Page:Chapters on Jewish literature (IA chaptersonjewish00abra).pdf/166

162 to the Tossafists—did not blind him to its defects. “They try to force an elephant through the eye of a needle,” he sarcastically said of some of the French casuists. Nachmanides thus possessed some of the independence characteristic of the Spanish Jews. He also shared the poetic spirit of Spain, and his hymn for the Day of Atonement is one of the finest products of the new-Hebrew musc. The last stanzas run thus:

Everything that Nachmanides wrote is warm with tender love. He was an enthu-