An article from Aish.com:
The sobering fact is that serenity and joy are natural states for us all. Fear not. Practiced regularly, these strategies vastly improve our odds of attaining despair.
Many people innocently believe that all they have to do is sit back, coast through life, and misery will come to them. Nothing could be further from the truth! The sobering fact is that serenity and joy are natural states for us all. Just observe a child at play, yourself on a favorite vacation, or anyone absorbed in creative activity. As our minds clear of clutter and negative thinking, a profound sense of peace and contentment often emerges. Does this mean there's no hope? Absolutely not! The strategies outlined below, practiced regularly, vastly improve our odds of achieving misery.
1. CLING TO ENTITLEMENT
You are perfectly entitled to feelings of entitlement. It is your birthright to expect unfailing attention, loyalty, respect, and subservience from others. Contemplate the inherent, self-evident unfairness of anyone having something you want. Strive to see compromise, accommodation, patience, and responsibility, as somehow relevant only to "the other guy." In general, be aware that life owes you and that you were put on this planet to collect.
2. IT'S ALL PERSONAL
Malicious intent is always present if you just look carefully enough. This is particularly true regarding family members. Suppose your spouse overlooks one of your preferences. Seize the opportunity to view this as conclusive proof that you don't really matter to them and probably never have. If your children dawdle at bedtime, see them as viciously spiteful and yourself as a sorry excuse for a parent. It's really very simple. Ignore nothing, and always assume evil intent. Remember, if you don't take things personally no one will do it for you.
3. FOCUS ON PROBLEMS
There is really very little sense in having problems if you don't focus on them. It's crucial therefore to keep careful track of all your problems and constantly review them. Nurture the attitude that you can't really move on to anything unless everything is resolved first. Remember also that there is no solution without a problem, if you look closely enough. Always resist the temptation to ponder where problems go when you don't think about them.
4. MAGNIFY
Too often people cheat themselves out of misery by maintaining perspective. This is both needless as well as extremely counter productive. Why would anyone ever want to think of themselves as "just human" when "fatally flawed" and "irredeemably warped" are available? Similarly, when recalling past mistakes, why stop at instructive regret when paralyzing guilt is within reach? Sure it requires a bit of effort, but the payoff can be enormous. Just imagine the benefits of eventually believing that your negative thinking actually reflects reality.
5. EXPECT CATASTROPHE
It is critical to remember that really terrible things can occur at any moment. Let's start with the body. Begin by paying close attention to changes in bodily sensation, no matter how trivial. Next, let your imagination run wild. Anything involving flesh-eating bacteria or intestinal parasites will usually do the trick. People sometimes protest that their bodies feel perfectly fine. Not to worry! Think "Silent Killers." Feeling perfectly fine places you squarely at risk for these. Of course, there is no reason to stop at personal health issues. The range of potential catastrophe is vast. For example, there are suitcase bombs, encroaching asteroids, global recession, pandemics, killer bees, and so on. Simply use your imagination to craft a realistic sense of impending doom. Savor the pride you'll feel on your death bed knowing that nothing ever caught you by surprise.
6. JUST SAY "NO THANKS" TO GRATITUDE
Gratitude is to misery what Kryptonite is to Superman. All the hard work you've invested in misery will go down the drain if you start fiddling around with gratitude. A zero tolerance policy is very much in order. This is very challenging, however, as life runs rampant with opportunities for gratefulness. Begin, therefore, by thoroughly discounting all the good in your life as a "given." Next, focus your mind on the many ways in which life continues to disappoint you. At an advanced level, you can even learn to see the bad in the good. For instance, should you get a big raise you could immediately focus on the tax implications. Eliminate gratitude from your life and misery will be right around the corner.
A final word. The beauty of misery is that the more you share it with others, the more you wind up having. So share generously. After all, misery loves company.
Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
The Original Sin
Most people agree that the original sin was when Eve at the forbidden fruit. But Dr. Sedler, in his book "When to Speak Up and When to Shut Up," sets forth the theory that Adam was present when Eve decided to sin and he did not speak up to advise her against it. He says that this is the original sin--the fact that Adam said nothing when his companion was making an unwise choice.
It is our responsibility as Christians to speak up when our friends and family members are making wrong choices. We must, however, do it with an attitude of love and humility.
It is our responsibility as Christians to speak up when our friends and family members are making wrong choices. We must, however, do it with an attitude of love and humility.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Yield or Resist?
An article from Aish.com, insight into scripture from a Jewish perspective:
Is it a Jewish value to yield or to resist?
