Oriental Rug

Oriental rugs are woven by hand. Usually, there will be a group of people weaving a single rug together under the directions of an artist who issues instructions to the rest. The artist determines the choice of colors and the nature of the pattern.

Often one of the weavers inserts the wrong color thread. The artist may have called for blue and instead black was used. If you examine an oriental rug carefully, you may be able to detect such irregularities. What is significant about them is that they were not removed. The skillful artist just proceeded to weave them into the pattern.

Here is wise counsel for our lives. We would like the patterns of our lives to be woven exclusively of brightly-colored threads, woven without flaw into the pattern. But every now and then, a dark thread steals into the fabric. If we are true artists of life, we can weave even a dark, out-of-place thread into the pattern and make it contribute its share to the beauty of the world.

– Rabbi Sidney Greenberg

This is wonderful piece of wisdom attributed to Rabbi Sidney Greenberg. I can say assuredly that dark threads have have made their way into the pattern of my life. The off-colored threads were always noticeable and out of place, threatening to spoil the beautiful weaving. But the truth is that the dark threads worked themselves in with scarcely any notice of a flaw. The beauty was still there, even with dark threads all over the place, woven into the lovely pattern that was my life.