Learning from a Child and a Thief
LEARNING from a child and a thief.
From various sources and from Samuel Ben-Or Avital
מִכָּל מְלַמְּדַי הִשְֹכַּלְתִּי כִּי עֵדְוֹתֶיךָ שִֹיחָה לִי: תהלים קיט. צט
From all my teachers I have understanding; for your testimonials are my meditations. Psalms 119. 99.
From a child you can learn
1. Always to be happy,
2. Never sit idle, and
3. To cry for everything one wants.
From a thief you can learn:
1. To work at night
2. If one cannot gain what one wants to try again the next night.
3. To love one’s co-workers just as thieves love each other.
4. Be willing to risk one’s life even for a little thing.
5. Not to attach too much value to things even though one has risked one’s life for them.
6. To withstand all kind of beatings and tortures but to remain what you are.
7. To believe that your work is worthwhile and not be willing to change it.
And I humbly add: Samuel Ben-Or Avital
8. Work quietly without bothering others.
9. Plan without telling anyone.
Another Kabbalistic Rabbi once said that you can learn from something from everything. Even from a train, a telephone and a telegram:
From a train you can learn that in a second one can miss everything.
From a telephone you can learn that what you say here is heard over there.
From a telegram you can learn that all words are counted and charged with the “MasterCard”.
In that same tradition, I humbly add:
From a television you can learn: The all-knowing eye watches what you do, say or think within your inner chamber.
From the computer you can learn: Direct communication and intention. What you command it to do it does, but it may not be what you intended it to be.
From the Internet you can learn: That “here” is “there” and “there” is “here” always present and absent, visible and invisible.
From Email you can learn: That in the communication there is no privacy, many can read your thoughts, all is known even though you do not know it. Fast is slow and slow is fast.
This was told to the International Summer Mime Workshop students of 1982, and the GATHERING of THE SPARKS: Kabbalah Seminars, Oct-Nov, 2006 Boulder, Colorado, USA
