The Art of Amazement Blog / a.k.a. Table Talk

Get Moving

2012-01-27T06:13:00.000-08:00

The purpose of this blog is to provide a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table - please print and share....

Remember the Little Engine That Could?

Does any kid ever believe that story?

We all believe in the power of positive thinking, but is it enough?

Three months ago or so I wrote about my year-long attempt to get into shape and my quest for a 6:30 mile.

It appeared that much of what was holding me back was my belief that I could do it.

Since then, I've been pushing myself hard to stay at that plateau.

Then, last week, it occurred to me that I wasn't pushing myself as hard as I could. So it was time to try for hte 6 minute mile.

For the record, I don't have a particularly intense exercise routine. Just 3x/week, walk a mile, stretch, run a mile, stretch, calesthenics and maybe a few weights. That's about it. Unstudied, unschooled, I do what feels right to me.

But following the strategy as then, I got the same results, i.e. I'm now a 6 minute miler.

Who cares? The length of 1 mile and the time are so arbitrary. What difference does it make?

I think the answer is that although they are arbitrary, they give me a goal to work for. Without concrete goals, it's hard to feel like you're getting anywhere.

Have you ever tried to learn a language outside the classroom? You get a book, maybe some CDs or videos. You dabble. But if you decided, "I'm going to try to learn the Hebrew alphabet by February 27, 2012" you are highly likely to succeed. Or how about this: "I want to learn 1 new Hebrew phrase a day for 30 days." You'll do it, if you give yourself a deadline and numerical goal.

(I'm not saying you have to be Daniel Tammet, the kid who learned fluent Icelandic in one week, but watch this video and maybe you'll be inspired.)

Some readers may recall that when I first started exercising a year ago, I was so afraid of failure I actually bet a friend $500 that I could lose 8 pounds in 8 weeks. I knew that I could do it but wanted to make sure I did it. Put my money where my mouth was, quite literally.

But now something new has happened. For the first time, I'm thinking the previously unthinkable. I'm wondering if I could run a five minute mile. Is it conceivable or ridiculous? Understand, I'm not even close to what you would call an athletic person. I'm the kind of guy that real athletes smirk at if they see me in the gym. I did some googling around to see what's considered a good mile for the over-40 crowd. It seems that five may be a bit optimistic. Very very few achieve this, even with the intense motivation of competition. Five minutes looks too ambitious.

What do you think?

Here's today's question for your table: Which of your goals do you know you could achieve in the next 60 days if you were sufficiently motivated?

(If you say it's a top goal, and you know you could achieve it, but you're not willing to put your money with your mouth is, then it's not a real goal. Think about it.)

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Version 2.1 of my iphone app was released last week. Thanks for all the great feedback that went into making these revisions. Hope you enjoy it (links below).

As always, this message is available via email. Subscription info above.

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Part of Me

2012-01-20T06:13:00.000-08:00

Part of me.

Do we have parts?

Part of me really wants to write about the Costa Concordia. I want to compare it to the Titanic. I want to talk about the way everyone rushed to judge Captain Schettino for reckless driving and abandoning ship among other things, and now we are reading reports that his driving may not have been as reckless as everyone assumes and he may not have intentionally abandoned ship.

And you have to wonder if the lighthouse was in service.

Lots of great fodder there, on fate, hubris, judgement, yada yada.

But then part of me wants to wonder why we care more about this tragedy in Italy than the 100,000 avoidable deaths in Somalia last year. Deaths by starvation. Or the 16,000 children who die worldwide (mostly in Africa) every day from starvation and malnutrition. That's one kid every five seconds.

Do you have parts too?

Last week's blog about the snowstorm brought two diametrically opposed reactions.

One reader said, "Thank you for making my day! I forwarded it to everyone!"

Another reader wrote, "I think this notion of 'nothing happens by chance' is the worst kind of magical thinking."

(Incidentally, the latter reader is now digging out of the a "freak" snowstorm - the worst in a decade - in Washington State. Of course it's just a coincidence.)

Question for your table: Do you have parts too? Which part is the real you? Which part do you want to be the real you? And what do you do about it?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - thanks to Krosbie Arnold for the inspiration

Every Cloud Has One

2012-01-13T06:13:00.000-08:00

The purpose of this blog is to provide a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table - please print and share.

Flew across the country this week. Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing: "What's with this warm weather in January?"

Look at this weather map - almost no clouds on the lower-48.

I know what you're thinking, the fair weather ain't going to last forever.

Chances are, at some point, most of us are going to experience a flight delay, an extremely inconvenient traffic jam, and so on.

Today's story, which I told five years ago in this space, is to help you get through those frustrating times.

The Cast: Rabbi Mordechai Gifter, the late great Dean of the Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland, and 8 students.
The Setting: A few years ago during a snowy winter.

One of Rabbi Gifter’s students was getting married in New York and had sent nine tickets to bring his rabbi and friends to his wedding. They were leaving on an early morning flight to attend an evening ceremony. It was a very happy time for all of them.

Halfway to New York, the pilot came on the loudspeaker.

Pilots do not ordinarily interrupt you halfway to New York with good news.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Captain. The storm in New York has become an unexpected blizzard and all airports in the region are closed. No flights are taking off or landing. We are being diverted to Washington National Airport. I am sorry for the inconvenience.”

There was obviously nothing that Rabbi Gifter and his students could do. They were going to miss the wedding. This was not a pleasing outcome, but there was nothing they could do. They were not going to share this celebration with their friend.

Facing an indefinitely long wait in the Washington airport, Rabbi Gifter told his students, “Let’s go find a quite place to say Mincha (the afternoon service).” Because of the storm, the airport was jammed full of stranded travelers. They could find neither nook nor cranny conducive to the intense meditation that yeshiva students prefer.

Finally, one of the students stopped an airport custodian. His name tag said “Joe”.

“Is there a room here we could use to pray?”

Joe dropped his mop and gaped at them like they were from Mars. He evidently didn't speak English very well, so the student tried to communicate with a combination of monosyllabic words and sign language: “ROOM – FOR PRAY - QUIET – WHERE? QUIET ROOM?” he asked, gesturing.

Joe replied slowly and quietly, almost a whisper, “I have a work room you can use. Follow me.”

Pleased, they followed Joe into a room that felt a little bit like squeezing into a closet, but it was quiet. They were grateful, and they began their service.

The entire time they conducted their service, Joe stood at the door and watched. When they had finished and were moving to leave, he asked, “Why don’t you say Kaddish?”

Needless to say, they were not expecting that question from Joe the custodian.

Nonplussed but without missing a beat, Rabbi Gifter responded, “We need ten men to say Kaddish, and you see that we’re short one.”

Very deliberately, Joe said, “I am a Jew. Let me complete your minyan.” Then without waiting for their response, he became plaintive: “Please,” he begged, “Let me say the Kaddish.”

Needless to say, Rabbi Gifter and his students agreed.

Joe put down his mop, moved to the center of the room, and took a deep breath. “Yisgadal v’yiskadash...” His voice trailed off, for he did not know the Aramaic by heart. So Rabbi Gifter coached him through every word and he and the students responded at all the appropriate times.

At the end of Kaddish, Joe cried.

He dried his eyes, then told his story.

“As you can see, I am not a completely ignorant Jew. I was brought up practicing. But as a young man I rebelled against my parents, especially my father, and stopped being observant. This caused an even bigger fight with my father and we didn’t speak for nine years until he died. I didn’t even go to his funeral last week.

“But last night I dreamed about my father. In my dream he spoke to me and said, ‘Yosaif, I know you’re angry at me! You didn’t even come to my funeral! But you must say Kaddish for me! You’re my only son!’

“In my dream I said back to him, ‘But how can I do that, I don’t know the words, and anyway you need a minyan!’

“He said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you a minyan. Tomorrow!’ And then I woke up. And then the next day, that’s today, the nine of you show up, Heaven sent!”

Yosaif cried again.

Rabbi Gifter then told him their side of the story, about the wedding and the storm. “You see,” he said to the students as much as to Joe, “that literally nothing happens by chance. Not the wedding, not the nine invitations, not the snowstorm. Someone is looking out for you!”

Joe didn’t take much persuading to find a local minyan and continue saying Kaddish for his father for the duration of the eleven months, and on the annual Yarzeit thereafter.

For your table – Have you ever felt that events in your life were being orchestrated or that you were being tested?

Shabbat Shalom.

PS – if you would like to arrange Kaddish for a parent or other loved one, almost any yeshiva that has a daily minyan will make sure that it is said on your behalf in exchange for a small donation.

PPS - If you have smart phone, and don't yet have the Amazing Jewish app, please click here to see what you're missing....

Memory

2012-01-06T06:13:00.000-08:00

We lost a friend and neighbor this week, Steve Goldstein.

After two brain surgeries and chemo, the cancer won.

He was a guy who collected broken lawnmowers. By the end of this eulogy, I hope you'll appreciate why.

Steve was one of those rare guys who was both sensible and 100 percent genuine. He never did things to be "politically correct". That meant that if he said something, you knew he meant it.

No one else in our neighborhood would mow the lawn shirtless. But if it's hot out, that's the most sensible thing to do, right?

Steve also helped everyone, and I mean everyone, with any kind of problem with their home.

Your pilot light went out and you can't figure out how to turn it on? Ask Steve.
You have a loose shingle on the roof? Steve would notice it before you and be up on his ladder fixing it before you could blink.
You need help cutting a board for a DIY project? Borrow a tool? And so on.

Most men like to have their "cave" as John Gray calls it, a place to retreat and do whatever men like to do, smoke cigars or whatever.

Steve built the greatest man-cave in his back yard, a 50x30x20 (that's feet) shed.

That's where he did his projects, that's where he stored his "stuff".

A woman's nightmare. But every man reading this will nod his head in understanding.

As I said, he collected broken lawnmowers. Maybe that would be a good question for your table - "Why do you think the guy collected broken lawnmowers?"

The answer, of course, is because he enjoyed fixing them and then giving them away to his neighbors.

That's the kind of guy he was.

But he was also a reverential guy. In his youth, he had the good fortune of spending a few years in a New York yeshiva. Somehow he ended up there even though he was born and raised in Pensacola. And that experience fostered in him an indelible respect for Torah and Torah scholars. None of his other life experiences could erase that. Not his service in Vietnam, not his years on the road as a salesman, to places that one might think are the diametric opposite of a yeshiva experience.

Almost to the end he attended Baltimore's most famous weekly class, the "Thursday night class". I saw him walking home Thursday night. Here's how the interaction would go:

"How was the class?"
"Good. It was a good class. I didn't understand half of it, but the half I understood was good."

Often after helping a neighbor such as us, we'd feel so much gratitude that we would try to pay him something. He wouldn't hear of it. "I'll tell you what, have us over for a Shabbos meal."

And so we did. Many times. After his brain surgeries, with giant stitches on his skull, the kids thought he looked a little scary, like Frankenstein's monster. But they all loved him, they could tell there was something special about him, about his intelligent frankness.

The decline was swift. As recently as Thanksgiving he had his wits. But by Channuka he was having trouble finding familiar things.

Our street will never be the same. Condolences to Abby, his wife of 25 years, and the rest of the family.

To end on an "up" note - one of the eulogists at the funeral mentioned that he hadn't known Steve as well as he would have liked, and now it's too late.

Question for your table - Is there anyone in your life whom you'd like to know better before it's too late? Is there anyone you'd like to do an act of kindness (chesed) for, before it's too late? Here's a zinger - How do you want people to remember you at their Friday night dinner tables?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - to see today's "Amazing Jewish Fact" - on Reincarnation - click here.

Master of the Name

2011-12-30T10:50:00.000-08:00

The purpose of this blog is to provide a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Last week's Table Talk generated a huge amount of positive feedback. If you missed it, it is archived here.

This week's story is for anyone who is feeling down.

Or knows someone feeling down.

Or might feel down one day and find it helpful to have a story like this on file to pull out and re-read at the time.

The protagonist is of the most famous rabbis of all time.

I don't know if it's true or not.

But they don't tell stories like this about you and me.

He's known as the Baal Shem Tov.

If you want to remind yourself who he was and what he did, click here.

Here's the story.....

For those who "do" Shabbat, even a little bit, Saturday night can be a mystical time.

The more you do Shabbat, the more mystical Saturday night can become.

Saturday night is when a person can savor the Shabbat that one just experienced. Bask in the glow. The greater the experience, the greater the glow.

Something like enjoying a drink or cup of coffee or tea after an excellent meal.

The long Saturday nights in winter, all the more so.

One such Saturday night, while all were basking in that glow, the Baal Shem Tov told his driver to prepare the wagon and they set out with several of his students.

When they reached the open road outside of town, he told the driver, "Get the horses into a gallup and then let go of the reins."

This driver knew better than question or doubt anything that the great tzaddik said.

The horses were allowed to run freely, to follow their instinct.......
They ran and ran, on-road, off-road, on paths seldom traveled.

Finally, after an hour or so, they slowed and stopped.

They had come to a stop before a small cottage on the outskirts of a small town in the forest.

The residents must have heard the noise outside because almost instantly a man came rushing out, a Jewish man.

"My friends," he called to them, hurrying to the road. "My friends, my friends, welcome! Please, come inside for a warm drink, for a bit of food. We seldom see travelers here, please do me the honor of welcoming guests into our home!"

The Baal Shem Tov, his students and driver all followed the man inside.

When the man heard that they were from Medzibozh, his face lit up even more. "Do you know the Baal Shem Tov?"

Before anyone else could answer, the rabbi said, "If you please, we are indeed hungry and thirsty, may we speak later?"

The man served them a hot meal. They sang songs together.

When the hour got late, he invited them to stay the night and they accepted.

In fact, they stayed not one night, not two nights, but five nights with this Jewish family, until they had consumed all of their food.

When they departed on the sixth morning, the many thanked them profusely and asked, "If you see the Baal Shem Tov, would you please ask him for a bracha for me, that I should raise my children to be good Jews?"

Finally, the rabbi told him. "I am the rabbi you are asking about. God sent me to you for a reason, and soon you will know why."

They departed before their stunned host could gather his thoughts and reply.

As he re-entered his house, still in a daze from what had just happened, he encountered his wife.

She was not happy.

To say the least.

"You fed those strangers every moursel of food in our house! We have nothing left! And the children are hungry! They're crying! What are you going to do?!!"

In despair, the man closed his eyes, and uttered a simple prayer.

"Master of the universe, what did these children do to deserve to suffer? Please send us help!"

He continued for a few minutes, thinking about his wife and children, what they needed and asking for help.

While lost in this meditation, there was a knock on the door.

It was a non-Jewish neighbor named Ivan.

Ivan often came by for a visit and a shot of vodka.

This time, Ivan had other business.

"My friend, I've known you a long time, and you know that I live with my daughter and son-in-law, and that they make me miserable. I can't stand it anymore. Let me come stay with you."

Before the Jewish man could tell Ivan he had no food in the house, Ivan continued.

"I won't bother you. In fact, it will be very good for you. You see, long ago I made a fortune and I buried it in the forest in a secret location. I don't want my daughter and son-in-law to get it. I will give it to you. All of it. Just help me get out of the misery."

Seeing that the man was incredulous, he added, "Come, come with me, we'll get some of the treasure right now."

Into the forest they went, shovel in hand, and sure enough, Ivan dug up a sack full of gold coins.

So Ivan gave the man the treasure in exchange for his hospitality.

Not only did the man's family have enough to eat, they became great givers of tzedaka.

A few years later, the man traveled to Medzibozh to visit the Baal Shem Tov.
When the Baal Shem Tov saw him, he spent an unusual amount of private time with him.

Seeing this, his students asked, "Why did Rebbe spend so much time with this particular man?"

"You don't remember him. He is the Jew we visited Saturday night a few years ago. The Holy One brought us to him. There was a decree in Heaven that he should be blessed with great weath. The problem was that this simple Jew was so satisfied with what he had, that he never asked for anything more. There was a chance that the blessing would never reach him. We were sent to him to consume all of his food so that he would ask for help."

Question for your table: What is the moral of this story? Can you think of two or three?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Thank you to all those who responded to last week's PS.... As I wrote then, if you're read this far, chances are you enjoyed this message. Tomorrow night at 11:59 pm is your last chance to make tax-deductible contributions for 2011. How many appeals have you received this year? But you read this email, so you got something out of it. Maybe you have enjoyed this Table Talk throughout the year. Please support the organization that makes this and many ambitious educational programs possible. Here's the link: http://jsli.org/donate/ No contribution is too small or too large.

PPS - Robert Zimmerman:

PPS - Another selection from the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar

++++++ Sunday’s Amazing Jewish Fact ++++++
6 Tevet 5772
1 January 2012

At the age of 40, Akiva (ca. 60 CE) was an illiterate shepherd.

At his wife's insistence, he went to learn, but was embarrassed to be sitting in school with kindergarteners. Yet he couldn't go home, because his wife told him not to return until he was a scholar.

Feeling sorry for himself. Akiva sat down by a stream and stared at the water.

As he watched the dripping water slowly wearing away a rock, he had a flash of inspiration:

"If water, which is so soft, can wear away a hard rock, surely a little Torah can get into my hardened heart!"

So inspired, he returned to kindergarten.

By the age of 64 he had become Rabbi Akiva, the greatest scholar in Israel, with 24,000 students.

Talmud Nedarim 50a, Ketubot 62b-63a

Wikipedia on Rabbi Akiva
A book about Rabbi Akiva
An amazing class by R. Akiva Tatz on the meaning of life

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar:

http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink (iphone/ipad version)
http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar (android version)

2011 Hannuka Miracle?

2011-12-23T06:13:00.000-08:00

This week, a modern-day Channukah story.

It is a true story. It happened just last week.

It is also a bit long, so I will cut out some of the details.

The story begins with a real tragedy.

A 54-year-old doctor from New York named Brian Grobois is in Seattle for a Bar Mitzvah. He plans to stay in Washington an extra day to enjoy one of his favorite pastimes, walking in nature.

Sunday morning he sets out on a snow-shoe trek in Paradise.

Paradise is the name of a popular hiking area at Mt. Rainier. You can imagine what it must look like for people to give it that name. Here are some photos.

The husband, father and popular doctor does not return from Paradise. Rangers find his body late Monday and recover it on Tuesday. He apparently got lost and was unprepared for an overnight stay.

But that’s just the beginning of this tale.

When Dr. Grobois’s widow arrives to identify the body, she learns that the Pierce County Medical Examiner plans to conduct a full autopsy and there is nothing she could do to prevent it.

From a Jewish perspective, there are two problems with an autopsy. One is that it delays burial. But worse than that, a full autopsy is incredibly invasive. It involves procedures that I will not describe here. Suffice it to say, you would not want one performed on anyone short of a sworn enemy. Moreover, if you are a religious family like the Groboises, it violates your religious beliefs.

(Channuka theme #1 – Remember what the Maccabees were fighting for? Judaism v. Hellenism, right? One of the symbols of that Hellenism was the gymnasium, the focus on the body. It is ironic that Judaism has so much respect for the body that it’s against the rules to desecrate a corpse. Hellenism isn’t antithetical to Judaism. The fight wasn’t against Hellenism. It was against the hegemony of Hellenism. Hellenism under the umbrella of Jewish ethics is no enemy.)

Well, at this point, two sets of players get activated, one national and one local. The national players include a network of rabbis and lawyers across the country, New York Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder, Congresswoman Nita Lowey and Senator Charles Schumer; Washington Senators Pat Murray and Maria Cantwell, Governor Christine Gregoire and Attorney General Rob McKenna.

The local players, besides the family and witnesses, include two individuals, Rabbi Zalman Heber and Tacoma attorney Barry Wallis.

Wallis has never had a case like this before. In fact, Washington State has never had a case like this before. There is no legal precedent on the books.

Wallis, who happens to be Jewish, went into law because he saw it as the best way to “fight the good fight”. Now he has a truly good fight on his hands. Whether or not he shares the family’s religious beliefs is never discussed. He has so much respect for Judaism and the Jewish People that he is at the top of Rabbi Heber’s list.

In order to keep this from becoming a novella I promised not to tell you all the details. But Wallis personally has to put everything else on hold, all his other clients, cases and court appearances, in order to fight this battle. It involves a zero-hour court order to stop the autopsy, and just one day to prepare this unprecedented case.

The good news is that the plaintiff wins.

The bad news is that the State appeals.

The good news is that the judge who is hearing the appeal is the Hon. Brian Tollefson, who happens to be the brother of my Jr. High French teacher. The Talmud says that if you really want to know what a woman is like, meet her brother. I figure it works the other way around too. Miss Tollefson was professional, fair, and very smart. I’m sure that he is too.

Indeed, plaintiff wins again. And many of the abovementioned political figures intervene to prevent a further appeal.

The burial took place in Jerusalem, according to the wishes of Brian Grobois. May he rest in peace.

When it’s all over, an exhausted Barry Wallis trudges home late at night. He stumbles into the kitchen, looking for olive oil to light his menorah. But there isn’t enough oil, only a few drops left in one small bottle....

You complete the story.

Epilogue:

Several days after the events of this story, one of the rabbis involved received a phone call from the Park Ranger who testified on the family’s behalf. He was in tears and very emotional.

“You might not believe what I'm going to tell you now, but I still have to share it with you. Last Tuesday night after I recovered the body of Dr. Grobois I had a dream. I dreamed that I was in Israel, attending a Jewish funeral, and I'm telling you, I was never in Israel, and never at a Jewish funeral, but here's what I saw, men were on one side, women on the other. And in the center was a body on a bench. They were eulogizing the person, and suddenly I heard them starting to thank people. And guess what? I heard them thanking me!”

