A tale: Rabbi Joshua ben Hannaniah was an extraordinary man. Brilliant and compassionate the rabbi was respected by the Jewish and secular authorities. Even the emperor Trajan entertained him often to feel the awesome presence and learning Rabbi Joshua radiated.
Once while visiting the palace, one of Trajan's daughters saw him walking in the hall and burst out laughing. "You are the famous Rabbi Joshua?" she chortled. "You are the ugliest man I have ever seen. And my father talks about you so much??!!"
Joshua thought. "Your father has a wine cellar doesn't he?"
The princess nodded.
"Tell me. In what kind of containers does the emperor place wines in?"
"Clay pots, of course. Just like everybody else."
"You mean, that a man of such wealth and power puts his wine in ordinary clay vessels just like everybody else? That doesn't seem right. Men of distinction should use better things to store their wine."
The princess left Rabbi Joshua to see for herself if her fathers wine cellar was really so ordinary. When she discovered that it was she commanded that the servants take all the clay pots and smash them. In their place would be magnificent silver bottles fit for a king.
A week later Trajan was furious. Who had placed all of his wines in silver urns where they quickly soured and turned into vinegar?
"Why did you trick me?" demanded the princess of Rabbi Joshua.
"Now you understand," said the old man, "that just as wine is best kept in plain clay jugs so wisdom is also granted to those who can hold it. No matter what they look like."
“And he {Moshe rabbenu} put the Tablets into the Ark…” (Exodus 40:20).
One ancient source tells that Moses also placed something else into the ark besides the whole set of tablets.
Remember, sometime before Moses came down from the summit with the word of the Holy One etched into stone. Beams of light emanating from his face, Moses returned to his people with the precious gift. Then, he looked and saw Israel dancing around in golden calf. Furious, Moses threw the law smashing the tablets at the wicked sight. Scattering the people, the tablets flew into one thousand different directions. Moses then tediously gathered up the shards of the broken covenant.
Those fragments, now reduced to bits of dust and barely decipherable letters were placed in Ark to be later joined by the new set of Tablets. In this passage the Talmud explains the rationale for Moses putting the old broken pieces of the Covenant beside the new one in the Holy Ark.
There are many broken people among us, sad and pitiful, individuals unjustly swept away by events or those not strong enough to cope with their lot. There were others whose features are not perfect and still others malformed or maladjusted because of faith or circumstance. But the one cruelty the Talmud highlights is that of the plight of the aged. They, who have lived in security all their life, are pushed away to make room for the next generation. The elderly are seen as non-contributors to society and need to be secreted somewhere to avoid getting in the way. This is not the way of Torah. Just as the broken pieces of the original Commandments were kept in the Aoly Ark, those who are broken by time I just as precious and worthy of veneration.
We are deceived by looks. We are taken in by perfect smiles and shapely bodies. What good is it if their beauty only masks a warped and skewed sense of moral values?
Rabbi Meir once commented, “Do not look at the bottle but what lies within. They were new bottles filled with old wine and all the bottles that cannot even hold new wine.” (Avot 4:27)
There was an old woman in another community who never accepted a ride from anyone. She lived far from the shore but insisted on coming to shul often and would make the journey of several miles each week. Wishing her a “Good Shabbos” was difficult because her hands were sick and crusty. They looked and felt as if they’ve been gnarled by the cold New England winters.
Frieda’s frame was bent, making her appear shorter than she actually was. Often, I would see her walking down Main Street on her way to some unknown destination. I was called late one night when Freda died. That is when I found out.
Frieda had no parents or children. There were no close relatives living nearby and none that would be attending the funeral. And yet, call after call came in telling me how Frieda had brought them food when they were hungry, how she would watch their children when they needed to go out and had no babysitter, how she would volunteer to be a candy striper at the hospital and then do something unheard of; Frieda would call the newly released patient at home and offer to help out until they fully recovered.
As her casket was lowered into the ground, I realized this world had lost a tzaddik, one of the holy thirty-six. That is when I remembered the tales of Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Joshua ben Hannaniah, “good wine in less than perfect containers.”
