I really love freeing prisoners from jail.
Actually, anyone can do it quite easily. Freeing the prisoners of gratitude.
A prisoner of gratitude — in Hebrew, ‘asir toda,’ literally a captive of thanks. What an apt expression.
When someone receives from me a gift that’s too big, out of all proportion, they end up feeling so indebted to me that it’s like a prison. It can rob them of their peace of mind. That’s no way to live. Hence ‘he who hates gifts shall live.’
Ephraim Kishon has a masterful piece describing how Mezoglobish ‘saved’ him by giving him a phone token (for our readers under 35: a token served as a coin that let you make a call from a public phone). Mezoglobish nobly refused to take the token back, and from that moment poor Kishon did everything he could to repay the favor. Flowers, restaurants, and in the end he bought him a car — all for that token. A classic prisoner of gratitude.
Among criminals it’s a well-known method. They do you loads of ‘favors,’ and then you owe them everything you’ve got — and God help you if you don’t become their subject.
Now, we don’t always do this on purpose. Sometimes even something we did gladly, wholeheartedly and with clean intentions still makes the other person feel indebted to us.
So how do we free them from prison?
Just saying ‘nonsense, it’s nothing’ when we give something doesn’t really help.
So when we give someone something, how do we free the prisoner of gratitude we’ve created?
The best way is to let them give back to us. Even if we don’t want it. Even if we don’t need it.
A few years ago we did a big favor for a young couple. Something that from our perspective was nothing. But in the young couple’s eyes it was something extraordinary. On Friday they called, excited, from a flower shop to ask what our favorite flowers were. My instinct was to immediately stop them and say: no, no, no, don’t buy anything, don’t waste your money. But then I stopped myself. I understood that it wasn’t me who needed the flowers — it was them. It was their exit ticket from the prison of gratitude. I answered that carnations are Neta’s favorite, we received the flowers, and they walked free.
Ofer Tehori, of blessed memory, called it: the kindness of receiving. Being willing to receive, without excessive politeness, is sometimes the greatest kindness of all.
Happy freeing.
