[26] חטא יךאי (yeree chet). These ultra-sensitive folks seem to have feared that in direct relief they might be imposed on and so indirectly become encouragers of wrong-doing, or unnecessarily hurt the feelings of the poor by too rigid inquiries.
[27] We read, in mediæval times, of the existence of wide ‘extensions’ of this system of relief. In a curious old book, published in the seventeenth century, by a certain Rabbi Elijah ha Cohen ben Abraham, of Smyrna, we find a list drawn up of Jewish charities to which, as he says, ‘all pious Jews contribute.’ These modes of satisfying ‘the hungry soul’ are over seventy in number, and of the most various kinds. They include the lending of money and the lending of books, the payment of dowries and the payment of burial charges, doctors’ fees for the sick, legal fees for the unjustly accused, ransom for captives, ornaments for bribes, and wet nurses for orphans.
[28] Spanish Jews often had their coffins made from the wood of the tables at which they had sat with their unfashionable guests.
[29] This custom had survived into quite modern times—to cite only the well-known case of Mendelssohn, who, coming as a penniless student to Berlin, received his Sabbath meals in the house of one co-religionist, and the privilege of an attic chamber under the roof of another.
[30] William Blake.
[31] Shimei.
[32] In the correspondence with Lavater.
[33] Better known to scholars as Dr. Aaron Solomon Gompertz.
[34] Later, the noted publisher of that name.
[35] Fromet was the affectionate diminutive of Fromm—pious. Pet names of this sort were common at that time; we often come across a Gütle or Schönste or the like.