Rabbi Chanania, the son of Akashia, said, "The Holy One, blessed be He, was pleased to make Israel worthy; wherefore He gave them a copious _Torah_ and many commandments, as it is said, 'It pleased the Lord, for his righteousness' sake, to magnify the _Torah_ and make it honorable'". _____________________ TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES CHAPTERS II through VI: The source text included the following lines: "All Israel," etc., p. 29 and "Rabbi Chanania," etc., p. 38. as the first and last line of each chapter, the page numbers referring to the beginning and ending of Chapter I. Rather than reference these two sentences in this manner, this text version copies the two sentences to their intended locations. The transcriber believes this better captures the intent and functionality of the text. Chapter III: R. Meir umlaut over the i, wherever this name appears CHAPTER IV: happy art thou in this world, and in the source text, the comma after 'worls' was a period. This was corrected for this electronic text. CHAPTER V: tables of stone are as written in the source text as a translation of the Hebrew "luchot"; modern readers may better recognize the phrase 'tablets of stone'.