The Baker of Tzfat
Short story about being rich at four in the morning.
Two men on that street in Tzfat were awake at three in the morning.
One was the baker, lighting the oven. The other owned the building the bakery was in, and four others, and could not sleep.
The landlord sat on the low wall outside, because the warmth came through it.
One winter night he asked, in the voice men use at three in the morning: "Are you happy?"
"I'm warm," said the baker. "I have work in front of me. In two hours, people I know will come. My wife will wake at six and tell me her dream." He turned the dough. "What's the other kind of happy?"
"Something more."
"More what?"
The landlord had five buildings' worth of answer. Sitting on a warm wall at three in the morning, he couldn't get it into a sentence.
"You have less than me," he said finally.
"Yes," said the baker. "But we're both awake, and I know why I am."
Rich is not a number. It is the distance between what you have and what you still require.
Ohananda.com
Pirkei Avot 4:1
“Who is rich? The one who is happy with their portion.”
The quoted line is a common English rendering of Pirkei Avot 4:1 (Mishnah). The story of the baker and the landlord is Ohananda's own.
Pirkei Avot asks four questions in a row — who is wise, who is strong, who is rich, who is honoured — and answers each by relocating the quality inside the person.
Rich is not an amount. It is the relationship between what you have and what you are still demanding. This is not praise for poverty; Jewish wisdom is unsentimental about money. It simply declines to let wealth define richness.
What would have to change for you to be content with your portion today?
