Respect of the Law
Excerpt
When a Jewish boy was three years old he was given the tasseled garment directed by the Law (Numb. 15:38–41; Deut. 22:12). At five he usually began to learn portions of the Law, under his mother’s direction; these were passages written on scrolls, such as the shema or creed of Deut. 6:4, the Hallel Psalms (Ps. 114, 118, 136). When the boy was thirteen years old he wore, for the first time, the phylacteries, which the Jew always put on at the recital of the daily prayer. In the well-known and most ancient ‘Maxims of the Fathers’ (‘Pirke Avoth’), we read that, at the age of ten, a boy was to commence the study of the Mishna (the Mishna was a compilation of traditional interpretations of the Law); at eighteen he was to be instructed in the Gemara (the Gemara was a vast collection of interpretations of the Mishna. The Mishna and Gemara together make up the Talmud. The Mishna may roughly be termed the text, the Gemara the commentary, of the Talmud).
Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed. St. Luke. Vol. 1. London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909. Print. The Pulpit Commentary.
Comments