_Bava Metzia_, fol. 86, col. 1.
The above seems to be a Rabbinical satire on the Talmud itself
although the orthodox Jews believe that every word in it is
historically true. Well, perhaps it is so; and we outsiders are
ignorant, and without the means of judging.
Now we know what God does during the day, but how does He occupy Himself
in the night-time? We may say He does the same as at day-time; or that
during the night He rides on a swift cherub over eighteen thousand
worlds; as it is said (Ps. lxviii. 17), "The chariots of God are twenty
thousand," less two thousand Shinan; read not Shinan but She-einan,
i.e., two thousand less than twenty thousand, therefore eighteen
thousand.
_Avodah Zarah_, fol. 3. col. 2.
Prince Contrukos asked Rabbon Yochanan ben Zacchai how, when the
detailed enumeration of the Levites amounted to twenty-two thousand
three hundred (the Gershonites, 7500; the Kohathites, 8600; the
Merarites, 6200, making in all 22,300), the sum total given is only
twenty-two thousand, omitting the three hundred. "Was Moses, your
Rabbi," he asked, "a cheat or a bad calculator?" He answered, "They were
first-borns, and therefore could not be substitutes for the first-born
of Israel."
_Bechoroth_, fol.
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