“It’s weird, you know? When I helped bring the body up from the mountain, I was just doing my job. And I had nothing to do with his Jewish burial. But when you reached out to me on Thursday to come and testify in court, it clicked. I felt that it was a clear and direct sensational message sent from heaven, and that's why I felt I needed to act.”

As it turns out, the ranger’s wife is Jewish, and so are his children. He has already reached out to Rabbi Heber about teaching the children about their Jewish heritage.

Question for your table: Why did plaintiff win? Hard work, good luck, or a miracle?

Happy Channuka and Shabbat Shalom

PS - If you're read this far, chances are you enjoyed this message. Well, it's that time of year again. Last chance to make tax-deductible contributions for 2011. How many appeals have you received this year? But you read this far; chances are you enjoyed this post and perhaps previous ones this year. Please support the organization that makes this and many ambitious educational programs possible. Here's the link: http://jsli.org/donate/ No contribution is too small or too large.

PPS - Need a last-minute, simple, affordable, meaningful Channuka present for someone?
Try the most amazing Jewish app ever. Click here for the current amazing fact.

http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink (iphone/ipad version)
http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar (android version)

++++++ Sunday’s Amazing Jewish Fact ++++++

29 Kislev 5772
25 December 2011

Of the 25 most performed holiday songs in America, 10 were written or co-written by Jews, including:

"O Holy Night" (Adolphe Adam)
"Silver Bells" (Livingston and Evans)
"The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" (Mel Torm)
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"
"Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (Johnny Marks)
Two Christmas albums by Barry Manilow

And, of course, "White Christmas" (Irving Berlin), the best-selling song in history.

US News and World Report, Dec. 2, 2002

Two great links:

Chinese Food on Xmas music video

Longer article on this topic

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink (iphone/ipad version)
http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar (android version)

Distracted Living

2011-12-16T06:13:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make.

Please forgive me in advance for shocking you.

I don't have a smart phone. We don't even have high-speed internet at home. Just a slow dial-up connection to check email.

My car has a cassette player and I'm still going through the hundreds of Torah tapes in our collection. My commute is so short that I usually only get 5 minutes or so at a time, and I love that it always saves the place I was at before, even days or months later.

Throw in the lack of a TV and I guess most people think we're living in the stone age.

So the other day my wife suggested that she could be so much more.... productive if she had a smart phone. She could look stuff up. She could shop online.

"You don't know what it would do to you," I said. "It will take over your life."

She didn't believe me.

I realize that most of the people reading this blog think it's normal for kids to have their own phones, not to mention free access to the Internet, TV etc. So what benefit is there to fighting the tide?

Well, the answer is, if you have kids, you have exactly one chance to raise them. No, they don't have to have a TV in their room. No, they don't have to be on Facebook during homework time. Be their parent.

If you don't have kids, but know someone who could benefit from this message, please forward it to them.

If you have a husband, consider this: many, many men have told me that it annoys them deeply when they come home and their wife is on the smart phone or dumb phone and hardly notices that he's home. When you see your husband for the first time at the beginning and end of the day, don't be on the phone. If you're in the middle of a conversation with Barrack H. Obama, you say, "Excuse me Mr. President, but my husband just came in, gotta go." Let your husband know that he is more important to you than anyone else in the world. Think about it.

(PS - guys, this goes both ways)

If you are a parent, don't make your children feel that they have to compete with your phone. Don't even bother answering it between 5-8 pm. That's what answering machines are for!

Be your spouse's spouse and your child's parent and let them know that they are more important to you than everyone else in the world. Actions speak louder than words.

Think about it.

Question for your table: Are you so addicted to your device that the above sounds preposterous to you? Here's a litmus test: for 24 hours, from sunset tonight until sunset on Saturday, don't check your email. Not even a peek.

Can you do it? Prove it.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hannuka

PS - Another way to treat the "distracted living" problem is Hannuka. Here are a couple classes you can download to help your family's Hannuka be a spiritual experience and not lost in the materialism of the "holiday season":
Hannuka of Presence

Hannuka and the Secret of the 36

We have added a bunch of great Hannuka stuff (books, menorahs, candles, toys) to bestjewishkidsbooks.com - if you use these links for your shopping, it helps support JSL's nonprofit educational mission.

Further reading:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/06/14/phone.addicted.parent/
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-research-study-082409.html

Out of the Box

2011-12-09T06:13:00.000-08:00

Note - We have added a bunch of great Hannuka stuff (books, menorahs, candles, toys) to bestjewishkidsbooks.com - if you use these links for your shopping, it helps support JSL's nonprofit educational mission.
For some karmic reason, last week several out-of-the-box music videos ended up in my inbox.

These caused me to rethink something about my life.

The first was this guy in Portland, Ore. who has over thirty-five years honed a technique to play impressive music on a rubber band.

You heard me right. A rubber band.

You have to watch the video to believe it:

Here, he's playing in a jazz trio:

Here, he's explaining his technique:

The second is this guy who takes a different approach to the rubber-band music:

The third is string quartet from Poland of all places, who are obviously very talented at their craft. Yet they have the most fun playing classical music you've ever seen:

After watching these videos, I started to wonder: What is so compelling about these guys?

I think the answer is that they have found a way to be unconventional without being offensive. Au contraire, their unconventionality draws you in.

But this leads to a profound question that you might try asking at your table -

Is there room for such out-of-the-box expression in every human endeavor? What about your own job/career/pasttime?

And if you answer yes, the second question is, is it important to break with convention?

And if the answer is yes, then the third question is, How????

Love at First Sigh

2011-12-02T06:54:00.000-08:00

PPS - We have uploaded a bunch of great Hannuka stuff (books, menorahs, candles, toys) to the bestjewishkidsbooks.com - if you use these links for your shopping, it helps support JSL's nonprofit mission.

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky is one of the living sages of the Jewish People. He resides in the Land of Israel, near Tel Aviv.

The Rav has afternoon visiting hours. Each year he receives thousands of visitors. Both religious and secular come to seek his wisdom.

Recently, a man having trouble finding a shidduch (match) visited the Rav.

The teary-eyed man explained he cannot find a shidduch, asking Rav Kanievsky for a blessing.

The Rav gazed at the man, probed his details somewhat and reportedly responded, “Your soulmate hasn’t been born. Blessings and success."

End of interview.

Question for your table: Try to imagine yourself in this man's shoes. How would you have reacted?

The man left in tears, devastated by the holy rabbi's words.

Less than two months later, the man returned to Rav Kanievsky. This time he was smiling.

In fact he was grinning. He had good news.

"I am engaged!"

That would be great news to hear from anyone. But under these circumstances, the Rav's attendants were nonplussed. Who could forget what Rav Kanievsky had said?

The groom explained that his new fiancée is a convert, who completed her conversion only a month earlier.

According to Jewish tradition, a convert is regarded as a "newborn baby" (Talmud Yevamot 22a).

Shabbat Shalom

PS:

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Jewish Thanksgiving?

2011-11-25T06:13:00.000-08:00

Mazal tov to Asher Dossetter and family on his becoming Bar Mitzvah this week.

The goal of Table talk is to make you look brilliant at your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Imagine you are the first European to visit America. It's an amazing New World! Strange people, strange foliage, strange animals. And you see this odd chicken-like bird for the first time. What do you call it?

Since you think you're in India, you naturally call it "Indian chicken."

Are you with me so far?

So French explorers dubbed this new bird poulet d'Inde (Indian chicken) later shortened to dinde (pronounced "dand").

English settlers called the bird turkey because they thought it looked like another type of fowl that was imported from Turkey.

Jewish explorers sided with the French and called it tarnegol hodu which means "hindu chicken" and was later shortened it to simply hodu.

What's interesting for us is that the Hebrew word HODU also happens to mean "give thanks."

Similarly, we ourselves are called "Jews" because most of us descend from the remnant of the 12 Tribes who survived the repeated pounding from Assyria and Babylon 2,500 years ago. The one remaining landed tribe was Yehuda or Judah. And that name - Judah - means "thankful".

Therefore, being "Jewish" means cultivating a Thanksgiving mindset every single day.

(I can hear it already - "Gee honey, I"m watching so much football because the rabbi told me to....)

Below: Two links on cultivating gratitude...

Article by Rabbi Pliskin
Audio by Rabbi Rietti

Shabbat Shalom

In Woman We Trust

2011-11-18T09:02:00.000-08:00

When I returned from Israel last summer, my friend Raffi happened to be in New York, so we arranged to have breakfast.

Guided by google, we chose the Bagel Hole restaurant on Avenue J, in Brooklyn.

We immediately found out why they gave it that name.

Even though Google calls it a restaurant, they don't actually want you to eat there. There's only one tiny table!

But a great spot for a tête-a-tête (as long as there are no other customers)....

Indeed, as we were winding down, we noticed a couple attempting to join us in that tiny space.

We were visibly done, so they were probably annoyed that we were still sitting there.

"I'm so sorry," I apologized. "We're really leaving. It's just that I'm from Baltimore and my friend here is from Jerusalem and we haven't seen each other in three years."

I'm not sure why I had to reveal all those intimate details.

Did I think that they would have any interest in that information? Did it occur to me that my story would somehow justify our hogging (pardon the expression) the counter.

Yet for some reason I said it nonetheless.

The woman just stared at me.

Stared.

You know what I mean? Think new-york-stare.

Then she blurted out, "You're from Baltimore? What's your name?"

To shorten a long story, it turns out that I had helped her via phone 5 years ago sort out some dating/marriage issues.

Friends and family had been pushing her to marry a guy she knew wasn't right for her, and I had encouraged her to ignore them and to find Mr. Right.

Now here she was with Mr. Right, the fruit of all that effort. We'd never met in person.

Question for your table: Random coincidence, right?

Shabbat Shalom

============

Today's Amazing Jewish Fact

November 21, 2011

21 Cheshvan, 5772

Trust

"The trust God places in women is greater than the trust God places in men."

Talmud Brachot 17a

Here is a class given this week by Rebbetzin Esther Baila Schwartz, on one of the greatest Jewish women ever.

From the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar

Android version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar
Iphone/ipod/ipad version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink

Seek the Truth

2011-11-11T06:13:00.000-08:00

Dedicated by a subscriber in loving memory of Marcel Will.(To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.)

Please consider the remarkable story of Israel's newest Nobel laureate.

Wikipedia:
Shechtman experienced several years of hostility toward his non-periodic interpretation (no less a figure than Linus Pauling said he was "talking nonsense" and "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.")

The head of Shechtman's research group told him to "go back and read the textbook" and then "asked him to leave for 'bringing disgrace' on the team." Shechtman felt rejected.

The Nobel Committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that "his discovery was extremely controversial," but that his work "eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter."

And in his own words:

“I was thrown out of my research group. They said I brought shame on them with what I was saying,” he recalled. “I never took it personally. I knew I was right and they were wrong....If you are a scientist and believe in your results, then fight for them, then fight for the truth. Listen to others, but fight for what you believe in."

— Prof. Dani Shechtman, 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Amazing. Should be on the first page of every science textbook.

Question for your table.... What's more important, fighting for what you believe or having friends?

============

Today's Amazing Jewish Fact

November 11, 2011

14 Cheshvan, 5772

Star of Whom?

There is no evidence that the six-pointed star was a particularly Jewish symbol prior to the Middle Ages. It can be found in ancient inscriptions all over the world, as can the swastika.

============

From the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar

Android version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar
Iphone/ipod/ipad version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink
+++++++++++++

Shabbat Shalom

Destroyed

2011-11-04T06:13:00.000-07:00

Dedicated by a reader in memory of Chana bas Pinchas (Alzbeta Dolanova), one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors in Nitra, Slovakia, who passed away last week. "Her pride in the continuation of the Jewish people was evident in our every conversation with her."

(To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.)

Today you get an amazing Jewish fact, followed by a question for your table....

==========
November 4, 2011
7 Cheshvan, 5772

Destroyed

In contrast to the country’s stunning natural beauty, Israel currently faces several environmental catastrophes, e.g., low rainfall has depleted the aquifers, risking permanent damage; several of the rivers are so polluted with industrial waste that humans are not allowed in their vicinity; there are few municipal recycling programs and a plethora of desert landfills.

Fortunately, organizations such as the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) are working hard to strengthen laws and teach people new behaviors.

More info:
R. Becher's great class on the Land of Israel
SPNI website
JNF website

==========

From the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar

Android version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar
Iphone/ipod/ipad version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink

+++++++++++++

Question for your table: Is there a difference between "Israel", "The Land of Israel" and "The State of Israel"? And does it matter?

Shabbat Shalom

Soul Mates

2011-10-28T08:18:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to the memory of Peerlya Briskina, whose yahrzeit was observed recently.

(To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.)

Questions for your table....

What did the Jews have to do with Columbus?
How about Louis Armstrong?
Where in the Talmud can you find a reference to airplanes and telescopes?
What are the top five inventions by Jews that you can’t live without?
Why didn’t they teach this stuff in Sunday school?

Which famous Jewish iphone/ipad app is now available for Android?

In celebration of the new edition, for the next week or so I will be sending out the day's amazing fact to my mailing list. If you would like to receive this in your inbox (for free of course), let me know.

Here's today's Amazing Jewish Fact you can share at your table....As you will see, the app NOT merely trivia. It includes a wealth of ancient Jewish wisdom on life, relationships, ethics, and spirituality. You will also learn amazing things about Jewish history, religion, Torah, Hebrew language, philosophy, geography....even a bit of Jewish humor!

==========

Soul Mates

A beautiful example of two souls blending into one:

Rabbi Aryeh Levine, the "Tzaddik of Jerusalem" in the 1940s and 1950s, once took his wife to the doctor. He explained to the physician, “My wife’s foot is hurting us.” And he meant it.

Source: Simcha Raz, A Tzaddik in Our Time (Click here for more info)

==========

(Each daily fact includes links to further information. Some say that these links are the best part of the app - they include online articles, books on Amazon, and streaming audio and video that you can enjoy right inside your device.)

Android version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar
Iphone/ipod/ipad version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink

(note, even if you don't have one of these devices, you can still click on the links and enjoy the screen shots)

Question for your table: What does it take to be able to speak about another person like R. Levine did about his wife?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Rabbi Twerski on soulmates:

Taking a Week Off

2011-10-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to my dear mother, whose birthday is today. Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy Sukkot....

Kids off from school from today for 2 weeks so you will get an abbreviated blog this week and next....

Here's something they didn't teach you in Sunday school:

(You can ask this at the table....)

When the Talmud refers to "ha-chag" - "the holiday" - without specifying which one - which one does it mean?

A: It always means Sukkot.

Sukkot is the archetype of holidays.

It is the greatest of holidays.

And it is the least celebrated.

Strange.

Why do you suppose that is?

Interested in something meaningful about this festival? Try these links:

Great short article
Great audio
Collection of thoughtful articles
Coloring pages

Chag Sameach!

Do Something Wonderful

2011-10-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

Hard not to comment on all the big stories of the week. I've decided to save the great material from the Nobel prizes for future Table Talks.

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”
— Steve Jobs (The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993)

As as user of Apple computers since 1984 (even in the 90s to the derision of most of our friends), it's tempting to write about Steve Jobs. We loved him because he spoke truth.

I don't mean his speeches or interviews. Frankly, I don't pay attention to those things.

He spoke truth through his actions. He declared that a "good" is a four-letter word! A person should strive for great. He stated that computers could make work more fun. He asserted that everyone, even the visually, physically or mentally impaired, should have access to the new technologies.

But these values didn’t make him a guru. What made him a guru were 4 pillar beliefs:

Truth at all costs, even when the rest of the world tells you you’re wron
how you travel matters as much as getting there
aesthetics matter
create for the sake of the creation, not the money

I know what you're thinking: How does all this tie into Yom Kippur?

I am going to try to explain why we fast on Yom Kippur. I will do so with a personal story, and then try to tie it back to the quote above.

My story actually begins last winter, when I decided it was time to listen to the voice in my head that kept saying, "You should get your body back into shape!"
There is so much great wisdom available on mp3, it seemed to me a great excuse to get on the treadmill. Just like I wasn't taking hte time to get exercise, I wasn't making the time to listen to all those hours of Torah audio that I'd downloaded.

Anyway, in late January I was able to jog/run a mile in about 11 minutes, 10 minutes if I really pushed myself.

After a mile, that was plenty.

Funny thing happened, over time I found myself able to go faster and farther.

By September, my record mile was 7:15. That was after a 1-mile jogging warmup, then starting at an 8 minute pace and then at .80 increasing the speed one notch for every 1/100 of a mile until the end.

But I never seemed to be able to go faster than 7:15. I figured that was just my body's physical limit.

About a month ago I started to wonder if a different strategy would produce different results.

Instead of jogging my 1-mile warm-up, I thought I should walk it and conserve energy.

Instead of sprinting at the end, I thought maybe I should try starting too fast, then slowing down at the end.

Instead of listening to an erudite discussion about Jewish ethics, I'd listen to Beethoven's 4th symphony.
So after the warm-up and stretch, I set the pace for a 6:30 mile, and figured that each 1/4 mile I'd slow it down a bit.

The first quarter wasn't bad (actually, it flew by pretty quickly!) and I realized that I could probably make it to .30 or .40 before slowing down. Then I soon realized I was going to make it to .50 without a major problem.

You can probably guess where this is going.

At .50, the way I felt, it suddenly occurred to me that I could keep the pace up, perhaps even to the end. It wasn't easy, but with concentration it was working.

At .75 I really wanted to slow down. Or should I say, my legs really wanted to slow down.

My legs started complaining, "Enough already, you've proven your point! Slow down already, and we'll make the 7-min goal easily."

But my heart said back to the legs, "Shut up and keep moving. We're going to blast this one out of the park!"

.90 and I could see the finish-line. I could see the tape. I was going to make it. It was taking every ounce of concentration to keep those legs from quitting on me.

Here's where things got difficult.

You see, at the Baltimore JCC, there is a special room that alternates between women-only and men-only.

At that exact moment, a staff member came in to tell me my time was up.

I tried to ignore him. Couldn't he see I was concentrating?

But all he saw was a guy lost in his headphones and going over time.

It was a battle of wits, his determination to get me off the treadmill versus my determination to run a mile in 6:30.

He won. He broke my concentration. 6:40.

I learned two lessons from that experience. Lessons that I already knew, but had forgotten.

1 - I'm not always performing at my highest level.
2 - A lot of what stops us from reaching a higher level is an internal block, rather than external circumstances.

This internal block, in my case, was the comfort of my body. My body didn't like running that fast. The real battle of wills wasn't between the staff member and me, it was between me and my body.

And that's why we fast on Yom Kippur. We fast in order to remind our bodies (and ourselves) who's really in charge.

We wander around all year acting like human beings trying to have spiritual experiences.

On Yom Kippur, late afternoon, after a day of fasting, near the finish line, we remember: Oh yeah, I'm really a spiritual being having a human experience.

That can't happen on a half-day fast, nor on a 3/4-day fast. Only after about 23 hours or so of denying your body the comforts of food and water can you really truly get it to shut up. Then you've won.

But what have you won?

If you were only fasting, the very least you've won is the knowledge that you are in control of your body and not the other way around.

If you were using Yom Kippur to reflect on your life and your mistakes of the past, then you've won a great deal more. You've conquered, temporarily, that one force in your life that always derails your attempts at greatness — your body and ego.

Isn't that a happy ending?

I promised I'd tie this back to Mr. Jobs.

Here's another quote:

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs, [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]

Happy Yom Kippur!!

PS - This new vid puts a similar spin on Yom Kippur:

PPS - Yes, 2 days later I tried again and hit 6:30. Now that I know I can do it, it doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Staying Awake on Rosh Hashana

2011-09-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

This special Rosh Hashana edition is dedicated in honor of Kyle and Shelli of San Francisco who just celebrated their "bar mitzvah" wedding anniversary (13) and their daughter Scarlett who, according to ancient tradition, becomes bat mitzvah (12) this Thursday night. Mazal tov! (To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.)

For a different kind of Rosh Hashana tonight, try printing this email and sharing it at the table....

What's Rosh Hashana?

It's the Jewish New Year, right?

Wrong.

That's actually a lie.

First of all, according to the Talmud, it's not just for Jews, it's for all humanity.

Second of all, there are four "new years"....

So what's the Rosh Hashana that is happening tonight all about??

It's the day when our karma is fixed for the coming year. That means that how we think and act on Rosh Hashana (from tonight through Friday) will affect us the next 12 months.

So ask at your table: What kind of year do you want to have?

Happy? So act happy.

Patient? Then act patient.

Mindful? Then be mindful.

Energetic? So don't take a nap.

Thankful? Well, how about trying eating your food mindfully for a day?

Prosperous? Then be generous of spirit and pocket (now you know why there is a universal Jewish custom of increasing charitable donations from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur).

Everything we do should be oriented towards this positive thinking, which is why we eat sweet foods on Rosh Hashana.

So in the spirit of the day, try teaching this song to your table that I learned from my kids:

in the honey make a bracha loud and clear Shana tova

u-meh-tu-ka

have a happy sweet new year.

(sung to the tune of "Oh My Darlin' Clementine") Wishing you and yours an amazing year 5772 - healthy, happy, fruitful. etc., but above all, amazing.

L'Shana Tova

(:-)>

PS - this vid will uplift you!

Open Season on Wisdom

2011-09-23T06:13:00.000-07:00

First, a ginormous mazal tov to Harmon and Jorun Shragge of San Francisco, who have completed learning the entire TANACH this week, a 10-year endeavor! Besides kvelling over their achievement, I am grateful to them for being the greatest of study partners - perseverant, yes...thoughtful, yes... but most important, they ask tough questions and have never let me get lazy.