The El Al security official at the L.A. airport eyed my mother-in-law suspiciously. She couldn't imagine what the problem was. The security official looked hard at my mother-in-law, studied her passport, looked up again at her face, gazed down again at her passport, and finally called over his colleague.
"Look at this woman," he commanded. "Her passport says she is almost 90 years old. Can that be true?"
Like the El Al security official, I have always been perplexed by my mother-in-law, Evelyn.
Visiting Jerusalem at the age of 88, she made daily pilgrimages to the Western Wall, trekking up 135 steps. Even while celebrating her 90th birthday this week, she still walks with a bounce in her stride.
Even more mystifying is her universal popularity. Everyone she meets -- no matter how distant from her in age, geography, or background -- adores Evelyn. This includes: her young Persian neighbors; my religious friends; the Hispanic plumber and his wife; the single, 40-something daughter of her best friend; and a young Israeli mother in Austin, Texas, who met Evelyn five years ago and continues to call her every Friday to wish her "Good Shabbos."
One Sunday Evelyn didn't answer the phone when we expected her to be home. "I was at a graduation," she explained the next day. "It was the son of this big Italian family. I was the only non-relative invited."
What is the secret of my mother-in-law's universal popularity?
THE KEY
Recently, at a class on the mitzvah of lighting Shabbat candles, I discovered the answer.
Many Jewish women follow the custom of lighting one Shabbat candle for every member of her family, honoring not only Shabbat, but every member of the family.
Honoring other people is a core value in Judaism. Ethics of the Fathers, our 2,000-year-old guide to interpersonal relationships, proclaims: "Let the honor of your student be as dear to you as your own, the honor of your friend like the honor of your Rabbi, and the honor of your Rabbi as much as the honor of Heaven." As for marriage, the Talmud directs: "A man should love his wife as much as he loves himself, and honor her more than himself."
Take a step back and allow another's reality to prevail.
How does one actually honor other people? The key is to validate their reality. Usually our own reality is so intrinsic to us that we dismiss other people's reality as insignificant, flawed, or warped. To take a step back and allow another's reality to prevail permits the other to feel his/her own importance. This is the essence of giving honor.
And this is why everyone loves Evelyn: she honors them by validating their reality. When she is with the family of her eldest son Bob, who moved to San Francisco in the 60s and joined the counter-culture, she appreciates their life style, the quaintness of their Mill Valley home with its hot tub, and her daughter-in-law's talents in making pottery and jewelry. When she is with her second son Leib Yaacov in Jerusalem, she embraces our religious ways and admires our choices. When her youngest son Jamie, who heads a foundation for the arts, takes her to a formal dinner honoring Pavarotti, she enjoys the elegance of the event, hobnobs with the stars, and appreciates Jamie's kindness in bringing her. No wonder everyone adores her!
Such validation requires much yielding of one's own propensities and choices, and poses a challenge to the ego. It would require a physicist to validate the reality of his teenage son who gets bad grades in science and who spends his evenings strumming his guitar. It would require a wife who's an expert at multi-tasking to have patience for her husband who can't be left to both take care of the kids and remember to take the roast out of the oven on time.
CHANUKAH
Validating another's reality is the key to honoring others, which is the key to peace in the home and is the inner depth of the mitzvah of lighting Shabbat candles.
How different are the candles of Chanukah! Chanukah is the holiday of standing up boldly for your beliefs, of not yielding an inch.
Chanukah commemorates the historical victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks. The Jewish rebellion started in the year 167 B.C.E., after a century of Greek cultural hegemony and increasing assimilation. In the village of Modiin, Greek forces commanded the Jews to make offerings to a pagan god. One submissive Jew complied. This so enflamed the elderly priest Mattathias that he sprang up, killed the servile Jew, and led his five sons and handful of followers into the hills for a protracted guerilla war against the Greeks and their Hellenistic Jewish cohorts.
The message of Chanukah is: Hold onto your religious convictions, never submit to the assimilated majority, no matter how numerous or sophisticated they are, and fight for your ideals.
So which is the Jewish value: to yield or to resist?
The salient difference between the lights of Shabbat and the lights of Chanukah are their location. Shabbat candles are always lit inside the home. Chanukah candles should ideally be lit outside, by the entrance to the house. (This is how we still do it in Jerusalem.) Only when the Jews were exiled to the Diaspora did safety dictate moving the Chanukah lights inside, but even there they are to be kindled in a window where they can be seen from outside. The mitzvah of lighting the Chanukah candles is to publicize the miracle of the oil.
While the Shabbat candles illumine the private domain of the home, the Chanukah candles are a statement to the public domain.
Yield in the home, but stand up and fight in the public realm.
