A Soulful Journey

Robin Norwood, in “Women who Love Too Much,” tells the story of a man, divorced and remarried, who sitting alone at home one Sunday afternoon watching the football game. He was alone because his wife and stepdaughter had learned that he was happier with them out of the house so he could watch the game in peace. Midway through the third quarter, the phone rang.  He got up to answer it, annoyed that he had to interrupt the game because there was no one else in the house to get the phone. It turned out to be his brother, calling to tell him their father had just died and he would have to come home for the funeral. He had never been terribly close to his father, but at a time like that he had no choice but to go home.  A few days later, during shivah, his brother said to him, “Isn’t it strange to be back in the old house again and nothing has changed except that dad isn’t sitting over there watching television?” - Rabbi Harold Kushner Life life a if each moment is o...

" Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions." "You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks."   -  Winston Churchill  

Rabbi Mendel Futerfas, who spent many years in a Siberian gulag, tells how he learned a great lesson from a tightrope walker who was also imprisoned there. The rabbi asked the tightrope walker what is the secret to his art. "What does one need to master? Balance? Stamina? Concentration?" The tightrope walker's answered surprised him: "The secret is always keeping your destination in focus. You have to keep your eyes on at the other end of the rope, and that's how you get there is a straight line, without wavering. But do you know what the hardest part is?" "When you get to the middle?" the rabbi ventured. "No," said the tightrope walker. "It's when you make the turn. Because for a fraction of a second, you lose sight of your destination. When you don't have sight of your destination that is when you are most likely to fall."   -Simon Jacobson Do not be distracted by what is around you.  It is just n...

Shalom Abramovich, the Yiddish writer who created the figure Mendele Mocher Seforim, would write long letters filled with trivia.   At the conclusion, he would wrote, “I left out the most important thing I intended to say.”   -Israel Jacobs In the midst of tale telling it is easy to become distracted.   Stay the course.   Remember the point.

A British writer once wrote a satire which characterizes so many people’s attitudes towards their house of worship.   In the Screwtape Letters , he tells this satirical story: The devil sent emissaries to earth.   One of them is charged to keep touch with a certain person and to deliver him safely to hell.   His job is to encourage this man in wrongdoing.   One day Satan’s emissary writes a special-delivery letter to him.   He is failing in his mission.   His charge has joined the church.   The devil wrote back and told him not to worry if he joined the church.   This is what to do.   Every time he comes to services, don’t let him listen to the preaching or the prayers; turn his attention to all the unimportant things.   Let him observe, for example, that the usher is a hypocrite; that the officers are no good; that some people are sleeping; or that the lady in the next pew is wearing a hat that is not becoming. ...

“ Down to Gehenna or up to the throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone ,” penned Rudyard Kipling. The surest way to achieve a goal is to be focused, undistracted.  Allowing yourself to be moved from the goal may cause the intensity of the search to be derailed or even lost.

“With that nut in Russia polluting the air with all kinds of fancy fallout, no one has time to check the veracity of any statement made by anyone about anything.” – Groucho Marx in Memories It is easy to obfuscate.   Just try weaving together several disparate thoughts and listeners will walk away wagging their heads in despair.   Politicians do it all the time.   But to relate to, and with, others takes focus.

A story is told of the dames Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev. When it cam time for the soul of Rabbi Levi to enter into this world as a physical being, the Satan came to the Heavenly Court with a complaint. "This Levi Yitzchak will be so holy, so compassionate and so truthful that all my efforts will be in vain. It is not fair that such a man should be born!" The Tribunal consoled him saying, "Do not worry. Levi Yitzchak will be a rabbi. He will have so many demands on him, there will be so much to worry about, that you will have plenty of chances to do your work."