Many thanks to the 75 guests, including leaders and laity, who joined us at the celebration Wednesday from all over the Bay Area, from as far away as San Jose, Mill Valley, Berekeley, Oakland and even Piedmont.

I tried to stump the crowd with a few Tanach trivia questions. Here's a sample for a conversation-starter at your dinner table tonight (helpful hint: print this page):

Tanach: Final Exam
1. What does "Tanach" mean?
2. What does "Torah" mean?
3. What is the first event in Tanach?
4. What is the last event in Tanach?
5. Name the 3 Patriarchs and 4 Matriarchs?
6. Name 3 heroes of Tanach?
7. Name 3 villains of Tanach?
8. List the "10 Commandments"
9. What are the 10 Commandments called by Jews?
10. How many books make up Tanach?
11. Which is longer, Tanach or War and Peace?
12. Which is longer, Tanach or the collected works of Shakespeare?

Answer key:
1. Acronym for Torah (5 Books of Moses), Neviim (Prophets), Ketuvim (Writings)
2. "Torah" means "instructions" and is short for "Torat Chayim" - "instructions for living"
3. The Big Bang, i.e., creation of the universe ex nihilo.
4. Historically, the returning of the Jews to the Land of Israel after the Babylonian exile and rebuilding the Temple. In the narrative, however, the last event is the Persian King Cyrus's proclamation that the Jews may go back "up" to the Land and rebuild the Temple.
5. Avraham, Yitzchok, Yaakov, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, Leah.
6. Some possibilities: Noah, Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Joshua, Devorah, David, Solomon
7. Some possibilities: Pharaoh, Haman, Bilam, Nebudchanezar
8. Monotheism, Idolatry, Blasphemy, Shabbat, Honoring Parents, Murder, Adultery, Stealing/Kidnaping, Lying, Coveting.
9. "The 10 Statements" (because we count 613 commandments)
10. 24 (Gentiles divide up their "Old Testament" into as many as 39 books).
11. Tanach is slightly longer (around 600,000 words in English compared to 580,000)
12. Shakespeare's 39 plays contain over 800,000 words

Now here's the zinger for your table: Do these last two answers make the Tanach seem long or short?

In my opinion, here's what the numbers are saying: It is long, especially when you're actually studying rather than merely reading, but those numbers make it clear - it's not out of reach....

You, too, can become literate in the Torah.
You, too, can explore ancient Jewish ethics.
You, too, can taste a little Talmud.
You, too, can learn a little Kabbalah.

Rosh Hashana is next week, what a great time to begin.

(If you'd like my help finding a suitable:

- class (live or online)
- study-partner (live or telephone)
- methodology (that fits your personality)
- plan (that fits your crazy schedule)

...send me an email. Like losing weight, if you don't have a goal and a plan, you're not being real.)

Consider this: the Torah belongs to you as much as it does to me, and great people have observed how much wisdom is there. How about the words of Churchill:

“Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world…. We owe to the Jews…a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together.” (Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 8, 1920)

Isn't it about time you discovered what's in there?

No, really. If not now, when?

(Have I made my point?)

+++++

My family joins me in wishing you and yours an amazing New Year signed and sealed for life, wisdom, health, peace and prosperity, deep contentment and soaring joy. (I will try to send a special TT Wednesday for Rosh Hashana, but no promises...)

If you have been enjoying this weekly email for some time and would like to express your appreciation, know that your emails are meaningful and appreciated and your donations to jsli.org help - quite literally - keep the lights on and make this weekly service possible.

Shabbat Shalom and l'Shana Tova.

PS:
You can start your daily pursuit of Jewish wisdom with my iphone app.
Rosh Hashana video #1
Rosh Hashana video #2
Rosh Hashana video #3
"24 Questions to Think About Before Rosh Hashana". Here's the link.
A great affordable shofar: Great Shofar
Our four favorite honey dishes: Here's the link.

Satisficer or Maximizer?

2011-09-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I met a man who told me he was having trouble making a major choice in his life, and he was troubled because he wasn't sure WHY he was having such trouble.

Here's a simple question for your table:

Do you ever feel like you have too many choices?

Barry Schwartz thinks that more choices often lead to more misery. A video and link to his book are below.

In a nutshell, Barry would ask you:

Are you a "satisficer" or a "maximizer"?

A satisficer is a person who chooses a product or service that is "good enough".

A maximizer is a person who is always trying to get the "best".

A satisficer is usually happy with their choice.

A maximizer isn't happy and often regrets what they bought.

Try to apply this question to five things you've purchased recently.

Question #2 - how does this model apply to things we create?

There is a line in the Torah that unfortunately few people know about. It says that it's a mitzvah to act with happiness, with connectedness, with joy, without exception.

Question #3 - That seems like a high bar - how can a person get there?

My answer:

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Here's Barry:

And here's his book: http://tinyurl.com/paradoxofchoicebook

(If you haven't seen RH videos 1+2, they are here: Rosh Hashana video #1....Rosh Hashana video # 2.)

AND.... some Rosh Hashana links....

1. Download my free "24 Questions to Think About Before Rosh Hashana". Here's the link.
2. Get your very own shofar before it's too late!.
3. Our four favorite honey dishes which make great gifts. Here's the link.

2 Minutes, 2 Checks

2011-09-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

Pouring, pouring rain.

Easily seven inches

A world waterlogged.

(My apologies to those who don't like haiku.)

Spiders.

(Did he say spiders?)

Yes, spiders. There has been a burst of spider activity this week. The most stunning webs glistening with raindrops. Here's a photo of Goldy with a giant one on our front porch:

As time keeps on slipping towards Rosh Hashana, last week I challenged someone to make two immediate changes in her daily life in preparation.

Because of the order in which I said them, she reacted quite negatively to the first one. She hardly let me continue to tell the second one. But then, when she heard the second one, she completely got it. She even apologized (unnecessarily) for her first reaction. She even phoned me later to apologize again (unnecessarily).

So this time around, I'm going to switch the order for you, Dear Reader.

Change #1:

1. Choose a time during the day when you could most likely find two extra minutes.
2. Between now and Rosh Hashana, take two full minutes every day when you do nothing else besides focus on something good in your life. Clock it - make sure it's a full 120 seconds.

Think you could do it?

Think it would be good for you?

Change #2: Sometime during the day (maybe before you go to bed), give yourself a check (on a calendar or chart).

If you did the 2 minutes, give yourself a second check.

Now, here's the question for your dinner table tonight: What's the first check for?

Here's a contribution from a reader who knows how to take 2 minutes:

The sun is just beginning to spread

it's pinkish silvery sheen across the still strait

outside my rustic cabin window. My bed,

made from thick timber logs,

looks as if it was made for Pappa Bear: soaring 40 inches from the floor:

I can view the panorama of wooded islands and distant snow capped mountains

all from my cozy aerie. My "cliff" cabin

is truthfully named: at the end of the road,

its perch plunges into the water below.

A small gnarled madroña tree,

the calls of herons and seagulls

punctuate the serenity.

Q2 for your table: If you can't the wherewithal to take two minutes, what are you living for?

Shabbat Shalom

Rosh Hashana links:
1. Get your very own shofar.
2. Download my free "24 Questions to Think About Before Rosh Hashana". Here's the link.
3. On bestjewishkidsbooks.com, you can find links to our four favorite honey dishes which make great gifts. Here's the page.
4. Finally, now that school is back for young and old, how about showing your appreciation to the teachers? Don't wait until the end of year. We have found 11 gifts that are inexpensive but quite useful for any classroom teacher. Get them a small gift now that will both show your appreciation and help them be effective. Go to bestjewishkidsbooks.com and browse the category, "Gifts for Teachers".
5. The amazing Jewish iphone/ipad app.... http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink

It's Not the Hurricane, Stupid!

2011-09-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, blackouts, yada yada yada.

Why do these things happen. That's what everyone wants to know.

Why did that bozo driving on a darkened street not only ram the shopping cart lying in the road, sending it hurtling across into my lane and putting a nice dent into my fender, but also speed away?

Why did I go out at all Tuesday night to look for ice when I should have known everyone would be sold out?

Why does this fruit fly buzzing around my desk keep pestering me? Why won't it just go away or die or something?

Why why why?

I have a more basic, Rosh Hashana-dik question.

After all, tis the season.

If you have a shofar at home, now's a good time to dust it off and get that lip back in shape. I've been blowing mine every morning starting Wednesday this week to wake up the kids.

If you don't have one,
here's a low-cost one online.

Nothing beats the real thing, but there is also the virtual shofar for iphone/ipad.

Now, I know I haven't asked you the question yet, but there are a few more Rosh Hashana links I'd like to share....

On jsli.org, you can download for free our "24 Questions to Think About Before Rosh Hashana". Here's the link.

On bestjewishkidsbooks.com, you can find links to our four favorite honey dishes which make great gifts. Here's the page.

Finally, now that school is back for young and old, how about showing your appreciation to the teachers? Don't wait until the end of year. We have found 11 gifts that are inexpensive but quite useful for any classroom teacher. Get them a small gift now that will both show your appreciation and help them be effective. Go to bestjewishkidsbooks.com and browse the category, "Gifts for Teachers".

Now back to our main program.

It seems to me that the question of "Why did such-and-such happen" is useful and instructive if and only if we begin with a more basic question:

What am I here for?

Meaning, What's the purpose of my life?

We now have a little over 3 weeks until Rosh Hashana. Here's your action plan:

1. Download my 24 questions worksheet. Print a copy for everyone you love.
2. Set aside 5 minutes a day to work on one question.

Friday night dinner is a great time to begin with question #1.

Do this, and then between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we'll be able to talk more meaningfully about the "why why why".

Shabbat Shalom

(I made these vids a couple years ago as an experiment. Please tell me what you think.)

PS - If you know anyone who might appreciate this blog, kindly send them the link, or post it to your facebook wall or even tweet it.

PPS - We have audio (CD and mp3) on Rosh Hashana / Yom Kippur here.

PPPS - What better way to help someone prepare for the new year than sending them the amazing Jewish iphone/ipad app?

Vacation Nation

2011-08-26T06:13:00.000-07:00

Summertime....

Do you have a travel headache story?

Who doesn’t?

Traffic jams, flat tires, delayed flights, lost baggage, missed connections...

Anyone who has traveled has been there. How many times have I heard, “I’ll never fly on X Airline again”, when all of these problems occur on every airline.

Five years ago when we had to cut short our Israel trip after two days for my grandmother’s funeral, my mom’s suitcase didn’t make it to San Francisco and the airline knew where it was but, maddingly, couldn’t figure out how to get it to us.

But every time I found myself feeling the slightest twinge of frustration, I thought of the next woman in line at the lost baggage claim, who was weeping.

“What’s wrong,” my mom asked her. “Did you lose something particularly valuable?”

“Yes,” sobbed the woman, “My daughter!”

It seems her unaccompanied-minor daughter didn’t show up, and an airline rep had sent the distraught mom to lost baggage for help!

No matter how bad it seems, there’s always someone who has it worse.

Not only that, but the fact that we have a functioning air transport system is a wonderful thing. If I plan ahead of time for contingencies, I don’t mind the delays. I’m puzzled by the fact that while 100 of us waited at baggage claim for 45 minutes, I appeared to be alone in opening a book. Everyone else seemed to prefer watching the pot boil.

Anything as complex and human as an airport is bound to have snafus.

Every experience and every person in our life has a purpose in our life. It seems to me that the purpose usually falls into one of three categories:

A. To make you wise
B. To get you to ask for help or to say thanks
C. For you to give or to receive an act of kindness.

Sometimes a single experience can have more than one purpose.

Here’s an interesting question to ask at the table: Did you ever feel sorry for yourself and then get over it?

Shabbat Shalom

PS: Read a great review of Senator Lieberman's new book. It sounds like a winner! Here's where to find it.

YES U CAN

2011-08-19T06:13:00.000-07:00

“Think of who bin Laden was. The 17th child out of 54, he could have lived in rich mediocrity and obscurity. Instead, he shook the world, and changed not only the course of history, but the way a hundreds of millions of people would live their daily lives. For a decade, he escaped a manhunt organized by the most capable government on the planet.

"One man accomplished so much in the service of evil! We believe that the power of good is so much greater than the power of evil. Think of how much good one person can do!”

- R. Avrohom Ausband

"If one person could kill 6 million Jews, then one person could save six million Jews!"
- Rav Elazar Shach

Shabbat Shalom

Yom Kippur in August?

2011-08-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

Here we are, in the deepest part of the summer, when all we NHs (Northern Hemispherites) want to do is relax for a few minutes.

Keep your feet up. I don't want to spoil the moment.

But I'm going to make a radical proposal.

It begins with a story.

At my first summer job as a young adult there was a guy who invited everyone in the office to his "Xmas in July" party.

What made it Xmas-y was that everyone brought a present to give to a random person.

So instead of a bunch of people drinking beer together on a summer afternoon, it was a bunch of people drinking beer and exchanging presents on a summer afternoon.

As I grew older and wiser (after all, I did learn to drink wine instead of beer!) I have learned an ancient piece of Jewish wisdom that for some reason has little cache, even in the most traditional Jewish families and communities.

It's called "Tu B'Av".

No, not Tu Bishvat

No, not Tisha B'Av

Tu B'Av.

"Tu" is the number 15. Av is the month of Av, which corresponds to the constellation Leo, the lion.

This coming Sunday night will be the full moon of the lion. (Don't think it's a random coincidence that Apple released the "Lion" OS this month.)

Tu is spelled "tet-vav" which are the first two letters of "tov" (good). What is needed to turn "tu" into "tov"?

A: the letter "bet", which is...

- the number two, i.e., a relationship
- a house or home (bayit), i.e., harmony

I'm not inventing this. In ancient times, Tu B'Av was celebrated as a day of friendship and love, "the most joyous" holiday (Mishna Ta'anit 4:8).

What happened to it?

Well, you know, destruction, exile, a few holocausts....

But is time we brought it back?

You know how many people try to make amends with family, friends and adversaries before Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur?

Why wait until then? The most auspicious time to heal our relationships and this troubled world is this Sunday night through Monday.

Here is my challenge for you -

1. Try to make-nice this Tu B'Av with everyone you know.
2. Choose a Jewish single over 30 who hasn't yet found Mr. or Mrs. Right and make a commitment to help him or her get married in the next 12 months. Commit to making this goal a priority in your life.
3. Share to this blog to 15 ("tu") people. Let's start a viral campaign to renew Tu B'Av as a day of friendship and love and get a head start on the High Holidays.

"May you be inscribed and sealed for goodness."

Shabbat Shalom

PS - What better way to show someone you care than sending them the amazing Jewish iphone/ipad app? http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink
-
PPS - Another way to show you care: print this blog and get a discussion going at your dinner table.
-
PPPS - Our kids' books site now has great school supplies! Browse from the comfort of your home and support JSL while you shop. http://bestjewishkidsbooks.com
-
PPPPS - Our friend Rabbi Tzvi has a funky new book! Show him you love him by getting it here.

Harvesting Grapes

2011-08-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

Four years ago I planted a couple stubby grape vines.

Four years later, they are HUGE, covering our entire deck in a giant embrace.

We have been staring at these luscious bunches, wondering when is the right time to harvest them?

The birds and bees have also taken notice, so the time to harvest got decided for us - now or never!

Yummmm. Sweet white grapes, sweet reds.

It was a long wait, those four years, but so worth it.

What a great way to pass the time on a summer day.

Yes, we know they're starving in Africa. We know that millions are unemployed. But to suckle a piece of fruit after four years of waiting, that's a sweet moment.

It's all going to end next Monday night.

"Next Monday night?" you ask....

If you have to ask, you have to read this.

Next Monday night is the 9th of Av

So what?

It takes enormous effort to connect with this holiday.

Even if you consider yourself "Jewishly connected".

Is it worth the effort?

Here's a story you can read at the table. See how people react.

Imagine the Taliban were to conquer America.

Would our lives really change that much?

Well, we can assume that they would move quickly to abolish Hollywood, destroy museums, dismantle universities. Probably convert all synagogues and churches into mosques.

Now just imagine that you join a few families on a boat to escape. You set sail for the South Pacific. You are hoping that the forces of Good will triumph, but in the meantime, you're saving your own skin. Nothing wrong with that.

But the forces of Good do not get the upper hand so quickly.

Not even in your lifetime.

Nor your children's lifetime.

Not even your grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

So your great-great-grandchildren are born on this South Pacific atoll, they have a decent life with plenty to eat and great surfing. They hear stories from their parents and grandparents about where the family came from, a place called Amerika where there were amazing cities, magical technologies, etc. etc. But that all this was destroyed by the Taliban.

It would be very hard for your great-great-grandchildren to relate to these stories as much more than legends.

That's what Jewish history is for us. We are so far removed from what was, we have almost no appreciation for what was lost.

Why bother?

Because when the Taliban are eventually overthrown, a boat will be coming to offer us passage back home. If we don't appreciate what we lost, we won't want to get on that boat.

Think about it.

The very best things in life often take years of toil and patience before they are ready for harvest.

Three things for your perusal:

1. Here is a packet of Tisha B'Av readings that I compiled for you. I've uploaded it to our jewishspirituality.net teacher-parent resources page.

2. Here is a class I gave in Los Angeles on the topic of how to find a silver lining in any tragedy.
99¢ link .... Free link

(Why a paid download alongside the free one? The first download is for those who recognize the costs incurred in creating and sending you this content and choose to support it. But there will be no hard feelings if you take the latter!)

3. Here is a video by the incomparable Charley Harary:

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Did you know you can send someone my amazing Jewish iphone/ipad app even if you don't use the iphone/ipad yourself? Here's the link.

For the biggest enjoyment of this email, try printing it out and sharing at your dinner table.

Older But Wiser?

2011-07-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

In memory of my father, Dennis Seinfeld (Dovid ben Eliezer).

Last Friday night I went as usual to the nearby assisted-living home.

Small place, only about 30 residents.

As a rule, by the time I arrive (after dinner) the only residents I see are those who want to participate in the Shabbat program (kiddush + story). Everyone else go up to their rooms straight after dinner.

So it surprised me to see Mr. Aaron still sitting there. At 103 years old and nearly deaf, I doubted he had stayed around for me, maybe he was just feeling too tired to get up.

Anyway, after the program, as I rose to leave, he suddenly stood up and asked me, "Would you walk me to my room?"

He was shuffling with a walker. Big man. Strong man. You could tell he had been fit once upon a time.

We walked to the elevator. I wish I could say we had a meaningful conversation. With his hearing loss, it was next to impossible. I knew that he had a lot going on inside there, because over the course of the past few years knowing him, a great sense of humor occasionally came out.

Like the time 2 years ago he had been in the hospital. When he returned home, I told him, "Good to see you on your feet!"

"Better than on someone else's feet!" he retorted.

Last Friday night was the last I saw him. He was "niftar" this week and the funeral was yesterday.

Yesterday was also the 6th Yahrzeit (anniversary) of my father's petira.

Many people don't know the word "petira" (and niftar, the adjective form) but it's a great word to add to your Jewish vocabulary.

It doesn't mean "passing" or "death".

It literally means "exemption" or better, "absolution".

Exemption from what?

From doing mitzvot (mitzvos).

Isn't that a strange way to refer to someone's passing?

Well, what does "passing" mean?

Think about it.

I did several things in his memory yesterday.

- Lit a 24-hour candle Wednesday night.
- Said kaddish in a minyan
- Learned a little bit of Torah in his honor.

I also went to a funeral.

Of course, the funeral had nothing to do with my father, but it brought back memories.

I sat in the back, and listened to Mr. Aaron's grandchildren (he had outlived his children) talking about this man's long, productive life.

Like my father, he had been an attorney. Like my father, he had been the epitome of compassion.

One time, a grandson told, they were having lunch at a restaurant and his grandfather ordered an extra sandwich to go. What was this for? For a hungry person he had seen outside on the way in.

It's great to hear these kinds of stories, because if you only know someone as a 103-year-old man, you only know him as a disabled, hard-of-hearing wrinkled old fella.

My dad, in contrast, never reached old age. He was niftar in his prime.

Sometimes I wonder what my dad would have been like at age 70, or 80, or 90, or 100.

Sometimes I wonder what I will be like at those ages, should I enjoy living so long.

(Apparently, this site will transform your photo to show you past and future selves.)

First question for your table - What kind of person do you see yourself as in 10 years? In 20? In 40?

One of the things I learned about Mr. Aaron was that he had always had a sense of humor.

Riva, the nurse who cares for the seniors over there, observed after the funeral how for most people, when they age their personality doesn't change.

So it sounds like if you are a complaining person today, you have a high chance of ending up a cranky old man or woman.

If you are a cheerful person today, you have a high chance of ending up a cheerful old man or woman.

Some people feel that they are stuck. They are stuck in their bodies, stuck in their personalities. Change may be possible, but it's just too darn hard.

Question #2 - If there were one thing you could change about yourself between now and when you reach 103, what would it be?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Here is a recent video of Mr. Aaron

PS - Looking for a bargain birthday gift for someone? For 99¢ send them the amazing Jewish iphone/ipad app that they will love and use every day - http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink

My Heart

2011-07-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

Last week you may have noticed that I dedicated the blog/Table Talk to the memory of Leiby Kletzky, and then went to write about music, something apparently completely disconnected to this great tragedy to befall the Jewish People - the murder of an innocent child.

One reader from Los Angeles questioned my silence on the issue:

"When I saw your email I was looking for some comfort....I am kind of disappointed and I was expecting to learn a lesson when I opened your email, instead with much surprise I read about music. The whole world was mourning for that boy, he was on media, he was all over the news and you just decided to mention his name and that’s it!!!!!!!!"

