The woman in travail, those that go down to the sea, travellers in deserts, captives in prison, east and west, north and south, He hears them all, in one act (of hearing)" (Shem. R. p. 50^b). And a few lines further on it is stated that He spoke all the ten commandments in one act (of speaking). There is here no attempt to explain _how_ God, being Almighty, can take particular notice of persons; there is the unquestioning belief _that_ He does so. He may be high in Heaven, but no suffering creature of His suffers unseen or unheard. "A bird perishes not, without Heaven" (_i.e._ except by the will of God); so said a great Pharisee, in words that have a striking likeness to a saying of Jesus on the same subject (j. Sheb. 38^d, and cp. Matt. x. 29). A story is told (Debar. R. 102ª) of a certain Jew who was on board a ship, where all the other passengers were Gentiles. The ship touched at an island, "and the sailors said to the Jew, 'Take money and go ashore, and buy something for us.' He said, 'I am not at home here; how shall I know where to go?' They said, 'A Jew is at home everywhere. For whithersoever thou goest, thy God goeth with thee.'" (The reference is to Deut. iv. 7, "What great nation hath a God who is so nigh to them.") The nearness of God is especially emphasised in relation to prayer. He hears all who pray to Him, and it is He himself who hears and to whom prayer should alone be offered. "Every man," says the Talmud, "has a 'patronus' (a 'friend at court'). If there comes trouble upon him, he does not go direct to his patron, but goes and stands at his door, and calls to the servant or to a son of the house, and he tells the patron 'So and so is standing at the door of thy court.' Perhaps the patron has him admitted. Perhaps he leaves him alone. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is not so. If trouble comes on a man (God says), 'Let him pray, not to Michael and not to Gabriel, but to me, and I will answer him at once.' And this is that which is written (Joel ii. 32), 'Everyone that calleth on the name of the Lord shall be delivered'" (j. Ber. 13ª). Here we have not only the declaration of belief in direct access to God Himself through prayer, but also the repudiation of any mediator. Michael and Gabriel may be servants of God, but they do not come between God and man to keep them apart or to serve as the necessary medium of intercourse. They were never, in Pharisaic theology, allowed any place which might seem to impair the divine Unity. The idea of a second God was steadfastly resisted; and no personification of divine attributes, or exaltation of archangels, was ever carried so far as to imply a plurality of persons in the Deity. As against the doctrine of the Logos, and the Christian exaltation of Christ, the Pharisees maintained the strict unity of God. Neither the Memra of the Targums, nor the Shechinah of the Talmud and the Midrash, however personified for Haggadic purposes, was regarded as being in any sense a personality