The Dunce
Subtitle: The Rabbi who was nearly robbed.
Rabbi Zendev Zerskin was getting old, and he needed a cane to get around with now.
His Rebbe, the good, Taal Tovernor, warned him not to walk out on his own, as it was not safe for a lone person, to be walking the streets, on his own these days.
Nevertheless, Rabbi Zendev went out nearly every afternoon, just before evening, for his daily walk.
He used to wave his cane at his Rebbe, saying that he was not alone, he has his cane with him to protect him. God’s hand is on my cane too, he would add, and smile, broadly, with his most endearing of smiles.
One day, he was walking along a dusty laneway, carrying his cane along with him, as usual.
Suddenly, a brigand jumped out of a shadow in the wall, and he demanded that the good Rabbi hand over his purse to himself.
The Rabbi fell over in surprise.
With the Rabbi lying on the ground now, the would-be thief, bent over to pick the old man’s pocket, of his wallet.
It was then that he tripped on the cane, also lying now on the ground, but raised a bit, as it had one end, resting on the Rabbi’s left leg, the other end, on the ground, creating a gap between the ground, and the cane.
The man fell heavily towards the Rabbi, who deftly rolled aside, and so he then hit the ground facedown, and was knocked out, unconscious, as a result.
The Rabbi made good his escape, called the local constabulary, and the robber was thrown into jail.
(The robber was at least allowed to have his pet cat with him in jail with him. The Rebbe had talked the jailer into his allowing this.)
The Rabbi’s cane had saved him, and he thanked God for his old age, without which, he would not have had this cane.
“Everything fits into God’s plans for me, at the right time,” he thought.
“God goes with me still, even now, when l needed him the most.”
“God’s hand steadies my cane, as well as my own hand, does too.”
“God has always steadied my life for me, and helped me to stay steady to him too.”
Photo Credit: The photos used in this article were all sourced from the free media site, freeimages.com
7 days and my next post has still not been approved yet by the moderators.
Yes, that sort of magic does clear up our Maya, to make a bad pun there.
Maybe the pun was not too bad, after I looked up the dictionary meaning of Maya, though.
“Maya, (Sanskrit: “magic” or “illusion”) a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy, notably in the Advaita (Nondualist) school of Vedanta. Maya originally denoted the magic power with which a god can make human beings believe in what turns out to be an illusion.”
Maya | Indian philosophy | Britannicawww.britannica.com › Philosophy & Religion › Philosophical Issues.
Beautiful story. Well done. I have widely enjoyed it.
Thanks. I like finding photos and writing them into the story too. The cat on the window sill of the jail, was a nice find…lol…
Yes, it is. Your idea is great, keep posting these stories if you can.
I hope I can, and you too. It took 16 days to get that last one posted. Let’s hope the process is speeded up a bit from now on in.
Nice story. The good lesson of the story is that we should not do such actions. God sees everything.
Yes, nothing goes unnoticed, and as they also say, what goes around, comes around.
All the consequences of our actions will have to be dealt with eventually, by ourselves.
That’s the Law of Karma, as the Eastern religions call it.
The free will argument, does god plan all or is all boring so god only plans what interests god?
Well, if we bore into God deep enough, we might find our real free will in there too.
We undermine ourselves with a false freedom, by mining for it in the wrong places…lol…
it is the eternal struggle to seek, but to know that in seeking we risk losing what is held.
Do we have to let go of what we hold now then to seek something else, or can we keep it , and build onto it too?
The infinite love in anyone seeks activity for that person, but they never lose any of it by their loving either.
I read the works of the English Poet Thomas Gray for many years. In his poem the Elegy in a Country Churchyard he speaks of the loss but the gain, what is no longer real.
I find solace in that.
Only a great poet could write a poem that long.
It’s like a ballad of sadness in reality.
poetry is at times the wave.
It is at times the surfboard.
It is at times the only part of us exposed.
Nicely put.
I guess it’s the crashing down on our heads of the wave, or the surfboards. or the exposed parts of ourselves, at times too.
Poetry can show us to ourselves.
truly, i was in a writers conference that was fortunate enough to have Maya Angelou talk to us her take on poetry was that it was the magic of the soul.
I am getting lost again in the maya of these replies. I hope this one slots in somewhere where you can find it.
The Dunce less than a minute ago
Yes, that sort of magic does clear up our Maya, to make a bad pun there.
Maybe the pun was not too bad, after I looked up the dictionary meaning of Maya, though.
“Maya, (Sanskrit: “magic” or “illusion”) a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy, notably in the Advaita (Nondualist) school of Vedanta. Maya originally denoted the magic power with which a god can make human beings believe in what turns out to be an illusion.”
Maya | Indian philosophy | Britannicawww.britannica.com › Philosophy & Religion › Philosophical Issues.
i spent a lot of time reading many different religious texts over the years. NOw my thinking is quite combined. I find myself bounding between many different worlds.
I am/was/will always be a seeker.
Yes, I will always be a seeker too.
If I stop seeking now, I might miss out on finding what I was really seeking for, plus seeking refines the seeker too, and the search is the journey, as they say.
i have over the course of my life been through many phases. My parents were both raised Lutheran, but science called my father. So he took us to the Unitarian church. I wanted away from that and for a time i was a Methodist. But the restrictions of history made me uncomfortable. I had been exposed to the Hindi and Buddhist religions and found solace there.
What I find is now, i have more questions than answers.
Well, it is the answers that you have found that have prised free your new questions from you, so that is a good thing, I think.
There is a question/questions linked to every stepping stone on our paths; when we answer it/them, we step to the next stepping stone then, when more questions will arise.
that is really a wonderful way to put this. We must have context for questions, we have to have a framework of understanding.
I just wish, in the worlds of the song, the questions didn’t run so deep.
I do not think that the questions would ever run so deep that we would be in danger of drowning in them, and even if we were, a boat might come along to save us, or we might learn a new stroke of swimming, more powerful than our dog-paddle, what we use right now.
At our deepest depths, our guide might throw us a lifeline too.
We are never left out on our own to drown, on our own, I think.
but they run deep enough to slow us, to impede our progress. When it forces us to swim harder to travel the same short distance.
Progress is a paradox. It is not preordained, but it still cannot be altered, in many ways.
Progress is progress, unique for each person or soul, and each step is necessary, even the questioned step progresses you at your own pace, nothing can be speeded up by bypassing anything needed.
Going too slow is always the right speed for you too.
What is needed is what is needed.
that is the razor edge, the reality of Ocams theory. That the simple answer is always the best.
but in reality, is it? Are there truly no variables in the universe?
Does love need to be simple or complex, or just itself?
It is the vehicle that complexifies things, or simplifies them in itself, and the Universe is just what it is, neither complex nor simple, just a working masterpiece, working as itself; anything else is a mere label or description, placed on it by an observer trying to understand it for themselves.
you raise a good question the answer is that with training love should always be simple. Without training love is complex.
Some can see to the edge without help, they are the gifted ones. We encourage them to lead us to a new understanding.
Your answer seems to be a good one, and I agree with you there.
we shall then end our thread in the place of agreement!