Who Will Catch the Carp? | Rabbi Doniel Osher Kleinman

One of the most inspiring non-Jewish figures of the 20th century was Winston Churchill. He was the prime minister of England, a tiny island nation with a small military, a few planes, some bombs, and he single-handedly led his nation, encouraged his nation, to victory, to endure in the face of the threat of the Nazis in Germany, mighty superpowers, which threatened his country, which bombed his country practically into oblivion over the course of five years. There's a famous anecdote about Winston Churchill that embodies his approach to victory in World War II. The anecdote is said that Winston Churchill met with Mussolini, the dictator of Italy, and Hitler, may his name be erased, the dictator of Germany, at a hotel in France. It was a secret meeting, and they had a wager. There was a pond there with carp and the wager was Whoever will be able to capture the carp, will be the one who's declared the victor, and the other two leaders will surrender to him. Hitler, may his name be erased, went first. He pulled out a submachine gun, and he started shooting wildly into the pond. And he's trying to shoot the carp, to maim them, to kill them, so that he can take them out of the water. Obviously, you can't shoot a carp out of the water, and eventually, he gave up. He turned to the Italian dictator Mussolini and he said: Mussolini, it's your turn. Mussolini got into a bathing suit, he dove into the pond, and he tried to catch the carp with his hands. After a half hour of swimming around wildly and flailing around, he gave up, because obviously you can't catch a carp with your bare hands. Churchill was next. He bent down at the edge of the pond, and he took out a little teaspoon from his pocket, and he started spooning water out of the pond. One spoonful, another spoonful. And they looked at him and they said: What are you doing? What are you taking spoonfuls out of this pond? You’re going to be here forever. Churchill replied: It may take forever, but we're going to win this war. In fact, he did win the war. He became a hero, an inspiration to many forever, and he defeated the mighty blitzkrieg of the Germans. In life, we are faced by an enormous amount of enemies. The greatest of all, the enemy of the Yetzer Hara. The sights, the sounds, the temptations of life. It seems endless. And the little that we do, the few times that we look away, it seems like a teaspoonful of water, coming out of a pond. And it can be very, very discouraging. We have ups, we have downs. We have times that we succeed. Many times we fail. But we have to know that in the war of life, War should be fought with strategy. When facing an onslaught by the force of impurity, by Amalek, by the Yetzer Hara, we have to know that our attitude which will lead to success is It may take forever, but we're going to win this war. Teaspoonful by teaspoonful. The more we forge ahead, the more we do, the more determined we are, eventually, we will be successful in winning the ultimate war.