The Doctor is On?

The purpose of this blog is to improve moods at the Shabbat table... please print and share...

So, how did your Menorschach test go last week?

Here's another way of testing yourself and everyone at the table...

Have you ever heard of a medical clown?

Since the late 1980s, medical clowns have been lifting the spirits of pediatric and senior patients around the world. The benefits apparently include:

• Reducing stress
  
• Stimulating endorphin production (which reduces pain)
  
• Boosting the immune system by increasing T-cells and lowering cortisol levels
  
• Improving moods and increasing coping mechanisms
  

It seems to me these outcomes are plausible and maybe even obvious.

(For most patients; however, there is also a condition called coulrophobia — the irrational fear of clowns.)

But the topic raises several questions you can ask at your table.

First, should pediatricians perhaps all dress as clowns?

Second, if a clown can help a hospital patient, what about a less-severe illness, like the common cold?

Third, how would you like a clown to visit you when you are ill?

Finally: What do you think is the active ingredient here, humor or empathy?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Here we are at the end of the tax year....a reminder that every donation to JSLI is tax-deductible and that every Amazon purchase can trigger a donation to your favorite charity by using http://smile.amazon.com.... at zero cost to you! Please choose Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your grantee in order to support this weekly email and our other worthy programs. 

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Menorschach Test?

The purpose of this blog is to add some psychology to the Friday night dinner table... please print and share... 

Last week, my presentation of the religious-secular debate received both praise and criticism.

This week, instead of presenting competing points of view, let's make it more like a Rorschach test.

Remember Rorschach tests? They put you in the driver's seat - you get to be the interpreter.

(Apparently your act of interpreting an ink blot reveals something about you. You can try them out here.)

So here's your Menorschach test. Your first image is an original menorah artwork by Allison Garber that many will appreciate (click on it if you want a larger version):

First question - What's the message of the image?

After you ponder that for a few minutes, let's look a very different menorah image and ask your table the same question. 

Here it is:



Question: What does it mean to you?

I hope these questions aren't too obvious and give everyone at your table food for thought and fodder for talk.

But let's add one more question to seek some synergy — Look back at the two menorah images: which appeals to you more, and why?


Happy Channukah

and

Shabbat Shalom


PS - Mindful that we're rushing toward the end of the tax year, did you know that every donation to JSLI is tax-deductible? Did you know that every Amazon purchase can trigger a donation to your favorite charity by using http://smile.amazon.com? Please do so and consider choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your grantee in order to support this weekly email and our other worthy programs. 

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Hello Darkness?

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

Last week, we offered you superheroism on a silver platter.

This week, a different kind of heroism.

Here's the scenario:

Picture lighting a candle outside on a sunny day. Not much to see, it doesn't seem to cast much light.

Light that same candle in a dark room, and the light leaps out at you at one hundred eighty-six miles per second.

Same candle!

What does this mean?

Does it mean that darkness creates light?

Or does it mean that darkness makes light relevant?

Here's a dialog that I witnessed online this week between a theist and an atheist (I made them blue and green to help you follow who is saying what)...

I wish Jews were more strict about not assimilating because we have such a long and unique history, it’s such a shame seeing it come to a stop simply because people don’t really care.

You should get downvoted to oblivion. If the Haskalah movement (Jewish Enlightenment) did not take place the world would’ve been deprived of all the famous secular Jewish scientists, mathematicians, politicians, business leaders, artists… of the last almost 200 years.

If not for the Haskalah, maybe Moshiach would be here! The rise of secular humanism also led to two world wars, atom bombs, and tremendous human suffering. I'd take peace on earth over science, business and art any day.

You can’t seriously attribute the two world wars, especially the 2ed and rise of the Nazis to secular humanism. The nazis were literally a rejection of humanism the antithesis of it! I’ll leave moshiach out of this one but I wouldn’t wait around for him to show up but Einstein did not “delay” him.

Scientific advances in a world of secular humanism will inevitably lead to advancing the goals of imperialism, regardless of the driving ideology (Hellenism, Fascism, Communism, Pax-Americanism). But had Einstein and those Jews of his ilk devoted their incredible brainpower to Torah, Avodah and Chesed....

