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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Saved by the Jar

The purpose of this blog is to rescue the conversation at your Shabbat table. Please print and share.

A reader confessed to me the other day that he doesn't usually print out Table Talk to share with his family, rather he relies on his memory.

I know that's hard to believe.

I mean, is he really able to recreate the eloquence and brilliance of thought from memory?

Perhaps he thinks that I just write the first thing that pops into my head?

Perhaps he doesn't realize the laborious hours I spend researching and writing this email every week?

Is it possible that he just scans the email on the screen so quickly that he doesn't see the profound depths of thought and vibrant humor?

OK, so this week I have a story that you really must print out if you want to do it justice to at your dinner table.

I'll begin with this question for your table: Who is the woman in the above photo?

Hint: She was born 104 years ago next week (yesterday on the Jewish calendar).

Still can't guess?

One more hint: Her nom de guerre was Jolanta.

Still don't know?

OK. Here's her story.

In 1939, she was a 29-year-old social worker at the City of Warsaw Welfare Department.

She recognized that the Jews were particularly vulnerable and wanted to help them, but this became impossible when the Germans sealed the ghetto in November 1940.

In case you forgot, the Warsaw Ghetto was a mini-Concentration Camp of 400,000 men, women and children living in an area of 1.3 square miles. That's a population density of 308,000 per square mile.

That's four times the population density of Mumbai/Bombay, currently the world's greatest.

Imagine the hygienic conditions, the lack of food and medical care, the high death rate.

Our heroine managed to obtain a permit to enter the ghetto to inspect the sanitary conditions.

Once inside, she contacted Jewish activists and personally became the smuggling conduit for Jews.

As you can imagine, she often had to plead with parents to permit her to take their kids.

In 20 October 1943, the Gestapo arrested her, tortured her severely, sentenced her to death and sent her to the infamous Pawiak prison for execution.

On her way to the gallows, in February 1944, her friends in the underground got her out with a bribe.

And what do you think she did?

She rejoined the resistance of course!

Sendler and 30 volunteers working with her helped rescue about 2,500 Jewish children and she personally saved about 400 children.

Now, where did these children go?

Most of them went to Catholic orphanages or families. But she promised the children that they would come for them after the war.

So she and her co-workers buried names and addresses of the hidden children in jars in order to keep track of their original and new identities.

After the war, they dug up the jars and gave them to the Central Committee of Polish Jews. (Most of their parents had been killed at the Treblinka extermination camp or gone missing.)

She was the first person honored by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations.

Here is the most moving and heart-wrenching quote:

"Here I am, a stranger, asking them to place their child in my care. They ask if I can guarantee their safety. I have to answer no. Sometimes they would give me their child. Other times they would say come back. I would come back a few days later and the family had already been deported."

I was going to end with the easy question for your table: What would you do?

You could try to answer that one, but I have an even better one.

Some people find this story so unbelievable, they asked Snopes to confirm it.

The question is - Why is it a story worthy of Snopes?




Shabbat Shalom

PS - Here is a short video of her at age 95: http://viewpure.com/5nrDWJVOscA

PPS - Her story has inspired some kids in Kansas to create the Irena Sender Project (a project of the Lowell Milken Center).

PPPS - The New York Times obituary tells of some of the ingenious methods used to smuggle children from the Ghetto.



Shabbat Shalom


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On Ice and Snow

Attention all ye snow birds out there, and that includes you Easterners who are really really ready to see springtime arrive...

What comes first, righteousness or holiness?

Let's say someone is acting all holy, keeping kosher, praying, that kind of thing, but speaks a lot of gossip. Or cheats on their taxes. How do you react?

Pretty disappointing, right?

OK, let's say someone is super-duper ethical in action and speech, but has no spiritual practice, in fact disdains "spirituality" as "mythology" and is exceedingly proud of his or her great accomplishments. How do you react?

I used to be a big fan of the Winter Olympics.

I particularly loved the Giant Slalom (perhaps because as a skier, I could somewhat relate to the sport).

What changed me was a realization that the thesis of "human perfection" has a spiritual antithesis, of humility.

The Olympics do not seem to encourage nor honor humility.

Just look at the face of the Russian figure skater, standing on the podium with his silver medal.

Silver! He ought to be thrilled. But he has the scowl of a sore loser.

Righteousness is like striving for the gold.

Holiness is like being happy with whatever the outcome may be, whether Gold, Silver, or even being disqualified or falling during your routine.

How do you fall on this topic? Here's the big question you can ask your table to flush out where everyone stands:

With whom would you rather spend an hour and why:

A) Your favorite Olympian (or pro athlete)
B) His Holiness the Dalai Lama (or other comparable person)

If you answered "B" - how does your time cultivating holiness compare to your time watching sports?

These days, I've become a "small" fan of the Olympics.

Shabbat Shalom


He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. - Churchill