of the rabbinical system of practical morality as gleaned
from the Haggada. It must, of course, be borne in mind that Halacha and
Haggada are not separate works; they are two fibres of the same thread.
"The whole of the Haggadistic literature--the hitherto unappreciated
archives of language, history, archaeology, religion, poetry, and
science--with but slight reservations may be called a national
literature, containing as it does the aggregate of the views and
opinions of thousands of thinkers belonging to widely separated
generations. Largely, of course, these views and opinions are peculiar
to the individuals holding them or to their time"; still, every
Haggadistic expression, in a general way, illustrates some fundamental,
national law, based upon the national religion and the national
history.[15] Through the Haggada we are vouchsafed a glance into a
mysterious world, which mayhap has hitherto repelled us as strange and
grewsome. Its poesy reveals vistas of gleaming beauty and light,
luxuriant growth and exuberant life, while familiar melodies caress our
ears.

The Haggada conveys its poetic message in the garb of allegory song, and
chiefly epigrammatic saying. Form is disregarded; the spirit is
all-important, and suffices to cover up every fault of form. The Talmud,
of course, does not yield a complete system of ethics, but its practical
philosophy consists of doctrines that underlie a moral life. The
injustice of the abuse heaped upon it would become apparent to its
harshest critics from a few of its maxims and rules of conduct, such as
the following: Be of them that are persecuted, not of the
persecutors.--Be the cursed, not he that curses.--They that are
persecuted, and do