An עני complained to רבי אברהם-אבלי, the רב of Vilna, that he can't put food on the table and now has two daughters to marry off. His only recourse was to go begging from door to door and would like to get a letter of recommendation from the רבי. The רבי gave him the letter,
When the קהילה of a town heard that the two daughters of their רב were not conducting themselves as בנות ישראל, they began to murmur against the רב. As שבת approached, his detractors argued that he shouldn’t be given the honor of being called up for שישי. A תלמיד חכם, however, argued that they were
When a pauper asked a wealthy man for a נדבה, he responded by saying: “Leave me alone. I have enough דאגות of my own.” The pauper replied: “It’s said מרבה נכסים מרבה דאגה. Give me some of your נכס and some of your דאגות will be lessened.”
A בדחן once observed that we’re lucky that משה רבינו was כבד פה. Otherwise, we might have wound up with an additional 613 מצוות.
Long before the establishment of the State of Israel, ר’ מרדכי חיים מסלונים asked why we say רשעים ביד צדיקים גבורים ביד חלשים, when we say על הניסים on חנוכה. “I understand that גבורים ביד חלשים is a נס,” he said. “But what’s the נס in רשעים ביד צדיקים? Of course, the wicked are given
The חיד״א observed that there is a רמז מן התורה that in גימטריה a shortage of one is not מעכב. The תורה quotes יעקב אבינו saying “אפרים ומנשה” will be to him like “ראובן ושמעון.” The גימטריה of אפרים ומנשה is ראובן ושמעון, less one. This demonstrates that one is not מעכב.
When a רב was asked why Jews who had done no wrong were persecuted throughout the world, he responded: ישראל אף על פי שלא חטא, ישראל הוא.
In פרשת יתרו, it states: כי יהיה להם דבר בא אלי. The word להם is לשון רבים, plural. But בא אלי is לשון יחיד, singular. This can be explained by the observation that when two people come to a דין תורה with claims against each other and one is found liable and the other not
Two בחורי ישיבה, one חריף and the other בקי, asked רבי אייזל חריף for סמיכה. After examining them, he gave סמיכה to the בקי but not to the חריף. He explained: "The חכמים established in מסכת הוריות that סיני ועוקר הרים, סיני עדיף. That means that even if the חריף wants לעקור את הר
When חילונים refused to contribute to the Yeshiva in Lvov, ר׳ אריה לייב ברוידא said: “You need the Yeshiva just as much as we do. If there were no ישיבות, where would we get תלמידי חכמים? And where would you get אפיקורסים?”
