“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos.” :D Priorities and Perspectives July 3, 2013 - 5:00 am “Build cities for your women and children, and pens for your flocks, but do what you have promised.”—Numbers 32:24 The Torah portion for this week is a double reading, Matot-Massei, from Numbers 30:2–36:13 and the Haftorah from Jeremiah 2:4–28; 4:1–2. There is a great story told about a businessman on vacation who meets a Mexican fisherman. The businessman notices several large yellowfin tuna in the fisherman’s boat. He compliments the fisherman on the quality of the fish and asks how long it took to catch them. “Only a little while,” explains the fisherman. “Well, what do you do with the rest of your day?” the businessman wanted to know. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos.” The businessman couldn’t resist giving advice: “Don’t you know that if you spent more time fishing, you could buy a bigger boat, and then with the bigger boat, you could catch more fish until you could buy even more boats? You could eventually catch so many fish that you could avoid the middleman and sell directly to distributors. You would get so large that you could move to New York City where you would run the whole enterprise and then sell your company stock to the public. You could make millions!” The fisherman thought about this advice and asked, “How long will this take?” The man replied, “Fifteen to twenty years. Then you could retire in a small Mexican village where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your children, take a siesta with your wife, and sip wine with your friends.” The confused fisherman replied, “But I’m doing that now!” No matter how many times I hear that story, it always makes an impression. We often get so caught up in making a good living that we forget about making a good life! In this week’s reading, the tribes of Reuben and Gad asked Moses for permission to settle just outside of Israel where the land seemed more lush. Moses was furious with them – not because they didn’t want to go into Israel, but because of their reason for not going with the others — because of their cattle, their business (32:4)! The Sages explain that Moses chastised the two tribes for their inappropriate priorities and corrected them by telling the tribes to first build cities for their wives and children and then pens for the cattle. The tribes agreed, and only then did Moses give permission for them to settle east of the Jordan River. In this way, Moses was teaching the Israelites – and us — that when making important life decisions, family, not business, should be our chief concern. Let us take Moses’ teaching to heart. God, family, and friends must be our first priorities before our jobs. Our relationships are our most important assets. They are true blessings that no amount of money can buy. holylandmoments.org/devotionals/priorities-and-perspectives
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 21:47:40 +0000
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