Another point to be emphasised is that the boys were not confined all day long to the close air of the schoolroom. They had also their hours of recreation. This recreation consisted chiefly, as one can imagine, in playing. Their favourite game was the ball, boys as well as girls being fond of this form of amusement. They did not deny themselves this pleasure even on festivals. They were also fond of the kite and games with nuts, in which their mothers also took part. Letter‐games and riddles also occupied their minds in the recreation hours. The angel Sandalphon,(255) who also bears in the Cabbalah the name of “Boy,” was considered by the children as their special patron, and they invoked him in their plays, addressing to him the words: “Sandalphon, Lord of the forest, protect us from pain.” Speaking generally, there are very few distinctively Jewish games. From the researches of Zunz, Güdemann, and Löw on this subject, it is clear that the Jews always adopted the pastimes of the peoples among whom they dwelt. But it must not be thought that there was too much playing. Altogether, Jewish education was far from spoiling the children. And though it was recommended—if such recommendation were necessary—to love children more than one’s own soul, the Rabbis strongly condemned that blind partiality towards our own offspring, which ends in burdening our world with so many good‐for‐nothings. The sad experience of certain biblical personages served as a warning for posterity. Even from the quite natural behaviour of Jacob towards his son Joseph, which had the best possible results in the end, they drew the lesson that a man must never show to one of his children marks of greater favour than to the others. In later times they have been even anxious to conceal this love altogether, and some Rabbis went so far as to refrain from kissing their children. The severity of Akabya ben Mahalaleel is worth mentioning, if not imitating. When this Rabbi, only a few minutes before his death, was asked by his son to recommend him to his friends and colleagues, the answer the poor boy received was: “Thy conduct will recommend thee to my friends, or will estrange thee from them.” Another Rabbi declared (with reference to Prov. xxviii. 27) that it is life‐giving to a youth to teach him temperance in his diet, and not to accustom him to meat and wine. R. Judah, the Pious, in the Middle Ages, gives the advice to rich parents to withdraw their resources from their sons if they lead a disorderly life. The struggle for their existence, and the hardship of life, would bring them back to God. When the old Rabbi said that poverty is a most becoming ornament for Israel, his remark was probably suggested by a similar thought. And many a passage in the Rabbinic literature gives expression to the same idea as that in Goethe’s divine lines:—