“There is nothing that is hidden or obscure in Judaism. Anyone who wishes to obtain a clear view of Jewish thinking and Jewish life can do so without difficulty. Jewish scriptures are not mysterious hieroglyphics; the Jewish Bible is available and accessible to every man, woman and child… Yet almost no subject of scholarly research is less understood and more misinterpreted than Jewish life and thought.
From Tacitus — whose writings usually reflect a clear-thinking, razor-sharp mind but who maintains that Jews worship donkey heads — down to the most recent ‘experts’ on Judaism, almost everything that is said and written about things Jewish amounts to pure caricature.”
Hirsch, Collected Writings, Vol. VIII, 249
Rabbi Hirsch then tries to answer from Berachos 17a, ראשית חכמה יראת ה’ שכל טוב לכל עושיהם לעושים לא נאמר אלא לעושיהם לעושים לשמה ולא לעושים שלא לשמה.
But I don’t see the difficulty at all. We should put more faith in Tacitus’ razor-sharp mind!
Shabbos 112b:
קרי עליה לית דין בר אינש איכא דאמרי כגון דין בר אינש אמר רבי זירא אמר רבא בר זימונא אם ראשונים בני מלאכים אנו בני אנשים ואם ראשונים בני אנשים אנו כחמורים ולא כחמורו של רבי חנינא בן דוסא ושל רבי פנחס בן יאיר אלא כשאר חמורים.
Soncino:
[Thereupon] he [Hezekiah] exclaimed concerning him, This one is not the son of man! Others say, Such a one is indeed the son of man! R. Zera said in Raba b. Zimuna’s name: If the earlier [scholars] were sons of angels, we are sons of men; and if the earlier [scholars] were sons of men, we are like asses, and not [even] like asses of R. Hanina b. Dosa and R. Phinehas b. Jair, but like other asses.
And they had “Luktemin”, too (Shabbos 66)…
Sarcasm.