Not sharing with strangers: 'Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?' The metaphor reverses: water that should be contained within one's own cistern is instead 'flowing in the streets' (yizzu bahuzot), 'in the public squares' (birehov'im). The sexual life that should be private and exclusive becomes public and indiscriminate. 'Springs overflow' suggests the waste and loss of what should be precious. The young man is being asked to imagine the public loss of what should be kept private and exclusive. The rhetorical question expects the answer: no, such overflow is shameful loss.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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