Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Rough Day

A true story I read:

I was sitting in the middle of the subway car when the car door opened and in walked a beggar on crutches holding a tin cup. I didn't want to have to deal with this beggar. Is he really poor or just crazy?

Unconsciously, I, like most of the passengers, tried to make ourselves as invisible as possible.

Sure enough, the beggar was very unsuccessful.

Then the weirdest thing happened. From the other side of the car came in another beggar and he too was on crutches. Somehow this made me feel better because I thought this is a beggar-on-crutches scam team.

As they met in front of my seat, they stared at each other. One said to the other, "Rough day, huh?"

"Yeah, rough day," the other replied.

Then the first beggar took a coin out of his cup and put it into the cup of the other beggar and he continued through the car.

Many people think that the opposite of believing in God is atheism but Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach taught that the opposite of believing in God is being a miser. This means there is nothing further from God and spirituality than the inability or unwillingness to give.