centuries of Old Testament life-training could have made them. The Gentile world here

presented terrible contrast, alike in regard to the relation of parents and children, and the

character and moral object of their upbringing. Education begins in the home, and there

were not homes like those in Israel; it is imparted by influence and example, before it

comes by teaching; it is acquired by what is seen and heard, before it is laboriously

learned from books; its real object becomes instinctively felt, before its goal is

consciously sought. What Jewish fathers and mothers were; what they felt towards their

children; and with what reverence, affection, and care the latter returned what they had

received, is known to every reader of the Old Testament. The relationship of father has its

highest sanction and embodiment in that of God towards Israel; the tenderness and care

of a mother in that of the watchfulness and pity of the Lord over His people. The semi-

Divine relationship between children and parents appears in the location, the far more

than outward duties which it implies in the wording, of the Fifth Commandment. No

punishment more prompt than that of its breach;  47 no description more terribly realistic

than that of the vengeance which overtakes such s in.48

From the first days of its existence, a religious atmosphere surrounded the child of Jewish

parents. Admitted in the number of God's chosen people by the deeply significant rite of

circumcision, when its name was first spoken in the accents of prayer,49 it was henceforth

separated unto God. Whether or not it accepted the privileges and obligations implied in

this dedication, they came to him directly from God, as much as the circumstances of his

birth. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel, the God of the promises,

claimed him, with all of blessing which this conveyed, and of responsibility which

resulted from it. And the first wish expressed for him was that, 'as he had been joined to

the covenant,' so it might also be to him in regard to the 'Torah' (Law), to 'the Chuppah'

(the marriage-baldachino), and 'to good works;' in other words, that he might live 'godly,

soberly, and righteously in this present world' - a holy, happy, and God-devoted life. And

what this was, could not for a moment be in doubt. Putting aside the overlying Rabbinic

interpretations, the ideal of life was presented to the mind of the Jew in a hundred

different forms - in none perhaps more popularly than in the words, 'These are the things

of which a man enjoys the fruit in this world, but their possession continueth for the next:

to honour father and mother, pious works, peacemaking between man and man, and the

study of the Law, which is equivalent to them all.'50 This devotion to the Law was,

indeed, to the Jew the all in all - the sum of intellectual pursuits, the aim of life. What

better thing could a father seek for his child than this inestimable boon?

The first education was necessarily the mother's.51 Even the Talmud owns this, when,

among the memorable sayings of the sages, it records one of the School of Rabbi Jannai,

to the effect that knowledge of the Law may be looked for in those, who have sucked it in