Still, one might perhaps suggest that these passages when examined a little closer, not only contain a rebuke to man’s importunity in wanting to intrude into the secrets of God, but also hint at the possibility that even God’s omnipotence is submitted to a certain law—though designed by His own holy will—which He could not alter without detriment to the whole creation. Indeed, in one of the mystical accounts of the martyrdom of R. Akiba and other great Rabbis, God is represented as asking the sufferers to accept His hard decree without protest, unless they wish Him to destroy the whole world. In another place again, we read of a certain renowned Rabbi, who lived in great poverty, that once in a dream he asked the divine Shechinah how long he would have still to endure this bitter privation? The answer given to him was: “My son, will it please you that I destroy the world for your sake?”(188) It is only in this light that we shall be able to understand such passages in the Rabbinic literature as that God almost suffers Himself when He has to inflict punishment either on the individual or on whole communities. Thus God is represented as mourning for seven days (as in the case when one loses a child) before He brought the deluge on the world; He bemoans the fall of Israel and the destruction of the Temple, and the Shechinah laments even when the criminal suffers his just punishment. And it is not by rebelling against these laws that He tries to redeem His suffering. He himself has recourse to prayer, and says: “May it be my will that my mercy conquer my wrath, that my love over‐rule my strict justice, so that I may treat my children with love.”(189) If now man is equal to God, he has nevertheless, or rather on that account, to submit to the law of God without any outlook for reward or punishment; or, as Antigonos expressed it, “Be not as slaves that minister to the Lord with a view to receive recompense.”(190) Certainly it would be hazardous to maintain that Antigonos’s saying was a consequence of this doctrine; but, at any rate, we see a clear tendency to keep the thought of reward (in spite of the prominent part it holds in the Bible) out of view. Still more clearly is it seen when, with reference to Ps. cxii., “Blessed is the man ... that delighteth greatly in his commandments,” Rabbi Eleazar remarks that the meaning is that the man desires only to do His commandments, but he does not want the rewards connected with them.(191) This is the more remarkable, as the whole contents of this psalm are nothing else than a long series of promises of various rewards, so that the explanation of Rabbi Eleazar is in almost direct contradiction to the simple meaning of the words. On the other hand, also, every complaint about suffering must cease. Not only is affliction no direct chastisement by God in the way of revenge; but even when it would seem to us that we suffer innocently, we have no right to