It required all his delicate Epicurean education to prevent his doing something about it; he had to repeat over to himself his favorite notions: that the injustice and unhappiness in the world is a constant; that the theory of progress is a delusion; that the poor, never having known happiness, are insensible to misfortune. Like all the rich he could not bring himself to believe that the poor (look at their houses, look at their clothes) could really suffer. Like all the cultivated he believed that only the widely read could be said to know that they were unhappy.
Rabbi Hiyya advised his wife, __hen a poor man comes to the door, be quick to give him food so that the same may be done to your children._ She exclaimed, __ou are cursing our children [with the suggestion that they may become beggars]._ But Rabbi Hiyya replied, __here is a wheel which revolves in this world._ __abylonian Talmud, Shabbat 151b
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Rabbi Hiyya advised his wife, __hen a poor man comes to the door, be quick to give him food so that the same may be done to your children._ She exclaimed, __ou are cursing our children [with the suggestion that they may become beggars]._ But Rabbi Hiyya replied, __here is a wheel which revolves in this world._ __abylonian Talmud, Shabbat 151b
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