 I think we're all familiar with the creation story. The Bible begins by speaking about God creating the world. And we know that after each day of creation, there is a refrain. The Bible says, in Hebrew, Vayar Elohim Ketov, usually translated, and God saw that it was good. Most of us read that, and we don't really pour us to think about it too much. But it actually is a pretty strange thing for the Bible to say. Can you imagine that God created something, and then he steps back to look at it and says, I'm not so sure. What is it going to be? We assume that when God makes something, he does it properly. He does it exactly as he intended. As the old saying goes, God does not make junk. So it is a bit strange for the Bible to describe the creation of each of the things that were created during those first six days and forgot to have to stand back like an artist and say that he saw that it was pretty good. Why just good? Maybe you should say it was excellent. Maybe you should say it was incredible not to be beat, but for some reason, we don't usually get caught up with that phrase. One of the great commentaries to the Bible are by Jakob St. Mecklenburg, who was a 19th century German Bible scholar. His commentary is called Katav the Kabbalah. So he actually pulls this phrase apart, and he says that grammatically, or etymologically, the phrase Vayar Elohim Ketav, Vayar, he claims, is the causative. So he really renders the passage, not so much as God saw that it was good, but that God caused it to be seen. So after each day of creation, the Bible says, and God caused it to be seen, Ketav, because he is good. So rather than being an evaluation of the quality of what was created, the Bible is giving us, really, in some way, a reflection on why was it created. Why did God do anything? God does not need to create anything. And what was the motivation? So Rabbi Mecklenburg suggests that the creation, the act of creation itself, was an act of goodness. And our sages explain that the nature of a good person is to be a giver. The one that's good always seeks to give, more than seeks to receive. And so each day of creation, the Bible shares with us that God caused it to be seen, meaning God brought it into existence, Ketav, because he is good. The Bible teaches us in the book of Psalms, chapter 89, verse 3, olam chesed ibanei. The world was created as an act of loving kindness. The world was created out of love. Right? Again, the nature of one who loves is to want to give. And so giving is not just something that we do, but giving is something that was inherent in the actual creation of the world itself. The Hebrew language, interestingly, has the word for love, ahavah, and ahavah has in it the word hav, hav means to give. So again, within the word ahavah, love itself, is this word of to give, because again, loving means giving. The Talmud teaches us, we're studying now between Passover and Shavuot, ethics of the Fathers, Purkeavot. So the first chapter of Purkeavot tells us that one of the foundations of the world, the world stands on three things. One of those three things is Gimilut Khasadim, acts of loving kindness. Now in some ways, again, it was the loving kindness of God to even create the world, but it's our loving kindness that Mishnah teaches that sustains the world. If it wasn't for acts of human loving kindness, the world would not continue to exist. And interestingly, the rabbis teach us in the Midrash that there was an entire debate going on before the world was created between the angels, should God create the world, shouldn't God create the world, and the angels will argue it, and they were trying to convince God, yeah, go ahead and do it, no, it's crazy, what are you thinking about doing? And so the angels that represented the ideas of truth and peace said, no, you can't create the world. Human beings are liars, they're always fighting with each other, so it doesn't make any sense. But the angels that represented loving kindness and acts of charity, they said human beings ultimately do engage in acts of charity and loving kindness, go ahead and create the world. And what happened? So the Talmud says that God took the angel of truth and threw it down because there was a tie going on. It was two against two. So God took the angel of truth, threw it down to the ground and created the world because of the potential for human loving kindness. We discussed last week a little bit about why God bothered creating the world. I mean, when we say that God wants to give, give to whom. And so the Jewish narrative is that the world is very much anthropocentric, that God's ultimate goal was creating human beings who would be the recipients of what God's goodness is. The world is seen really as a stage for human beings to live our lives on. Everything in the world was created ultimately for the benefit of human beings. But God's ultimate goal is the human being. And God wants to give to us. The question is what? And our mystical teachers explained that God is very much like our parents, right? We speak about God as Avinu Shabbat Shemayim, our father in heaven, our great parent up in heaven. And we know that our earthly parents, our terrestrial parents, want ultimately the greatest fulfillment that we can have. Parents seek the fulfillment and the pleasure and they want their children to have everything good. If you could tap into what a parent's will and desire is, parents if they could would want to have their children have everything, every possible good in the world. And so the rabbis teach us that that's not any less true for God. God ultimately wants human beings to have all the pleasure in the world possible. As a matter of fact, the Talmud teaches that after we leave this world in 120 years, one of the questions we're going to be asked is to justify all the legitimate pleasures in this world that we didn't partake in. Because if God put it here for our benefit, we're supposed to be getting pleasure out of it. They tell a famous story that when Rev Shemshin Rafferl Hirsch was in Switzerland for a rabbinic convention, he asked the driver to take him up to the top of the Alps. And the students were saying, what are you schlepping to the Alps for? And he said, well, when I go up to heaven, they're going to say, Shemshala, did you see my beautiful Alps? So he felt that this is something that he can't deprive himself of. And yet the real question is, are these the ultimate goals of why we're here? To see the Alps, or to have nice dark chocolate, or to see all the beautiful things that are in the world, the rabbis teach us that these are all ultimately pointing to something beyond themselves. Every single pleasure in this world points to the source of that pleasure. Every pleasure in the world, every piece of beauty in the world, has a source. Has that which created that beauty and that pleasure, and that's the creator. That's God. So if the purpose of life is to have ultimate pleasure, then the ultimate pleasure would be to somehow have some connection to the ultimate thing in the world, which is God. So that's God's goal. God wants to give us ultimately himself. God wants human beings to have the ability to attach ourselves to him. That would be the ultimate pleasure attainable by human beings. So how do we do this? How do we attach ourselves to God? How do we get close to God? And this is one of the great questions that all theology deals with and struggles with. How do you connect a spiritual, infinite, transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient? All of the fancy words. How do you connect a God like that to a human being that is very finite? We live for how many years, 80 years, 70 years, 60 years, 120 years, but we're very small in comparison. We're very finite. We're limited compared to God. We can't even say ourselves in the same breath. So how do you connect human beings that are so small, so limited, so physical, so transient to a God that is eternal, that is totally spiritual, that is transcendent? It seems like it's an impassable, an unbridgeable gap. So there have been many theories about how this is done, and the most popular theory in the world today is by the most dominant religion, which is Christianity, which asserts that the gap was bridged, that somehow the gap was narrowed by God becoming human, taking on human