First of all, there is a piece of ancient Jewish wisdom that says don't offer a person words of comfort while his deceased lies before him. Meaning, while someone is grieving, let him grieve. Comfort - and all the more so with any lessons - are for later.

As others have written, what words can I say? I could have left the Table Talk blank, maybe that would have been appropriate.

Now that shiva has passed (although mourning continues for 1 year), I will take up the reader's request.

There is a rule of thumb for interpreting the "karma" of events in one's life: When something happens, our reaction is a clue to the purpose or meaning of the event.

What were some of our reactions?

1. Achdut - Unity - Jewish people all around New York and the world working together with one heart to find Leiby. Interpretation: We need to work on our achdut (and eliminate those things that are hindering our achdut, like lashon hara).

2. Pain at the loss of an innocent child. Interpretation: We need to work on our compassion for "lost" children (not necessarily dead.... think of all the children who are growing up without a Jewish education....)

3. Pain at seeing the security videos of Leiby wandering around and no one helping him. Interpretation - we are

As Shlomo Katz, a New York paramedic, wrote:

"The videos have shown Leiby standing lost for SEVEN minutes!!!! None of us, none of us, stopped to talk to help this little boy, looking so obviously lost! It was only this monster who had the time for this little boy! I am just as bad as the next, I am always doing one thing to many, rushing to try to get it all done, busy on my cell phone and often distracted. But my Grandfather ob”m never had a cell phone and never was too busy for anyone on the street, he could stop to show his concern and love for any of Hashem’s creations....So we as the Jewish People, merciful people, we have received a brutal wake up call. Are we ready to answer it? Will we stop the next time something might not be right, with a child, with an elderly, or even with one of those that makes us a little uncomfortable?"

That's a poignant message. It seems clear and to the point. A child was lost and the only person who stopped to help him was a murderer. What's wrong with us?

I would like with all due humility to expand on Shlomo's point.

Shlomo addresses the Jews of New York. He takes them to task for a lack of chesed. Some of the reader comments attest to this, a feeling of everyone rushing around doing their own thing and not looking out for strangers - yes strangers - in the street.

But my reader is from LA. Surely the Jews in LA who cried over Leiby, the Jews in Mexico, in Russia, in Israel, and everywhere else, is our lesson also that we need to look out for lost souls in the street?

Possibly.

Probably.

We cried over Leiby. One sweet innocent child. My reader tells me that she "could not sleep for 3 nights" because of this unspeakable tragedy.

Yet I wonder: Should we also be losing sleep over the 16,000 children who die EVERY DAY from starvation and malnutrition in Africa?

(This is not an exaggeration: http://www.bread.org/hunger/global)

4. We recoiled at the ugliness of HOW he was killed. Interpretation - our bodies are precious gifts, are we taking care of them properly?

5. We shuddered at the idea of an evil person among us. Interpretation - evil comes in many forms. This form was blatant. But for a member of the Tribe to be unethical in business is also an act of evil among us.

On the one hand, we should not live in fear, nor should we become depressed nor anxious. On the other hand, we all have a tendency to become complacent. We're "busy", trying to be good people, good parents, good neighbors. But Jews are not supposed to become complacent. We can strive to do better, in the above 5 ways at least.

Your thoughts?

PS - Leiby literally means "my heart". Think about it.

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Want to help another Jew learn what it means to be Jewish? Send them the link to the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar - http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink or send them to http://bestjewishkidsbooks.com

Edison Scooped

2011-07-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

In memory of Leiby Kletzky, the 9-year-old boy senselessly murdered in Brooklyn this week.

One of the marvels I enjoyed on my recent trip to Israel was the "Nisco Museum of Mechanical Music" at Ein Hod Artists' Village.

The proprietor, 75-year-old Nisan Cohen, had to rebuild his 45-year-old collection after last year's devastating Carmel fire.

What he has salvaged is worth a visit: with visible joy he plays for you (and will let you play) antique music boxes, hurdy gurdies, an automatic organ, a reproducing player piano, a collection of 100 year old manivelles, gramophones, hand operated automatic pianos and so on.

Imagine the delight of children (and adults) at these 100- (some 120 or more) year-old marvels.

There you can see not one but several original Edison phonographs. You may recall from pictures that Thomas Edison's phonograph did not play disk-records, but actually played cylinders.

The first disk-phonograph was built by Emile Berliner, a rabbi's son. His machine, the "gramophone", became the standard for recorded sound. (Berliner also invented the microphone among other things.) Berliner's vision didn't stop at mechanics — he conceived of an entire industry built around the production of musical phonographic disks. His company, Berliner Gramophone, is known today as RCA.

Here's a book about Berliner.

This week's question for your table is a bit philosophical: We all know what music is, right? And we all know the difference between good and bad music, right? So then: What is music? What makes music "good"?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - The bit about Berliner is excerpted from the popular iphone/ipad app, the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar.

PPS - Here's an ear-opening discussion of the role of music in Judaism.

(For the biggest enjoyment of this email, try printing it out and sharing at your dinner table.)

Scientific Mystery

2011-07-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

This week's email is dedicated to our friend Steve Goldstein, who had his second brain operation yesterday to remove a malignant tumor. Wishing you a speedy and complete recovery! (to dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email)

Just back from Israel.

On the flight back from Tel Aviv to New York, I witnessed something that I would guess very few people ever see.

I will give you the facts that I know, and see if any of our astute subscribers can solve this one.

The plane left at around midnight and arrived around 4:20 am (both local times).

At some point during the flight, I woke from my slumber to see a beautiful sunrise in the making. The horizon (I was on the right side of the plane) was filled with a thin but gorgeous band of colors.

An hour later, the sky was completely black again, and when we landed in New York one could see a hint of the earliest dawn light, but it was still dark out.

Question: What 3 unusual factors coincided in order to make this phenomenon possible?

This trip enabled me to reconnect to my friend Raffi, currently working on a Master's in physics at the Hebrew University after completing 15 years in yeshiva.

I complimented Raffi for pursuing the Rambam's (i.e., Maimonides) vision for science. Learning about nature, says Rambam, is REQUIRED for the path of transcendence.

Raffi retorted, "Many people say that, but that's a misreading of the Rambam." He says it's the CONTEMPLATION of nature, not merely learning it. If you spend all your time crunching the numbers and never step back to appreciate it, you're missing the point."

(Note, Raffi is preparing for an examine in lasers.)

Question #2 for your Table: Assuming Raffi is right, is the scientist better able or less able than the non-scientist to contemplate the amazing natural world?

Shabbat Shalom

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.
- Albert Einstein

PPS - Don't forget to print and share!

Being Childish

2011-07-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

This week's post is dedicated to my wonderful wife, a true woman of valor, who has stuck with me for 15 years (this week).

As always, the goal of this blog is to give you something interesting and meaningful to discuss at your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Shalom from Jerusalem.

Here visiting my sister and family.

One of my favorite things about visiting Israel is getting to spend time with them all.

Her six-year-old, Yehoshua, looks like one of those religious kids in the movies. Extremely short hair, long side curls, fringes dangling from his waist.

And like kids anywhere, he can say the darndest things.

To understand the first vignette, you have to know that that in the Torah there is a concept called "tuma" which is a ritual impurity. One can contract it and become tamay, among other ways, from contact with someone or something that has died. Sort of like the cooties.

We're exploring an ancient site called Maresha, which was a cave-town carved out of limestone. It's just a stone's throw away from where David fought Goliath. Today you can easily explore these labyrinthine caves, a child's dreamscape.

The last cave we visit had been used for burials. Yehoshua starts to climb into one of the crypts.

His eight-year-old sister stops him. "You can't do that! You'll become tamay!"

But Yehoshua is no dummy. "We're all tamay anyway!"

"Yeah, but then you'll get more tamay!"

First question for your table — Is there any benefit to giving people a rule to follow that defies reason?

So then later when I'm walking them home Yehoshua suddenly says to me (or to himself?):

Kol ha-goyim magiah may-ha-kotel ad kahn
Hashem ohev lishmoah otam.

That translates roughly as:

The voice of the Gentiles reaches from the Western Wall until here
Them God loves to hear.

Which Gentiles? What voice? Why does God love to hear them?

As we walk, he explains: the Moslems in the mosques, you hear their prayers (on loudspeakers). God loves to hear them because they are monotheists and not worshipping idols.

It took some prying, but I finally get it out of him that he got this idea from the rabbi who is his primary school teacher.

"And their voice reaches all the way to here?" I ask.

"No, back there!" he corrects me.

Question #2 for your table: We adults spend a lot of time talking about what and how to teach children, but what should we be learning from children?

(Rav Nachman, the famous Chasid, used to say: We should learn three things from children: They're always busy, they're always happy, and when they want something, they say "please, please, please Daddy" until they get it.)

Shabbat Shalom

(Did I mention printing out this message and reading at your dinner table? Try it, they'll love it.)

The Purpose of a Museum

2011-06-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

Mazal tov to Marc and Lily who just celebrated their anniversary. You are one year closer to bliss....

First question for your dinner table: What's your favorite gem or mineral?

Marc gets credit for introducing me to the wonderful world of gems and minerals.

Maybe not for introducing me, but for helping me appreciate them in a new way.

I met them yesterday with a couple of my kids and a couple of their kids at the Smithsonian's gem and mineral gallery.

If you haven't been there, you really don't know what you're missing. You may have seen some pretty rocks, but there is no collection quite like this.

Pick your favorite artist or artists. Imagine a single gallery filled with all of their paintings. That's what this place is like.

Room after room.

One room has meteorites. Space rocks! Of all shapes and sizes.

Another has the best displays I've every seen on how rocks and minerals are formed.

Then you get to the good stuff. Emerald, rubies, diamonds, all that precious and semi-precious stuff. Then you have your azurite, benitoite, cerussite, danburite, emerald, fluorite, goshenite, helenite, iolite, jasper, korite, lazulite, moldavite, nephrite, olivine, pectolite, rhodolite, spectrolite, titanite, uvarovite, variscite, wulfenite, and don't let me forget zoisite. (When you read this at the dinner table, try saying that list in one breath.)

Notice what letter I left out?

There's only one Q mineral that I recall - good ol' quartz, and almost nothing compares. There are so many stunning varieties of quartz they could have their own gallery.

Here's an image of Abswurmbachite.

And check out this Wulfenite!

So over lunch, Lily asks, "You live in Baltimore, you must get down here a lot."

With such a resource only an hour away, you would think, right?

I think the last time I was in the Smithsonian was five or six years ago. How can I justify that?

"Well, you know, there's not a lot of time, with school and summer camp and so on."

Lame.

Look at the enjoyment on the kids' faces at seeing this natural beauty. Forget the kids, what about my own enjoyment?

It was only on the drive back that I remembered the real reason why we don't pop into DC at least once a year to enjoy these museums.

Traffic. The easy one hour door-to-door trip down became two hours on the return.

All this leads to my first question for your table (remember to print this out and read it, it's much more effective)....

Some people say it's the goal that matters most (visiting the museum).

Others say that it's the journey itself that matters (learning to be present at all times, even stuck in traffic).

What do you say?

More important, what do you practice?

(Incidentally, the word for pleasant in Hebrew is “arev” which shares the same root as in to “mix”. What we enjoy mixes with us; and opposite it true.)

(Bonus question - where in Jewish tradition do we find the use of beautiful gems and minerals? Name at least two.)

Shabbat Shalom

(Did I mention printing out this message and reading at your dinner table? Try it, your family/friends will love it.)

Where's Your Utopia?

2011-06-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

This week, dedicated in memory of my paternal grandparents - Sylvia and Les Seinfeld - whose yahrzeits both fell this week, Sima bas Mordechai Yaakov and Eliezer ben Zelig.

I was lucky to grow up with grandparents around.

My grandfather ("Pop") used to tell us stories about his childhood. Sometimes he would talk on and on until it felt like your mind was going numb, but he was always so caring and always smiling. Nevermind that we'd heard the same stories over and over, we had a sense that it would be wrong to say so, or to appear disinterested.

Here's the kicker: Every story had a point, some kind of moral.

As I reached adulthood, Pop's monologues became more brief, until he was able to distill the moral wisdom in a single sound-byte.

One of these was his attitude towards intermarriage.

He never said that it mattered to him whether or not I married someone Jewish. But he did have a firm opinion:

"Every family should have a religion" with a strong emphasis on the "a".

He told me this at least 6 to a half-dozen times.

Pop explained that having a single religious/spiritual/however-you-want-to-frame-it tradition in the family is important for "shalom bayit" (harmony).

Both he and my grandmother excelled at shalom bayit, that was one of their highest values. They were amazing at modeling how to care for each other. Family meant everything to them. So you can imagine how they felt about my failure to settle down nearby.

But if you had asked me back then to list the top places where I might settle down, my list probably would have looked something like this:

1. Paris
2. San Francisco area
3. French Riviera
4. Rome
5. New York

(not necessarily in that order)

Note that Israel is not on the list.

It wouldn't have even made it into the top 10.

Farthest thing from my mind, absolutely nothing pulling me there.

Imagine my surprise, then, in the mid-90s, when I find myself not only living in Israel, but enjoying it!

...except for one thing: the bureaucracy.

Every country has bureaucracy, but I'd never experience anything like this. My new wife and I would show up at the city office to deal with my property tax (charged to renters) and after an hour in line find out that I needed some document that we'd left at home. So I'd return the next day with that document only to be told by a different clerk that I needed yet another one that we'd left at home.

It would the same routine at every government office.

We finally figured out that we needed an "everything folder" in which we kept triplicate copies of absolutely everything - American documents, Israeli documents, photos, bank statements, water bills, phone bills, insurance documents, rental agreements, letters of reference, etc. etc. etc.

This maddening experience was the one thing that really made life in Israel unpleasant.

In late 2000, we moved to America. Guess what we discovered?

American bureaucracies can be just as maddening. (Especially with the growth of computerized phone systems - invented in Israel by the way - where you never can get a real person on the phone.)

So it took coming to America to feel shalaym (complete) about living in Israel.

Question for your table: Chances are, Israel isn't very high on your list of places to live either. What would it take, hypothetically, to get it into the top 5 or 10?

Shabbat Shalom

What Drives You?

2011-06-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Tornadoes, fires, scary stuff.

We had a tornado watch here a couple weeks ago and had to explain to the kids what that meant.

Last night a severe thunderstorm with awesome lightning passed over, giving the thirsty garden a great sprinkling.

While everyone else delights in the lightening, 5-year-old Devorah is sobbing.

"What's the matter, are you scared?" asks Mommy?

She nods her head in tears.

"What are you scared of?"

"I'm scay-wed there might be a potato!!!"

=====

These videos tell their own story. Each one is only a few minutes. They make great discussion topics for the dinner table, followed by 2 questions....

Question for your table: What drives these people (pardon the pun)?

Question #2: What drives YOU?

Shabbat Shalom

PS -

The goal of Table Talk is to give you a conversation-starter for the Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Two Feets

2011-06-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

What I'm about to relate may sound a little trite.

This week I did something that I've never done before, but some people I know have done it many times. (I wonder, now that I've done this, am I in the majority or the minority?)

Let's call it the peat-feat.

In addition, I managed to do something else that I haven't been able to do since I was about ten. Let's call it the feet-feat.

In this, I know for sure that I am now in the minority.

The first for me this week, the peat-feat... Believe it or not, I planted a vegetable garden.

Hard to believe, I know (that I'd never done this before).

Well, it always seemed such a chore, especially compared to going to the supermarket.

Inspired in part by our friend Marc in California (who could sell tickets to visit his garden) and in part by a need to give the kids something to do on Sunday afternoon, we trekked over to The Home Depot to pack the minivan with soil, manure and lumber to build a planting box.

Now, here's the best part of the story. Devorah (5 years old) has had her eye on a packet of flower seeds that has been sitting on a counter for who-knows-how-long. She asked me, "Can I plant these flowers too?"

"Sure, that's a great idea! Now let's go to Home Depot to get the soil."

So we get into the car and head down the alley when Devorah suddenly gets very agitated... "Oh no!!! Abba!!! We have to go back! I forgot something very important!"

She's practically in tears.

(Well, she's at that age where she's often practically in tears.)

"What did you forget?"

"I forgot the flower seeds!!!!"

And that's why it was so important that we plant a garden.

Question for your table: How important is it for kids to plant a garden? How about adults?

(Remember that kids' riddle - what's the first thing you plant in a garden? A: your foot... How does that go if you are using a raised bed?)

Achievement of the Week #2: The Feet-Feat

For the first time in at least 30 years, probably more, drum-roll please.....

I touched my toes.

Yes, that's what I mean - feet together, legs straight.

I've been working on this only three times a week for 5 months. If you want to know my technique, pop me an email.

Question #2 for your Table -

A. On a scale of 1-10, rate the importance of:

- a healthy, fit body
- a healthy, fit mind
- a healthy, fit soul

B. Then ask each person to rate themselves on their own fitness in these 3 areas.

C. Are you living according to your values?

Next week is Shavuot, which is the holiday that celebrates the idea that Jewish wisdom can teach us about all three. Best way to celebrate? Print out the Jewish book of wisdom and read it on Tuesday night.

(Email me your favorite quote from the above download and a reason why, and I'll send you a gift.)

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach.

PS - if you haven't seen this recently, take 2 minutes and be uplifted:

Late For the Plane

2011-05-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading this blog for less than five years, you missed one of the most popular posts ever, "Late for the Train".

This week, it was like déjà vu all over again, with a twist.

I'm in sunny San Francisco. Well, it had been sunny, but the moment I'm trying to leave it starts to rain. Remember what Mark Twain allegedly said (but didn't really), "The coldest winter I ever had was a summer in San Francisco"?

Not that bad really, it isn't cold, just raining.

But what's to worry? I have two hours before my flight, and what does it take to get to the Oakland airport, 30 maybe 45 minutes? Not checking bags, already checked in, yada yada yada.

My hostess puts me in the cab with breakfast, I have my cell phone, looking forward to an easy day of travel.

San Francisco is picturesque in the rain. It's a treat to be a passenger for a change.

Soon my attention gets diverted from the scenery to my breakfast and my phone. After awhile I look up and discover to my great chagrin that we are in bumper-to-bumper stand-still traffic on the 880 highway.

This is not good.

My watch says that we still have 75 minutes before the flight.

"What's going on?" I ask the driver.

"Backup."

Thanks.

The Bay Area has a very important service, you dial 511 and can check traffic conditions, updated every 10 minutes or so.

I remember when they launched the service, the voice recognition wasn't so sharp, and I had to shout a lot into the phone. Now it's a lot smoother, almost feels natural.

The report: an accident on the 880, just before the High Street exit.

Bummer.

I report the news to the driver. "How many exits is that ahead of us?"

"Just two more exits."

"Maybe we should get off now and go through the streets."

"Streets no move faster than this."

Well, he's the professional driver. What do I know? It is moving, but about 5 miles an hour.

Question for your table: What would be a "spiritual" reaction at this point?

So here's what happens.

The clock keeps ticking relentlessly forward, second by second.

1 hour before the flight.

50 minutes before the flight.

40 minutes until the flight.

OK, this is not looking great for my travel plans.

Question #2 for your table - Does your response to question #1 change at this point?

Then it dawns on me - I forgot to say "Tefilat Ha-derech"!

Tefilat (or Tefilas) Ha-derech is sometimes translated as "The Wayfarer's Prayer" or "The Traveler's Prayer." It is customary to say towards the beginning of a journey, just after getting a mile or so outside of town. As soon as you cross the Bay Bridge, you're well over a mile "out of town" - and that's just about where the backup started!

Fortunately, there are lot's of copies of THD floating around. Many organizations print it up on wallet-sized cards. There have been PDA and smart-phone versions ever since the advent of PDAs and smart-phones.

I rummage through the "travel stuff" pocket of my bag, and sure enough, there among the ear plugs, metro cards, stain remover (why doesn't that cap stay on?), band-aids etc., I find a THD card.

It doesn't take long to say, about 40 seconds.

When I finish, I look up. That exact moment, the traffic suddenly starts to move.... 15 MPH...30 MPH...45..... and finally to highway speed!

"Did we pass the accident?"

"No, it just started to move!"

We arrive at the airport 18 minutes before the flight.

I could make this all dramatic and tell you every agonizing detail of the security and the dash, but picture this - I arrive at the gate clutching my carry-on in one hand and my belt and shoes in the other only to find they haven't started boarding yet. Seems there was some unexplained delay, even though the boards all read "on time".

Question 3 to ask at your table - What do you think - "just a coincidence"??

Wishing you safe and on-time journeys of your own and a

Shabbat Shalom.

PS - Amazon carries a laminated THD here.

PPS - with the Middle East so dominant in the news, you may enjoy this site.

PPPS - Live in American and looking for a meaningful Memorial Day Activity?

What More Can I Add to This?

2011-05-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

(If you read this blog online only, you may have noticed that there was no post last week.... I actually did write a blog but blogger was down. Those who subscribe via email received their Table Talk as usual, and several said it really moved them. Time to subscribe to the email version?)

Sometimes the news headlines are so colorful, I wonder why bother sending you a story for your dinner table?

Haven't the headlines given us enough to talk about?

Yes... and no...

If your dinner table includes children, or adults who have a sense of discretion, the two stories of male indiscretion (one confirmed, the other alleged) that rocked all news media worldwide this week need some kind of spin.

If you and your family are already more familiar than you care to be with these two headlines, then here's a great starter question for your table:

How would you imagine a religious family would talk about Former-candidate-for-president-of-France and Former-Governor-of-California?

