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Who Said...
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"
Long before it became Communist doctrine, the Sages addressed the proposition of the total sharing of property in the mishnah in Avot 5:13: "He who says, 'What's mine is yours, and yours is mine,' is an am ha'aretz, an ignoramous." In Ethics from Sinai, Irving Bunim explains that they branded this kind of thinking as ignorance because it showed an ignorance of human nature. Without the the profit motive, the incentive to succeed and acquire wealth, people are unmotivated to achieve and contribute to society. Everyone becomes a taker from the communal chest, and as history bears witness, the state and those who control it become the biggest takers of all. Ultimately, the system fails to meet the needs of the poor, for which it was ostensibly created; and the whole thing falls apart, as it did in Russia.
Who Said...
"Two heads are better than one"
King Solomon in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes 4:9): "Two are better than one..." saith Kohelet. The commentators explain that this general rule is applicable to friendship and marriage.
Who Said...
"What will people say?"
Moses employed this argument successfully when he said to G-d that He couldn't destroy the Jewish people after the Sin of the Golden Calf, "lest the world say...'because He [G-d] did not have the power to bring them into the land [of Israel]...and because He hated them, He took them out [of Egypt] to kill them in the wilderness." (Deuteronomy 10:28.)
Who Said...
"By the skin of our teeth"
Before Thornton Wilder used the phrase for the title of his Broadway play, Iyov said it in Chapter 19, Verse 20. In a litany of his long list of personal woes, he declares, "My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth." Rash and Metsudos David point out that Iyov was referring to his gums. All of the outside of his body was afflicted with boils; only the inner skin of his teeth, namely the gums, were spared. So, really, we should say that we survived "by the skin of our gums."
Who Said...
"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." "Don't throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass."
Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac, August, 1736) Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b. "The blemish that is in you, do not mention to your friend." It is stated in relation to the verse, "And the convert (ger), you shall not afflict or oppress, because you were sojouners (gerim) in the land of Egypt." The Talmud goes on to quote a common saying, that if someone in your family has been hung, do not ask your friend "to hang up the fish." The mere mention of "hanging" in any context is reminiscent of the family shame.
Who Said...
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
Talmud, Ketubot 83b. Botzina tav mikrah. "A small gourd is better than a big one." Rashi explains that the owner of the garden is saying that it is better to go into the garden now to pick a small gourd than to wait until later to get a big one.
Who Said...
"We wash our hands of the whole thing."
Deuteronomy 21:1-8. "If a slain man be found in the land which the Lord your G-d gives to you to possess it, lying in the field, and it is not known who slew him. And your elders and your judges will go out and they will measure to the cities around the slain man. And it shall be that the city closest to the slain man, the elders of the city will take a heifer which has not been put to work, that has not drawn the yoke. And the elders of that city will bring the heifer down to a rough ravine, which has been neither worked nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the ravine. And the kohanim the sons of Levi will come near because the Lord your G-d has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the name of the Lord, and according to their declaration every dispute and every plague shall be. And all the elders of the city who are nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer that had had its neck cut in the valley. And they shall declare and say: 'Our hands have not shed this bled and our eyes have not seen him. Grant atonement to your people Israel that you have redeemed and place not a charge of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel.' And the blood shall be atoned for them. (See the Hirsch Pentateuch for a full explanation.)
Who Said...
"He who laughs last laughs best."
It's in the song traditionally sung at the beginning of the Friday night Shabbat meal, Eishet Chayil, "A Woman of Valor," which is actually a quotation from the end of Proverbs 31:25. The precise quote: v'tishchak l'yom acharon, "...and she will laugh on the last day." The commentaries explain that the Jewish homemaker described in admiring terms in the verses that are sung will rejoice in the knowledge that all of her self-sacrifice in raising a family will earn her eternal reward in the world to come. Nor will she laugh only at the end of her days, since the knowledge of her task's importance fills her present days with joy as well. This may be discerned in the phrase, l'yom acharon. B'yom acharon would have meant that she will laugh on the last day. L'yom acharon translates literally to the last day, meaning that the knowledge of her ultimate reward will carry her in joy all of her life right up to and including the last day.
Who Said...
"It's a piece of cake."
Joshua and Kalev said it to the Israelites in response to the evil report of the spies, who said that the inhabitants of the Land of Israel were too strong to conquer. Joshua and Kalev protested, "Do not fear the people of the Land, because they are our bread." (Numbers 14:9) Rashi comments: "We will consume them like bread." (See Ohr HaChaim for further discussion.)
Who Said...
"Who Said It?"
In many places in the Talmud, the Sages ask for a source in the Torah for common expressions. In Bava Kama 92, for example, a whole section is devoted to such queries. The intention of the Sages was not just to sell more copies of the Talmud, though the material is often quite entertaining. Rather, they wished to demonstrate that the Torah is the repository of all wisdom; and that all the wise folk sayings and good advice, were all to be found in the Torah. As it says in Ethics of the Fathers, "turn it over and over, for everything is in it."
