There are six sorts of tears, three good and three bad:—Those caused by smoke, or grief, or constipation are bad; and those caused by fragrant spices, laughter, and aromatic herbs are good.
Ibid., fol. 151, col. 2; fol. 152, col. 1.
Six things are said respecting the illiterate:—No testimony is to be borne to them, none is to be accepted from them; no secret is to be disclosed to them; they are not to be appointed guardians over orphans, nor keepers of the charity-box, and there should be no fellowship with them when on a journey. Some say also no public notice is to be given of their lost property.
P'sachim, fol. 49, col. 2.
The expression here rendered "illiterate" means literally "people of the land," and was, there is reason to believe, originally applied to the primitive inhabitants of Canaan, traces of whom may still be found among the fellahin of Syria. They appear, like the aboriginal races in many countries of Christendom in relation to Christianity, to have remained generation after generation obdurately inaccessible to Jewish ideas, and so to have given name to the ignorant and untaught generally. This circumstance may account for the harshness of some of the quotations which are appended in reference to them.
He who aspires to be a fellow of the learned must not sell fruit, either green or dry, to an illiterate man, nor may he buy fresh fruit of him. He must not be the guest of an ignorant man, nor receive such an one as his guest.
Demai, chap. 2, mish. 2.
Our Rabbis teach, Let a man sell all that he has and marry the daughter of a learned man. If he cannot find the daughter of a learned man, let him marry the daughter of one of the great men of his day. If he does not find such a one, let him marry the daughter of one of the heads of the congregation, or, failing this, the daughter of a charity collector, or even the daughter of a schoolmaster; but let him not marry the daughter of an illiterate man, for the unlearned are an abomination, as also their wives and their daughters.
P'sachim, fol. 49, col. 2.