Inspirational Stories

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          AMIDST THE CHANGE

One sweet summer day a young girl was taking a walk through her neighborhood park. She was mesmerized by the beauty. Green fresh-cut grass, a potpourri of flowers in every shape and color bordering walkway paths and trees and the sweet succulent smell of cherry blossoms emanating from the trees. 

The child felt inclined to pick a cherry blossom for her mommy because they were the prettiest flowers with the most fragrant scent. She approached the tree and was investigating the branches, searching for the biggest blossom, when she first spotted the caterpillar. The young girl froze in shock. She stared in amazement at how the caterpillar laid there so lifeless. A thick, brownish crust was starting to form around the bottom of the caterpillar. The girl thought of all the people who walk by the tree and all the people who do maintenance on the tree. She 
wondered, how could people just let the caterpillar die there? Doesn't this caterpillar deserve a proper burial instead of being left there to rot?

The distraught girl trudged home crying. She decided to talk to her mom about burying the deceased caterpillar. When she arrived home, she told her mother about her discovery at the park. The child asked about giving the caterpillar a funeral. The young girl's mother, in her most loving voice, told her daughter she 
did not want her picking up the caterpillar. The mother told her wide-eyed little girl not to worry so much about the insect. Nature has a way of taking care of itself, her mother told her. That night, when the young girl went to sleep, she dreamed of having a big special funeral for the lifeless green caterpillar. 

A couple of weeks passed and curiosity got the best of the little girl. She decided to take a little trip to her neighborhood park. Disregarding the green fresh-cut grass and potpourri of flowers of every shape and color, the child proceeded to the cherry tree where she had discovered the caterpillar weeks ago. She searched the branch once again and could not believe her eyes. The caterpillar 
was enveloped in a thick brownish crust, and one could not see the lifeless green caterpillar underneath. The young girl reached to pick up the crusty mass that was once a caterpillar. She was going to take it home for a funeral when she remembered the promise to her mother not to touch the insect. Feeling helpless and mournful, the child retreated to her home. 

As time passed, not a night went by that the young girl didn't dream of burying what was left of the caterpillar. The child decided despite what people said, she was going to give the caterpillar a funeral. The young girl took a small cardboard box, colored it with crayons, and lined it with pretty gold tissue paper. As she headed out the door, she told her parents she was going for a walk in the park and would be back shortly. As the child arrived at the park, she chose a special place among the flowers where the caterpillar should be laid to rest. She 
picked a cherry blossom and placed it gingerly in the box. She walked cautiously over to the tree that held the caterpillar on its branch. When she looked at the branch, she couldn't believe her eyes. Emerging from the ugly, brownish crust was the most beautiful butterfly she had ever seen. The child watched in amazement as the butterfly released itself from its cocoon and flew off into the deep blue sky. Not sure whether her eyes were playing tricks on her, she inspected the cocoon, only to find it empty. She felt so much happiness that tears were beginning to 
form. 

The young girl sat on a patch of grass under the cherry tree to reflect on the knowledge she had gained. She realized when one door closes another one opens. She also concluded that what can seem like the end, is only the beginning of a beautiful new adventure. The young girl rose to her feet and started the journey home. She could not wait to tell her parents the secrets of life she discovered.

Deborah Ann Smith

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Open Your Eyes
by Anonymous

I come from a totally secular Israeli home. By secular I mean atheist -- we held no religious beliefs at all, and no Jewish traditions and practices were kept. Yom Kippur was ignored, and I didn't even celebrate my bar mitzvah.

When I was 16, I began to search for some kind of meaning to life, although at the time I didn't call it that since I didn't realize what I was doing. I liked rebels, and I started hanging out with all kinds of different people. I dressed and acted like a kind of hippie, and caused no end of embarrassment to my parents. As I approached the age of 18, what hurt them most was that I did not want to serve in the Israeli army. Now, my parents may be atheists but their love for Eretz Yisrael and dedication to its defense was a religion in itself. I guess you could say that this was the one remnant of their Jewish beliefs, and they were devastated that I wouldn't want to be part of the Israel Defense Forces.

I, on the other hand, had gone farther than they had -- nothing at all was sacred to me. I didn't believe in anything. Since the army was not any more interested in a weird character like me than I was in them, I was free to roam around the country with all the strange characters who were my friends. I could fill a book with my adventures from then.

At the age of 21, I packed my bags and set off for India -- to look for truth. In my quest for meaning, there was no commune or ashram that I did not visit. I got to know many gurus personally. Only someone who has spent time in India can really understand the magnetic force of these communes.

The average secular young person from the permissive and hedonistic culture of our day has already experienced a lot of the materialistic pleasures to be found in the world by the time he's 21. Some keep on searching for new experiences, but even they will despair after a few years. They don't have a higher purpose in life.

These young people have been conditioned to go against their own traditions, and it doesn't enter their minds to search for the true meaning in life in "their own backyard" -- in the eternal values of Judaism. They want to find something new -- and they discover it in India.

It's true that India has a special power over anyone who visits. The people have a completely different outlook on life -- they are never in a rush, nothing bothers them and they have answers for every question! I met some truly amazing people there, extremely spiritual people who were able to exercise total control over their lives. There were monks who led an ascetic lifestyle and fasted for long periods of time. One monk I met decided that if a serpent could hold its breath for many minutes, there was no reason why a human being couldn't do the same and he spent his days doing breathing exercises, training himself to hold his breath for long periods of time. I was very impressed by their single-minded determination to achieve their aims. My generation is a spoiled one and never had to work hard for anything, so such purposefulness was new to me and it really amazed me.

