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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