A Soulful Journey

“One could have the brain of Einstein, the shrewdness of Barney Baruch, and the wisdom of Thoreau, but without Lady Luck in your corner you might just as well stay you to room and turn on the gas.”  - Groucho Marx Groucho was right about needing luck but wrong about giving up when we fail.

“Frank believed that five was his special number.  He was born on May 5, had five children, and lived at 555 East 55 Street.  At the track on his 55 th birthday, he was surprised to find a horse named Numero Cinco running in the fifth race. So five minutes before the race, he went to the fifth window and put five thousand down on Numero Cinco. Sure enough, the horse came in fifth.”  - William Novack and Moshe Waldocks Luck is just that, luck.

Prodigious twelfth century scholar Abraham Ibn Ezra produced incredible Torah insights that still provide illumination hundreds of years after his death.     Yet, Ibn Ezra was an unhappy man.   He wrote, “If I sold shrouds no one would die.   And if I sold lamps the sun would shine by night.”      While we are obliged to keep learning and growing, equally important is our daily attitude. 

In the seventeenth century Italian violinists were known to keep toads in their violin cases.   Just before a concert these violinists would pull out their toad and stroke it for good luck.   There was a superstition that the toad would keep their hands dry and enable the musician to not slip during their performance. Wisdom or ignorance?   According to herpetologists, toads secrete alkaloids which dries out human skin. Sometimes it is good to be open and not dismissive of things that seem wrong.   We still have a lot to learn.   It is good to be humble.