By the letter Hey, Ben Sira's proverbs have shifted from gentle warnings to something more direct:
"Blind your eyes because of the graceful woman, lest you be caught in her trap."
The Hebrew word for "trap" here carries real weight. It's the same kind of language the book of Proverbs uses when describing the snare of forbidden desire—not a metaphor for mild inconvenience, but for total destruction. Ben Sira isn't being subtle anymore. He's telling the educator to shut his eyes entirely.
The teacher's response is fascinating in its self-assurance. "My son, what trap could I be caught in?" he asks. He's not worried about moral danger at all. Instead, he pivots to an oddly specific concern: magic. He's heard that a woman's first husband might use sorcery against a second one, a belief referenced in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 100b). But the educator dismisses this threat on purely physical grounds—her first husband was thin-bearded, while he is thick-bearded, and apparently in the logic of this medieval folk tradition, that distinction matters.
It's a wonderfully absurd moment in the Alphabet of Ben Sira. The child is offering timeless moral instruction about guarding one's character. The teacher hears it and thinks: "Nah, I've got a better beard than her ex-husband, so I'll be fine." He hasn't grasped the proverb at all. The trap isn't magical. It's the one he's already walking into with his eyes wide open.