A Soulful Journey

"Praise has  increasingly become  one of the times on the lengthy list of modern entitlements, part of the revolution of rising psychological expectations."   -Joseph Epstein, "Once More Around the Block"

In the Talmud, Tractate Shabbat (31a), Rava tells us that when we are brought for judgment in the next world, we are asked several questions: “Were you honest in business? Did you set aside time for study? Did you engage in procreation?” “Did you hope for salvation?” Never, never give up.

“Still obsessed by thoughts of death, I brood constantly.  I keep wondering if there is an afterlife, and if there is, will they be able to break a twenty? - Woody Allen Isn’t odd how much we worry about the inevitable instead of focusing on what we can change?

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.” -Abraham Joshua Heschel

“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle… The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.”   -Albert Einstein

There’s a story about the expert in political science and foreign affairs who was asked to sum up the situation in Israel in one word.  He thought about it for a while, and finally said, “Good.” Then he was asked, “All right, if you had one more word, if you were asked to sum up the situation in two words, what would you say? So he thought about it for a while, and then he said, “Not good.”    -Rabbi Carl Perkins

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