Overheard This Week

The purpose of this blog is to cultivate a new taste at the Shabbat table... Please share...

This week I stumbled upon a New York Jewish radio show hosted by a psychotherapist. A caller said:

"I’m overeating, I’m trying to figure out what triggers it, I’m super motivated, but then it never lasts more than a day, or tops a week. Even though I’m so motivated, when the food’s in front of me, I can’t control myself."

First question for your table: What do you think he said to her?

In a nutshell, after quite a bit of back-and-forth, he told her, "If you're of healthy weight, don't worry about it. It's normal to overeat sometimes, and then diet a bit, and don't stress about it, it's normal."

It seems to me he missed an opportunity here.

He basically heard the young woman say, "I am obsessive about my body and weight” and so responded, “Don’t worry about it, you’re fine."

What I heard the young woman say was: “I am sometimes guilty of achila gasa (gluttonous eating) and I’m looking for tools to conquer this.” To which he responded, “Achila gasa is normal so don’t worry about it.”

He's right: achila gasa is normal. But does that mean we shouldn't try to conquer it? Does that mean we shouldn't try to eat more mindfully, and not stuff ourselves?

Question for your table: What would you have said to her?

Shabbat Shalom

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Permission to Speed?

The goal of this blog is to slow everybody down for a few minutes. Please share.
Wishing Yisrael ben Sarah a speedy recovery from his surgery.

Following last week's story about the greatest Olympian (thanks for all of the positive feedback), here are four speed vignettes that all happened this week, leading to one vital question for your table.

1. A couple days ago, my wife is driving with our six-year-old on a city street where most drivers see the 30 MPH speed limit as a mere suggestion. If you drive 30, you will typically find someone tail-gating you, and everyone else racing past you as if you were standing still.

Maybe they like to get to the next red light quickly so they have more time to check their messages.

So out of the blue, our daughter says, "Mommy, you know you are allowed to speed here."

Oy, Mommy thinks, she's learning by example.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I saw a sign, it said, 'speed'!"

2. I myself was driving on a highway this week with someone who didn't like that I was going the speed limit, telling me that I am required to stay with the flow of traffic, even if it's over the speed limit.

(Not everyone agrees. The thrust of this discussion seems to conclude that it makes sense, but not sound legal advice. These guys all seem to agree that although many people do it, it's still illegal. But here we learn that the law varies by state.)

3. Somebody tells me yesterday that he has so little on his agenda, he doesn't know what to do. Not busy enough.

4. In the airport this week, we find ourselves sitting opposite a Tibetan monk. The kids are fascinated. One asks, "Why is he wearing a dress?"

His travel companion gives him a slice of pizza, which he places on his lap and meditates for a full five minutes before eating it.

That's pretty impressive. When we say a beracha, it might take us five seconds. Five minutes is major-league spirituality.

Now, after he finishes meditating, there is no outward indication that he is eating his pizza any differently than anyone else. Perhaps that's the point. Perhaps his meditation was all about not experiencing the pizza. Perhaps he's having an incredible experience of nothingness.

(It is interesting that many versions of Buddhist "mindful eating" do not seem to care about the taste of the food. See this Tibetan buddhist nun, this woman who attended a Triartna Buddhism retreat. According to this Theravadic monk, it is wrong to eat "for pleasure". Yet Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh demurs.)

So now for this week's question:

Let's go back to the Jewish version of pre-eating meditation, the bracha. The Talmud says that saying a bracha is a way of "paying" for the food. I may own it legally, but I don't have an ethical right to consume it until I say, "Wow, thank you."

But is it enough to say, "Wow, thank you" before I eat? Even if I say it with tremendous feeling?

Hos should the wow-thanks affect how I eat?


What say you and your table-mates?

Shabbat Shalom
PS - Here's a secular book with some practical wisdom on mindful eating. Here's a Jewish-oriented book with the same.

PPS - If you are thinking about Rosh Hashana gifts for any teacher, try our unique online resource for people like you.

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Floating Through Life?

The goal of this email is to help your Friday night dinner float above the first six days of the week. Please print and share.
In memory of my grandmother Yehudis bat Alexander, whose yahrzeit is remembered tonight.

Greetings from Terra Santa!

Here's my take on the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on Planet Earth.

You've heard about how you can't sink?

You wondered if it's true?

OK, so it's true. See the picture? I'm truly not sinking.

But here's the thing.

There's nothing refreshing to me about the Dead Sea. It's called "dead" for a reason.

One wouldn't enjoy swimming there. One ends up quite slimy.

They say it restores health. I'm not convinced.

I'm pretty sure the only reason to go is to get a picture of yourself floating in it.

"Look Ma, no hands!"

"Now where are those showers?"

(I should add here that I'm exaggererating to make a point. For those who are into sunbathing or being slimy, it's a fabulous spot.)

So here's this week's question for your table: How often do you do something just to be able to say you did it, but with no actual cultivation? Is this a problem? If so, what's the solution?

(Hint: it has something to do with this word.)
 

Shabbat Shalom


PS - Speaking of not floating thru life, check this out

Shtick-Shift

Happy Birthday Marc Sarosi! For those who haven't seen his dazzling website, better check it out now, it's about to be overhauled. Mazal Tov to Clara on her Bat Mitzvah celebration...It's nice to see you older and wiser, but don't grow up too fast!

The purpose of this blog is to offer some sparkle to your Shabbat table. Please print and share.

Scene: A preschool "fun room".

In attendance:

1. Yours, truly
2. 60 four-year-olds.

Me: "Are you happy?"

60 four-year-olds: "YES!"

Me: "I said, ARE YOU HAPPY?"

60 four-year-olds: "YES!!!!"

Me: "I SAID: ARE ... YOU ... HAPPY??!!!"

60 four-year-olds: "YES!!!!!!!!!!"

Me (pretending to be knocked backwards): "I can hear you, you don't have to shout!"

60 four-year-olds: uncontrollable laughter.

Question for your table: Why is that shtick so funny to a four-year-old?

Then last night, I found myself talking to a group of sixty-four-year-olds (OK, some were younger than that).

To get them to laugh, I showed them cartoons like this:


(click here if you can't see the image)

Question #2 - Why is that shtick so funny to a 44- or 64-year-old?

Question #3 - What changed in 40 or 60 years?

Finally, this: The Wall Street Journal reports that gratitude is actually good for you (and will improve your kid's GPA)!

Who knew?

Rabbi Nachman, for one.

Taught Rabbi Nachman:

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.

Do you get it?


Shabbat Shalom

PS -

PPS - If you missed the fabulous snowflakes last week, click here.

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The Purpose of a Museum

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.)