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CHECKS AND BALANCES
A few weeks ago one of the minor frustrations of everyday life occurred to me. Like many of you do, I still maintain an account – a checking account – in the United States in addition to my Israeli banking account. I am thus able to pay dollar invoices with dollar checks and it is a source of great convenience to me. I am always careful to make certain that my American bank account should have sufficient funds in it to meet the demands of the dollar invoices that I receive.
So, when I received my recent American credit card bill I automatically reached for my American bank checkbook to pay the bill. Imagine, to my horror, I discovered that I had no more checks in my checkbook. Now it is very frustrating not to have enough money in one’s account to pay one’s bills. But it is more than frustrating to have enough money in the account but not to have any checks – the means by which the money can be disbursed and the bills paid.
A few frantic phone calls to the United States and the cooperation of FedEx brought checks to my home a few days later. As I gratefully paid my bills with my new- found checks I considered the moral lessons to be learned from this incident. For in the Jewish view of life, every event is fraught with meaning and teaching. There is nothing in life that does not have meaning. The rabbis in Avot taught us. And so it is.
The Talmud tells us that a great master of Torah ruefully remarked: “I have many coins to exchange with others but I have no one to deal with regarding them. “ This metaphor referred to his great Torah knowledge and wisdom and his personal disappointment at being unable to impart his “coins” of wisdom and tradition to the multitudes that were not able or willing to deal with them.
The Talmud teaches us a similar frustration of the great Rabi Eliezer ben Hyrkonos who stated that his students were only able to carry away from him “as much as a dog can diminish the sea by licking at it.” The greatest frustration a teacher can encounter is an apathetic class or a group that is unable to derive full benefit from its teacher.
The teacher has plenty of money in the account but does not have the checks that can help disburse that wealth – this time the wealth of knowledge. I wanted to pay one of my coworkers on the movie series that the Destiny Foundation is producing. I said to him, “I want to pay your bill right now and I have a sufficient balance in the account to cover your invoice but I don’t have any checks.” He replied: “Rabbi, that is the most original excuse I have heard in a long time for not paying my invoices.”
I explained to him that this excuse was not really original with me, that it had Talmudic origins and that there is nothing more galling and frustrating than being caught in this position. I hoped that he believed me. Anyway, I was able to pay the invoice immediately upon receiving the precious checks.
The truth in life is that humans rarely appreciate the teachers and leaders that they have until they are no longer here. The Talmud is replete with such stories of students who did not really begin to appreciate and miss their mentor until after that mentor’s passing. The teacher will be wise to understand this fact of life. One must overcome the natural frustration inherent in having a large balance in the account and yet not having the checks by which to disburse it properly.
Even if the amount of knowledge and inspiration taken from the great teacher is only “as much as a dog can diminish the sea by licking at it” the teacher must continue his or her efforts. Even if the students are not the checks that the teacher really wishes to write and disburse one can only deal with what one has in hand. This is also a great lesson of the Talmud: “I have learned from all of those whom I have taught.” Not only are the checks important regarding the balance in the account but, as far as Torah is concerned, the checks written and disbursed do not diminish the balance in the account. Rather, they somehow enhance and increase it. In any event, I personally hope not to run out of checks on my account again. But then again, who knows?
Shabat shalom.
Berel Wein