While the latter Former, being of Teutonic descent, may possibly plead ignorance, the former Former, being Jewish, should have been aware that we Jews have an ancient book of ethics.

It's called Pirkei Avot.

No, it doesn't say "don't be a chauvinist", it's a little more subtle than that.

Here's one of its most quotable quotes:

Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? One who learns from everyone.
Who is mighty? He who subdues his passions.
Who is rich? One who is happy with what he has.
Who is honored? One who honors others.

Let's think for a moment what Ben Zoma is trying to tell us.

He is saying: there is a conventional definition, and there is a spiritual definition.

Try asking at your table: "Give me an example of someone you consider wise."

Most people will answer with someone who knows a lot of stuff. Ben Zoma is telling us that the enlightened definition of wisdom is not a measure of how much you know rather your attitude towards learning, your humility towards others.

Ask everyone at your table to give an example of someone who is mighty or strong. Most people will say someone who is either physically strong (eg, Former-Governor-of-California) or someone who is politically or economically mighty (eg, Former-Candidate-for-President-of-France).

Do you see where this is going?

Ben Zoma is telling us that the truly mighty is someone who can control his or her passions. There could be no better illustration of this idea than this week's headlines.

Former-Candidate-for-President-of-France, by political and economic measures (was) one of the more mighty human beings on the planet, evidently (allegedly) is not mighty at all, according to the Jewish book of ethics.

Former-Governor-of-California, who built his entire career and fortune on the projection of physical strength and used that image to persuade the citizens of the world's fifth mightiest country to make him their leader, has been unmasked as a 235-lb weakling.

Final question for your table: Looking at Ben Zoma's definitions, who are the wisest, strongest, richest and most honored people you know?

Shabbat Shalom (and Happy Lag B'Omer)

UPDATE - In reply to several readers' questions - I am neither presuming nor insinuating Former-Candidate-for-President-of-France to be guilty as charged, and have added the word "alleged" above. He may very well be found (and I hope is) innocent. Moreover, it is a shame that he has been tried and convicted by the media. I am rather reacting to the news. The news headlines are, in my opinion, a reminder to all of us of the continued relevance of Ben Zoma's wisdom, regardless of the outcome of any specific case.

PS - Please bookmark BestJewishKidsBooks.com if you haven't already.

Just Dessert

2011-05-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

Question for your table: What's the #1 question rabbis get asked?

A: "Where was God in the Holocaust?"

Second question: What's the #1 question rabbis got asked this week?

A: "Is it right to celebrate or be happy about the death of Bin Laden?"

Many rabbis will answer the way I do: It is not inappropriate to be joyful when hearing of the death of a Hitler, a Stalin, a person whose life mission it is to murder thousands or millions of people, especially people like you and me.

Third question: Who gets the "credit"?

Perhaps the following true story will shed some light on the question.

Approximately four weeks prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City, the suicide bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in central Jerusalem occured on August 9, 2001. The following is a true story:

"May I please get ahead of you in this line? I have to catch a plane back to America and in a great hurry to get to the airport."

The elderly gentleman generously granted this request and soon the tourist was outside, pizza in hand, rushing towards his cab. But then a huge explosion rocked the air and he realized that the Sbarro restaurant he had just left had been the victim of a terrorist suicide bombing. Rushing back to see what happened to the man who had given him his place and thus had saved his life, he found him alive but wounded. After expressing his deep appreciation for his role in saving his life, he informed him that he was a wealthy businessman back in New York and he would be glad to help him any time he was in need. He left his business card and was on his way to the airport.

The opportunity to keep his promise came less than 4 weeks later. The son of the elderly man phoned him that his father required major surgery in an Israeli hospital and could not afford to pay for it. Upon hearing this, the businessman responded that he was ready to come to Israel to see that everything would go well with the operation and he would cover all expenses.

He soon found himself sitting together with the son who called him in the lobby outside the area where the elderly man was undergoing the critical operation. As they looked up at the television screen they saw one plane after another crash into the World Trade Center. The businessman had offices in one of the buildings.

The person that was saved from the Sbarro pizza bombing in Israel was again saved by the same person from the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Fourth Question: Just a "coincidence"?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - BestJewishKidsBooks.com now has Seinfeld-approved toys and games - and even more books for parents.

The goal of this email is to offer conversation-starters for your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Lonnnnnnng Perspective

2011-04-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

Happy 57th Birthday to cousin Jerry and Happy 21st Birthday to the Hubble Telescope. You can now be admitted into pubs across the universe.

First question for your table - (trivia Q) - How long does the Hubble Space Telescope take to orbit the earth?

A: 97 minutes.

We're talking 7,500 meters per second. How do you take pictures when you're moving that fast? (Really good flash, right?)

Question #2 for your table - Did you ever stop to think where the idea of a telescope came from?

Isn't it a little bizarre? That you could look through a tube and see things more clearly at a distance?

History credits Hans Lippershey with inventing the telescope in 1608 and Galileo with improving it.

I do not know where Lippershey got the idea.

What I do know is that the Talmud (ca. 500 CE) states that "Rabban Gamliel had a tube through which he could see at a distance of two thousand cubits across the land and a corresponding distance across the sea" (Talmud Eruvin 43b). (Rabban Gamliel was a leading sage ca. 1st Century CE.)

(Excerpted and adapted from the Amazing Jewish-Fact-a-Day Calendar, an app for iphone, ipad and ipod.)

Question #3 - How does this amazing Jewish fact change your perspective?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Our Spring 2011 newsletter was published this week. Download it here.
PPS - BestJewishKidsBooks.com has new titles added every week - and even some books for parents.
PPS - Here's a private-content video you won't find if you search youtube:

The goal of this blog is to offer conversation-starters for your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Is Life a Game?

2011-04-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS
Chinese gamer sentenced to life

A Shanghai online gamer has been given a suspended death sentence for
killing a fellow gamer. Qiu Chengwei stabbed Zhu Caoyuan in the chest when he found out he had sold his virtual sword for 7,200 Yuan (£473). The sword, which Mr Qiu had lent to Mr Zhu, was won in the popular online game Legend of Mir 3. Attempts to take the dispute to the police failed because there is currently no law in China to protect virtual property.

(If you care to read the details of this macabre story, click here.)

Question for your table: What does this story have to do with Passover?

There are probably many answers to the question. You could talk about values, you could talk about the rule of law and the Torah.

I'd like to suggest focusing on a different angle - virtual reality.

Many of us relate to the Passover story like a fantasy. It's a great story, but did it ever happen? And according to these details? And even if it did, why is it so important to tell the story once a year?

Question #2 - have you ever experienced a Pesach story-telling which was so engaging, you got so into it, that you forgot you were sitting in someone's dining room?

That's the goal, even if you are at someone's Seder who is not so engaging, even if you are all alone, to get yourself so into the details of the story, that you empathize with all the characters (even the drowning Egyptians).

To do so let's be frank, requires a bit of preparation. If you haven't got some new books and gadgets, it's still not too late for 2-day shipping, go to bestjewishkidsbooks.com and search for "Passover" or "Pesach".

If you have all the gear you need, don't forget to carve out an hour or two on Sunday to read through the Haggada, think about how you're going to make the Seder a vivid virtual reality, whether you be leader or follower.

Shabbat Shalom and wishing you a connected, happy Pesach

PS - if you had trouble downloading my free 2011 Pesach kit, send me an email and I'll send it directly, it's not a large file.

PPS - posted this video last year, it's so good, worth watching every year to get you in the mood.

PPS - here's a new one for this year:

Tis the Season

2011-04-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

Uh-oh, Passover is in less than 2 weeks!

Just in time, today we have an important announcement that may help you have a better Pesach, followed by a question for your table.

We have just launched a website for adults seeking ways to engage children in Passover and other Jewish topics.

It's called bestjewishkidsbooks.com

It is not a store, we are not selling anything. It is a portal, with links to amazon et al.

Please visit it, bookmark it and then: send me your feedback.

You can search by age or subject.

Every item has been selected by me and my 12-year-old daughter, Goldy. We added her personal review to most of the items. (Notice that there are some non-book items, such as toys and gadgets to enliven the Passover Seder.)

Hmm... You could do your own research, or you could let us do the legwork for you. Which do you prefer?

OK, so here are the questions for your table.

1. What's the reason why a highlight of the Passover Seder is the 4 Questions?
2. By the way, how many 4's can you count at the Seder (I can think of 4...)

Shabbat Shalom

PS - My free editable Art of Amazement Haggada has been updated again this year, it is part of a downloadable Kit with kid activities and adult-level materials too. Find it all here: jsli.org/passover

Exercise

2011-04-01T12:49:00.001-07:00

Announcement - JSL is now providing amazing improve-your-life tools from Jewish wisdom, including self-esteem and weight-loss. Go to jsli.org and click on the FEELING CHALLENGED? tab.

So the other day I'm going into the JCC for my annual exercise and there's this guy I know.

We have never seen each other at the JCC. He maybe is surprised, because in my mild-mannered alter-ego, I maybe don't look like the type who would be "working out."

He doesn't say hello. He does't say Shalom. The first words out of his mouth are:

"So tell me, rabbi, what mitzvah are you doing here? And don't tell me 'taking care of the body' because everyone says that."

So as I tread along on the mill, I come up with 5 mitzvahs (in addition to 'caring for the body') that one could be doing while getting exercise.

Question for your table - How many can you think of?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - I was just kidding, I actually go 3x/week

Kosher Pork?

2011-03-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

This is an repost, with a few changes, of a Table Talk I first posted a year ago. It generated a lot of interest then and I have so many new subscribers, I hope you enjoy the encore.

A few years ago, I was teaching a walk-in class in Seattle. The participants looked like a cross-section of mainstream Seattle.

The class was about the intersection between the mundane and the mystical. At one point, I asked, “Who knows the bracha to make on pork chops?”

“That’s a trick question,” a young lawyer answered. “You don’t make a bracha on non-kosher food!”

“Ah – but what if someone were starving, and the only thing they had to eat was pork chops? If they need it to save their life, then pork becomes temporarily kosher!”

Afterwards, an older lady came up to me with a word of protest. She was friendly but quite driven. “I’m a survivor of Auschwitz,” she said. “After we were liberated, we were starving. There was some non-kosher meat, and we ate it. But we would have NEVER eaten pork!”

First question for your table: What is it about pork?

Keeping kosher today ain't what it used to be, nor is it what it could be.

On the one hand, it's so easy now. Walk into any Safeway and you'll find that little O-U symbol everywhere. Trader Joe's even publishes a list of their kosher products.

On the other hand, there aren't very many kosher restaurants, and very few great ones.

I used to associate "kosher" with being "religious". A little bit fanatical. But then again, I used to think someone who strictly reported every penny of income or stringently avoided gossip was also a bit fanatical.

Second question for your table: If, as Hillel said, the essence of the Torah is how we treat others, how does “kosher” fit in.

Once upon a time someone promulgated a myth that the kosher rules are based on health concerns. Pork and shellfish can carry diseases, right?

The problem with that logic is that lots and lots of ancient people ate pork. If the Jews had some kind of health secret, wouldn't word have leaked out? The Romans were ruthless, but they weren’t dumb.

In fact, it was only when the early Christians (who were Jews) discarded the kosher rules that they were able to attract Gentile converts. If it were about health, they should have just told the potential converts, "You'll live longer if you keep kosher!"

It took me a long time to figure out this whole kosher thing.

It's really quite simple: The idea of kosher is training yourself to think: "You can't eat everything."

In other words, you're not an animal. If you want to reach your fullest spiritual potential as a human being, train yourself not to eat like an animal, i.e., not to eat everything. (Based on this, even deciding to avoid a single food for kosher reasons - such as pork or whatever - without keeping strictly kosher - even a small choice like that would be spiriitually meaningful.)

Think about it.

(Last year I mentioned that there is an esoteric teaching about pigs becoming kosher in the Messianic age. Several people emailed me for more information and are still waiting....This time I will do so more promptly so email me if you'd like the details.)

Shabbat Shalom

We're All Settlers

2011-03-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

In memory of the Fogels.

In case you were distracted by civil war in Libya, the disasters in Japan and your own life in general, there was a great tragedy last Shabbat in Israel. An entire family, parents and small children, were murdered in their sleep.

The community of Itamar is of course a "settlement".

But what does that mean?

From the perspective of Hamas, every Israeli community, including Tel Aviv, is a "settlement".

From the perspective of every anti-Semite, every Jew worldwide is a "settler".

Question #1 + 2 for your table: Do you ever feel like a settler in your life? Is this good or bad?

I just came from a funeral home. Even though I don't have a shul - or perhaps because I don't have a shul - they sometimes ask me to run a funeral for someone who didn't have a connection to any of Baltimore's many synagogues.

In this case, I happen to have known the deceased. She was a shining person whom one remembers first and foremost for her smile. One of her grandsons told me today that this trait was not newly acquired - that even as a child, people called her "the girl with the million-dollar smile."

Questions #3 + 4:

How would you like to be remembered like that?

What are you going to do about it?

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Purim

PS - in honor and memory of the slain Fogel family, 20,000 people signed up on Facebook to light Shabbat candles tonight. Click here to join.

PPS - here is a video in memory of the Fogels...

PPPS - here is a moving Jerusalem Post memorial.

PPPPS here is a poem written by a friend of ours who happens to be a neighbor of the Fogels:

Just down the road
a family was murdered
just down the road
a knife was jammed into a baby's heart
just down the road
3 beautiful children became orphans and bereaved brothers and sisters
just down the road
lots of people who hate me and my nation sleep quietly at night

I know, it's not new news
my Bubie saw her parents murdered in front of her, and became in seconds a
seven year old mother for her two younger brothers
I know, nothings new
almost all of my husband's family turned into ashes in the holocaust
and now I know - Amalek is still sticking around

But-
just up the road, wonderful families are setting down roots in the land of
Israel
just up the road, live humble, honest and faithful men and women
just up the road, there are people who believe in the eternity and strength
of Am Israel

the road is lengthy and winding, but its direction is clear and certain
on this road i cry and fear, pray and believe, wish and hope,
and deeply thank G-d, for giving me the privilege to take this road on, a
few steps forward.

written in pain
erev Purim 5771

Thinking Outside the Cup

2011-03-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

Dedicated to the victims, the struggling, the survivors.

I feel like I'm supposed to have a "take" on this massive earthquake and tsunami. Here I have a soapbox, what am I going to say?

But this is not a current events blog, right? So I can ignore this, right?

But how can anyone ignore a global emergency?

Japan is the epicenter of this, so let's talk about Japan.

There is something I always admired about Japanese culture: the famous zen tea ceremony.

The tea ceremony gives you the diametric opposite feeling to an earthquake/tsunami.

The tea ceremony is all about paying meticulous attention to the finest of details.

How much attention can you pay to pouring a cup of tea?

Answer: Infinite attention.

The tea ceremony trains you to focus intently on the present experience, on this moment and on this place.

The news teaches us to focus on the big picture, on the global scene, on history.

Question #1 for your table: How do you find the right balance between the two?

Answer: As long as you're plugged in to the media stream, it is almost impossible not to be distracted by it. Think about it. Last week someone sponsored a "national day of unplugging". Obviously the idea is inspired by Shabbat.

Question #2 - How would it affect your life if you and your family/friends experienced a "day of unplugging" every week?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Here's a different perspective on disasters that I wrote after the 2008 China earthquake.
PPS - Here is a 3rd reaction to distant disaster, very spiritual, very Jewish.

Clemensy

2011-03-04T07:47:00.000-08:00

In 1899, Harper's published a remarkable piece by Mark Twain entitled "Concerning the Jews". A link to the entire article is below, but here is a summary and a question for your table:

I have received from Jews in America several letters of inquiry [that may be summed up by this]: Will a Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the rest of mankind? What has become of the Golden Rule?'

Twain begins his answer with a full-disclosure statement:

I will begin by saying that if I thought myself prejudiced against the Jew, I should hold it fairest to leave this subject to a person not crippled in that way. But I think I have no such prejudice. A few years ago a Jew observed to me that there was no uncourteous reference to his people in my books, and asked how it happened. It happened because the disposition was lacking.

I'm not going to print the bulk of his answer to the readers' question, you can click below and savor it yourself. But here is Twain's immortal conclusion:

If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind.

All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

Question for your table: What is the secret of his immortality?

Shabbat Shalom

Today's blog is an excerpt from the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar. We are considering an Android version, and maybe one for the new Blackberry Tablet. If you have an opinion about this investment, please click reply and send it along!

Here's the full original article.
Here's a related 1-hour video on the remarkable survival and thriving of the Jewish People.
Here is rabbi Becher's entertaining answer to the question. (If you want to download the mp3 into your iphone etc, click here.)

__A (Fill in the Blank)

2011-02-25T08:13:00.000-08:00

Here's a story you don't hear too often.

You've probably heard of OA - Overeaters Anonymous

Maybe you even know someone who's a member.

According to statistics, you surely know someone who could be a member.

Regardless, you have a stereotype of what an OA member looks like: overweight, right?

I mean, if you're not overweight, how could you think of yourself as an overeater (barring disorders like anorexia)?

So imagine my astonishment last weekend when speaking to an acquaintance who lives around the corner. Let's call him Yaakov.

Yaakov is about as slender as a man could be, and not be invisible. There
does not appear to be one gram of excess fat on him.

He has always been slender.

Here we are just shmuzing and he mentions, "You know, I've been member of OA for the past 2 years."

My jaw dropped: "You? What in the world for? You do not fit one's stereotype of a candidate for OA!"

"I just felt that I had an unhealthy relationship to food, so I tried it out, and it's been really great for me. Changed my life, in fact."

It seems to me a lot of people talk about changing their lives, whether that means losing weight, learning to paint, conquering anger, developing their spiritual side, but don't actually do it. The OA message I got from my friend is that it's a system. A systematic way of

1. Defining the change you want to make
2. Identifying what's holding you back
3. Making a plan
4. Making it a habit.

So here's the question for your table: Why don't more of us do this?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - if you're looking for a little inspiration to take a shot at it, try this great video that someone sent me this morning:

Radiant

2011-02-18T06:13:00.000-08:00

When Moses descended from Mount Sinai after 80 days of learning the Torah directly from God, his face was karan-ohr - radiating light. Since Torah scrolls are written without vowels, a Christian translator (St Jerome) made an understandable error: he misread the word karan as keren - horn!

Consequently, Michelangelo's monumental sculpture of Moses, seen to this day in Rome, includes a pair of horns jutting from his head.

(Excerpted from the Amazing Jewish-Fact-a-Day Calendar)

Here's a pic in case you don't believe me! (You may want to print this to share at the dinner table...)

Wait a sec - when the chuckling dies down at your table, try asking these 2 questions:

Question 1 - How is a man's face shining with rays of light (so brightly that he had to wear a veil) less plausible than him growing horns?

Question 2 - Would you say the translator was WRONG or is it truthfully a matter of interpretation?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - If you think about it, everything is subject to this kind of debate around interpretation. Think about the US Constitution, think about the word "freedom".... For something meaningful and memorable to do with the family on President's Day, check out Freedom's Feast.

Talmudic Airplane?

2011-02-11T06:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Lily - may you continue to fly higher and higher!

Astonishingly, the Talmud, completed ca. 500 CE, asks questions about flying towers and flying boxes.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 106b) asks: “What is the meaning of the verse, ‘…He who counted the towers’ (Isaiah 33:18)?”

Answer: The verse refers to the many questions concerning "a tower flying in the air."

For example: Does passing over a cemetery in a flying tower cause a person to contract ritual impurity like walking though it would?

Another: Is a Cohen/priest (whose holy status means he may not enter a cemetery) permitted to fly over a cemetery in a flying box?

(Excerpted from the Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar, http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink)

First question for your table - What do you think? Did these ancient rabbis foresee the future development of airplanes, or did they just have wild imaginations?

Second question - What's your answer? Should a Cohen be allowed to fly over a cemetery?

Shabbat Shalom

Being Mivater

2011-01-28T06:13:00.000-08:00

בס’ד
My Bas Mitzva D’var Torah

Let’s say you walk into the dining room Friday night, to eat your meal. As you approach your normal seat, you notice someone sitting there. Who’s that someone?

Your most annoying, pesty little brother.

What do you do? Well, you have three choices.

Either you:

a. You shout “Get out of my seat! You have your own seat!” You run towards him, shove him off your chair causing him to cry, plop down in your seat, satisfied at what you just did.

b. You say “Please give me my seat.”

c. Quietly, without a word, you walk to a different chair, causing no problems.

What’s the difference between these three responses?

#A is getting really mad and totally going out of control and lousing your temper.

B, however, is different. There's nothing wrong with it. You have every right to ask for your seat back.

#C is what we call being mivater. You care more about other people’s feelings than about what you deserve.

It’s very hard to do #C, be mivater. You are thinking “What chutzpa does he have to sit in my seat!! You have to fight your Yetzeir Harah, hold back your anger, and quietly be mivater.

Why is it so important to be mivater?

We all know that after 7 years of working, Yaakov (Jacob) was able to marry Rochel Imeinu (Rachel). They were ready to get married. But did Yaakov marry Rochel? Oh, no! Tricky Uncle Lavan came along and gave Yaakov Rochel’s sister, Leah, to marry. He hid her face with a veil so Yaakov would not be able to see who it was. Yaakov and Rochel knew Lavan would do this, so they made secret signs so they would know if the kallah (bride) was really Rochel. But when it came time for the wedding, Rochel knew her sister would be so embarrassed if she didn’t know the signs, so she told them to Leah.

The midrash tells us that years later, when the Jewish People went into Gulus (exile), each of the Avos and Imohos (Forebears) pleaded to God to set their children free. But Hashem said “no” to each one.

