A Soulful Journey

"A little light dispels much darkness." - Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

 "You can’t drive away the darkness with sticks or weapons. The only way is to light a candle and the darkness will disappear by itself. Our candle is the Torah."   -  Hafetz Hayim

“… I was once privileged to hear from my father (the previous Lbavitcher Rebbe) that his father, Rabbi Shalom Dover, of saintly memory, was once asked, ‘What is a Chabad-Lubavitch chassid?’ He replied, a chassid is like a street lamp lighter. In olden days, there was a person in every town who would light the streetlamps with a light he carried at the end of a long pole.  On the street corners, the lamps were there in readiness, waiting to be lit; sometimes, however, the lamps are not as easily accessible. There are lamps in forsaken places, in deserts or at sea. There must be someone to light even those lamps, so that they may fulfill their purpose and light up the paths of others. It is written, ‘The soul of man is the candle of G-d.’ It is also written, ‘A mitzvah is a candle, and the Torah is light.’ A chassid is one who puts his personal affairs aside and sets out to light up the souls of Jews with the light of Torah and mitzvot. Jewish souls are ready and waiting to be kindled

“The Talmud records that King Hezekiah was granted the prophetic foresight to see that the son he might bear- Manasseh – would bring evil and suffering into the world.  He decided, accordingly, not to have children. The prophet, Isaiah, rebuked him savagely.  “What have you to do with the mysteries of the Almighty?”  Any potential can be quantified – except a potential human life.”  - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Always give people the "benefit of doubt."

The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from what she daily tears of sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future that is in store for him?   “No, thank you,” he will think.  “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of s

"At age 50 every man has the face he deserves." -George Orwell How we have lived is written clearly there.

"Think of life like a baseball season -- all those games. Win one at a time. There's a spot out there, on some kind of roster for everybody. Just keep working at it, and don't take too big of a bite at a time." - Joe Torre

Three soldiers are condemned for execution for spying, a Frenchman, an Italian and a Jew.  They are asked what they want for their last meal.  The Frenchman says, "I want a glass of wine from my native Burgundy."  So they give him the wine and shoot him.  The Italian says, "I want a plate of lasagna."  So they make a him a lasagna to eat and then take him out and shoot him.  The Jews says, "All I want is a bowl of fresh strawberries."  They reply, "Are you crazy?  It's the middle of winter.  Where are we going to get fresh strawberries?"  He says, "I'm willing to wait." Every moment that we live is precious, priceless.

Elie Wiesel offered a parable about our times: Man complained to God: “You have no idea how hard it is to be human — to live a life darkened by suffering and despair in a world filled with violence and destruction, to fear death and worry that nothing we do or create or dream matters.  You have no idea how hard it is to be human!” God responded, “You think it’s easy being God? I have a whole universe to run, a whole universe demanding constant vigilance. You think you could do that?” “I’ll tell you what,” suggested the Man, “let’s switch places, for just a moment. For just a moment, You be Man, and I’ll be God, and that way we’ll see who has it harder.” “For just a moment?” God considered, “Agreed.” So Man and God switched places. Man sat upon God’s throne. And God descended to the earth.  After a moment passed, God looked up and said, “OK, time to switch back.” But Man refused. Man refused to give up the throne of God.  This is our world — where Man plays God, and God is

Robin Norwood, in “Women who Love Too Much,” tells the story of a man, divorced and remarried, who sitting alone at home one Sunday afternoon watching the football game. He was alone because his wife and stepdaughter had learned that he was happier with them out of the house so he could watch the game in peace. Midway through the third quarter, the phone rang.  He got up to answer it, annoyed that he had to interrupt the game because there was no one else in the house to get the phone. It turned out to be his brother, calling to tell him their father had just died and he would have to come home for the funeral. He had never been terribly close to his father, but at a time like that he had no choice but to go home.  A few days later, during shivah, his brother said to him, “Isn’t it strange to be back in the old house again and nothing has changed except that dad isn’t sitting over there watching television?” - Rabbi Harold Kushner Life life a if each moment is of ultimate conseque

