Jewish Life Digital Edition October 2013 | Page 27

The Joys of Yiddish

Two men, moderately proficient in Yiddish,
were lamenting the fact that there are Yiddish
expressions that you can’t translate well into
English, and that there are so many English
words that can’t be easily translated into Yiddish.
One man said to the other, “I have difficulty
finding a Yiddish word that adequately conveys
the concept of the English word, ‘disappointed’.”
His friend said, “My mother only speaks Yiddish.
I’ll find out from her how to say ‘disappointed’ in
Yiddish.”
The man goes to his mother’s house and says,
“Mama, you know that I always come over for
Shabbos dinner every Friday night. How would
you feel if, one Friday, I called and said I wouldn’t
be coming over for Shabbos?”
The mother replied, “Oy! Ich’ll zein zayer
disappointed!”

W-I-R-E-L-E-S-S
T-E-C-H-N-O-L-O-G-Y
After having dug to a depth of 1 000 metres under a Paris street,
French scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1 000
years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors had a
telephone network all those centuries ago.
Not to be outdone by the French, English scientists dug
to a depth of 2 000 metres under a London street, and
shortly after, headlines in the UK newspapers read: “English
archaeologists have found traces of 2 000-year-old fibreoptic cable and have concluded that their ancestors had an
advanced hi-tech digital communications network a thousand
years earlier than the French.”
One week later, Israeli newspapers reported the following: “After
digging as deep as 5 000 metres in a Jerusalem marketplace,
scientists had found absolutely nothing. They, therefore, concluded
that 3 000 years ago Jews were already using wireless technology.”

WISDOM
Do not worry about what might possibly
go wrong the next day. One never knows
what will occur. Perhaps tomorrow you
will no longer be in this world and you
will have worried about a world that is
not yours.
Sanhedrin 100b

Feelings of envy are based
on illusions. What actual
loss do you have if someone
else has more money and receives
more honour than you?
Rabbi Yosef Y Hurwitz

A fool turns a friend into an enemy,
and the wise man turns an enemy
into a friend. Tnuas Hamussar

Do not feel any less self-esteem or
become upset if other people speak or
act condescendingly to you. The Sages
have said that the honoured person is the
one who honours others. The converse
applies: Who is a lowly person? One who
tries to lower others. Being an honoured
person is dependent on your behaviour
towards others and not on other people’s
behaviour tow