Human Kindness

November 21, 2008
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

If you watch the news on television or hear it on the radio, you cannot help but feel a bit depressed and maybe more than a little scared. Of course, it has always been the habit of newspapers and other media to report things in the most dramatic ways possible. If you are terrorized, you will keep your eyes glued to the television or your ears to your favorite news station. If you are calm, you may turn away from the news to something more entertaining, to find out who will be the next pop star or fashion model, or to turn off the outside noise and bring up an old comforting Beatles record or Beethoven symphony. So, the whole thing is a trade-off. Either you are scared by what the media is telling you or they are scared because their ratings drop off.

But every once in a while, there is a news story that informs us and gets us ready for better things to come. In the midst of all the troubles concerning the housing market and the rising rate of unemployment and the meteoric fall of stock prices, I came across a news item that must be shared. There is a new product being produced in New Mexico and, if you are quick, you can be the first one on your block to order one. Of course, you will probably have to wait for delivery until after the year 2023 because the plant that manufactures them already has firm orders and expects to deliver about 4,000 of these little babies between 2013 when the first one should roll off the assembly block and 2023, when production may begin to meet the demand.

Now, this is a device that you cannot live without in the future, and you may already wish to plan a good place for it. It is small enough to be transported by ship, by truck, or by train -- actually, it is about the size of a hot tub, and if you cannot find any other place for it, you may wish to simply replace your hot tub with it. On the other hand, if you own one, you may need to increase the security around your home. ADT will no doubt help you to protect yours by providing some kind of alarm system for it. But you need not be worried that someone will easily make off with it, since it needs to be buried deep in the ground.

It arrives factory sealed and there are no moving parts at all. Nothing to break down. Every five years or so, you will need to have some waste removed, because it does produce waste, but the process should not be too difficult, since the total amount of waste will be about the size of a softball. Every seven to ten years, you may need what amounts to a simple booster shot to get it up and running again.

Sounds awesome. Are you ready to order yours now? In this week's portion, Abraham is faced with a recycling problem, so to speak. His wife died and there was now no one to take care of his son. What he needed was to be able to order a new mother for Isaac, but new mothers are simply unavailable in this world -- they are one to a customer, it seems -- and it was unlikely that he would live long enough to find and marry a stepmother who would live long enough to take care of Isaac after he was gone. So Abraham decided to send for a new wife for Isaac.

Where did they manufacture the best wives for patriarchs in Abraham's time? Evidently in Haran, the old homeland. And that is where Abraham sent his servant, along with a camel caravan laden with gold and silver since there were no negotiable bonds, checks, or American Express cards back then. The message was clear to everyone. Abraham was saying, "Spare no expense. A wife for Isaac must be bought and brought at once! And you cannot expect a bargain basement when it comes to wives from Haran."

Simply stated, it costs money to live. People say that you cannot buy happiness, but some people also remark that, if you have money, you can at least rent happiness. Which brings me back to the cost of this new apparatus I was describing to you. Each one of these hot-tub sized units will run you about $25 million. You may wish to start loading your camels now, because it will take a lot of camels to carry that kind of cash and the odds are that your American Express card really does have some credit limits.

The President of the Hyperion company which manufactures these $25 million babies is aptly named John Deal. In a news release, he has stated that this is an extremely reasonable price for this energy-efficient product. But what exactly are you buying for $25 million? I have saved the best for last. You will open your door one day to find a large UPS truck proceeding to drop off a brand new HPM, a Hyperion Power Module, in your front yard.

Once you have called the gardener to dig the hole for it in your back yard and gotten the electrician to connect it, you can cut yourself off the standard power grid and thumb your nose at Reliant Energy. No matter what hurricane hits, your new personal Power Module will keep on running. Your future energy needs are assured.

In fact, one of these little babies delivers enough juice to power 10,000 homes and even John McCain doesn't own that many homes. So you will be primed for doing the tzedakah mitzvah of your life. You will be able to provide free energy for 9,999 of your personal friends so long as they are within some extension cord length of your home. And, at a mere $25 million, the total cost is only $2500 a home for the next seven years.

On the other hand, some of your neighbors (particularly those you decide not to gift with electrical power) may raise some objections. The Hyperion Power Module is, after all, a nuclear battery and there may be some folk who are uncomfortable living next door to a nuclear plant, no matter how much it looks like a hot tub. But there's the future. The company assures us that these little babies cannot go into meltdown; and that, if the core is exposed to the air, they will harmlessly cool off with no chance of any explosion; and that no terrorist could ever use this kind of nuclear matter to fashion any kind of bomb. It is perfectly harmless, they say.

All the same, when it comes to bargains, my personal opinion is that Abraham did better. He not only got a powerhouse of a wife for his son Isaac, not only protected the future of the Jewish people by luring Rebecca away from Haran, he also managed to find a kind person to take care of his beloved son Isaac after he was gone. In this time of crisis, we ask ourselves, which is to be preferred? A $25 million baby or a kind wife who is also a good mother? I would have to go with Abraham on this one. Money is never as important as human kindness. And let us say: Amen.