When Does Life Begin?

The goal of this blog is to pursue and promote wisdom at your Friday night dinner table.... please print and share.
In honor of Keith on his 50th birthday! The doctor is in? (see below)

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400.

It carries over no balance from day to day.

Every evening, it deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use.

What would you do?

Draw out every cent.

Each one of us has such a bank.

It's called "time."

Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds.....

+++

The above is the intro to a three-minute video that is linked below.

I have watched it a dozen times.

I recommend you watch it.

And think.

But before you do, here is a rabbinic background.

The rabbis (of old) say that a person goes through 12 stages of development:

At five years old study the Written Wisdom
at ten years the Oral Wisdom,
at thirteen become responsible for your actions;
at fifteen dialectics,
at eighteen get married,
at twenty find an occupation;
at thirty for authority,
at forty for discernment,
at fifty for counsel,
at sixty to be an elder,
at seventy for gray hairs,
at eighty for special strength.

Maybe you're precocious, maybe you're a late bloomer.

The question for your table:

Are you en route to "special strength" or are you headed the other way ?

The three-minute time video is now playing on our home page: http://jsli.org


Happy Sukkot and Shabbat Shalom

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What's in a Tongue?

In honor of my mom's 75th birthday this week (on the Hebrew calendar). Happy Birthday Mom! May you live in good health, increasing wisdom and simchat chayim until 120.


This week for your Shabbat table I have a question followed by two interesting stories, followed by another question, followed by a challenge.

The first question: Can most human relationship problems be healed with better communication?

Think before you answer.

The first story: Yesterday I made a shiva call to someone bereft of his mother. She had been a refugee from Germany. Her parents had fled with her through Italy, then France, then Spain and Portugal, and from there to South America before arriving to the USA.

The girl had the gift of gab, and in each country she picked up the language.

By the time she arrived to the States at age 22, she was fluent in some seven languages. This gift enabled her to land a job in the executive offices of an international toy company.

"The fact that it was a toy company was good for me," said her son at shiva.

The second interesting story was reported in the news yesterday.

Four years ago, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg set himself the goal of learning conversational Mandarin.

I don't know what his daily schedule is like, but it's hard to imagine that he has more free time than you or I. I suspect he may have less.

In any event, he put his proverbial money where is mouth is and began studying at the breakfast table.

This week, he visited China and gave a thirty minute public interview entirely in Mandarin.

These two stories lead me to the second question for your table and the challenge:

Question #2 - What language or "language" would you like to learn? (By "language" with quotation marks I mean various communication skills like empathy, attentiveness, and it may include music theory or even music appreciation. Or even....??)

The Challenge - When are you going to start?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Anyone who is interested in learning to read and understand Biblical Hebrew would be well advised to try this fabulous book. If you would like to learn spoken Hebrew, shoot me an email.


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If I Can Do It, So Can You

The purpose of this email is to stimulate the cerebral cortex of those at your Rosh Hashana table. Please print and share.
Please see below for an important announcement.


When is losing gaining, and gaining losing?

Today, erev Rosh Hashana, I have a story for you to share at your table.

A true story of grit, sweat and determination.

It is the dramatic and ultimately cathartic tale of my...

INBOX.

Yes, it's true. The last Table Talk of the year (and the first, if you share it tonight) is a blog about the inbox.

Most of the time we are in such denial about our inbox that we pretend that it's not worthy of conversation.

But if you think about it, the inbox is an excellent indicator of a person's inner health.

Show me your inbox and I'll know what kind of person you are.

Show me a person with an endless inbox, and I'll show you a person who never seems to get projects finished, is always running from one thing to another and feeling quite overwhelmed by life.

(Or perhaps it's just a person who is using gmail. For some reason.)

Show me a person with an empty inbox, and I'll show you someone who is in charge of their life.

But (aside from those who suffer from gmail-itis) is an empty inbox even possible? And if it is possible, is it a goal worth striving for?

My personal story begins two years ago when I saw my inbox surge - after deleting spam and all low-hanging fruit - to over 900 messages. To some of you that probably seems petty, like someone bemoaning gaining five pounds.

It was indeed similar to the feeling I had around the same time when I noticed my waistline exceed 36 inches.

I could see the direction this was going.

And I didn't like it.

I knew it was going to be an epic battle, a clash of wills between me and.... myself.

Who was going to win?

There are multiple roads to success on trimming down. But what's the value if you lose but regain?

So the first step is setting up some new habits. Like folders to file away any email that doesn't get a reply within 1 week. For any reason. If it didn't get a reply in a week, it must not have been that urgent.

Well, like my weight loss, I was able to trim significant fat in the first year. But when I got to around 100 messages, it seemed like I just couldn't cut more. That inbox bounced up and down from about 75-125 for this past year.

It was crazy. And a bit frustrating.

Maybe a sane person would just give up and learn to live with himself.

Maybe I'm insane, but last Rosh Hashana I decided to dream big.

I dreamed of what I wanted to become, my greatest vision for myself.

And that was someone with an empty INBOX.

Frankly, it has been a brutal year. Up and down, up and down, more down than up, but then you go out of town and look what happens, you end up bloated... What kept me hopeful through it all was that vision.

And of course I had a plan, a system.

Well, today I'm happy to say, on the very last day of the year I did it.

I surely had a lot of help from Above, but the first thing I had was a vision, a dream.

What's your dream? What kind of person would you like to become?

Organized? Patient? Punctual? Calm?

Happy?

Visualize that potential you on Rosh Hashana. Ask for it when you hear the shofar.

Then on Sunday morning, write down on low-tech paper three steps you need to take to get there.

Tonight and over the next 2 days is our annual chance to  push RESET.

How is this year going to be differerent for you? Is it going to be the same old patterns and bad habits, or something new.

Think about what it would be like to have an EMPTY inbox.

Down to ZERO messages.

It feels great.

I recommend you do it to.

Not only with your email. With any clutter in your life.

If you knew you could absolutely accomplish one personal goal in the coming year, what would it be? Think about that yearning dream when you listen to the shofar tomorrow.

That vision is what will justify another year of life.

Important Announcement: At this time of year, many people try to give extra tzedaka. If you're that type, please help eleviate hunger or support Jewish education. This blog is supported exclusively by tax-deductible contributions from readers like you. This is one of two times each year we invite you to become a paid subscriber. Nothing is free, so if you're not a supporter, someone else is paying for you to enjoy this. If it's worth a nickel to you or more, please do the math and click here. It only takes a minute or so and any amount helps.

May you be inscribed and sealed for life, joy, health, wealth and peace...and an empty inbox.

RAS


PS - I've created a downloadable sheet of "significant omens" that are traditionally said at the Rosh Hashana meal. I've added a few jocular modern ones. Try adding your own, and encourage anyone you're with to do the same. The public sample is here, you can download the full one here (requires free logon if you don't already have one).

Get Moving

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).


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