Storm Before the Calm?

The purpose of this blog is to generate some calm excitement at the Friday night dinner table. Please print and share...
Please see the important info below on the new podcast.
Are you counting the days to Hannukah?  Hannuka gifts on Amazon.
In memory numerous holy people whose yahrzeits fell this week whom I wrote about exactly one year ago.
After 2 weeks of space rocks (Coming Soon to a Pillow Near You? and Anabolic Asteroids), are you ready for something calm?

First question for your table: Would you describe your life as calm?

Or maybe this is the question: Would you describe yourself as calm?

Which is it? Is calmness something that occurs around us or inside of us?
Is calmness something you're born with and basically stuck with, or can it change?

Here's one way to test your answer: do nothing for two minutes.com.

Can you pass the test?

And a final question for your table -If you or your life are sometimes but not always calm — when and why?
Shabbat Shalom


PS - Regarding the new podcast:

Some people were confused by the links. The idea is that you click or tap on one of 7 different podcast services and then "subscribe" or "follow" so that every time I post a new episode (hopefully every Sunday evening) you'll get a notification. (There is no charge.)

To save you the trouble of so much clicking and tapping, here are the eight options:

iTunes podcasts ... Spotify podcasts ... Google podcasts ... Sticher podcasts ... Podbean podcasts ... Amazon music podcasts ... Pocketcasts ... Yidpod

Too many choices? You could pick one at random or choose the one that makes most sense for your device (my guess would be iTunes for iPhones and Google for Android phones; but some people prefer Pocketcasts or Yidpod regardless of the phone.)

But please subscribe or "follow". It won't cost you a penny and it will help the cause. So please subscribe via one of those links. 

Had enough calmness and health and ready for more space rocks?
PS - When shopping at Amazon, please use http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

Anabolic Asteroids?

The purpose of this blog is to get full impact at the Friday night dinner table. Please print and share...

As if last week's space rock story was too far-fetched to get the attention at the table, now we have another extraordinary anxiety-fueling space rock tale.
Presently, several astroids are passing within not-quite-alarming distances from the earth:
• A couple weeks ago, asteroid 2021TT1 passed within 300,000 miles of Earth. On the one hand, that's nearly as close as the Moon. On the other hand, this asteroid is just 34 meters in diameter. On the other hand, that's large enough to destroy a small city.
• On Wednesday night this week, asteroid 1996VB3 - larger than the height of the Golden Gate Bridge's towers - passed within around 2 million miles of us.
• On Monday next week, asteroid 2017SJ20 will pass about 4 million miles away.
Here's a simulation.

If one of these things were indeed heading straight for the Earth, could we stop it with any known technology?

Evidently not.

So now here's where we give you an provocative question for your table.

No, we're not going to ask you what would you do if an asteroid were headed straight for your city. 

Rather:

What if all the best scientists concurred that a small asteroid were headed straight for the city that you personally consider the most wicked in the world? What would you do?

For your table.... would you:

...pray for Divine intervention?
...await the impact with glee?
...ignore?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - When shopping at Amazon, please use http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars. 

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Coming Soon to a Pillow Near You?

The purpose of this blog is to shake up the Friday night dinner table. Please print and share...

While kosher pork may or may not be possible, while Captain Kirk is surely a nonagenarian Canadian's fantasy, here's a true space story from Canada you might have missed this week.

B.C. woman awakes to a hole in her roof and a space rock on her pillow

 

Oct. 8, 2021 2:50 p.m. © Castlegar News 

 

On Oct. 4, many were treated to the sight of a fireball lighting up the night sky, with images of a meteor sailing above Lake Louise striking awe.

 

Longtime Golden resident Ruth Hamilton, however, was fast asleep.

 

Or at least she was until she was roughly awoken by the sound of a crash through her ceiling and the sensation of debris on her face.

 

“I just jumped up and turned on the light, I couldn’t figure out what the heck had happened,” said Hamilton.

 

She said she took a look around to get her bearings, and spotting a rock sitting neatly on her pillow next to where her head usually lays.

 

Hamilton called 911, unsure of what to make of the projectile. An police officer arrived on the scene, and after establishing that the rock was not there as a result of the ongoing construction in the Kicking Horse Canyon, they settled on the only other explanation – that a meteorite had come through her roof.

 

“We called the Canyon project to see if they were doing any blasting and they weren’t, but they did say they had seen a bright light in the sky that had exploded and caused some booms,” said Hamilton.

 

“I was shaking and scared when it happened, I thought someone had jumped in or it was a gun or something. It’s almost a relief when we realized it could only have fallen out of the sky.”

