A Soulful Journey

  If I hadn’t lifted the shard off the ground, would you have found a precious stone underneath? - Yevamot 92b Look.  Examine. Think. Explore. There is more than you think.  Always.

"Improve yourself before you go about improving others."  - Baba Metzia 107b It is easy criticize, far more difficult to be self-critical.

“I have slept very well without Freud.”   -Marc Chagall Do not be over-critical or too analytical of yourself.   Don’t worry others will do that for you.

Once Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon was coming from Migdal Gedor, from the house of his teacher. He rode along the riverside on his donkey, and was feeling happy and elated because he had studied much Torah. There chanced to meet him an exceedingly ugly man, who greeted him, "Peace be upon you, my master!" Rabbi Elazar did not return his salutation but instead said to him, "How ugly this person is! Are all the people of your city as ugly as you?" "I do not know," said the man. "But go to the craftsman who made me, and say to him: How ugly is the vessel which you have made!" Realizing that he had done wrong, Rabbi Elazar dismounted from his donkey, prostrated himself before the man, and said to him, "You are right. Forgive me!" But the man replied, "I will not forgive you until you go to the craftsman who made me and say to him, 'How ugly is the vessel which you have made.'"   -Ta’anit 20a

Stephen Decatur, US Naval Officer and hero, wrote, "My country, may she always be in the right, but my country right or wrong." Half a century later, Carl Schurz, friend of Abraham Lincoln and Civil War hero, wrote, "My country, may she always be in the right! When right to be kept right, When wrong to set right." There is much to be learned from these statements about how we live our personal lives.  Do we justify our actions?  Or critically look at them and expunge what is not good?

Be like God and don't look for 
 people's shortcomings and 
 weak points. You will then be at 
 peace with everyone. 
  -  Rebbe Nachman, The Empty Chair