By Dan Brosgol
I don’t know anyone who was born with a sharing gene.
In fact, it’s the opposite. It seems to me that we’re all born selfish, but over time we get the idea that sharing is better and we should play nicely in the sandbox. Think about it: When was the last time you heard a toddler being scolded for sharing too much? If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time reminding the little (and big) ones that they should be sharing MORE, not less.
The tension of sharing versus not sharing in the Jewish tradition goes waaaay back to the days of the Torah and of the Talmudic stories about the ancient biblical text. In one of my favorite legends, the Talmud tells a tale about the creation of the sun and the moon. According to the legend, the sun and moon were created equal in size, to which the moon cried out “Can two kings share the same crown?” God’s response was to make the moon smaller as a punishment for the moon’s selfishness. Later, God changes his mind and tries to make it up to the moon by making the (smaller) moon visible in the day and nighttime, and by having the stars appear alongside the moon at night.
In this season of lights, these two anecdotes of sharing and of light illuminate a lesson that we all might benefit from learning.
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