Less Than a Penny

The goal of this blog is a penny for your thoughts. Please share.
In honor of three San Francisco birthdays this week: David, Harmon and Rebecca. Happy Birthday!

Did something like this ever happen to you?

We're sitting at the Shabbat table. I ask a child, "So-and-so, would you please go get the orange juice."

Before she can even get out of her chair, her sister dashes ahead of her to snatch the mitzvah.

Some kids may be happy to let someone else do their chores. But this kid is upset: "Abba asked me to do it!!"

This scenario occurs often in our home. It leads to a few questions:

1. Can you steal a mitzvah? Is that really stealing?

After you get everyone's answer, you can tell them: According to the Talmud, not only is it considered stealing, you can take someone to court for stealing your mitzvah and if you win, the court may impose hefty damages. In one such case, the plaintiff was awarded ten gold coins.

2. What's the worst kind or amount of stealing?

Meaning: Is it a dollar amount, like $1M or $1B or ? Was Madoff one of the worst because he stole so much from so many? Or is it a function of the victim - stealing from poor orphans is worse than from Warren Buffet?

3. Is goodness relative or absolute?

Meaning: Should I judge myself in comparison to other people ("Hey, I'm no Bernie Madoff:), or compared to some absolute standard (no cheating anyone ever, even slightly).

Interestingly enough, while everyone agrees that stealing from poor orphans ranks among the lowest of the low, the rabbis say there's a type of stealing that's even worse:

When a person steals in a way that he convinces himself it's not really a crime.

Like the guy who steals one grape from his neighbor's vine.

"What's the big deal? One grape is worth less than a penny, what did I do?"

Indeed, under Jewish law, he cannot be prosecuted.

But imagine others copy him, each one stealing less than a penny's worth, so the poor owner has no legal recourse.

This isn't the billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. It's cheating in a way that you'll never be caught, never be tried, never be convicted.

This is called gaming the system. Cheating on a test. Not reporting all of your income. Not paying an out-of-state parking fine. Not leaving a note when you scratch someone's car.

(Some say even cheating at golf and Pokemon Go.)

If you are guilty of any of the above, don't beat yourself up. The Talmud says most people are. It's a rare person who is 100% honest in all monetary matters.

But that's the definition of an ethical person. 

 

So what are we waiting for?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Do you know how many days to Channuka?

PPS - Did you find the easter egg?
 

When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_forgiveness.html

When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_forgivene

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The Honest Abe in You

The goal of this blog is to bring some straight-talk to the Friday night dinner table....
In memory of my father - Dovid ben Eliezer - who's 11th yahrzeit was observed this week.

I hope you and your table enjoyed the Abe Lincoln riddle last week.

To the left is a glimpse into the past - my father back in the day.

For years, people told him he looked like Abe.

After years of people needling him about it, he made himself a cardboard stovepipe hat and played the role.

What do you think?

Here's the thing.

They didn't just resemble each other physically. My father also could have easily had the nickname, "Honest". He was simply a straight shooter.

Here's an example:

If he made a mistake, and realized it, he had no problem uttering the three hardest-to-say words in the English language:

"I was wrong."

Nor the two runners-up:

"I'm sorry."

In his memory, I would like to challenge you to this one tiny challenge.

Sometime this weekend, lock yourself in the bathroom, look in the mirror, and practice saying those two phrases over and over, until they roll off your tongue as naturally as leaves to a tree.

Seriously! Try it.

"I was wrong. I'm sorry!"
To err is human, to own up to it is divine.


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Hidden somewhere in this message is a link to a great Lincoln book for summer reading.


PPS - Have you thought about sending your favorite teacher or school one of these: teachamazingnature.com.


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R U a Chameleon?

The goal of this blog is to transform your Friday night dinner table.... Please print and share.

Recognize this critter? It’s a famous lizard called a chameleon.

They’re famous for changing their colors. They really can do that. It’s quite amazing. They can change from brown to green or other colors in twenty seconds.

But why do they change their colors? Are they trying to hide?

It turns out that they change color to communicate! They use color to tell other chameleons how they’re feeling! Some colors mean, “Hello, how are you?” and other colors mean “Stay away from me, I’m not in the mood to talk right now!”

Or, “You know, I’m tired of wearing brown, I think I’ll try green today.”

(We don’t know their language very well, but some people think they may have a special color for, “How was Trump last night?” What do you think?)

There are two other cool things about chameleons.

One you can see in these pictures — look at the cool bulging eyes. Each eye moves independently of the other. Think about it. When you move your eyes, they move together. Try to imagine being able to look at two different things at the same time. Is that cool or what?

But they can also work together to see in stereo if needed, like when they want to focus on a juicy bug for breakfast.

