The Last Piece of Cake

The story goes that there is this beautiful woman who is dating this man that she thinks is wonderful. Things are getting pretty serious and so she decides to take him to her parent’s house for dinner. The dinner goes well; there is good food, and a lovely cake at the end of the meal. When all is done, the father takes the daughter aside and says to her, “You do not want to marry this man”. The daughter is stunned and asks her father “Why?, why shouldn’t I marry him, he’s a nice Jewish boy”. And the father replied, “Because at the end of dinner, there was one piece of cake left, and he took it and ate it without asking if anyone else wanted it”.

This is a simple yet poignant story that says so much about so many people in the world today. Our tradition (the Jewish tradition) requires that we think about others. Yet, there are many of us (Jews and non-Jews) who do not conduct our lives this way. There are some that take that last piece of cake without even saying “Hey, there’s one piece of cake left, does anyone want to share it?” I can say that at times, I have probably have been guilty of this myself. We are commanded to be aware of others. Yet, I’ve had experiences with a couple of different people (both Jewish men) over the last few years where their disregard, self centeredness, self absorbedness, and utter unawareness of their own cruelty was completely baffling and astounding. If I cared now, I would ask them, “What kind of family were you raised in that you could turn out to be so self centered, so self absorbed, so uncompromising, so uncaring and so cruel?” But the truth is, I don’t care anymore. I simply did what the father told the daughter to do; I got them both out of my life. Of course I say “simply” but there was nothing simple about it, but I did it, I overcame and I've moved on. Without awareness of others, you can not compromise, work things out, come to any agreement. Without awareness of others, there can never be honesty, trust, or safety. It’s just not worth it to have people like that in your life.

So the message for me this High Holiday Season is “The Last Piece of Cake”. I don’t ever want to be thought of as being selfish, self centered or so self absorbed that I can not hear another's cries of pain, or can not console someone when they are having a bad day, or can not share laughter with those I love and hold close to my heart or can not compromise when I know that something is important to someone I care about. My new years resolution this year is first to forgive those who have harmed me, and second, to be more aware of the people who are actually in my real life and to give them the consideration, love, kindness and caring that they have shown me. I love you all so dearly and consider myself lucky, very honored and very blessed to have you there.

L’Shana Tova

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