Come about but something if you if you think about the generation of Jews that came over and were peddlers my grandfather a
peddler in Judaism and
honorable calling an
Honorable calling traveled from town to town welcomed wherever he went
Now today most people think peddler you're gonna knock on somebody's door
You're bothering them you're disturbing the next step not what used to happen to Grandpa Lapin
They used to like it when he used to knock on the door, so I will give you through a Jewish lens
What life was like for Grandpa Lapin, and I'll save all the disappointments
And I'm going to compress a long and grueling day into the next 60 seconds
But grandpa lapin would knock on the door of a house and lady would come to the door and say hi
Do you have anything here? You don't need and she'd say well. We've got a sort of table. We've replaced our dining room table
We've got an old table downstairs were getting rid of that. He says really how you getting rid of it
She says the city's coming by to pick it up on Wednesday
He says they do it for free. She says no of course not thinking to charge five dollars
he says I'll tell you what you help me load it on my my wagon or my truck here and
I'll give you five dollars
Sure, that's a deal. They load it up on the wagon and
Grandpa lapin trundles off with their table at this point if we did a quick financial statement on this family
They are better off by how much
Ten dollars okay on most campuses. They say five and
So this is fun
Grandpa Lapin stops at the hardware store spends a dollar and some paint and a few nails knocks on the next house again
I'm leaving out all that people that weren't home and people who didn't want anything. We're just moving along quickly
Yeah, knocks on the next. I say anybody. He'll want a table and the woman says well
Just a moment my daughter is getting married in two weeks time Agatha, Agatha comes running up.
She says well
We were actually going to buy a table at Ethan Allen my grandpa Lepin says how much you know pay for it says
$20 he says well
I go one on my wagon you can have for $10 now mind you had had some scratches and one was leg was loose
But I put some nails in gave it a new coat of paint
She says let me take a look at it comes on take some
so do for a start a table and they carry the table in and they give grandpa Lapin
$10. Now how much better off does the financial statement of the second family show they are
Also, $10, so now we're better off on aggregate the village is better off by $20 well
No you forgot the dollar in the till of the hardware store
And you've also forgotten the arbitrage how much was grandpa lap and got in his pocket
$4 still and
There's always somebody in an audience not an audience like this, but at a university audience
There's usually somebody who thinks this is smoke and mirrors and that I've somehow played faster with the with the figures here
And I haven't it's very very simple
I'm about to give you the finest economic definition of one of the most successful
Companies on the internet that made money from day number one. I'm referring to
eBay
The best definition of eBay is seventy thousand Grandpa Lapins working simultaneously
That's all it is it's the greatest peddler in the world
all it does is
Finds people who want to rather get some money instead of the whatever it is that they've got sitting in their garage
So they're better off at the end of that transaction
And then it finds somebody who wants to give money
in exchange for that particular thing because it's exactly what they want and it makes them better off and
Guess what there's an arbitrage eBay has got a few dollars in their pocket as well, just like Grandpa Lapin
That's how it works, and so there is this deep conviction that
by engaging in commerce
you doing something good, and you're doing something wonderful, and you're doing something helpful for people and
So it was no surprise to Grandpa Lapin to his descendants that when he knocked on the door to offer a transaction
people responded warmly and
enthusiastically because somehow mysteriously
After he had passed through everybody felt better off the cause
That they actually were
Exactly so when you do something for another human being and
There is an exchange that takes place
Everybody is better off. That is not a hard thing to understand and this thing is rooted
Within the morality of the biblically based
Judeo-christian system and that's why it is both in the Lord's language
Which is Hebrew? Who's well-known to most of the founders of our country?