Obstetrician Dr. Gisella Perl was a Hungarian Jew and an Auschwitz survivor. At Auschwitz she aborted hundreds of Jewish women because the rules of the camp ordered immediate death for pregnant women. She lost her husband, her father, her son, everything. She survived the war wracked by guilt and remorse and even tried to kill herself.   But she pulled through and returned to medical practice and became a deliver babies and a bringer of life in New York and in Israel, where she continued to live. She has delivered thousands of babies and prays before every delivery, “God you owe me a life, a living baby.” It is not what happens to us but how we happen to life.

In Sanskrit there are three terms which represent the brink, the jumping off place into the world of transcendent: Sat - being Chit - consciousness Ananda - rapture     Joseph Campbell In Judaism we add the feature of being commanded, which represents a relationship with the Almighty.

"The Jew knows that the great commandment is to live." - Rabbi Leo Baeck What doe this mean for your life choices?

God wants full custody not weekend visiation. Our Shul is like fudge: sweet with a few nuts. Prayer wirless access to God - No roaming fee. Life is a puzzle look here for the missing peace. Gossip is Evils' Radio? Are  you the DJ? Life is like a Credit Card: Party now, pay later. There are some questions that can't be answered by Google. Can't Sleep? Counting Sheep? Try talking to the Shepherd. Don't have a prayer? Enter here for free refill. Excercize Daily - walk with G-d.

In Hawaii, Pali is a place where the trade winds from the north fly through a great ridge of mountains. People go up to feel the winds blow through the hair before they commit suicide. One day, policemen driving up the Pali Road saw a young man preparing to jump. They stopped.  One of the policemen caught the man as he jumped and he began to fall with him. Just then the second policeman arrived to pull both of them back. Do you realize what had suddenly happened to that policeman who had given himself to death for an unknown youth? Everything else in his life had dropped off - his duty to his family, his duty to his job, his duty to his own life – all his wishes and hopes for his lifetime had just disappeared. He was about to die. Later a newspaper reporter asked him, “Why didn’t you let go? You could have been killed.” And his reported answer was, “I couldn’t let go. If I had let that young man go I couldn’t have lived another day of my life.”   -Joseph Campbell This

Ben Zoma asked, “Who is wise?” “One who learns from all people. As it is said, “From all my teachers I have received understanding.” – Pirkay Avot 4 Find growth everywhere.  Everyone is a potential teacher.

Rabbi Hanina once saw the people of his town bringing a variety of offerings and gifts to Jerusalem. He said, “Everyone is taking gifts and offerings up to Jerusalem and I and taking nothing.”  So Rabbi Hanina went to the outskirts of town and found a beautiful stone.  He cut it, shaped it, and polished it so I was truly a sight to behold. He then declared, “I hereby promise to take this up to Jerusalem.” But the stone was too heavy for him to carry on his own. So he tried to find workers to carry it. He found five workers. He asked, “Will you take this stone up to Jerusalem?”   They answered, “If you will pay us, we will take it up to Jerusalem for you.”  When he discovered that he had no money with him, the workers left.  God, observing the predicament in which Rabbi Hanina found himself, arranged for five angels in human form to appear when they appeared, Hanina asked, “Will you take the stone for me?”  They responded, “We will take it up for you on the condition that you to help w

Life begins where Death appears to be, And when things mould and rot. Your eyes may see the poppies below most red.”  - Shneor Manginot HaZugot Do not wait until then to wake.

"Against your will were you born. Against your will  you will die. " -Avot 4:29 So what choice do we have?  The choices we make every moment between then and now.

"There is a wheel that continually turns in the universe." - Shabbat 151b We are all cogs on the ever-turning wheel. Time moves and we move along with it.  While the wheel revolves and is unchanging, the same is not true for us.