Similarly, the place for yielding is in the home, within the family. The place for standing up for one's convictions is the public realm.
Unfortunately, we often reverse the two: A Jewish college student who is afraid to stand up to his politically correct friends and defend Israel refuses to yield to his mother's entreaties to wear a tie to his grandparents' anniversary party. A Jewish woman who sits mutely during coffee break while her co-workers joke about "cheap Jews," finds her tongue and waxes eloquent in her self-defense when her husband asks her to put the kids to bed on time.
The place to stand up for your beliefs is the public realm. In the home, yield, yield, yield.
If you are chronically tardy, and your spouse likes to arrive everywhere 15 minutes early, yield. Ask yourself, "What is his/her reality?" and validate it.
If you are a spendthrift and your spouse is frugal, yield. Ask yourself, "What is his/her reality?" and validate it.
If your idea of a vacation is a five-star hotel, and your children want to vacation in the national parks, ask yourself, "What is their reality?" and validate it. Then decide what is best for the whole family.
But in the public realm, when Judaism, Jews, or Israel are under attack, stand up and fight! That's the lesson of Chanukah.
Happy 90th birthday, Mom!
Published: Sunday, December 02, 2007
Is it a Jewish value to yield or to resist?
The El Al security official at the L.A. airport eyed my mother-in-law suspiciously. She couldn't imagine what the problem was. The security official looked hard at my mother-in-law, studied her passport, looked up again at her face, gazed down again at her passport, and finally called over his colleague.
"Look at this woman," he commanded. "Her passport says she is almost 90 years old. Can that be true?"
Like the El Al security official, I have always been perplexed by my mother-in-law, Evelyn.
Visiting Jerusalem at the age of 88, she made daily pilgrimages to the Western Wall, trekking up 135 steps. Even while celebrating her 90th birthday this week, she still walks with a bounce in her stride.
Even more mystifying is her universal popularity. Everyone she meets -- no matter how distant from her in age, geography, or background -- adores Evelyn. This includes: her young Persian neighbors; my religious friends; the Hispanic plumber and his wife; the single, 40-something daughter of her best friend; and a young Israeli mother in Austin, Texas, who met Evelyn five years ago and continues to call her every Friday to wish her "Good Shabbos."
One Sunday Evelyn didn't answer the phone when we expected her to be home. "I was at a graduation," she explained the next day. "It was the son of this big Italian family. I was the only non-relative invited."
What is the secret of my mother-in-law's universal popularity?
THE KEY
Recently, at a class on the mitzvah of lighting Shabbat candles, I discovered the answer.
Many Jewish women follow the custom of lighting one Shabbat candle for every member of her family, honoring not only Shabbat, but every member of the family.
Honoring other people is a core value in Judaism. Ethics of the Fathers, our 2,000-year-old guide to interpersonal relationships, proclaims: "Let the honor of your student be as dear to you as your own, the honor of your friend like the honor of your Rabbi, and the honor of your Rabbi as much as the honor of Heaven." As for marriage, the Talmud directs: "A man should love his wife as much as he loves himself, and honor her more than himself."
Take a step back and allow another's reality to prevail.
How does one actually honor other people? The key is to validate their reality. Usually our own reality is so intrinsic to us that we dismiss other people's reality as insignificant, flawed, or warped. To take a step back and allow another's reality to prevail permits the other to feel his/her own importance. This is the essence of giving honor.
And this is why everyone loves Evelyn: she honors them by validating their reality. When she is with the family of her eldest son Bob, who moved to San Francisco in the 60s and joined the counter-culture, she appreciates their life style, the quaintness of their Mill Valley home with its hot tub, and her daughter-in-law's talents in making pottery and jewelry. When she is with her second son Leib Yaacov in Jerusalem, she embraces our religious ways and admires our choices. When her youngest son Jamie, who heads a foundation for the arts, takes her to a formal dinner honoring Pavarotti, she enjoys the elegance of the event, hobnobs with the stars, and appreciates Jamie's kindness in bringing her. No wonder everyone adores her!
Such validation requires much yielding of one's own propensities and choices, and poses a challenge to the ego. It would require a physicist to validate the reality of his teenage son who gets bad grades in science and who spends his evenings strumming his guitar. It would require a wife who's an expert at multi-tasking to have patience for her husband who can't be left to both take care of the kids and remember to take the roast out of the oven on time.
CHANUKAH
Validating another's reality is the key to honoring others, which is the key to peace in the home and is the inner depth of the mitzvah of lighting Shabbat candles.
How different are the candles of Chanukah! Chanukah is the holiday of standing up boldly for your beliefs, of not yielding an inch.
