A Soulful Journey

 "Happy is the person who has studied and practiced the words of Torah, whose spiritual and moral direction gives pleasure to the Creator, who has grown up with a good name and departed the world with a good name."  - Berakhot 17a

A bright torch greeted weary travelers, your ancestors, when they reached the shores of America.     She was a tall and stately woman with a beacon of light held in her outstretched arms.     It was the light of hope, refuge and all that America stands for- freedom, equality and opportunities to learn and grow. Lady Liberty. “In the beginning of God creating the heaven and earth, there was chaos, and darkness….” So commences the holiest Book we possess, the foundation stone of our religious core.  God took that chaotic mix and made out if it order, where humanity might thrive. And in our time out of a cauldron of chaos and darkness came survivors of a Holocaust that has traumatized our entire civilization. The light in the harbor was not only a new beginning but a unique opportunity to teach the world what can happen when chaos and darkness returns its vise-like grip on the world.    From the stories of the Holocaust emerges a legacy tha...

Talmud: "We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are." - Elizabeth Lesser   Talmud:— ein marin lo l’adam ela m’harhurei libo —“A man is shown only what is suggested by his own thoughts.”- Berakhot 55b. What if we saw life as it really is, rather than as we are predisposed to see it?  We might witness true majesty and joy unparalleled.

“If you steal a little, it's plagiarism; if you steal a lot, it's art.”   unknown

According to the Talmud, when Abraham passed away all of the great world of the time declared, "Woe unto the world whose spiritual leader has passed away.  Woe unto the the world which has lost its captain." -Baba Batra 91 a

Exodus 22: If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, exact no interest from them….If you take your neighbor’s garment in pledge you must return it to him before the sun sets .”   Why?  Because everyone needs clothes, food, and shelter.  They who already have great wealth must not take advantage of those who are destitute, basically enslaving them with high rates of interest.   This commandment is one of many, not unlike do not murder, do not steal … God, give wisdom to those who would oppress the most vulnerable.  Make them aware that You are looking at them, judging them and that they are responsible to take care of Your other children, not hurt, oppress or impoverish them.  May this be Your will, Amen.

"When Rabbi Meir died, the last of the great makers of parables died with him.  When Ben Azzai died diligent students ceased to exist.  When Hanina ben Dosa died, men of courage would no longer lead.  When Rabbi Akiba died, those who know how to honor the Torah disappeared."  -c onclusion of Sotah We live at a time when our impoverishment of spirituality and learning must not impede our hunger to grow in knowledge and morality.

" Disciples of the wise have no rest, neither in this world or in the World to Come….In the words of the Psalms, “They go from strength to strength.  Every one of them appears before God in Zion.”  - Berakhot 64a   Each of us should be disturbed by the living- the poverty, the impoverishment of spirit, the homeless and the unlearned.  Our task is to leave the world in better shape than we found it.  For the wise, this is a compelling mitzvah.

Flower in the crannied wall,  I pluck you out of the crannies,  I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,  Little flower—but if I could understand  What you are, root and all, all in all,  I should know what God and man is. -Tennyson

As long as David’s child was sick, he sat of the floor, cried and refused to eat.  When the child died people were afraid to speak with and approach David.  They said to themselves, “If he reacted that way when the child was sick, how will he react now that the child has passed away?” But David did a strange thing.  He got up from the floor, asked for food, water and a change of clothes.   Idea: We should appreciate and dote on the living.  Once they have dead they have passed from our eyes and the love and devotion we should have showered on them while alive.

“A person is obliged to say a blessing over evil just as he/she would so so over something good.”  -Talmud     “Only a Jew says a blessing at death.”  - Rabbi Henry Fisher.   We praise God for what we have, as well as what we have lost.