Essential and Trivial

There is a Rabinic law that states if there are two men in the desert; one carrying a jug of water, the other, a jug of honey; if the man with the jug of water gets a crack in his jar, the man with the jug of honey is required to pour out his honey to seal the cracks of the other man's jar. When the two men reach the nearest settlement, the man with the jug of water would reimburse the man with the jug of honey. The premise being, water is essential in the desert/wilderness (Midbar).

It's interesting to observe how our emphasis/values differ under certain conditions. You take a look at a place like Sierra Leone whose people have been made poor and homeless by civil war and greed of natural resources. Food is hard to come by. The only place to sleep is on dirt roads, in demolished vehicle or remnants of houses and huts. What do you think is essential to these people? What do you think is valuable and precious? It is life. The sacredness of life is brought into such precious focus. None of these people care about how they look, whether or not they are shopping at the right stores, driving the right car, impressing the right people. They are thankful for the next breath they take, for making it through the day without being killed, or having their children taken away by rebel forces and forced to fight in militias. They cherish the friends and family that they have. They are thankful to be human, to be living.

But you look at a country that is not a war zone, whose people live in spacious houses, where food is not a commodity, shelter is taken care of, and you see that the values are quite different from those who live in impoverished conditions. The importance is now placed on trivial things. It's not enough to have clothes, it's about what brand you are wearing and how it looks on you. It's not about your abilities and talents, it's about whether or not you can represent the image of a company, brand, etc. Friendship is reduced to quantity over quality, and relationships take a toll as well. It's been said that what God longs for is a broken and contrite heart. It sounds like a very dark thing to ask for, but when you think about it, aren't the times where life falls apart, where you lose your luxuries and reliances, aren't those the times that you come to truly appreciate things, people........life?