A young man goes to a Jewish wedding party and sees an acquaintance there and asks if he remembers me. The person who was a bit older says, no, who are you? The young man introduces himself and the other says, Oh, I remembered, I haven’t seen you for years and now that you’re a man, I didn’t recognize you. You were my student, third grade.
What are you doing? And what about your past life? The man says that I also chose the teaching job. The old man says oh, like I was your teacher. What made you choose this job? Who encouraged you and led you to this path? The young man says you, you inspired me to choose this job. The old man, who had now become a rabbi, asks, “Amazing me?” When did I encourage you? The young man says that because of the incident that happened one day in class. I am sure you remember, but I will remind you again. I had a classmate whose parents had bought a new and beautiful watch for him, and when that boy brought it to school, I fell in love with that watch, and I wished to have it, I was so tempted that I decided to steal it from my friend. . And in a moment of his negligence, I took it and put it in my pants pocket.
That boy came to you when he realized that the watch was missing and asked you to find it for him, and you said in the class that if someone found the watch by mistake, he would come and hand it over. I was deeply ashamed, but I did not dare to come and give it because it would be a bad disgrace and I decided not to say anything. But you locked the classroom door and said that now that this has happened, everyone in the class will line up and you will check everyone’s pockets, but everyone should close their eyes while looking for the clock. And my heart was coming out of my chest. In short, you searched everyone’s pockets and when it was my turn, you found the watch and took it and passed it, but you still continued to search the pockets of the other students. And I wonder why you didn’t stop searching?
Until the search of everyone’s pockets was over and you returned the watch to its owner and did not say anything about this incident to the children or to me. And at that time, I deeply appreciated your magnanimity for not discrediting me and not exposing the watch thief. This was the biggest lesson of my life. Not breaking a person’s pride and honor, especially if he is a child, because its negative effects always remain in the child’s mind. And with this, you saved my soul from such humiliation and humiliation, and I thought to myself that this means real education and right there, I decided to become a teacher in the future in order to give this life lesson to my future students.
Ha Kham said, Wow, so it was you who raised the clock? And the young man asked in surprise, what does that mean? Don’t you remember that it was me? Do you forget yourself? The rabbi replied, “I didn’t understand whose pocket the watch was in because I had closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t know who it was later so I wouldn’t disgrace him or humiliate him.”
This was the best life lesson for me. Forgiving a mistake with kindness is much more effective than physical punishment or scolding, and it is a lesson that will never be forgotten.
This post is written by monese_ghamgosar