Zecharias Frankel - Introduction To Mishnah

Introduction To Mishnah

Frankel's duties as professor of Talmudic literature showed him the necessity of modern scientific text-books upon rabbinical literature and archeology. To this necessity are due his introduction to the Mishnah, "Darke ha-Mishnah" (Leipzig, 1859), with a supplement and index under the title "Tosafot u-Mafteah; le-Sefer Darke ha-Mishnah" (1867).

Of the storm which this book created mention has been made already. It is one of the most valuable attempts at a systematized exposition of the history of early rabbinical literature and theology, and has largely inspired subsequent works of that kind, as those of Jacob Brüll and Isaac H. Weiss. His outline of rabbinical marriage law, "Grundlinien des Mosaisch-Talmudischen Eherechts" (Breslau, 1860), was likewise meant to serve as a text-book on that subject, as was also his attempt at a history of the post-Talmudic literature of casuistry, "Entwurf einer Geschichte der Literatur der Nachtalmudischen Responsen" (Breslau, 1865), which, however, is the weakest of his works.

Frankel's studies in the history of Talmudic literature had convinced him that the neglect of the Jerusalem Talmud was a serious drawback in the critical investigation of the development of Talmudic law. To this field he determined to devote the remainder of his life. In 1870 he published his introduction to the Jerusalem Talmud under the title "Mebo ha-Yerushalmi" (Breslau). He afterward began a critical edition of the Jerusalem Talmud, with a commentary, but only three treatises had appeared, Berakot and Peah (Vienna, 1874) and Demai (Breslau, 1875), when his death intervened.

He wrote frequently for the two magazines which he edited, the Zeitschrift für die Religiösen Interessen des Judenthums (Leipzig, 1844–46), and the Monatsschrift für die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, begun in 1851, and which he edited until 1868, when Grätz succeeded him as editor. Though a son of the rationalistic era which produced two of its most intense partisans, Peter Beer and Herz Homberg in his native city, Frankel developed, partly through opposition to shallow rationalism and partly through the romantic environments of the ancient city of Prague, that love and sympathy for the past that made him the typical expounder of the historical school which was known as the "Breslau school." His marriage with Rachel Meyer was childless.