Are you insane? Um no science does not lead to imperialism, the world is way more complicated than that. And nothing is inevitable. If Einstein and the great jewish scientific/political/mathematical/philosophical secular leaders wasted their time re reading jewish sacred texts the world would be a much darker more dangerous place!

That ain't what I said. Read it again.

Scientific advances in a world of secular humanism does not lead to imperialism… I simplified but still is a pretty radical unsubstantiated opinion to hold!

It's only radical to someone with an emotional commitment to the system. But consider: secular humanism leads to all sorts of moral positions, including passivism and including (sometimes), "might makes right". At those times - given the technical means - wars will happen. What Russia and China are doing presently is merely a current example of this.

There's more, but that's enough for today's question for your table:

What do you think? Who wins the debate - Judaism or secular humanism?


Shabbat Shalom

and

Happy Channukah!

PS - Mindful of the countdown to Channukah, I'm guessing that you may be doing some shopping on Amazon - did you know that every Amazon purchase can trigger a donation to your favorite charity by using http://smile.amazon.com? Please do so and consider choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your grantee in order to support this weekly email and our other worthy programs. 

Superhero?

The purpose of this blog is to make you the hero or the Friday night dinner table... please print and share...

Quick - how many different uses for baking soda can you name? 

At least three?

How about twenty-two?

Does that seem like a random question?

Following last week's topic, on relating to other people (did you enjoy the double-linked animated image?), this week it's all about mine, truly (i.e., you).

So if you did pretty well on that opening question (meaning, you could come up with more than three), you may very well be a DIY-er. 

But here's the easiest way to tell: If something's broke, would you prefer to fix it yourself, or to pay someone else to fix it for you?

Or perhaps someone at the table is a super-DIY-er - the kind of person who won't throw out that broken headset because maybe one day you'll come up with a hack for it.

Well, I admit I'm being charitable, because the spouse of a person like that would call him (it's usually a him) a pack-rat or a hoarder. 

– "It's broken."
– "But it can be fixed!"
– "It's broken!"
– "But it can be fixed!"
– "It's broken!"
– "But it can be fixed!"

So as a public service, for the promotion of shalom bayit, I'm pleased to share with you a fixit hack that I learned this week. This is for all of those impossible-to-fix things like broken plastic knobs or stripped screws, or stripped screw holes in particle board — all of those frustrating things that you wish you could fix but that you're just about ready to throw in the trash — here's the hack....

It turns out that cyanoacrylate (also known as super glue) can be incredibly strengthened when thickened with calcium bicarbonate (baking soda). 

When I say incredibly strengthened, I mean like rock hard. Like as in hard as a rock. 

The basic hack is this: take whatever needs fixing — whether you're trying to reconnect an impossible plastic break or trying to strengthen a hole — first pour in some baking soda and then fill it with super glue. (If needed, make a masking tape mould first.)

Here's a six-minute video full of practical applications of this hack.

You will be your family's superhero, and you will thank me for it.

And I will say, that's my job, to make you the hero.

So, Hero, here's the final question for your table: Who would be the bigger hero - the one who tries to go it alone, fix the widget and yet fails? Or the one who calls the repairman?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - OK, now we're really into the countdown to Channukah...

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Going Up or Down?

The purpose of this email is to get up-votes at the Shabbat table... please share!

Last week's rare bird - my video message in honor of Thanksgiving - received a spectrum of responses, from praise, to criticism to "the link doesn't work!"

Don't know why the link didn't work for some, but the above should work for everyone.

Yesterday, I had an impromptu meeting with the principals of a certain Jewish school. Inside the building, as I walked through the hallways toward the office, I genuinely enjoyed that two-minute stroll. Everything was clean and tidy, through the classroom windows I spied what appeared to be engaged students, and the teenagers who passed me went out of their way to be friendly. 

Sitting with the principals, I described this pleasant experience, and they seemed genuinely pleased to hear the unsolicited feedback. I know that they (like most principals) are working very, very hard to improve their school and I expect my comments were validating.

But then one of them asked, half-jokingly, "Do you say that about every school you go to?"

The answer is... well, no, I don't say that if it isn't true, but I do indeed try to look for something positive to say. Why not begin a conversation with something positive? 

This is this week's question for your table: Is it better to begin every conversation with something positive, or are there times when this would be inappropriate?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Here's the official countdown to Channukah...

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