Once upon a time, there lived a very good but very poor couple, who had a son. When the boy was born a relative sent some expensive and elegant cloth as a birthday present. The mother stored it away and said, “When my son will be a man I will send him into this world with a beautiful robe made of this material.”
One day, when the boy grew up, a rich merchant invited all the town’s people to a feast. The son came in his usual tattered clothing, and no one made room for him at the table. Broken-hearted at the rejection, he went home.
To console him, his mother gave him a beautiful robe made from the elegant cloth she had stored away all these years. The boy returned to the feast dressed in his new finery.
The rich man saw him, rushed over and bowed, and asked him to sit beside him. The boy took off his elegant robe, holding it by the food and said, “Eat robe, eat as much as you want.” “Why are you talking to your coat?” asked the rich man. “Because when I was here before, in poor clothing, no one paid any attention to me. But now I come in a fancy robe and you treat me royally. It is clearly not me you invited to eat beside you, but my robe.”
If you love me for my robe, you rob me of my self. But if you love me for myself, you give me a treasure beyond price.
As we consider the ethical teaching of our parsha, we wonder, is our love for others dependent on external factors or are we open and accepting of another person for exactly who they are?