Snow White

Once upon a time there were a king and queen who lived in a fine palace with everything they wanted in life, except a child. One day, the queen was thrilled to realize that she was with child, and the overjoyed couple welcomed Rivke bas Elkanah veChanah into the world about 8 months later. Alas, childbirth weakened the queen, and she was niftar before the child was even a year old.

The king was consumed with grief, but strove mightily to bring Rivke up to be the bas Torah that he and his wife had envisioned. She was a bright, sweet child, and she and her father were `osqim batorah and her progress was quite rapid.

When Rivke was six, her father met an eishes chayil from the next kingdom over, and they were wed. Unfortunately, the new queen had a hidden jealous streak, and when she saw how tznius and makpid Rivke was, her heart was consumed with fear that the girl should overtake her in learning and in mitzvos. However, the queen had a magic seifer that she consulted each morning

'Seifer seifer on the shtender!
Who's the Torah's best defender?'

And each day the seifer reassured her:

'You are the Torah's best defender.'

Still, the queen's insecure heart gnawed at her, and though she desperately wanted to have Rivke murdered in the middle of nowhere, but closer to the adjacent kingdom's borders, she knew that if she did so the magic seifer would cease to assure her of her frumkeit. Therefore, she arranged a marriage for Rivke to a nice enough boy, but not a talmid chacham in the least and far enough away that the king wouldn't retrieve the girl. The king and queen lost all track of her.

Then one day it emerged that the local sho`het was in fact selling treif chicken to all the families in the kingdom. Instead of accepting responsibility for their role in the mess, the rabbeim who hadn't supervised him immediately proclaimed a fast across the kingdom, and demanded kashering and replacement of all dishes that might have been touched by the chicken of doom. The queen, eager to be seen by her subjects (and the seifer) as frum, and sure that Rivke and her husband could not afford to follow her act, immediately replaced all the dishes in the castle and began a great fast.

Rivke's husband was horrified by the apparent imminent expense, since they could ill afford to replace the dishes in the cottage. However, Rivke had diligently toiled in the beis midrash every evening after work since their marriage. Calmly, she reassured her husband that they need neither fast nor kasher dishes, nor replace any of them.

The next day the queen got up and said:

'Seifer seifer on the shtender!
Who's the Toiroh's best defender?'

Unexpectedly, the seifer replied:

'Your emunah is misaligned
Rivke's frumkeit is divine.'

Furious, the queen hunted down the rabbeim and the sho`het and had them exiled to the Gobi Desert. Rivke and her husband learned happily ever after.

Glossary:

bas Torah - Nice Frum Girl
beis midrash - house of study
eishes chayil - woman of valor
emunah - faith
frum - observant Jewish
frumkeit -- general state and style of Jewish religious observance
kasher - to make kosher
kosher - fit for Jewish religious use
`osqim batorah - people engrossed in (learning) Torah (sing masc `oseiq battoiroh fem `oseqes battoiroh)
makpid - concerned (with mitzvois)
mitzvos -- commandments
Niftar - 'Was exempted' -- passed away
Rabbeim - plural of rabbi (teacher)
Seifer - book, here implicitly a Jewish religious one
sho`het - butcher (does kosher meat)
Shtender - book stand that props a seifer at a good angle for learning
talmid chacham - student of a wise person
Torah - Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)
treif - food that is not kosher
tznius - modest