First, Avraham came forward and said, “Please, in the merit of bringing my son up for a sacrifice, You should free my grandchildren,” but Hashem didn’t listen.

Then Yitchok (Isaac) came and said, “How about in the merit of my allowing myself to be a korban (sacrifice)? I asked my father to tie me up so that I would a kosher sacrifice for you!” but Hashem didn’t listen.

And so on, every Forefather and Foremother came forward to plead for the Bnei Yisroel (Jewish People) but Hashem didn’t listen.

Then Rochel Imeinu came to plead to Hashem. She told Him that even though she really wanted to marry Yaakov, she gave up her whole life to her sister just so that her sister wouldn’t be embarrassed. Then Hashem said: “Because of what you did, in your zechus (merit), I will bring the Bnei Yisroel back to me.”

We therefore learn from Rochel the importance of being mivater.

But the story needs an explanation.

Why is being mivater any better than Avraham Avinu and Sara Imeinu’s Hachanasas Orchim (hosting guests in their home)? Or Avraham giving up his only precious son to Hashem? Or Yitzchak Avinu giving up his life to be a sacrifice to Hashem? Or Yaakov learning so many years of Torah? After all, we learn that Talmud Torah Kineged Koolam - learning Torah is compared to everything! Surely Hashem should have agreed to take Bnai Yisroel out of exile in Yaakov’s zechus (merit).

I think that there are 2 ways to be mivater.

Lets say 5 year old Shprintzter Shloigenboigen wants his mother to give him a dollar for a soda, and Shprintzy who is a year older also wants one. Their mother only has one dollar in cash on her and so finally, after much arguing, Shprintzy is mivater and lets her younger brother have the dollar for soda. Shprintzy wanted the dollar. She didn’t deserve it. And she gave in. That’s the easy way to be mivater.

The second way to be mivater is like this.

Let’s imagine Rochel Imeinu’s chasunah (wedding). She had been engaged for 7 years. It wasn’t only that Leah was taking her chosson, she was taking her chasuna too! It was her invitations, her guests, her music, her banquet. She’s been planning this for 7 years already and she didn’t even get to get married - instead, she let Leah get married. And she did all this just so that her sister would not be embarrassed in front of everyone.

That’s the hard way to be mivater - when you totally deserve something, yet you let someone else have it anyway. This gives us a clue why Hashem only listened to Rochel’s pleas. All the other Avos and Imohos did what was right, but Rochel did beyond right.

If we really want Hashem to listen to our tefillos (prayers), we should concentrate less on what we deserve, and more on what other people need.

- Goldy Seinfeld

Shabbat Shalom

Son of a Gun! Daughter of a Mitzvah!

2011-01-21T07:12:00.000-08:00

Mazal tov to Goldy Seinfeld who became bas/bat Mitzvah this week. (Notice how I said "became" and not "had"...why is that?) (PS - we don't want to embarrass her, but we are very proud of her!)

Two stories for you this week, and two questions.

Story #1

At a rabbinical conference in New York on Sunday. The best part of this annual conference is mealtime. I hardly eat, but it's the best shmuze-time.

So here I am sitting at dinner hoping someone interesting will sit next to me. The voice arrives before the face:

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

The voice was vaguely familiar, but the face was a textbook caricature of a rabbi - black hat, long beard, serious gaze.

I did a bona fide double-take.

Peering out from under that hat and beard was my childhood Sunday School classmate Joe Kanofsky.

Sorry, that's Yossel Kanofsky.

Sorry, that's Rabbi Yossel Kanofsky.

In fact, to you, that's Rabbi Dr. Yossel Kanofsky, a menshe if there ever was a menshe.

Surely the most warm-hearted and intelligent person ever to come out of Tacoma Wash (the serious expression was a put-on).

And here he was, in living color. Son of a gun!

First Question for your table... Is it comforting or discomforting to see someone who knows things about you ( and you know things about him) that no one else in the world knows?

Story #2

The next day I found myself back in sunny San Francisco, former home of my great-grandmother Granny Goldy.

My itinerary included a bunch of private meetings and two semi-public classes (see below for audio links).

In one class I made a bold statement that some participants found challenging to accept.

I declared that the classical definition of "mitzvah" is not simply a good dead. It's more than that.

It's a good deed performed mindfully.

One person told me it bothered her that I declared this value as normative, as in "Judaism says that a mitzvah requires kavana (mindfulness)."

Question #2 - What was bothering her about that statement?

A final note - yesterday you may have missed it, it was Tubishvat - the mini Jewish celebration of the trees. Missed it? Don't miss out - do what we're doing, serving a platter for desert tonight with as many edible tree-products as we can find (and yes that includes chocolate!)

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Here's the link to my SF class, "Why Money Matters". (If you get the download and need the handouts, send me an email.)

PPS - Don't know where we keep finding these inspiring videos, but if you like dogs, or happy stories, you'll enjoy this week's amazing video.

Who Has a Dream?

2011-01-14T09:02:00.000-08:00

Big Mazal Tov to Alexandre and Elisheva Bronstein of Beit Shemesh on their recent 20th Anniversary. (Almost out of the woods!)

+ + + + + + +

Many people have noticed that Jewish people seem to be disproportionately represented in science, in Hollywood, in international chess, in business, all stuff that requires savoir-faire.

But what about this?

Ask these 4 simple yet profound questions at your table:

1. What portion of the USA is Jewish? (Answer, about 2 percent).

2. What portion of the white participants in the Civil Rights movement were Jewish? (Answer, about 30 percent)

3. What percentage of the civil rights lawyers in Mississippi were Jewish (Answer, about 90).

(for more info, click here)

4. How do you explain this huge disproportionality?

Our friends (and Table Talk subscriber) Lee Hendler runs a program called "Freedom's Feast"... Check out their ideas on nurturing the value of public service at http://www.freedomsfeast.us/mlk-day. In particular, I recommend their 1-page MLK Table Talk download.

Shabbat Shalom

PS - This week's AMAZING VIDEO is not to be missed - you'll love it.

The goal of this blog is to give you a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Business as Usual

2011-01-14T07:10:00.000-08:00

Whoops - I sent out last week's TT to the email list but forgot to post it on the blog! Sorry to all blog readers. Here it is, and shortly to be followed by this week's TT...

++++++

Mazal tov to our friends Ben and Lindy Sovin of London on the birth of a baby boy this week.

Thank you again to all those who contributed to our successful pledge drive in December. We raised nearly $2,000 in small (under $500) contributions and about as much in large contributions. Your support makes this Table Talk as well as our other programs possible.

+ + + + + + +

Business as Usual

This personal account by Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz is a great conversation starter for your dinner table....

"A Blanket of Trust"

At the end of the day, when business is really good, it's not about building a brand or making money. That's a means to an end. It's about honoring the human spirit, honoring the people who work in the business and honoring the customer.

When I was in Israel, I went to Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox area within Jerusalem. Along with a group of businessmen, I had the opportunity to have an audience with Rabbi [Nosson Tzvi] Finkel, the head of a yeshiva there [Mir Yeshiva]. I had never heard of him and did not know anything about him. We went into his study and waited ten to 15 minutes for him. Finally, the doors opened.

What we did not know was that Rabbi Finkel was severely afflicted with Parkinson's disease. He sat down at the head of the table, and, naturally, our inclination was to look away. We did not want to embarrass him.

We were all looking away, and we heard this big bang on the table: "Gentlemen, look at me, and look at me right now." Now his speech affliction was worse than his physical shaking. It was really hard to listen to him and watch him. He said, "I have only a few minutes for you because I know you are all busy American businessmen." You know, just a little dig there.

Then he asked, "Who can tell me what the lesson of the Holocaust is?" He called on one guy, who did not know what to do - it was like being called on in the fifth grade without the answer. And the guy says something benign like, "We will never, ever forget." And the rabbi completely dismisses him. I felt terrible for the guy until I realized the rabbi was getting ready to call on someone else. All of us were sort of under the table, looking away - you know, please, not me. He did not call me. I was sweating. He called on another guy, who had such a fantastic answer: "We will never, ever again be a victim or bystander."

The rabbi said, "You guys just do not get it. Okay, gentlemen, let me tell you the essence of the human spirit.

"As you know, during the Holocaust, the people were transported in the worst possible, inhumane way by railcar. They thought they were going to a work camp. We all know they were going to a death camp.

"After hours and hours in this inhumane corral with no light, no bathroom, cold, they arrived at the camps. The doors were swung wide open, and they were blinded by the light. Men were separated from women, mothers from daughters, fathers from sons. They went off to the bunkers to sleep.

"As they went into the area to sleep, only one person was given a blanket for every six. The person who received the blanket, when he went to bed, had to decide, 'Am I going to push the blanket to the five other people who did not get one, or am I going to pull it toward myself to stay warm?'"

And Rabbi Finkel says, "It was during this defining moment that we learned the power of the human spirit, because we pushed the blanket to five others."

And with that, he stood up and said, "Take your blanket. Take it back to America and push it to five other people."

Two questions for your table: What's your "business as usual"? What's your "blanket"?

Shabbat Shalom

PPS - Have you seen our amazing video of the week? http://jsli.org

The goal of this blog is to give you a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Knowledge v. Wisdom

2010-12-31T06:31:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to our friend Eric Swergold who is going solo as of January 1, 2011 in a new venture called Firestorm Capital. There's nothing harder, nor more rewarding, than "hanging out your shingle". More on this topic next week.

This week, an anecdote, 2 questions, and a story.

The anecdote:

One reader of last week's blog complained that the question, "Is this weekly Table Talk worth a nickel?" wouldn't really go over well at their Friday night dinner table, as not everyone there reads it.

I pointed out that they should consider last week like pledge week on NPR - you know, diminished content in order to remind you to send in your nickel.

Well, thank you to everyone who contributed a nickel (or more) to our non-profit mission, which is described here. Total Table Talk contributions for the end-of-the-year have reached nearly $2,000. Your generosity is quite literally making this and other programs possible.

Look at these two emails we received recently, the first is from someone less connected:

The Art of Amazement has resonated very well with me as its contents are directed at a number of principles I have already sought to incorporate into my life, and by citing Judaism as one of the greatest ways of achieving these goals it does a great deal to ease my hesitation in becoming a more connected Jew.

The second comes from someone who describes herself as "religious":

My friend and I were searching for a meaningful book on prayer. Your book "The Art of Kavanah" opened our eyes to the spiritual potential of our Judaism - the very spiritually that had pulled us into the fold, but gotten lost on ritual and rote.

Thank you for your publishing and your work in this area, your books have forever changed our relationship with Hashem.

(If you still want to put your nickel in the pushkeh (that's Yiddish for collection box), click here.)

Also, thank you to everyone who completed the 2-minute annual Table Talk reader survey, which is extremely helpful to us in creating this and other services. You can still find it here.

This reader's question (above) prompted me to wonder about the following question...

Question 1 — What's the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

Try asking that at the table, and see what people say.

It seems to me that knowledge is information and wisdom is the ability to process information and make decisions.

What's interesting is that most people are willing to pay for knowledge but fewer seem willing to pay for wisdom.

For example, people will pay a lot of money to learn how to make money. But every year I find that only a minority will contribute a nickel a week to learn how to live a meaningful life.

This observation leads to...

Question 2 - Why is that?

(I have two theories, but would like to hear yours.)

Shabbat Shalom

...with blessings for a happy, healthy and fruitful 2011!

PS... we are now putting an amazing-video-of-the-week on our homepage - you'll love this one!

PPS - I'm sure I mentioned my new iphone/ipod/ipad app, right?

The goal of this blog is to give you a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Jew-Jitsu

2010-12-24T07:36:00.001-08:00

Happy Birthdays this week and next to Lily and Suzanne - neither of you have hit your prime yet, but keep up the great work - you're getting there! (;-)>
Two amazing things for you this week:

When the Arab Street rises up, the Jewish Street looks for somewhere to hide.

We shall cower no more.

Background: People frequently ask me about the compatibility of Judaism with Eastern traditions, including Buddhism, Yoga and the martial arts.

As you may know, the first two I deal with in The Art of Amazement and in several classes such as this.

Today, for the first time, here's something about the martial arts.

Some believe (based on passages in Tanach) that King David's soldiers practiced a form of martial arts.

There is a small but growing movement to restore or recreate an authentic Torah martial arts (Torah-do?).

And we're not talking IDF here. Check this out:

See more here: http://www.abirwarriorarts.com/en

This leads to 2 questions for your table....

1. After looking at that link and those videos, do you buy it?
2. Do we need a "Jewish martial arts"?

Shabbat Shalom

The Reader is Always Right

2010-12-22T13:22:00.000-08:00

Dedicated to the loving memory of Bert Walker and Avraham ben Leib Samuels, whose Yahrzeits were recently observed. They were both men of high moral character and both deeply devoted to their families.

This week, 2 things: Something from you to me and a treat from me to you.

From You to Me

It's that time of year again, time for me to ask for your anonymous feedback on this blog. It means a lot to me to hear from you, please take a minute or two to complete only 10 questions: http://tinyurl.com/tabletalksurvey2010

While we're on the subject, I would like to invite you to a behind-the-scenes look at what Jewish Spiritual Literacy is doing lately....

In addition to spending our Friday mornings crafting and delivering stories and questions for your nourishment, this non-profit organization spends the rest of the week bringing this Table-Talk type of Judaism to individuals and groups around the country.

Some pay their way and others – notably college programs – don’t have the funds to cover our costs. We also train teachers teach Judaism in a hands-on, spiritually rich pedagogy ("Art-of-Amazement style").

AND we give away thousands of books every year. Technically, we sell them at a loss, otherwise they don’t have a budget for them.

Check this out:

"Being able to walk away with a physical copy of the ideas you presented was a great opportunity, as most speeches that inspire me seem to slip out of reach when I get caught back up in the hustle of life. The Art of Amazement has resonated very well with me as its contents are directed at a number of principles I have already sought to incorporate into my life, and by citing Judaism as one of the greatest ways of achieving these goals it does a great deal to ease my hesitation in becoming a more committed Jew.” - Univ. of Maryland student

We are enabling teachers to inspire their students of all ages and parents to transmit a Judaism that works.

On that vein, our pilot "Love Your Neighbor" program is organizing and training volunteers in Jewish communities to visit senior living facilities on Shabbat, so that the residents can enjoy kiddush and the feeling of being connected to a community and so that the volunteers and their children can feel connected to the seniors.

Next week I'll send you our winter newsletter with the details of these and our other programs.

Simply by reading this blog, you are part of a national effort to uncover and promote this kind of engaging, down-to-earth, spiritual Judaism.

But to close out 2010, I would like to ask you to transform your participation into a partnership.

Maybe you don't read the blog/email every week. Maybe you only enjoy it on occasion. What's it worth to you? A quarter? A nickel?

There’s your question of the week: Is the thought-provoking Table Talk worth a nickel to you?

If so, please use the address or link below to send in your nickel. But if you want, I’ll offer you something on top of partnership just to sweeten the relationship. 5¢ a week comes to two-and-a-half bucks a year. If you are willing to double that – 10¢ a week or $5 for the year, I’ll send you a thank you gift that I know you’re going to enjoy. I’ll send you an exclusive podcast from the JSL archives, "From Hangnails to Hurricanes - An Ancient Approach to Suffering".

Please send your tax-deductible donation to:

Jewish Spiritual Literacy, Inc.
3700 Menlo Drive
Baltimore, MD 21215-3620
A 501(c)3 organization.

On-line (credit card, paypal, google): http://jsli.org/donate

(If there is an honoree or dedication, please let us know. All gifts will be gratefully acknowledged.)

All of these programs, including this blog, incur costs. Someone is paying for them (and none of them are meeting the full demand due to funding realities). For those who are already partners in this effort, thank you. For everyone, I so appreciate your occasional feedback (both enthusiastic and critical).

But if you have been enjoying this blog (even on occasion) for free, or if you find any of our projects meaningful, please become a member today for 5¢ or more a week.

But whether or not this is a good time for you to become a member or renew your membership, please do help by completing a the one-minute anonymous on-line survey.

This week, I'm asking you to step up to the metaphorical plate. Next week, an amazing new way to step up to the physical plate. Stay tuned....

From Me to You

Now that that's behind us... the "From Me to You" section of this email....

Remember the two dedications at the top of this email? Both of those men have grandsons who are making this world a better place through music.

Here's Brandon Walker's classic music video, "Chinese Food for Xmas".

And here's a Bobby Samuels beat-hiphop sample: "Keep Walkin'". Enjoy.

Shabbat Shalom

PS – want to help without spending a dime? This video will show you how to support your favorite non-profit just by searching the web:

Or go straight to their site: http://www.goodsearch.com/

Business as Unusual

2010-12-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

Mazal tov to our friends Ben and Lindy Sovin of London on the birth of a baby boy this week.

Thank you again to all those who contributed to our successful pledge drive in December. We raised nearly $2,000 in small (under $500) contributions and about as much in large contributions. Your support makes this Table Talk as well as our other programs possible.

This personal account by Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz is a great conversation starter for your dinner table....

"A Blanket of Trust"

At the end of the day, when business is really good, it's not about building a brand or making money. That's a means to an end. It's about honoring the human spirit, honoring the people who work in the business and honoring the customer.

When I was in Israel, I went to Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox area within Jerusalem. Along with a group of businessmen, I had the opportunity to have an audience with Rabbi [Nosson Tzvi] Finkel, the head of a yeshiva there [Mir Yeshiva]. I had never heard of him and did not know anything about him. We went into his study and waited ten to 15 minutes for him. Finally, the doors opened.

What we did not know was that Rabbi Finkel was severely afflicted with Parkinson's disease. He sat down at the head of the table, and, naturally, our inclination was to look away. We did not want to embarrass him.

We were all looking away, and we heard this big bang on the table: "Gentlemen, look at me, and look at me right now." Now his speech affliction was worse than his physical shaking. It was really hard to listen to him and watch him. He said, "I have only a few minutes for you because I know you are all busy American businessmen." You know, just a little dig there.

Then he asked, "Who can tell me what the lesson of the Holocaust is?" He called on one guy, who did not know what to do - it was like being called on in the fifth grade without the answer. And the guy says something benign like, "We will never, ever forget." And the rabbi completely dismisses him. I felt terrible for the guy until I realized the rabbi was getting ready to call on someone else. All of us were sort of under the table, looking away - you know, please, not me. He did not call me. I was sweating. He called on another guy, who had such a fantastic answer: "We will never, ever again be a victim or bystander."

The rabbi said, "You guys just do not get it. Okay, gentlemen, let me tell you the essence of the human spirit.

"As you know, during the Holocaust, the people were transported in the worst possible, inhumane way by railcar. They thought they were going to a work camp. We all know they were going to a death camp.

"After hours and hours in this inhumane corral with no light, no bathroom, cold, they arrived at the camps. The doors were swung wide open, and they were blinded by the light. Men were separated from women, mothers from daughters, fathers from sons. They went off to the bunkers to sleep.

"As they went into the area to sleep, only one person was given a blanket for every six. The person who received the blanket, when he went to bed, had to decide, 'Am I going to push the blanket to the five other people who did not get one, or am I going to pull it toward myself to stay warm?'"

And Rabbi Finkel says, "It was during this defining moment that we learned the power of the human spirit, because we pushed the blanket to five others."

And with that, he stood up and said, "Take your blanket. Take it back to America and push it to five other people."

Question for your table: What's your "blanket"? What could you do that you are not already doing?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Have you seen our amazing video of the week? http://jsli.org

The goal of this blog is to give you a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Legacy

2010-12-17T07:35:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to our daughter Devorah who turned 5 this week (on the Hebrew calendar).

Two questions for your table:

1. What's the single most effective way to motivate yourself, to get yourself to focus?
2. What's the single most effective way to motivate children?

I'll answer the second one first, with a story.

As you probably know, we got a bit of snow yesterday here in Bal-more.

Newly and proudly five-year-old Devorah is always the first child home from school.

She races in yesterday and blurts out, "Where's the snow shovel?" After a somewhat lengthy process of getting her fitted with boots, gloves and pink snow pants, she saunters outside and begins shoveling the walkway. No one asked her to do this. Her orange kiddy snow shovel is about 1/4 the size of a regular shovel. Try to picture this. After she finishes the walk, she lays down in the one inch of fresh powder to make an angel (takes one to make one?).

Where did she get this from?

Now, for question #1...

Sit down and write out - don't just think it or say it, actually write it out - what you hope they will say at your funeral.

Dream big. Pretend you were living at your fullest potential, and give yourself a long life (120 years, let's say).

Try presenting this challenge at your dinner table. People who are living for a meaningful life purpose are happier and more successful than everyone else around them.

If you find that exercise too morbid for the dinner table, try asking everyone to comment on these two quotes:

"If I have a why, I can suffer almost any how." - Nietzsche
"Better to go to a house of mourning than a house of feasting." - King Solomon

True or false?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - did you know that the JSL website has a list of recommended books for all types of readers? Click here: http://jsli.org/recommended-readings/

PPS - I'm sure I mentioned my new iphone/ipod/ipad app, right? Now you can get it for a friend, even if you don't have an iphone/ipod/ipad...Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink

The goal of this blog is to give you a conversation-starter for your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Wikileaks - the Diaper Edition

2010-12-10T11:24:00.000-08:00

Mazal tov to our daughter Tehila Yehudis who turned 1 this week. She celebrated the day and the season by springing a major wikileak in her diaper during the shul Channuka party (meaning, other were able to participate with her)....

It seems to me that the mixed reactions we're hearing to Wikileaks comes from the feeling that some types of speech are more ethical than others.

