Messages That Inspire


Anxiety and Faith

In the past year I was diagnosed with a condition called Generalized Anxiety Disorder. This condition makes me extremely nervous and causes terrible panic attacks. I have extremely strong prescription medication to control the anxiety, and I have to carry tablets with me at all times. However, even the drugs don't control the anxiety.
More recently, things have worsened, and my problems with anxiety have progressed into depression. I have to take antidepressants as well as anti-anxiety drugs every day, and I see a psychologist regularly. None of this has helped. If anything, I'm getting worse, rather than better.
This makes me question the existence of G‑d. If there is a real G‑d, then He cannot possibly be just, as Judaism claims. I have never harmed anyone. I have never done anything that would make me deserving of such bad health problems. I have never killed anybody. I'm not a violent person. I help people when I can. Basically, I'm a good person. I've done NOTHING WRONG.
This leads me to one of two possibilities:
1) There is no God.
2) There is a God, but His moral compass is so screwed up that He would have trouble locating a parking lot. In which case, I don't want to follow him.
So, back to my original question. I want out, I don't want to be part of the Jewish religion anymore. It's done nothing for me. How do I get out?
-D______


Response:
Dear -D_____,
I know what anxiety and panic is. It's ugly. I have seen it wreck promising lives. I have also seen it conquered and vanquished. And I know that to win against anxiety, psychotropics are not enough. Anxiety can only be overcome with a deep and mighty sense of faith.
Faith has become a dirty word. Perhaps we should use another: Conviction. A deep, inner conviction that a howling arctic wind could not sway. It is a gift we have by inheritance, passed down since Abraham, selected and honed over hundreds of generations. It has carried us on eagle's wings through the worst of times to be the proud, indestructible nation we are today. For you to reject that conviction now is equivalent to a sick man refusing to swallow his medicine because of an ache in his throat.
Let's separate two issues: G‑d and your faith in Him. G‑d does not need your approval to be who He is. Abandoning Him changes nothing—just as a created being cannot fathom its Creator, so it cannot affect Him. Whether or not you have faith in Him can only change you, your state of health and where your life is heading.
You especially need to hear this, because the words you write to me are those of the passive victim. Nothing is more conducive to anxiety than a sense of helplessness, as though you were riding the passenger seat through life. The first step to conquer anxiety must be to take the reins of your life back into your own hands.
Reaffirming your own inner conviction does just that. It says, "I don't care how things look and what the world appears to be doing to me. I know with all my heart and soul that there is a Director of All Things who holds my hand, who knows my soul from the inside and leads me through life in the way that is best for me. I may not have the slightest inkling of how any of this is for my benefit, but I do not need to understand for it to work. I only need to hold tight and keep moving ahead."
As soon as you have done that, you have taken the driver's console into your hands. You leave the highway up to Him and deal sensibly with each incident as it comes along. You have a partnership; you are not alone. And when the panic swells, creeps or jumps out at you , you smile back and say, "This too shall pass"—and it does. And then you keep trucking along.
Of course, you can always choose to go it alone. You can believe the universe to be a big, hostile monster with you, the lonely and innocent victim swallowed up inside. But if you want to survive and make good of all the talents and opportunities G‑d has given you, pull out from under the covers the faith you have in your heart, inherited from the generations before you: That the Essence of All Reality is good, and that you are intimately related to that essential good, and that therefore, whether you can perceive so or not, everything that befalls you is for the good.
Choose life.
--
--Rabbi Tzvi Freeman for Chabad.org

   

A Taste of Heaven


The surrounding world changes extremely quickly.  Shabbat has never been as vital as it is today.  If we don't want to go absolutely nuts at some point, we must shut ourselves off from cell phones and computers at least one day a week.  Shabbat helps us to leave the slavery of technology for 25 hours every single week.

