A Soulful Journey

 " A dream only reflects a dreamer's thoughts."   -Talmud berachot 55b Think good thoughts.  Then sleep well.

  "...some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover health simply thorough their contentment with he good ness of the physician." - Hippocrates In this sense we are all potential healers of broken souls.  Use your power wisely.

"Each word we speak has a life of its own, a vibratory signature that creates waves into the expanse of the universe." Think  first.  Only then speak.

Rabbi Eleazar said, “If a man divorces his first wife even the altar sheds tears.” Rabbi Yohanan said, “He that puts his wife is away is hated of God.”  - Gittin 89b   In the midst of a long Talmudic discussion on the laws and intricacies of dissolving marriage comes these comments.   While understanding there are times when it is inevitable that a union cannot last, it should never be simple a shrugging one’s shoulders and calling it “quits.’  Relationships are sacred.  They require trust and forgiveness.  Every day.

 An anti-Semitic minister asked Rabbi Yonah of Prague: "Why are you Jews so proud?  It seems that you will only ride on horses whereas your ancestors used to ride on donkeys.  Even Moses, his wife and children, rode on donkeys. Even your messiah will come riding on a donkey." "It is not because we are proud," the Gaon answered, "but because donkeys think they have made progress and act important, so we have to ride on horses." In our times, as in days of old, it is vital to think of each person as a universe, loved by God, and needed to complete the world in his or her own fashion.  Discrimination brings us all down, reduces the world to small bytes of toxic energy.  Instead let us lift up one another as necessary for a fully functioning world that does not tolerate differences but elevates them.

Rabbi Zusya's wife was unhappy in their marriage and persistently asked for a divorce.  One night the rabbi called to her, "Hindle, look here."  He showed her that his pillow was wet. "The Talmud tells is that a man divorces his first wife, that altar itself sheds tears for them.  My pillow islet with those tears,  Will you still insist on divorce?" From  then on, Zusya's wife was happy and content. Do not wait for hurt and pain to appreciate that love in your life.

Do not resemble a big door which lets in the wind;  or  small door which makes people bend down;  but resemble the threshold on which all may walk, or a low peg on which all may hang their things. - Derekh Eretz Zuta Be thoughtful. Be kind. Be forbearing and never haughty. Make your place, your self, welcoming to all.

Legally, a man may divorce a woman if she does not bear children after ten years of marriage.  Both are free to remarry, as the Talmud states, “it is possible that he was unworthy to have children from her.”   A couple who lived in Sidon had been married for ten years without having children.  The husband demanded a divorce and the couple went to see Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai.  The rabbi, who opposed divorces, tried to convince them to stay together but the husband was adamant. “Since you are resolved to divorce, you should give a party to celebrate your separation just as you gave one to celebrate your wedding,” the rabbi told them. The couple agreed.  During the course of the party, the husband, who had drunk too much wine, said to his wife, “My dear, before we separate choose whatever you consider most precious in this house and take it with you when you return to your father’s house to live.” After her husband had fallen into a drunken sleep...

Just being here, being ourselves, is enough. You are enough.

Mother Teresa said, "If you judge people, you don't have time to love them." To acknowledge to ourselves that we have judged, and that we have identified the root of our judgments, is the first step to a path of compassion. Recognizing that we limit our awareness by assessing others critically can make moving past our initial impressions much easier. Judgments seldom leave room for alternate possibilities. 

The Israeli airforce needed five billion dollars for a new aircraft.  So an emergency cabinet meeting was called. "If we got one thousand Jews to give one hundred fifty million dollars, that is all we have to do!" exclaimed one minister. "But," replied the Prime Minister, "the plane would never get off the ground with all those plaques." Tzedaka is great. Great still is tzedaka done without fanfare.

  Said Rabbi Eleazar, "He who divorces his first wife, the very altar sheds tears." - Sanhedrin 22a And why not?  When love dies, does not the whole earth grieve?

You Are Enough

The devout scholar Rabbi Hirsch used to say, "Since the rabbis began to call themselves doctors the Jewish people are sick." What is needed in our age is more Godliness, not more scholarship in secular subjects.

“However, a toenail of the Heart of the World has more of the essential nature of a heart than the heart of anything else.” -R ebbe Nachman The world is a world comprised of love.

 A young doctor noticed a new medical book entitled, "What To Do Until he Doctor Comes." "The devil makes such books," the doctor called out angrily.  "Why doesn't someone write, 'What to do until the patient comes'??" We all have our perspective.  And our perspective comes from our needs.  It is critical that we remember everyone has different perspectives and different needs.

Rabbi Moshe Leib told this  story: “How to  love  men is something I learned from a  peasant.  He was sitting in an inn along with other peasants, drinking. For a long time he was as silent as all the rest, but when he was moved by the wine, he asked one of the men seated beside him: ‘Tell  me, do you love me  or don’t  you love me?’  The other replied: ‘I  love you  very much.’ But the first  peasant  replied:  ‘You  say that  you love me,  but  you do  not know what I need. If  you  really loved  me, you  would know.’ The other had not a word to say to this, and the  peasant  who had put the question fell silent again. “But I understood. To know the needs of men and to bear the burden of their sorrow—that is the true  love  of men.”

“O that I had the wings of a dive…and far from any vile companions.”  -Psalm 55   “The dove is a messenger and it is a holy messenger.  When you see a pale bird flying high in the clouds, she is taking our prayers to the good Lord God, blessed is He.  It has been so from the very beginning.”   “Each week, Noah sent out his prayer and when finally the dove did not return then Noah knew that the good Lord God had taken her into His heart and he had heard the prayers at last.”  Michael Jay Katz,  Night Tales of the Shammes