A Soulful Journey

I walked a mile with Pleasure She chatted all the way But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne’er a word said she But oh the things I learned from her When sorrow walked with me.     –Robert B.Hamilton

The Rabbis learned: When Adam saw the days getting shorter and shorter, he said, ‘woe is me, perhaps it is because I sinned that the world is becoming dark, and will return to chaos and disorder, and this is the death sentence that was decreed upon me from heaven’. He went and sat and fasted and prayed for eight days. When he saw the winter solstice arrive, and the days began getting longer and longer, he said, ‘it is just the way of the world’. He went and made an eight-day holiday.      - Avoda Zara 8a

  "A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled."  - Barnett Cock

Eleventh century scholar, Judah HaLevi wote, “Your contrition on a fast day is not more acceptable to Him than your joy on the Sabbath and holy days, it if is the outcome of a devout heart.”

Rebbe Nachman, a hero of mine, wrote, “The human’s image-making faculty is the source of all temptation.   If it becomes dominant, it results in depression…one forgets one’s purpose in life.   We have to fight back and aim to be continually happy so as to break the power of our imagination.”  

Two hospital roommates have similar leg injuries.   They are waiting for the doctor. When the physician arrives he examines the first man’s leg.   The man winces and cries out several times. The doctor next examines the second patient.   This one undergoes the examination without flinching.   At the end off it all, the first roommate was astonished to see a smile come to the other’s lips. “How could you stand it?   I saw the doctor do the same thing to you that he did to me.   You must be made of steel!” The second man laughed.   “I’m no dummy.   I saw you screaming so I gave him my good leg!” -Al Lewis

“Invariably someone at the office was ridiculing him behind his back.   Sometimes, if he turned around rapidly, he would discover thirty or forty co-workers inches away from him with tongues outstretched.   Going to work was a nightmare.   For one thing, his desk was in the rear, away from the window, and whatever fresh air did reach the dark office was breathed by the other men before he could inhale it.” – Woody Allen , Side Effects Being paranoid is difficult.   Being paranoid and not knowing it is beyond debilitating.