Tale of two pebbles
Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer's beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain.
He said he would forgo the farmer's debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.
1) If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father's debt would be forgiven.
2) If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven.
3) If she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.
They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer's field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.
Now, imagine that you were standing in the field. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her?
Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:
1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.
3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.
Take a moment to ponder over the story. The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl's dilemma cannot be solved with traditional logical thinking. Think of the consequences if she chooses the above logical answers.
What would you recommend to the girl to do?
Well, here is what she did ....
The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.
'Oh, how clumsy of me,' she said. 'But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.'
Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.
MORAL OF THE STORY ?
Most complex problems do have a solution. It is only that we don't attempt to think. Start your day with this thought provoking story and have a fruitful day.
Have a week filled with positive thoughts and sound decisions.
May G-d grant us the wisdom to think outside the box.
True wisdom comes only from Him, no matter how learned we think we are.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
C-130 vs F-16
A C-130 was lumbering along when a cocky F-16 flashed by.
The jet jockey decided to show off.
The fighter jock told the C-130 pilot, 'watch this!' and promptly went into a barrel roll followed by a steep climb. He then finished with a sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier.
The F-16 pilot asked the C-130 pilot what he thought of that?
The C-130 pilot said, 'That was impressive, but watch this!'
The C-130 droned along for about 5 minutes and then the C-130 pilot came back on
and said: 'What did you think of that ?'
Puzzled, the F-16 pilot asked, 'What the heck did you do?'
The C-130 pilot chuckled. 'I stood up, stretched my legs, walked to the back, went to the bathroom, then got a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun.'
When you are young & foolish - speed & flash may seem a good thing !!!
When you get older & smarter - comfort & dull is not such a bad thing !!!
The jet jockey decided to show off.
The fighter jock told the C-130 pilot, 'watch this!' and promptly went into a barrel roll followed by a steep climb. He then finished with a sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier.
The F-16 pilot asked the C-130 pilot what he thought of that?
The C-130 pilot said, 'That was impressive, but watch this!'
The C-130 droned along for about 5 minutes and then the C-130 pilot came back on
and said: 'What did you think of that ?'
Puzzled, the F-16 pilot asked, 'What the heck did you do?'
The C-130 pilot chuckled. 'I stood up, stretched my legs, walked to the back, went to the bathroom, then got a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun.'
When you are young & foolish - speed & flash may seem a good thing !!!
When you get older & smarter - comfort & dull is not such a bad thing !!!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Why I Am a Bad Jew by Rami Kaminski, MD
This was written by Rami Kaminski, MD, founder and director of the Institute for Integrative Psychiatry in New York City.
Why I Am a Bad Jew
For centuries, we lived in Berdichev. In the brutal Ukrainian winter of 1941, SS soldiers arrived there and rounded up eighty-seven members of my family - babies, young adults, octogenarians - stripped them naked, marched them to a nearby ditch, and executed them. Their lifeless bodies fell silently into a mass grave.
Like most Jews in Europe, my family "cooperated" with the Final Solution. They did not resist or fight back. Six million Jews were slaughtered in a period of four years. They received little sympathy while they were still alive and hunted down like animals. There was no public outcry because the Holocaust fit the world's narrative for Jews during the past 2000 years: a people destined to be persecuted and slaughtered.
During their two millennia in the Diaspora, Jews were not known to resist. There are few recorded instances in which Jews turned against their host nations or retaliated against their murderers. Instead, the survivors - if there were any - were expelled or left for another place. The murdered were regarded as "good" Jews. They accepted their fate helplessly, without resistance.
This narrative of the Jews has played out on the historical stage with boring monotony: Jews get killed because they are Jews. Nothing novel about it. After the Holocaust, however, the world, disgusted by this particularly ghoulish period of history, accorded some sympathy for the Jews.
Media commentary about the ongoing Gaza War reveals the world has now reverted to its pre-Holocaust perspective. Today, the only good Jew is a powerless Jew willing to become a dead one. The Zionist Revolution is to blame. It changed everything. Jews re-created their own country. The Arabs attacked the new Jewish state the day after independence and promised to complete Hitler's genocide. In succeeding decades, the Arabs attacked again and again. Strangely, the Jews, many of them refugees from Arab nations, adopted a surprising, new tactic: they fought back.
With Zionism, the Jews stubbornly refused to follow the centuries-old script. They refuse to be killed without resistance. As a result, the world has become increasingly enraged at their impertinence.