Ethical speech (lashon tov) is helpful, unethical speech is harmful (lashon hara).

Without a doubt, some of the recent leaks were harmful and hard for anyone to justify. Therefore, the entire enterprise is called into question.

But let's turn the spotlight onto ourselves, for our Table Talk question of the week:

Question 1 - If somebody you know has a secret that becomes publicized, is it then OK to talk about it?

Question 2 - If you knew a secret that you were sworn to keep but believed it would be helpful to publicize, would you keep a diaper on it, or would you spill the beans?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Beans Song on Youtube

Channuka Fire

2010-12-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

As you read this, the worst forest fire in modern times is raging in the Carmel Mountains in the Land of Israel. 40 people have been killed and thousands evacuated from their homes in Haifa. Today's Table Talk is dedicated to the firefighters from Israel and neighboring countries who are grappling with this epic blaze, and to everyone living there who haven't had a drop of rain since the spring.

+++++++

I walk into the house on the first night of Channuka and declare joyfully, "Happy Hannuka". Yosephi (1st grade) looks up from his coloring project and says, "Hannuka, what's Hannuka? I've never heard of Hannuka. It's Channuka!"

Sounds like the makings for a dispute....

Question for your table: How many famous disputants can you name from history?

Let's see, there's

* Socrates and Protagoras
* Lincoln and Douglas
* Bert and Ernie
* Siskel and Ebert

Hmmm.... is this a decline or is it just me?

In the Talmud, the most famous pair are Hillel and Shammai, and their academies, "Beit Hillel" and "Beit Shammai".

Among all of their disagreements, the most colorful Hillel-Shammai dispute is about Channuka. Beit Hillel (who wins the argument most of the time) state that the Channuka menorah should be lit with one additional candle each night, until on the last night there are 8 candles. Sound familiar?

Can you guess what Beit Shammai say?

Start with 8 candles on the first night, then 7 and so on until you have only one on the last night.

Question #2 - What are the advantages to going like Beit Shammai? What are the advantages to following Beith Hillel?

This video from Charlie Harary in my opinion is a Beit-Shammai video:

While this video from yours, truly is a Beit Hillel video:

Happy Hannuka and Shabbat Shalom

PS - worldjewishdaily.com has featured my iphone app on the home page - check it out here (you can also read all about the fire there).

PPS - Need a last-minute holiday gift? My iPhone/iPad app can now be gifted - click here: The Amazing Jewish Fact-a-Day Calendar.

Picture of a Fall

2010-11-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

Dedicated to my mom, Chaya bas Yehudis, a speedy and complete recovery from her fall. Go figure - the one chapter in the entire Torah when someone is wounded on their hip and walks with a limp, and that's when it happens to her. Fortunately, like Jacob after wresting the angel, she is only temporarily lame, and on the mend.

Did you ever see a painting that was so compelling, you just wanted to step into it?

Once-friendly once-green giants saying farewell,
their grande finale competition
flamingly yellow, pumpkinly orange, shockingly red
their paint splatters crunch
in a proverbial way
and crisp oxygen revives your crusty brain
but the the gloves, for the moment, lie in the winter box.

Here's the question for your table - What's more beautiful, spring or fall?

(Sorry.... just trying to distract you from being driven mad by your inlaws....;-) Send in your favorite fall impressions and appreciations, I'll post them next week and we'll make a random drawing of all submissions for a special Hannuka present.)

Speaking of Hannuka....

If you have a local Jewish bookstore or shop, PLEASE patronize it. But if you don't, use these links to get the goods:

Dairy Chocolate Gelt - http://tinyurl.com/Dairy-Chocolate-Gelt
Parve Chocolate Gelt - http://tinyurl.com/Parve-Chocolate-Gelt
Big Adult Channuka book - http://tinyurl.com/Big-Adult-Channuka-Book
Book for toddlers - http://tinyurl.com/CHA-Book-for-Toddlers
Book for kids - http://tinyurl.com/CH-Book-for-Kids
Book for adults - http://tinyurl.com/CH-Book-for-Adults
Stickers - http://tinyurl.com/CH-stickers
100 dreidels - http://tinyurl.com/100-Dreidels
Silly Bandz - http://tinyurl.com/CH-Silly-Bandz
Noah’s Ark Menorah - http://tinyurl.com/Noah-s-Ark-Menorah
Safe-T Oil Menorah - http://tinyurl.com/Safe-T-Oil-Menorah
Sterling Menorah - http://tinyurl.com/Sterling-Menorah
Artscroll Channuka Page - http://tinyurl.com/Artscroll-Channuka-page
Channuka Blessings Puzzle - http://tinyurl.com/hannukablessingspuzzle

Here is a link to my previous missive on the Jewish take on Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving, Chappy Channuka and.....

Shabbat Shalom

PS, have you seen my amazing new iPhone/iPad app? (it can now be given as a gift, even if you don't have an iphone)

PPS - Have long been a fan of Dennis Prager; here's a good one from him:

It Is Personal

2010-11-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

In honor of Lawrence and Amy Gallant, who were married last week in Boston and planning to live in San Jose.

In honor of my sister, Tzipora (and family) who welcomed a baby boy into the world this week, in Jerusalem. Mazal tov!

A strange thing happened to me a few days ago.

Perhaps you or someone at your table can explain it.

Maybe my confusion is because I'm biased.

I'm biased because I believe my own PR. The PR says that this book has changed many people's lives and helped them find what they were looking for. I get emails from Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform, Orthodox, Orthodox-Hasidic, Conservadox, Reformative and even plain ol' Jews, even from non-Jews, telling me that the book has helped them. After awhile you start to believe this stuff, know what I mean?

So here's what happened.

There is a certain rabbi who runs a certain educational program with hundreds of participants every year. Months ago I asked him if he would like to use the book as a follow-up tool, for his participants to take home after the program. We sent him a sample book, and I showed him how the book dovetails perfectly with his programming.

But he hemmed. He hawed. Via email and phone calls, he would not commit.

Then I heard he was going to be in New York. So last week I made a one-day drive to New York and back (actually New Jersey, so the train was not an option). I found him in his hotel five minutes before he was about to leave for the evening. We talked for those five minutes, and closed the deal. He will use the book for his next program.

This is my question for your table: What is it about the face-to-face meeting?

Shabbat Shalom

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it. - Churchill

PS - have you seen my amazing new iPhone/iPad app? http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink

.

PPS...

Frenzy

2010-11-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to 3 friends in San Francisco this week: David, Harmon and Stuart. May you live to 120 in health and radical amazement.

Want to create an animated discussion anywhere in the country this weekend? Ask the following question:

Besides the fact that they happened to have concluded the same week, what do elections and the World Series have in common?

I can think of a few things....

- They both result in winners and losers
- Winners rejoice and losers feel bad
- Some people work themselves into a frenzy over them, while others yawn.

Q2: But why the frenzy, why the yawn?

I'll be interested to hear what answers you get from the Table.

It seems to me that the common denominator is that in both cases, some people feel that the outcome is terribly important, while others feel that the outcome will not affect their lives too much.

And what's really interesting is how people who are passionate (about baseball or politics) can't really understand why anyone could be apathetic, yet the apathetic folks can't understand why anyone could be so passionate about something that "doesn't really matter".

This failure to communicate leads us to Q3:

Does passion around a contest REQUIRE that there always be winners and losers? Is there any way to choose leaders or to enjoy baseball without making half the participants feel like losers? And even if there is such a way, would that necessarily be desirable?

(Soapbox alert: I ordinarily like to leave these questions open, but some people always ask for MY answers....)

Here's what I'm thinking on this issue. In both politics and sports, during the process our news media have for some reason always focused on the outcomes rather than the substance.

Think, for example, is how much we have heard in the weeks leading up to the election about what the polls are saying. I ask you: how does reporting on polling assist the democratic process one iota? Should I cast my vote based on the polling? Or should I vote based on issues? If the latter, then I need to hear as much reporting as time will allow on the issues. Hearing the latest polling data may help the candidates, but it doesn't help the voters. Yet the pollsters have somehow wrested control of the news.

Moreover, in races that technically have more than 2 candidates, the news media routinely ignore minor-party candidates. They would rather portray a race as a simple 2-person match than a more complex dialog that it really is. This is because they want to make their reporting as sensational and entertaining as possible, and complex issues require the hardest of human efforts, thinking.

Sports are the same - the entire media focus leading up to and during the World Series is on forecasting the outcome - “Who's going to win?” as opposed to helping the public appreciate the beauty of the game and the skill of the players.

Perhaps if our news media shifted their focus to substance rather than winning and losing, both politics and baseball would create fewer "losers" and enjoy more people participating in and sharing the pleasure of the game.

Shabbat Shalom

PS – speaking of grappling with issues of passion, check out this innovative new book on Israel: http://tinyurl.com/howtounderstandisrael

PPS – here’s a video of the SF victory parade:

Shabbat Shalom

http://tinyurl.com/howtounderstandisrael

Little Box of Horrors?

2010-10-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

Got a couple interesting replies to my iphone app announcement.

One was from a guy I had met in 2003. I’d forgotten all about him, and he isn’t on this mailing list, so he’d forgotten all about me.

He wrote to tell me that after his flirtations with Judaism in 2003 he got burned out, and moved to Bali, where he produces art and poetry.

But, he writes, “I'm in New York because my mom, z'l, passed away last week. I'm doing Kaddish for the shloshim and them back to Bali. She was a holocaust survivor and inspirational woman. Nu, what's happened to you in the past 8 years besides the gevaldik iPhone app?”

First question of the day – we can understand why he went back to NY for the funeral. But why is he staying there? Why not do the Kaddish and shloshim back in Bali?

This week, Baltimore’s Jewish community hosted a man named Phil Rosenthal.

Phil has a very difficult job: to teach parents and teachers what they don’t know about their kids.

Specifically, he focused on “technologies” – computers and smart phones. These things have infiltrated our lives so quickly that we haven’t really integrated them into our values-system.

Therefore, they are thrusting into our living rooms and pockets the values of those who control the technology.

Most new phones and every ipod touch (and it goes without saying a computer) comes with the ability to surf the web, and if you don’t disable that feature, you’re giving that child the keys to a candy store.

You’re giving yourself the keys to a candy store.

So this leads to my first question: Do you agree that something’s wrong here, that we (many of us) have had our souls over-saturated with not only the best but also the worst of the Web?

My second question is, to the extent that this is true, what’s the antidote?

Probably can’t get rid of it like a TV. It’s getting harder and harder to do certain things without the Web.

So how do you create the right balance for yourself, and how should adults teach kids the right balance?

(As you know, the purpose of this blog is to give you food-for-talk at your Friday night dinner table, i.e., questions, not answers. In this case, I think the answers are obvious, but perhaps not. If you’d like to dialog on this, send me your answers and Ill send you mine.... Hint – it has something to do with roll-modeling.... )

Shabbat Shalom

PS – Here’s Phil’s website: http://www.philiprosenthal.org/

PS, http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink

Hello, World

2010-10-22T07:46:00.000-07:00

It's here, and it’s alive, very much alive:

http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendar

If you have an iphone, ipod-touch or ipad, get yours now!

If you don't have an iphone, ipod-touch or ipad, boy are you a loser... (just kidding, I don't have one either!)

But seriously, click on the link just to see the fabulous screen shots, and please send the link to your friends and family who might enjoy this.

What does the Talmud say about airplanes? What did Louis Armstrong say about the Jews? Where is Hebrew hidden in a Shakespeare play?

And which iphone app keeps Shabbat?

(I believe after extensive testing that this app is bug-free. However, should you find a bug or a typo, kindly let me know and I'll send you a free copy of my CD, "Hannuka and the Secret of the 36".)

Last week I asked you how is it possible that I could have worked on this app for 8 years, given that there were no iphones 8 years ago?

The answer is I first developed it as a page-a-day wall calendar. But it turned out to be economically impossible to do and break even, because paper calendars have such a short sales-window. These new technologies mean it will never go out of date. Whatever day you start using the calendar, that's when it begins.

So here's the question of the week for your table: What’s worth spending eight years of your life working on? How about eighteen? What about eighty? In other words, what would you be willing to work on for so long if you knew that you could succeed but only after so long?

Shabbat Shalom

Climb Out of That Hole

2010-10-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

Life underground seems to be a theme of the week.

And patience.

Just as Switzerland completed a 20-year project to build the world’s longest tunnel... (http://tinyurl.com/swisstunnelcompleted)

Just as the Chilean miners were emerging from their 70-day ultra slim-down retreat….

Two patience-required milestones happened in my life that were causes for personal joy. I just wanted to share these with you before I ask this week’s question.

Event #1 – after 12 years of work – yes, that’s not a typo, 12 years – I have in my hands the Hebrew version of the Art of Amazement. It was published just after Rosh Hashana in Jerusalem and it is exactly how I envisioned it. Small, paperback, beautiful cover.

1,000 extra copies were printed to send to Jewish centers around the world where young Israelis are wandering. (15,000 copies were requested, by the way.)

Event #2 – after 8 years of work, yesterday I submitted my very first iphone app to Apple.

How could it be, you ask, since the iphone hasn’t been around for 8 years?

I’ll leave that question unanswered for now. When the app is approved and I can unveil it to the world, then I will tell all.

Now, here’s the stumper for your table:

We live in a time of instant gratification. Food, information, communication, entertainment and you name it – can be enjoyed with the push of a button.

Some of us (including yours, truly) enjoy the slow, delayed gratification of home-grown vegetables.

But let’s face it. We’re all somewhat addicted to instant results. If a computer becomes sluggish, we get impatient, forgetting what computers were like just a few years ago.

One day I imagine our grandchildren are going to ask, “Tell us again that story about how phones used to drop the call…” or “Tell us that story about how you had to push buttons in order to call someone.”

So here’s the question: How can you get instant “spiritual” gratification?

(Remember the rules, there are no wrong answers, but ask at your table

Of course, there is the long-winded answer that I put into a book:

http://www.jsli.org/discount (that’s cheaper than you can get it anywhere else)

Here’s a short-winded answer:

Give to someone.

The moment that you give to someone, you are getting outside of your own bubble. That’s the most basic spiritual experience.

We all pay lip-service to becoming more spiritually-connected.

Time to put your mullah where your mouth is.

Our friend Captain Shulman is now on assignment on the US base in Korea. He just sent a list of Jewish soldiers currently serving overseas.

Why don’t we – you and I – try to make sure that every one of these soldiers gets something for Hannuka. A card, some chocolate gelt, a box of small candles, a book, a silly toy. You name it.

If you know any kids, get them to MAKE cards. Hand-made cards are the best.

Email me for the names. Let me know how many you want.

(The cost of mailing is the same as a US address, but needs 10-14 days.)

Think about it.

(But not too hard.)

Shabbat Shalom

Begin Again Now

2010-10-08T06:13:00.000-07:00

They were talking on the radio the other day about a new trend to delay retirement, or come out of retirement.

The claim is that not everyone is doing so because they need the money. Evidently, some have chosen to keep working in order to avoid boredom.

Hmm...

Try asking these 3 questions at your table:

Q1. Do you remember Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, or are they already a fading memory?

Q2. On a scale of 1-10, how much would you like this year to be a year of real personal growth (or reduction, for those trying to lose weight)?

Try getting this marvelous book: Begin Again Now, by Rabbi Pliskin.

The book is an encyclopedia of strategies for dealing with adversity, setbacks, frustrations, etc.

Question 3. (For those not yet retired:) If you stopped working today, either because you had enough money to retire or because you were laid off, what would you do with the rest of your life? (For those already retired: On a scale of 1-10, how meaningful is the rest of your life going to be?)

Retiring for leisure is not a Jewish value. A year of life that is not guided by a mission or sense of purpose is a wasted year.

Ran a marathon? Finished your degree? Built a house? Raised a family? Made a fortune? Saved a life? Way to go!

Now get back to work.

Shabbat Shalom

PS – Here is R. Pliskin’s Happiness Club video

PPS -
One mission we all should have is to “do no harm” or “don’t be evil” as our friends at Google like to say.

This week, Maryland joined the ranks of states requiring hands-free cellphones while driving.

BYAM (that means between you and me), I've been on the bandwagon for a long time now. I know, I know, research has shown that a bluetooth headset only marginally approves safety, that the best practice is not to talk on the phone while driving.

But if you are looking for a bluetooth set, even for comfortable use around the house, I might as well save you the trouble. I did a lot of research. My main criteria were:

1. Sound clarity
2. Comfort
3. Price

I was not looking for any extra features (like the one that lets you listen to mp3s when not on the phone).

Frankly, knowing how easy it is to lose or break these things, I didn't even look at anything over $100. I read a lot of on-line reviews, asked friends for recommendations, tried out a few models. Here's what I found. For the best combination of the above 3 criteria, the Cardo wins hands-down. It's only $20! Just ordered one for my wife. Here's your link.

Feel More Human

2010-09-17T06:06:00.000-07:00

Happy new year! Welcome to volume 5771 of Table Talk.

I have some really good news.

After 10 years of effort, the Hebrew edition of The Art of Amazement is now in print. I haven't actually put my hands on a copy yet, but 1,000 copies were sent out to teachers and organizations around the world, thanks to contributions and pledges from many readers of this blog. $9 enables me to put one book into the hands of one young Israeli and follow-up with him or her. Another shipment will hopefully go out soon, and hopefully we'll eventually fulfill the requests we have for 15,000 copies.

This week - three steps to feeling more human:

1. A timely update
2. An important addition
3. A child's plea for mercy

First, the update:

I gave a few Yom Kippur classes this week. In case you missed them, here are links to two handouts that I used - great Yom Kippur table talk for all ages:

Get the free handouts

+ + + + +

Second, even if you were with me, here is something that I did not say.

Something that is arguably the #1 most important thing to do before Yom Kippur.

Something that has nothing to do with being "religious".

Something that has nothing to do with fasting, praying, yada yada yada.

This afternoon, try finding a moment and place of solitude, and saying aloud the following words:

"I hereby forgive anyone who has hurt me in any way in the past, whether it was intentional or unintentional, knowing or unknowing, negligent or unavoidable. (If they owe me money or an apology, they may still repay or apologize, but I am not going to harbor grudges or bad feelings.) Beginning right now, I am looking forward and not backward in all of my relationships."

Guaranteed to make you feel more human than you felt before you did it.

(What do you have to lose, besides your pride?)

+ + + + +

Finally, people sometimes ask me what's the best way for a non-religious person to do Yom Kippur? How about kids? Make them sit through a long service bored out of their minds?

Are you crazy?

If you are not inspired to sit in shul, PLEASE do not go to services just because “I’m supposed to.” That’s a great way to kill your soul.

If you have any influence over children, PLEASE do not drag them to services just because "I’m supposed to". That's a great way to kill their souls.

A better use of Yom Kippur: go visit an assisted living facility. Go see how your single/divorced/widowed neighbor is doing.

And if you are one of the pious ones who likes to be in shul, make sure to read the words of the Yom Kippur Haftara - this is exactly what the Prophet Isaiah is telling us to do.

Think about it.

Happy Yom Kippur

Yes, happy!

PS - there may not be an update the next 2 weeks because I'll be sitting in my Sukka.

PS – this inspired 104-second video is all about changing one’s perspective:

What Do You Want To Fix?

2010-09-03T06:13:00.000-07:00

Today (Friday) begins the last week of the year 5770.

There is an old piece of Jewish wisdom: "Everything goes after the end."

This means that the final week gives us a last chance to fix things that we might not have been so successful at this past year.

What could you have done better at this past year?

Diet? Exercise? Temper-control? Joy? Patience? Getting up early? Avoiding distractions? Hugging your loved ones?

Do it right for one week, beginning now.

Everything goes after the end. One can literally fix the entire year this way.

This is what it means to live, to be inscribed in the Book of Life. I won't be blogging next week, but in the meantime, you might enjoy these classic Seinfeld videos on Rosh Hashana:

Wishing you a meaningful and inspiring New Year of sweetness, health, joy, prosperity and life!

לשנה טובה

RAS

PS – Here are two inexpensive books that can enrich your Holidays, whether you are at shul, at home, or elsewhere:

http://www.tinyurl.com/RHsurvivalkit

http://www.tinyurl.com/NewArtofAmazement

Is it About You and Your Garbage or You and Your Dad?

2010-08-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

You are 16 years old and your father has told you to take out the garbage.

This is the job you hate most in the world.

So you acknowledge that you heard what he said, and then you walk out of the house to go to school without doing it. When you arrive home, your father calls you into the room and asks you why you didn’t take out the garbage. You reply that you forgot and you will do it. But then you start thinking about the smelly garbage room and the bugs. You go to sleep without taking it out.

The next morning your father asks again why you didn’t take out the garbage. You apologize profusely and then go to school without taking it out.

When you arrive home, your father calls you again and asks you why you didn’t take out the garbage. This time you know that you are in trouble.

”Son/Daughter, I want you to know that you have done something really wrong. The issue is not that you haven’t taken the garbage out for these three times. The issue is that you have hurt our relationship. Three times you told me that you would do it and each time you promised me. Now I know one thing; I cannot trust your word anymore. This shows that, on a certain level, you don’t respect me or value our relationship. I want you to think over what you have done and decide what you need to do to rectify the wrong you have done."

Your father’s words really make an impression. Now you really feel bad. It finally hit you what you have done. You want to return to your father and tell him you are sorry. It is not so simple in this case to just say you are sorry. There is something more serious involved here. You have damaged your credibility with your father. Just saying you are sorry is not enough to repair the damage.

So you decide to make a plan. After thinking about what you did, you decided to take the following steps:

Step One - You sincerely feel regret for what you have done. You will not try to push away these feelings of regret over what you have done but rather you will let yourself use them in order to spur you to take the steps necessary to change.

