Rebbetzin Neustadt told a story of a town Rabbi who was walking down the street when he was apprehended by the town’s anti-Semitic mayor. “Where are you going, Jew?” he demanded to know.
“I don’t know,” was the Rabbi’s reply.
“Don’t lie to me. How can you not know where you are going? Tell me now or I’ll have you arrested.”
“It is the truth,” repeated the Rabbi, “I have no idea where I’m going.”
Within the hour, the Rabbi was sitting in jail awaiting his fate. When news got out, the local Jews came to their Rabbi and asked why the Rabbi didn’t tell the mayor where he was heading.
“I answered honestly,” replied the Rabbi, “if he would have asked me where am I planning on going, I would have told him; but to ask me where I am going — that, I have no idea. That’s Hashem’s business! As you can see, I thought I was going to shul, but look, I’m sitting right here in jail.”
“To say the right thing at the right time, keep still most of the time.” John W. Roper Those who get in trouble most often are those cannot seem to keep still, remain silent. Life teaches many lessons. Among the best lessons of life is one my father taught me at an early age was, “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing.” The contributions we make to life via our mouth are many and varied. Most of the time, I reckon, they are not contributions at all, but things that diminish the richness of life.
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