The old man had long ago given up fixing shoes and tried other businesses, but always at the same location, and with many of the same customers. But he never found any other work that gave him as much satisfaction as putting new soles on a pair of old uppers. Or putting a pair of Cat's Paw heels on shoes that still had a lot of wear left, and doing it neatly, surely, carefully - to last.

He loved the feel and aroma of new leather, the grain in the old. He was seldom as happy as when he could hold a pair of weathered shoes in his hands, turn them over and over, feel the tread, admire the workmanship, and sometimes even name the local shoemaker who'd done it.

Labor omnia vincit. Labor conquers all. The old man had no Latin, but he did have some Hebrew, and would have known that the Hebrew word for labor and worship are the same: avodah. He worked the same way he prayed: with dedication, concentration, intention. It showed. In those two things, work and prayer, he came into his own.

His boys could remember those rare occasions when the old man lost his temper. Once he threw a poorly repaired pair of shoes against a wall in his fury. What a sloppy waste of good leather! What a waste of time and the customer's money!

In his old age, he was unable to contain his contempt when he would drive past one of those glittery new shoe stores that sold cheap, shiny imports - the cardboard kind sure to come apart in the first rain.

The old man took poor workmanship as a personal affront. Labor wasn't a factor of production to him, it was a calling - and a refuge.

The old man wasn't much on theory, but he understood value received, good will, repeat business and, above all, the importance of trust between people - customer and merchant, worker and boss, lender and borrower. To him commerce was friendship. Continued...