We have learnt in the Ethics of the Fathers that “Jealousy, desire and glory remove a person from the world”. The reason for this is that each one of these things brings causes terrible things to come with, which destroy the soul and flesh. For one who chases after glory, is sad all his days, for all of his will is spent to ensure that others will give him honor, and he toils to become rich and spends a lot of money to try and get glory, and if once they do not honor him, or if once they do something that he believes is not fitting for a man of his stature, he will feel it very strongly, and if he can, he will make a quarrel, and the fire of quarrels goes straight up to the heart of the heavens. All of the arguments in the world are only because of arrogance, when one wants his arrogance to rise to the heavens, and he thinks that he deserves all the glory, and that his word should be listened to, and when someone does not honor him enough and does not listen to his word, he takes revenge like a snake, and does to him whatever evil he can, and if he is unable to do evil to him, he at least is upset with him and hates him in his heart, and he keeps this hatred forever, until he descends in pain as a mourner to the depths. This is the punishment in this world of someone who chases after glory, and all the more so in the next world, for chasing after glory is not only by itself, but it is an impure consequence of arrogance, and it has its own impure consequences, and that which comes from something which is impure, will remain impure.