form, and giving human beings the ability to access Him. Meaning that God, as He is, is unknowable, is invisible, and is transcendent. How do you relate to that God? So Christianity proposed that God did us a big favor by becoming a human being, the famous song by Joan Osborne. What if God was one of us just like some slob on the bus? That's very compelling. When we think about it, there's a God that we can see. You can put a picture of Him on your nightstand. You can have a crush on Him. You could feel close to Him. You could see Him. You can fantasize about Him. You can have a sense that, oh, I have some kind of closest to this God because I can see Him. He's one of us. He's physical. And that, on some level, has been very compelling. It's one of the strongest selling points of any religion that humanizes God because it makes God more accessible to us. But it's not the direction that the Bible took. The Jewish Bible never proposed that that's how the gap is going to be bridged. The Jewish Bible says, Kedoshim tehiyu, you human being shall be holy, kikadosh unni, as I God am holy. So the Bible gives the exact opposite direction. Rather than God becoming more human, the Bible says human beings have to become more Godly, more Godlike. And that's the entire thrust of the Jewish Bible. The Bible is not there to teach us how God became human. The whole Bible is there to teach us how us human beings can become more spiritual, more Godly, right? And by that, bridge the gap between us and God. It's interesting that Rev Kuk, who was the first chief rabbi of the modern state of Israel, taught something very cute. He said all the letters in the Hebrew alphabet have a very deep meaning. The letter kuf, kuf, which is the number 100. So what is a kuf or a kof in Hebrew? It's the, we call a monkey, is a kof. And he says that kuf is also the letter of holiness. The Bible again said, kedoshim tihiu, you shall be holy. So how do we become holy? So Rev Kuk says, by being a monkey, right? What does a monkey do? Another word we have in English is an ape, right? A monkey mimics. And we also use the word you're aping someone. You're copying them. Again, kof, kof monkey sounds like the English word copy, kof copy because a monkey imitates a monkey copies. So Rev Kuk taught that the way we become holy is by copying God, by modeling ourselves after God. And so the Bible is one long lesson in how God relates to the world. The Bible begins by God creating the world as an act of love. So we should become givers. We should become people that love. The Bible begins by telling us, at least in the Madrasic expositions, that God braided Eve's hair before she was put together with Adam. He wanted her to look beautiful, that God clothed Adam and Eve, God clothed the naked, and that God ultimately, at the end of the Bible, buries Moses. And the entire Bible is a story of loving kindness, what God does for human beings. God takes care of us, God gives us food, God provides us, God saves us, God takes care of us, and so the direction of the Bible is teaching us, you should do those things to become like God. The Bible has a verse famously which says, you shall walk in God's ways, and in Latin that was famously translated as imitatio dei, to imitate God, to try to model ourselves after God. Our Christian friends had a famous campaign years ago, WWJD, they used to wear bracelets, WWJD, what would Jesus do? So Judy is taught for the last 3,000 years, WWGD, what would God do? How would God act? And we're supposed to try to model ourselves after God. In the Book of Exodus, when the Jews crossed the Red Sea, so they sang out, ZEH, KLEVE THE ANBEHU. This is my God, THE ANBEHU, it's a very difficult word to translate, and one of the translations from the Talmud is that it's a contraction, THE ANBEHU is a contraction of ANI THE HU. This is my God, me and him, right? We're going to be just like him, we're going to try to model our lives after God. And so the basic direction of the Jewish Bible is to try to understand how God relates to the world, and we should model ourselves after that. It's not simply, by the way, to do kindness, not simply to do things that are kind, but it involves becoming people who are kind, right? It's not just doing kindness, because we can't always do kindness. But it means being kind people, transforming ourselves into people that we would refer to as Ba'alei Chesed, masters of kindness. The Bible says in the book of Mi'chah, chapter 6 verse 8, that what God wants of us ultimately is that we become people of Ahavat Chesed, people who love doing kindness. People who love doing kindness look for opportunities to do kindness. You know, it's one thing that when it crosses your path, if someone knocks on your door, you'll give them some money. But a lot of people are not waiting all day for that knock on the door. They would often be very happy if no one knocked on the door. So it's not simply reacting kindly when the opportunity presents itself. Ahavat Chesed means, you're not going to be happy unless you're doing kindness. It means someone like Abraham who looked out, he was trying to find where are those people that I can help? Because he wouldn't be happy, he would be miserable if he wasn't able to help people. It's interesting that when we read this famous story of Abraham greeting his guests, he was 99 years old when the Bible tells us he had just come out of his circumcision. Imagine a 99-year-old person just having been circumcised. He's sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. Don't forget, this was not Alberta. This is the Middle East. It's probably pretty hot in the middle of the day. And he can't sit still. He's plotting, where are my guests? I need to help people. He was just not able to sit still and feel happy unless he was helping people. We were told he had a tent where there were doors on all the sides so he could see all over the place, where is someone that I can help? And no one was coming. So God in his mercy sent the three angels to him because he would have been a very unhappy camper. What's amazing is that right before these three visitors come, the Bible says that God came to appear to Abraham. And by the way, the rabbis teach us why did God appear to Abraham? To visit the sick. It was a circumcised. It was the third day it was very painful. So God came to visit the sick. And now Abraham is entertaining the most incredible guest in the world. God has come to his home. And what can be holier than that? What could be more spiritual than having God in your living room and hanging out with God? All of a sudden Abraham sees, you know, he probably couldn't keep all of his attention on God because he's probably itching. I gotta get some guests today too. He sees these three guests. He says to God, I'm sorry, God, I'm about to put you on hold. He puts God on hold and he runs out. And it's amazing. You read this chapter in the Bible. He's 99 years old, just had surgery. And everywhere he ran, he rushes, he running, he's rushing. He's moving. He's doing with tremendous alacrity. He takes care of these guests. So the rabbis asked, why was he so insistent on taking care of these guests? I mean, that's a spiritual thing to do, but he had God in his presence. Isn't that spiritual as well? And the rabbis in the Talmud teach, Godola hachnasat orchim yotir mikabalat knehashchina, that welcoming guests in your house is even greater than communing with the divine presence. Why is it greater? Because in many ways, when you're just communing with God, you're just hanging out with God, you're passive. You're basically you, and you have God and you're hanging out together. But when you're taking care of guests, you're not just passively relating to God, by taking care of guests, you are becoming yourself more godly. In the same way God provides for people, you are becoming more godly. That gets you even closer to God than just passively hanging out with God. The rabbis teach us in Amidrash something very amazing. Eight generations after Adam, there was someone named Hanoch. And Hanoch, we're told in Amidrash, was a Kabbaler. He was a shoemaker. And the rabbis teach us that with every stitch, he was able to achieve incredible, incredible, mystical union with God. Imagine this shoemaker with every stitch achieving incredible, mystical union with God. And