The author desires to express his appreciation of the
work of the translator, whose collaboration was all the
more valuable as the revision of the book had to be
made, after an interval of almost two years, under most
unfavorable conditions, aggravated by the distance be-
tween the writer and the place of publication. The
readers will themselves judge of the skill with which
the translator has acquitted herself of her task, and
the author gladly leaves to her the honor and the
responsibility for the translation.

But how can I express all I owe to M. Israël Lé?vi, my
honored master? Without him this work would never
have been begun, without him I should never have dared
carry it to completion. I have contracted a debt toward
him which grows from day to day, and I discharge but
the smallest portion of it by dedicating this volume to
the memory of his never-to-be-forgotten father-in-law,
the Grand-Rabbin Zadoc-Kahn. M. Zadoc-Kahn made
a name for himself in Jewish letters by his Etudes sur le
livre de Joseph le Zélateur, dealing with one of the
most curious domains of that literature in which Rashi
was the foremost representative. One of his last public
acts was the appeal which he issued on the occasion of
the Rashi centenary. It is not a slight satisfaction to
me to know that these pages passed under his eyes in
manuscript.

M. LIBER

CHÂLONS-SUR-MARNE, March, 1906

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