Friday, August 19, 2016

When the Stars Allign

The goal of this email is to cure loneliness in our times. Please print and share.
Happy Birthday shout-out this week to Shelli in SF.
(To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.)



hippocratic-oathThis title may seem more appropriate for last week's Persistence of Memory.

But that would be a hyper-literal reaction, wouldn't it?

 
Today it is (of course) meant figuratively, as in, "When things seem to be going the right way, or the desirable way, or in some divinely-guided way".

When is that?

According to our ancient tradition, whenever a couple get married.

When two souls, who have been separated for some 20-odd (or 30-odd, or 40-odd, or more) years, reunite, that can only happen because it's a match made in Heaven.

(No, marrying your soul-mate does nto mean that it will be blissful, merely that it could be blissful.)

First question for your table: If that's the case, why do people - even religious people - go to so much trouble and heartache when it comes to getting married (or helping a child get married)?

The answer should be obvious to anyone with even a rudimentary Jewish education. We are not Christian Scientists who don't take medicine because trusting God is sufficient to heal us.

We take the medicine, because we understand that we were given a hurting world in order to get involved and be a godly partner in the tikkun.

There is no greater need for tikkun than the feeling of loneliness.

I just read that loneliness is one of the allowed justifications for euthanasia (i.e., legalized murder) in Belgium (where it is now possible for a child to be put out of her or his misery upon request).

Let's put aside the ethical side of that topic for a moment and consider the emotional background. The good people of Belgium have decided that persistent, incurable loneliness is so terrible that it justifies empowering doctors (who have taken the Hippocratic Oath) to inject a shot of barbituate so potent that it kills the patient within two minutes.


The best cure for loneliness, I'm told, is the company of other people.

Now it all comes together. Today is not merely the 15th of Av on the Jewish calendar - it is Tu b'Av - the festival of matchmaking, of participating in that divine tikkun to end one kind of loneliness.

How you can get involved:

1. Today, make a list of singles who you think would prefer to be a little less single (the act of making a list boosts your memory).
2. Print your list and tape it to the dashboard of your car.
3. Keep them in mind every day so that you will be on the lookout for their soul mates, enabling you to become God's messenger, as it were.

Do this today and I guarantee you will have a much richer and happier life.
Shabbat Shalom

PS - Whether you find school-supply shopping fun or infuriating, try using
our free resource for parents (try searching under category: school supplies)

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As always, this message can be read online at http://rabbiseinfeld.blogspot.com.

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