A Soulful Journey

A vinu , grow our love for You daily.  Avvinu, help us to love each other unconditionally. Avinu, allow us to respect one another in an empowering way.  Avinu, teach us how to complete each other, building us into one unit You design.  Avinu, rid our hearts from grudges or bitterness towards one another, teaching us to forgive readily and extend grace continually.  Av HaRachamim, let us encourage each other to achieve the dreams you give us individually and jointly.  Avinu Sh’ba’shamyim, keep us humble, placing each other’s needs ahead of our own.  Avinu Sh’ba’shamyim, guard our hearts from selfishness and self-centered desires.  Av HaRachmim, protect our marriage from the destruction of outside influences.  Avinu, make our commitment deeper than our emotions, stronger than the seasons of change and the trials which will come our way. 

"Faith is only real when it is not one-sided but reciprocal. One can only rely on God if God can rely on the individual." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

Source of Peace, Master of Shalom, grant peace to Your people  Israel. Let the Shalom spread to all Your creatures and let there be an end to hatred, jealousy, competition between people. Let there only be great love and shalom between us all so that we can gather together each person with their fellow speaking to each other, learning the truth from each other. adapted from Rebbe Nachman

A rabbi visited Israel.  A new neighborhood was being built near Haifa.  He noticed that a person was busy making a door for his home. This person was not a carpenter, or someone who possessed building skills.  The rabbi asked whether the apartment was built so poorly that the door needed to be replaced so soon.  The man explained that the building was contracted so that each apart was to be finished without a front door.  In that way each new owner was free to design his own door and install himself, representing the individuality of the new owner. We have been doing this since Torah times.  It is called a mezzuza .

“There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.”   – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel  

"Their [the Jews] destiny is too imbued with the “metaphysical” to be explained either by material or positive historical terms… Its survival is a mysterious and wonderful phenomenon demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by special predetermination… The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolutely peculiar conditions and the fateful role played by them in history; all these point to the particular and mysterious foundations of their destiny…" ~ Nicholai Berdyaev    I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation…They are the most glorious nation to ever inhabit this earth…They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind, more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.   ~ John Adams This is your heritage.

If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of smoke lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning, are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all ages: and has done it with his hands tied behind him.   All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?     ~ Mark Twain

“Sometimes people are terribly distressed but have no one to whom they unburden themselves.  If you come along with a happy face, you cheer them and give them new life…Wear a smile.  The gift of life will be yours to give.”   - Rebbe Nachman

“Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.” – Albert Schweitzer

This is a city never indifferent to the sky. The evenings often feel like Kol Nidre nights… The Sabbath finds it hard to go away… - Abraham Joshua Heschel

“O God, to whom we come so often with needs to be satisfied, we come to You now in gratitude for what we already have and are…”- Rabbi Milton Steinberg   Thank You.

From a distance We all have enough and no one is in need. There are no gins, no bombs, no diseases, No hungry mouths to feed. From a distance We are instruments marching in a common band; Playing songs of peace, They are songs of everyman. God is watching us. God is watching us. God is watching us. From a distance.  – Gael Gold  

 Part of being a wisdom keeper is being a keeper of a vision, a dream, a hope.  The Hopi Indians have a philosophy that gives them an inner strength to overcome life's obstacles and prejudices.  They speak of the "dream catcher," a symbolic net hung in their homes.  Into this net fly their dreams, they hopes and aspirations.  They believe that unrealistic or unattainable visions pass through the net.  Only those dreams that have realizable hopes that can be achieved are caught and remain inside. Never stop dreaming, imagining what you can do or become.  You are more in potential than actualized.

"I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a terrible nightmare.  Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man.  Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do.  At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.”  ~ Viktor Frankl Sometimes nightmares are less frightening than reality.