Step Two - You will listen to your father. Until you get forgiveness from him you will make sure to listen to everything else that he asks of you.

Step Three - You will go to him and ask forgiveness for what you have done. You will tell him that you are sorry.

Step Four - You will tell him that you have made a decision to listen to his instructions and will not procrastinate any longer.

The next day you go to your father and explain how sorry you are, and that in the future you promise to listen to him immediately when asked to do something. You pour out your heart to him and beseech him to forgive you. Upon seeing your great sincerity and change in attitude, your father wholeheartedly forgives you and warmly welcomes you back into his good graces.

What has occurred here? You have restored your relationship with your father. You have taken a situation of a wounded relationship with him and turned it around. Because you took the time to think it out and sincerely change, you were accepted back by him with joy.

For an explanation of this parable, click here.

If you find this approach to Rosh Hashana useful, you might enjoy the following as well, all thanks to R. Aryeh Nivin.

2. Waking Up to the Sound of the Shofar: Self-evaluation quiz

3. How to use the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana

4. Defining the spirituality of Rosh Hashana

Shabbat Shalom

“It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.” - Churchill

Did You Know?

2010-08-21T06:13:00.000-07:00

Received an email this week from a Jewish person who wants to understand why Judaism states that you can't convert OUT of Judaism - once a Jew, always a Jew.

He has gone so far as to ask his mother not to identify herself as Jewish.

"Justify it," Rabbi he told me.

I asked him, first of all, why would you NOT want to be Jewish? Look at what others have said:

“I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations ... They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.” - John Adams, Second President of the United States

Shabbat Shalom

Hippiness: Bang-Bang-Shoot-Shoot

2010-08-13T06:13:00.000-07:00

Here’s another news item that might be food for thought and dinner-table conversation.

One of the last refuges for hippiness is the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.

There you will find the highest concentration of Birkenstocks and facial hair in the Western hemisphere.

Evergreen is so Left they make Cal (Berkeley) look like Tea Partiers.

In Evergreen, the board of the “Co-op” market voted last month to boycott produce from the Land of Israel.

Here is a handy guide to responding to someone you meet who wants to stop supporting Israel or worse wants to harm Israel.

First, acknowledge that their motive is valid: strong feelings about the living conditions of many Arabs living in lands adjacent to the Jewish state.

We have seen images and heard accounts of these conditions that are very upsetting. These narratives have persuaded us that (1) we are getting an unfiltered, objective understanding of the conditions and (2) the blame for these conditions lies mostly, if not solely on the Israeli government, and therefore by extension on the Israeli people who put that government in power.

Given the volume of information that has informed this conclusion, it would take an equally great volume of counter-information in order to change someone’s opinion.

Most people you meet will not be interested in this kind of education.

I would, however, suggest making these three points:

(Point 1) The fact that I am Jewish does not mean that I have an irrational bias towards Israel. There are plenty of Jewish people who are anti-Israel. But it has been my personal experience as well as that of others that the more one pauses to hear all sides of a story, the more one’s own views tend to moderate.

The question is, are you interested in what is true, or are you interested in bashing-Israel, regardless of the facts?

Because if you are interested in what is true, I would dare say that you cannot honestly claim that you are well-informed if you haven’t examined the evidence on these websites:

http://honestreporting.com
http://www.fair.org
http://www.palestinefacts.org
http://www.palwatch.org

Examine them well, with an open mind, and then send me an email to tell me you still see the blame as one-sided. I don’t believe I will receive any emails.

If you don’t want to take the time to become well-informed, then at least be intellectually honest enough to admit you are taking an emotional stance and not a reasoned one.

Point number 2:

Even from within the world-view of the emotional stance, a boycott of Israeli products doesn’t really make sense.

I’ll explain.

A boycott means “we cannot in good conscience trade in Israeli produce.”

Does the boycotter’s computer contain an Intel Core Dual chip? Better stop using it. Invented in Israel. Every local-grown peach you ring up on that register is using an Israeli product. Not to mention the computers you have at home and everywhere else. Get rid of them.

Well, you already have the computers, don’t want to throw them out. But don’t buy a new one with the Windows NP, XP or Vista. These operating systems were all developed in Israel.

I should add Microsoft Office, also an Israeli-developed product. I wonder if we would have any anti-Israel flyers without Israel’s help. Sorry to point out an inconvenient truth.

While we’re at it, let’s mention some other Israeli inventions in the computer industry that you should add to your boycott: Firewalls and Virus protection software, cellphones, cellphone cameras, and AIM and ICQ instant messaging technology. There is even an important search algorithm used by Google that was invented – guess where? As soon as you leave this forum and go googling, you’re supporting Israel. Do you use Skype or other VOIP service? Invented in Israel. Better move back to the local phone company.

I wonder how many American farmers use drip irrigation. That’s an Israeli invention. So are many of the solar power technologies that we use in the United States.

I hope the emotional boycotters never get sick, because the following are some of the medical technologies that you’re going to have to avoid:

• Computerized prescription systems
• The ingestible camera pill
• Babysense anti-SIDS monitor
• Copaxone, which is an MS drug
• Mirabel breast cancer detection

In fact, thanks to Teva pharmaceutical, 1/15 of all prescriptions in the US come from Israel. Make sure you let your doctor know that you don’t want any of these life-saving Israeli products.

That is, if you are being intellectually honest. Or are you a boycotter of convenience?

Point #3

What if the Boycott Israel campaign is the product of forces of evil? Israel has a better human rights record than any country in the Middle East. This is a fact that you can verify. Boycotting people who do so much good in the world is a tactic that has been used in the past by ideologues who wanted to delegitimize Jews, or the Jewish State, regardless of these facts.

In summary:

• Inform yourself using multiple sources and form an educated opinion.
• Consider the absurdity – the impossibility - of a true boycott
• Consider the possibility that joining a boycott supports the political-religious agenda of the most radical people in the world. The Palestinian Authority doesn’t boycott Israel but Hamas does. Which side will you choose?
Finally, here’s a film worth watching and showing:

Shabbat Shalom

“Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.” - Churchill

Pinteleh Yid

2010-08-06T06:13:00.000-07:00

What did you see when you saw the photos of Marc and Chelsea?

In case you missed the three official photos, here’s one:

This is a Rorschach test. How you answer the question will tell us a whole lot about you.

Tell us what you see: _____________________________________________________________________________________

(I don’t want to spoil the purity of the test, so go ahead and answer it, and I’ll blabber a bit, then tell you below what I see.)

Blah blah blah blah, yada yada yada.

OK, want to know what I see?

I see a Jewish guy who knows that he’s under a big spotlight, and nevertheless is telling his new wife and in-laws, and his own family and all the guests,

“I’m Jewish! My father is a Jew, my mother is a Jew. I am a Jew.”

Given his position with his background, don’t be fooled by the inter-marriage part of the wedding. There was something intra- going on there too.

Rebbetzin Jungreis always says that inside every Jewish person is a “pinteleh Yid” – a point of awareness of his or her tribal membership, with all the rights (rites) and responsibilities that membership confers. To awaken that pinteleh Yid inside of yourself or someone you care about, I’d highly recommend any of her books:

A Committed Life
A Committed Marriage
Life is a Test

Shabbat Shalom

PS – another perspective

“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.” - Churchill

When Life is Hanging by a Thread

2010-07-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

There are two things I’ll bet you don’t know about the lowly caterpillar:

1 – Why is it called caterpillar?

2 – Why do you often see one hanging from what looks like a spider thread?

A1 – The name caterpillar supposedly derives (as usual) from a French word, meaning “hairy cat”. The hairy part I get, but cat? Let’s send that one back to the etymological drawing board.

A2 – caterpillars have a real problem. They have really really poor senses of sight, hearing and smell.

Imagine a caterpillar sitting on a leaf.

The wind blows and rustles the leaf, no problem.

A twig falls and strikes the leaf, not at all scary.

A fly lands on the leaf, our little furry fella yawns.

But when a wasp lands on the leaf and starts to approach his blind and deaf prey, the little guy shoots out a silk thread which sticks to the leaf, and leaps over the edge, dangling out of sight and out of danger. After the bloodthirsty wasp departs, little caterpillar hoists himself up the lifeline and resumes his busy eating schedule.

Prof. Ignacio Castellanos (Hidalgo, Mexico) has proven that the caterpillar can distinguish between all of these various motions of the leaf by mere sense of touch.

How did it learn to do that?

(Sometimes I wonder why biology departments are not full of religious people.)

Here’s a summer challenge for you….When you are outside, enjoying the warm weather and natural beauty of this world, find the “picture perfect” moment (butterfly, sunset, etc.) and DON’T take a picture. Take it in with a deep breath, knowing that it is THIS moment that counts, not the digital memory of it.

Shabbat Shalom

PS – hat-tip to Highlights for Children for alerting me to Dr. Castellanos’s research!

PPS – Remember The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Creator Eric Carle has a whole zoo’s worth of sequels...click here.

Sometimes hanging by the thread brings it’s own danger:

“One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!” - Churchill

Contents: Contentment

2010-07-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

This week, our 13-year-old Avrami departed for his first-ever 'sleep-away' camp.

It’s the first time he has been away from us for more than a single night.

The camp then visited Baltimore on Thursday, so I popped in to see how he was doing.

When I caught up to them, they were in a pizzeria.

Avrami doesn’t like pizza.

(I know that's hard to believe; but he does like hamburgers and hotdogs, and Emuna’s the opposite, she’ll eat any amount of za and won’t touch the burgers or dogs with a 10-foot pole.)

Yet every signal I got from him was that he is extremely happy.

The question is: why?

Before you read on, let me throw the question to you, for your table:

What does it take for a person to be happy in a new situation?

I think it’s due to a convergence of 3 things:

- nice people
- activities that are fun and/or meaningful and sometimes challenging
- great leadership

The one thing I don’t think he necessarily has – nor needs – is like-minded people. OK, they’re like-minded enough to enjoy the same activities and basic values.

I suspect that if any one of those three factors were missing from a person’s daily life, life could become tiresome.

Question 2 for your table: If what I wrote above is true, what do we need to do to make this situation we call “Judaism” or “The Jewish People” a happier place to be?

As the 3rd promised installment of remembering Avrami’s grandfather, my father, today’s 3rd question is, Who is rich?

The answer is told by this memorable anecdote. My father was a partner in a law firm where there were sometimes….disagreements about compensation. Some lawyers feel that bringing in big clients, even once every year or so, is worthy of the greatest compensation. Others feel that producing steadily, even at a smaller scale, is more important.

My father would sit in meetings, listen to these discussions that seemed to go nowhere, and patiently wait his turn.

Finally someone would ask, “What do you think, Denny?”

“I’ll tell you what,” he said with a smile. “I’ll leave the room and you all decide what my compensation should be. Whatever you decide, that’ll be fine.”

He was the richest one in the room, because true wealth is a measurement of how contented you are with what you have.

On a scale of 1-10, how contented are you with what you have?

Shabbat Shalom

(PS – my mother always wished he would be less contented with his clothes, especially when a particular shirt or pants passed the 20-year mark!)

“Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.” - Churchill

Tree of Life

2010-07-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

This week: gladiators!

But first, congratulations to Marc Sarosi, who completed with me learning the entire Chumash this week. Next week: the dramatic book of Joshua.

+ + + +

In honor of the occasion, I created a new chart to explain how the various parts of what we call “Torah” all fit together.

It’s called “The Torah Tree” and you can download it for free here.

Last week, in conjunction with my father’s fifth yarzeit, I asked “What is wisdom?”

This week, the question for your table is, What does it mean to be “strong”?

In the Mishna (try locating it on the Torah Tree diagram), “strong” (like “wise” last week) has a very non-conventional definition.

The conventional notion of strong is physical strength. This week the BBC reports that archaeologists believe that ancient remains they found in York had died from brutal blows known to be common in gladiatorial contests.

For all of human history, physical strength and prowess have been celebrated. Today is no exception.

The Survivor shows do not reward contestants who keep their cool, only those who outwit the others.

But the Tree-of-Life definition of a strong person is “someone who controls their urges”.

No one who knew my father ever called him “dispassionate”. He was quite passionate. His passion led him to Mississippi in 1963 to join the civil rights movement. His passion made him a lifelong best friend to many. His passion led him to be a regular consumer of music, art museums and great literature.

But he never lost control. He never lost his temper. He never acted brashly. When he worked on one of his many carpentry projects, he always used pencil and paper to plan it properly. He made mistakes, but always took them in stride. He never hesitated to say, "I'm sorry."

The point of recalling the greatness of a person is to remind us that if he could do it, so can you and I.

Second question for your table, in honor of Marc and all of you out there who learn with me, whether weekly or only periodically: What’s the difference between “studying” and “learning”?

Shabbat Shalom

“Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.” – Churchill

PS – the fast of the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av) falls Monday night through Tuesday. Here is a short video to make it meaningful:

(If you would like Tisha B’Av readings, send me an email.)

+ + + +

The goal of Table Talk is give food for conversation at the Friday night dinner table. Know someone who might enjoy this message? Please forward. Want to be added or removed from the list? Send an email with SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject.

Five Years

2010-07-09T07:29:00.001-07:00

In memory of Dovid ben Eliezer: tragedy, wisdom, greatness and Jerry Seinfeld

+ + + +

Five years ago yesterday, my father passed away.

He had been up on a ladder, trimming "one last branch", preparing the house for our visit a week later.

One leg of the 4-leg ladder was over the dirt. As you go up a ladder, your center of gravity moves towards the back. The right rear leg did not have solid ground under it to support his weight.

When my father died so suddenly, many hundreds of people felt that they had lost a father or a brother. They lost a person who was not just central to our lives, but essential to our lives and to the community. The shock we felt was the shock that someone would feel if he woke up without his left arm.

When people start talking about my dad, certain qualities come up again and again:

Personable
Professional
Empathetic
Zealous
Charitable
Easy-going
Humble

These are all words that described my father and probably only the tip of an iceberg. They were all true, and just about any anecdote you tell about him shows that.

In my father's memory, I'm going to focus over three weeks on three qualities that are not on the list, that you did not hear people say, but I think that when you hear the depth of the concepts, you will agree that this is who my father was, and what we should all strive to be.

My father had a very Talmudic way of discussion. He called it Socratic. But you know, he didn’t realize how very Jewish he was. (Or did he? The beard – so he claimed – was because it was so much easier than shaving every day — that’s what I claim too.)

So at his funeral, in my father's own Talmudic fashion, I asked the hundreds of mourners about these three qualities:

Was my father a wise man?
Was he a strong man?
Was he a rich man?

The first one’s easy to answer – climbed too high on a ladder? Mmm, no, not wise. Scratch that one off the list.

No really, what’s wisdom in the Talmudic sense, not according to Webster’s?

There were mourners that day, five years ago, who remembered him as a kid.

His 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Marsh, had a different perspective on his social skills, writing that he “could show more initiative and exercise leadership by looking ahead and anticipating situations,” in other words, he was short-sighted, not able to see the outcome of situations. However, Mrs. Marsh was also confident that he would develop those qualities as the elected class chairman….

By the spring, she reported that he indeed had.

The Talmud asks, “What does it mean to be wise?” and of course when a rabbi asks you that question, you know that the right answer is not “knowing a lot of stuff.”

The Talmud gives two answers.

The first is: “Someone who foresees the outcome.”

This ability was my father’s strong suit. He was the kind of person you love to have on your committee and you hate to have on your committee at the same time. You love to have him there because he asks the tough questions. You hate having him there because he asks the tough questions. He had not only the ability but the all-important tenacity to ask the tough questions, to push us – believe you me, his children included – to consider all the possible outcomes. He taught this to us, and those who were good disciples learned to do so naturally.

The Talmud’s second definition of wisdom: Someone who learns from every other person.

It’s a remarkable statement, if you understand Hebrew. The language is clear, it doesn’t mean every other man, nor every other Jew, nor every other adult: it means every other human being.

Is there a better description of my father’s relationship toward other human beings?

All he wanted from people was to hear their ideas, their beliefs, their hopes and dreams – from the elderly to young children. My father was a feminist before anyone talked about feminism (although I suspect he may have picked some of this up from someone he met in college), he was the trailblazer whose equal treatment of others was so natural to himself that it disarmed you if you weren’t used to it. Even when two of his children went by Tacoma standards completely nuts, if he was judgmental, he kept it to himself, he certainly didn’t ever make us feel ashamed of having chosen a different path than his own.

His ability to learn from others was a key to his successful relationships, because of all people, my dad had so few, if any pretensions. He was not impressed by anything that Madison Avenue would have impress us. Money didn’t impress him. Status was irrelevant to him. His definition of success was hard work, strict ethics and a good heart.

I remember when Jerry Seinfeld came to Tacoma. It was 1984 or 85, I think. Dad couldn’t care less that Jerry was a comedian – what mattered to him was that here was another Seinfeld and we didn’t know of any other Seinfelds before then. So he went to meet the guy, and years later flew down to LA for a taping of the show, because he was family.

This wisdom I think is what drove his passion for Tacoma Community College. I don’t remember him more proud than when he told me about the award ceremony where they would honor students who had come from nothing – no education, no money, no support – and graduated from TCC. Displaced people, people with no direction, who found their way. He loved getting to know the student, finding out their story.

Finally, he set up a scholarship fund there, not at one of his own prestigious colleges but at TCC where he felt he could help the most people.

The point of recalling the greatness of a person is to remind us that if he could do it, so can you and I.

Shabbat Shalom

“It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.” – Churchill

(PS – one word about tzedakah – my Dad and Mom raised their children with this value from a very young age: Give a substantial portion of your income – even 10% - back to the community. He was quite pleased when I told him one day that that’s a recipe right out of the Torah.)

Devorah Torah

2010-07-02T07:46:00.000-07:00

Did you ever find yourself struggling to stay awake during a sermon?

Who hasn’t?

Did you ever find yourself giving a sermon and wonder why so many people were sleep-deprived lately?

Yesterday someone asked me if I could help his daughter with her “Dvar Torah” for her Bat Mitzvah. He wanted me to send him some thoughts about her Torah portion.

More specifically, he wanted me to send her ideas about the portion of her portion that was her portion, or at least a portion of the portion of her portion that was her portion.

I asked him if she felt that she had to speak specifically about a portion of her portion of the portion. Or should she necessarily speak about any portion of the portion?

For example, another young lady in San Francisco chose to speak about the hugely-important mitzvah of not speaking gossip (lashon hara). She even made a public commitment not to speak OR LISTEN TO lashon hara.

Thanks to her, there has been an estimated 7.7 percent decline of lashon hara levels in San Francisco over the past 30 days.

That’s the nature of a good Dvar Torah – it inspires the audience to think about their own lives in a new way.

So now I’d like to share a most unusual Dvar Torah at our own Friday night dinner table.

First we sing “Shalom Aleichem”. (To learn one of the classic tunes for this great song, click here.)

Then the children line up for their parental blessing. We go oldest to youngest, but we've heard there are families who go youngest to oldest. (The traditional blessing is here.)

(but I always add my own words).

Then we sit down, say “Shabbat Shalom” or “Gut Shabbos” or “Good Shabbat” to each other and do Kiddush and Hamotzee.

Then I start to ask the kids what they learned this week. In their schools and camps, they USUALLY learn something about the Portion. But if they didn’t, I try to have a story ready for them. (looking for great books of dinner-table-friendly stories? see below.)

(At some point, of course, I tell over the week’s Table Talk, of course...)

Lately, at some point in the meal, our 4-year-old Devorah gets out of her seat, strides over to the bookcase I keep by the table, takes a large book and announces, “I have a Devorah Torah!”

She insists that everyone listen.

We listen.

She opens the book and, pretending to read, starts to improvise a story that can go on for quite a long time.

It’s entertaining… for a few minutes.

What keeps it going is her radiant joy, and our reluctance to stop her.

There are two morals to this story.

The first is what makes a great Dvar Torah?

1. Be happy
2. Be personal - tell a story
3. Be brief

Question for your Table: What’s the second moral to this story?

Shabbat Shalom

“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.” – Churchill

Some recommended books of meaningful stories:

1. http://tinyurl.com/touchedbyastory (or use this for paperback)
2. http://tinyurl.com/maggidspeaks (or use this for paperback)

If you use one of these links, a portion of your purchase is donated to support JSL’s programs.

Need more ideas? Send me an email.

PS...

Penny For Your Smile...

2010-06-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

You know those old photos that people have, of their great-grandparents? Where no one is smiling, because that had to sit frozen for 20 minutes?

Ever wonder what they were thinking?

Ever think about what goes into a smile?

Let’s think about this. What makes you smile?

When you think of soccer, does it make you smile?

How about baseball?

Let’s say someone loves playing baseball so much, he puts all his energy into it and works his way up to the Major League. Do you think –that- would put a smile on his face? If not the money, at least the fact that he's playing MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL?

Everyone's talking about this recent study from Wayne University, in Michigan.

Using photos of Major League players, and controlling statistically for all kinds of factors, they discovered not only is a smile an indicator of longevity, but even the type of smile. The players with the broadest, happiest smiles lived the longest.

Here's a summary of the study.

But I have a question that the researchers didn’t ask. Maybe you could get me an answer from your dinner table tonight.

How could someone be playing Major League baseball and NOT be grinning ear-to-ear?

(Jewish wisdom: True happiness comes not from what you make of yourself, but what you do for others.)

Shabbat Shalom

“War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.” - Churchill

PS: Know someone (including yourself) who could use a smile-boost? Try one of these books:

smilebookforkids
smilebookforadults
smilebookforallages

…and if none of those work, try this: