But naturally the holiday atmosphere I spoke of was very often darkened by clouds resulting from the illness of the child. Excepting small‐pox, the child was subject to most of those diseases which so often prove fatal to our children. These diseases were known under the collective name of “the difficulties (or the pain) of bringing up children.” These difficulties seem to have been still greater in Palestine, where one of the old Rabbis exclaimed that it was easier to see a whole forest of young olive trees grow up than to rear one child.(249) To avoid so mournful a subject, I refrain from repeating the touching stories relating to the death of children. The pain was the more keenly felt since there was no other way of explaining the misfortune which befell the innocent creature than that it had suffered for the sins of the parents; and the only comfort the latter had was that the child could not have lost much by its being removed from this vale of tears at such an early period. A remarkable legend describes God Himself as giving lessons so many hours a day to these prematurely deceased children.(250) Indeed, to the mind of the old Rabbis, the only thing worth living for was the study of the Law. Consequently the child that suffered innocently could not have a better compensation than to learn Torah from the mouth of the Master of masters. But even when the child was healthy, and food and climate proved congenial to its constitution, there still remained the troubles of its spiritual education. And to be sure it was not an easy matter to bring up a “priest.” The first condition for this calling was learning. But learning cannot be acquired without honest and hard industry. It is true that R. Akiba numbers wisdom among the virtues which are hereditary from father to son. Experience, however, has shown that it is seldom the case, and the Rabbis were already troubled with the question how it happens that children so little resemble their fathers in respect of learning.