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A לץ once asked why it is that we require a חזן to be someone who is married.  He answered:  "It's a מחלוקת.  One says that he should be רגיל באימה.  The other says that he should pray with a broken heart."

A שמש asked the Shul president for a raise. "I work 25 hours a day," he said. "How could you work 25 hours?" the president asked, "there are only 24 hours in a day."  "So what?" the שמש responded.  "Ask any of the people here and they will tell you that I'm here at least

Yankel was relating his problems with a friend and with reference to his wife said שתחיה עד מאה ותשע עשרה שנה.  Surprised, his friend asked, why just 119 years. Yankel answered: "Because one year I'd like to live too."

When an elderly man, a ירא-שמים went to visit a kibbutz, he saw that everyone was eating בגילוי ראש and without ברכות before and after the meal.   Commenting on this, he said:  “I’ve always had difficulty understanding ומי כעמך כישראל גוי אחד בארץ.  After all, if the reference is to ישראל, why mention a

There were two bottles of liquor at a קידוש after Musaf.  The congregation finished one and when the גוי came to clean up, he asked if he could pour himself a drink from the other one.  The שמש gave his approval, but the גוי wound up drinking the whole bottle.  One of the מתפללים observed:

A תלמיד חכם observed that in the past, רבנים would make do with small and modest apartments, but these days they want to live in large and nice dwellings.  And, he explained, it is understandable because the חכמים enumerated a דירה נאה among the things המרחיבים דעתו של אדם.  This wasn't necessary in the past

An עם הארץ said to his friend: "You spend a lot of time learning.  Let me see if you can answer this question.  אדם הראשון had two sons.  Which one of them most resembled his father?"   Surprised, the friend didn't have an answer.  The עם הארץ triumphantly said to him: "You're not learning enough.

As  ר׳ אייזל חריף  was traveling by wagon with a wealthy and prominent member of his קהילה, the wagon skid and turned over on the wet road.  The two of them were lying in the mud when the רבי said: “Here is an example of what the גמרא says in מסכת גיטין: תורה וגדולה במקום

The מלבי״ם lived in the time of the משכילים, with whom he constantly struggled.  When one particularly obnoxious man, who always asked stupid questions, asked the מלבי״ם if he had ever had doubts about תורה, the מלבי״ם answered yes, he was confronting a doubt right then.   "In מגילת אסתר, it states that ויזתא was

When חריף אייזל רבי tried to explain to a wealthy man the importance of the מצוה of giving צדקה, the man responded that he already had more than enough מצוות.  The רבי turned to his שמש and said:  "Now I understand what חז״ל meant when they said כרימון׳ מצוות מלאים שבך ׳ריקנין   In order to get