Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message
A Kvetcher’s Itchy Nose
November 27, 2013
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. We won’t have our usual noon Thursday Healing
Eucharist; instead, we have a 5 p.m. Thanksgiving Eucharist this evening.
Having Rabbi David Zaslow here at
Trinity last week to roll out his new book, Jesus:
First Century Rabbi, was a great pleasure.
During the program, his wife Devorah told a great Hassidic tale about
becoming what you believe.
Thanksgiving this year also happens to be Hanukah, the Festival of Light
commemorating the Dedication of the Temple under the Maccabbees.
All this reminded me of another
Hasidic tale I heard in graduate school:
There once was a woman named Anna. She was a complainer, a kvetcher. All day long she would whine, “I am so poor, my
clothes are like rags. I am so old, my
back is as stiff as the walls of Jericho. I have to walk so far to draw water, my feet swell
up like watermelons. My house is so tiny,
I can barely move. My children visit me
so rarely that they barely recognize me.”
One day Anna woke up with an itch on
her nose. She went to visit the rabbi and he asked her, “How are you, Anna?”
Anna gave her regular litany of woes, and
the added, “And now my nose itches. It
is driving me mad! What does it mean,
Rabbi?”
The rabbi said, “Anna, your itch is a
‘complainer's itch.’ You are dissatisfied with life, and it’s like an itch that
no amount of scratching can help.
However you feel about yourself and the world, that’s how you and your
world will be!”
The next morning, Anna woke up. Her nose still itched. But her back had turned to stone! Her house
had shrunk and she was so tightly squeezed in it that she could barely breathe,
let alone move! On the end of her legs were two huge watermelons! Real rags, not old clothes hung on her body! Her son and daughter walked by, but they just
looked at her suspiciously as at a stranger. They really did not know her!
In despair, Anna remembered the kvetcher
itch on her nose and what the Rabbi had said.
So Anna began to think ‘I do have enough money to live on and a
little more. There are people who are worse off than I, and I should help them
with the extra I have. For someone my
age, I am pretty healthy, and feel pretty
good. My house may not be large, but
it’s comfortable and easy to clean. The
walk to draw water is good exercise and gives me a chance to relax and look at
the beautiful scenery. I'm so proud that
my children are independent and able to care for themselves.”
Suddenly, as if by magic as Anna was saying
these things, her body, house, clothes, and children returned to normal. Her outlook on life changed forever.
The moral of the story is this: think positively and thankfully, because it brings more blessing
and abundance. The rabbis who tell the
story end it by saying, “May your noses itch forever.”
Gratitude begets gratitude, complaining
begets more complaining. May we learn to
be
grateful for the good we enjoy in our
life, and not resent its nasty bits.
Grace and Peace, Fr. Tony+
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