GEN627 The preservation of life is one of the main aims of our legislation. Man can achieve this by heeding the wise counsels offered by man who were past-masters at the art of living. Here are a few of of their observations. “The world grows dark for him who has to depend on the table of others; such a life is really not worth while.” Betzah 32b Could independence wish for a better advocate? “A man takes greater delight in one measure of his own than in nine belonging to his fellow-man.” Baba Metzia 38a Who does not recall the advice placed into the mouth of the dove when, with an olive-leaf in her beak, she returned from the flood without to the safety of Noah’s Ark? [this verse] “Let my food be bitter as an olive, O God, but dependent on Thee, than sweet as honey, but dependent on the gifts of flesh and blood.”  [A prayer so acceptable, that it has been incorporated, with some slight changes, into the Grace After Meals; see Singer’s Prayer Book, p. 281].  “He who eats of his own bread is like the child reared at his mother’s breast.” Abot d’R. Nathan 37  “He who eats of the bread of another fears to look at him.” Orlah 1:3; “The mind is not contended unless man eats of the fruit of his own labour.” Shekalim 3. LEHRMAN 289-90