A famous doctor visited a sick patient and after examining
him he wrote a prescription. He advised
the patient to take it, boil it and drink the solution three times daily. The sick man had great confidence in the
physician and followed his instructions carefully. But the medicine brought him no relief. His strength gradually ebbed; his heart beat
slowly, and his limbs were beginning to lose their powers of sensation and of movement. The family anxiously criticized the doctor’s
diagnosis.
“He is an ignorant fool!” they shouted.
Among those present was the grandson of the stricken
man. “Grandfather,” he said to the dying
man, “did you take the medicine according to the way the doctor prescribed it?”
“Most certainly, my child," the man moaned. “I took the prescription, placed it in a pan
of water, boiled it well, and then drank the water three times a day. The following
day I dried the prescription, cooked it again, and drank the water. As you can see it did absolutely nothing for
me.”
“But grandpa,” the young fellow cried out in amazement, “you
didn’t fulfill the physician’s instructions.
You boiled a piece of paper in the pan and not the medicine. The prescription should have been taken to a
pharmacist, who would have given you the appropriate medicine. It was the medicine and not the paper which
you should have boiled and taken thrice daily.
In that event, you would have recovered a long time ago.”
Moral: The great minds of the past have left us a prescription
not to forget the holy teachings from the Torah. Yet, we have not followed the instructions
they left for us. We may pray three
times a day but it must be mindful to live it, not just mouth the words.
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