Shabbat is a taste of The World To Come.  How so?  Six days of work are part and parcel of This World where we can do and undo things, make mistakes and correct them, hurt people and make up for it.  It is s world of action where anything is possible and where we have multiple chances to repair all the wrongs we've done -- as long as we breathe.  When the time comes to leave this world, the souls drops its body like a worn-out and no longer needed clothing and moves on to the next part of her journey -- a place where no action is possible and only reflection and analysis are available as tools.  In this other place called Olam HaBa (the World to Come), the soul suddenly sees her entire bodily life in its true light and realizes how things could've been done differently, when certain words should or shouldn't have been said, when she should've been more compassionate and where she should've stood her ground.  All the unrealized opportunities stare her in the 'face' and she feels deep regret for having missed them -- but it's too late.  NOTHING can be changed at this point.

What is a Shabbat on a most fundamental physical level?  It is a day when we can't do certain things, and other things we should do in a slightly altered fashion.  Viewed ONLY in this light it seems like a day of prohibitions and darkness, devoid of any joy.  But there is a hidden aspect of Shabbat which is really not a secret, but which reveals itself over time and yields its treasures only to those who are first able to obey the simple command of 'not doing' some things on this day.

All of the things that can't be done during Shabbat must be prepared beforehand -- food cooked, packages opened, light in main areas turned on, heater/cooler activated, timers set, refrigerator light bulb turned off, etc.  We enter Shabbat mentally ready to spend it with what we've been able to complete by candle-lighting time.  If we forgot to cook or buy some foods, we'll have to do without.  If the refrigerator bulb hasn't been turned off, we won't be able to take the food out of fridge or put it back in.  One mistake like that would be enough to learn from as its very embarrassing to have guests and not be able to feed them.  And so we learn to be careful, to plan ahead and be on top of things because we can't be slack about Shabbat observance once we've committed to it -- this is not a game, this is for real.

Every Shabbat teaches us to make the most out of six work days, and to enter it as fully prepared as possible.  This way we can learn to stop thinking about things that need to be done and concentrate on the true essence of Shabbat -- which is to learn to feel and understand what it's like to live in a place/time where everything is taken care of. And it's up to every one of us to make that wonderful time/space bubble as meaningful and fulfilling as possible.  On Shabbat we reap the fruits of our weekday labor.  In Olam HaBa our soul reaps the results of lifelong work.

Every Shabbat gives me an opportunity and a renewed chance to get better at it.  And with this experience comes realization that I must work just as hard on all aspects of my character in order to enter Olam HaBa in joy, rather than in shame -- in other words, with my potential fully realized and all the opportunities worked through.

Shabbat is my mirror, it's a reflection of my inner state of being.  If all the storms of the week continue raging in my heart on Shabbat, and I rerun the unfinished thoughts and conversations in my head -- this is not Shabbat.

The true Shabbat rest is the hardest thing to achieve but it's the sweetest to experience.  Like everything else, it needs to be learned.  Saturday turns into Shabbat only when the spiritual threads of Creation and our Exodus from Egypt are connecting to it, when we catch the glimpse of the mystery of existence.

On Shabbat something otherworldly has to make its appearance in our soul, if only for a fleeting moment.  If that didn't happen, Shabbat didn't happen either.

This day is our living and caring teacher.  It shows us how to get a glimpse of the Olam HaBa by performing very mundane and physical things.  Shabbat is an interface between the two worlds on an individual level, just like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is an interface between the two worlds on a global level.

We can 'time/space' travel between these two worlds 52 times a year for many, many years.  Hashem is truly kind for giving us this gift.  We should grab this mitzvah and never let go off it -- it's our most prized possession.

By Chaya Sara Lamm
_________________


 An IDF soldier tells of a miracle that happened to him.
Two days ago when we went into the field, I asked my commander if I could take some sweets with me into Gaza that civilians sent us from all over the country and he agreed. I took a package of chocolate filled cookies. After a day and a half of fighting with minimal amounts of food, we were enclosed in a house and I recalled that I had cookies packed with my gear. I opened up the box and saw a note in it from a young kid. It was written in exactly these words: "I know that you are protecting me, and this is a small token of my appreciation to you. I am still young, but I have one request, that you say a blessing over the food". The secular soldier did not know how to make a blessing over the food, but another soldier there who was his friend and was religious was in another corner of the house. The soldier crawled towards his religious friend to ask him what blessing to say and how to say it. When he was done saying the blessing, there was a HUGE explosion. An RPG rocket was shot and exploded exactly in the place he had been just a moment before crawling to his friend. The soldier was wounded, but only with a few minor scratches. The soldier broke out with a heartfelt cry.
 
