'sesses them—are cradled to sleep in the innermost recesss of her being—nothing in her life is calculated to arouse them. Her intellect receives no other development than that which is spontaneous. Little or nothing is done to assist Nature in the expansion of her faculties. Rather, care was taken no superfluous knowledge reach her. A hasty passage in the Talmud to the effect that “to impart knowledge to one’s daughter is to teach her to be blasphemous,” was taken in all seriousness, and became an established rule. It was taken for granted that woman and learning are irreconcilable. Here and there an instant proved the fallacy and groundlessness of the theory. But nevertheless a prejudice was harboured against the woman who betrayed any taste for a morsel of the toothsome portion of knowledge which is served to the men. Such a hunger in a woman was deemed immoderate gluttony. Everything was done to keep the woman from peeping athwart the fence which divided life from learning. The fence was built so high and so many thorns and thistles surrounded it, that rarely, if ever, did a woman venture to force her way through to the light, a glimpse of which caught from beyond. Nearly always the women were satisfied to remain on the outside of the fence. The task which they are to perform are to be in the twilight, not in the full glare of the sun. But all this does not mean that the woman of this particular Ghetto type were confined to complete intellectual darkness. A special course of instruction was mapped out for them—indeed, a whole literature distinctly intended for their exclusive use, was created; and it was thought imperative that they should absorb the gist of this literature, and should subscribe to its sentiments as fully as that required. The women were not initiated into this litera-
ture for any idle reason, certainly not for the sake of developing a taste for knowledge, but for the more practical reason of assisting them to understand the duties devolving upon them as Jewesses. Those duties are only a little lighter than the ones which are incumbent upon the men. But whilst the men are left to struggle with the yeas and nays, and the Shaaloth Uteshuvoth of controversial law—to the women it is handed ready made, stereotyped and modified. The Tarjag mitzvahs, from none of which the male is excused, have been reduced and simplified, indeed, feminized for the sake of the women. The codifiers have reckoned with the limitations of women and have eased the path of life for her as far as was permissible. Her attendance at public worships is not obligatory, from the wearing of phylacteries and arba Kanfoth she is wholly exempt. The study of the Law is not assigned to her, but nevertheless, as said before, she was introduced to it through a side door, so to speak. Enough if she tarry in the ante-chamber. There is no need for her to penetrate into the vast secret chambers which stretch the Torah in long, labyrinthian mazes. Like the child, whose medicine we flavor with a bit of sugar before we administer a dose of it, so, too, must the Torah be simplified and diluted before it can be made palatable to the woman.
The Tzenno Urenno, or as it is popularly known, the Taitsch Chumesh, is an example of the Torah diluted. It, the Tzenno Urenno, forms the neucleus of the not too vast number of works intended for the use of the women in the Ghetto. It is the spiritual fountain which nourishes the life of the feminine soul. During the six days of toil and care the woman in the Ghetto hoodwinks her soul into silence, it is too troublesome a