A Soulful Journey

A man devoted himself to spend a whole day reciting Psalms.  He wanted to finish reading them all.  Towards evening, as he was nearing the end, the shamash of the Synagogue came over and asked that he go to the rabbi as soon as possible.  He answered that he would come as soon as he finished reciting Psalms. Later the rabbi asked, "Why did you no obey my summons?" The man explained the great task he was performing. The rabbi replied: "I called you to take up a collection for a poor Jew.  Psalms can be chanted any time.  They can even be sung by the Angels but mortal need to aid the destitute.  Tzedaka is a greater duty than chanting Psalms inasmuch as Angels cannot do tzedakah.

A boy's mother became ill.  The son called for an ambulance.  In the midst of all the turmoil, the father father declared that it is Friday and he must bring home a stranger for Shabbat.  The young man was disturbed that his father could think of strangers at such a time. Days later, the son said:  "Now I understand, father, about the stranger.  You wanted to save mother's life.  "Charity averts death," tells the Torah." "No," said the father.  "What I asked you to do it, I did not ask because I thought it would avert mother's death but because charity averts God's death."  - Rabbi Harold Shulwies

O dear God, for once let me call out to You with one true prayer. Let me think one pure thought, cry one genuine cry, pray one absolutely sincere prayer to You dear God Rebbe Nachman,  The Gentle Weapon

Are the two universes of life and death connected?  Do the dead feel pain?  Anguish?  Or is what we see, all there is? Reb Melech of Genhenz told: Once a great righteous man died.  His son had a terrible dream about him afterward where his father appeared to him and told him to convert.  The son went to his rabbi to ask what he should do about the dream.  The rabbi ordered that the body of his father be exhumed.  A crucifix was found on his chest.  -Meir Fund

"Truth is the light by which you find your way out of darkness. Turn it on." Rebbe Nachman, The Empty Chair

“In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”   Albert Camus What you inside you is stronger than anything you could ever encounter.

“But pain is a great teacher.   Just as physical pain can mobilize our defenses and alert us to deeper problems, so can emotional pain.   It has the function of awakening us to the realization that there is something wrong in our lives, something that needs attention. If we ignore inner pain, it will surely grow out of control.”   - Viktor Frankl

“After the first death, there is no other.”   -Yeats Is this true?  From your experience does this resonate?  Or is this only a partial truth?

“In the sense of survival today, everyone is a Jew . ”   - Satre Learn how to continue and not give up.   

“When we demand justice, it is not always justice on our behalf against other people.   Nobody, I imagine, would ever ask for justice to be done upon him for everything he ever did wrong. “We do not want justice – we want revenge; and that is why when justice is done upon us, we cry out that God is vindictive.”    - Dorothy L. Sayers Isn't Hillel's rule "What is hurtful to you, do not do to others?"

“How to catch a knuckleball: Use a big glove and a pair of rosary beads.   Or else take Bob Uecker’s advice: ‘Wait ‘til it stops tolling, then pick it up’.” It is good to be wise and avoid pain when we can.  Yet, when we cannot, the best thing we can do is extract the lesson that can be learned from the experience.

God, help me forge a oneness— between myself and others; between myself and my spouse; between myself and my children. Help me forge a oneness of the many selves within me. Help me become one with You. -Rebbe Nachman in The Gentle Weapon Let this be us.

The highest peace is the peace between opposites."    -Rebbe Nachman in The Empty Chair It is not about finding friends who agree with us.  It is about making peace where none seems possible.

“If being Jewish means anything, it means recognizing that the world out there is not working the way it was meant to work, and that we are somehow implicated in its repair.” –Leonard Fein It began in the Garden and it never ends.

“When my wife, Diana, and I met a new couple at church one Sunday, we stopped to introduce ourselves and to exchange pleasantries.   We described the friendly neighborhood we lived in, and listened sympathetically as they lamented that theirs was just the opposite. Saying our goodbyes, we got in our cars and roe home.   As we approached our house, we were horrified to see that our new-found friends were pulling into the drive way next to ours.”   -Kent Eikenberry What would you do if your perceptions were so out of sync with someone else?   Dismiss them as irrelevant?   Mindless? Or ask, “What am I missing?” The difference between the two attitudes is immense.

  “Respond gently.   It allays anger.” - King Solomon in Proverbs We change our core self when we alter our outer self. 

Rabbi Charles Klein tells the story of nurse, Elizabeth Kenny, who developed a treatment for polio.   Kenny was asked how she always managed to maintain her cheery disposition.   Was she just born that way? “Oh no, as a girl I often lost my temper.   But one day when I became angry at a friend for some trivial matter, my mother said to me: “Elizabeth, anyone who angers you, conquers you.” She never forgot those words.  With them, Kenny remade herself.  Can you?

Historical Judaism does nor permit any change except from the standpoint of the law as it came down from the past.  It is averse to any interpretation or modification of the law which comes from philosophical premises.  We cannot permit majorities in congregations to decide what is permitted and what is not.  The fact that certain manufacturers approve of changes does not render them legitimate.  That has its misfortune with the Reform movement.  How then does anyone venture to lay hands on the liturgy?  It has been sanctified by the ages.  It is like a cathedral.  If the windows of a cathedral need repair, only a skilled artist would undertake to repair them.  He (Ginzberg) knows something about the liturgy.   He should have been consulted and not young boys who are totally ignorant of such matters.                               ...

A beggar arrived in a small town, but was ignored.  Occasionally he would receive a penny or a dry crust of bread.  One day the man fell and broke his leg and had to be taken to the hospital. When the townspeople heard they became concerned.  He received the best food and finest medial attention.  When he was well enough to leave the hospital they provided him with food and money. Moral: People would rather help the fallen than keep them from falling. What do you do?

“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.” –Abraham Lincoln Or in the words of Hillel, “What is hurtful to you do not do to others.”

“Please give me something,” a poor man pleaded to a diner in a posh restaurant.  The man was irritated and, to get rid of him, gave him a slice of bread.  The poor man then seized his newspaper and wrapped up the slice of bread. “What is this? I gave you some food – and you are so brazen as to grab my paper!” “When a man like you gives something, it should immediately be put in a newspaper.” Let this never be said of us.