the feet of the Rabbi." The master commanded Baruch to read out the Friday's unfinished extract. It was the place in the Talmud tractate, Kiduschin, folio 22. Baruch read:
"It is written, Deuteronomy xxi. 10: 'When thou goest forth to war with thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, that thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her that thou wouldst have her to thy wife: . . . This indulgence is granted because the Israelites had not abstained therefrom; and it is better that they should do that which is permitted than that they should do that which is forbidden.'"
Baruch had hardly read for a few minutes, when a violent dispute arose between him and Chisdai. The great schoolman, Rabbi Samuel Edels, had added a problem to this proposition, and ended with the words, "a solution is to be found for this."
Chisdai thought he had discovered it, but one of the youngest scholars at the lower end of the table made him in a few words the butt of universal ridicule. Chisdai sprang up, and would have stormed the saucy youth into silence, but Baruch stood up and ranged himself on the side of the boy. Chisdai turned to the adversary whom he deemed his equal; he drew himself up and stretched out his bedaubed fingers till they stood
