Smile a Day

The goal of this blog is to increase the SF at the Friday night dinner table. Please share.

Thank you to all who responded generously to last week's 36¢ challenge!

First question for your table: Do you enjoy Yom Kippur?

I love Yom Kippur.

It's the one day a year I get a real chance just to sit and think.

No one expects you to be anywhere. You can find yourself a quiet meditative spot and think.

But thinking is hard. So I take a break every year and head over to the assisted living facility to lead a Yizkor service.

In there you have the most interesting, diverse and interested group of people. Interesting, because they have all lived long lives. Diverse, because they are a random selection of the community. Interested, because their lives are pretty monotonous, and they love visitors.

I saw some old friends (some of whom remembered me) and met some new ones.

My daughter Tehila joined me. She helped me distribute the Yizkor sheets and she helped me tell the story of Jonah.

Yizkor, I reminded them, is a way we remember our loved ones who have passed away. It's a very simple prayer, in a nutshell: "May the Almighty remember _____, in whose merit I pledge to give tzedaka."

Sometimes when we think of such loved ones, we wonder, "Why?"

Why did they die? Why not me?

If you're stuck in an assisted living facility because you are mobility-challenged, you might even wonder why God is punishing you.

So I told them, if you are alive today, it is because you still have work to do. What work could you possibly do when you can hardly get yourself dressed in the morning?

Maybe it's something as simple as smiling.

If you want to leave a legacy, just keep in mind that chances are, a hundred years from now, no one, not even your descendants, will remember your name, let alone anything you did (no, digital storage won't help).

Therefore, your greatest legacy is going to be how you can affect people right here, right now.

I'm talking about the littlest things - like smiling at someone, which cascades like dominoes to.

Or pay someone a compliment. You just made their day.

Here's a New Year's resolution, for those who haven't made one yet:

Every day for 2 weeks, get five people to smile.

Second question for your table: Think you can do it?


Shabbat Shalom and Happy Sukkot


"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." (Churchill)
(Sorry to use the same quote twice in a row, it is just that good.)


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Purim at.... Starbucks?

The goal of this blog is to put some spring into your step at the Shabbat table.
(To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.)

Wondering how to get yourself and family into the Purim mood? Get yourself down to Starbucks, where you can now get Hamentaschen-flavored coffee, just for Purim. Starbucks announced that the special flavor would only be available in participating locations, and only on the day of Purim. (It comes in a souvenir mug, as you can see pictured here.)

Also newsworthy, Google has announced that, in partnership with an enterprising Rabbi in Silicon Valley, they will soon launch the first on-line circumcision service. Called gMOIL, the service will be available to both men and women alike and will be, for the time being, a free service. Go to www.gMoil.com.

But quite seriously – is there anything more to Purim than costumes and booze?

Here’s a secret that few people know.

1,000 years ago, Rabbi Moshe Maimonides (RAMBAM) wrote that the best way to get into Purim is to give extra tzedaka (money to the poor).

But why? We give tzeddaka all year long – why especially increase it on Purim?

Listen to his reason: the main goal of Purim is to be happy – really very happy.

And there are two ways to create true simcha (joy).

One of those is to help someone who's down - a poor person, an orphan, a widow, a new immigrant (legal, of course!).

The problem is, many of us who don't live in San Francisco don’t know where to find such people...

For that reason, some thoughtful people have created avenues to give, where you can be sure your tzeddaka is going to the very neediest. Here is an example:

https://www.kerenyehoshuavyisroel.com/keren/families/index.cfm

I encourage you to give to them, and to be extra generous on Purim, to give to anyone who opens up their hand.

That’s Purim in a nutshell, the rest is commentary.

Happy Purim and Shabbat Shalom

(;-)>



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What Happy People Do (and So Can You)

Happy Birthday Lisa - wishing you a year - and many more - of daily happiness! Love, Joel
(To dedicate a table talk in honor or memory of a loved one, send an email.)

