A Soulful Journey

A couple drives for hours, trying to escape the big-city rat race.  Winding down back roads and narrow country lanes, they end up in a very small town.  Shaking their heads at how peaceful everything is, they enter the town’s tiny general store. “The country is so nice and quiet,” they say to the store owner.   “t’s so much better than life in the city.   Don’t you agree?” “Can’t rightly say,” replied the store owner.  “Never lived in the country – always lived right here in town.”   Franklin Escher in Reader’s Digest

"In a place where there is no humanity, be a human."  --Pirkei Avot

A man was lying in bed on Shabbat morning. His mother came along and demanded, “Get out of bed and go to synagogue!” “I don’t want to go to synagogue! Firstly, I am tired.   Secondly, I don’t like the service, and I hate the sermons. And nobody in the congregation   likes me.” “Get out of bed now. A decent Jewish family goes to shul together. Anyway, you're the Rabbi!”

  “Each day a Divine Voice goes forth and says,  ‘Return, rebellious children.’ “ (Hagiga 15)     Rabbi Shalom Noah Berzovsky then asks, “Why do we not hear this Divine Voice?   And if we cannot hear it, why does it go forth?”   He explains that this calling goes from Mt Sinai awakening each Jew’s heart.   Even though it is not universally heard, some Jews will feel the ongoing power of the Divine Voice.   -Michael Knopf

“Death and the Day of Atonement atone together with repentance.”   -Mishna Yoma 8

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter was expected at shul one Kol Nidrei eve.   However he was late in coming.   His students began to worry and went out to search for him.   They finally found him at one of the congregant’s homes rocking a baby to sleep.   Rabbi Yisrael explained that while walking to synagogue he heard a baby crying.   He realized the parents must have put the baby to sleep ad then left for synagogue assuming he would sleep through the night.   However, the baby woke and Rabbi Yisrael, hearing the cries, decided that comforting the child took precedence over being present in shul on the holiest night of the year .       - Retold by Eliezer Diamond

Rabbi Levi Yitshak of Berditchev cried one Yom Kippur eve, “God!   Every year I recite the piyyut that has as its refrain the word salahti, ' I have forgiven.’   This year I do not have the strength to say it.   I ask that You say it for me, God, say ‘I have forgiven.’” - retold by Eliezer Diamond