people wondered, how did that happen? So did it happen because while he was stitching the shoes, he was saying psalms, or he was praying to God, or he was thinking about spiritual things. So Rabbi Yisrael Salantar, who was quoted by Rabbi Eliyahu Desler, said that actually that would have been the wrong thing to do. If he was being paid to fix people's shoes, it would have been inappropriate to be stitching and at the same time, reading psalms or meditating or thinking about spiritual things. So Rabbi Salantar explains, so how did Hanoch reach the highest spiritual levels and actually mystically connect himself to God with each stitch? It's because with each stitch, he was saying to himself and thinking, how can I make the best stitch possible? How can I make the most sturdy, comfortable, highest quality shoes possible? And because he put all of his kaiches, all of his guts, all of his kishkes, all of his energy into serving people, into trying to make people more comfortable and give them better shoes, that service of other people transformed him into someone that was able to get that much closer to God. I saw an amazing analysis by someone named Yitzchak Bucksbaum. He's today a magid. He's a famous Jewish storyteller. And Yitzchak Bucksbaum had an incredible analysis of the creation story along these lines. He says, when you look at the creation story, what did God do? God takes a bunch of clay, basically, and God shapes the clay into a human form. That's what the picture is. When you read the story, God is taking earth and clay and he's fashioning it into a human being. So, Bucksbaum asks, what does this sound like if you were trying to imagine, right, a human cognate of this story? Here, God is creating a human being. But if you had a human version of the same story, so we can imagine, a person takes some clay and shapes it into a little human form, right? And especially in the times of the Bible, that person would be called an idol maker, right? We know that Abraham's father was an idol maker. He sold idols for a living. So you can imagine the Genesis story here on some level is very strange, that the creation of human beings sounds like a parallel to human beings making idols. And what's interesting is the same Hebrew word applies to both. When God created the human being, we were called B'tzelem Elohim in the image of God. The human being is B'tzelem Elohim in the image of God. And the word celem is the word we use for idols. So what's incredible is the Bible itself seems to be comparing the human being on some level to an idol. So Bucksbaum says incredibly that there's a very deep message here. The message is that in idolatry, in idolatry we are serving, we're serving what we make in God's image. Meaning that when human beings make an idol, we make something that we assume, that we think, oh, this idol, this is the image of God. And then we worship it. So Bucksbaum says that the creation story of the human being is a polemic against idolatry, that what God is saying is, if you want to serve me, don't serve what you make that's in my image. Serve what I made in my image. God is saying, if you wanna get close to me, serve what I made that was in my image, which is human beings. God is giving us the marching orders here that to get close to him, we basically not serve in the sense of worship, but we serve, we give service to, we help. We're kind to other human beings, we take care of them. And in that way, just as Hanoff was able to reach the highest spiritual realms, by making the highest quality shoes, those acts of human service become incredibly powerful spiritual experiences. The problem is that we often underestimate the spiritual potential of these experiences. We just think, oh, I'm being a nice guy, right? A nice guy can be a very secular experience sometimes. The Bible is saying that being a good person has incredible spiritual potential. It all depends upon the kavana, the intention that you bring to it. I once heard an example, imagine that someone has a job playing in a wedding band. So it's possible that a person could go to their job, they show up at the wedding, they're playing their saxophone or their drum or their guitar. And in their mind, what they're doing is, they're playing music and you're gonna get a paycheck. But that's what they see it as. It's a job and I'm making music. There's someone else that can have the exact same job and play the exact same music. But in their mind, what they're doing when they're at the wedding is, I am giving joy to a bride and groom. I am here and I'm allowing this couple to have an incredibly joyous experience the first day of their marriage. So what they're doing these two people is exactly the same. But one of them is transforming it into a spiritual experience simply by the intention they bring to that experience. The truth is that when we think about it, there are many, many different ways in which we can give. Giving obviously is not just money or things. We can give with our time, we can give advice. I just saw a very, very interesting story recently about Shlomo Zaman Arabach. I had the privilege when I was a student in Israel in 1980 to have met with Shlomo Zaman Arabach. He was one of the great rabbis of our time. And I read recently that there was a young, not so young anymore, a Yeshiva student that was having a very hard time getting married. And one of the reasons I suppose he was having a very hard time finding someone to marry him was that he had a condition. The condition was that when he got married, his mother is gonna have to live with them as the young couple. And I guess a lot of women were not so interested. Anyway, he was having a very hard time. And finally one of his friends said to him, you know, you're sabotaging yourself. Maybe you should ask a great rabbi whether it's okay to make this as a condition. You know, maybe it's just not appropriate, not proper. So they went to Shlomo Zaman Arabach and he said to this young man, he said, no, you can ask for that as a condition. You can, no problem. So the fellow went out of the meeting feeling very good. I was vindicated. He stuck to his guns. And believe it or not, a year or so later, he got engaged. So he came with his kala, with his fiancee, to Shlomo Zaman Arabach to say hello, thank him for his help and for his blessings. And when they were there, the Rav called over the young man privately. And he said to him, now that he got engaged, he says, you go find a nursing home right away for your mother. And the boy was freaked out. He said, wait a minute. I thought that you said it was okay for me to make this a condition. So he said, I did say it was okay. He said, because I think it would be horrible if you were to ultimately marry someone and think that because of that woman, your mother could not stay with you. I mean that if you had to marry someone under the pretense that this would not be a condition, you would probably resent this woman for the rest of your life. But now that this woman was willing to marry you anyway, she got engaged assuming that your mother's gonna live with you, your mother cannot stay with you. It's not good for the marriage. You find a nursing home for your mother. Here's just a simple example of how a wise person gives advice. Most of us may not have thought of giving that kind of advice that way. And giving is not again only with money or with things that we give. It's with advice. It's with our time. Sometimes just giving people time to listen to them is one of the greatest acts of kindness you can do. I spend a tremendous amount of my time listening to people and often I don't get thanked very many times, but one of the few things that I really get thanked for is people that thank me for listening to them. So just giving our time and our presence and a listening ear is often incredibly kind to people and it's an incredibly powerful way of giving to others. The Bible says in the book of Psalms, chapter 41 verse two, that it's always appropriate to deal with people that are needy cleverly, intelligently with the Bible calls Maskel El Hadal, to use Sechel, to use wisdom when it comes to dealing with people that are needy. And there are many, many stories of people who excelled when it comes to this. I read a story years ago about a fellow that was studying in the Lakewood, Yeshiva, Bate