A Soulful Journey

  Al Jolson used to tell the story about his father. He’d say, “I bought my dad a coat last week. It cost $200. A lovely coat. But I knew what my dad would say about that, so I persuaded the clerk to change the label for one that had a $12 price tag. Yesterday, I asked him how he liked the coat.”     “Fine,” he said. “It was wonderful coat for $12. So wonderful that I sold it to Uncle Moshe for $20. You didn’t know your father was a businessman, did you?” - Al Jolson , cited by Michael Friedland

 "Get on fire for God, and men will come to see you burn."   -John Wesley A very disturbing thought indeed.

  There is a story about a zookeeper who opened a cage where a lion and lamb were lying down together, true to the Biblical promise.  After some days, a reporter pressed him for his secret.  “It’s easy,” he   answered:  ”Every morning we put in a new lamb.”

Dianne, a young, attractive, aerobics instructor, told me why she saw she disagreed with views I had written about in my book” When Bad Things Happen to Good People.     “I believe nothing happens to you unless you secretly want it to,” she told me.     “Last week, for example, I was driving to work. I was stopped at a traffic light when a careless driver hit me from behind, causing major damage to my car. I said to myself, now, why did this happen to me? Then I remembered that, just two days before, my father called to tell me he was buying a new car and treating in his two-year-old Lincoln Continental. My first thought was, why doesn’t he give me the Lincoln instead? But he won’t, because I’ve got a perfectly good car. Then two days later, the car I wished I didn’t have was totaled in an accident. Are you going to tell me that was just a coincidence?”   “Diane,” I said, “Let’s accept the premise that you wanted to be rid of your car.  Did the driver ...

 Rabbi Jonathan Sacks related the tale of a New England synagogue that decided they would record youths singing and dancing with sifrei Torah and contrast it with Moscow's muted celebration.   The rabbi objected to them using the Torahs in such a way when it was not a holiday but he was overruled.  The week before Simhat Torah, the scrolls were removed and the youths danced and filmed the event.  Days later on Simhat Torah the soul was empty.  The young people were home watching the video of themselves. What is lost when we lose the personal emotional connection with God?

"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm,  you'll be fired with enthusiasm." -Vince Lombardi We can all use a large dose of greater effort at everything from love, effort and zeal.

F or a working definition of evil, Scott Peck turned to his eight-year-old who explained: "Why daddy, don't you realize that 'evil' is the word 'live' spelled backwards?  Evil then, is in opposition to life; evil is that which opposes the human life force.  "It has to do with killing; not only the brutal act of homicide, but also that cancer of the spirit capable of cutting short our will to live."

 A western rancher asked his district superintendent to assign a pastor to his community. -"Well, how big a man do you want?" "Oh," replied the rancher, "We're not too particular but when he's on his knees, we'd like him to reach heaven." This is what we all must strive to do.