Mussar HaSePurim
14 Adar, 5769 Vol. 4 #1 Goldilox and the 3 Bears
“WHEN SHE WOKE UP, SHE REALIZED THAT SHE WAS SURROUNDED BY BEARS… SHE RACED
PAST THE STARTLED BEARS TO FREEDOM…”(THREE BEARS P. 32, PICTURE ON PAGE 33)
GOLDILOCKS – the very name conjures up images of the totally immoral ba’alas ta’avah. She was wandering aimlessly when she suddenly found an empty house in the middle of a forest. Her yaitzer harah got to her, and she broke into the house, totally ignoring the unbearable odor pervading the bears’ den. Suddenly overwhelmed by an animalistic desire to fill her stomach, she not only stole food from a little child, she even managed to eat a bowl of porridge! After demonstrating such disgusting behavior, and after her theft, she was mazik their furniture. She certainly was in no condition to overcome her desire to sleep after breakfast. While usually this is quite understandable, the fact that bears tend to veck bit more ferociously than the Yeshiva Vecker should have awakened her sense of preservation. But no – her lust for a place to sleep overrode her good sense. It was only fitting that the bears come home while she was napping. The bears would see her, paskin that she was a rodaif, make a brief but gory scene, and enjoy their surprise Purim Seudah. We would then be able to learn important morals about how ba’alei ta’avah don’t even enjoy Olam Hazeh, unless you consider being mauled by three bears enjoyable.
Something went terribly wrong. The bears obviously weren’t chasing her, because no human can outrun a bear. It must have been that the bears, upon spotting her, were so startled by this surprising turn of events that they weren’t sure what course of action to take. They couldn’t post in the Coffee room asking what to do, because the mods weren’t online at the time. So they had to try and think it out for themselves. by the time they reached a tentative maskanah, Goldilocks was long gone.
This is mystifying. This story seems to be flying in the face of everything we were taught. The bears did the right thing. They carefully weighed their actions, checked to make sure there wasn’t even a dakei dakus of ta’avah in their decision to have her for dinner with a side of potatoes, and proceeded to try and act on their decision, only to realize that they were too late. Could it be that the vaunted minhag of hocking over everything in the Coffee Room is wrong? Could it even be that, kehavah yachol, the mods were wrong in their decision not to be online at the time? After all, if they were, the bears could have just posted and got a psak. Now, their lack of someone to tell them what to do rendered them useless to accomplish their designated task!
The answer is a resounding no. Of course the Coffee Room is the only place to get a psak. Of course the mods were right in not being online. The mistake lay with the bears. They should have thought out beforehand, “what if we suddenly find a stranger in our house?” They then could have started a thread to find out what they should do lu yitzoor the situation ever arose. The bears’ mistake was human, but it was costly – they assumed it would never happen. So when the time came, they were paralyzed by inaction.
We see from here that we should think of any and all real-life situations that may occur, and immediately start a thread in the coffee Room about them. It doesn’t make a difference if the question is mildly stupid (“What if I find a strange child who ate up my porridge?”), rather absurd (“What if I find an elephant hiding behind my dresser?”), or even totally ludicrous (“Should I daven with a hat biyechidus or without one with a minyan and does Moish count for a minyan?”). While others might feel you’re wasting the Editor and moderators’ time, hey…you never know.
Copyright 2009 by Me. Most of this was stolen from a 2003 Purim Torah which I edited to fit the Coffee Room