Driving Lesson

The goal of this blog is to add rhythm to your Shabbat table. Please print and share.


YESTERDAY I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I gave our oldest child his first driving lesson.

Someone asked me if I have any more gray hairs.

(As an aside, many of my gray hairs first appeared during my first year as a classroom teacher. Not making this up.)

Quite frankly, it was a delicious, wonderful experience and I savored every moment.

It says in Pirkei Avot (the Jewish book of ethics) that a wise person "learns from everyone".

Question for your table: What can you learn from your child during his first driving lesson?

In my opinion, the above sign says it all.

Think about how driving is different from most every other skill you teach a kid.

Chances are, the parent has a high degree of skill (or sees himself as having a high degree of skill). And the car is a potential lethal weapon. The stakes are high. 

If that doesn't help you cultivate patience, I don't know what would.

Some things take time. Patience helps. A wise person sees time as an opportunity to prepare.

Take matza for instance. We're supposed to eat it for a whole week. 

Some people savor every day of matza. Some count down the days until they can eat chametz again.

What kind of person are you?

For some people reading this, Passover is already a week-old memory.

One way we keep the message of the matza alive for the next six weeks is to look at a selection from Pirkei Avot every Shabbat afternoon.

Here's this week's selection:

Yehoshua ben Perachyah said: Make for yourself a teacher, get yourself a friend, and judge everyone towards merit.

The question for you and your table is: Are these just three random ideas, or is there a connection between them?


Shabbat Shalom

LIfe is a Pyramid

Looking for a Channuka gift, book or activity? Here's the web's best list of the best.


Life is a Pyramid
Three questions for your table:

1. Raise your hand if you ever felt like you just wasted a lot of time.

2. Why does this happen?

3. What's the solution?

Recently I joined Quora and have been asking myself if it is a good or poor use of my time.

In asking the question, I noticed that I'm able to rationalize just about anything.

Ever have that problem?

So someone on Quora recently asked:

What's the best way to manage your time?

The answers were quite interesting and if you'd like to see my compendium of the best ones, send me an email.

One of the answers included a pyramid similar to the one above.

I took one look at his pyramid and felt like I was having déjà vu all over again.

It's uncannily similar to the structure of Chapter 3 of my book (The Art of Amazement).

I borrowed his idea for the colored pyramid and tweaked the words to match my own orientation, and now present it to you as a self-assessment.

Color version
Black-and-white version

(Note the point system!)

Please print a copy for everyone at your Shabbat table and let me know if they agree or disagree that this is the surest path to living every day to the fullest.

Shabbat Shalom


PS - Please follow me on Twitter, or tweet this week's message, or like it, or just forward it to someone you love...

Can You Be Sorry But Happy?

The purpose of this blog is to make sure your Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur don't go to waste. Please print and share.

Can You Be Sorry But Happy?

Someone read last week's Fiat email and wondered, "why did he write 'Happy Yom Kippur' - was that an error?"

Now that Yom K ippur is in the rearview mirror, and we've been cleansed of all our sins...

I have a big apology to make. I did make a big error (and many small ones).

But writing "Happy Yom Kippur" was not one of them.

The big one was that last week, some people received this message on Saturday morning instead of Friday.

Oy.

For those who enjoy reading it on Friday, please forgive me.

And maybe this is a good reminder that the cleansing of Yom Kippur is only temporary.

If we're not saying "I'm sorry" at least once a day, we're probably not being honest.

(As I tell some of the men who study with me, "An apology a day keeps the rabbi away.")

I called this email "Happy Apologies" because a sincere apology is a happy moment. It's cleansing.

Isn't it?

No error, I meant it.

So...if you read the story about the Fiat, did you enjoy it?

Did you make a commitment for change this year? (You could ask this question at your table...)

Some people like to keep their commitments private, but telling others can sometimes help you keep them.

So I'd like to share with you my four commiments.

I figure the more people who know, the more focused I'll be on keeping them. All of these are a 6-week commitment:

Physical - Going to bed on time (so much to do, so hard to shut down).
Relationships - Phoning my sister once a week (the time difference makes it challenging).
Society - 10 fundraising meetings for JSL's amazing new project (I hate asking people for money).
Spiritual - 3 hours of Torah study every day (who has time?)

There you have it. I've bared my soul.

(The last one has been the most interesting. It's amazing how many unused minutes you can find in the day, if you try.)

What did you commit to?

Didn't make a commitment? Didn't make one that you feel you can keep? Made one but already screwed up?

Tonight starts the last 8 days of the High Holidays (Sukkot).

Eight more days to set your course straight for the year.

Good luck.

Happy Sukkot.

(no email next week)

"Apology is a lovely perfume - it can transform the clumsiest moment into the most gracious gift." - Margaret Runbeck
"Maturity is the ability to reap without apology and not complain when things don’t go well." - Jim Rohn

PS:  At this time of year, many people try to give extra tzedaka. If you're that type, please help aleviate 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. If you're not a  subscriber/member/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.

Feeling Sappy

The goal of this blog is stimulate warm conversation at your Shabbat table. Don't read it now - print and share!