Who Said...
Nobody's perfect.
King Solomon, author of Ecclesiastes (7:20). "There is no righteous person in the world that will do good and will not sin." In the Torah passage concerning the criteria for the red heifer (Numbers 19:20), it stipulates that it shall be an animal "that has no blemish in it, that no yoke has been on it." On this verse, the Chassidic master, the Seer of Lublin, wrote: "Anyone who thinks he has reached the pinnacle of perfection, without any flaw or shortcoming, it is surely a clear sign that he has not yet even begun to accept upon himself the yoke of heaven. Had he made even the slightest beginning, he would understand very well that he is as yet nothing but blemishes..."
Who Said...
"Just a chip off the old block."
The Talmudic expression is "kareih d'avoha," literally, "a leg of his father." Rashi uses it in Kesubos 32a. In Eruvin 70b, there is the phrase "the inheritor is the leg of his father." The expression is found often in the commentaries. The question arises, why the leg? Rav Yitzchak Hutner, in Igros U'Kesavim Pachad Yitzchak (242), offers the following explanation: "Human beings are always spiritually in transit, moving from one spiritual plateau to another. Angels, however, are static, always at the same spiritual plateau, lofty though it may be. Once human beings pass away, they are no longer able to grow spiritually or to ascend to a higher spiritual plateau. Only through their children, who quote and live by their teachings, are they able to continue to move up the ladder of spiritual growth. Thus the children serve as their "feet," providing them with a way to spiritually "keep moving." (Quoted from The Fifth Commandment.)
Who Said...
“I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him.”
Mark Antony, beginning his famous soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Knowing that the crowd he addressed was in sympathy with Caesar’s assassins, Mark Antony first implies that Caesar really did deserve to die. Only then does he remind the crowd of how Caesar brought Rome to the height of its power and eventually rallies them to hunt down the assassins and avenge Caesar’s death. But Shakespeare’s Mark Antony was not the first to employ such a device. When the spies returned from investigating the Land of Israel with their evil report, the rest of the Jewish people believed that their leader Moshe had brought them to the land to be massacred by their enemies. Koleiv, the son of Yefunah, stood up in their midst and cried out, “And is that all the son of Amram has done to us?” The people quieted down to hear him, assuming he would join them in their attack on Moshe. Instead, Koleiv said: “He brought us out of Egypt, he split the sea for us, and he fed us with the manna!” (Sotah 35a)
Contributed by Rabbi Y. Goldson
Who Said...
"Seize the day, trust not in the morrow."
Well, to tell the truth, it was the Roman poet Horace. But the sentiment certainly did not originate with him. It can be found in ancient Jewish sources that pre-date him: There is a Talmudic passage (Eruvin 54a), "Seize and eat, seize and drink. For the world is like a wedding." Like a wedding, it's time is fleeting, and if we do not enjoy and get the most out of what is being served, the opportunity will soon be gone, never to return.
In Ethics of the Fathers (2:15) we are told, "Repent one day before your death." The message is that since we do not know when the day of our death will be---it may be tommorow---it would be wise to repent today, while the opportunity is there. In other words, seize the day. It is doubtful that Horace had repentence in mind, but the idea that one should make make the most of every day is the same.
Who Said...
"Don't judge a man until you've stood in his shoes."
Ethics of the Fathers (2:5).
Who Said...
"Birds of a feather flock together."
Talmud Bava Kama, 92b.(Contributed by Daniel Steinberg, New York City.)
Who Said...
"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances---for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic observation---could have been formed by natural selection seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree."
Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, Chapter 6. See Sara Levisky's "Confessions of a Creationist" in our Archives from Everywhere for an eye-opening discussion of Evolution Theory.
Who Said...
"The philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation...from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our...freedom."
Aldous Huxley, Confessions of a Professed Atheist. Huxley's candid admission of the underlying motive of the nihilists of the past century echoes an old Talmudic insight: "The only reason that the Jewish people ever worshipped idols was in order to permit sexual immorality."
Who Said...
"This town isn't big enough for the both of us."
It was somebody even bigger than John Wayne. "Mar Ukva said about any person who is haughty that G-d says, 'I and he cannot live in the world.' " (Talmud Sota 5a.)
Who Said...
"If I am here, everything is here; but if I am not here, who is here?"
It was Hillel! (Talmud Sukkah 53a). Of course, it doen't seem consistent with Hillel's image as the model of humility. Rabbi Shimson Raphael Hirsch writes: "If you dedicate...yourself to G-d in your everyday life...if you find your own self again in the house of worship and allow G-d to find you there, then you will always find G-d there as well. This is the real meaning of Hillel's utterance..." (Judaism Eternal, P. 97.)