Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri says:--"The Holy One--blessed be He!--took Shem and separated him to be a priest to Himself, that he might serve before Him. He also caused His Shechinah to rest with him, and called his name Melchizedek, priest of the Most High and king of Salem. His brother Japheth even studied the law in his school, until Abraham came and also learned the law in the school of Shem, where God Himself instructed Abraham, so that all else he had learned from the lips of man was forgotten. Then came Abraham and prayed to God that His Shechinah might ever rest in the house of Shem, which also was promised to him; as it is said (Ps. ex. 4), 'Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.'" _Avodath Hakkodesh_, part 3, chap. 20. Wherever Jacob resided he studied the law as his fathers did. How is this, seeing the law had not yet been given, it is nevertheless written of Abraham (Gen. xxvi. 5), "And he kept my charge"? Whence then did Abraham learn the law? Rabbi Shimon says his reins (literally kidneys) were made like two water-jars, from which the law flowed forth. Where do we learn that it was so? From what is said in Ps. xvi. 7, "My reins also instruct me in the night season." _Bereshith Rabba_, chap. 95. The masters of the Kabbalah, of blessed memory, say that Abraham's Rabbi, i.e., teacher, was the angel Zadkiel. _Rabbi Menachem's comment on the Pent._, Exod. iii. 5. Adam's book, which contained celestial mysteries and holy wisdom, came down as an heirloom into the hands of Abraham, and he by means of it was able to see the glory of his Lord. _Zohar Parashah Bereshith._ Abraham was the author of a treatise on the subject of different kinds of witchcraft and its unholy workings and fruits, as also of the Book of Creation, through holy names (by means of which, namely, anything could be created). _Nishmath Chayim_, chap. 29. The whole world once believed that the souls of men were perishable, and that man had no pre-eminence above a beast, till Abraham came and preached the doctrine of immortality and transmigration. Ibid., fol. 171, col. 1. A good son delivers his father from the punishment of hell, for thus we find that Abraham our father delivered Terah, as it is said in Gen. xv. 15, "And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace." This implies that God had communicated to him the tidings that his father had a portion in the world to come and was now "in peace" there. _Pesikta Zotarta_, fol. 3, col. 2. Before Abraham was circumcised God spake to him in the Chaldee language, that the angels should not understand it. (This is proved from Gen. xv. 1.) _Yalkut Chadash_, fol. 117.