Feeling Sappy

Tonight is Tubishvat, the festival of the trees.

In past years I've made some suggestions how to make it meaningful for the kids: here and here.

This year I want to try a different approach for your and your table.

The Talmud occasionally compares a person to a tree.

So first question for your table: How is a person like a tree?

Let's think for a moment.

We are exactly 4 months after Rosh Hashana, one third of the year has passed.

A tree is the ultimate symbol of wisdom as in the "tree of knowledge" in the Garden of Eden.

On Tubishvat, saith the Talmud, the sap starts to stir in trees.

Think about that - in the middle of the winter with snow on the ground, the potential for new fruit has already begun.   

So just when we think we can spiritually slumber - after all, we have 8 more months until Rosh Hashana! - it's time to let something stir inside of us.

Here is a list of "middot" - A to Z - that we ought to cultivate:

• A good name, Attentiveness,
• Bearing your own burden, Being pleasant,
• Cleanliness, Compassion, Courage,
• Decisiveness, Derech eretz (Common Decency),
• Equanimity,
• Fear/awe/yirah, Flexibility, Forgiveness, Friendship,
• Gemilut chasadim (Lovingkindness), Generosity of heart, Goodwill, Gratitude,
• Holiness, Humility,
• Joy
• Kavod
• Leadership, Love,
• Moderation,
• Not embarrassing,
• Order,
• Patience, Peace, Privacy/modesty, Purity,
• Recognizing the good, Respect, Responsibility,
• Separation, Sharing the burden, Silence, Simplicity, Soft-heartedness, Strength,
• Taking Care of the Body, Trust, Truth, Tzedakah,
• Watchfulness, Welcoming guests, Willingness,
• Zeal

Source: madrega.com

What is the key to the sap inside a person?

Maybe the answer came in an email I received this week from a rabbi I know:

"One of my promising students, who has a large crystal collection, is really keen to find out the mystical aspect of crystals."

Most people asking such questions believe in the healing power of crystals. Sorry to say, I'm afraid this isn't going to be a fruitful search.

But Maimonides says that studying nature is the first step towards developing the most fundamental of all middot: appreciation.

Crystals are awesome. So are cells. And orchids.

So I suggested to the rabbi that he show his student two mentions of crystals in the Torah.

1. The book of Job:

"But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its price; nor is it found in the land of the living. The depth says, It is not in me; and the sea says, It is not with me.  It cannot be acquired for gold, nor shall silver be weighed for its price. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. Gold and glass cannot equal it; nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral, or of crystal; for the price of wisdom is above rubies." (28:12-18)

2. The Talmud:

"R. Ashi made a marriage feast for his son. He saw that the Rabbis were growing [overly] merry, so he brought a cup of white crystal and broke it before them and they became serious." (Brachot 31a)

Second Question for your table: What's the moral of the story?

Evidently we are to understand crystal as something very, very precious. But wisdom is even more precious, as are proper middot.


Shabbat Shalom 


PS - In case you missed you missed it, wo weeks ago during the Jerusalem snowstorm, I sent you some Jewish ideas about snow.

This blog can be received via email. Subscribe at jsli.org. If you enjoyed it, please "like" it, "tweet" it, or simply forward the link to others who may enjoy it.

Can You Ever Go Home Again?

A couple days ago, I was showing someone in San Francisco JSL's newest (top secret) project. He liked the project, but out of the blue asked me the following question:

Why do you do what you do?

My answer is simple: I get to speak with (or communicate in writing with) highly intelligent people about interesting, meaningful things - greatest job in the world.

So here's one such topic for your Shabbat table that we discussed in San Francisco. It begins with a question:

Have you ever gone back to a town, maybe your hometown, after having been gone for a long time? What was it like?
Probably you were amazed by all the changes.

Similar question (for adults): Did you ever see someone as an adult that you'd last seen as a child? What was it like?

Why is it so amazing to see these changes after big gaps of time, but for the town we live in, or the children we see every day, the changes are not so amazing?

I'm sure you'll get various answers to this question and there is no need for me to add my 2-bits. But if you care to hear it, here's my take:

When we see a person or a place every day, the changes are so small and incremental that we hardly notice them, and then we grow accustomed to them and gradually forget how they used to be, how the town used to look.

One building built here, one facade changed there. Slowly, slowly.

But then there's the second question for your table:

Have you ever seen someone after 10 or 20 years or more, and they didn't seem to have changed at all? Same personality, same bad jokes, you know what I mean?

The purpose of this life is to grow and to change (for the better). The third and forth questions for your table are:

- Do you want to be the same person 20 years from now that you are today, or do you want to be greater? More caring, more patient, more disciplined, more honest....?
- If so, how are you going to get there?

Next week, the final email before Rosh Hashana, I'll send some thoughts about how to use the High Holidays to make an incremental but real change in your life (in yourself) so that 20 years from now people who haven't seen you every day will do a double take.

Shabbat Shalom

PS - http://bestjewishkidsbooks.com has great Rosh Hashana books and gifts.
The iPhone app: http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink
Android version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar

__A (Fill in the Blank)

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: