The narrator said: When I heard his discourse and the pleasantness of his instruction, I desired to investigate whether his wisdom is in accordance with his rhetoric, and I said unto him: ‘By the life of Him who endowed thee with eloquent speech and a spirit of counsel and might, make known to me the branch of thy planting and the habitation where thou liest down.’ And he answered, and said: I am Heber who compose a pleasant song, and flash forth flames of fire from my tongue. I strengthen hearts with witty sayings which are set with stones of eloquence and metaphors; I cover my friends with a cloak of praise, but clothe my foes with garments of dread. When I heard his songs and his powerful words, I knew that he was our teacher and master Heber the Kenite our scholar. I stayed for a while with him to enjoy his fragrance and to satiate myself with the sweetness of his speech. Afterwards I greeted him with peace, and each man of us turned to his tent. XXVIII. JUDAH B. SAMUEL HE-HASID OF REGENSBURG [Ethical writer and mystic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He died about 1217. Legend credits him with the performance of miracles. He founded a talmudic school, and among his pupils were Eleazar of Worms, author of the _Rokeah_, and Isaac of Vienna, author of the _Or Zarua‘_. He is said to have had social intercourse with the bishop of Salzburg and the duke of Regensburg. His principal work is the _Sefer Hasidim_ (Book of the Pious). He is also the author of some liturgic poems.] Certain Forms of Virtue Lead to Sin[160] There is a kind of humility which inherits Gehenna, and causes the heirs of the humble to inherit a burning fire in Gehenna. In what manner is it? If a man sees that his children, relatives, or pupils are of bad behavior, and it lies within his power to correct them, by reprimanding or by beating them, but he says to himself: ‘I shall rather be agreeable to them and not reprimand or beat them,’ he causes them to inherit Gehenna. For they will corrupt their way, and will even do mischief to their father and their mother, so that they will despise them, and curse the day wherein they were born. It is in connection with such a case that it is written: ‘He that spareth the rod hateth his son.’[161] It is also said that he who smites his grown-up son transgresses the injunction: ‘Put not a stumbling-block before the blind.’[162] But a son that is accustomed to reproofs of instruction, and is beaten while small, will not resent if his father beats him when he is grown up. It is also written: ‘Unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord;’[163] there are some dots on the word _Unless_,[164] for David said: ‘Peradventure I caused my sons to sin, and am not able to make amends by repenting’; for it is written: ‘And his father had not grieved him all his life in saying: “Why hast thou done so?”’[165]