A Soulful Journey

“I don’t understand Yiddish…and any words I may have known as a child I have forgotten…I used to be Jewish, you know.” -“I used to be a hunchback.” “Isn’t it amazing,” exclaimed Rosenblatt in a glad cry, “how we’ve both been able to change.”  - Joseph Heller, “Good as Gold” Change is powerful, when it happens.   Yet, self-deceit is also possible when we convince ourselves of change when there has been little or none.

“Kissinger, it seems, obtained a length of top quality tweed cloth that he wishes to make into a suit.   Tailors in Washington and New York, after measuring him, said that there was insufficient material for trousers and a jacket that would fit him. In London, France and Germany, went on diplomatic missions the same morning repeated by the best tailors in these countries. Then he came to Jerusalem and was told by a Jewish tailor to leave the material and return in 10 days.  When Kissinger came back he was astonished to find not only a suit that fit him perfectly but a vest, an additional jacket and two extra pairs of trousers all made from the same length of material. ”How was it possible in New York, Washington, London Paris, and Germany I was told that there was not enough material for even one suit? And here in Israel you were able to make so much??” ”Because here in Israel,” said the Jewish tailor, “you are not such a big man.”  - Joseph Heller...

  “Gold never doubted that racial discrimination was atrocious, unjust, and despicably cruel and degrading.   But he knew in his heart that he much preferred it the old way, when he was safer.   Things had been much better for him when they had been much worse.” -Joseph Heller , Good as Gold One of the great truisms of life is that it is better to know where you stand with someone who hates you than guess because someone is too polite to tell you.   If that is true, what can we learn about honesty and integrity?