Midrash Gavoha. And here's a Yeshiva that has thousands of students and not everybody is well off financially. Many of them are struggling. There was one fellow that was learning in this Yeshiva who was too proud to ask for anything, too proud to ever ask for assistance or help and him and his family really struggled. He had a friend that was Maskel El Hadal. He was someone that was clever, that used a bit of ingenuity. And he came into the Yeshiva one day and told his friend, you know what? I was in the supermarket today and I saw they were selling tuna fish for half price. It's amazing. Whatever it normally costs, half price. So would you like me to pick up, you know, a carton or two for you? So this poor fellow says that would be great. It would be wonderful. At least, you know, I'll pay you back. And this fellow said, yeah, you'll pay me back. So he went home and him and his son as the friend went to the supermarket, bought a few cases of tuna fish, took out their hammers and started denting the cans because that was the reason he told his friend that these were on sale. The cans were all dented. They were marked down to one half. So his friend was so happy to get a bargain, right? The whole thing was a fiction. It was invented. But this was a way that the friend was able to do him an incredible favor. He didn't feel he was a burden on anyone. He was paying what it would normally cost what he thought was half price. Here was a case of ingenuity when it came to helping someone. I read recently about a store in Brooklyn called Bobby's Place. Bobby's Place is a store that sells beautiful clothing, mainly for children and for adults as well. And everything about this store looks like a normal store except for one thing. Everything is for free. People go into the store, they have to get a ticket if they want to try on four things in the fitting rooms and they're treated just like a regular store. There's not one ounce of what goes on there that smells like charity. And they have dozens and dozens of people that volunteer for this place, many people volunteer, but they're only in the back because they don't want any of the people that are coming into the store to see people they may know. They go out of their way to create a situation which will preserve the dignity of people that are not able to afford clothing in four times a year. Usually before the holidays, people are permitted to come and shop for their children to have clothing for the holidays. I heard an amazing story once about the Satma Rebbe, the great Reveal title bound that he was not known as being a big friend of the Zionists. He was very anti-Zionistic rabbi. And one day, a fellow comes from Israel wearing a ki pasrugah. He looks like an Israeli fellow, modern orthodox, obviously Zionistic. And he comes to the Satma Rebbe who is known as being very generous that this fellow had a wife that needed surgery and he needed $10,000. He was trying to get $10,000. And he came to the Satma Rebbe to raise this money. The Rebbe sat with him for a few minutes and told his Shamish, his attendant, to cut this person a check for $9,700. So he gave the fellow a check for $9,700. The person went out very, very happy. Afterwards, the attendant said to the Satma Rebbe, the fellow came in asking for $10,000. He gave him $9,700. Why don't you just cut him a check for $10,000? What's with the $9,700? So the Rebbe said to him, he came in asking for $10,000. If I had given him a check for $10,000, he would have left here kicking himself that he could have asked for more. He would not have felt so good. So I gave him a little bit less than he wanted. He wasn't gonna walk away having any second thoughts that he should have asked for more. That's an example of what I would call Geona's genius when it comes to knowing how to give. It's giving with, again, Sechel. Similar story was told by Raph Pesach Krohn, famous, he's a model and he's a storyteller. He says that he was very fortunate when he was a child that Rabbi Shwadron, who was the great storyteller from Israel, came and was a guest in his house. And he writes in his first book that when Raph Shwadron came to his house, he was staying for many, many weeks. His father told Raph Shwadron that you're welcome to stay here, but it's gonna cost $50 a week, or whatever he told him, which was actually quite expensive to stay in someone's basement. Raph Shwadron said, fine. And he gave him the $50 a week, whatever it was. At the end of the visit, Rabbi Krohn's father gave Rabbi Shwadron back all the money. I didn't intend to keep one penny of your money. So why did he charge him? Because he felt that if he was charging Rabbi Shwadron, Rabbi Shwadron wouldn't feel so uncomfortable maybe taking some milk from the refrigerator, meaning once I'm paying to be here, I have some rights here. He wanted him to feel totally comfortable, totally at home, but he didn't keep any of the money. Another way we're able to give to people is by giving them the benefit of the doubt. I think that personally, this is the universal solvent in Judaism. You know, scientists would always try to discover the universal solvent. I remember when I was a kid, working, I mentioned last week in the Bisco in their quality control labs, someone put up a sign on the bulletin board that scientists had discovered the universal solvent, but they were worried, where were they gonna put it? So what was gonna store it? So here in Judaism, I think we have the universal solvent to almost all human problems. The Bible says, but Sedeck, Tishpot, Adam and Tertor, judge every person, judge your friends and neighbors with righteousness. It says in the Talmud, have a done at call Adam look after us, give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Almost all of our human problems and our quarrels and struggles and fights and the brogues people get into, it's cause of misunderstandings. This person disappointed me. They didn't invite, how come I wasn't invited to their wedding? And why didn't this happen? And why didn't they do this? And why, and we have so many complaints, the rabbis teach us in the Bible says, give people the benefit of the doubt. You know, there were a group of women in Israel who would meet every week and they would come up with scenarios that were very difficult to give people the benefit of the doubt and they would have like a brainstorming session. They would meet for an hour and they would try to figure out as a group, how can we in this situation come up with a benefit of the doubt? And they have to sometimes come up with crazy excuses. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said, why does God give the human being the ability to be crazy sometimes? He says, because sometimes we've got to be a little bit crazy to be able to come up with an excuse for someone. We've got to really stretch our imagination. So the Bible says it's incredibly healthy to give people the benefit of the doubt. Of course, we all know we would like to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt all the time. Whenever we do something wrong, we can come up with a million excuses for why we did it wrong. We're geniuses when it comes to rationalizations and self-justifications. So the Bible says if you do it to yourself, certainly do it to other people. But as a spiritual dimension as well, the Calabarrebi pointed out that this expression, have a Don at Kolhad Damlokovskut, give everyone the benefit of the doubt, has a numerical value of 1,118. Every Hebrew letter has a numerical equivalent. So have they done at Kolhad Damlokovskut, the letters add up to 1,118, which happens to be the numerical value of Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonaiyifad. What's the connection? Calabarrebi explained that we have a difficult time giving people a benefit of the doubt because we feel that if I let people get away with murder, I'm gonna be taken advantage of. So if I don't dot all the I's and cross all the T's, and if I'm not the judge and the jury and the executioner of everyone that I come across in life, life's not gonna be fair. Everyone's gonna take advantage of me. So the Calabarrebi says that that can only be true of a person who doesn't really believe there's a God that runs the world. But if you believe there's a God that runs the world, and he makes sure