Brooklyn Goes to Williamstown: Rebecca Naomi Jones: A star grows in Brooklyn
There’s an endearing and enduring shtetl parable about two female twins — one who’s always pessimistic, the other who’s always optimistic. Since they are identical in every other way, their parents decide to consult the local rabbi. He suggests an experiment.
He takes the pessimistic twin and locks her in a room filled with brand-new toys. For an hour, the rabbi observes the child through a window. She never moves to play with any of the toys. When, after an hour, the rabbi enters the room, he asks the pessimistic twin why she didn’t play with the toys. “They were all brand new and I was so afraid that I might break them.”
Then the rabbi takes the optimistic twin to an empty horse barn, filled with nothing but hay and dung. He locks in the optimistic twin and, once again, observes through a window. The child dives into the hay, actively and contently, as if into a sandbox. When the rabbi re-enters the barn, he asks the girl why she was so happy playing in the hay. “Because I knew somewhere underneath all that hay there had to be a pony.”