Since her father and mother were killed in a car accident, little Esti's life has been a mess. And no, she doesn't worry about her condition or her orphanhood. She doesn't even understand why everyone feels sorry for her and looks at her with eyes red from crying, places a supportive hand on her shoulder and wishes her all the best. After all, everything is fine and everything is great, her older sister Miri is almost a bat mitzvah and she knows how to operate the washing machine perfectly and she even made a delicious omelette for little Esti yesterday, so why is everyone worried? Esti doesn't even understand what Grandma Rosie is doing in their house for so long and why she's in no hurry to return home and to her chores. She's only worried about one thing, she wants so much to make her older sister Miri happy, she really feels the urge of gratitude burning inside her and she must, absolutely must, make her older sister happy and buy her a nice gift for all the care and devotion that Miri shows her.
Day after day, on her way home from school, Esti passes by the avenue of shops, searching the shop windows for a suitable gift that she can lovingly present to her older sister, who serves as her reluctant father and mother. And then her little eyes catch a pair of beautiful pearl earrings that stand gracefully in one of the shop windows and fill Esti's little heart with feelings of gratitude. And she, in her innocent mind, already knows what she will do. She runs back home, rummages through her personal drawer and takes out a small plastic box containing all her savings, gifts from Dad and Mom on slightly better days. She happily hops and skips, arrives at the jewelry store and announces loudly to the friendly salesperson, "I'm interested in the pearl earrings displayed outside, please," and naturally opens the small box and places all her money on the counter. "Just wrap it up nicely," she pleads, "This is a gift for my older sister who takes such good care of us instead of my deceased mother and father.".
And the seller looks at the few shekels placed in front of him and the price tag on the earrings and knows that the honest words of the orphan girl standing in front of him are stronger than the huge difference between the price of the earrings and their value. With tears of pity in his eyes, he wraps the precious earrings for the little girl and includes a colorful greeting card as a gift. Esti is so happy that she even forgets to ask the seller for 'extra' like a mother would always do. She just hurries back home and presents her older sister with the gratitude offering.
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And at home, when Miri realizes where the earrings came from and what the real amount was paid for them, her heart sinks. She thanks her little sister from the bottom of her heart, adds a warm smile and a small pinch on her cheek, and signals to herself that tomorrow she must return to the jewelry store and pay the difference for the earrings.
But the salesman, with a kind smile, refuses to take another penny from Miri's hands and explains in one sentence a concept that even a twelve-year-old girl can understand: "Your sister paid me more for the earrings than anyone else would have paid me for them, since she gave all her possessions and everything she has for them.".
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In the holy yeshivas and midrashtories, entire 'vaadim' and moral discourses are delivered every year that relate to the period after Yom Kippur. The fear and anxiety of the great descent that came suddenly after the exaltation of the forty days that the Jewish people as a whole went through, led the moralists to define what is required of us during these days and what are the tools through which it will be possible to preserve the light, purity, and power of holiness that we absorbed and received during these sublime days.
The spiritual requirement is to preserve and purify the soul, especially before the holiday of Sukkot, which is defined as a holiday without sins. But here, these days, we are not talking about sums and numbers. These days, the requirement is not to reach a certain threshold and focus on it, we have already done that and we have already bothered with that. The request and demand, therefore, is to give everything we have, without any numerical value whatsoever and without a high price. A person these days, whose soul and spirit are pure and pure as snow, is required to sacrifice himself, his essence, his desires and desires, which will all be a gift to his Creator for his life and his very existence. Not fasts or forgiveness, not the shofar or mental torture, but himself, all that he has and all that is in him. Only in this way, with a clean and pleasant soul, will we be able to preserve and carry with us the purity of the High Holy Days that have passed, over time and throughout the year.