The recent events in Gaza and Mumbai make this plain. In 2005, Israel eliminated all Jewish presence in Gaza making it "Judenrein," and handed it over to the Palestinians. Left behind were synagogues and thriving green houses. The Arabs looted and destroyed them literally the day after Israel's withdrawal was complete. Where these structures once stood, the Palestinians built military bases and installed rocket launchers to shell Israeli civilians. To date, some 7,000 missiles have fallen on Israeli cities and towns, killing and maiming dozens, and sowing widespread terror. Medical studies reveal nearly all Jewish children in the communities bordering Gaza suffer from serious, trauma-induced illness.
The Gazan Palestinians then elected Hamas to lead them. Hamas proceeded to kill or imprison their political rivals, and its leaders, true to the Hamas charter, were unabashed in clearly stating their aims: they will not stop until they achieve their Final Solution, kill all the Jews, take over the land of Israel, and establish a theocracy governed by Islamic law.
As killing Jews for being Jews has been a national sport for centuries, Islamic militants are justified in believing they are merely fulfilling historical tradition in Argentina, India and Gaza. Surely the Jews in Mumbai did not occupy Gaza. They were tortured and killed just for being Jews. And predictably, in the eyes of the world, they immediately became good Jews, just like my murdered family in Bertishev.
Good Jews would wait until Hamas has weapons enabling its members to achieve their ultimate goal of absolute mass murder. Those enraged by Israel's defensive military action insist Hamas uses only "crude" rockets, as if Qassams were BB guns, and military inferiority were somehow equivalent with moral superiority. In fact, Hamas now has Iranian-supplied Grad missiles which have landed on Be'er Sheva and the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
Westerners have had only sporadic exposure to the indiscriminant killing in the name of "holy war" which Israel has lived with for years. Memories of 9-11, Madrid, and London have dimmed. This is not because the Islamic militants made a careful choice of weapons. They simply have not yet acquired nuclear bombs. Once they do, the West will develop a less detached view about the Islamists' professed intentions for the "infidels."
The only enlightened people in the civilized world who actually get it are the Israelis. They've not had time for detached philosophical ponderings. They've been too busy confronting the reality of Islamic fundamentalism.
Soon, Iran will have nuclear weapons. It will give them to Hezbollah and Hamas. Today, Jews must take a position: either be "good" Jews willing to be slaughtered without resistance, or be "bad" Jews who defend themselves at the cost of being pariahs of our enlightened world. Good Jews would wait for another six million to be murdered, and pick up to leave for another country to start the cycle again. The bad ones refuse to go calmly into the ditch.
I confess: I'm a bad Jew.
Rami Kaminski, MD, is Director and Founder of the Institute for Integrative Psychiatry in New York, a not-for-profit organization aimed at evaluating current psychiatric services and how they integrate with medicine, such as the mutual effects between medical and psychiatric conditions. Prior to that, Dr. Kaminkski was the Commissioner's Liaison to Families and Community and Medical Director of Operations at the New York State Office of Mental Health. Dr. Kaminski also holds an academic position as Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. He earned recognition in 1990 from Mt. Sinai Hospital as Physician of the Year, and received the Exemplary Psychiatrist Awards from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Dr. Kaminski's research explores neuropsychiatric aspects of brain disorders, such as Alzheimer and Parkinson's disease and movement disorders, as well as psychopharmacology of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. He was for many years Director of The Schizophrenia research Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC. Dr. Kaminiski also served as the Medical Director of the PMHP and consultant to the committee in charge of developing the Special Needs Program.
I can only wonder how many "bad Jews" exist today. -rebbele
Why I Am a Bad Jew
For centuries, we lived in Berdichev. In the brutal Ukrainian winter of 1941, SS soldiers arrived there and rounded up eighty-seven members of my family - babies, young adults, octogenarians - stripped them naked, marched them to a nearby ditch, and executed them. Their lifeless bodies fell silently into a mass grave.
Like most Jews in Europe, my family "cooperated" with the Final Solution. They did not resist or fight back. Six million Jews were slaughtered in a period of four years. They received little sympathy while they were still alive and hunted down like animals. There was no public outcry because the Holocaust fit the world's narrative for Jews during the past 2000 years: a people destined to be persecuted and slaughtered.
During their two millennia in the Diaspora, Jews were not known to resist. There are few recorded instances in which Jews turned against their host nations or retaliated against their murderers. Instead, the survivors - if there were any - were expelled or left for another place. The murdered were regarded as "good" Jews. They accepted their fate helplessly, without resistance.
