Why Me???

The purpose of this blog is to trigger even deeper thought at the Shabbat table. Please print and share.

L'shana tova.

For the past couple weeks, we've been encouraging everyone to try the new 40 Meditations for the High Holidays.

And last week we gave you a puzzler for your table that I'm wondering if anyone figured out (?)

This week, two emotional encounters that occurred on Wednesday and Thursday of this week which may shed a little extra light on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

Encounter 1, Wednesday:

On Wednesday, I received the following email from a rabbi I know:

I was leading a great discussion on Rosh Hashana. Then one woman began to speak. She said 'I'm not religious but I'm a good person. But I'm appalled at these Orthodox families, who go through red lights, yak on their cell while driving, act rude, etc. They're ruining the neighborhood, etc."

Clearly, she was tanking the whole discussion. Other people raised their hands, and I was hoping the subject would get changed. Wrong - they started piling on. I did what I thought was right to get things back on a positive note without shutting her down and/or hurting her feelings. I'm not sure I had the most elegant solution. I really want to know what others would have done.
 
Question for your table: What should the rabbi have done?

My instinct:

“I feel the same way! Nothing burns me more than seeing someone wearing one of these [points to yarmulke] doing something obviously wrong. And while I would personally guess that the average Orthodox person is more careful about following the law, not speaking gossip, etc., it just goes to show you – nobody’s perfect. The question is – for you and for me and for the Orthodox person who ran the red light – what can you honestly improve about yourself this year??”


Encounter 2, Thursday:

This was a call from someone who only calls me when his marriage is on the rocks.

It took us over an hour to get to the heart of what was bothering him, but we got there.

It was this:

Why is God doing this to me? Why would he want me to be married to a woman who is selfish and unable to sympathize with me?

So I guess the first question for your table is, What would you say to such a guy?

In case you're interested, here's what I told him.

Our tradtion teaches us that, while each of us has a different mission, we all have the same purpose.

That purpose is to become "perfect" - or Godly, or holy.

Therefore, everything that happens to us is custom designed to help us achieve our purpose.

For example, that person who tries your patience was put in your life in order to teach you patience.

Some challenges can teach us perseverance, others faithfulness, others gratitude, others calmness.

The only way to learn the lesson is to think about it. That's what these 10 Days of Awe are for.

It also really helps to try to work on changing only one habit at a time (see the 40 Meditations sheet).

Question 2 for your table: Whom do we expect and want to be an egotist?

The answer of course is a baby ("feed me, change me!").

But for adults, that latent egotism is the root of most of our imperfections. It was very healthy when we were babies, but....

Now you can understand why one of the three main customs during these 10 Days of Awe is to give extra tzeddaka.

If life is made of time, and time is money, then giving some of your hard-earned money to others is giving a part of yourself.

Hard to do? That may be a sign of how good it is for you. No pain, no gain.


Shabbat Shalom

and

G'mar ketiva tova — may you have a good inscription (i.e., in the Book of Life)!


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Yom Kppur (no, that's no typo)

The goal of this blog is to foster a meeting-of-the minds at your pre- and post-Yom Kippur meals.

In case you missed last week's post, I would like to wish you and yours a healthy, happy and sweet new year.

Cartoon Source

Q: Why the intentional misspelling of Yom Kippur in today's title?

A: To give you a question for your pre-Yom Kippur dinner table, of course.

The first question for your table is:

Today Rabbi Seinfeld intentionally spelled Yom Kippur K-P-P-U-R. Why do you think he spelled it that way?

Let them guess, then tell them:

Obviously, he spelled it without the "i" to remind us that ego is the root of all evil.

Think about it:

— This is not going the way I want it, therefore I'm getting angry.
— I want that object, therefore I'm stealing it.
— I don't understand God, therefore God cannot exist.
— I don't feel like smiling, so I'm not going to smile.

And so on.

Two weeks ago I asked, For you, what's a good life?

Last week, I mentioned the Talmudic warning that news about knife-violence (think ISIS, think White House) and plagues (don't be scared but do be informed) (and this) is a wake up call to increase Torah and giving tzedaka (see PS on this below).

The problem with that message is that it's far too easy to pass the buck — "Let someone else learn Torah, let someone else give tzedaka! I'm too busy!"

This week, the message is less dodgeable: How are you going to change for the better this year?

Rosh Hashana is about dreams. Yom Kippur is about reality: Where are you falling short? What are you going to do about it? Actually do?

For instance, practically everyone says, "I'm going to try to get more exercise."

Don't fall into this trap.

Rather say, "I'm going to take a 10 minute walk every day for a month."



It's got to be real, concrete and realistic. It has to be measurable.

And obviously, it should be a change that will make you a better person.

