Then there was the man whose bread fell and landed buttered side up. He ran straight away to his rabbi to report this deviance from one of the basic rules of the universe.

At first the rabbi would not believe him but finally became convinced that it had happened. However, he did not feel qualified to deal with the question and passed it along to one of the world's leading Talmudic scholars.

After months of waiting, the scholar finally came up with an answer: "The bread must have been buttered on the wrong side."