 

Hamilton says that she’s totally fine and avoided any injuries, and that she plans to keep the rock for the foreseeable future, stating that her grandchildren think it’s pretty cool.

 

“I’m just totally amazed over the fact that it is a star that came out of the sky, who knows how old it is!” said Hamilton.

 

She also says that the experience has given her a new perspective on life.

 

”The only other thing I can think of saying is life is precious and it could be gone at any moment even when you think you are safe and secure in your bed,” said Hamilton.

 

“I hope I never ever take it for granted again.”

 

As for the damage to her home, Hamilton says that her insurance company will be doing a walk-through to see if roof holes cause by space debris are covered. Evidently, the company has never had a claim filed quite like this before.

 

As for Hamilton, she has no plans to take up astrology or stargazing after her encounter.

 

“That’s enough for a lifetime, I think,” she said.

For your table:

Have you ever fantasized about going to the Final Frontier?
What about the Final Frontier coming to you?
Would you say that Ruth Hamilton was lucky or unlucky?

Shabbat Shalom

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Mission: Impossible?

The purpose of this blog is to achieve the impossible at the Shabbat table.... Please print and share, and forward... 

 

Here's a story for your table, followed by two questions, followed by a current-events gloss, followed by a third question.

While on a road trip twenty years ago, I was invited to guest-teach a Sunday morning class at the Seattle Kollel. 

Filling a large conference table, the participants appeared to come from all walks of Jewish life - old and young, religious and not, etc.

I have no idea how this wonderful, thoughtful eclectic group were recruited. I was not asked to speak on any particular subject, rather: "Whatever you want!"
 

The subject I chose was pearls of wisdom from Rabbi Tatz's modern classic, World Mask.

A question from one of the participants lead me to ask the following question:

What's the beracha on pork?

"Nice try Rabbi, that's a trick question - pork's not kosher so it doesn't get a beracha!"

"Normally you'd be right. But let's say a person were literally starving and the only food available is pork. Suddenly for that person, pork becomes kosher!"

After the class, an older woman approached me.

"Rabbi, I really enjoyed your class. However, one thing bothered me. I am a survivor. After the war, we were starving. We were literally starving and we ate non-kosher meat. But we would never have eaten pork!"

First question for your table: Can you sympathize with her? Why do you think she felt so strongly about pork as opposed to any other non-kosher meat?

Second question for your table: What do you think I replied to her?

Current-events gloss to the story:

Two weeks ago, the Impossible Foods company announced that Impossible Pork will now be available in thousands of grocery stores and restaurants nationwide.

(BTW, they weren't the first to market with this idea.)

The company claims that in a blind taste test of over 200 consumers in Hong Kong, Impossible Pork Made From Plants was preferred to ground pork from pigs (54% preference vs. 46%)

But contrary to what you might have thought, it apparently won't appear in any kosher restaurants soon.

The OU Kosher supervisors concurred with the woman in my class: anything called "pork" should not be certified kosher. 

I assume - but could be wrong - that other kashrut agencies will decline as well?

It turns out that the OU's decision has many supporters but I struggled to find very many detractors.

Even though some see the advent of kosher pork as a harbinger of Moshiach (the Messiah).

For your table: What do you think of the OU's decision? Right or wrong?


Shabbat Shalom

PS ....

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If Not Now, When?

The purpose of this blog is to up the wisdom at the Shabbat table.... Please print and share, and forward...
 

Yesterday evening I found myself in typical rush-hour traffic on the DC beltway.

I ordinarily do everything possible to avoid rush-hour traffic. Yesterday, I had no alternative.

Does this ever happen to you?

Is this "life back to normal"???

What happened to those inspirational moments of the High Holidays - including Sukkos and Simchat Torah, which only ended two days ago??

I don't want to lose those moments of inspiration. The past couple weeks' emails have been attempts to hold on to them.

For instance, last week's story ended with an open-ended question for your table about mastering a skill.

This rush-hour-traffic experience reminds me of two perspectives from Jewish wisdom:

1. The greatest skill anyone can master is the ability to live with serenity in the present moment.

Like physical sills, this skill of mindfulness takes much practice. Yet unlike physical skills, mindfulness can be mastered by anyone. 

2. Nothing you accomplish or create or earn or build in this world will stay with you beyond this world, save the wisdom that you achieve. Your wisdom will be your wisdom for all of eternity.

These two ideas lead to three questions for your table:

Is serenity a type of wisdom?
Why do most people seem to pursue anything but wisdom?
Is learning new information the same as achieving wisdom?


Shabbat Shalom
 

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