Our sages of blessed memory have said that we must not enjoy any pleasure in this world without reciting a blessing. If we eat any food, or drink any beverage, we must recite a blessing over them before and after. If we breathe the scent of goodly grass, the fragrance of spices, the aroma of good fruits, we pronounce a blessing over the pleasure. The same applies to pleasures of the sight. And the same applies to pleasures of the ear.

Not every man remembers the name of the cow which supplied him with each drop of milk he has drunk.

Through a historical catastrophe - the destruction of Jerusalem by the emperor of Rome - I was born in one of the cities in the diaspora. But I always deemed myself a child of Jerusalem, one who is in reality a native of Jerusalem.

Our sages of blessed memory have said that we must not enjoy any pleasure in this world without reciting a blessing.

If we breathe the scent of goodly grass, the fragrance of spices, the aroma of good fruits, we pronounce a blessing over the pleasure.

For myself, I am very small indeed in my own eyes.

If I am proud of anything, it is that I have been granted the privilege of living in the land which God promised our forefathers to give us, as it is written.