Long ago I heard the story of "Howard" who was given the task on introducing a speaker to a large audience.  Howard gave the speaker his time limitation and then added, "I'm a dying man.  Nothing will embarrass me, so if you go over four minutes I welcome up and grab you by the ear and drag you off the podium." When all is well and youthful blood courses our veins time is irrelevant.  As we grow older and the visage if the Angel of Death, Malekh Ha-Mavet, comes close time is most precious.  Maybe we can learn this lesson earlier in life.....  

Albert Schweitzer wrote in his memoirs, “ When I look back upon my early days, I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or what they were to me.     At the same time, I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I showed them while I was young.     How many of them said farewell to life without my having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame, said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, while he was still in the fle sh.”

There is an eternally revolving wheel called the "galgal ha-hozer." "God guides the Wheel with infinite force and perpetual motion, for the wheel revolves continually."  - Yesoday HaTorah

Rabbi Israel of Rizhin once asked a student how many sections there were in the Shulchan Arukh, the Code of Jewish Law.  The student replied, “Four.”  “What,” asked the Rizhiner, “do you know about the fifth section?”  But there is no fifth section,” said the student.  “There is,” said the Rizhiner.  “It says:  always treat a person like a Mensch.”

A Shtetl Jew came to the big city for the first time.  When everyone stared at him in his shabby clothes, he decided to buy a new suit.  He returned to the village and proudly put on his new suit but it did not fit. He rushed back to the tailor, and the merchant laughed at him.  “Of course, it doesn’t fit.  You put the new suit over your old clothes. You have to take off the old before you can put on the new.” – Rabbi Vernon Kurtz Change means discarding old habits.  It is difficult to do but necessary for real, lasting change.

“There’s a Zen story about a sermon of the Buddha in which he simply lifted a flower.  There was only one man who gave him a sign with his eyes that he understood what was said.”   -Joseph Campbell Beauty is not only to beheld but felt.

Christianity has made its peace with Original Sin. It has its own way of salvation. Jehovah's Witnesses have drawn out the series of predestination of Calvinism to the mathematical exactitude of predicting that precisely 184,000 saints will be saved and everybody else will be doomed. We Jews have resigned ourselves to the idea that e s iz shver tzu zein a yid .   - Rabbi Jacob Chinitz

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein reflected on the 55,000 fans who gathered at Shea Stadium for the seventh game of the World Series. When the game was over and the Mets were victorious, it was expected that the fans might riot, a debacle which had occurred after the seventh game of the Mets-Astros series. Yet after this game the fans stay passively in the stands, with no loss of life, or property. Had the fans of the New York Mets suddenly repented of wanton destruction? Had the great wickedness departed from humankind? Or had their wicked schemes simply been foiled by the mighty show of force of 700 riot police mounted on horseback?  -Rabbi Lionel Moses As the Mishna teaches, Rabbi Hanina said, "Pray for the welfare of the government for without it people who swallow on another up. "  (Avot 3:2)

“My life is spent in perpetual alternation between two rhythms, the rhythm of attracting people for fear that I may be lonely, and the rhythm of trying to get rid of them because I know I am bored.    - Philosopher, farmer C.E.M. Joad Here is the question of our days: Can we become less fickle and more consistent?

Barry Bailey asked his mother how her friend was doing.  “Son, she has been trying to die for years. Every time I see her or hear from her, she will say, ‘I'm so glad to see you Marguerite. I probably won't see you tomorrow because things are mighty bad. I don't know that I’ll be here.’ And then Bailey’s mother said, “If that woman ever worked as hard to live and she works to die, it’s amazing how she might have enjoyed life.”  -Barry Baily Can you make the most of this day? This week?  This life?

“And as his wristwatch ticked off the moments, he approached death knowing that the earth and every individual in on it, including himself, were merely a part of a larger cosmic machine whose motions  ever  regular and restless.”   -Alvin Toffler We are not alone.  The infinite machinery of  the universe grinds all around us.  We are a part of it.