If the title of this week's blog caught your attention, you're either a happy person or an unhappy person.

Or maybe a little of each?

(What sort do you suppose call or email their rabbi the most often? Sometimes the phone rings off the hook. Other times it's quiet. No news is good news? Or are they too stressed to call?)

 I don't know if it's a trend, or maybe we've entered a particularly unhappy period of human history, but happiness courses are now packed at Harvard and Stanford.

But I'm sure you know some people who are "happy people" and others who are "unhappy people".

Here's the first question for your table:

What do happy people do (differently from unhappy people)?
After everyone has a chance to answer, you might want to share with them this excellent post by blogger Jacob Sokol. Worth printing the entire thing, but here is my abridgement of his main points, called "12 Things Happy People Do Differently — And Why I Started Doing Them":

1. Express gratitude. -- When you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value. We're gonna have a hard time ever being happy if we aren't thankful for what we already have.
2. Cultivate optimism. -- People who think optimistically see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in trying times.
3. Avoid over-thinking and social comparison. -- Comparing yourself to someone else can be poisonous. If you feel called to compare yourself to something, compare yourself to an earlier version of yourself.
4. Practice acts of kindness. -- Performing an act of kindness releases serotonin in your brain. Selflessly helping someone is a super powerful way to feel good inside. (The job of most anti-depressants is to release more serotonin.)
5. Nurture social relationships. -- The happiest people on the planet are the ones who have deep, meaningful relationships. Did you know studies show that people's mortality rates are DOUBLED when they're lonely? We feel connected and a part of something more meaningful than our lonesome existence.
6. Develop strategies for coping. -- How you respond to the tough moments is what shapes your character. It can be hard to come up with creative solutions in the moment It helps to have healthy strategies for coping pre-rehearsed, on-call, and in your arsenal at your disposal.
7. Learn to forgive. -- Harboring feelings of hatred is horrible for your well-being. Your mind doesn't know the difference between past and present emotion. When you "hate" someone, and you're continuously thinking about it, those negative emotions are toxic for your well-being.
8. Increase flow experiences. -- Flow is a state in which it feels like time stands still. It's when you're so focused on what you're doing that you become one with the task. Action and awareness are merged. You're not hungry, sleepy, or emotional. You're just completely engaged in the activity that you're doing.
9. Savor life's joys. -- Deep happiness cannot exist without slowing down to enjoy the joy. When we neglect to appreciate, we rob the moment of its magic. It's the simple things in life that can be the most rewarding if we remember to fully experience them.
10. Commit to your goals. -- Being wholeheartedly dedicated to doing something comes fully-equipped with an ineffable force. Magical things start happening when we commit ourselves to doing whatever it takes to get somewhere. Counter-intuitively, having no option -- where you can't change your mind -- subconsciously makes humans happier because they know part of their purpose.
11. Practice spirituality. -- When we practice spirituality or religion, we recognize that life is bigger than us. We surrender the silly idea that we are the mightiest thing ever. It enables us to connect to the source of all creation and embrace a connectedness with everything that exists.
12. Take care of your body. -- Taking care of your body is crucial to being the happiest person you can be. If you don't have your physical energy in good shape, then your mental energy (your focus), your emotional energy (your feelings), and your spiritual energy (your purpose) will all be negatively affected. Did you know that studies conducted on people who were clinically depressed showed that consistent exercise raises happiness levels just as much as Zoloft? Not only that, but here's the double whammy... Six months later, the people who participated in exercise were less likely to relapse because they had a higher sense of self-accomplishment and self-worth.

Wow - awesome blog. It makes me happy just to read it (#2) and happier to share it with you (#4).

2nd Question for your table - Is happiness a matter of nature or nurture?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Want to join a Happiness Club? Send me an email.

PPS - Want to make your Table Talk rabbi happy? Like it, tweet it, or just forward it to someone who might enjoy it.