How Sweet is Too Sweet?

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

January 26-27, 2024 • 17 Shevat 5784 • B'shalach (Ex 13-17). 

The purpose of this blog is for an ascendent Shabbat table ... please forward/print/share.
Do you know how many days until Purim and Pesach?

Years ago, someone suggested that I start doing this weekly blog as a v-blog.

First problem, easier said than done. 

Second problem, it's hard to print and share a video at the Shabbat table.

Today I'm making an exception because I've recently produced or been a guest on some new videos that I'd simply like to share with you. 

Here they are, shortest to longest:

Deadline Coffee (33 seconds)

New App (45 seconds)
How Sweet is Too Sweet (7 minutes)
Chicago interview (30 minutes)
92Y interview w. Dr. Grove (60 minutes)

If you only have time for one of the above, I suggest the 7-minute nugget — it's apropos both Tubishvat (yesterday) and Shabbat and it will kickstart the conversation tonight around the question: How sweet is too sweet?


Shabbat Shalom,

Alexander Seinfeld

PS - Have you downloaded our new amazing iPhone app? (make sure to enable notifications so you don't miss out on on the fun!)

Enjoyed this Table Talk? Vote with your fingers! Like it, tweet it,  email it....

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

The mission of Jewish Spiritual Literacy, Inc. (JSLI) is to foster a paradigm shift in spiritual and moral education to enable every human being to access and enjoy the incredible database of 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom.

Is Life a Mountain?

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

January 19-20, 2024 • 10 Teves 5784 • Bo (Ex 10-13). 

The purpose of this blog is for an ascendent Shabbat table ... please forward/print/share.
Do you know how many days until Tubishvat, Purim and Pesach?
In memory of Yaakov ben Matis, who passed away this week.

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Early Tuesday morning, a snowstorm greeted me on my departure to California and this morning a new snowstorm greeted my return.

The occasion was the sudden loss of a wonderful soul named James (the Yaakov mentioned above) whose life story could fill many screens or pages. Here I will share just one nugget for you and your table.

Everyone talked about how James loved to ski. He was a natural athlete and certain childhood experiences seem to have given him a fearlessness bordering on recklessness. Those two traits combined made him one of the best amateur skiiers on any slope.

Anyone who has skied knows the joy, the thrill of speed. It's a playful pastime. There's something raw and visceral about the descent.

But the James that I knew - only for the past couple years - was at a new phase of his life. He was struggling with many challenges, mishaps, misfortunes as well as substance abuse. What we should learn from him, as his sister said so eloquently last night at Shiva, was that he didn't let these challenges define him. Regardless of how low he had fallen on the social-economic ladder, his true nature always shined, which was a baal chesed – a true connoisseur of lovingkindness. He would do anything for anyone without hesitation. 

For example, his mother tells of the time when they were speaking on the phone and James was panting. "Are you all right?" she asked. "Yes," he panted, "I just saw someone in an electric wheelchair that had run out of juice and I pushed them up the hill." This was a San Francisco hill, mind you. Total stranger, no hesitation to help.

And in my judgement, his recent daily challenges were mostly rooted in a lack of clear sense of life purpose and direction. So with some guidance, he had started to clarify his life purpose and was finally in his late 50s beginning to see himself as a mountain climber, not a descender.

That's my take on James, in a nutshell - after many years of racing downhill, he left this world going uphill. It doesn't really matter how high you climb. What does matter is what direction you're going.

Let's leave this as usual with a question for your table: What about you? Are you living life for thrills and "experiences," or are you living for climbing higher?


Shabbat Shalom,

Alexander Seinfeld

PS - Our new amazing iPhone app is getting rave reviews - have you tried it?

Enjoyed this Table Talk? Vote with your fingers! Like it, tweet it,  email it....

The mission of Jewish Spiritual Literacy, Inc. (JSLI) is to foster a paradigm shift in spiritual and moral education to enable every human being to access and enjoy the incredible database of 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom.

The App Came Back!

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

January 12-13, 2024 • 3 Teves 5784 • Vaeira (Ex 6-9). 

The purpose of this blog is for something amazing to emerge at the Shabbat table ... please forward/print/share.
Do you know how many days until Tubishvat, Purim and Pesach?

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Following last week's missive about Mad magazine and the 7 Friendly Sins, here is another blast-from-the-past....

Long, long ago, there was a phenomenon in our culture called the "page-a-day calendar."

Maybe some of you are old enough to remember them?

(Turns out their demise has been greatly exaggerated ... you can still get a new-word-a-day calendar.... a sudoku-a-day calendar. ... a cat-a-day calendar ....  thanks to Workman Publishing, they're still a thing.)

So about 20 years ago, I had this vision of creating an Amazing Jewish-Fact-a-Day Calendar. 

What did Louis Armstrong say about the Jewish influence on his music?
What does the Talmud say about airplanes and telescopes?
What are the 10 Jewish inventions that you can't live without?
What does Judaism say about reincarnation?
And so on.