This narrative of the Jews has played out on the historical stage with boring monotony: Jews get killed because they are Jews. Nothing novel about it. After the Holocaust, however, the world, disgusted by this particularly ghoulish period of history, accorded some sympathy for the Jews.
Media commentary about the ongoing Gaza War reveals the world has now reverted to its pre-Holocaust perspective. Today, the only good Jew is a powerless Jew willing to become a dead one. The Zionist Revolution is to blame. It changed everything. Jews re-created their own country. The Arabs attacked the new Jewish state the day after independence and promised to complete Hitler's genocide. In succeeding decades, the Arabs attacked again and again. Strangely, the Jews, many of them refugees from Arab nations, adopted a surprising, new tactic: they fought back.
With Zionism, the Jews stubbornly refused to follow the centuries-old script. They refuse to be killed without resistance. As a result, the world has become increasingly enraged at their impertinence.
The recent events in Gaza and Mumbai make this plain. In 2005, Israel eliminated all Jewish presence in Gaza making it "Judenrein," and handed it over to the Palestinians. Left behind were synagogues and thriving green houses. The Arabs looted and destroyed them literally the day after Israel's withdrawal was complete. Where these structures once stood, the Palestinians built military bases and installed rocket launchers to shell Israeli civilians. To date, some 7,000 missiles have fallen on Israeli cities and towns, killing and maiming dozens, and sowing widespread terror. Medical studies reveal nearly all Jewish children in the communities bordering Gaza suffer from serious, trauma-induced illness.
The Gazan Palestinians then elected Hamas to lead them. Hamas proceeded to kill or imprison their political rivals, and its leaders, true to the Hamas charter, were unabashed in clearly stating their aims: they will not stop until they achieve their Final Solution, kill all the Jews, take over the land of Israel, and establish a theocracy governed by Islamic law.
As killing Jews for being Jews has been a national sport for centuries, Islamic militants are justified in believing they are merely fulfilling historical tradition in Argentina, India and Gaza. Surely the Jews in Mumbai did not occupy Gaza. They were tortured and killed just for being Jews. And predictably, in the eyes of the world, they immediately became good Jews, just like my murdered family in Bertishev.
Good Jews would wait until Hamas has weapons enabling its members to achieve their ultimate goal of absolute mass murder. Those enraged by Israel's defensive military action insist Hamas uses only "crude" rockets, as if Qassams were BB guns, and military inferiority were somehow equivalent with moral superiority. In fact, Hamas now has Iranian-supplied Grad missiles which have landed on Be'er Sheva and the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
Westerners have had only sporadic exposure to the indiscriminant killing in the name of "holy war" which Israel has lived with for years. Memories of 9-11, Madrid, and London have dimmed. This is not because the Islamic militants made a careful choice of weapons. They simply have not yet acquired nuclear bombs. Once they do, the West will develop a less detached view about the Islamists' professed intentions for the "infidels."
The only enlightened people in the civilized world who actually get it are the Israelis. They've not had time for detached philosophical ponderings. They've been too busy confronting the reality of Islamic fundamentalism.
Soon, Iran will have nuclear weapons. It will give them to Hezbollah and Hamas. Today, Jews must take a position: either be "good" Jews willing to be slaughtered without resistance, or be "bad" Jews who defend themselves at the cost of being pariahs of our enlightened world. Good Jews would wait for another six million to be murdered, and pick up to leave for another country to start the cycle again. The bad ones refuse to go calmly into the ditch.
I confess: I'm a bad Jew.
Rami Kaminski, MD, is Director and Founder of the Institute for Integrative Psychiatry in New York, a not-for-profit organization aimed at evaluating current psychiatric services and how they integrate with medicine, such as the mutual effects between medical and psychiatric conditions. Prior to that, Dr. Kaminkski was the Commissioner's Liaison to Families and Community and Medical Director of Operations at the New York State Office of Mental Health. Dr. Kaminski also holds an academic position as Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. He earned recognition in 1990 from Mt. Sinai Hospital as Physician of the Year, and received the Exemplary Psychiatrist Awards from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Dr. Kaminski's research explores neuropsychiatric aspects of brain disorders, such as Alzheimer and Parkinson's disease and movement disorders, as well as psychopharmacology of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. He was for many years Director of The Schizophrenia research Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC. Dr. Kaminiski also served as the Medical Director of the PMHP and consultant to the committee in charge of developing the Special Needs Program.