_
 
I received a phone call from "A," one of the Iron Dome commanders who was a student of mine about 6 years ago. I was glad he called. "Where can a person learn Torah in Ramat Gan?" He asked me leaving me baffled being that he was far from Torah and mitzvot. "I'm going to be released in a couple of months, and I want to learn in a Yeshiva - I saw the Almighty with my own eyes!" He said, nothing more and nothing less. "What happened?" I asked him. "A Missile was fired from Gaza.... The Iron Dome can detect where the missile is going to fall within a 200 meter radius. This particular Missile was heading to the Azrieli Towers, or to the railroad tracks. Either way, hundreds could have paid with their lives!
We sent the first "dome" and it missed. Then the second as well as the third dome missed, this is a very rare occurrence. To date, only two other such cases occurred. I was in shock! We had four seconds until there is no way back and the missile would hit. We had already informed and dispatched emergency services, the police and the fire department, to the location." Then the commander spoke excitedly as I kept on listening. "Suddenly, without any preliminary design from the Iron Dome system (which calculates the possible wind currents, etc.) a strong eastern wind blew - a wind that we have no idea where it came from and cast the missile right into the sea. We were all in shock!!! I stood up and started screaming 'There is a G-d'! 'There is a G-d!' 'There is a G-d'!!! I saw this miracle with my own eyes. No one told me about it, it was not reported to me. I saw the Hand of Hashem fling the missile into the sea!
Of course this was not reported for security reasons, but it's enough to witness the miracles with our own eyes to know there is Hashem (G-d). I ran to one of the religious soldiers and asked him to put on tefillin. I took it upon myself to keep Shabbat, and that was the very best Shabbat I have ever had." This is what he told me. I was so excited that it even brought a tear to my eye. "Ashrecha" (praiseworthy are you) I said to him, "that you merited to witness this incident and to understand that it's from Hashem (G-d)!"
________
 
The father of a Chayal (Israeli soldier) who is now in Gaza told how his son was informed on Friday that his unit will not be going home for Shabbos, which was a problem because they did not have any provisions for Shabbos.

The father ran to the supermarket to buy some things, as much dips and salads as he could, then he stopped at the schwarma place in Petach Tikva. He asked for a portion to be put into an aluminum tray and explained that it was for his son who is in Gaza without food for Shabbos. The owner said to him "what do you mean for your son? How many soldiers are in his group?" The father answered "70" The Schwarma place owner called all of his workers. They prepared all the schwarma they had, brought out all of their meat, fried schnitzels, prepared Moroccan salads and chips and within an hour he and all of his workers had emptied the entire restaurant and given it over to the father. The father, a religious guy who has seen Chesed (kindness) in his life, just stood there crying and thanking him.
 
 
 
YOU ARE PART OF THE STORY  !
 
 

 

The Not-thing
What is G-d?

