We've had a beautiful Shabbat with the KMS community in Silver Spring, Maryland. On Shabbat morning, we heard during the Torah reading the following verse: "Thou shalt be wholehearted with the LORD thy God." How hard it is for us to be wholehearted, honest and simple. During Shabbat I spoke there about a bus driver from Israel, Moshe Yeret, whose bus a mother and her young daughter boarded last week. They did not have enough money on their pre-paid card, so he explained to them that they should get off the bus at the next bus-stop, charge the card cheaply and continue the drive, instead of the other option which was to buy a ticket from him with more money. The mother said in response: "Thank you very much! Really, thank you very much!" The girl heard this and told her mother: "Mom, what did the driver do wrong that you speak with him like this?" The mother did not understand: "He helped us, so I thanked him." And the daughter insisted: "You said: 'Really, thank you very much!'. This is what people say to someone who did something wrong." The driver grasped at how our speech has become so cynical. Such a young girl hears the words: "Really, thank you very much!", but she is already used to hearing these words said with so much sarcasm, as something that is said not as a real thank you, but as a reproach. Thou shalt be wholehearted with the LORD thy God. May we merit to be wholehearted and simpler.
