Berachoth fol. 33, col. 1.

Here we have a clear law, drawn from Scripture, forbidding, or at any rate denying, mercy to the ignorant.  The words of Rabbi (the Holy) are a practical commentary on the text worth quoting, “Woe is unto me because I have given my morsel to an ignorant one.” (Bava Bathra, fol. 8, col. 1.)

But who is the ignorant one from whom this mercy is to be withheld?  Here the doctors disagree.  He, says Rabbi Eliezer, who does not read the Shema, “Hear, O Israel,” etc., both morning and evening.  According to Rabbi Yehudah, he that does not put on phylacteries is an ignorant one.  Rabbi Azai affirms that he who wears no fringes to his garment is an ignorant one, etc.  Others again say he who even reads the Bible and the Mishna but does not serve the disciples of the wise, is an ignorant one.  Rabbi Huna winds up with the words “the law is as the others have said,” and so leaves the difficulty where he finds it. (Berachoth, fol. 47, col. 2.)

Of him “who transgresses the words of the wise, which he is commanded to obey,” it is written, “He is guilty of death and has forfeited his life.” (Berachoth, fol. 4, col. 2, and Yevamoth, fol. 20, col. 1.) Whoso, therefore, shows mercy to him contradicts the purpose and incurs the displeasure of God.  It was in application of this principle, literally interpreted, that the wise should hold no parley with the ignorant, which led the Jews to condemn the contrary procedure of Jesus Christ.

It was this prohibition to show mercy to the ignorant, together with the solemn threatenings directed against those who neglected the study of the law, that worked such a wonderful revolution in Hezekiah’s time; for it is said that then “they searched from Dan to Beersheba, and did not find an ignorant one.” (Sanhedrin, fol. 94, col. 2.)

When the Holy One—­blessed be He!—­remembers that His children are in trouble among the nations of the world, He drops two tears into the great ocean, the noise of which startles the world from one end to the other, and causes the earth to quake.

Berachoth, fol. 59, col. 1.

We read in the Talmud that a Gentile once came to Shamai and said, “How many laws have you?” Shamai replied, “We have two, the written law and the oral law.”  To which the Gentile made answer, “When you speak of the written law, I believe you, but in your oral law I have no faith.  Nevertheless, you may make me a proselyte on condition that you teach me the written law only.”  Upon this Shamai rated him sharply, and sent him away with indignant abuse.  When, however, this Gentile came with the same object, and proposed the same terms to Hillel, the latter proceeded at once to proselytize him, and on the first day taught him Aleph, Beth, Gemel, Daleth.  On the morrow Hillel reversed the order of these letters, upon which the proselyte remonstrated and said, “But thou didst not teach me so yesterday.”  “True,” said Hillel, “but thou didst trust me in what I taught thee then; why, then, dost thou not trust me now in what I tell thee respecting the oral law?”