Question
Somewhere along the way, I misplaced G‑d. The other day I realized that I hadn't seen G‑d in quite a while--probably not since childhood. And it's not just that I can't find G‑d--I also seem to have lost my sense of what G‑d is... Why did this happen? If I had Him when I was a child, why shouldn't I have Him now?
Answer
You've got one clue, but you missed the other. It has to do with your language. Call it "thing-fixation."
That's probably the main disaster of your childhood --not being weaned, not leaving behind pampers for underpants, not sitting in a desk in first grade --but when you learned about things.
The entire world has been reduced in our minds to a mass junkyard of thingy stuff. So even G‑d gets defined as a thing...I don't mean, "you learned about things of the world." I mean, you learned the idea of things. You learned that the world is made of stuff, objects, material goomp that's just "out there". Later in life, you started running after those things, accumulating them, amassing more and more mounds of things to fill your home, your backyard and your driveway. By now, the entire world has been reduced in your mind to nothing but a mass junkyard of thingy stuff. So even G‑d gets defined as a thing --and you're trying to find the place where He fits. Because, after all, all things fit in places.
When you woke up to life as a small child, it wasn't like that. There were no things. There was just the experience of being. Of sensing, of living, of breathing and doing. Screaming, nursing, burping. Those were all real. Those are life. Things are not real. Things are fiction. They don't exist. We made them up.
The Birth of Thinginess
How did things come to be? Here's my catch on it.
In the beginning, there were no things. All of humankind knew life as does a small child, even as they grew older and wiser. But then someone got it into his head to draw pictures of all the stuff he had. Eventually, pictures became glyphs, a nifty device for esoteric communication. Glyph-lovers--such as the cult-priests of ancient Egypt--created thousands of glyphs to represent all the stuff Pharaoh was accumulating. Soon the idea seeped into the spoken language, as well: the idea of a "thing"--a static snapshot of a distinct whateveritis in a frozen moment of time. Stuff was born. And the world was never again the same.
In Hebrew, verbs ruleEvidence? Because in ancient, biblical Hebrew, there is no word for stuff. Or thing. Or object or anything similar. In raw, primal Hebrew, you don't say, "Hey, where's that thing I put over here?" You say, "Where is the desired(chefetz) that I put here?" You don't say, "What's that thing?" --you say, "What's that word?" That's the closest you can get to the idea of thing: a word. All of reality is made of words. Look in the creation story: The whole of heaven and earth is nothing but words.
In languages like English, nouns are the masters and verbs are their slaves, with adjectives and associated forms dancing about to serve them. In Hebrew, verbs rule. Biglittlewisefoolishkingpriesteye,ear--all of these sound like things, but in Hebrew they are forms of verbs. In fact, according to Rabbi Yeshayahu Horowitz (1560?-1630), author of the classic Shnei Luchot HaBrit, everything in Hebrew is really a verb. Everything is an event, a happening, a process --flowing, moving, never static. Just like when you were a small child.1
In Hebrew, there is not even a present-tense. There are participles, but the idea of a present tense only arose later. In real Hebrew, nothing ever is--all is movement.
That fits, because Hebrew was not written in glyphs. Hebrew was the first language we know of to be written with symbols that represent sounds, not things. With the Hebrew alphabet--the mother of all alphabets--you don't see things, you see sounds. Even the process of reading is different: when you read glyphs, the order doesn't matter so much. You just sort of look and everything is there. Even modern Chinese glyphs can be written in any direction. With an alphabet, sequence is everything. Nothing has meaning standing on its own. Everything is in the flow.
Get The Flow
Things are not real. Things are fiction. They don't exist. We made them up.The flow is real. Things are not real. Ask a physicist: the more we examine stuff--what they call matter--we see that it's not there. All that's really there is events: waves, vibrations, fields of energy. Life is a concert, not a museum.
Think of writing music, as opposed to painting a portrait. The portrait artist stands back and beholds his art, his still rendition of a frozen moment--and he beholds it all at once. Then he politely asks his model to please return to the pose of that which has now become the prime reality, the portrait. A portrait of that which is but never was.
A composer of music cannot do this. You can't freeze a moment of music--it vanishes as soon as you attempt to do such. Like the fictional stuff they call matter: Frozen to absolute zero, without energy, without movement, it no longer exists. Because, in truth, all that exists is the flow of being.
The Name
The flow of being: now you have found G‑dThe flow of being: now you have found G‑d. In fact, in Hebrew, that's His name. G‑d's name is a series of four letters that express all forms of the verb of all verbs, the verb to be: is, was, being, will be, about to be, causing to be, should be --all of these are in those four letters of G‑d's name. As G‑d told Moses when he asked for His name, "I will be that which I will be."
In our modern languages that doesn't work. We quickly slip into the trap of thingness again. Who is G‑d? We answer, "He is One who was, is and will be."
There we go with the "thing that is" business again. No, G‑d is not athing that is or was or will be. G‑d is isness itself. Oy! The frustration of the language. We need new words: Ising. Isness. Isingness. Isifying. Isifier. In Hebrew you can conjugate the verb to be in all these ways and more. Perhaps in English one day we will do the same. Until then, we are like artists using pastels to imitate Rembrandt; like musicians trying to play middle-eastern strains in tempered C Major.
And the proof: We ask questions that make sense only in English, but in Hebrew are plainly absurd. Such as, "Does G‑d exist?" In Hebrew, that's a tautology, somewhat the equivalent of "Does existence exist?"
There is no need to "believe" in this G‑d--if you know what we are talking about, you just know. You will know, also, that there is nothing else but this G‑d--what is there that stands outside isness?
Think simple: You wake up in the morning and, even before coffee, there isAs for faith and belief, those are reserved for greater things. Like believing that this great Isness that isifies all that ises cares, knows, has compassion, can be related to. In other words, saying that reality is a caring experience. Which reduces to saying that compassion is real, purpose is real, life is real. That's something you have to believe. But G‑d's existence--like most ideas that men argue about--that's just a matter of semantics.
Think simple: You wake up in the morning and, even before coffee,there is. Reality. Existence. Not "the things that exist" but existence itself. The flow. The infinite flow of light and energy. Of being, of existence. Of is. Think of all that flow of isingness all in a single, perfectly simple point. Get into it, commune with it, speak to it, become one with it --that is G‑d.

