A Soulful Journey

  "Once the pay has passed, the sacrifice has become null."  - Talmud, Berachot 26a While this passage refers to the sacrifices in the Temple times being done at the specified hour -- and if it was not performed then, there was no further opportunity to do it - - it reminds us of the preciousness of each moment.  If there is a word that needs to be spoken, a need that must be met, do not procrastinate for the moment will be gone.

Ben Azzai teaches: “Don’t be despising/scornful / Al   t’hi baz to any person/adam, and don’t be rejecting / v’al t’hi maflig   to any thing/davar, for you don’t have a person who does not have his  hour, and you don’t have a thing that does not have its place.” (4:3) Here is the moral: Everyone has their place and every person has their moment. Make some space. Let someone become who they need to be.

 "Nostalgia is like sex: Every generation thinks it is for the first time."  - Michael Barries What is important is to dwell in this moment.  To be present.  This moment will never return.  It is.

"There are moments that conceal eternities.”   - Ehrenpreis, Soul of the East Be awake.  Be aware.  Be alive.  No w.

Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide, In the strife of truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God’s new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,  And the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.  Though the cause of evil prosper, yet ‘tis truth alone is strong Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown  S tandeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.    James Russell Lowell "There is no person who does  not  have their hour and no thing that does not have its place."  - Pirkay Avot 4:2 Could this be your moment?

The chief Rabbi came to see President Truman and told him, “God put you in your mother’s womb so that you could be the instrument to bring about the rebirth of Israel after 2,000 years.” Truman cried as he listened to his words. Shortly afterward Truman died. One never knows if for this moment we were created.

"The prophets did not teach us morality.  They taught us to be sensitive and upset about Him. "  - Abraham Joshua Heschel. If only we were less concerned with the distractions of the moment, like a child with his toys, and more focussed on God....

"Sleep's overrated.  You get all the sleep you need after you die."  - Charles Whittingham Carpe Diem.

A Hadassah president died.  She was taken to hell, by mistake.  God then asked the Satan to forward the woman but he responded, “Wait a little bit. This woman, a lifelong member of Ort as well as Hadassah is in the middle of a fundraising campaign for air conditioning." Everyone has their place.  Everyone has their hour.  Cherish them.