that things ultimately are taken care of. People get their just desserts. You don't have to feel responsible for making sure that everyone is gonna get their just desserts. So a person who has that kind of abiding faith in a God that really runs the world, we can relax a little bit. We have the space to be able to judge people favorably. Another example of giving, I wanna share with you an amazing story that I've told before, but it's one of the areas of giving which we can often do. And it comes up so many times in our lives. Story that I heard originally from Shlomo Karlbach, but it's a famous story. They say that about 200 years ago, there was a town in Russia where there were two orphans. And these are people that were very, very poor. Destitute had no family. And one was a man, one was a woman. And miraculously, they were able to meet each other and it became a potential marriage. And the city, the whole town, was going to make a wedding for them. At the same time, the person who was the mayor of the town, who was also the sheriff of the town, and the judge, and the postal master, right? The fellow that was the corrupt official of the Russian government, he had gotten some very bad news from the Russian government. He got a letter saying, you know, you've been collecting taxes for us for the last 25 years. We don't see any taxes coming back from you. And they told him that he owes the Russian government 10,000 rubles. So this fellow was going out of his mind, 10,000 rubles. How in the world am I gonna get 10,000 rubles? So he had a strategy, which many, many people did back then in Russia. He kidnapped the first Jew he could find. And he knew that Jewish people, they make it a priority of redeeming people that are captured. So we held this young Khatan, this young bride room for a hostage. And he said to the town, you're not gonna get him back unless I get 10,000 rubles. So the whole town gets together and they're trying to figure out how in the world are we gonna get 10,000 rubles for this guy? We don't have anything near 10,000 rubles. If we put all our money together and got all our candlesticks and all our wedding rings and all our linens and everything we sold, every animal, we would maybe have a thousand rubles between all of us. So they didn't know what to do. They were besides themselves. So just happened that passing through the town were three young rabbis that were gonna become very, very big rabbis one day. There was Rabinach and Mendel of Etepsk. There was Rablevi Yitzchok of Burditchev. And there was Roshner Zalman of Liyadi who would become the future first Lubavitch Iranian. And these three young rabbis come upon the whole town meeting and going crazy, what are we gonna do? And Roshner Zalman says to his friends, you know, I have an idea. He says, isn't there that very, very elderly, wealthy person who lives on the outskirts of the city? He's got enough money to bail us out many times over. So they said, what are you, crazy, him? He'll never give us a penny. That guy, he has distanced himself from the Jewish community years ago in order to be able to make it wealthy, to make it rich. He left Judaism, he converted to Christianity. He became basically the enemy of the Jewish community. Anyone that tries to go to him, he would shoot them with his gun. You can't go to him. So Roshner Zalman said, but it's obvious that this is the only person that can help us. No one else has the money. So he convinced them that that's where they have to go. And they said, well, we're gonna go with you. And he said, only under one condition, you can come with me if you let me do all the talking, you guys keep your mouth shut. They said, fine. So they go all the way to the outskirts of the town, to this huge, huge house, big, big house, and they knock on the door and this wealthy man answers the door. I can't believe there are three rabbis right in front of him. He just is in shock. He can't believe anyone had the chutzpah to come to him. So he finally says, you know, normally I would shoot people like you, but what do you want? So if Roshner Zalman says, you know, we have a terrible situation. We have this young orphan who's got engaged to this woman who's an orphan and they have no one else in the town. The whole town was about to make them a wedding. And then the mayor kidnapped him and demanding 10,000 rubles. We don't have anywhere near that kind of money. And if we don't get the money, he's gonna be in prison. He's not gonna get married. His life's gonna be in ruins. Two people's lives are gonna be destroyed. He really laid it on thick. So after 10 minutes of pleading, this man says, okay, you know, I feel very bad. I wanna try and help you. He says, wait here one minute. He goes to the next room and in the next room is a big desk. He opens up the top drawer and he pulls out a coin and he flips it over to Roshner Zalman of Liadi. Roshner Zalman looks at this old, rusty, dirty coin, a copac, whatever it was, a penny. His two friends are about to jump and kill this guy and he says to them, I told you don't, right. I did a talking, you guys keep your mouth shut. And Roshner Zalman of Liadi thanks this man profusely. Oh, this is so amazing. Thank you so much. What a blessing that you've done for this young couple and God should bless you for everything that you've done and how much care you have. And he really lays it on very, very thick. Thanks the guy profusely for 10 minutes. He says, it's a wonderful thing that you've done, but you know, we need 10,000 rubles. And he goes into his spiel another time, laying it on very thick about what a tragedy this is and how much they need the money. And fine, okay, okay, okay, okay, one more minute. Goes back to the room, opens up the drawer, pulls out another penny, throws it to him. This time the two friends are about to lose it. They're about to kill this man. And he says, again, he thanks this person profusely. Oh, thank you so much. You know, this is so kind of you. It's so wonderful of you. You're so helpful. What a blessing should come to you because of this. But you know, we need 10,000 rubles. The guy says, okay, he comes back next time with five copecs. And this repeats itself. Next time he comes back with 50 copecs. Next time he comes back with 10 rubles, 20 rubles. At the end of hours of going back and forth, the rabbi finally gets to 10,000 rubles. Unbelievable. Thanks this guy for 10 hours. He says, you save these two lives. Unbelievable. And the three rabbis take the 10,000 rubles. They bring it to the sheriff, to the mayor. He can't believe it. He's gonna be saved now. They're not gonna kill him from the Russian government. And he makes himself a big party. He's got his vodka. He's breaking his Edov. The three rabbis take the young man out of prison. They bring him, they have the wedding for him all set up. And in the middle of the wedding, this sheriff says to himself, I can't stay here. I can't stay in the city. And I'm not gonna give the money back to the government. At 10,000 rubles, I'm gonna keep it. So he gets into his wagon. He starts whipping the horses. And he's racing out of the town as fast as he could. And he keeps on whipping the horses harder and harder. As he gets across this narrow bridge that's leading out of town, he's hitting the horses so hard, the horses crashing to the side, the guardrail of the bridge. The collision is so hard that this guy, the mare goes flying off of the wagon into the river, drowns instantly. But the collision was so strong that the bag of money he had at 10,000 rubles goes flying and it ends up right in the middle of the wedding feast. And who does it end up at the feet of the miser? The miser had said to himself, you know what? I wanna rejoice with this bridegroom. I'm not spending to just give them the 10,000 rubles. So at the wedding, this miser was dancing and his money now comes back to him the 10,000 rubles. He picks it up. He looks at the 10,000 rubles for him, it was nothing. He goes over to the groom. He says, you know, here, this is for you. You take it, have a wonderful life. That's basically the story. What's happening is that while this is going on, the three rabbis are huddling because the two rabbis, Levi Yitzchukh and Breditchev and Menachem Mendel of Etepsk, they wanted to find out from Schneer's album of Liadi, how did you