The Talmud is among the great books of wisdom--like the Bible, the Quran & the Bhagavad Gita--whose citation gives a speaker instant credibility. Also like the Bible, the Quran & the Bhagavad Gita, the Talmud is a powerful source of allusion in large part even tho so few people have really read it. People don't read the Talmud because they think it's inaccessible--the sprawling collection of rabbinic writings is added to in each generation, & its significance is nothing less than the summary of Judaism. The best guide to the Talmud's labyrinthine form is Abraham Cohen's Everyman's Talmud: The Major Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages--a monumental work of scholarly summary that describes all the basic doctrines of Judaism. Everyman's Talmud includes concise chapters on everything from sin to superstitions to a Jew's duty to animals. You probably won't be able to read it straight thru--doctrine, even elegantly distilled, is hard to take in big doses--but you'll be led back to it again & again, by questions that arise in daily life, at dinner parties, & from the pages of the daily newspaper.--Michael Joseph Gross (edited)