The purpose of this email is to build some self-esteem at the Shabbat table. Please print and share. (The big holday has passed... and now a new countdown.)
This week, a tragedy, an idea, and a ray of sunshine.
The tragedy: It was reported this week that 25 students in India committed suicide after having failed a college entrance exam.
India's top universities have a lower acceptance rate (2 percent) than the most elite American colleges.
Judging by various reports, the reason this made the news is because many (or all) of them didn't actually fail; there were technical errors in the scoring.
And when you read the articles, the parents and public officials are all looking for someone to blame for these lost young lives.
So this opens up a huge question for your table: What's a greater tragedy - that these teenagers were under such pressure (from their parents, families, society) to make them feel like failure on the exam means your life is pointless? Or that the storyline everywhere focuses on the "irregularities in the examination"?? (The London Telegraph solemnly concludes, "The independent panel has said it will imminently announce measures to ensure that marking errors do not occur again". Thanks.
Today's idea: Yesterday, I heard a speaker make the following observation about death, a great conversation-starter for your Shabbat table:
The fear of death is the main motivator for most people in the world.
and there are four typical reactions to this fear:
1. Survival-instinct - I shall fight it (and everyone else who gets in my way)!
2. Distraction - also denial - just avoid thinking about it, get involved in projects, work, busy-ness.
3. Depression - needs no explanation.
4. Heroic - "I'll face death with courage!"
Even focusing on going to Heaven is a reaction to fear of death.
For your table: is this an accurate summary of the major reactions to fear of dying?
Second question: is there a fifth way?
She (the speaker) declared that indeed there is a fifth way, the Jewish way.
To help you think about that, here's the ray of sunshine:
I went into the JCC today, to my usual locker area, and in the first locker I opened someone had left a wallet and cell phone, but no lock on the locker.
Who in day and age would be so careless?
At this time of year in Baltimore, you see an increase of yeshiva students who have come home for the holiday. Most have returned to their yeshivas already, but a few are still around for a few more days. Yeshiva students are often idealist. They sometimes live in a bubble, in an environment where even gossip is shunned, let alone theft!
Call him naïve, but I found it uplifting that someone still trusts me and those around him that way.
What do you think?
Shabbat Shalom
This week, a tragedy, an idea, and a ray of sunshine.The tragedy: It was reported this week that 25 students in India committed suicide after having failed a college entrance exam.
India's top universities have a lower acceptance rate (2 percent) than the most elite American colleges.
Judging by various reports, the reason this made the news is because many (or all) of them didn't actually fail; there were technical errors in the scoring.
And when you read the articles, the parents and public officials are all looking for someone to blame for these lost young lives.
So this opens up a huge question for your table: What's a greater tragedy - that these teenagers were under such pressure (from their parents, families, society) to make them feel like failure on the exam means your life is pointless? Or that the storyline everywhere focuses on the "irregularities in the examination"?? (The London Telegraph solemnly concludes, "The independent panel has said it will imminently announce measures to ensure that marking errors do not occur again". Thanks.
Today's idea: Yesterday, I heard a speaker make the following observation about death, a great conversation-starter for your Shabbat table:
The fear of death is the main motivator for most people in the world.
and there are four typical reactions to this fear:
1. Survival-instinct - I shall fight it (and everyone else who gets in my way)!
2. Distraction - also denial - just avoid thinking about it, get involved in projects, work, busy-ness.
3. Depression - needs no explanation.
4. Heroic - "I'll face death with courage!"
Even focusing on going to Heaven is a reaction to fear of death.
For your table: is this an accurate summary of the major reactions to fear of dying?
Second question: is there a fifth way?
She (the speaker) declared that indeed there is a fifth way, the Jewish way.
To help you think about that, here's the ray of sunshine:
I went into the JCC today, to my usual locker area, and in the first locker I opened someone had left a wallet and cell phone, but no lock on the locker.
Who in day and age would be so careless?
At this time of year in Baltimore, you see an increase of yeshiva students who have come home for the holiday. Most have returned to their yeshivas already, but a few are still around for a few more days. Yeshiva students are often idealist. They sometimes live in a bubble, in an environment where even gossip is shunned, let alone theft!
Call him naïve, but I found it uplifting that someone still trusts me and those around him that way.
What do you think?
Shabbat Shalom
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