One Good Turn Deserves
Another
In one of India's little kingdoms
of long ago there lived a King who (like most
of them) was fond of hunting in wild places. His Chief
Advisor was a very intelligent man, and also a
very optimistic one. He was famous for seeing the rosy
side of things. In fact, so strong was his habit of
finding good in everything that at times this annoyed
his ruler.
One day when the King and his Advisor were on a hunting
trip through a dense jungle which went on for
miles, the King decided to have a fresh coconut for his breakfast,
and, finding a coconut tree near at hand, with
his sword cut down a coconut. But as luck would have
it, his sword slipped in his hand and came crashing
down on one of his toes, cutting it off! Limping over
to his Advisor with loud shouts of pain, he was terribly
shocked to hear the latter say, "Ah, that's wonderful!"
"What?!" yelled the King; "I cut off
my toe and you say it is wonderful?"
"This is a real blessing," replied the Advisor.
By now the King was furious, thinking the man was making
fun of him.
"Take it from me," said his Advisor, "behind
this apparent bad accident there is some good which
we cannot now see." That was it! The King had
noticed a dry well nearby, and being a strong man,
he picked up his companion and just threw him into
that well. Then he set out to limp back to his fortified
town and castle.
This meant, however, walking through
dense jungle, frequented by the wild tribes of those
days, some of whom were headhunters. On his way the
King met a band of those headhunters, who decided that,
being royalty, he would make an excellent sacrifice
for this month's festival. As you may imagine, the
King did not feel at all honored by this decision.
The warriors carried him to the tribal priest. It was
the duty of this priest to approve all of the offerings
that were to be presented. The priest was most particular
to see that the item to be offered to the gods was perfect
in all respects. While anointing the King's body
the priest noticed that he was lacking one toe.
"I am sorry," he told the King, "but
we cannot use you after all for this holy sacrifice.
The gods will not accept anyone who is not whole-bodied
You will have to go." Naturally the King was delighted
and began hobbling away toward his palace. Aha! he
thought, so his Advisor had been right -- there was
indeed a hidden blessing behind that accident. As fast as
his wounded leg would allow, he turned around and
went back to the well where he had left his counsellor. There
he was, standing down in the well and whistling happily
to himself.
Now the king managed to reach down far enough to grasp the hand of the Advisor and with great effort to pull him up. Then he apologized for having doubted him and having thought him a fool.
"Oh how sorry I am that I threw you in there," said the King as he dusted off his courtier. "I was taken prisoner by some wild native headhunters who were about to make me a sacrifice victim. Then they saw that my toe was missing, and let me go. And you foretold all this, in a way. Can you ever forgive me?"
"You need not apologize at
all; it was a blessing that you threw me down the well
and left me there."
"Now, how are you going to make something positive
out of that?" queried the King.
"Well," said the other, "if I had been
with you they would surely have taken me for their
sacrifice."
In the last century, a tourist from
the States visited the famous Polish rabbi Hafez
Hayyim.
He was astonished to see that the rabbi's home
was only a simple room filled with books. The
only furniture was a table and a bench.
"Rabbi, where is your furniture?" asked the tourist.
"Where is yours?" replied Hafez.
"Mine? But I'm only a visitor here."
"So am I," said the rabbi.
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