This leads me to the other cool thing about the chameleon: its secret weapon. Even though the chameleon moves incredibly slowly, like a snail, and looks very vulnerable, it has a truly incredible tongue. Most chameleons have a tongue longer than their own body that they can shoot out at lightning speed and grab something as heavy as half their body weight. You ever try catching a fly? Bet you can’t!

But a chameleon can! Its tongue can move faster than muscle tissue can physically move.

I’ll repeat that: it’s tongue, which is made of muscle, can move faster than muscle tissue can move.

How is that possible? It wasn’t until 2004 that scientists figured out how they do it. The secret is a material called collagen that the chameleon winds up under its tongue like a spring, turning its tongue into a 14 miles-per-hour catapult — Wham! Mantis for breakfast!

It is the only creature in the universe known to be able to do that.

There is an interesting midrash that mentions the chameleon:

Noah’s son Sheim was telling Eliezer about life on the Ark: “We had to feed all the animals, but my father didn't know what to feed the chameleon. One day he was sitting and cutting up a pomegranate, when a worm dropped out of it, which it [the chameleon] consumed. From then on, he mashed up bran for it, and when it became wormy, it devoured it” (Talmud Sanh. 108b).

(The above is excerpted from our new curriculum to engage students in the wonders nature. For more info, send an email or visit amazingnature4teachers.com. There are two versions - one like the above for Judaics classrooms and one for secular studies classrooms.)

Question for your table: Is the chameleon being more or less "honest" when it changes colors? Do people ever do that?

Shabbat Shalom.


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It Was 10 Years Ago

The goal of this blog is to provoke deeper dinner-table discussion. Please print and share with someone tonight.
Happy Birthday to our friend Pinchas in Jerusalem!

Bill Cosby has done me a big favor.

Mr. Father-Figure has made it really easy for me to speak about my real father.

Ten Years ago this coming Sunday (on the Jewish calendar), my father was on a ladder.

He was trimming a tree.

He was preparing for our visit a week later.

He just had to get that one last branch.

My mother was by his side when he fell, and stayed by his side all the way to the hospital, the rest of the day and into the night when he died.

"To everything there is a season... a time to be born and a time to die" (Ecclesiastes).

The 1,000 people at his funeral all felt that it was too early for him to die.

In honor of his 10th yahrzeit, I am planning a special memorial Table Talk next week.

This week, prior to the yahrzeit, I would like to share one thought about his short life, followed by a question for your table.

This morning, the pundits are of course all talking about William Henry Cosby, Jr.

How he had represented the ideal of fatherhood.

How he had been a personal role model for so many people.

Now civil rights leaders are asking them to remove his star from the Hollywood sidewalk.

"Not gonna happen," says Walk-of-Fame apologist Leron Gubler.

Gubler, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce president and chief executive, says that there is nothing a celebrity can do, no matter how despicable, to change his star status.

If you can make millions of people laugh*, Hollywood shall honor you forever.

What does all of this have to do with my father?

Welll, quite simply, he didn't have 1,000 people at his funeral because he made them laugh.

Question for your table:

What kind of people do you want to come to your funeral

(a) those who love you because you're funny, or rich and famous?
(b) those who love you because you have lived a life of honesty and integrity?


Shabbat Shalom

"Who is truly honorable? He who honors others." (Avot 4:1)

"There are 3 'crowns': The crown of the Torah (i.e., wisdom), the crown of the priesthood (i.e., spiritual greatness), and the crown of kingship (i.e., poltical leadership), but the crown of a good name surpasses them all." (Avot 4:17)

PS - This just came to my inbox: https://www.facebook.com/WBTVMollyGrantham/videos/1059035014106981/
Highly recommended 10-minute viewing on today's theme. Narrated by Tom Hanks.


* (and an undesclosed number of studio executives rich)

 

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Say It Again, Sam

Last week I did something unusual - I asked an open-ended question, and promised a book for the best answer(s). Some people wrote in that the answer is to be a more giving, forgiving person etc.

I would say that self-transformation is a vision for avoiding the rut in the first place.

But it can take years to change one's disposition.

What about when a relationship is in a rut of negativity - how do you get out of the rut?

Here is the answer you've been waiting for....

I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'll keep saying it until you actually go and do it:

Lock yourself in the bathroom.

Look in the mirror.

Practice uttering the two hardest phrases in the English language:

"I'm so wrong."
"I'm really sorry."

Let's try that again:

"My bad."
"Sorry!"

Practice makes perfect:

"That was dumb of me!"
"Please forgive me."

Here's something to do at your table that will get everyone laughing and out of their ego-shell at the same time: See if you can come up with 10 different ways to say I'm wrong and I'm sorry.