Use my Yom Kippur Prep Worksheet and narrow your resolutions down to one or two. Then, at the end of the big fast, right at sunset, when you're beyond the pain of hunger make that specific commitment.

 

May you and your family be sealed in the Book of Life, health, happiness and peace in 5775. 

Have a sweet and successful year.

Happy Yom Kippur







 



PS - Thanks to all those who sent contributions last week of all sizes to help keep this Table Talk and other JSL projects going.

For those who would like to get on this particularly meaningful bandwagon, this week we are offering two great downloads to thank you for your one-time or monthly donation to support JSL's teaching of Torah wisdom:
 
1. 25 Questions to Think About From Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur (2014 edition) (sample)
2. Yom Kippur Prep Worksheet (2014 edition) (sample)

Here's the link to learn more about JSL: jsli.org.
Here's the donation link: jsli.org/donate.

Please create or renew your partnership now so we can get you these materials in time for Yom Kippur.


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Could You Come Out of the Closet?

The goal of this blog is to get some honest talk going around your Shabbat table. When are you going to admit to your family that you're reading this stuff?
 

Could you imagine having your most fundamental beliefs about your life shattered?

Could you imagine discovering something about yourself so radical that, if it became known, would probably cause you to lose most of your friends, and your job?

How would you respond?

Would you adjust? Or deny?

Or cry?

Meet Csanád Szegedi, Hungarian member of the European Parliament.

He was a leader of the extreme-right Hungarian Jobbik party.

Extreme-right as in jingoistic, xenophobic, antisemitic.

Then (two years ago) he discovered the truth.

His maternal grandmother - then 94 - was an Auschwitz survivor.

And she and her extended family who were murdered weren't there because they were gypies.

"She opened up and she talked about her life and how she was sent to Auschwitz and how our family was annihilated. I was shocked. First of all because I realized the Holocaust really happened."

You can read more of his story here. As you can imagine, it has generated some headlines in both Germany and Israel.

For now I'd like to share with you his most inspirational quotation:

"It has changed everything. It is like being reborn, and the changes in my life are still happening. I had this set value system that I ahd to change completely. I had this value system until I was 30 and I had to admit that it was all wrong and to find the will to change."

There's the question for your table: That amazing ability to admit that he had been completely wrong, why would anyone want to do that?


Shabbat Shalom

PS – The new apple: parents and grandparents in the know are sponsoring a 1-year subscription to amazingnature4teachers.com for their children's and grandchildren's teachers and schools. Click now while the school year is still young and there is still time to facilitate the adoption of this amazing, no-brainer curriculum.

PPS - Happy birthday Scarlett!

To find High Holiday books and activities for kids, or gifts for teachers (and other thoughtful adults), please use bestjewishkidsbooks.com.

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Change By Fiat?

Dedicated to the memory of Chana Leah (Jaqueline) Meyeri of San Francisco, who passed away this week after a long battle with breast cancer. May her husband, daughter and extended family be comforted. 

The purpose of this email is to change your life on Yom Kippur and beyond. Please print and share.


A riddle for your Yom Kippur table:

When is something small something big?

See how many answers you can come up with. I'll give you two, one is a story and the other is a Yom Kippur idea.

The story is something happened to me in San Francisco this week. When I went to get the rental car, the "midsized" cars were all gone. Never mind that when I paid for the car at the counter they forgot to mention that all they had were Fiat Minis.

The couple in front of me were not pleased.

They squinted in the bright September sunlight, surveying the lot.

"You don't have anything else, only Fiats?"

"Well, sir, we do have that Mustang over there which I could give you."

His face lit up. "Would there be an extra charge?"

"No, sir, I will give you the same price."

"That'll work!" All three were quite pleased - the couple and the agent.

But yours, truly, I'm thinking to myself, "Too bad I wasn't here a minute earlier, I could've had that Mustang. That would have been fun to drive."

The other travelers who didn't get the Mustang were not so pleased. Some of them even decided to wait for a larger car rather than drive the dreaded Fiat!

In the end, I was very fortunate that I didn't have the Mustang or any larger car.

Because.... I had to park in San Francisco.

And for the first time in 13 years Bay Area driving, parking was a breeze!

Check this out:

    Easy parking with room to spare

To Americans, that ain’t a lot of car.

But so right for that city.

Speaking of paring down, last week's Rosh Hashana blog, "If I Can Do It, So Can You", resonated with a lot of readers.

(It turns out that not only has Zero Inbox already been discovered, someone even wrote a book about it. And here I thought I'd invented something.)

Does an empty Inbox at the end of the day appeal to you?

Does a clean desk appeal to you?

What about a clear head? A clear conscience?

Clutter outside leads to clutter inside. And vice-versa.

