One man carries rocks for a livelihood. Give him emeralds, and all he sees is more rocks.
Another carries diamonds with devotion and care. Give him the emeralds, and he exclaims, “What beauty is here!”
Only one who values his own heritage is able to appreciate the beauty that others hold.
This is a bizarre little story. The diamond guy is clearly an elite & priviledged. Of course his response is different. Most people carry rocks their entire lives & their senses are dulled & their souls exhausted. Remember how we were in Egypt, we were offered emeralds & only saw rocks !
The lesson of this is we should all be working for a just society where carrying of rocks/diamonds is more equal.
I bet if Mr Diamond had to carry rocks for even a few weeks his response would be the same.
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Good Morning, Anonymous (2017)
Did not Aaron, the High Priest, carry 12 Jewels [stones] on his chest breastplate. It represented the 12 Tribes of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and each of the tribal names were inscribed on them. It served as a Memorial to GD. However, the diamond was missing.
Best wishes,
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Someone just shared with me a song they loved as a younger kid. It talks about smells (mom's coffee, dad's newspaper), holding balloons, other interesting stuff.
It can be so helpful sometimes to connect backwards. We are the "child born of our childhood", so it is a heritage of sorts :)
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so much to say, so little space,,, some men are forced by others to settle for rocks in life and make do with what their given, they fuss very little under the heavier load they must carry in order for it to gain any value, and when they seek a little help to carry their bigger load, they find their rocks pave little way in compensating those they ask for help, yet those that find an abundance of Emeralds, (that would help feed the masses and house the multitude) fence it off and set up watch towers to guard what they claim for themselves, those that discover a field of Diamonds can see only the digits and fail to see how truly worthless their stones they can carry on their fingers really are, Emeralds and Diamonds cause men to stumble over their collection, while the man with rocks finds relief at the end of his journey and his rocks that he was given as his personal portion are turn into jewels, Reply
clarity I see the clarity in he who holds white diamonds and envy of the green in the emeralds Reply
Humour
Rabbi,
There is a slight humour to how good these are.
Shalom,
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This fragment is a little more complicated. It talks about how one sees life. do we see rocks or do we see diamonds? Nothing to do with envy I would argue. Rather you must know your own tradtitions and values well enough to be proud of who you are. If this is so, the you can respect, not envy, the diamonds that somebody else has. I say respect, not admiration because that can be interpreted as envy when this is not the lesson. Not all people are Jews,but they have values that are different from us. You can respect those values, but the fragment tells us,subltly, take care of what you yourself have because it is, indeed, precious.