Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Elder of Ziyon
When you want to
find pearls, you need to be patient and be willing to go deep. They aren’t on
the surface, they are in the muck at the bottom of the ocean, created in
response to an irritation, a grain of sand or a parasite.
And sometimes they
are right in front of you - but you have to know how to see them.
There is a cashier
in my grocery store named Pearl. Pearls
are beautiful. She is not. You could easily call her ugly. She is rather
unattractive, middle aged with buck teeth. Uneducated and just a little too
loud.
Do you pay attention
to the cashier at your grocery store? I assume that most people don’t. They are
just one more station in the midst of errands and tasks that need to be
completed… One of the invisible people
that help us through our day.
The upcoming holiday
made me think of a tiny interaction I witnessed in the store. It was before a
different holiday (Passover). I suppose it was the similar atmosphere that
brought the incident to mind. Or possibly it’s the reflective nature of Rosh
Hashana that had me pondering the amount of power each of us has to do good in
the world.
It was a few days
before the Passover holiday and the grocery store was packed.
Looking for the
fastest check-out line, I picked Pearl. She
works fast.
Pearl was in the
midst of a conversation with an elderly Russian man in front of me in line. She
talks to everyone. She was explaining that he was entitled to choose a
discounted product from a special section in the store. He thanked her but said
that he would pass on the discount.
“Why?” she asked.
She wanted him to benefit from the offer. It wasn’t a significant discount,
nothing that would make a big difference on his bill but she wanted him to have
it.
He said that his
legs don’t work well, that it would take him a long time to walk to the area
dedicated to discounts. It would hold up the line and annoy everyone.
Before he completed
his thought Pearl responded: “I’ll go instead of you! What do you want?”
The man replied: “No
never mind, don’t worry about the discount.”
He didn’t want to be
given personal, unusual service because his body was weak.
Somehow Pearl
instinctively knew what he wanted – gefilte fish for the upcoming holiday. In
an instant she figured out how to solve the problem. The people behind me were
buying gefilte fish. After quickly verifying with the man that it was ok Pearl
swiped through the gefilte fish that the couple behind me were buying. The old
man then had the fish on his bill. He could pay, pack his groceries and then go
get his own fish - at his own pace.
In an instant Pearl
enabled the man to save the money the discount entitled him to receive, without
holding up the other customers AND preserve his dignity.
All this took place
so swiftly that the couple behind me was not sure exactly what had happened.
They were immigrants from America and their Hebrew was not very good. Seeing
their confusion, I explained what Pearl had done. The husband, choked up, said:
“That is the good of Israel, the heart”.
Translating, I
explained to Pearl that they were moved by her kindness. At first she wasn’t
sure what we were talking about. She’s used to herself and that is just the way
she is. All the time.
Israel has taught me
to look at the heart of matters big and small. It is always the heart that
counts. Content of character - not color, gender, religion, status – is what
defines the quality of a person. We can’t control what happens to us in life
but we can control our reactions to our experiences. These are the choices that
define what kind of person we become.
Often it is the
people of Israel who teach me the most powerful lessons. The cashier at my
grocery store is like many others in this country – the exterior may be tough,
even coarse but that is just the outer shell. Inside is a true Pearl.
