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there is/was an article on aol through fox news of a penguin that visits someone who saved it five years ago from starvation and being covered in oil, it swims over 5,000 miles every year just to visit him
thank you
Maybe it visits to get fed
Hakoras HaTov is a very important concept. The Torah prohibited Jews from marrying Moab and Amon because they didn’t show haorah ha-tov to the Jewish children of Avrohom who saved their grandfather Lot.
how good is your middah of Hakaras hatov from 1-10. where are you holding? how much work does it take to remove the middah of taking things for granted so that you will always have hakaras hatov for everything that is done for you? (rather by Hashem or by a friend)
Start working on it now
For really, I don’t follow. The penguin is obviously not doing it for hakaras hatov, so I’m not really getting what the moral is.
Popa, see :?????? ?.
http://hebrewbooks.org/shas.aspx?mesechta=3&daf=100b&format=pdf
Why should this be worse than learning tznius from the cat or not stealing from the ant?
Why should this be worse than learning tznius from the cat or not stealing from the ant?
First answer my question, then I’ll answer yours.
This isn’t typical penguin behavior.
That’s very kind of you, but I’ll let you go first.
No? Okay, I’ll go first.
We’re learning from their actions, not their motivations.
Now your turn.
It was a question. If you’re a stickler for semantics, I’ll rephrase it for you:
Why should one think there’s a moral from this penguin story to have hakaras hatov, when the penguin was not doing it from hakaras hatov?
I believe I answered his question, and I think the gemara backs me up.
Why doesn’t the gemara say to learn hakaras hatov from a cat, since if you give it milk, it will come back and meow every day?
That does not seem to be related to hakaras hatov.
If you think that the actions of the penguin do not seem to display hakaras hatov, then gezunter heit, don’t learn hakaras hatov from it.
Or perhaps, tono v’shier. The gemara likely could have found other midos to be learned from baalei chaim.
If others do, and are inspired to hakaras hatov, why stop them?
Honestly, if someone had posted that we should learn tznius from a cat, etc., and you didn’t know the gemara, wouldn’t you have the same question?
If not, why, and is whatever chilluk you have so muchrach to shlug up someone who wants to learn hakaras hatov from a penguin?
I think he doesn’t assume a penguin has such emotions.
Anthropomorphism, giving human traits to animals, is fun in children’s stories, but not always smart.
In the case pf “Lech el nemala…” (Shlomo HaMelech) or tznius from a cat (Gemara) these are words of Torah, and obviously there’s a true lesson there for us.
In the case of our famous penguin, well…
Nice story.
I’m not sure why one would feel the need to ‘shlug up’ (as DY so eloquently put it) the OP, even if it’s not necessarily total Emmes.
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On a side note I sometimes wonder if all the talking monkeys, pigs and kittens our kids hear about, ruin their understanding of Bilam’s donkey (I don’t need to add- it ACTUALLY spoke) or the tzfardea that jumped into the ovens or the dogs that remained silent…
I leave it to our expert mechanchim to make sure the limmud stands as it should.
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