The Two Brothers

In a faraway place, in a small village between green hills and golden wheat fields, lived two brothers. The older brother was married, with little children who laughed around him every evening. The younger brother wasn't married; he was strong and hard-working. The two of them got a wheat field from their father, and ever since, they worked it together, shoulder to shoulder. The wheat that grew there was sweet and beautiful. They shared their crop equally. But one night, as the older brother sat on his porch, he looked at his sleeping children and thought to himself: "My younger brother is alone in the world. No one will help him when he's old. I have sons and daughters to support me, and he doesn't. Maybe, just maybe, I'll secretly give him some of my bundles of wheat, so he'll have more." And so, in total silence, while the whole village slept, the older brother went out to the field. He carried bundles of wheat in his arms and put them on his younger brother's pile, and then went back home with a little smile in his heart. That very same night, the younger brother lay in bed and thought: "My older brother has a big family, children to feed, clothes to buy. He has lots of expenses. And me, I'm not married, I don't spend much. He needs it more than I do." So the younger brother got out of bed and went out to the field. He took bundles of his own wheat and put them on his older brother's pile. The next morning, each of them found that his pile was exactly like yesterday. They didn't understand: how can it be? And so, night after night, the older brother brought to his brother, and the younger brother did the same thing, and both of them wondered how, even though they gave, their pile didn't get smaller. Until one night, the two brothers met in the middle of the field, each with his arms full of bundles. Their eyes opened wide in surprise, and then they smiled. They understood everything that wasn't said. They put down the bundles and hugged, a hug of pure love, of giving without counting, of brothers, of one heart. And they say that in the same place where the two brothers met that night, the Beis HaMikdash in Yerushalayim was built years later, because there's no place holier than a place where brothers give to each other with all their heart. Real love is giving without expecting anything back, and giving is what makes real blessing stay.