Heads or Tales

A few months ago a very embarrassing incident showed me how we must suspend conclusions! I was standing in the middle of a shop in Jerusalem trying to extract a five-shekel coin from my purse. My hands were full of bags and the coin slipped from my fingers and disappeared, and a second later a five-shekel coin fell before me onto the floor. To my surprise, the woman standing next to me asked her son to retrieve the coin and give it to her! The unpleasant smirk on her face told me she was taking advantage of the situation. After some verbal wrangling, she gave up on the coin and walked out in a huff. I gave the storekeeper the coin to put into a tzedaka (charity) box and that was the end of that.

The next day, my five-shekel coin turned up at the bottom of one of the large plastic bags I'd been carrying! I had thought she was lying. It was worse. She also thought I was lying!

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