I can only wonder how many "bad Jews" exist today. -rebbele
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
"You're not a rebbe."
Once, when Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch and his brother, Rabbi Zalman Aharon, were children, they played 'Rebbe and Chassid.' Young Shalom DovBer was close to five years of age at the time, his brother a year older. Sholom DovBer refused to play the 'rebbe', insisting that "there is only one rebbe" (i.e. the 'real' Rebbe, their grandfather Rabbi Menachem Mendel). So Zalman Aharon acted the role of 'rebbe' and Sholom DovBer played the 'chassid'.
In the children's game, the little 'chassid' entered into yechidus with a query. "Rebbe, what is a Jew?" asked the 'chassid'."A Jew is fire.""So why am I not burned when I touch you,?"- "Fire does not burn fire."
The little 'chassid' then complained of a deficiency in his personal avodah and the 'rebbe' advised him on how to correct it. To this the young Sholom DovBer said: "You're not a rebbe." "Why?" asked Zalman Aharon. "A rebbe," said the child, "would emit a sigh before replying…"
In the children's game, the little 'chassid' entered into yechidus with a query. "Rebbe, what is a Jew?" asked the 'chassid'."A Jew is fire.""So why am I not burned when I touch you,?"- "Fire does not burn fire."
The little 'chassid' then complained of a deficiency in his personal avodah and the 'rebbe' advised him on how to correct it. To this the young Sholom DovBer said: "You're not a rebbe." "Why?" asked Zalman Aharon. "A rebbe," said the child, "would emit a sigh before replying…"
Sunday, January 11, 2009
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
Imagine a friend calls up and says, "Listen, I got a sure thing in the market. All you need is $10,000. Plunk it down with me. I guarantee the stock's gonna double tomorrow."
Now you're a conservative kind of guy, so you say, "Well, thanks, but no thanks."
The next day you look at the paper and guess what? The stock doubled.
"Wow, that guy really knows something," you say to yourself. "Seems like he's got inside information."
Next day the phone rings again. It's the same friend. He says, "Hey, did you check the paper?"
"Yeah, I saw it."
"Well, what do you think?"
"Pretty good."
"Tell you what. Put down the $10,000 now. The stock's gonna double again tomorrow."
Well, now you have to think twice about it. But you're still a bit cautious, so you say, "Um, thanks but no thanks. $10,000 is a lot of money. I'll leave it for now."
You check the paper the next day, and sure enough, the stock doubled again. The portfolio is now worth $40,000. And you missed it twice.
Next day another phone call. This time, you're afraid to answer it. Eventually, after eight rings, you pick up.
"Did you check the paper?"
"Yeah."
"Well, whadya think?"
"Pretty good."
"Tell you what. You put down the money now, the stock's gonna double again. Check the paper tomorrow, you'll see it."
This time you're tempted. You think about it for a few minutes, but then you say, "You know, I'm not really sure..." and you hang up the phone.
In the end, you leave it alone. You just can't deal with it.
You check the paper the next day, and, sure enough, the stock has doubled. It's now worth $80,000.
The guy calls you up a fourth time. He says, "Listen, did you check the paper?"
"Yeah."
"Stock doubled."
"Yeah."
"Portfolio's worth $80,000. If you come in now, it's still gonna double tomorrow. You coming in?"
Now you've been playing it safe all along. You invested in a high level CD, and your $10,000 is now worth $10,032.06. His is worth $80,000.
He tries again. "Come on, are you in or not?"
You can't deal with it. You say, "I just can't," and you hang up. The stock doubles. It's now worth $160,000.
He calls you up again. He tries a few more times. "It's gonna double, you coming on?"
"No. Can't deal with it. Not going in yet."
The stock doubles again, now it's worth $320,000. It's doubled seven times. A couple more times and now it's worth over a million dollars.
Finally he calls up one last time and says, "Listen. I want to tell you something. Since you're such a good friend, the whole time I was investing my own $10,000, I've been investing another $10,000 for you in a second portfolio. You didn't know it, but you were right there with me all along. The second portfolio is waiting for you. All you have to do is come in right now and claim it. Are you ready or not?"
We can look at the seven fundamental wonders of Jewish history and know that our ancestors have been steadily investing for us in the portfolio of Judaism, for generation after generation, up to the present time. It doesn't matter if you've been conscious of this or not; you've been investing all along. And now you can come aboard and reap your rightful payoff.