“I never forgot about what I want to do,” said Kruk, who batted .316 last season and who in eight years in the majors has a career average of .300. “I never forgot about baseball. But my main focus was getting my radiation and killing the cancer. I think the Phillies even think that I’ve been working out every day, but the other day I was tired, I didn’t go. But it came to the point where even if my skills aren’t going to be a sharp when I come back, so be it. I’d rather hit .220 and live and hit .300 in cash it in at the end of the season.”

One day Rabbi Israel Odessa accidentally ate on  fast day.  So distraught was he that he wanted to kill himself.  He needed to decide how to do it....  He pulled a book from his shelf.  A letter fell out.  It was a letter from Rebbe Nachman which said, "Honor My name and I will honor yours." Pay attention.  He  still speaks.

Rebbe Moshe of Kobryn once looked at the Heavens and cried: "Angel, little angel!  It is no great trick to be an angel up there in the sky.  You don't have to eat and drink, beget children and earn money.  Just you come down to earth and worry about eating and drinking, about raising children and earning money, and we shall see if you keep on being an angel.  If you succeed, you may boast - but not now."  - Martin Buber Or as Albert Schweitzer said, "You don't have to be an angel ignored to be saint."

Swiss philosopher, Amiel, stated: "Every life is a profession of faith.  Everyman's conduct is an unspoken sermon that is forever preaching to others." What's your life's sermon about?

The teacher was giving a lesson in grammar, with particular reference to the position of the subject. -"Come children," he said, "who can give me a sentence with the word 'baby' as subject?" Little Aby shot out his hand. -"Well, Aby!" "My sister has got a husband." -"But what about the baby?" "Give her a chance, teacher.  She only got married last week!"  - Friday Nite Book

30 spokes share the wheel’s hub It is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; It is the holes which we can useful. Therefore profit comes from what is there; Usefulness from what is not there. -Lao Tzu

An 85-year-old woman from Kentucky was interviewed.  She was asked what had she learned from life.  She answered, “If I had to do it over, if I had my life to live over, I would dare make more mistakes next time. I would relax. I would be sillier.  I would take fewer things seriously... I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles than imaginary ones. You see, I’m one of those people who lived seriously and sanely day after day, hour after hour.  I’ve been one of those persons who never went anywhere without thermometer, a hot water bottle, raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I’d travel lighter."

A man man went to heaven behind Bernie.  He snored.  Continually .  Bernie complained,. ""What are you so upset about?  This is heaven." -"You'd never understand." "Most people give anything to be here." -"You don't understand.  All my life I got up at 5 am to jog 5 miles.  I ate healthy food.  I went to bed early.  I never smoked or drank.  I shouldn't be here!" Bernie went and asked God to give him another chance.  He was told that he would now get up at 11 and eat steak! - Bernie Siegel

A man is standing in line and he hears the woman behind him speaking on her cell phone in a foreign language.  When she ends the call the turns to her and says, "You are in America now, you should speak English or go back to where you came from."   She responds, "I was speaking Navajo.  I'm from here.  Why don't you go back to where you came from!"    -Rabbi Ahud Sela

A farmer and his son were driving to donkey to the market where they were going to sell him. They have not gone far on a group of bystanders shouted, “Aren’t you foolish to be trudging along on foot when one of you can be riding the donkey?” When the farmer heard this, he told his son to get on the donkey. And they went happily on the way until they do you encountered another group of bystanders. ”My, my!” said one of the men.  “Just look at that young fellow riding in comfort while this poor father has to walk.” ”Get off that donkey was lazy boy,” shouted another, “and let your father ride!” Right away, the son got off the donkey, his father taking his place. Before long they encountered yet another group of bystanders. "How can you ride when you’re poor tired child can hardly keep up with you?" So the farmer reached down, pulled his son up behind him onto the donkey’s back. Further down the road, there was another bystanders, probably from

“I don’t understand Yiddish…and any words I may have known as a child I have forgotten…I used to be Jewish, you know.” -“I used to be a hunchback.” “Isn’t it amazing,” exclaimed Rosenblatt in a glad cry, “how we’ve both been able to change.”  - Joseph Heller, “Good as Gold” Change is powerful, when it happens.   Yet, self-deceit is also possible when we convince ourselves of change when there has been little or none.

