Changing Our Water   

As I entered my new stantzia, I took note of a fishbowl that had apparently been left there over summer bein hazmanim by the room’s previous occupants, facing the window looking onto Drexel Road. To my utter surprise, there was actually a live fish swimming around in the filthy, green-tinged water, his environment for the previous four weeks.

My new roommate Avi, a tzaddik of a guy, was appalled at the sight of this poor fish living in total shmutz, and immediately sprang into action, asking me to find temporary quarters for our guest while he cleaned out the bowl and changed the water. I secured a large baggie, filled it with water, and carefully transplanted the fish inside, holding on tightly until Avi was done sanitizing the bowl and refilling it. We gently put the fish back in his old home, proud of our first chesed of the new Elul zeman.

Very shortly thereafter, the unthinkable happened. Our fish was suddenly no longer among the living. What could have possibly gone wrong? Weren’t we giving him a five-star bowl with all the clean water he could ever want ?

We theorized that since the fish had been living in such putrid squalor for so long, he had become acclimated to that habitat. Eventually, a steady diet of bacteria and dirt became his only source of sustenance. He simply could not live without filthy water to drink and breathe from. Our magnanimous chesed was nothing more than a ruthless death sentence. He was addicted to filth, and that was what sustained him. In his world, nothing else would do.