The Flourishing Staff
Once upon a time, there was a Jewish family, and as it happened the oldest child in this family was a boy named David. When David grew up to be a man, he decided he no longer wanted to be Jewish. His parents tried to talk with him about this decision. But David grew angry with his parents, and turned and left his childhood home, never to speak to his parents again.
David moved far away and found someone with whom he wanted to spend his life, and they settled down and had children. As it happened, the house they wound up living in was right next door to the house of a rabbi named Jehuda. Rabbi Jehuda was an old man who walked with the help of a tall staff, he was the leader of the local Jewish community, and he had the reputation of being very wise.
The two families grew friendly, and David's children played with the Rabbi's grandchildren. Naturally over time David and Rabbi Jehuda became friends.
One day, David and Rabbi Jehuda were talking. David said, "Rabbi Jehuda, as you know I was born Jewish, but then I decided I could no longer be a Jew. I left home, and never spoke to my parents again. I feel terrible about this. Can you forgive me?"
"What do you mean, can I forgive you?" said Rabbi Jehuda. "Forgiveness takes place between two people. Only your parents can forgive you, just as only you can forgive your parents."
David thought about this for a moment. "I can see what you mean. But the root of the problem was the fact that I decided I would no longer be a Jew. You're a rabbi, can't you forgive me for this?"
Rabbi Jehuda began to grow impatient with David. "How can I do that for you? That is something you will have to ask God directly. Don't drag me into your problems with God."
David said, "But I don't believe in God. You believe in God, can't you just ask God for me?"
At this, Rabbi Jehuda grew angry. "What kind of crazy question is this? As little," he said in his anger, "as this staff in my hand will blossom and produce green leaves, can you hope to obtain forgiveness for what you have done."
As a result of this quarrel, David and the rabbi stopped talking to one another. David's children and the rabbi's grandchildren still played together, but when David looked over the fence and saw the rabbi, he immediately turned away and pretended he hadn't seen the rabbi at all. And when the rabbi was down at the grocery store and happened to wind up behind David in the check-out line, he pretended he hadn't seen David and suddenly remembered he had to go down the snack aisle to buy some potato chips.
This went on for a few days. Then one day, Rabbi Jehuda was out in his back yard pruning the apple trees that grew there. He had been out there for a long time working in the hot sun, and was growing tired. He was balancing himself by leaning on his staff while he reached up to clip off an unwanted branch from one of the trees, when suddenly the staff in his hand began to sprout green leaves. Then buds began to form, and before the rabbi's surprised eyes, beautiful white flowers began to bloom up and down the length of the staff.
Needless to say, Rabbi Jehuda was greatly astonished by this. He sent one of his grandchildren next door to fetch David. David came over, and Rabbi Jehuda showed him the staff which was now a small apple tree.
"Now tell me," said Rabbi Jehuda, "are you sure that even though you said you were no longer Jewish, even though you said you have never talked to another Jew until you and I became friends, are you sure that you have had nothing to do with Jews since your childhood?"
"Well," said David, "I remember I once worked with some people who were saying all kinds of crazy things about Jews -- real anti-Semitic remarks. Even though I was no longer Jewish, I still knew all the religious customs of the Jews, and I was able to tell them that what they were saying was impossible and completely opposed to everything Judaism stood for. Because I stood up and told the truth, those people stopped making their hateful remarks."
Rabbi Jehuda looked at David. Then Rabbi Jehuda looked at what used to be his staff but was now a young apple tree. The rabbi was a wise man, which meant above all he knew when to admit he was wrong. "David," said the rabbi, "I was wrong. You can obtain forgiveness."
David couldn't quite understand what was going on -- here was his friend the rabbi leaning on a little apple tree, suddenly telling him that he could obtain forgiveness -- but he decided, what the heck, he would take forgiveness where he could get it. David apologized to the rabbi for looking the other way when he saw the rabbi over the fence. And the rabbi apologized to David for leaving the line in the grocery store so he wouldn't have to talk with David.
*****
Now maybe I have changed this story a little bit, and I have to admit I'm not sure I even understand the story completely. But one thing I am pretty sure about: you can forgive someone who has done something wrong to you, and you can always be open to accepting it when someone forgives you.
Licensed 2006 by Daniel Harper under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 (see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/). No commercial uses, attribution required, no derivative works.