know how to play this guy? I mean, you were able to do something that no one else in the planet would be able to do. So the future of Abbot Rebi said the following. He said, do you remember when we asked him for the money, the first thing that happened? He went to that desk and he pulled out just a little coin, maybe a Kopeck. He said, you remember what that coin looked like? It was dirty and rusty. He said, you know why it was dirty and rusty? He said, because he had been asking the past to help people. People came to him for help in the past. And the terrible problem this man had was he wasn't able to give more than a penny. Nebuch, very wealthy person. He couldn't give more than a penny, that's all he could give. And he would try to give away the penny and no one would take it. No one would take it, throw it back in his face. So the problem was that people were not willing to receive what he was able to give. All he could give was a penny. No one was willing to receive it. He said, the trick was that I was willing to accept what he was able to give. And once I was able to accept what he was able to give, I was able to encourage him to give more and more and more. So one of the great kindnesses that we can do to people is to accept sometimes just what they're able to do. Sometimes, unfortunately, people are not able to meet our expectations. So many children we know are broken because their parents don't really accept them for who they are. The parents expect something else from their kids. My child's got to be the biggest genius in the school. How many young children are broken because their parents are not really happy with a kid that's just a B plus student. My kid has to be an A plus student. So one of the greatest kindnesses we can do for others sometimes is simply accept what they're able to do. Nachmaninis, the Ramban, said that the Torah Commandment via Haftel Rehachah Mocha, to love your neighbor as yourself, is a commandment to rejoice in the success that other people have. You know, often, we begrudge people their success. You know, someone wins $30 million lottery. We say to ourselves instinctively, I wish I had won it. So the Ramban says, Nachmaninis says, that the giving here of love your neighbor as yourself is the idea that you should totally rejoice in whatever success other people have. That's what you're supposed to give to them. Another form of giving. The Altar of Kelim, one of the great Bali Musur, once went up to one of his students who was upset. His student had a long face. His student used to walk around moping. The student looked depressed. And the Altar of Kelim said to him, you know what, your face is a reshut harabim. Your face is a public thoroughfare. You know, Judy even speaks about the fact that you have your private jurisdiction, you know, you're inside of your house and you have what's on the street. He said, your face is a public thoroughfare. Everybody sees your face. And when you walk around with a long face, you bring everyone else down. It's depressing to look at you. So the Altar of Kelim asked to bed with this student, you know what, try at least put on a happy face. You may not feel great all the time, but when you're moping all the time and you're looking like, hell, it brings people down. It's a big drag on people. Giving is ultimately in Judaism based, or not ultimately, but often based upon empathy. One of the reasons the Bible says to us, always remember that you were slaves in Egypt is because the Bible wants us to never forget what it feels like to be persecuted, to be in a disadvantaged situation, to be disempowered. The Bible wants us to remember what it feels like to be really in a terrible situation. The slavery in Egypt was horrible. And the Bible says, never forget it. Never forget you were slaves in Egypt. And that's why you should never mistreat other people. And this is repeated over and over and over again in the Bible. Never forget what you went through in Egypt. And God willing, you won't do it to anyone else. So there's a famous teaching in the Bible, actually I'll share with you a story, that there was in Russia, again, we know that it was very harsh in the winters, and there was a yeshiva that was very much in the down and out, they couldn't afford to heat the yeshiva, the students were freezing. And the head of the yeshiva tried to raise money to heat this school. So he again knew there was a very wealthy person he could go to. And the Rebbe puts on his coat and he travels to this person's beautiful, beautiful house. He knocks on the door, the fellow comes out, and he's wearing his smoking jacket or whatever. And the Rebbe is in his big fur coat. And he says, Rabbi, what can I do for you? And the Rabbi says, well, you know, it's very bitter in the winter here, it's very cold, and we don't have any money to heat the yeshiva, the students are very, very cold, and we need help. And the fellow says, Rabbi, come in, you could talk to me inside the house, it's so cold out here. The Rabbi says, no, it's okay, I'm fine, don't worry. And the Rabbi goes on and on, and this man is shivering, he's standing at the doorway. And the Rabbi is going on and on and on about how cold it is for the students, they need help and we have to heat the yeshiva. And the fellow says, Rabbi, I'm very concerned, please come in and tell me all about it. No, I'm fine, don't worry, I can stay right here, I don't need to come in. The Rabbi wanted him to feel what it's like to be cold. So he'll understand how the students feel. So the rabbis teach us that at the end of a meal, there is a Jewish tradition to wash our hands. Most people know that before we eat bread, there's a commandment to wash our fingers, to wash our hands. But the rabbis teach that the end of a meal is also accustomed to wash your fingertips. It's called mayim achronim, the waters at the end of the meal, the final waters. And the rabbis give in the Talmud a few reasons for why we do this, but one of the reasons sounds very strange. One of the reasons the rabbis teach we should wash at the end of the meal is that there's something present at the end of the meal called melach sudomit, sadamite salt, salt from sudomit. And the rabbis teach us that if we get it in our eyes, we'll go blind. It's pretty spooky. And it sounds a little bit peculiar that we should wash our hands because there's this sadamite salt that you get into your eyes, you're gonna go blind. What might this mean? So some of the commentaries explain very beautifully as follows. What is the salt of sudomit? Throughout the Talmud, the salt of something is a taste of something, right? It's a taste of something. What is the taste of sudom? What was sudom? So the rabbis say that sudom had a philosophy. The philosophy of sudom was sheli sheli beshelcha shelcha. What's mine is mine, what's yours is yours. Which means if you have stuff, that's great. If you don't have anything, that's your tough luck. And so in sudom, they institutionalized cruelty because they didn't feel it was proper to help people that were needy. They felt that they'd become a burden on society. They'd become welfare cases. And in sudom, the philosophy was if you didn't have anything, too bad. Sheli sheli, what's mine is mine, shelcha shelcha, what's yours is yours. You don't have anything? That's not my problem. The rabbis teach that before a person eats, they have two stomachs. Before, I'm sorry, you have two hearts. They say before a person eats, they have two hearts. But after a person eats, they have one heart. What does that mean? Means that before you eat, you're hungry. You haven't eaten yet. So before you eat, you have two hearts because you know how it feels to be hungry. You have a heart for yourself and you have a heart for someone that hasn't eaten. If someone comes to you before the meal, there's a good chance you'll help them because you know how it feels. You know how it feels to be hungry. You haven't eaten yet. You have two hearts. But the rabbis say after the meal, you only have one heart because you're full. You've eaten already. Now you don't have a heart that empathizes with the person that is hungry. After the meal, there's sodomite salt. The salt of Sedone. It's got the flavor of Sedone and it can blind your eyes to the needs of the poor. That's a great danger after you've filled yourself