Yet eventually I became disillusioned with their beliefs. An inner voice said, "What's the purpose of all this? Even if I stand in awe of someone who has such self-control that he can hold his breath for a long time, or keep his hand in a certain position for hours on end, what's he doing it for?" The more I admired their abilities, the more it bothered me that they seemed to be wasting those abilities on what for me were insignificant matters.

My roaming and searching continued and eventually I went to visit the Dalai Lama himself.

The Dalai Lama comes from Tibet. During the Chinese invasion and takeover of Tibet, the Dalai Lama's followers were able to smuggle him over the border to India where he has lived ever since.

He is one of the few leaders in the world who truly believes in non-violence, even for purposes of defense. As a result, the Tibetans no longer have a country of their own. Nevertheless the Dalai Lama is revered by all, and he received the Nobel Prize for peace in recognition of his unswerving quest for world peace.

I was captivated by the Dalai Lama's personality, by his wisdom and intelligence. I would rise early each morning and attend his daily sermon at 4:30am. As far as I was concerned, he was a human being without any blemishes.

Back home in Israel, my parents were worried about me. My father sent me a letter saying he had heard that I had "freaked out" -- afraid that I'd really gone crazy. I sent a polite letter back assuring him that I wasn't crazy but that I was now at a major crossroads in my life. As I mailed the letter I realized that the very wording of my letter would convince my father that I had indeed gone crazy!

The same evening I approached one of the Dalai Lama's assistants and asked for a private audience with the Dalai Lama the next morning after his sermon.

The following morning I entered his chambers. He was a gentleman who greeted everyone who came to see him. He bowed to me and offered me a seat. My words poured forth, as I told him that I saw truth and meaning in his religion and that I decided to adopt it if he would accept me.

"Where are you from," he asked me.

"Israel."

He looked at me. "Are you Jewish?"

"Yes," I replied.

His reaction surprised me. His expression turned from friendly to puzzled -- with even a tinge of anger. He told me that he did not understand my decision, and that he would not permit me to carry it out.

I was stunned. What did he mean?

"All religions are an imitation of Judaism," he stated. "I am sure that when you lived in Israel, your eyes were closed. Please take the first plane back to Israel and open your eyes. Why settle for an imitation when you can have the real thing?"

His words spun around in my head the whole day. I thought to myself: I am a Jew and an Israeli, but I know nothing about my own religion. Did I have to search and wander the whole world only to be told that I was blind and that the answers I was seeking were to be found on my own doorstep?

I did what the Dalai Lama told me to do. I immediately flew back to Israel -- and entered a yeshiva. And, as he told me to do, I opened my eyes. I began to see the Dalai Lama had indeed been correct. I discovered Judaism and its vitality, and that it encompassed everything in life. I embraced its laws and found many reasons to live -- at least 613 reasons! And I found joy.

Two years later someone suggested a shidduch -- a blind date. Anat was a young woman of my age who was also a ba'alat teshuvah, a returnee to traditional Judaism. She too had been to Goa and other places in India to search for answers, and she too had found them back in Israel -- in the religion of Israel. We clicked immediately. We had gone through the same search for meaning, and the same return to our roots. Eventually, Anat and I got engaged.

When I went to offer a gift to the matchmaker, she refused to accept anything, saying that she didn't deserve it.

"But it's customary to give the matchmaker a gift -- and I want to do it."

"You are quite right, but in this case I am not the matchmaker," she replied simply.

"What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you. Anat came to me and showed me a piece of paper with a name in it. She asked me to introduce her to the person whose name was written there. She knew nothing at all about that person, but said that she had been given his name by someone she trusts completely... It was your name."

After the engagement party, Anat and I went for a walk.

"Tell me," I said, "how did this shidduch come about? I want to know who gave you my name, so that I can pay him."

Anat smiled. "You will have to travel to India to pay him."

Before I had a chance to react, she continued, "I haven't told you yet that at the end of my wandering, I went to the Dalai Lama. I was very impressed by him and all he embodied and I decided to join his religion. When I told him he said, 'Anat, since you are Jewish you should not settle for silver if you can have gold.' He told me to return to my roots and then in a whisper, he asked one of his assistants to bring him a piece of paper. The Dalai Lama then copied the name that was there onto another piece of paper, and handed it to me. 'This is your soul mate,' he told me.

"When I returned to Israel, I joined a religious seminary. And you know the rest. You know, at first it was because of the Dalai Lama, and only later the much stronger light of Judaism that attracted me. And only after a year had gone by did I begin to search for you. I approached many shadchanim, matchmakers, but no one was able to discover you in the various yeshivas for ba'alei teshuvah. Finally someone contacted your yeshiva, and -- I found you!

"From the very first date I knew that the Dalai Lama was right."

Anat and I have been married for three years now and we have been blessed with two wonderful children. I am immersed in Torah study, and Anat is a wonderful wife and mother. And our parents, you may be wondering -- how did they accept all this? Our parents are educated, well-to-do people whose way of life is very different from ours -- but they are impressed by our lifestyle and the close relationship between us. And they know the role the Dalai Lama had in all of this.

This article is an excerpt from "People Speak About Themselves" by Rabbi Chaim Walder, Feldheim Publishers. www.Feldheim.com

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