A few years ago, my wife Jan and her mother Dixie, flew to England to visit our daughter and her family who live in Brighton. Great-grandma Dixie was worried about how she was going to take all of her books with her. She knew she couldn’t keep up with the great-grandchildren, so Dixie decided she could read at home while everyone else toured the English countryside. The problem was how to pack all of her novels. Space (and weight) were at a premium. Literally, on the way to the airport, she hit upon a solution. We could stop at the Apple store and buy an iPad like the one Jan uses. It is very compact, lightweight, and can store thousands of books! And so we did catching the flight in the nick of time.
Once they arrived in Brighton, there was a problem. There hadn’t been time for Dixie to learn how to use her new iPad. Fortunately, this new generation of two-year-olds is born with the technological know-how to master computers, phones, and iPads. It was fun to watch little preschool India teaching her 85-year-old great-grandmother how to swipe, click, close and open applications on Dixie’s new iPad. The problem came when Great-grandma wanted the iPad back so she could start reading. “India, please give me my iPad,” she asked.
“No! MyPad, not iPad!” It seems with preschoolers, what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine, which reminds me of a very wise Jewish saying:
- What is mine is mine and what is thine is thine—this person is average.
- What is mine is thine, and what is thine is mine—this person is ignorant.
- What is thine is mine, and what is mine is mine—this person is wicked.
- What is mine is thine, and what is thine is thine—this person is a saint.
Be a saint, and be a blessing,
