Back...and Reading
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
We are back from Italy - which was an incredible trip. I got to see Rome for the first time, and it was as spectacular as people told me it would be. I'm too busy getting back into the swings of things to post all my photos, but when the time comes, I'll have more information and pics up.

Until then, you'll have to check the following book - it SAVED my sanity on our 9.5 hour flight back from Rome.

Morrie would contend that anything, no matter how banal, could be raised to the level of intelligent debate if the minds that attended to it were good enough. He told the story of the little cobbler in a shtetl in Russia who was spreading honey on a piece of bread when the bread fell to the floor. To his amazement, the bread fell right side up. "How can this be?" he said, and with the slice of bread in his hand he ran to consult the rabbi and the village elders. "We are Jews in Russia, how can it be that I spread honey on my bread and when it fell to the floor it landed right side up? Since when did luck such as this come to a Jew?" The rabbi and the elders pondered the point for several days, consulting the Torah frequently. Finally they called the little cobbler to the synagogue. The rabbi pronounced the verdict: "The answer, my boy, is quit clear. You honeyed your bread on the wrong side."

We had all cawed and moaned at the story, but Morrie, as usual, had made his point: good conversational debate is an end in itself, and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human.