Seidemann: Lessons in numbers

By David Seidemann

FOUR young educators of this generation once asked Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt”l why it is that when we begin teaching Talmud to our young boys in Yeshiva, we begin with the tractate dealing with property rights. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to begin with the laws of belief in G-d?

Rabbi Feinstein’s answer was poignant. Unless one is scrupulous with his business affairs and respecting another person’s rights, his own personal belief in G-d, is not worth much.

THREE Talmudic disciples were once debating how a property rights issue should be determined according to Jewish law. When the consensus emerged to rule according to the opinion of Rabbi Shimon, word was sent to the non-Jewish king. The king praised the wisdom of Rabbi Shimon. Why was word sent? For not only is our conduct vis-a-vis our Jewish brethren supposed to be of the highest moral standard, it must also serve as an example for the other nations of the world.

TWO young women from a Midwestern city went shopping at an outlet store in search of skirts for one of the women’s daughters. They found two skirts, identical in style, color and size, but with two different price tags. They made the cashier check with her boss to make sure which price was correct and indeed it was the cheaper price that was correct. The cheaper price was paid and the women exited the store.

In the confusion, the cashier accidentally placed both skirts in the woman’s shopping bag, a mistake the cashier realized moments after the women exited the store. When the woman who bought the skirt was strapping her infant into the car seat of her minivan, her friend dropped the bag and both skirts fell out.

Without hesitation, the woman who purchased the skirt returned to the store to give back the extra skirt while her friend watched the now sleeping child in the minivan.

She returned to the same cashier and was greeted with a strange salutation.

“Holy moley, you just made me five bucks,” the cashier exclaimed. “Excuse me,” said the woman. “You just made me five bucks,” the cashier answered. “My boss bet me five dollars that you weren’t going to come back and return the skirt but I said that you would!” “How’d you know?” asked the shopper, now red with embarrassment that she had become the subject of a wager.

“Easy,” said the cashier, “the wig.”   “The wig?” asked the woman. “Yeah, you’re a ‘wig woman’. The ladies with the wigs, and the men with the beanies, I knew you’d bring it back. And if my boss knew you were a wig woman, he would never have bet me. He would know you’d bring it back too.”

“So instead of making a bet you knew you’d win, and taking your boss’ money, why didn’t you tell him I’m a wig woman, that I cover my hair with a scarf or wig? According to what you just told me, your boss wouldn’t have placed the wager with you!” “Easy” said the cashier, “I don’t wear a wig.”

Think about it. Now think about it again.

ONE Rabbi recently told the following story to a very large public gathering. It seems that this very Rabbi who was relating the story, was walking down the streets of Jerusalem when he saw two young yeshiva students drinking cans of coke. When they finished, the two boys threw their empty cans up onto the porch of an apartment building three floors up. The cans bounced off the ceiling and crashed back to the ground. The boys tried a second time and then a third each time encountering the same result, with the cans falling back in front of them.

On the fourth try, both young men were successful in their bid to have the empty cans land on the porch. The Rabbi was beside himself and confronted the two students. He demanded to know how supposedly refined yeshiva boys who are supposed to serve as an example for others, how could they behave in such a disrespectful manner? How could they walk through the streets guzzling soda out of cans and then compound the inappropriateness of their behavior by littering. Worse, they were littering the private property of a total stranger!

The boys let the Rabbi vent and then and only then explained their actions. It seems that the man who lived on that third floor was impoverished. These two boys had arranged that all of the other Yeshiva boys would throw their cans on this man’s porch so that he could return the cans for the “deposit.” Every shekel, was so helpful to this man. Rather than make the poor man have to embarrass himself and ask for handouts face-to-face, these boys set into motion a mechanism that would spare the man the shame. Anonymous throwers to an anonymous needy person.

When this Rabbi relayed the aforementioned story in public, his goal was to teach a lesson in judging others favorably. An unintended lesson not lost on the audience was that in order to grow, we need to be self-critical at times and examine how we can fall short, for instance, by not giving the “coke can thrower” the benefit of the doubt.

But to me the most powerful lesson of this story is the Rabbi’s recitation, in front of hundreds of listeners, of a story about himself, and how he had fallen short of his own high standards. The humility displayed by the Rabbi, relating his own shortcomings to instruct and inspire others is one great lesson.