ty of the
home is an affectionate tradition linking the Jews through the ages with
a golden chain. The purity of home life has fought and triumphed over
all the unsanitary conditions of ghetto life.

I wish that the limits of my space allowed me to write in detail of
these beautiful and happy services. The lighting of the Sabbath candles,
the joyous festivals so attractive to our children, all are used to
consecrate the daily life. The dietary laws may be said to be a religion
of the kitchen. The description of the Virtuous Woman, from the book of
Proverbs--the woman who "looks well to the ways of her household,"
whose clothing are "strength and majesty," who "laugheth at the time to
come"--is appropriately read on Friday evenings by the master of the
house to exalt the perpetual provident, charitable and joyous
house-mistress. A true Jewish home must always be a beautiful place,
because its duties are fixed by tradition and hallowed, by the symbols
of God's dealing with His people in the past.

Abundant evidence is forthcoming of the honor that was always paid by
the Jewish husband to his wife. His duties toward her are set forth in
detail in the usual form of the _Ketubah_. In the body of that
instrument he binds himself to work for her, and to honor her, to
support and maintain her. The Talmudic sayings on this subject of the
honor in which the wife is held and the husband's dependence on her are
numerous. Let me quote one or two: "Who is rich? He whose wife's actions
are comely. Who is happy? He whose wife is modest and gentle." Again: "A
man's happiness is all of his wife's creation"; and yet again: "God's
presence dwells in a pure and loving home." "Be not cruel or
discourteous to your wife," said a first century teacher, "if you
thrust her from you with your left hand, draw her back to you with your
right hand." Another says: "A man should always be careful lest he vex
his wife: for as her tears come easily, the vexation put upon her comes
near to God." A seventeenth century writer states: "Never quarrel with
your wife"; this is not to be done even "if she asks for too much
money."

Such passages extend in an unbroken series through all medieval Jewish
literature. But if the Jewish wife was held in honor by the Jewish
husband, it was because of the very practical virtues of the Jewish way
of living. The home life was everywhere serene and lovely, and if the
Jew retained any virtue at all, he displayed it in th