Page:Rambam-Helek-Abelson (English).pdf/8

 in their embroideries and brocades, and beautiful needlework, or in a robe that will merely cover the body? And when the Messiah comes will rich and poor be alike, or will the distinctions between weak and strong still exist-and many similar questions from time to time.

Now, O reader, understand the following simile of mine, and then you will make it your aim to grasp my meaning throughout. Figure to yourself a child young in years brought to a teacher to be instructed by him in the Torah. This is the greatest good he can derive in respect of his attainment of perfection. But the child, on account of the fewness of his years and the weakness of his intellect, does not grasp the measure of that benefit, or the extent to which it leads him towards the attainment of perfection. The teacher (who is nearerperfection than the pupil) must therefore necessarily stimulate him to learning by means of things in which he delights by reason of his youth. Thus he says to him, "Read, and I shall give you nuts or figs, or a bit of sugar." The child yields to this. He learns diligently, not indeed for the sake of the knowledge itself, as he does not know the importance of it, but merely to obtain that particular dainty (the eating of that dainty being more relished by him than study, and regarded as an unquestionably greater boon). And consequently he considers learning as a labour and a weariness to which he gives himself up in order by its means to gain his desired object, which consists of a nut, or a piece of sugar. When he grows older and his intelligence strengthens, he thinks lightly of the trifle in which he formerly found joy and begins to desire something new. He longs for this newly-chosen object of his, and his teacher now says to him, " Read, and I shall buy you pretty shoes, or a coat of this kind!" Accordingly he again exerts himself to learn, not for the sake of the knowledge, but to acquire that coat; for the garment ranks higher in his estimation than the learning and constitutes the final aim of his studies. When, however, he reaches a higher stage of mental perfection, this prize also ranks little with him, and he sets his heart upon something of greater moment. So that when his teacher bids him "learn this 'section,' or that  'chapter,' and I shall give you a dinar or two," he learns with zest in order to