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            In Budapest, a man goes to the rabbi and complains, “life is unbearable.  There are nine of us living in one room.  What can I do?”  The rabbi answers, “Take your goat into the room with you.”  The man is incredulous, but the rabbi insists.  “Do as I say and come back in a week.”

            A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before.  “We cannot stand it,” he tells the rabbi.  “The goat is filthy.”  The rabbi then tells him, “Go home and let the goat out.  And come back in a week.”

            A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, “Life is beautiful.  We enjoy every minute of it now that there’s no goat – only the nine of us.”

Reader’s Digest, December 1981