Last month I wrote a blog about the value of questions.  After I posted that blog I remembered a story on the same topic – a story I carry with me and think about every day.

There was a young married man who spent his day studying the holy books. As time passed, he became increasingly agitated. His reading led him to a question: What is the meaning of life? He couldn’t let go of the question. “What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of life” he mumbled throughout the day. His wife became exasperated, “Go, ask the neighbors!” 

So the man went into the courtyard, calling out the question, stopping the passers-by. They brushed him off.  “What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of life?”

The wife and the neighbors decided to take him to the rabbi in a neighboring town.

The rabbi invited the young man to sit in the chair across from him. “Now, young man, what’s wrong?”

“I have to know, Rabbi, What is the meaning of life?”

The rabbi stood, walked around his desk, raised his arm, and slapped the young man across the face.

Shocked, the young man jerked backward.

The rabbi said, “Why would you want to exchange a perfectly good question for an answer?

It is answers that divide us; it is the questions that bring us together.”