This duty, as Rashi tells us, is based upon Deut. x. 12, altering the word what into a hundred, by the addition of a letter. This is what the so-called Pagan Goethe, intent on self-culture as the first if not the final duty of man, makes Serlo in his "Meister" lay down as a rule which one should observe daily. "One," he says, "ought every day to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words." The contrast between this advice and that of the Talmud here and elsewhere is suggestive of reflections. He who possesses one manah may buy, in addition to his bread, a litra of vegetables; the owner of ten manahs may add to his bread a litra of fish; he that has fifty manahs may add a litra of meat; while the possessor of a hundred may have pottage every day. _Chullin_, fol. 84, col. 1. Ben Hey-Hey said to Hillel, "What does this mean that is written in Mal. iii. 18, 'Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not'? Does the righteous here mean him that serveth God, and the wicked him that serveth Him not? Why this repetition?" To this Hillel replied, "The expressions, 'he that serveth God, and he that serveth Him not,' are both to be understood as denoting 'perfectly righteous,' but he who repeats his lesson a hundred times is not to be compared with one who repeats it a hundred and one times." Then said Ben Hey-Hey, "What! because he has repeated what he has learned only one time less than the other, is he to be considered as 'one who serveth Him not'?" "Yes!" was the reply; "go and learn a lesson from the published tariff of the donkey-drivers--ten miles for one zouz, eleven for two." _Chaggigah_, fol. 9, col. 2. Hillel was great and good and clever, but his exposition of Scripture, as we see from the above, is not always to be depended upon. If, indeed, he was the teacher of Jesus, as some suppose him to have been, then Jesus must, even from a Rabbinical stand-point, be regarded as greater than Hillel the Great, for He never handled the Scriptures with such irreverence. One hundred and three chapters (or psalms) were uttered by David, and he did not pronounce the word Hallelujah until he came to contemplate the downfall of the wicked; as it is written (Ps. civ. 35), "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul, Hallelujah!" Instead of one hundred and three we ought to say a hundred and four, but we infer from this that "Blessed is the man," etc., and "Why do the heathen rage?" etc., are but one psalm. _Berachoth_, fol. 9, col. 2.