A Bag of Cold Goins

A wealthy & experienced businessman had a son who was a novice in business. The father gave him a sack of gold coins to buy some merchandise. “Business isn't complicated my son. It's simple: You buy merchandise in bulk at wholesale price, and you sell it at retail price, making profit. Go to Vilna. Visit the city market and buy it for the wholesale price.” The son-in-law went and did as his father-in-law had suggested. The first stand he saw at the market was selling shofars (ram horns). "It's right before Rosh Hashanah! Come and buy shofars for the holiday!" Announced the owner. He got a good price on shofars and bought a wagon-load.


When he arrived home, his father was flabbergasted. “What did you do?!” The son replied, “What’s the matter? I checked the prices just like you told me to.” “Yes,” said the father, “but there's only one main synagogue in our city! Everyone hear's the shofar blown there on Rosh Hashanah. Nobody's going to buy these!” The father stormed off to tell his workers to put the shofars in the warehouse. Sometime later the father was ready to try again. The son went to Vilna again, and this time he found a tremendous bargain - a massive amount of toothpicks for less than 10% of their wholesale price! Smiling with pride, the boy filled his wagons with toothpicks and headed back to town. He was in for a surprise when he came home. “What’s the matter father? I got an amazing price on these toothpicks.” “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?! Nobody's going to buy all of these toothpicks!” The father sighed and told his workers to put the toothpicks in the warehouse.

After a while, the father called a merchant who dealt in odd lots and asked him to take the shofars and get whatever he could for them. The following day, he called somebody else, who dealt in overstocks, to do the same thing for the toothpicks. Soon after, these two fellows bumped into each other. Unaware that they were working for the same person, they made a trade, shofars for toothpicks. When the father got the report, he burst out laughing. His son complained: “Why are you so upset with me? These two guys are hot-shot businessmen and they both bought the same merchandise I did!” The father answered, “My dear son. Both of these men had something worthless and exchanged it for something worthless. But you had gold. You could have bought priceless goods, but instead you bought worthless merchandise!”

Each of us has been entrusted with a beautiful neshamoh (soul). We have been given a G-dly gift, the Torah, full of Divine wisdom and guidance. We have been given many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years to achieve and acquire good deeds in this world. But too often we pass up on good "merchandise", instead focusing on the purchase of useless items. This wouldn't be a big deal, if not for the fact that we were given gold. Each of us has been given golden, priceless souls, entrusted with a divine mission to acquire mitzvot and better the world as best we can. From saying the shema to lighting shabbat candles or giving a dollar to charity, we can come home with great merchandise our Father can be proud of.

Shabbat Shalom!