This is my prayer to You, my God: Let me not swerve from my life’s path, Let not my spirit wither and shrivel in its thirst for You and lose the dew With which you sprinkled it When I was young; Be my heart open To every broken thing, To orphan life To every stumbler Wandering unknown and Fumbling in the shadow. Bless my eyes, purified me to see Man’s beauty rise in the world, And my people’s grandeur In its land redeemed, Scattering its scent On all the earth. Deepen and broaden my senses To absorb a fresh Green flowering world, To take from them the secret Of the ferment in my blood. Grant strength to yield fine fruits, Quintessence of my life, Steeped in my very being, Without expectation of reward; Asking nothing from You, God. And when my time comes- Withdraw into the night's realm. -Hillel Bavli

“When God pushes you to the edge of difficulty, trust Him fully. Because two things can happen. Either He’ll catch you when you fall, or He’ll teach you how to fly.”

Several years before Abraham Joshua Heschel died his friend, Sam, visited him.  This is what he recalled: He had gotten out of bed for the first time to greet me and he was sitting in the living room when I arrived, looking weak and pale. He spoke slowly and with some effort, almost in a whisper. I strained to hear his words. ”Sam”, he said, “When I regained consciousness, my first feeling was not of despair or of anger. I felt only gratitude to God for my life, for every moment I have a lift. I was ready to depart, if need be. ‘Take me,  O Lord,’ I thought.  ‘I have seen so many miracles in my lifetime.’"  Exhausted by the effort, he paused, and then added: “This is what I meant when I wrote in the preface to my book of poems: I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. And You gave it to me.” - Rabbi Jack Reimer

Renoir suffered from intense rheumatic pain.  Day after day his friends old him to stop painting.  He could have relieved himself from great torture. He would then point to his masterpiece and say, “You see, the pain has passed - the beauty endures.” - Bernard Greenfield A great imprimatur for a more meaningful life - do not dwell on the pain, focus on the beauty.

"The righteous are called alive in death; while the wicked are called dead even when alive." - Berachot 18 Live a life that matters.  Take action today.

"We are taught: If a funeral  procession and a wedding procession meet at a crossroad, the funeral makes way for the wedding." - ketubot 17a We make room for joy.

" Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions." "You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks."   -  Winston Churchill  

Ben Zoma said: How hard the first man, Adam, must have labored before he could eat a piece of bread. He had to plow and sow and weed and hoe and reap and thresh, winnow and sift, grind, sift again, knead, moisten and bake. Only after all of this did he eat his bread.  I get in the morning and find the bread ready for me. What toil Adam had to do until he could be clothed with the simplest raiment. He had to shear, bleach, beat the wool, dye it, spin it, weave it, wash it, and sew it together, and only after all this was he clothed; whereas I get up and find all my clothes prepared for me.  How many workmen get up early and go late to rest! Whereas I get up in the morning and find all the things I need before me. - Talmud That is why we pray each morning for the gifts of clothes, limbs, eyes, relief and so much more.  These are the Morning Blessings, Birkot HaShachar .

"Fear is a reaction. Courage is it decision." - Winston Churchill

“The test of courage is not to die but to live.”   - Alfieri There are times when we feel exhausted and are ready to give up.  That is when the strength from God and our inner courage join to give us the fortitude to push onward.

As a gift, I received a dozen golf balls, each printed with my name-Tony Palmigiano. One day, while playing on the public course in Queens, New York, decided to use one of the balls. One of my drives off the tee sliced into the adjacent freeway. As I approached the spot, I saw a woman pick up my ball, look at it and slip it into her golf bag. When I politely informed her that the ball she had picked up belong to me, she immediately pulled it out and said, “Oh no! You see, I always play a Tony Palmigiano ball!”  Feeling like a pro, I walked away with a big smile on my face. A great person is one who refuses to embarrass another.

A rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants. The servant cried that he just encountered Death who threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse.   On returning to his house the master himself met Death, and questioned him, “Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?”  “I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I had planned to meet him tonight in Teheran,” said Death.   – Viktor Frankl There is no way to evade the inevitable.  Accept what is.

I will never forget the moment. It was years ago. I have been invited to a banquet at which the guest of honor was Menachem Begin. It was a very special moment because it was Begin's first visit to Washington as Prime Minister of Israel. Mr. Begin was in a mellow, nostalgic mood. He began to reminisce on how far he had come in life to being prime minister of the Jewish state, how we had witnessed the death of his father and brother at the hand of the Nazis, how he had been imprisoned by the Soviet authorities, how he have been hunted by the British in Palestine, how Ben-Gurion have rejected him as a partner in Israel’s government, how election after election he and his party had lost. And now he was in the prologue. And with tears in his eyes, he turned to his wife, Aliza, and quoted the Prophet Jeremiah in saying Zacharti Lach Chesed Nu’urayich - “I remember the kindness of your youth.”   He was a big man now, but not too big to remember all that his wife had been through with hi

In the concentration camp, it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.” – Viktor Frankl This is life as it really is.

There is a story of three fellows who are considering what they would want to do if the doctor told each one that he had six months to live. The first fellow says, “If my doctor said I had only six months to live, the first thing I would do would be to liquidate my business, withdraw my savings, and have the biggest fling on the French Riviera you ever saw. I’d play roulette, eat like a king, and most of all, I’d have girls, girls, and more girls.”  The second fellow says, “If my doctor said I had only six months to live, the first thing I would do would be to visit the travel agency and plot out an itinerary. There are 1000 places on earth I haven’t seen, and I would like to see them all before I die: the Grand Canyon, the Taj Mahal, Angor Wat, all of them.  And the third fellow says, “Vell, if my doctor said I only had six months to live, the first thing I vould do vould be to consult another doctor.”  - Isaac Asimov Moral: Never give up hope.

“Life is not a problem to be solved.   Life is a story to be lived.” – Leo Buscaglia

“We overlook the essential fact that the achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of a diminution of personality. Many aspects of life which should have been experienced lie in the lumber room of dusty memories.”  - Carl Jung Live life.

Arriving for a visit, the woman asked her small granddaughter, “Megan, how do you like your new baby brother?” “Oh, he’s all right,” the child shrugged.  “But there were things we needed worse.” From an early age our ego, looks to be fed.  As we grow, we continue to feed the beast or tame it.

Eugenia, a woman who lived all her life in the hill country of West Virginia, made her first trip to a big city at the age of 70.  When she arrived she got her first look at the skyscrapers, she couldn’t believe her eyes. It was like a dream- a wondrous magical fairyland.  Her friend Hattie met her in the lobby of a big hotel and after Eugenia had been registered, the two women stood in front the elevator with shiny, brass sliding doors. Eugenia watched in amazement as the magical doors parted, revealing a compartment lined with mirrors.  She trembled as she watched a tired old man who must have been in his 80’s shuffle into the compartment.  She wondered what was happening to him as she watched the lights over the door blinking on and off: one…two…three…four…five.  Then the blinking stopped.  But soon it began again: five…four…three...two…one. And once again those magical doors opened and out came a young man with a spring in his step and the look of a GQ model.  Eugenia seemed bot

Midrash Sifre Devarim shares the tale of a group of rabbis who were at a banquet held in honor of the nasi Rabban Gamliel in honor of his son.  Rabban Gamliel made a point of preparing and serving the wine himself, which one of the subordinate rabbis refused, not wanting to compromise the stature of the nasi.  His colleague, Rabbi Yehohsua responded, “Let him serve.  After all, Abraham, our father, one of the great ones of the world, served the ministering angels when he thought they were merely passersby… If Abraham served those whom he thought were idolaters shouldn’t Gamliel serve us?” Rabbi Zadok went further: “You have ignored God’s honor in order to deal with the honor of flesh and blood. If the One who spoke and the world came into being causes winds to blow, brings up clouds, brings down rain and raises vegetation, thus setting the table for everyone, should not Gamliel serve us?” Give it to Him Who deserves our awe and respect.

