A Rabbi Introduces Talmudic Argument to a Country-Fellow

One day a country-fellow came to his Rabbi. “Rabbi,” he said, in the tongue-tied fashion of the unlettered in the presence of the learned, “for a long time I have been hearing of Talmud.  It puzzles me not to know what Talmud is.  Please teach me Talmud.”"Talmud?” the Rabbi smiled tolerantly, as one does to a child. “You’ll never understand Talmud; you’re a peasant.”

“Oh, Rabbi, you must teach me,” the fellow insisted. “I’ve never asked you for a favor.  This time I ask.  Please teach me, what is Talmud.”

“Very well,” said the Rabbi, “listen carefully.  If two burglars enter a house by way of the chimney, and find themselves in the living room, one with a dirty face and one with a clean face, which one will wash?”

The peasant thought for a while and said, “Naturally, the one with the dirty face.”

“You see,” said the Rabbi, “I told you a farmer couldn’t master Talmud.  The one with the clean face looked at the one with the dirty face and, assuming his own face was also dirty, of course, he washed it, while the one with the dirty face, observing the clean face of his colleague, naturally assumed his own was clean, and did not wash it.”

Again the peasant reflected.  Then, his face brightening, said, “Thank you, Rabbi, thank you.  Now I understand Talmud.”

“See,” said the Rabbi wearily.  “It is just as I said.  You are a peasant! And who but a peasant would think for a moment that when two burglars enter a house by way of the chimney, only one will have a dirty face?”

Nathan Ausubel, A Treasury of Jewish Folklore (New York: Crown Publisher, 1975), 3-4.