Chanukah commemorates the historical victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks. The Jewish rebellion started in the year 167 B.C.E., after a century of Greek cultural hegemony and increasing assimilation. In the village of Modiin, Greek forces commanded the Jews to make offerings to a pagan god. One submissive Jew complied. This so enflamed the elderly priest Mattathias that he sprang up, killed the servile Jew, and led his five sons and handful of followers into the hills for a protracted guerilla war against the Greeks and their Hellenistic Jewish cohorts.
The message of Chanukah is: Hold onto your religious convictions, never submit to the assimilated majority, no matter how numerous or sophisticated they are, and fight for your ideals.
So which is the Jewish value: to yield or to resist?
The salient difference between the lights of Shabbat and the lights of Chanukah are their location. Shabbat candles are always lit inside the home. Chanukah candles should ideally be lit outside, by the entrance to the house. (This is how we still do it in Jerusalem.) Only when the Jews were exiled to the Diaspora did safety dictate moving the Chanukah lights inside, but even there they are to be kindled in a window where they can be seen from outside. The mitzvah of lighting the Chanukah candles is to publicize the miracle of the oil.
While the Shabbat candles illumine the private domain of the home, the Chanukah candles are a statement to the public domain.
Yield in the home, but stand up and fight in the public realm.
Similarly, the place for yielding is in the home, within the family. The place for standing up for one's convictions is the public realm.
Unfortunately, we often reverse the two: A Jewish college student who is afraid to stand up to his politically correct friends and defend Israel refuses to yield to his mother's entreaties to wear a tie to his grandparents' anniversary party. A Jewish woman who sits mutely during coffee break while her co-workers joke about "cheap Jews," finds her tongue and waxes eloquent in her self-defense when her husband asks her to put the kids to bed on time.
The place to stand up for your beliefs is the public realm. In the home, yield, yield, yield.
If you are chronically tardy, and your spouse likes to arrive everywhere 15 minutes early, yield. Ask yourself, "What is his/her reality?" and validate it.
If you are a spendthrift and your spouse is frugal, yield. Ask yourself, "What is his/her reality?" and validate it.
If your idea of a vacation is a five-star hotel, and your children want to vacation in the national parks, ask yourself, "What is their reality?" and validate it. Then decide what is best for the whole family.
But in the public realm, when Judaism, Jews, or Israel are under attack, stand up and fight! That's the lesson of Chanukah.
Happy 90th birthday, Mom!
Published: Sunday, December 02, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Sunshine and Cancer
This article from Mercola.com.
If vitamin D3 levels among populations worldwide were increased, 600,000 cases of breast and colorectal cancers could be prevented each year, according to researchers from the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
This includes nearly 150,000 cases of cancer that could be prevented in the United States alone.
The researchers estimate that 250,000 cases of colorectal cancer and 350,000 cases of breast cancer could be prevented worldwide by increasing intake of vitamin D3, particularly in countries north of the equator.
The study examines the dose-response relationship between vitamin D and cancer, and is the first to use satellite measurements of sun and cloud cover in countries where blood serum levels of vitamin D3 were also taken.
Serum vitamin D levels during the winter from 15 countries were combined, then applied to 177 countries to estimate the average serum level of a vitamin D metabolite among the population.
An inverse association between serum vitamin D and the risk of colorectal and breast cancers was found.
Protective effects began when 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (the main indicator of vitamin D status) ranged from 24 to 32 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). In the United States, late winter 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels ranged from 15 to 18 ng/ml.
Previous research has suggested that raising levels to 55 ng/ml was actually optimal to prevent cancer, the researchers said.
To increase your vitamin D3 levels, the researchers recommended a combination of dietary methods, supplements and sunlight exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes a day, with at least 40 percent of your skin exposed.
If vitamin D3 levels among populations worldwide were increased, 600,000 cases of breast and colorectal cancers could be prevented each year, according to researchers from the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
This includes nearly 150,000 cases of cancer that could be prevented in the United States alone.
The researchers estimate that 250,000 cases of colorectal cancer and 350,000 cases of breast cancer could be prevented worldwide by increasing intake of vitamin D3, particularly in countries north of the equator.
The study examines the dose-response relationship between vitamin D and cancer, and is the first to use satellite measurements of sun and cloud cover in countries where blood serum levels of vitamin D3 were also taken.
Serum vitamin D levels during the winter from 15 countries were combined, then applied to 177 countries to estimate the average serum level of a vitamin D metabolite among the population.
An inverse association between serum vitamin D and the risk of colorectal and breast cancers was found.
