Genesis Rabbah on Children’s Study in the Synagogue

R. Ḥiyya bar Abba said: As I was passing before the synagogue of the Babylonians in Sepphoris, I heard children sitting and reading [scripture]: Abraham journeyed from there (Genesis 20:1). And I said [to them], “Great are the words of the sages who taught: ‘Beware the burning coals [of scholars] lest you be singed. For their bite is like the bite of a fox [and their sting, the sting of a scorpion, and their hiss, the hiss of a serpent, and all their words are like blazing coals] (m. Avot 2:10).’ For, from the time that our father Abraham separated from Lot, his separation was an eternal separation.”