For reasons unexplained, this text was included in a Dylan bootleg that I downloaded. I thought it was worth posting.
In the service of God, one can learn three things from a child and seven from a thief.
"From a child you can learn:
(1) always to be happy;
(2) never to sit idle; and
(3) to cry for everything one wants.
From a thief you should learn:
(1) to work at night;
(2) if one cannot gain what one wants in one night to try again the next night;
(3) to love one's coworkers just as thieves love each other;
(4) to be willing to risk one's life even for a little thing;
(5) not to attach too much value to things even though one has risked one's life for them -- just as a thief will resell a stolen article for a fraction of its real value;
(6) to withstand all kinds of beatings and tortures but to remain what you are; and
(7) to believe that your work is worthwhile and not be willing to change it."
(Hasidic text)
- Dov Baer, the Mazid of Mezeritch ('The Wisdom of the Jewish Mystics')