Rabbi Juda said, "No one should sit down to his own meals, until seeing that all the animals dependent upon his care are provided for." Rabbi Jochanan said that it is as pleasing in God's sight if we are kind and hospitable to strangers, as if we rise up early to study His law; because the former is in fact putting His law into practice. He also said, "He who is active in kindness toward his fellows is forgiven his sins." Both this Rabbi and Abba say it is better to lend to the poor than to give to them, for it prevents them from feeling ashamed of their poverty, and is really a more charitable manner of aiding them. The Rabbis have always taught that kindness is more than the mere almsgiving of charity, for it includes pleasant words with the more substantial help. * * * * * Rabbi Hunnah said, "He who is proud in heart is as sinful as the idolater." Rabbi Abira said, "He who is proud shall be humbled." Heskaiah said, "The prayers of a proud-hearted man are never heard." Rabbi Ashi said, "He who hardens his heart with pride, softens his brains with the same." Rabbi Joshua said "Meekness is better than sacrifice"; for is it not written, "The sacrifices of God are a broken heart--a broken contrite spirit, Thou, oh Lord, will not despise?" The son of Rabbi Hunnah said, "He who possesses a knowledge of God's law, without the fear of Him, is as one who has been intrusted with the inner keys of a treasury, but from whom the outer ones are withheld." Rabbi Alexander said, "He who possesses worldly wisdom and fears not the Lord, is as one who designs building a house and completes only the door, for as David wrote in Psalm 111th, 'The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.'" When Rabbi Jochanan was ill, his pupils visited him and asked him for a blessing. With his dying voice the Rabbi said, "I pray that you may fear God as you fear man." "What!" exclaimed his pupils, "should we not fear God more than man?" "I should be well content," answered the sage, "if your actions proved that you feared Him as much. When you do wrong you first make sure that no human eyes see you; show the same fear of God, who sees everywhere, and everything, at all times." Abba says we can show our fear of God in our intercourse with one another. "Speak pleasantly and kindly to everyone"; he says, "trying to pacify anger, seeking peace, and pursuing it with your brethren and with all the world, and by this means you will gain that 'favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man,' which Solomon so highly prized." Rabbi Jochanan had heard Rabbi Simon, son of Jochay, illustrate by a parable that passage of Isaiah which reads as follows: "I, the Lord, love uprightness; but hate robbery (converted) into burnt-offering." A king having imported certain goods upon which he laid a duty, bade his officers, as they passed the custom-house, to stop and pay the usual tariff.