Eating in the Dark
(A story adapted from the Hasidic tradition. Hasidism is a mystical branch of Judaism.)
Once there were three prisoners locked in a dark, cold dungeon. It was so black inside that they could not even see their own hands.
Every day, three plates of food were slid under the door to their cell. They heard the plates enter their cell, but could not see them.
So they crawled toward the sound, scanning the loose ground with their hands until one of them found one of the plates. Once all three plates were found, each prisoner ate by feel, struggling not to spill their precious food onto the dirt floor.
Things continued in this way for some time. But one of the three prisoners seemed to become more and more unable to function in the dark. When the others pushed his plate of food in his direction, he would not even try to eat, but just said, “Help me, please!”
The first of the other two prisoners, moved by the third man’s predicament, tried to help him. He picked up the despairing man’s plate and felt the food on it. He would say something like this:
On the right of your plate is some kind of bread. Move your right hand toward it. Can you feel it? Good! Pick it up and keep it in your right hand.
Now, use your left hand. Move it from the edge of the plate toward the center. There is some kind of gruel.
Use the bread in your right hand to scoop up a bit of the gruel. Let me know when you’re ready to eat some of the potato in the center of the plate….
As it happened, every day there was different food on the plate, arranged in a different way. The second man was completely befuddled by the changes. Every day, he had to be helped anew.
This went on for many weeks. One day, the befuddled man’s helper felt his frustration erupt. He shouted to the third man, who, like the helper, was able to feed himself, “Why don’t you help me teach him? Why do you leave all the work for me?”
The third man said, "He will never learn to eat in this darkness. Why don’t you help me? I am trying to cut a hole in our cell wall to let in some light. Once he can see for himself, you will have no more need to teach him!”