Protective effects began when 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (the main indicator of vitamin D status) ranged from 24 to 32 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). In the United States, late winter 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels ranged from 15 to 18 ng/ml.
Previous research has suggested that raising levels to 55 ng/ml was actually optimal to prevent cancer, the researchers said.
To increase your vitamin D3 levels, the researchers recommended a combination of dietary methods, supplements and sunlight exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes a day, with at least 40 percent of your skin exposed.
Unanswered/Answered Prayer
What happens when God doesn't answer our prayers?
An article from Aish.com.
Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe, are the time of year when we talk with God.
Yes, we are supposed to talk with God all year long, but we really feel it on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. These are days devoted to prayer. They are days when we struggle to express our thoughts, our hopes, and our fears to the Almighty. These are days when we try to engage the Master of the Universe in conversation.
We hope that the Almighty smiles on us, grants us our requests. But here is a particularly searing question that we must confront at this time of year: What happens when He doesn't? What, if anything, is left of our relationship with God then?
Imagine a woman who prays deeply and sincerely for the success of an operation on her severely ill 6-year-old daughter. The time comes -- and the operation fails. The girl dies under the surgeon's knife. What is a mother to feel after this? What would we feel?
In the swirl of emotions following a tragedy, one feels indescribable anguish -- the terrible, searing pain of overwhelming loss. But sometimes, one feels something else too.
Betrayal.
At first, the feeling might be unidentifiable, hidden underneath layers of sadness and pain. But then, slowly it might emerge. "How could God have done this? We trusted in Him. We prayed with all our might. We placed our every hope in His Hands. And He let this happen..."
How can we expect to love God if one feels betrayed by Him?
And these questions -- spoken or unspoken -- then provoke a completely new swirl of emotions. Fear. Guilt. "Who am I angry at?", we ask ourselves, "God? How can I be angry with God?"... We're not supposed to be angry with God. We're supposed to feel that He's compassionate, loving. One cannot easily "make up" with someone one feels has betrayed him; how, then, can we expect to love God if one feels betrayed by Him?
CHANGE IN PERSPECTIVE
I don't know if there is a single, definitive, way out of this problem. Perhaps the answer differs from person to person. But I think a change in perspective can begin to point in a useful direction:
We can ask a fundamental question: When one prays to God for something -- be it for health, happiness, or even for a new car -- what is it that one hopes to achieve? What does one hope the prayer will accomplish?
On one level, the answer is obvious. One hopes that God will bequeath to him that which he prays for. If one prays for his daughter's recovery from a terrible illness, for example, one obviously hopes that this will somehow help her recover. But there is, I think, a deeper aspect to the meaning and purpose of such a prayer.
Allow me to relate a story a friend of mine tells about one of his early childhood experiences. This is how he relates the event:
"When I was about four years old, I awoke from my nap one day, ventured out of my room, and walked through the house. No one was there. I tentatively called out for my mother, but there was no reply. Slowly, a realization dawned on my little mind: 'It's finally happened. My parents have abandoned me...'
"I raced to the phone on the kitchen wall and dialed the operator. 'That's it,' I told her, between sobs, 'my parents are gone; I'm all alone now.' The operator stayed on the phone with me until, sure enough, my mother did come home. She had slipped out for a few minutes to pick up some milk. It was, however, an experience I shall never forget."
Now, if you will, perform a little mental exercise. Imagine for a moment that you are four years old. Your parents are everything to you. Consider the terror you would feel thinking they have abandoned you, leaving you to somehow manage life on your own. Of course, as an adult, you know that this would never happen. However, as a child, you would not have known this. The threat would have seemed real. How does that terror feel?
Now, proceed further. Imagine you are six years old. Climbing on a chair, you have found your mother's cookie jar on the kitchen counter. It's filled with chocolate-chip cookies. You approach your mother, cookie jar in hand, and ask her for one. Now consider the following two scenarios:
SCENARIO A
Your mother kindly and lovingly looks at you and says: "No, dear, I'm sorry. It's not time for a cookie now; it's too close to dinnertime. As much as I know you'd like to have it, I can't give it to you right now."
SCENARIO B
Your mother has had a very hard day, and is at wit's end when you have approached her. She stares at you a little coldly for a minute. Then she turns and walks away. "I don't care," you hear as her voice trails away, "Your little cookie doesn't matter much to me at all right now. If you want it, take it."
As a 6-year-old, which of the two scenarios would you rather have faced? In the first, you are denied the cookie; but you get the loving attention of your mother. In the second, you get your cookie -- but a gnawing pit swells in your stomach. In some small way, your mother has abandoned you...