The story is told of Moshe Rabbenu, who had one day approached God with a request for one of the three keys which He himself always kept. These are the keys for rain, food and creation. Moshe continued to pester the Almighty with his request, so finally tiring of him, God said, “All right Moses what do you want?” He replied, “One of Your keys.” God answered, “But Moshe, you know I keep these keys for myself. The key of creation is for me and for me alone. Rain I must carefully administer as I pledged never to flood the earth again with the covenant of the rainbow. But since you are My best prophet I shall entrust you with my key for food for one month only."  At the end of the month, Moses approached God and said, “See Almighty! All of your people are well fed. I gave each and everyone more than enough and now they're happy and satisfied.” To this God replied, “Moshe, look at that palm tree to your right. Moses turned in approached it. ”Do you see that rock? Pick it

“Tomorrow we shall meet, Death and I- And he shall thrust his sword Into one who is wide awake. But in the meantime how grievous the memory of hours frittered away.”  - Dag Hammarskjold

A Russian Jew is being interviewed on arriving in Israel. "What did you think of the food in Russia?" "I can't complain." "What did you think of the lifestyle?" "I can't complain." "What did you think of the architecture?" "I can't complain." "Then why did you leave and come to Israel?" "Because here I can complain!" -Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins

"Half a truth is a whole lie." "When you add to truth you subtract from it." - Sam Levenson

He was a high school teacher for 27 years and used to ask his students to bring stories from their families, and this is one of them.  This fellow in the story was kind of a pest and when the blacksmith saw him coming he put a hot horseshoe on top of the pile.  The fellow came into the shop and dropped it quickly.  "Was it too hot?" the blacksmith asked.  "No," the fellow said. "It just doesn't take me long to a a horseshoe." It is remarkable how often we deflect from the truth.  Even little "white lies" ebb away at our soul.  They steal something invaluable from us.

When I was young I was taught being Jewish meant: You don’t cross picket lines, You work for peace, You fight for social justice, You never forget the suffering of your people as a link to the suffering of others.”  - Sabrina Virgo While  this is true  Judaism  so much more vast than this.

Rabbi Hayim of Sanz had this to say about fraudulent charity collectors: “The merit of charity s so great that I am happy to give to one hundred beggars even if only one might be needy.  Some people, however, act as if they are exempt from giving charity to one hundred beggars in the event that one might be a fraud.”

American Jews are “the only ethnic group who earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto-Ricans.” – Milton Himmelfarb

A man goes to a rabbi and says, "Make me a Levi." "I cannot," said the rabbi. "Make me a Levi," he insisted. "I will pay you any price." "I cannot," repeated the rabbi. "I will give you $500,00!" "I can't." "One million," he upped. The rabbi, exasperated, said, "I will look into it." The rabbi then went to his ritual committee to get their advice.  There was much consideration and argumentation before deciding to just give him the second aliya. The rabbi returned to the man and asked, "Why do you want to be Levi anyway?" "Well, my father was a Levi as was his father.  I want to be one too." It is an entertaining tale which reminds us, be an educated Jew.

" We can complain that rose bushes have thorns or we can rejoice that thorn bushes have roses." Abraham Lincoln

"The aggaddic teachings draw the heart. " -Shabbat 87a What the Talmud is saying is that a story touches the soul in a powerful way that words cannot.  This may be true because our lives are stories --- and when we hear a tale it is as if we lived it.

Ringo Starr, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charklemagne, Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and Jack the Ripper were all left-handers, southpaws.  "Southpaws, sinistrals, port-siders, lefties.  Editor H.L. Mencken traced the word southpaw to Chicago sportswriters int he late 19th center who used it while writing about the city's west-side ballpark.  Pitchers faces west into the setting sun, so that their left arms were to the south." - Kiwanis Magazine