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FOOTNOTES
1.Shnei Luchot HaBrit, Toldot Adam, Bayit Acharon 12.


By Tzvi Freeman   More articles...  |   RSS Listing of Newest Articles by this Author
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visit Freeman Files subscription.
About the artist: Sarah Kranz has been illustrating magazines, webzines and books (including five children’s books) since graduating from the Istituto Europeo di Design, Milan, in 1996. Her clients have included The New York Times and Money Marketing Magazine of London.


There are three most important qualities that a person can acquire: patience, a sense of balance and the ability to remain silent. Sometimes in life they help more than intelligence, talent and beauty.

В характере человека есть три золотых качества: терпение, чувство меры и умение молчать. 
Иногда в жизни они помогают больше, чем ум, талант и красота.


Why Things Go Wrong?
Question:
I am living the wrong life. I should have done sciences in college, not humanities. And even in humanities, I should have gone for a law degree, as my parents wished and not a major in basket weaving. I was supposed to marry Jessica, not Ellen and we were supposed to live in Atlanta, not Atlantic City. From there on, it only gets worse... What do I do now?
Answer:
You may not want to hear this: All your fears are justified. You are not paranoid. You are probably right on every point. How do I know? Because this entire world is operating on Plan B.
Of course, there is The Plan. Plan A. The way things are supposed to go. But in the history of the world, there hasn't been a single thing that went the way it was supposed to go.
Adam wasn't supposed to eat from that tree. Cain and Abel were supposed to talk things out. Everyone was supposed to get along. Things got so out of hand the first time around, G-d drowned all the specimens and started all over. But things never stopped going wrong.
Take the story of Esau and Jacob. Esau was born with certain challenges, but he was supposed to have gotten a hold of himself. He was supposed to grow up as "El Macho Fearless Provider" while Jacob would sit and study. Esau got carried away with the El Macho part and Jacob ended up having to do the job of two brothers in one life -- including getting Esau's blessings and marrying his wife. It took Jacob twenty years to get those two wives out of Laban's lair. Esau could have taken care of it in a day. Nobody messes with Esau. Laban would endure some discomfort pinned up against the wall of his tent but Leah would be Esau's no sweat. But Jacob? Wrong man for the job. But that's Plan B.
Then there's the balagan with Joseph and his brothers -- an exercise in just how many things could go wrong in one story. Joseph miscommunicated. His brothers misinterpreted. Judah miscalculated and Reuben missed the boat.
The Exodus seems exciting, but keep in mind that the first meeting with Pharaoh was a complete, counter-productive disaster and nine out of ten plagues were effectively failures. And then, when we finally make it to the high point of the story, at the Giving of the Torah, the people make the grandest blunder of history with a dumb golden calf. That calf just wasn't according to script.
There is a script, but it never gets played. That's why the Torah starts with the letter Beit -- the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Because everything in this world works according to Plan B. In fact, if you study the six days of creation with the classic commentaries, you'll see that not a day went by without something coming out not quite the way it should have.
Apparently, before this world began, in a time continuum that does not infringe upon ours by a nanosecond, there were other worlds where things went right.1There were worlds where Adam and Eve were good little kinderlach and didn't even touch the fruit of that tree. Where Cain and Abel were the best of buddies for all their eternal life. Where Esau married Leah and supported his kid brother, Jacob, so he could earn his degree in transcendental enlightenment by meditating in the wilderness. All people were so good and nice, the world was filled with light, and evil didn't have a chance. Those worlds in G-d's grand imagination were all Plan A. The Plan.
