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XX.

If a man remain unmarried after the age of twenty, his life is a constant transgression. The Holy One--blessed be He!--waits until that period to see if one enters the matrimonial state, and curses his bones if he remain single.

Kiddushin, fol. 29, col. 2.

A woman marrying under twenty years of age will bear till she is sixty; if she marries at twenty she will bear until she is forty; if she marries at forty she will not have any family.

Bava Bathra, fol. 119, col. 2.

At twenty pursue the study of the law.

Avoth, chap. 5.

Rabbi Yehudah says the early Pietists used to suffer some twenty days before death from diarrhœa, the effect of which was to purge and purify them for the world to come; for it is said, "As the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold, so is a man to his praise" (Prov. xxvii. 21).

Semachoth, chap. 3, mish, 10.

It may not be out of place to append two or three parallel passages here by way of illustration:--"Bodily suffering purges away sin" (Berachoth, fol. 5, col. 1). "He who suffers will not see hell" (Eiruvin, fol. 41, col. 2). "To die of diarrhœa is an augury for good, for most of the righteous die of that ailment" (Kethuboth, fol. 103, col. 2, and elsewhere).


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