A ship full of travelers was crossing the sea when the wind died. The vessel drifted into still, silent waters and stopped. Each day the becalmed ship sat motionless on a surface like glass.
Hunger set in. The travelers counted their provisions and realized that each person's private stash, if consumed alone, would only prolong the suffering. Death was waiting whether they hoarded or shared.
They made a decision. They pooled everything. They would eat together until the food ran out, and then, if that was the end, they would die together too.
As they shared their first meal — a roasted lamb among them — one of them had an idea. They tied the carcass of the lamb to the prow of the ship, out over the water.
A huge sea creature, drawn by the smell, rose from the depths, seized the lamb in its jaws, and pulled. The ship lurched forward. The beast kept dragging its prize, and the ship kept moving with it, until the hull slid out of the dead zone and back into waters that held a current.
The wind returned. The sails filled. The ship sailed on.
This, the Ma'aseh Book says, was their reward — not only for clever engineering, but for their earlier decision to share everything. They had obeyed, without knowing it, the verse in Kohelet: "Shalach lachmecha al pnei ha-mayim, ki b'rov ha-yamim timtza'enu" — "Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days" (Ecclesiastes 11:1, Gaster, Exempla No. 299).
They had cast their bread — literally, their lamb — upon the waters. The sea returned it as motion.
The teaching is simple enough to carry on a pocket card: generosity is a current. A group that shares its provisions finds itself moving again, even when the wind will not rise.