up. After you've taken care of your hunger, that you'll become insensitive to the poor. So the rabbis say at the end of the meal, wash your fingertips. Get rid of this symbolically, this salt, which can basically symbolize the fact that being full and having eaten, you'll be insensitive to the poor. We mentioned last week that Judaism tries to inculcate our sensitivity not just to other people but to even inanimate objects. That's how much sensitivity Judaism tries to inculcate into us. Not just feeling for other human beings, but feelings for inanimate objects. We mentioned last week covering the khala before the meal on Shabbat, to even be sensitive to the feelings of the khala. Or we mentioned tucking in your tzitzit when you go to a cemetery, that you shouldn't be flaunting the mitzvot that you can do in front of people that are dead that can't do any mitzvot. Obviously, the people that are dead don't have any feelings. The purpose of these practices is for us, not for them. Finally, one last concept, which is that giving is redemptive. Giving has the incredible potential to change both ourselves and to change the world for the better. There's a story that's told that Rav Shah, the previous, the greatest rabbi probably of our generation passed away not too long ago, that Rav Shah once went to visit his Rosh Hashiba, his rabbi, the alter of Slavotka. And he came into the study and he saw the alter was standing by the window when he was moving his lips. And he couldn't hear what the alter was saying. So he went over to him and he heard that the alter was whispering, you should have a good morning. You should have a wonderful morning. And he's looking around, he doesn't see anybody. Like, who is the alter speaking to? So the alter says to him, you see all the way out there, there's a boy that's walking across the field all the way out there. I'm saying it to him. See, Rav Shah says to him, but rabbi, he doesn't see you, he can't hear you. What's the point of wishing him a good morning that he should have a good day? So the alter said to him, you don't understand. The purpose of doing things for people is not only that they benefit from what you're doing, but they should see what you're doing more, hear what you're doing. He said, the purpose of being sensitive and caring and doing things for others is for you, it should be able to, it's something that transforms who you are. I'm not only doing it for his benefit out there. Of course, I'm giving him a blessing, it's going to benefit him. But this is for me, it's transforming me into a different person. I'm gonna share with you a very famous story. Sure, many of you have heard this, but I read it to myself every year before the High Holidays, written by the famous Yiddish writer, Peretz. It was about the famous Rebbe of Nemerov, and it takes place before the Slichot prayers, as accustomed as before the High Holidays to say special prayers of forgiveness called penitential prayers or Slichot prayers. So Peretz writes that every Friday morning at the time of the special penitential prayers, the rabbi of Nemerov would vanish. He would vanish. He was nowhere to be seen, either in the synagogue or in the two houses of study. He wasn't in the prayer quorum in the minion. He was certainly not at home because his door stood open. Whoever wished to go in and out of the Rebbe's home, no one would steal from the rabbi, but not a living creature was in the house. Where could the rabbi be? Well, where should he be? Where should the Rebbe be before the High Holidays? Obviously in heaven. It was obviously in heaven. The rabbi has plenty of business to take care of just before the High Holidays. Jews, God blessed them. They need livelihood, peace, health. They need good matches for their children. They wanna be pious and good, but our sins are so great. And the Satan of a thousand eyes watches the whole earth from one end to the other. And whatever he sees, he reports, he denounces, he informs, who else can help us if not the rabbi? That's what the people thought. The people assumed the Rebbe of Nemerov went up to heaven, but once a Litvach came and he laughed. You know the Litvachs. They can be very cynical. So this Litvach points to a passage in the Talmud. It sticks in your eyes where it's written that even Moses, our teacher, did not ascend to heaven during his lifetime, but remained suspended two and a half feet below heaven. Go argue with a Litvach. So where can the rabbi be? Where can the rabbi be? It's not my business, said the Litvach shrugging. Yet all the while, what can the Litvach do? He is scheming to find out. So that same night, right after the evening prayers, the Litvach steals into the rabbi's room, slides under the rabbi's bed and waits. And he'll watch all night and discover where the rabbi vanishes and what he does during the penitential prayers. Someone else must have gotten, someone else might have gotten drowsy and fallen asleep, but a Litvach is never at a loss. He recites a whole tractate of the Talmud by heart in order to stay awake. At dawn, he hears the call to prayer. The rabbi has already been awake for a long time. The Litvach has heard him groaning for an entire hour. Whoever has heard the rabbi of Nemer of Grown knows how much sorrow for all of Israel, how much suffering lies in each groan. A man's heart could break hearing it, but a Litvach, he's made of iron. He listens and he remains where he is. The rabbi long life to him lies on the bed and the Litvach lies under the bed. Then the Litvach hears the beds in the house begin to creak. He hears people jumping out of their beds, mumbling a few Jewish words, pouring water on their fingernails, banging doors, everyone's left, but it's again quiet and dark, a bit of light from the moon shines through the shutters. Finally, the rabbi long life to him rises. First, he does what he befits a Jew. Then he goes to the clothes closet and takes out a bundle of peasant clothing, linen trousers, high boots, a coat, a big felt hat, and a long wide leather belt studded with brass nails. The rabbi gets dressed. From his coat pocket dangles the end of the very heavy peasant rope. The rabbi goes out and the Litvach follows him. On the way, the rabbi stops in the kitchen and bends down, takes an axe from under the bed, puts it on his belt and leaves the house. The Litvach trembles but continues to follow. The hushed dread of the days of awe hangs over the streets. Everyone in a while, every once in a while, a cry rises from some minion reciting the penitential prayers or from a sick bed. The rabbi hugs the sides of the streets keeping to the shade of the houses. He glides from house to house and the Litvach is after him. The Litvach hears the sound of his heartbeat, mingling with the sound of the rabbi's heavy steps, but he keeps on going and follows the rabbi to the outskirts of the town. A small wood stands behind the town. The rabbi long life to him enters the woods. He takes 30 or 40 steps and stops by a small tree. The Litvach overcome with amazement, watches the rabbi take the axe out of his belt and strike the tree. He hears the tree creak and fall. The rabbi chops the tree into logs and logs into sticks. Then he makes a bundle of the wood and ties it with the rope in his pocket. He puts the bundle of wood on his back, shoves the axe back into his belt and returns to the town. He stops at a back street beside a small broken-down shack and knocks at the window. Who is there? Asks a frightened voice. The Litvach recognized it as the voice of a sick Jewish woman who answers the rabbi in the accent of a peasant. Who is I? Again, the rabbi answers in Russian. Vasil. Who is Vasil and what do you want? I have wood to sell, very cheap, and not waiting for the woman's reply, he goes into the house. The Litvach steals in after him. In the gray light of the early morning, he sees a poor room with a broken miserable furnishings. A sick woman wrapped in rags, lies on the bed. She complains bitterly, buy, how can I buy? Where will a poor widow get money? Don't worry, I'll lend it to you, answers Vasil. It's only six cents. And how will I repay you back? Says the poor woman groaning. You foolish one, says the rabbi reproachfully. See, you're a poor sick Jew, and I'm ready to trust you with a little bit of wood. I'm sure you'll pay while you have such