John was a wealthy merchant who had built up a successful business through hard work and a sharp eye for profitable deals.
One day John's sister asked if he could bring her son into the business and 'show him the ropes.'
John agreed - a decision he would come to deeply regret. The young man had absolutely no business sense. John sent him on his first business trip with ten thousand dollars and advice to buy some useful merchandise to sell in the local market. The young man returned with a huge shipment of toothpicks. He had spent the entire sum on a hundred thousand boxes of toothpicks...
John turned to his nephew. "What were you thinking? In seventy years we will not be able to sell all of these toothpicks here! What am I to do with a hundred thousand boxes of toothpicks?"
John put the toothpicks in storage, and used the nephew for deliveries and odd jobs around the office. This went on for several months, until John got a call from his sister.
"Please give my son a second chance," she pleaded. "Everyone makes mistakes."
Against his better judgment, John sent his nephew on a second business trip, armed with a second check for ten thousand dollars and some advice: "Don't buy any more toothpicks!"
The young man went out on his second trip, eager to find merchandise more valuable than toothpicks. It was a month before Rosh Hashana, and he came across a merchant selling a huge lot of shofars. "This is certainly a very important item," thought the young man. He bought the entire lot for ten thousand dollars.
John was incredulous when he saw his nephew return with hundreds of boxes of shofars. "Even if you succeed in selling a shofar to each shul in the area, they only need one," he groaned. "We now have enough shofars to last until the great shofar of the mashiach!"
John sent his nephew back to office chores, and scratched his head what to do with all of his new merchandise that was crowding his warehouse. In the end he approached a talented trader who sometimes worked with him. He offered the trader a fat fee if he could find someone willing to take his toothpicks off his hands in exchange for some other merchandise. John then went to a second trader and offered him a similar deal, this time for someone willing to buy the huge lot of shofars.
The inevitable happened. After a few weeks, both traders contacted him, proudly announcing that they had found someone willing to buy the merchandise. The trader for the toothpicks had picked up a huge lot of shofars, and the trader for the shofars had picked up thousands of boxes of toothpicks....
When John's nephew heard about the deals that the traders had made, he complained to his uncle. "Why were you so upset with me? Your highly experienced traders didn't do any better than me. They also came back with toothpicks and shofars!"
At this point, John lost his temper. "Idiot! They both had lousy merchandise to start with. It's no wonder they didn't do any better. But you! I gave you cash. You could have bought whatever you wanted with that money. But instead you bought toothpicks and shofars..."
Jeremiah's Rebuke
This is exactly what the prophet told the Jewish people.
"Did a nation ever exchange its gods, and they are not gods" (Jer. 2:11) - did we ever see a people exchange their idols for other set of idols? And even if they did this, it would be a fair trade, since one is no better than the other.
"Yet My people have exchanged their glory with that which is useless." The Jewish people have exchanged their honor and pride - a living God - with wood and stone idols that are of no use. These wooden idols cannot even be used for toothpicks, since we are forbidden to derive any use for idolatrous objects....
Adapted from Mayana shel Torah, pp. 158-159
