Page:The Praises of Amida, 1907.djvu/41

 5. It was a saying among the Sages of old that the body was a prison. By this they meant that man, by reason of his body, was tied and bound with the chains of mean lusts, and that his heart, for the same reason, could never have free play for its affections and desires. This is a self-evident truth; if, however, we enlarge this thought, it is not merely the individual body of man, but the whole of human life which is a prison,—and a prison, moreover, the bars of which it is impossible to break. 6. Why this should be is a point that can be verified from our experience. For consider. We are hedged in on all sides, within and without, so that we cannot always do what we