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Home
and Family
What Goes Round - Comes
Round
by Rosally Saltsman
I love old things, used things that once belonged to other
people, things with history and flavor. Especially things
that are cheap. In North America, this penchant can be
satisfied on any Sunday by visiting yard sales, garage sales,
street fairs, antique shops, thrift shops, collectible shops.
These are a paradise for good deals, bargains, finds and lots
of fun.
In Israel, we don't have much of the latter [Rosally, why
haven't you visited your local or intercity gemach! Lots of
interesting things there!] but we do have bazaars with the
added spiritual dimension of raising money for a good cause
and the practical dimension of helping people get rid of
stuff they no longer wish to possess. No, we won't call it
junk. If nothing more, it once had some sentimental value.
In my new neighborhood there are a few righteous women who
organize a bazaar every couple of months to provide food for
needy families and for the households in the neighborhood to
deposit their unwanted goods and purchase other goods which
will, eventually, be unwanted and re-donated to the
bazaar.
As I had just moved to a smaller apartment and it was just
before Pesach, I donated bags of odds and ends in a variety
of subgroups: toys - with my son's permission, of course,
clothes, household goods and miscellaneous paraphernalia.
A week before Pesach, the ladies held their bazaar and I went
along with my son to bargain-hunt. I left with a whole new
wardrobe of `fresh' clothes which totaled twenty shekel. My
son picked up a cheap set of rackets which only cost two
shekel. Even though I was sure he had exactly the same set at
home, I let him have them so that he would leave the bazaar
feeling the satisfaction of having found something he wanted
and paid for it with money that went to a good cause.
Especially since he had donated so much of his own
stuff to begin with.
When we got home, I tried to think where my son's own set of
rackets were. Then I remembered. I had donated them to the
bazaar! Actually, he had bought back his own set of tennis
rackets.
There is a spiritual and universal rule that whatever good
you do in the world comes back to you, sooner or later, one
way or another. I never imagined the rule could work so
literally, so quickly...
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