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Home
and Family
The Big Win
By Risa Rotman
In my family, we were never very lucky with lotteries. Once,
my husband gave me a large sum to spend at a Chinese Auction
for tzedaka. I may have had the most tickets among the
ladies participating. but did I come home with a fabulous
prize? No, just a fabulous headache...and a mitzva. At
another Chinese Auction, I gave a friend's teenage daughter
some of my tickets to put in the boxes of her choice. I told
her that she could have the fun of choosing which boxes. This
time I did in fact win: five girls' shirts — four of
which were completely unsuitable. Still I have to admit that
there was a thrill in winning something, even if unusable.
It seems that bad luck really runs in our family for
generations. The story goes that in the twenties or thirties
of the last century, my grandfather invested in a lottery
ticket for a car. Certainly a grand item at any time, and
especially then. For some reason, a friend or cousin
suggested that they switch tickets for fun. I guess it wasn't
so funny when, in fact, the cousin/friend actually won the
car. Apparently my grandfather handled it quite good-
naturedly. At least he hadn't lost his cool.
I remember about twenty-something years ago, my family was
taking a long, boring car trip. We often took long, boring
car trips in order to visit my mother's side of the family.
My mother was contemplating buying one of the first lottery
tickets for a million dollars. That's when a million dollars
was a million dollars. To pass the time, my mother started
figuring out how she would spend the money. The list went on:
so much to this charity, so much to that one, a large amount
for her sister, her parents, maybe an apartment in Israel,
and money to help other friends or relatives. (Somehow she
never mentioned giving me some). My father was listening
quietly all along as he drove the car. Finally, he turned
around to me in the back and said, "Risa, there is no point
in buying a ticket. It just won't be enough."
It would seem that my mazel, or lack of it, has followed my
kids. No one has won it too big — unless it was one of
those lotteries where all the kids in the class or the
Tehillim group won something. Actually I kind of like
those.
At a recent lottery, we actually came out the big winners but
in more ways than one. As per the usual Motzaei Shabbos
routine, my husband had taken two of our boys to the Ovos
Ubanim to finish reviewing what they had learned that week.
Being that it was during the week of Chanukah, there were
extra prizes. One of our sons had decided to move to a
different part of the shul to review with a friend. When one
of the organizers came around handing out the weekly tickets,
my husband took for both boys. Not aware that his father had
already gotten him a ticket, the son learning with a friend
also took one. When my husband realized what had happen, he
tore up the extra ticket.
Well, apparently, it was Bashert for us to win that night.
Right away, one of my husband's tickets won a fifteen shekel
book voucher. Then my son's ticket that they had torn up, was
drawn for a twenty shekels. My husband didn't accept the
prize and told the organizers to draw again, since that
ticket had been "cancelled". Finally came the grand prize; a
thirty shekel book voucher. Who would have believed that our
other ticket would be the big winner?
As my husband later explained; we only won the grand prize by
tearing up the extra ticket, otherwise we would have ended up
with only thirty-five shekels instead of forty-five. Of
course we couldn't have claimed all three tickets. Maybe it
wasn't a large amount of money, but it was a large lesson. I
pointed out to my husband that what we really won is that our
sons got a hands-on lesson about being truthful and that you
always get what you are meant to get.
The big win is that my boys saw that it pays to be honest.
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