A Soulful Journey

In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of anger, do not answer anyone’s letter.  – Chinese proverb Emotions and deliberate thought to dot always corroborate one anther.  Think first,  Then do.

“You learn Torah best when the material you study touches your heart.”   -Avodah Zarah 19a Perhaps that is the real goal of earnest study; to allow oneself to be moved.

Rav Soloveitchik made this statement:    “My father, may his memory be a blessing, practiced what he preached.   Never did I once have the privilege of being kissed by him.   When he would take leave of me he would shake my hand and say: ‘Go in peace and may God be with you’.” How do you bless the people you love?

“There ain’t nothing sweeter than naked emotion. You show me yours And I’ll show you mine.” – Kris Kristofferson How wonderful life would be if we gave up our mask and revealed the real us.   Or would it?

Give us (cries the nature of our race) our gods and goddesses; Give us the little fertility icons with their welcoming breasts And elongated beckoning lips… The philosophers leave the world naked and blind and deaf and mute and relentlessly indifferent, And the village folk – who refuse a lonely cosmos without consolation – Fill it and fill it and fill it With stone and wood and birds and animals and mammals And miraculous potions and holy babes and animate carcasses And magically divine women and magically divine men….   Cynthia Ozick in essay on Ruth