Everyone who sends in 10+10 answers wins... yes, a free copy of the new Art of Amazement! 1 entry per family!

(Congratulations to last week's winners, I won't name them in public but they'll be getting a book.)


Shabbat Shalom



PS - what do you think of this?

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” - Churchill

Honestly!

This is a true story that happened to me last week.

I had bought a certain item from a local store that I ended up not needing. After driving around for a few weeks with the item in the trunk of my car, I finally found myself both in the right place and with a few extra minutes to return the item.

You see, it was not a very expensive item, under $10.

Now, I didn't have a lot of time, just about 5 minutes or so, in order to make it to a meeting.

Fortunately, the store wasn't very busy at that time of the morning, only one person in front of me at the register.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten the receipt. Worse, it was evidently this employees first day on the job, as she didn't know what to do.

She called her manager, who came over and taught her how to do a store credit.

The time was ticking away, but I still had a few minutes.

After she rang it up, I suddenly remembered that I had bought this item for JSL, a non-profit oranization, and had not paid tax.

"Wait a minute, I didn't pay tax on this."

Too late, she had already completed the return.

Do you think she knew what to do?

She called the manager again, who came over.

"He bought this tax-free, but I already rang it up, what should I do?"

The manager looked at the receipt. The "tax" that I had been refunded was 54¢.

"Can you ring it up again?"

"No, it's too hard, and it's such a small amount, don't worry about it," the manager decided.

This made me very uncomfortable. It doesn't say, "Thou shalt not steal a large amount of money." This was money that didn't belong to me or the organization.

On the one hand, the Talmud says that one should be extremely careful with other people's money. An ethical person should never want a penny that doesn't rightfully belong to them.

On the other hand, I was in a hurry.

And now I have a store credit for more money than I should.

2 Questions for your table:

1. Am I being neurotic or appropriately ethical sensitive?
2. If the latter, what should I do?


Shabbat Shalom

Kosher Talk

Dedicated to Yaakov ben Ora Belka, may he have a speedy recovery.

This guy brings a small bottle of milk to the yeshiva to enjoy with his coffee. He puts a note on it: “Enjoy this milk, but please do not use last quarter-inch.”

When he goes for his 11 am coffee, to his dismay he finds the bottle empty.

The next day, he makes a larger note, so it will be crystal-clear.

Same thing happens – someone finishes the milk.

The third day, he tries a different note: “You may enjoy this milk but not the last quarter-inch – doing so constitutes geneiva (theft).”

Guess what happens? At 11 am the bottle is empty!

The fourth day, he tries an entirely different tactic. He puts a note on the bottle: “CHALAV STAM” (unsupervised milk).

Guess what happens?

At 11 am, he finds the bottle full.

Some of us are more careful about what we put into our mouths than what comes out of our mouths, or how we treat others.

If you keep kosher and dress and act religious but knowingly gossip or cheat or steal, you are a fraud.

On the other hand, if you don’t keep kosher but never asked what that means, then you are not living up to your potential.

Shabbat Shalom

PS -

Here is a short video about the Land of Milk and Honey:


Here is Ambassador Yoram Ettinger speaking plainly about reality in the Land of Israel:





The goal of Table Talk is to give you a conversation-starter for the Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.


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False Profit (and Real Idols)

The other day our 3-year old Devorah asked her older sister, “Will you please give me some ice cream?”

Her 4-year-old brother Yoseph interjected: “It’s not ice cream! It’s sorbet!”

Older sister: “Same thing!”

“No, it’s not the same thing! Ice cream is like chocolate and vanilla! Sorbet is like strawberry and lemon!”

What’s your reaction - pedantic literalism, or refreshing truthfulness?

If Reuven bought a home in 1973 for $40,000 and sold it to Shimon in 2003 for $400,000, and then in 2009 the value of that home went down to $300,000, was Shimon the victim of a Ponzi scheme?

Well, no, there was no fraud, that’s just the way the proverbial cookie crumbles, right?

But Reuven, by getting in and out of the system early, played the system well, Shimon was just a victim of bad luck. Right?

That’s the myth.

The truth is that there we haven’t figured out a way to create a system that cannot be artificially inflated, manipulated by people with more money or better connections than you and me. Most people break the law every day by speeding....unless they fear getting a ticket.

Unless we can find a way to change human nature. I vote for make ethics a required subject in every grade of school K-college. What do you vote for?


Shabbat Shalom


PS – it’s about time we had an uplifting music video – this week, I’m reaching back 42 years to the first ever live global television broadcast, called “Our World.” The BBC commissioned this song for their contribution, and it has become one of the most famous songs of the past 100 years (but not the greatest, evidently):



PPS – if you figured out what the three parts of this Table Talk have to do with each other, congratulations.