If you see your brother’s ox or his sheep wandering, do not go by without helping, but take them back to your brother.
If their owner is not near, or if you are not certain who he is, then take the beast to your house and keep it till its owner comes in search of it, and then you are to give it back to him.
Do the same with his ass or his robe or anything which has gone from your brother’s keeping and which you have come across: do not keep it to yourself. Deuteronomy 22:1-3
We had a great opportunity last week to show our children this principle in action. My husband rides a motorcycle to work, so it was very easy for him to see the iphone on the road. Several cars had been swerving around it, so he picked it up and came the rest of the way home. The case was damaged, but amazingly, the phone was still in great shape. I already had lunch on the table, so we put the phone on my desk and sat down to eat. Naomi said, “Is something beeping?” It took us a minute to realize it was the phone lol. Very weird looking text messages were coming in. I’m pretty computer savvy and understand some of the acronyms people use so they don’t have to actually type what they are trying to say, but I couldn’t understand a word of this! So I typed in, “found phone are you owner” I wanted to put a question mark at the end, but that would have involved a few more key strokes. Thankfully, it was the owner’s brother, who then called me on the phone, much to my relief. I told him where we lived so they could come pick up the phone. What a blessing to see how thankful he and his sister were to get the phone back! She had absentmindedly put it on the bumper of a car. And the text messages actually were nonsense, just an effort to get the phone to make some noise, making me feel less like an idiot lol.
I think this is such a wonderful command in Torah! We were certainly blessed to be able to return the phone, and so quickly, too. I was even able to tell her how beautiful a flexiclip would look in her gorgeous hair. And they were certainly blessed to get it back.
Have you been able to live out this Torah principle lately? Tell us about it!
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