He is also reported to have said on one occasion, he would not like to have an angel for his teacher who would reveal to him all the mysteries of the Torah. Such a condition is only befitting the world to come, but in _this_ world only things which are acquired by hard labour and great struggle are of any value. The German representative of truth expressed the same thought in other words, which are well worth repeating here: “Did the Almighty,” says Lessing, “holding in His right hand Truth and in His left Search after Truth, deign to tender me the one I might prefer, in all humility and without hesitation I should select Search after Truth.” This absorption of all his being in the study of the Torah may also, I think, account for the fact that his biographers have so little to say about the family of the Gaon. Of his wife, we know only that she died in the year 1783. Not much fuller is our knowledge about his children. The biographers speak of them as of the family “which the Lord has blessed,” referring to his two sons, Rabbi Aryeh Leb and Rabbi Abraham, who were known as great scholars and very pious men. The latter one is best known by his edition of a collection of smaller Midrashim. Mention is also made of the Gaon’s sons‐in‐law, especially one Rabbi Moses of Pinsk. But this is all, and we are told nothing either about their lives or their callings. From his famous letter which he sent to his family when on his way to Palestine, we see that he was rather what one may call a severe father. He bids his wife punish his children most severely for swearing, scolding, and speaking untruth. He also advises her to live as retired a life as possible. Retirement he considers as a condition _sine qua non_ for a religious life. He even advises his daughter to read her prayers at home, for in the synagogue she may get envious of the finer dresses of her friends, which is a most terrible sin. The only tender feature in this letter is perhaps where he implores his wife to be kind to his mother on account of her being a widow, and it were a great sin to cause her the least annoyance. From other passages we may gather that his family had at times to suffer hunger and cold by the excessive occupation of their father with the study of the Torah and other religious works. In short, the Gaon was a one‐sided, severe ascetic, and would never have deserved the title of a good father, a good husband, an amiable man or any other appellation derived from those ordinary “household decencies” which, as Macaulay informs us, half of the tombstones claim for those who lie behind them. But I am very much afraid that many a great man who has made his mark in history could never claim these household virtues as his own. I do not want to enter here into the question whether Judaism be an ascetic religion or not. But even those who think Judaism identical with what is called “making the best of this life,” will not dispute the fact that