And each amazing fact has links to related content.

More than a vision:

• I wrote a year's worth of material (a lot harder than you'd think - it's like writing a book);
• Pitched it to publishers.
• Got quotes from printers for self-publishing.
• Pitched it to donors....
  

The problem was that we couldn't make the economics work. The most optimistic projections wouldn't come close to breaking even.

Then along came the iPhone. Since I was a very late adopter (I loved my flip phone and then my Blackberry's physical keys), I didn't see the iPhone's potential until around 2012. But by then it became obvious that the iPhone was the perfect platform for the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar. 

The iPhone tech allows me to give you your nugget of Jewish inspiration on your screen at the time you choose. Super cool.

And just to make it fun (and exponentially more difficult to develop), we added a Hebrew calendar that changes at sunset based on your location and we synced certain facts with the Jewish calendar and others with the secular calendar.

Super hard to get that right, and the first version came out in 2013. It was well-liked with only 5-star reviews, but very hard to maintain, and after 5 years, I stopped maintaining it. 

Well, over the past 9 months we've been attempting to resurrect it for the newest iOS. It's the same basic vision, but with better features.

While there are still a couple glitches, it is working fine for most testers, so today I'm pleased to officially announce its release. Here's the link. (Even without an iPhone, you can see screenshots there.) 

If you have an iPhone, please download it and send me your honest feedback. (It's free for the first 2 weeks, after that 5¢/day.)

(Note - you'll want to enable location and notifications to get the best experience.)

If you don't have an iPhone, kindly click here to email the link or below to forward this email to someone who does.

Let's end as we always do with a question for your table. How would you answer a non-Jewish person who asked you, "Tell me one amazing thing about Judaism or the Jewish People..." — ???

(If you send it to me and it gets used in the app, your bragging rights will be tremendous.)

Shabbat Shalom,

Alexander Seinfeld

PS - Out of 2,000,000 iPhone apps, can you guess which one keeps Shabbat?

Enjoyed this Table Talk? Vote with your fingers! Like it, tweet it,  email it....

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

The mission of Jewish Spiritual Literacy, Inc. (JSLI) is to foster a paradigm shift in spiritual and moral education to enable every human being to access and enjoy the incredible database of 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom.

The 7 Friendly Sins?

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld 

January 5-6, 2024 • 25 Teves 5784 • Shemos (Ex 1-5). 

The purpose of this email is for virtuous Shabbat table conversation ... please forward/print/share.

Dedicated to the refuah shleima of our infant grandson Menachem Dovid ben Golda who had surgery today to remove a hopefully-benign growth.


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Thank you to all who responded to last week's Gesundheit membership campaign! - for mere pennies a week, you are on the cutting edge of Jewish educational innovation. These programs are made possible by partners like you - thank you!

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Can you recall: when you were growing up, did you ever hear about the "Seven Deadly Sins"?

My own earliest memory of them is in a Mad magazine parody.

Am I the only one who remembers learning something from Mad?

(Or from Dennis the Menace?)

Actually, now that I think about it, many of my first exposures to Christian ideas came via parody.

It may sound funny, but that "pedagogy" had consequences.

​For example, on my first trip to Jerusalem at age 18, we toured the entire Old City, including the Christian Quarter. While the guide was explaining the Via Dolorosa, I burst out laughing. It must have seemed incredibly disrespectful. The reason I was laughing was because for the first time I got the jokes in Monty Python's parody of that story.

But to Christians the Seven Deadly Sins are apparently big concept. They call them "deadly" because they believe that even one of them can take a person to eternal damnation.

Try this question at your table: Can you name them?

(pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth)

When I read that Mad parody, I had no idea that it was a Christian idea, it was just a cultural meme.

Now, while it is a Christian concept, if you've known me long enough, you've heard my estimate that 95 percent of Christianity comes from Judaism.

So what would you say — do the Seven Sins come from the 95 percent (Jewish roots) or do they fall in the five percent category?

They have parallels in the 6 "Enemies" of Hinduism, the 5 or 6 "Poisons" of Buddhism, 5 "Thieves" of Sikhism, and surely many other traditions.

What about Judaism? It's a good question for the table.

It seems to me that the first four – pride, greed, wrath and envy – are probably all expressions of the same common denominator, namely ego or selfishness; and the latter three – lust, gluttony and sloth – are all symptoms of a body-centered materialism.

And in Jewish thought, selfishness and body-focus are natural instincts of childhood that adulthood is meant to cure. 

That said, it also seems to me that some of the seven might have a time and place when they are not only not sinful, but might actually be virtuous. What do you think? 


Shabbat Shalom,

Alexander Seinfeld

Enjoyed this Table Talk? Vote with your fingers! Like it, tweet it,  email it....

The mission of Jewish Spiritual Literacy, Inc. (JSLI) is to foster a paradigm shift in spiritual and moral education to enable every human being to access and enjoy the incredible database of 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom.