yankeegato

James 2:1-9

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun
threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly
without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer
office.

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country
hicks had no business at Harvard & probably didn't even deserve to be
in Cambridge.

'We'd like to see the president,' the man said softly.  'He'll be busy
all day,' the secretary snapped. 'We'll wait,' the lady replied.
For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would
finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't, and the secretary
grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even
though it was a chore she always regretted.

'Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave,' she said to him!

He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance
obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested
gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer  office.

The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the
couple. The lady told him, 'We had a son who attended Harvard for one
year.

He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was
accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial
to him, somewhere on campus.'

The president wasn't touched. He was shocked. 'Madam,' he said,
gruffly, 'we can't put up a statue for every person who attended
Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.'

'Oh, no,' the lady explained quickly. 'We don't want to erect a
statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.'

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and
homespun suit, then exclaimed, 'A building! Do you have any earthly
idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million
dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard.'

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he
could get rid of them now.

The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, 'Is that all it costs
to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?'

Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and
bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away,
traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the
university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a
son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those
who they think can do nothing for them.


.........A TRUE STORY By Malcolm Forbes ........

No King

"In those days there was no king in Israel; each man did that which was proper in his own eyes." Judges 21:25

At first glance, this verse appears to describe a chaotic state of affairs, where in absence of a central authority everyone did as they pleased, however, this interpretation is incorrect. Everyone has common sense, which can reliably guide him to do right and avoid wrong. ("Do that which is proper and good." Deuteronomy 6:18) How do we know what is proper and good if the Torah does not specify it? It must be that we have an innate common sense.
If so, why does the world seem so unjust? One reason might be that people do not act according to their own common sense, but rather according to what they think others might think of them.

When we stop behaving according to what we wish others to think, we might give our common sense a fighting chance.


By Rinah Shalom