Rav Nahman said: “[This is] like a great palace with many thresholds, so that all who enter become lost and cannot leave the palace. Till a clever man comes and takes a hempen strand and ties it to one of the thresholds and enters the palace through that threshold, and leaves by the same threshold; then everyone begins to enter and leave through that threshold with the strand. Thus, before Solomon’s time, no man could comprehend the words of the Torah; after Solomon’s time, they all began to understand the Torah” (Midrash on Eccles. 12:9).
The following proverbs, culled from the 2,301 proverbs collected and annotated by Bialik and Revenitzky in the sixth volume of their Sefer Ha-Agadah, stand in the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmud as well as in the apocryphal volumes of the same period, alongside the essentially legal and homiletic matter. They represented more than just “homely common sense” to the Talmudic editors; they had the authority of Solomon’s divine wisdom. As the midrash puts it, they were the guiding threads through the labyrinth of the Torah.
A single glance will reveal that these are not traditional moralisms, but authentic folk wisdom, disturbing, hard, sharp, and vehement. The epigones’s comment on their inferiority to the heroic patriarchs is not oriental reverence; it is the strongest sort of self-appraisal by a people shaken with the advent of Christianity. Heaven’s indifference to humanity, to whom it gives, but from whom it rarely takes back, is tragic and unpathetic. The famous Jewish wit is already present, and in this respect there is a direct line from these proverbs to the Yiddish. But it also stands in contrast to later Jewish humor: it is throughout wry, but not bitter; objective, but not tangential; and most important, incisive, and not violent.—Jacob Sloan
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Anti-Semitism
One Haman is worth six hundred thousand prophets.
Everyone who persecutes Israel ends as a leader.
Consequences
Tie a broken pot to the tail of a dog, and he will do his part.
The ox has fallen—sharpen the knife.
If there were no mouse, what would the hole do?
Dreams and Sleep
Sleep is the beginning of ruin.
In dreams, men are shown the thoughts of the heart.
One dream in sixty is a prophecy.
Epigones
Our fathers said: “We have forgotten the good things that were”—we have never seen them with our own eyes.
Our fathers wrecked the ceiling—we have shaken the walls.
The men of old plowed and sowed—we have not the mouths to eat.
Better the fingernails of the men of old than the bellies of the men of today.
The wisdom of the men of old was as wide as the threshold of a hall, that of those who followed them like the threshold of a house—and we and our wisdom are like the eye of a needle.
The ill-temper of the fathers, rather than the good-temper of the sons.
In the past the asses used to pull the wagons—nowadays the wagons pull the asses.
Free Will
She began under compulsion, and ended of her own free will.
Humility
Be cursed, but do not curse.
God
Would that the Compassionate One might become angry enough to redeem us, against his will!
Would that they deserted Me, and kept My Torah!
What have you to do with the secrets of the Compassionate One?
Heaven
We do not listen to voices from heaven.
Audacity helps even in things that have to do with heaven.
We have learned that Heaven gives but does not take back.
Illusion and Delusion
At night, a burning coal—in the morning, nothing but a worm.
He who translates a verse literally is a liar.
He who cannot beat the donkey, beats the saddle.
Money
Money purifies bastards.
Misfortune
Poverty follows the poor man.
There isn’t a penny for food, but there is for misfortune.
Mortality
No man dies save it be from boredom.
It were better for a man not to have been created than to have been created.
Paradoxes
If a man profit, he gains a cinder; if he loses, he loses a jewel.
Stripped naked, and making beautiful shoes!
Power
Every revolution that does not proceed from the great is no revolution.
The magnitude of the error according to the brilliance of the errer.
Flay carcasses in the market place, and deal in money, and do not say: I am a great man.
Proportions
The well is not to be filled by its pit.
No tree is ever cut down, save it be by its own kind.
Here is the boat; now bring the river.
Break the jug, and guard the wine that is in it.
When a dog barks at you, go into the house; a lion—run out.
Reality
Words that remain in the heart are no words.
Reputation
When a man from Narsha kisses you, count your teeth.
Men are recognized by three things: their pockets, their cups, and their anger.
Scholarship
Whores rouge one another—how much more so scholars!
Self-Interest
No man sins for the sake of anyone but himself.
No man divorces the wife of his fellow.
No man is forward with his creditor.
No man thinks himself wicked.
Men will be led on the path they wish to take.
First beautify yourself, and then beautify others.
The Sexes
There is no legal guardian over sex.
Woman carries her weapons on her.
If he is lucky, his wife is his helpmeet; if he is unlucky, she is against him.
While you’re protecting the foolish women, come and protect the clever ones as well.
Scepticism
Respect him and suspect him.
All this—and perhaps!
Everyone is considered blind.
Youth and Old Age
The construction of the young is destruction; the destruction of the old, construction.
The cow wishes to give suck more than the calf to suck.
Torah
The Writ spoke in terms of the reality of things.
In the hour of oppression the Law is different.
Torah that comes from no school is no Torah.
Custom annuls law.
Truth and Falsehood
A lie that is not a truth to begin with cannot stand.
Wisdom and Folly
The camel went looking for horns, and had its ears cut off.
Woe to him who has no courtyard, and makes a courtyard-gate!
It is easy to go up to the stage, and hard to go down.
Social Relations
It is permissible for a man to describe himself in a place where he is not known.
I know myself I am no priest; if my fellows say to me, “Go up to give the priests’ blessing”—I shall go up.
Not the mouse but the hole is the thief.
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