Let us continue. Imagine that you are older now. You and your spouse live in a small apartment. Unfortunately, your financial situation is bleak; you cannot afford to buy yourselves even a small, used car. Even routine grocery shopping has become an ordeal. Your husband's employer, however, has hinted he may be in line for a raise -- enough, perhaps, to allow you to afford a vehicle.
So you pray to God with added devotion, and ask for this raise to come through. We, of course, have no way to directly perceive how God accepts our prayers -- but for the sake of argument, let us imagine that you could somehow "hear" His response. Imagine, again, two scenarios:
SCENARIO A
God responds to you: "My child, I want you to know that I am with you. I know the stress you feel due to your financial situation, and I feel your anguish. But for reasons I cannot now reveal to you, it is not within the scheme of things for your husband to receive this raise."
SCENARIO B
God responds to you: "In the past, you have not displayed enough faith for Me to take your concerns seriously right now. I choose not to involve Myself in your plight; I shall allow events to unfold as they would on their own. If your husband's employer decides to give him the raise, then so be it; but I will not be involved."
Again, which would we prefer to hear? The first response firmly but gently denies our request, whereas the second leaves open the possibility that we will indeed get the money. But in the second response, we also feel the hard, cold shock of God abandoning us. If we do get the money, what price will we have paid?
And now, finally, consider a last situation. A man suffering the effects of leukemia is wheeled into the operating room for a last-chance operation to save his life. The doctors give him barely fifty-fifty odds. As he feels the anesthesia begin to take effect, he realizes quite clearly that this may be his last moments of consciousness on Earth. He opens his heart to God and prays that he will survive.
Imagine that in his last fleeting seconds of consciousness, this man would be privileged to hear God's response to him. Consider, again, two scenarios:
SCENARIO A
God responds to him: "My child, I want you to know that I am very close to you now. As you drift into sleep, I shall stay by your side, and I shall not leave you.
"I feel your anguish, and I know how much you want to live. But I must tell you that now is the time I have chosen for you to end your stay on Earth. You cannot understand why. But now, My child, is the time."
SCENARIO B
God responds to him: "You have not made yourself worthy of My becoming intimately involved in your affairs. The doctor who is operating on you is as competent as any; I shall leave your fate in his hands."
In his final waking moments, which response would the man rather hear? Is it not conceivable -- even probable -- that he would prefer God's intimate and loving denial of his request, than God's cold withdrawal from his life? If so -- if this is what we would feel were we in this man's situation -- then we may have discovered something truly profound about our values: An intimate relationship with our Parent in Heaven is something we would trade anything for -- even life itself.
When we truly open our hearts to God, we make God real in our lives.
This, then, says something important about why we pray, and what we get out of the experience.
Yes, it is true that we pray for the cookie, the car, or indeed, for our very lives. But these are only the apparent purposes of our prayers. For when we truly open our hearts to God -- when we genuinely reach out to Him in our times of need -- we make God real in our lives. We build a relationship with Him.
As in any good relationship, feelings tend to reciprocate. Our connection with God is no different. When we reach out to Him, He reaches back to us. Each word of prayer becomes a brick in the edifice of that relationship. And when all is said and done, we value that relationship more than anything.
I think that when we truly understand this, we have given ourselves the tools to deal with the possibility that God may not, in fact, grant us the object of our prayers. For we can realize that the more profound our need, the more deeply we have fashioned a relationship with our Creator by telling Him about it. Thus, whether we receive what we have "asked" for or not, we have certainly not been "betrayed" by God. A refusal can be loving, too. And the relationship we have built by asking has not gone away.
We live in a flesh and blood world, and this is a difficult truth to internalize. Our needs are real to us. We really do want the cookie or the car; our heartfelt desire for the object of our prayer is not simply imagined. However, if we pause for a moment, we can focus on the deeper things, too. Through our heartfelt communication, we have drawn closer to God, and He has drawn closer to us. And as we sense this closeness, we may find that we have not only achieved a deeper appreciation of prayer -- and of these Days of Awe -- but we have also gained newfound strength to deal with whatever response God ultimately bequeaths us.
Listen to Rabbi Fohrman's free audio classes at www.jewishtextstudy.org
Excerpted from "INSPIRING DAYS" published by K'hal Publishing in conjunction with The Afikim Foundation
An article from Aish.com.
Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe, are the time of year when we talk with God.
Yes, we are supposed to talk with God all year long, but we really feel it on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. These are days devoted to prayer. They are days when we struggle to express our thoughts, our hopes, and our fears to the Almighty. These are days when we try to engage the Master of the Universe in conversation.