What happened to all those worlds? Well, G-d looked at each of those worlds His supreme wisdom had conjured up and He said, "Blech." And He scrapped them one by one and went on.
Until finally He made this world, where He invested His Infinite Consciousness into the confines of a frail being that takes one step forward and falls on its face, where Murphy has more credibility than Newton, where Dear Derailed marries Ellen instead of Jessica and all the progress of life and history is nothing but grand rescues from big blunders.
And He said, "Now this is what you call a world!" And He chose the world of Plan B to become a real world, not just a fleeting imagination like the other worlds, and here He gave His Torah.
So, you may ask, what is so exciting about a world of blunders, mess-ups and downright sins? What's up with a G-d Who creates beings who flagrantly obfuscate His Divine Plan? If it's goodness, beauty, light and wisdom that He wants, why choose a harsh, dull, dark and stupid world to have it in?
The answer must be that there's something deeper than The Plan. There's the Master of the Plan. There isn't just a script -- there's a playwright. There isn't just a score of music -- there's a musician.
Let me put it this way: Let's say you pass by a room and you hear a piano playing. You stop to listen. You think, "Maybe it's not a piano playing. Maybe it's a pianist playing."
How can you know? How can you know if you are listening to a piano or to a pianist?
So you listen a little longer and then you hear it: A blunder. The music stops. A pause. Then the same bars repeat themselves. Perhaps several times. And then the music goes on.
"Aha!" you say. "It's a person. There's someone behind the music." And you know what? The music takes on a whole new depth.
Same with The Plan. There's a G-d behind The Plan. If everything just went according to The Plan, there would be no room left to discover Him within it. We would only know a G-d Who is limited by the themes and plot of The Plan.
But when G-d chose The Plan, He didn't choose it because He had to or because this defines Him in any way. He chose it freely. And He wants that essential aspect of Him -- that which is free and beyond any form or definition -- to be revealed within that Plan. He wants the musician to be heard, and not just the music.
That's the opportunity that comes with every failure -- the opportunity to reach deeper into the essence of things, into your own self, into Truth. The failure itself may be a bummer, but the fruits of cleaning it up are more precious than gold.
That's why Torah enters only our world and no other. There is the wisdom of creation, there is the wisdom of beauty, there is the wisdom of light. But the Torah is deeper than all that. Torah is the wisdom of healing, of cleaning up messes. And that's a wisdom that touches G-d himself.
So, dear Derailed, take advantage. The angels are jealous. They're still stuck in Plan A.2
FOOTNOTES
1.The Kabbalists call this the "First Shemittah." A Shemittah is seven years, or, in this case, seven millennia. This world has six millennia of progress and one of rest; so did those. But they were built on Chessed -- kindness and goodness, whereas ours is built on Gevurah -- harshness and severity.
2.Inspired by a deep reading of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's Kuntres Yud Shvat 5751 andLikkutei Sichot, vol 4 pp 1340-1341.

BY TZVI FREEMAN
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visit Freeman Files subscription.

Imagine if there was a bank that every morning would transfer $86,400 dollars to your account. Yet, this gift would come with a catch. Anything that you did not spent by the end of the day, would be automatically nullified.
What would you do with this money? Of course, you would try to use everything to the penny. 

Everyone of us benefit from such a bank...it is know as a "Bank of Time". Every morning we receive 86,400 seconds. If time is not used properly it is lost forever. You can not go back and reclaim it not can you transfer it to another day.

Some say that "Time is Money" but we know that it is much more than that because "Time is Life".

To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who just missed a train.

To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask someone who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal at the Olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have! 


20 Rules for a Good Life by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

A few months back I told you about Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ beautiful E-book, Letters to the Next Generation, a collection of letters from a father to his children on the purpose of life. Here is yet another chapter I loved, in which the father lists his 20 guidelines for a good and moral life. I loved all 20, but highlighted the ideas that really touched my heart.
DEAR SARA AND DAVID, wisdom is free, yet it is also
the most expensive thing there is, for we tend to acquire
it through failure or disappointment or grief. That is why we
try to share our wisdom, so that others will not have to pay
the price for it that we paid. These are some of the things
Judaism has taught me about life, and I share them with you:
1. Never try to be clever. Always try to be wise.
2. Respect others even if they disrespect you.
3. Never seek publicity for what you do. If you deserve it, you
will receive it. If you don’t, you will be attacked. In any
case, goodness never needs to draw attention to itself.
4.When you do good to others, it is yourself, your conscience
and your self-respect, that will be the beneficiary. The
greatest gift of giving is the opportunity to give.

5. In life, never take shortcuts. There is no success without
effort, no achievement without hard work.
6. Keep your distance from those who seek honour. Be
respectful, but none of us is called on to be a looking glass
for those in love with themselves.
7. In everything you do, be mindful that God sees all we do.
There is no cheating God. When we try to deceive others,
usually the only person we succeed in deceiving is ourself.
8. Be very slow indeed to judge others. If they are wrong, God
will judge them. If we are wrong, God will judge us.

9. Greater by far than the love we receive is the love we give.
10. It was once said of a great religious leader, that he was a
man who took God so seriously that he never felt the need
to take himself seriously at all. That is worth aspiring to.

11. Use your time well. Life is short, too short to waste on
television, computer games and unnecessary emails; too
short to waste on idle gossip, or envying others for what
they have, too short for anger and indignation; too short to
waste on criticising others. “Teach us to number our days”,
says the Psalm, “that we may get a heart of wisdom.” But
any day on which you have done some good to someone
has not been wasted.

12. You will find much in life to distress you. People can be
careless, cruel, thoughtless, offensive, arrogant, harsh,
destructive, insensitive, and rude. That is their problem,
not yours. Your problem is how to respond. “No one”, a
wise lady once said, “can make you feel inferior without
your permission”. The same applies to other negative
emotions. Don’t react. Don’t respond. Don’t feel angry, or
if you do, pause for as long as it takes for the anger to
dissipate, and then carry on with the rest of life. Don’t hand
others a victory over your own emotional state. Forgive, or
if you can’t forgive, ignore.

13. If you tried and failed, don’t feel bad. God forgives our
failures as soon as we acknowledge them as failures – and
that spares us from the self-deception of trying to see them
as success. No one worth admiring ever succeeded without
many failures on the way. The great poets wrote bad
poems; the great artists painted undistinguished canvases;
not every symphony by Mozart is a masterpiece. If you lack
the courage to fail, then you lack the courage to succeed.

14. Always seek out the friendship of those who are strong
where you are weak. None of us has all the virtues. Even a
Moses needed an Aaron. The work of a team, a
partnership, a collaboration with others who have different
gifts or different ways of looking at things, is always greater
than any one individual can achieve alone.

15. Create moments of silence in your soul if you want to hear
the voice of God.
16. If something is wrong, don’t blame others. Ask, how can I
help to put it right?

17. Always remember that you create the atmosphere that
surrounds you. If you want others to smile, you must smile.
If you want others to give, you must give. If you want others
to respect you, you must show your respect for them. How
the world treats us is a mirror of how we treat the world.

18. Be patient. Sometimes the world is slower than you are.
Wait for it to catch up with you, for if you are on the right
path, eventually it will…
19. Never worry when people say that you are being too
idealistic. It is only idealistic people who change the world,
and do you really want, in the course of your life, to leave
the world unchanged?
20. Be straight, be honest, and always do what you say you are
going to do. There really is no other way to live.
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Read Rabbi Sacks’ amazing letter On Being a Jewish Parent
View Rabbi Sack’s newly-released Ebook “Letters to the Next Generation”




The Day Is Short

A close relative of mine is very ill, and I go to the Kotel (Wailing Wall) every day to pray for her recovery. One morning, as the sun rises and the birds sing sweet melodies, I call her. “I am here at the Kotel,” I tell her. “You are here with me. Speak into the phone and pray to Hashem, for it is as if you are here beside me.”
In a tearful voice, this loved one says, “Please, G‑d, give me another chance. All I am asking for is a second chance. Give me another chance to live! Another chance to be with my husband and children. Another chance to do good. Please, G‑d, give me another chance.”
Her words break me. I hang up the phone and sob. Another chance. How many times do I push off asking for forgiveness? How many times Give me another chance to live!does pride get in my way? What if time runs out and there is no more tomorrow? What is it about us that we think that we will live forever? We think that we’ll always have tomorrow, another day, another chance. We don’t. For some, it’s later; for some, G‑d forbid, it’s sooner. Inevitably, death knocks on our door.
Our sages taught: “R. Eliezer said, ‘Repent one day before you die.’ His students asked him, ‘Does one know when he will die?’ He replied, ‘All the more so! One should repent today, lest he die tomorrow, so that all days be spent inteshuvah (repentance, returning to G‑d)’” (Shabbat 153a).

“Hurry, it’s almost Shabbat!”
I don’t know how this happens. In the summer months, when the days are long and the sun burns bright into the evening hours, I still find myself rushing to get everything ready for Shabbat. I thought that I had so much time, but no, there’s never enough time. I look up at the clock. Wasn’t it just 2:00? Now it’s already 4:00?
“Everyone take a bath. Quick. Hurry!” Where did the time go? Where did the day go? Now the holy Shabbat is quickly approaching, and we are not even close to being ready . . .
The summer draws to an end, and the days begin to get shorter. In Israel we change our clocks back this Shabbat, the Shabbat proceeding Yom Kippur. Today I have an appointment with two clients. Knowing that I have much to do and that the day is short, I set my alarm clock for 5:00 in the morning. Thechallahs are rising by 6:00, and by 8:00 delicious smells of Shabbat fill our home. The kids are out and ready on time, and while I see my clients, my husband mops the I have much to do and the day is shortfloor. By noon, our home is ready. At 3:00 everyone is bathed and dressed, and even though it’s still so early, there is nothing left to do. We sit on the couch and read calmly as we wait for the time of candle-lighting.
Why is it when I know that I have so much to do and so little time to do it, I get it all done, and when I have so much time and so little to do, I find myself rushing?
As Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur approach, the days get shorter and shorter. These shorter days are days of reflection, days of prayer, and days of growth. During these days, we blow the shofar, say selichot (penitential prayers and liturgy), give more to tzedakah (charity), and ask for forgiveness. It’s almost as though by making these days of repentance shorter, G‑d is giving us a message: Take advantage of your time and plan accordingly. You won’t live forever!
In college, I had friends sigh and say to me, “I can’t keep Shabbat now, but I will when I graduate, when I’m older.” “When I get married, I’ll keep a kosher home.” There are always excuses, always reasons to put things off for the future. What if the future doesn’t come?
In our relationships, we are no better. “I’ll call her only after she calls me.” “I’m willing to apologize, but he has to apologize first.” “I’ll settle down and have a family after I build up my career.” Tomorrow. Later.
Rabbi Eliezer teaches us that you can’t live your life thinking that “it can wait until tomorrow.” That day that seemed so long and felt like it would never end, that long summer day—it’s over. The sun is setting, the day is ending, and you know what? You can’t get that precious time back. I hear my dear relative’s voice echoing in my head. “Give me another chance.”
Yom Kippur is coming. The day is short, and I’m going to set my alarm clock to get up early. I realize that time is precious and there is much to do. And later might be too late.



Quotes on Personal Growth 

by Rabbi Noah Weinberg

Be Aware of Every Moment - To achieve significant results in life, the effort must be constant. Don’t waste a minute.


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