Libbre David 37

Talmud Quotes / By

No, There's No Secret Conspiracy To Hide The Talmud from Non-Jews.

The Quote

“If a Jew should wish to explain some of the Rabbinic literature, he must only provide a false explanation. One who transgresses this commandment will be put to death. Providing information about our attitude toward the gentile religion would be equivalent to killing all the Jews, for if the gentiles would know what we teach about them, they would kill us.”

Libbre David 37

The Reality

This quote – and indeed the entire book – are made up out of whole cloth.  

There is no book called “Libbre David.”  It just does not exist.  “Libbre” is not even a word in Hebrew — it most likely has Latin origins and is meant to be “Books of David.”  However, no such book exists.   The only place one finds it is in lists of fake “Talmud quotes” on the Internet.  

To verify this, one simply needs to find any list of books of the Talmud.  You could find it on Wikipedia or any of numerous other sites.  In no case will you find a book called “Libbre David” (or anything similar).

 There are those who want to claim that the title of this book is actually “Divrei David,” authored by Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra (the Radbaz).  However, when one looks up chapter 37 of Divrei David, one finds a question of Jewish marriage law concerning whether or not a man can use an item that a woman needs for recovery from illness for betrothal when that item is also forbidden for use.  Nothing even remotely like the quote above appears there.  You can read it for yourself (the link takes you directly to 37, which is on the bottom of the page) at the link below:

https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=20431&st=&pgnum=40

Summary:

It is a complete and utter fake.  The quote (and book) do not exist.