A Guest in Sedom
In the cruel city of Sedom, Eliezer outwitted its crooked judge and its heartless customs with calm cleverness.
The Gemara tells that Eliezer, the servant of Avraham, once happened to come to Sedom. The people there attacked him and wounded him, and he went before the judge to demand payment. The judge ruled that Eliezer must pay his attacker, since the man had let his blood, as a bloodletter would. Eliezer picked up a stone and wounded the judge. What is this, the judge cried. Eliezer answered: the fee you now owe me, pay it to the man who wounded me, and my money can stay where it is.
Sedom had a bed for its guests. If a guest was too long for it, they cut him to size, and if he was too short, they stretched him. When they invited Eliezer to lie on it, he answered that ever since the day his mother died he had vowed not to sleep on a bed.
The people of Sedom had also agreed that anyone who invited a stranger to a wedding would be stripped of his cloak. Eliezer arrived at one wedding hungry, and no one gave him bread. So he sat down at the far end, behind everyone. When they demanded to know who had invited him, he turned to the man beside him and said, You invited me. Terrified of losing his cloak, the man grabbed it and ran out. Eliezer said the same to the next man, and the next, until every guest had fled, and he sat down and ate the meal.
Source: Gemara, Sanhedrin 109b (Talmud Bavli); English: The William Davidson Talmud (Koren–Steinsaltz translation), Sanhedrin 109b.
Eliezer did not shout or despair in Sedom. He stayed calm, saw through the crooked rules, and turned them back on those who made them. When you meet a situation that is plainly unfair, at work, in a bureaucracy or in a group that has made up its own harsh rules, take a breath before you react. Ask yourself what the fairest response would be that also protects you, and say it calmly. And remember the people who are new or alone in such places; make sure, as Avraham's household always did, that no guest at your table goes hungry.