Have you ever learned a deep truth from simple, everyday objects? I have. Just last week I had the good fortune to learn two very simple but profound lessons. The source of these lessons? Spilled salt, a cell phone, and my granddaughter, Angelina.
It all started on Sabbath (Friday) evening. As we were enjoying our Shabbat dinner, Angelina reached for the soda, knocking the saltshaker over in the process. I told her that there was an old superstition that you throw salt over your shoulder when you spill it. (Not that she should do it, mind you.)
Of course, being Angelina, she would ask ‘why’, for which her adoring Nonna had no answer. It was just something I grew up with.
After dinner, we Googled where the salt-over-the-shoulder-thing originated. We found several reasons, but one stood out. In DaVinci’s ‘Last Supper’, he portrayed Judas Iscariot as knocking over the saltcellar. The belief goes that the devil is always behind you, and throwing a pinch of salt over your left shoulder blinds him.
Now all that is cute, but dwell on it a moment. Salt preserves. Yeshua said we are ‘the salt of the earth’. When we live as salt, preserving the earth, we blind the devil.
Selah.
The second lesson came the following afternoon. My granddaughter is in the children’s dance ministry at our temple. They are presenting on Shavuot, so they gathered for an extra practice. We weren’t sure when practice would end, so my granddaughter needed her phone to call me. But she couldn’t find it.
The last time she had the phone was Friday night on our way home from temple. She didn’t remember taking it inside, setting it on the charger…nothing. We thought maybe it fell between the seats. She looked, still nothing. So she went to practice without it.
On the way home from practice, she was still puzzling over what happened to her phone. Then she looked up. And there it was, in the tissue pouch I have on the sun visor.
The lesson? Whenever you are in need…look up.
So what about you? Learned any lessons lately? Be sure to share in the comments!
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