  In any case, Kaspi provides his readers with guidelines for a virtuous life. As a rationalist through and through, he recommends that a person acquire the best possible education. Every effort should be made to accumulate the financial resources necessary to improve one’s education, by purchasing books and hiring teachers. Every man should set up a family: His wife will support him, and his children will keep him in his old age, “so that he should have time to acquire wisdom… Moreover, his sons, if they are good, will join him in his studies, all the more so if his eyes have become dimmed with age” (Commentary on Proverbs, pp. 59–60). This is a wholly utilitarian and egoistical philosophy, recommending self-realization of every human being. Kaspi enunciates these guidelines in the context of his scriptural exegesis, relying primarily on the wisdom literature written, according to Jewish tradition, by King Solomon, the wisest of men; he also derives his rules from biblical stories, citing the behavior of their heroes.