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WITandWISDOM(tm) - September 6, 2005 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it. - Cullen Hightower Source: Quotes of the Day, http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: In 1910, Abraham Bank, my great-grandfather, was impressed into the Russian army. At the time, he was twenty-one years old and had lived near Vilna in Latvia for his entire life. He was a qualified rabbi, shochet, and mohel. The prospect of twenty-five years of mandatory military service was unthinkable to Abraham. So he decided to pack a few clothes and personal belongings and leave his hometown during the night. He promised his girlfriend, Rebecca, that he would write. Abraham traveled via Finland to Stockholm, Sweden, where he worked for a while as a stevedore. He earned his passage to London where he continued to work. His goal was to earn enough money to follow in the footsteps of his brother, who had already emigrated to America. Two years after leaving his home in Latvia, Abraham was finally able to buy a ticket on a ship leaving from Southampton that would take him from England to America. Abraham ran into two difficulties. The first was the knowledge that he would not be able to get kosher food in the steerage class of the ship. The second was the trouble he would have in getting from London to Southampton over Passover, as the holiday ended on the night before the ship would be boarding. Finally, Abraham decided not to use his ticket. He remained in London for a few months and then emigrated to South Africa, where eight years later Rebecca joined him. It was not until 1987 that Abraham's descendants - his grandson (my father) and his family - made the move to America that Abraham had come so close to making seventy-five years earlier. I have good cause to be grateful to Zeida for deciding not to use that ticket all those years ago. In fact, it might well have been the best decision he ever made. The name of the ship that steamed into the Atlantic that day was the Titanic. BY Tanya Bank (c) 1999 from Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins. All rights reserved. Visit us and read other sample stories and meet the authors. http://www.chickensoup.com Source: Beliefnet Chicken Soup, http://ydib.net/n_soup/subscribe.shtml ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: While Spurgeon was still a boy preacher, he was warned about a certain angry woman, and told that she intended to give him a tongue lashing. “All right,” he replied, “but that’s a game at which two can play.” Not long after, as he passed her gate one morning, she assailed him with a flood of rude language. He smiled and said: “Yes, thank you, I am quite well. I hope you are the same.” Then came another burst of rude language, pitched in a still higher key, to which he replied, still smiling: “Yes, it does look rather as if it is going to rain. I think I had better be getting on.” “Bless the man!” she exclaimed, “He’s as deaf as a post. What’s the use of storming at him?” and so her ravings ceased and were never again attempted. Source: Signs of the Times, Copyright (c) November 24, 1898, Pacific Press, http://www.signstimes.com ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: A Stanford Medical research group advertised for participants in a study of obsessive-compulsive disorder. They were looking for therapy clients who had been diagnosed with this disorder. The response was gratifying; they got 300 responses the day after the ad came out. All from the same person. Source: Pulpit Supply, mailto:pulpit-supply-subscribe@strategicnetwork.org ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: Noel Montgomery was teaching aerobics at a Seattle church when a man grabbed a student's wallet and bolted. Montgomery took off after him. Six blocks later she collared the perpetrator and marched him to the police station. "It's not real common for people to walk in with criminals," she says, so there was some confusion ."Police suggest she leave the heroics to them next time. But victim Jackie Martin hugged her, marveling, "The girl can run." - People Weekly Source: Copyright © 2004, The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved., http://www.readersdigest.com/