Are You Level-Headed?

The purpose of this blog is to bring some balance to the Shabbat table... Please share...
In memory of Dovid ben Eliezer.

Last week's message about greatness makes it easy to transition to this week's memorial to my father of blessed memory, whose seventeenth yahrzeit was observed on Monday. 

My father was a tool guy. 

He didn't own every tool, but he was comfortable using just about any one of them. I think that his workbench was always such a mess because it was in constant use. He always used his awl to prep for driving a screw, and he tightened a loose screw with Elmer's glue and a broken toothpick. 

All this and more I learned at a very young age. 

(Including that a square isn't square.)

He was particularly fond of well-designed tools, like that cool ergonomic ratchet screwdriver (it was similar to this but with a spherical handle - the Easy Driver).

What did he do with all of these tools and tricks? 

As far as I recall, only practical home improvement projects. 

For instance, he built my childhood bed, complete with trundle, from scratch.

He repaired broken lamps. 

All small projects: big projects they left to the pros, like the time they hired a contractor to build a new back deck. This deck included a stack of horizontal one-by-eights (I think) on the back side to serve as a privacy fence.

Admiring his new deck in the bright summer sunshine, Dad got the idea in his head that it would be cool to have a built-in bench along that fence.

Literally cool: the fence would create a shady spot to eat breakfast and read the newspaper.

Out came the tape measure, the saw horse, and the buzz saw (he never called it a circular saw).

And — crucially — the level. Dad was so careful to measure and level with such perfection that when he finished that bench, you could have used it to calibrate satellites. 

Here's the problem: the contractor who built the fence had not been so precise with his level. Dad's perfect bench was not parallel to the boards behind it. It was close.... but this was neither horseshoes nor hand grenades....

Bottom-line: it looked awkward. 

So picture this situation. You've put all this work into it, you've put away your tools and cleaned up, and it looks awkward.

You basically have three options:

1. Call the contractor and ask him to correct his fence.
2. Adjust your bench to match the fence.
3. Leave it alone and live with the awkward imbalance for years to come.

What would you guess my father did?

What would you do? 


Shabbat Shalom


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Is This What Alexander Meant?

The purpose of this blog is to bring a bit of greatness to the Shabbat table... Please share...

 

Last week I asked, Is this what Ringo meant?

(Did you order the mask?)

This week it's all about Alexander the Great.

Sometime after his conquest of Western Asia ca. 333 BCE, certain Alexander the Great allegories were passed down and recorded in the Talmud in 500 CE.

Here's a sample:

He came to the door of Gan Eden. He cried out, Open the door for me. They replied, This is the gate of the Lord, [the righteous shall enter into it]. He replied: I too am a king; I am also of some account, give me something. They gave him an eyeball. He went and weighed all his silver and gold against it, and it was not equal to it. He said to the Rabbis: How is this? They replied: It is the eyeball of a human being, which is never satisfied. He said to them: How can you prove that this is so? They took a little dust and covered it, and immediately it was balanced; and so it is written, The Grave and Destruction are never satiated; [so the eyes of a person are never satiated]. - Talmud Tamid 32b

If the moral of the story is simply that human desire is never satisfied, why this long tale? And why use Alexander the Great as protagonist? How does his personality contribute to the message? And why is he barred from Gan Eden? 

The context is instructive. This sugiya (Talmudic unit) begins with Alexander debating with the "Elders of the South", which results in him taking an ill-advised trip to Africa, being intellectually-bested by a group of women and finally at the door to Paradise. In summary, the theme is: Alexander — representing Hellenism — is trying to prove that a person should simultaneously be able to achieve both massive material pleasures and great wisdom. You can have it all!

The Gan Eden eyeball is a rejection of that belief. Gan Eden represents the summit of wisdom and the eyeball represents material desire. Since material desires are insatiable, they prevent a person from achieving wisdom (because you can never have enough to satisfy it, so as long as you allow your desires to lead you — the open eye), you'll never have time or headspace to pursue wisdom.

This is like what we today call addiction — a never-ending cycle of desire fulfillment, and is equated here with Grave and Destruction.

A person dies without even half of his desires fulfilled.

You think you can have it all, but you cannot. That's the bad news.

The good news is that the past does not need to determine the present nor the future (other than having created habits).

At any moment, any day, you could decide: I'm going to find a teacher and start my pursuit of wisdom!

This week's question for your table — Who's right, the Elders of the South or Alexander the Great?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Yes, as always, go ahead and click on that pic!

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Is This What Ringo Meant?

The purpose of this blog is to add a bit of melody to the Shabbat table... Please print and share...

Two weeks ago, I asked, Can you guess what's the #1 question people ask rabbis?

Did anyone at your table get it right?

And after offering my answer I then asked, 

What's really bothering someone when they ask that question?

This week here's a follow-up — try this one at your table: 

What's the #2 question asked to rabbis?

There is a clue in this week's title above.

The tile refers, of course, to Ringo's poesy,

Got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues
And you know it don't come easy
You don't have to shout or leap about
You can even play them easy
Forget about the past and all your sorrow
The future won't last, it will soon be your tomorrow....

So are you ready for the #2 question asked to rabbis?

Rabbi, why is my life so hard?

Hearing this question, the Rabbi of course shows sympathy, and maybe that's all the person needs.

But some people want more:

"Rabbi, I don't need sympathy. I want an answer. I want to know why God is making my life so hard!??"

Hence the big question for your table - Put yourself in the rabbi's shoes.... how would you answer?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Yes, as always, that pic up there is clickable....
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A New Vocabulary Word?

 The purpose of this blog is to expand everyone's vocabulary to the Shabbat table... Please print and share...

In memory of my grandmother Yehudis bas Alexander, whose yahrzeit was observed this week.

Here's an interesting question to try at your Shabbat table:

Can you guess what's the #1 question asked to rabbis?

In my opinion, the answer is: "Why the Holocaust?"

Or some version of that.... 

Next question: What's really bothering someone when they ask that question?

It seems to me that what's bothering them is: How can a putatively good God allow innocent people to suffer?

Not a new question, not unique to Judaism, yada yada. 

But I'd like this week to focus on one aspect of that question that came up recently.

Recently, someone asked me, "OK, let's say for the sake of discussion that I accept that there is a reason for everything and that God has a masterplan and that one day it will all make sense. But why does it appear never-ending? We're supposed to be good to each other, we're not, we're going in circles, it looks like a never-ending cycle."

So again, what's the question? What's bothering this person?

Maybe what's bothering him is: How are we meant to get out of the cycle? How are we meant to repair the world?

It seems to me that the key to humanity's "salvation" is learning how to master maklokus.

Maklokus means argument or disagreement. 

The Talmud says that there are two kinds, good maklokus and bad maklokus.

Good makokus is when we're loving and respectful and we happen to disagree, and we're both arguing - sometimes passionately - not because we each want to win but because we each want to arrive at the Truth. Arguing is like playing tennis - I need you to argue with me either to help me see flaws in my thinking or to help me solidify my thinking. 

Bad maklokus is when we're neither loving nor respectful, we're not seeking clarity, we're both convinced a priori that we have the Truth and the only goal is to win.

Bad maklokus is thesis-antithesis.

Good maklokus is thesis-antithesis-synthesis.

Question for your table - How can you make sure that every maklokus is a good one?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Yes, as always, that pic up there is clickable....
PPS - Shopping on Amazon? Please use https://smile.amazon.com and Amazon will donate a % of the sale to the non-profit of your choice (such as Jewish Spiritual Literacy), at no extra cost to you. Why not? 
 
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