Another favorite class of ethical books consisted of compilations made direct from the Talmud and the Midrash.  The oldest and most prized of these was Isaac Aboab’s “Lamp of Light” (Menorath ha-Maor).  It was an admirably written book, clearly arranged, and full to the brim of ethical gems.  Aboab’s work was written between 1310 and 1320.  It is arranged according to subjects, differing in this respect from another very popular compilation, Jacob Ibn Chabib’s “Eye of Jacob” (En Yaakob), which was completed in the sixteenth century.  In this, the Hagadic passages of the Talmud are extracted without arrangement, the order of the Talmud itself being retained.  The “Eye of Jacob” was an extremely popular work.

Of the purely devotional literature of Judaism, it is impossible to speak here.  One other ethical book must be here noticed, for it has attained wide and deserved popularity.  This is the “Path of the Upright” (Messilath Yesharim) by Moses Chayim Luzzatto, of whom more will be said in a later chapter.  But a little more space must be here devoted to a species of ethical tract which was peculiar to Jewish moralists.  These tracts were what are known as Ethical Wills.

These Ethical Wills (Zevaoth) contained the express directions of fathers to their children or of aged teachers to their disciples.  They were for the most part written calmly in old age, but not immediately before the writers’ death.  Some of them were very carefully composed, and amount to formal ethical treatises.  But in the main they are charmingly natural and unaffected.  They were intended for the absolutely private use of children and relatives, or of some beloved pupil who held the dearest place in his master’s regard.  They were not designed for publication, and thus, as the writer had no reason to expect that his words would pass beyond a limited circle, the Ethical Will is a clear revelation of his innermost feelings and ideals.  Intellectually some of these Ethical Wills are poor; morally, however, the general level is very high.

Addresses of parents to their children occur in the Bible, the Apocrypha, and the Rabbinical literature.  But the earliest extant Ethical Will written as an independent document is that of Eleazar, the son of Isaac of Worms (about 1050), who must not be confused with the author of the Rokeach.  The eleventh and twelfth centuries supply few examples of the Ethical Will, but from the thirteenth century onwards there is a plentiful array of them.  “Think not of evil,” says Eleazar of Worms, “for evil thinking leads to evil doing....  Purify thy body, the dwelling-place of thy soul....  Give of all thy food a portion to God.  Let God’s portion be the best, and give it to the poor.”  The will of the translator Judah Ibn Tibbon (about 1190) contains at least one passage worthy of Ruskin:  “Avoid bad society, make thy books thy companions, let thy book-cases and shelves be thy gardens and