Imagine a friend calls up and says, "Listen, I got a sure thing in the market. All you need is $10,000. Plunk it down with me. I guarantee the stock's gonna double tomorrow."
Now you're a conservative kind of guy, so you say, "Well, thanks, but no thanks."
The next day you look at the paper and guess what? The stock doubled.
"Wow, that guy really knows something," you say to yourself. "Seems like he's got inside information."
Next day the phone rings again. It's the same friend. He says, "Hey, did you check the paper?"
"Yeah, I saw it."
"Well, what do you think?"
"Pretty good."
"Tell you what. Put down the $10,000 now. The stock's gonna double again tomorrow."
Well, now you have to think twice about it. But you're still a bit cautious, so you say, "Um, thanks but no thanks. $10,000 is a lot of money. I'll leave it for now."
You check the paper the next day, and sure enough, the stock doubled again. The portfolio is now worth $40,000. And you missed it twice.
Next day another phone call. This time, you're afraid to answer it. Eventually, after eight rings, you pick up.
"Did you check the paper?"
"Yeah."
"Well, whadya think?"
"Pretty good."
"Tell you what. You put down the money now, the stock's gonna double again. Check the paper tomorrow, you'll see it."
This time you're tempted. You think about it for a few minutes, but then you say, "You know, I'm not really sure..." and you hang up the phone.
In the end, you leave it alone. You just can't deal with it.
You check the paper the next day, and, sure enough, the stock has doubled. It's now worth $80,000.
The guy calls you up a fourth time. He says, "Listen, did you check the paper?"
"Yeah."
"Stock doubled."
"Yeah."
"Portfolio's worth $80,000. If you come in now, it's still gonna double tomorrow. You coming in?"
Now you've been playing it safe all along. You invested in a high level CD, and your $10,000 is now worth $10,032.06. His is worth $80,000.
He tries again. "Come on, are you in or not?"
You can't deal with it. You say, "I just can't," and you hang up. The stock doubles. It's now worth $160,000.
He calls you up again. He tries a few more times. "It's gonna double, you coming on?"
"No. Can't deal with it. Not going in yet."
The stock doubles again, now it's worth $320,000. It's doubled seven times. A couple more times and now it's worth over a million dollars.
Finally he calls up one last time and says, "Listen. I want to tell you something. Since you're such a good friend, the whole time I was investing my own $10,000, I've been investing another $10,000 for you in a second portfolio. You didn't know it, but you were right there with me all along. The second portfolio is waiting for you. All you have to do is come in right now and claim it. Are you ready or not?"
We can look at the seven fundamental wonders of Jewish history and know that our ancestors have been steadily investing for us in the portfolio of Judaism, for generation after generation, up to the present time. It doesn't matter if you've been conscious of this or not; you've been investing all along. And now you can come aboard and reap your rightful payoff.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
What happens when a fly falls into a coffee cup?
The Italian-throws the cup and walks away in a fit of rage.
The Frenchman-takes out the fly, and drinks the coffee.
The Chinese - eats the fly and throws away the coffee.
The Russian - Drinks the coffee with the fly, since it was extra with
no charge.
The Israeli - sells the coffee to the Frenchman, the fly to the
Chinese, buys himself a new cup of coffee and uses the extra money to invent a device that prevents flies from falling into coffee.
The Palestinian - blames the Israeli for the fly falling in his coffee, protests the act of aggression to the UN, takes a loan from the European Union to buy a new cup of coffee, uses the money to purchase explosives and then blows up the coffee house where the Italian, the Frenchman, the Chinese, and the Russian are all trying to explain to the Israeli that he should give away his cup of coffee to the Palestinians.
The Frenchman-takes out the fly, and drinks the coffee.
The Chinese - eats the fly and throws away the coffee.
The Russian - Drinks the coffee with the fly, since it was extra with
no charge.
The Israeli - sells the coffee to the Frenchman, the fly to the
Chinese, buys himself a new cup of coffee and uses the extra money to invent a device that prevents flies from falling into coffee.
The Palestinian - blames the Israeli for the fly falling in his coffee, protests the act of aggression to the UN, takes a loan from the European Union to buy a new cup of coffee, uses the money to purchase explosives and then blows up the coffee house where the Italian, the Frenchman, the Chinese, and the Russian are all trying to explain to the Israeli that he should give away his cup of coffee to the Palestinians.
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