We hope that the Almighty smiles on us, grants us our requests. But here is a particularly searing question that we must confront at this time of year: What happens when He doesn't? What, if anything, is left of our relationship with God then?
Imagine a woman who prays deeply and sincerely for the success of an operation on her severely ill 6-year-old daughter. The time comes -- and the operation fails. The girl dies under the surgeon's knife. What is a mother to feel after this? What would we feel?
In the swirl of emotions following a tragedy, one feels indescribable anguish -- the terrible, searing pain of overwhelming loss. But sometimes, one feels something else too.
Betrayal.
At first, the feeling might be unidentifiable, hidden underneath layers of sadness and pain. But then, slowly it might emerge. "How could God have done this? We trusted in Him. We prayed with all our might. We placed our every hope in His Hands. And He let this happen..."
How can we expect to love God if one feels betrayed by Him?
And these questions -- spoken or unspoken -- then provoke a completely new swirl of emotions. Fear. Guilt. "Who am I angry at?", we ask ourselves, "God? How can I be angry with God?"... We're not supposed to be angry with God. We're supposed to feel that He's compassionate, loving. One cannot easily "make up" with someone one feels has betrayed him; how, then, can we expect to love God if one feels betrayed by Him?
CHANGE IN PERSPECTIVE
I don't know if there is a single, definitive, way out of this problem. Perhaps the answer differs from person to person. But I think a change in perspective can begin to point in a useful direction:
We can ask a fundamental question: When one prays to God for something -- be it for health, happiness, or even for a new car -- what is it that one hopes to achieve? What does one hope the prayer will accomplish?
On one level, the answer is obvious. One hopes that God will bequeath to him that which he prays for. If one prays for his daughter's recovery from a terrible illness, for example, one obviously hopes that this will somehow help her recover. But there is, I think, a deeper aspect to the meaning and purpose of such a prayer.
Allow me to relate a story a friend of mine tells about one of his early childhood experiences. This is how he relates the event:
"When I was about four years old, I awoke from my nap one day, ventured out of my room, and walked through the house. No one was there. I tentatively called out for my mother, but there was no reply. Slowly, a realization dawned on my little mind: 'It's finally happened. My parents have abandoned me...'
"I raced to the phone on the kitchen wall and dialed the operator. 'That's it,' I told her, between sobs, 'my parents are gone; I'm all alone now.' The operator stayed on the phone with me until, sure enough, my mother did come home. She had slipped out for a few minutes to pick up some milk. It was, however, an experience I shall never forget."
Now, if you will, perform a little mental exercise. Imagine for a moment that you are four years old. Your parents are everything to you. Consider the terror you would feel thinking they have abandoned you, leaving you to somehow manage life on your own. Of course, as an adult, you know that this would never happen. However, as a child, you would not have known this. The threat would have seemed real. How does that terror feel?
Now, proceed further. Imagine you are six years old. Climbing on a chair, you have found your mother's cookie jar on the kitchen counter. It's filled with chocolate-chip cookies. You approach your mother, cookie jar in hand, and ask her for one. Now consider the following two scenarios:
SCENARIO A
Your mother kindly and lovingly looks at you and says: "No, dear, I'm sorry. It's not time for a cookie now; it's too close to dinnertime. As much as I know you'd like to have it, I can't give it to you right now."
SCENARIO B
Your mother has had a very hard day, and is at wit's end when you have approached her. She stares at you a little coldly for a minute. Then she turns and walks away. "I don't care," you hear as her voice trails away, "Your little cookie doesn't matter much to me at all right now. If you want it, take it."
As a 6-year-old, which of the two scenarios would you rather have faced? In the first, you are denied the cookie; but you get the loving attention of your mother. In the second, you get your cookie -- but a gnawing pit swells in your stomach. In some small way, your mother has abandoned you...
Let us continue. Imagine that you are older now. You and your spouse live in a small apartment. Unfortunately, your financial situation is bleak; you cannot afford to buy yourselves even a small, used car. Even routine grocery shopping has become an ordeal. Your husband's employer, however, has hinted he may be in line for a raise -- enough, perhaps, to allow you to afford a vehicle.
So you pray to God with added devotion, and ask for this raise to come through. We, of course, have no way to directly perceive how God accepts our prayers -- but for the sake of argument, let us imagine that you could somehow "hear" His response. Imagine, again, two scenarios:
SCENARIO A
God responds to you: "My child, I want you to know that I am with you. I know the stress you feel due to your financial situation, and I feel your anguish. But for reasons I cannot now reveal to you, it is not within the scheme of things for your husband to receive this raise."
