Labor of Love?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

May 8-9, 2026 • 22 Iyar 5786 • BeHar-Bechuk. (Lev 25–27).

This morning I watched a neighbor gingerly walking—with a walker and two helpers—from her house to a minibus that takes seniors to an activity center.

She has been our neighbor for 25 years. Her decline has been steady downward slope. And from what I can tell, mostly due to inactivity.

It is a fact, first recorded in Pirkei Avot, that left alone, your muscles will naturally start to disappear after age 30, accelerating each decade. 

With muscle training—as little as five minutes a week for each muscle group!—you can slow, stop, or even reverse the decline.

On that note, you may have noticed that it has been awhile since I updated you on the Torah Health and Wellness program/project.

First of all, on the theme of getting stronger, if you click on the above link, our "I Wanna Dance At My Grandchildren's Weddings" daily workout schedule. 

No, walking/swimming/elliptical/cycling is NOT enough. 

(BTW, the website has many updates on both the homepage and deep inside—if you are interested in the latest inspiration and information on being healthy, you may want to look around.)

Now, if you are a creative person you can probably relate to the following.

Even before the book was published in June, 2023, I was already working on a 2nd edition. 

At first it was tiny tweaks, fixing typos and so on. But slowly the 2nd Edition took on a life of its own... The improvements are on nearly every page. 

I do believe that we will have it available by Rosh Hashanah. But because the matter (for some people) is urgent, I decided to move the e-Book forward faster. I know that most people prefer a hard copy but those of you who read e-books may want to check it out—and I'd love to hear your feedback. The format allows me to make edits pretty quickly. The above link takes you to the e-Book (Kindle) page on Amazon (not yet ready for Apple's iBooks).

Please note—I uploaded the new file this morning, so it may take an hour or two before the site updates. If the image on the website looks like the above (with the REVISED AND EXPANDED bar), then you know it's the 2nd Edition.

Wishing you and yours a 

Shabbat Shalom

(v'Healthy)