a great and mighty God and you don't trust him for six cents. And who will kindle the stove, said the widow. Have I the strength to get up? My son's at work. Don't worry, I'll kindle the fire, answers the rabbi. As the rabbi put the wood into the oven, he recited in a groan the first portion of the penitential prayers. As he kindled the fire and the wood burned brightly, he recited a bit more joyously the second portion of the penitential prayers. When the fire was set, he recited the third portion and then he shut the stove. The Litvak who saw all this became a disciple of the rabbi. And ever after, when anyone else tells how the rabbi of Nemorov ascends to heaven at the time of the penitential prayers, the Litvak no longer laughs. He only adds quietly, if not even higher. You tell a story that the difference between heaven and hell is very simple. They say, hell is a place which is very beautiful. It's a beautiful palace and you come into this beautiful palace and there's an incredibly beautiful dining hall with beautiful works of art an incredibly beautiful table very fancy china, very fancy silverware and everyone is sitting around this beautiful dining table in this beautiful palace and they have gourmet food in front of them and everyone has their fork in the food and in hell they just can't get the fork out of that plate and it's stuck in the plate and they sit forever in front of this beautiful delicious food they can never get it into their mouth that's hell. They say, what's heaven? They say, heaven is the exact same place the beautiful palace the beautiful dining hall the gourmet food the beautiful plates and silverware and everyone is sitting there with their fork in the plate and they're not able to get their fork into their mouth their arm doesn't move but in heaven everyone realizes that their arm is able to move sideways and everyone moves their arm over and feeds the person next to them that's what heaven is like and if you were able to either be at Woodstock or hear the recording of Woodstock in 1969 when you had I don't know how many thousands of young people descending upon that place with very little food ready for anyone one of the stage announcements by Wavy Gravy was he said at one point in exultation hey man we must be in heaven we're feeding each other but that ultimately is a heavenly experience at the end of the Passover Seder we send someone to the door to open the door for Elijah and the rabbis explain that ultimately is what will open the door for Elijah when we open our houses to other people that's what will bring Elijah the prophet and the coming of the Messiah right? it's not simply that we're opening the door for him to show up we're demonstrating that that's what will make Elijah the prophet show up by us opening our homes they say that the temple was built on a very special place they say that in Israel it wasn't clear where David should build the temple and there was two brothers that lost their father their father gave the two brothers all of his property and the brothers divided everything one of the brothers was a bachelor one of the brothers had married and had a whole bunch of children and one night the bachelor said to himself you know I don't need that much I'm all by myself my brother has all these children all my crops I don't need it and in the middle of the night he sneaks over to his brother's field he drops all this produce in his brother's field the same night his brother had a very similar thought the brother says to himself you know I have all these children one day they can take care of me my brother doesn't have anybody he's all alone I don't think he's going to be able to survive so easily so the brother that's married has all these crops and he steals over in the middle of the night and he brings a bunch of his produce to his brother's field and in the morning they both woke up and they see that they have food they thought they were bringing it to the other person now they have it back in their own yard what's going on this went on for many many years one night they happened to be crossing at the exact same time the brothers pass each other see each other see what was going on the brothers embrace they hug, they kiss the rabbi say that was the spot on which the temple ultimately was built I'm going to share one final story with you about giving and redemption the story that I heard when I was in India but it's a very famous story about a monastery in Europe that used to be a very very very popular monastery they would come there to become part of the order and it went through some hard times it went through the enlightenment people got less interested in religion and after a while this monastery was basically abandoned there were five people left on the monastery there was the abbot, there was the cook there was the gardener's librarian that's all there was and it got very depressing this big beautiful monastery five people, it's empty they happened to be a town nearby where the rabbi lived and the rabbi would sometimes take a retreat in the forest near the monastery and the people in the monastery knew when the rabbi was going to be in his cabin and one day the abbot had an idea the abbot said, you know what, we are doing horrible here maybe I should ask the rabbi for an aiza I'll ask the rabbi to give me some advice what we can do so the abbot goes over to the rabbi's cabin knocks on the door we used to see him he welcomes him in, gives him some tea they begin schmoozing they talk about the bible and then the abbot says, you know, rabbi came here for a purpose rabbi says, please he says, you know, we used to have a very very active, vibrant monastery many many people coming many people joining the order we had many monks and basically it's fallen apart no one's there anymore maybe you have some advice for us but if you think you have problems you should come to the synagogue in town our synagogue is also empty so they commiserate back and forth and finally the the abbot says, okay you know, thank you for your time and it was great meeting you and so long and as the abbot's about to leave the door the rabbi stops him and says, I want you to know something he says, you should know that it's quite possible that one of the people on your monastery is the messiah so the abbot is struck by that, it's pretty strange he goes back to the monastery and they ask him, no, what did the rabbi tell you what advice did he have the abbot says, you know, the rabbi didn't have any advice he really had no advice for us but he says something very strange to me he said, he thinks one of us might be the messiah so everyone begins wondering really, which one of us is the messiah? maybe it's the abbot who is going to be the messiah, but the abbot he's the spiritual guide of this place we look up to him for leadership maybe it's the abbot and then at some point people start wondering it could be the gardener the gardener provides us with all the food he does a lot of hard work, maybe it's the gardener it could be the cook maybe the cook is the messiah he prepares all the food for us it's the librarian he runs the library, he keeps everything nice in an order and at some point each one of them starts to think maybe it's me obviously when everyone begins thinking that the messiah might be him or it might be me they begin to treat each other and even themselves very differently the whole energy in this place changes once in a while because it's in the middle of the woods it had beautiful forest nearby people would stop by for a picnic and when they stopped by they sensed there was a beautiful energy in this place there's something very special about the way this place felt and they would tell their friends you should go once in a while, visit the monasteries it's a very beautiful place and occasionally a young man would pop by and they would start talking to the people in the monastery and they get very intrigued and people started to join the monastery and join the order and after a few years this place was hopping that's the way it had been many many years before the world was created as an act of loving kindness on the part of God God put us in the world to give giving ultimately is what transforms ourselves, it transforms the world giving ultimately is what's going to redeem the world the Bible says to us