SCENARIO B
God responds to you: "In the past, you have not displayed enough faith for Me to take your concerns seriously right now. I choose not to involve Myself in your plight; I shall allow events to unfold as they would on their own. If your husband's employer decides to give him the raise, then so be it; but I will not be involved."
Again, which would we prefer to hear? The first response firmly but gently denies our request, whereas the second leaves open the possibility that we will indeed get the money. But in the second response, we also feel the hard, cold shock of God abandoning us. If we do get the money, what price will we have paid?
And now, finally, consider a last situation. A man suffering the effects of leukemia is wheeled into the operating room for a last-chance operation to save his life. The doctors give him barely fifty-fifty odds. As he feels the anesthesia begin to take effect, he realizes quite clearly that this may be his last moments of consciousness on Earth. He opens his heart to God and prays that he will survive.
Imagine that in his last fleeting seconds of consciousness, this man would be privileged to hear God's response to him. Consider, again, two scenarios:
SCENARIO A
God responds to him: "My child, I want you to know that I am very close to you now. As you drift into sleep, I shall stay by your side, and I shall not leave you.
"I feel your anguish, and I know how much you want to live. But I must tell you that now is the time I have chosen for you to end your stay on Earth. You cannot understand why. But now, My child, is the time."
SCENARIO B
God responds to him: "You have not made yourself worthy of My becoming intimately involved in your affairs. The doctor who is operating on you is as competent as any; I shall leave your fate in his hands."
In his final waking moments, which response would the man rather hear? Is it not conceivable -- even probable -- that he would prefer God's intimate and loving denial of his request, than God's cold withdrawal from his life? If so -- if this is what we would feel were we in this man's situation -- then we may have discovered something truly profound about our values: An intimate relationship with our Parent in Heaven is something we would trade anything for -- even life itself.
When we truly open our hearts to God, we make God real in our lives.
This, then, says something important about why we pray, and what we get out of the experience.
Yes, it is true that we pray for the cookie, the car, or indeed, for our very lives. But these are only the apparent purposes of our prayers. For when we truly open our hearts to God -- when we genuinely reach out to Him in our times of need -- we make God real in our lives. We build a relationship with Him.
As in any good relationship, feelings tend to reciprocate. Our connection with God is no different. When we reach out to Him, He reaches back to us. Each word of prayer becomes a brick in the edifice of that relationship. And when all is said and done, we value that relationship more than anything.
I think that when we truly understand this, we have given ourselves the tools to deal with the possibility that God may not, in fact, grant us the object of our prayers. For we can realize that the more profound our need, the more deeply we have fashioned a relationship with our Creator by telling Him about it. Thus, whether we receive what we have "asked" for or not, we have certainly not been "betrayed" by God. A refusal can be loving, too. And the relationship we have built by asking has not gone away.
We live in a flesh and blood world, and this is a difficult truth to internalize. Our needs are real to us. We really do want the cookie or the car; our heartfelt desire for the object of our prayer is not simply imagined. However, if we pause for a moment, we can focus on the deeper things, too. Through our heartfelt communication, we have drawn closer to God, and He has drawn closer to us. And as we sense this closeness, we may find that we have not only achieved a deeper appreciation of prayer -- and of these Days of Awe -- but we have also gained newfound strength to deal with whatever response God ultimately bequeaths us.
Listen to Rabbi Fohrman's free audio classes at www.jewishtextstudy.org
Excerpted from "INSPIRING DAYS" published by K'hal Publishing in conjunction with The Afikim Foundation
Friday, September 14, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
God Sees
This from Aish.com:
I'm invisible.
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?"Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible.
Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?"
I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?"
I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30, please."
I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going ... she's going ... she's gone!
One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean.
My unwashed hair was pulled up in a clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this."
It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: "To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."
In the days ahead I would read - no, devoure - the book. And I would discover what would become, for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:
(1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.(2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.(3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.(4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof?
No one will ever see it." And the workman replied, "Because God sees." I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."
At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.
I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.
When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, "You're gonna love it there."
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.
God Bless You as you build your Cathedrals!
I'm invisible.
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?"Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible.
Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?"
I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?"
I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30, please."
I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going ... she's going ... she's gone!
One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean.
My unwashed hair was pulled up in a clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this."
It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: "To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."
In the days ahead I would read - no, devoure - the book. And I would discover what would become, for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:
(1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.(2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.(3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.(4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof?
No one will ever see it." And the workman replied, "Because God sees." I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."
At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.
I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.
When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, "You're gonna love it there."
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.
God Bless You as you build your Cathedrals!
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