On his first day in cheder, the boy’s mother and father would stand over him as the teacher pointed to the letters of the alef-bet (alphabet). The la… - Leo Rosten

Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.

A shnorrer knocked on the door of the rich man’s house at six-thirty in the morning. The rich man cried, “How dare you wake me up so early?” “Listen,” said the shnorrer, “I don’t tell you how to run your business, so don’t tell me how to run mine.

The Torah, like other ancient law codes, assigns the death penalty to many proscribed behaviors besides murder — including adultery, rape of a betrothed woman, giving insult or injury to one’s parents, witchcraft, male homosexuality, and public profanation of the Sabbath. By the second century C.E., however, the Talmudic rabbis, whose debates and rulings constitute the main body of Halakha, had virtually nullified the death penalty. The Mishnah (the codification of law that forms the core text of the Talmud) states, “A Sanhedrin [governing council] that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says: even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death” (Makkot 7A). Even in murder cases, the Torah’s requirement of two eyewitnesses for a sentence of death was interpreted by the Talmudic rabbis to make capital punishment highly unlikely: the murderer’s own confession could not be accepted as evidence, and the two eyewitnesses were required also to have warned the criminal beforehand that he would be executed! Justice tempered by mercy thus became the Jewish ideal.