Jewish Life Digital Edition April 2014 | Page 29

WISDOM TEXT: COMPILED BY LIZ SAMUELS Has the Emancipation, with its newly found freedom and opportunity, resulted in more joy, greater satisfaction and a still happier existence than what our forebears experienced? Do you believe you no longer need to remember the past? Do you really think that such sombre times will never recur? O, you deluded ones! Look at the society which is now freely open to you. Look around on the great marketplace of life. Has the race of Haman died out completely with his 10 sons? Could you not find someone from the Rhine to the Oder, from the Volga to the Danube, who is capable of being his successor? Be sober and observe! Indeed, the horizon of the Jew may well become sombre; sultry clouds hang in the German sky. Even in our own Jewish circles indications for gloom are apparent. No one is secure. Written by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in 1857 When you eat and enjoy the taste and the sweetness of the food, remember that it is G-d who put taste and sweetness into the food. Then you will truly be serving Him by your eating. Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov Rabbi Meir said: “When a person enters the world, his hands are clenched, as if to say, ‘The whole world is mine, I shall conquer it’; but when he departs from the world, his hands are spread open, as if to say, ‘I have acquired nothing from this world.’” Kohelet Rabbah 5:14 Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai said: The Holy One, Blessed He, gave Israel three precious gifts, and all of them were given only through suffering. They are: the Torah, the Land of Israel, and the World to Come. Berachot 5a Rabbi Chelbo said: Be careful to give your wife the honour that is due to her, because a man’s home is blessed only on account of his wife, for it says, “And he treated Abram well because of her.” (Genesis 12:16) With that in mind, Rava said to the townspeople of Mechuza: honour your wives so you will become rich. Bava Metzia 59a Three things weaken a man’s strength, namely: anxiety, travelling and sin. Gittin 70a “In the winter, the lazy man does not plough; at harvest-time, he seeks, and finds nothing.” (Proverbs 20:4) This refers to a person who did not study Torah in his younger years, and in his old age he finds that it is beyond his grasp. Devarim Rabbah 8 JL WHERE: Polo Room Inanda Country Club 1 Forest Road, Inanda WHEN: TIME: DRESS: 11 JUNE 2014 18h00 for 18h30 Smart casual R12 500 (INCL VAT) PER TABLE OF 10 TO BOOK YOUR TABLE CONTACT HAYLEY 011 646 7340 or hay l ey@ m s c s p o rt s . c o . z a