The Pennies will Grow into Dollars
There’s an old expression: “Mind the pennies, and the dollars will watch themselves.” What it means is that if you are careful with the small things, then the big things will already be taken care of because you’ve nipped them in the bud when they were small.
Practically speaking, if you are careful in spending your money when it comes to smaller expenditures, you won’t come to waste large amounts of money. By taking care of those pennies, they will grow into dollars on their own, as the Gemara in Bava Batra tells us.
If you are careful not to say unkind things to people, you will have less issues of speaking lashon hara (evil talk), because you’ve already made the effort to consider what you say and how you say it. By ensuring the small things are taken care of, you protect yourself from the real whammies. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
The Long-Short Way
However, this scenario doesn’t work in all cases. Consider this: Chazal (our sages) tell us there is such a thing as derech arucha shehee ketzara, a long route which is short, and derech ketzara shehee arucha, a short route which is long. If you try to take a shortcut, but the way is full of stones, hills, and obstacles, you’d be better off taking a more circuitous route which had a smooth walkway. You might take more steps, but put in less effort and time to get where you want to go.
The Foreign Driver
Sometimes, though, you don’t realize what you’re up against. I had an eye-opener on this recently, when I took a rideshare car (such as Uber, Lyft, or Javer) for a ride home from an airport. The way these programs work, for those who may not be familiar, is that you use an application on a phone to summon a car service. You input your location and your destination, and it tells you how much it will cost to get you where you want to go.
Well, I did that, and the app told me my driver would be there shortly. When my phone buzzed to alert me he was there, I looked in vain for his car. I tried to call him but it told me I could only text him as this driver was hearing impaired. After a few moments of messaging back and forth, I walked about fifty feet to where he was waiting for me.
As we began to drive, I noticed that the way was unfamiliar. I thought that the driver must have made a wrong turn, and his GPS directed him a different way. However, then I found we were driving a direction I’d never gone before. I was somewhat familiar with the area, but had never taken this way from the airport to my home.
Saving on Tolls – A Waste of Time and Money
We took a number of city streets before eventually reaching a highway we could have gotten on much earlier. Then it hit me. I bet he had set his GPS to avoid tolls on roads as much as possible. That would make sense as the city streets we took didn’t have tolls, though they had plenty of traffic and red lights along the way.
Our trip took about 15% longer than it usually would, but I could do nothing about it. If you recall, he was hearing impaired, and even if he wasn’t, my Chinese is limited to a few of my favorite foods, which may or may not actually be Chinese words.
I realized that he had tried to “watch the pennies” by avoiding toll roads, but he actually ended up spending more time and money between the extra mileage and the stop-and-go nature of our trip. I wouldn’t be surprised if the toll roads would have saved him money.
The Long and Short of It
Many people go through life not wanting to exert themselves. They want to take the easy way out; to avoid anything taxing or difficult. What they might not realize, though, is that sometimes the challenging way gets you much further than the easy way, and you are far ahead when you put in the extra effort.
It works that way in our relationships, and in our Avodat Hashem. The problem is that people don’t want to hear it. They are sure they know the best way to handle things and because they refuse to listen, no one else can help set them straight.
The long and the short of it is that we can’t be closed-minded and assume we know best. In fact, we ought to consider various options and outcomes and actually plan our routes with the ups and downs accounted for. If we open our ears and welcome suggestions, we’ll get where we want and beyond. If we don’t, we may think we’re riding high, but in truth, we’re just plodding along the long way ‘round.
By Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz
Rabbi Gewirtz (Operation Inspiration) welcomes comments and feedback. Write to him at info@JewishSpeechWriter.com to share your thoughts. You never know when you may be the lamp that enlightens someone else.
