Having decided to stray into the by-paths, it sometimes became necessary to resist the temptation to turn to the main road. This necessity accounts for another fact. Fewer books are treated of the older period. For the older period is dominated by Bible and Talmud, and these were _ex hypothesi_ outside the range. So, too, the scholastic masterpieces and the greater products of mysticism and law are passed over. Yet, though the writer did not consciously start with such a design, it will be seen that accidentally a great fact or two betray themselves. One is that, in the Jewish variety, technical learning can never be wholly dissociated from what we more commonly name literature. Some books which, at first sight, are merely the expression of scholarly specialism are seen, on investigation, to belong to culture in the æsthetic no less than in the rational or legal sense. Again, there becomes apparent the vital truth that Jewish thought, dependent as it always has been on environment, is also independent. For we see how Jews in the midst of Hellenistic absolutism remained pragmatical, how under the medieval devotion to a stock-taking of the past Jews were to a certain extent creative, and how the modernist tendency to disintegration was resisted by an impulse towards constructiveness. But, to repeat what has already been indicated, the author had no such grave intentions as these. Many of the papers appeared in a popular weekly, the London _Jewish World_, the editor of which kindly conceded to the writer the privilege of collecting them into a book. Some, however, were specially written for this volume. All have been considerably revised, in the effort to make them more worthy of the reader’s attention. The writer feels that this effort, despite the valuable help rendered by Dr. Halper while the proofs were under correction, has been imperfectly successful. The papers can have little in them to deserve attention. Nevertheless there is this to be urged. Some of the topics raised are apt to be ignored. Yet it is not only from the outstanding masterpieces of literature that we may learn wisdom and derive pleasure. “A small talent,” said Joubert, “if it keeps within its limits and rightly fulfils its task, may reach the goal just as well as a greater one.” This remark may be applied to what may seem to many the minor products of genius or talent. Hence, be they termed minor or major, the books discussed in this volume were worthy of consideration. Beyond doubt most of them belong to the category of the significant and some of them even attain the rank of the epoch-making. And so, without further preface, these papers are offered to those familiar as well as to those unfamiliar with the works themselves. For to both classes may be applied the Latin poet’s invocation: “Now learn ye to love that loved never; and ye that have loved, love anew.” CONTENTS