Was well-known to most of the Killearn colonial clergy men
One of whom Cotton Mather used to refer to Yale as our New England Beit Midrash Beit Midrash is the Hebrew word for
house of study
They were very very familiar with these texts very familiar
And I do believe that had a lot to do
With the United States of America becoming the world's greatest engine of prosperity and freedom
You don't really have to say prosperity and freedom for people in the know because people you know know those two always go together
And
So it's no wonder because with in Hebrew and by the way it's been retained in English we use
Exactly the same word for how to treat a customer as how to worship God
this past weekend you might have attended a worship service and
If you go to see a lie, maybe you don't have to go as far as Seattle
But you go somewhere where there's a Nordstrom store
And you buy a pair of shoes you will find that as you want to try on a pair of shoes
without feeling that he's engaging in anything menial whatsoever the salesman does this in front of you right here and
He's down on his knees changing your shoe
That's called customer service
because if you
please
one of God's children
Then you're obviously pleasing God as well
Now my wife, and I have been blessed with seven children and so we've experienced something over the years that most of you probably
your families are immune to our families has been really rough on this and that is bickering and squabbling between siblings  when they're little and
One of the great delights of what you can get a little bit older is when that fades away
And they start taking care of one another and it's really it's hard to measure
The joy as a parent when you see your children
relating to one another
With with closeness and compassion and consideration, it's wonderful and so for me
It's no mystery that in the same way that as a father
I'm thrilled when all my kids take care of one another that our Father in heaven should be thrilled until I didn't get a great
Big smile on his face when you see somebody take care of a customer in a store
well yeah, that makes sense and
Somebody might say well is doing it for profit
Again in
in the culture of the Torah'
Actions trump intent our belief is that only the good Lord himself knows what lies inside the hearts of men
how can I possibly attribute a motive to you when I barely know why I do things myself sometimes and
So the notion that I can discredit the virtue of your action because your motive might be selfish well
You only have to ask yourself, would you rather have a next-door neighbor?
Who deep in his heart really really loves you?
But he keys your your your car and picks your kids and kills your cat, but he really really loves you
Would you like a next door neighbor who deep in his hearts?
Not really sure how he feels about Jews, or southerners or academics or whatever you want?
But my goodness for the last 15 years this what a great neighbor you got would you rather have?
Actions trump intentions, and so if somebody is taking care of you in the store and yes
He's hoping to get a tip. He's hoping to make a profit or whatever it is
what's that got to do with anything the action is taking care of another one of God's children and
So we've got to understand that what's going on is a recognition that
the process of economic entry correction is deeply linked to the process of
relationships between human beings and
Our understanding there is that we live in a world that somehow or another?
appears to have been created
somehow for the purpose of
Bonding in connection
The good Lord creates a world with about a hundred and ten
elements a
Little more than that as of last weekend they keep dropping that but basically a hundred and ten elements
and you look around you today, and I would bet
That there is probably not a single
Element there has played a useful part in your life today or yesterday
anything that's played a useful part in your life has always been a mixture of elements a
Bonding of elements the very air you breathe is oxygen and nitrogen
What do we drink is hydrogen and oxygen iron is an element?
But it's not good for much more than making cost iron lawn ornaments
If you want to build a machine you need steel steel is a big complicated compound
It's a mixture of everything and all and so we go all the way to
Something as simple as salt
salt will something that played a role in the
Sacrifices in the temple that is why by the way that in the Western tradition. This is not true in Africa
It's not true in Asia, but in the Western tradition
We put salt on the table, and this is how it's been since the very beginning of Western for salt on the table
Why our bodies need all kinds of of minerals, but nobody says scuse me could you pass the iron filings. Please your body needs iron
Your body needs potassium can anybody see the potassium flakes. Please could you pass them down under this end of the table?
No because all the minerals you need you get from the food you eat
And that's true for salt as well any doctor will tell you you don't need to add salt
So why do they put salt on the table because there was always this understanding that the table
Was a miniature altar it was a place where people got together. Not just to feed their bodies, but to also
Partake of a soul expanding experience, and if it's going to represent the old altar in the temple, then it needs salt as well
That's what they did, but why did salt play a role
What's the point of salt or salt is a perfect example of God's blueprint of connectivity?
Where you can take two toxic substances like sodium and chlorine each on its own a real problem I?
Mean, you know you might say. Why don't we just put shakers on the table labeled sodium chlorine?
And then you could say you know when your chicken soup country would say pass the chlorine. I'm on a low-sodium diet
The trouble is or would kill you
Because chlorine is as toxic as sodium is but mysteriously with the alchemy of
relationships in the alchemy of bonding even toxic things
become tasty and benevolent
So it is possible
To take a toxic thing like a single male
bond him to a single female and
All of a sudden you've created something benevolent
Which is why it is that God during the beginning of Genesis appears to be a very good-natured deity?
I mean everything's good whatever he makes is good and
The very first time he turns grumpy is when he says not good for what not good for man to be alarmed
Because we're in a world where things depend on bonding and things depend on
connectivity
Does God want us to have great sex
Well, I cannot pretend to really know
the inner workings of God's mind when it comes to these matters, I really don't know but