Order outside leads to order inside. And vice-versa.

Zero Inbox is the vision.

How do you get there?

“Just do it.”

In the age of liposuction, we all want to trim by FIAT.

It doesn’t work.

But there are two things the Fiat story can teach us:

1. Things really do happen for good reasons. Even though we don’t always see that right away.

2. Small is big. When you need to park in SF, small is huge. When you want to change yourself, a big commitment is worthless because you won’t be able to keep it, but a small step is a huge stride.

On Yom Kippur, after you finish counting all of your flaws, don’t promise yourself you’ll now be perfect. But DO commit to making one small change towards that new you. For example:

“I hereby commit to exercising once a week until Channuka.”
“…to eating no cookies for the month of October.”
“…to drinking no alcohol for 1 week.”
“….to smiling at my wife once a day for two weeks.”
“…to hugging my husband once a day until Thanksgiving.”
“…to pausing to say ‘Wow, thank You” every time I drink a glass of water for 4 weeks.”
“…to turning off the cell phone from 6-8 pm for 6 weeks.”
“…to turning off the TV and Internet every Friday night for 4 weeks.”
“…to giving 10 percent of my September income to tzedaka.”

Think about it. Plan it. Make the declaration out loud at sunset on Saturday, just before the end of Yom Kippur.

Then do it.

Someone in San Francisco asked me yesterday, “What if we don’t succeed?”

Answer: Not an option!

If you can even think that you might not succeed, then you are not committed, or you are over-reaching. Gotta be real, and gotta be 100% committed.

Now you know my answer to the riddle, When is something small something big?

When it's real.

 

May we all be sealed for life and peace, health and wealth, holiness and simcha; a zero inbox, easy parking, and a small but very real change for the better.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Yom Kippur


PS – Sukkot is next week and our recommended books and supplies, including the no-tools-snap-together Sukka, are at bestjewishkidsbooks.com.

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Whose Coat are You Wearing?

The purpose of this blog is to provide something creative for Shabbat table conversation. Please print and share.

So on Rosh Hashana morning it's a little drizzly and I throw on my light raincoat.

These new men's raincoats have become all the rage in Baltimore. Lightweight and inexpensive. They won't keep you warm, but they will keep you dry.

As long as it doesn't rain too hard.

And you can have them in any color you want!

So long as it's black.

But you know, regardless of whether or not my coat is hung in a sea of look-alikes, I don't like to have to go searching for my coat. So I developed a system to find my coat extremely quickly.

I turn the hanger around, hooking it on backwards.

(Hopefully no one in Baltimore is reading this, because if the word gets out, everyone's going to do this, and then it won't work anymore.)

Well, actually, on Rosh Hashana this year, my foolproof system failed me for the first time in years.

Unbeknownst to moi, someone (whom I know) had hung his nearly identical black raincoat right beside mine, also with the hanger turned around.

You know where this is going. When Rosh Hashana services are over, I take the coat from the reversed hanger. I.e., his coat.

Later in the day, towards evening, I decide to go to a different synagogue for the afternoon service. Again, a light drizzle, throw on the coat.

This time I notice that it isn't quite fitting me right but it isn't wrong enough for me to pay attention. I am in a hurry after all.

I get to this other synagogue and opt for the hooks instead of the hangers. Doesn't really matter, there aren't so many coats and besides, my name is in it, right?

The problem is, when I'm fixing to go home, I go for my coat and where I expect to find it, I find this other fellow's.

"Oh no," I'm thinking. He must have taken my coat by mistake. I could just take his to him, but what if he's already realized his error and is en route here to swap them?

So I leave it, and when I get home, I phone him up.

"Did you happen to be in such-and-such a shul tonight?"

But he's quicker-witted than I am.

"No, why is my coat there? Because I saw your coat in the other shul this morning where mine should have been."

Notice how I didn't accuse him of taking my coat.

But nor did I assume from the beginning that the error was mine!

"By the way," he added, "didn't you notice that it was a little big on you?" (he is about 50 pounds heavier than I).

"Well it wasn't raining, so I slung it over my arm."

"Oh, well that explains it."

You see, he had also stumbled, thinking for a moment that I must have been preposterously absent-minded not to notice that I had the wrong coat.

How many times has this happened to you, when you saw an error that you committed and assumed someone else had done it? (that's the weekly question, by the way)

Last week I challenged you to choose one character trait to change this year. It could be jumping to conclusions. It could be a short temper. It could be complaining. Or perhaps laziness. Maybe too much criticizing.

The trick to making it happen on Yom Kippur is:

1. Really regret it. Contemplate the damage you've done, or the opportunities lost, due to this trait. Let yourself feel bad about this, for a few moments.
2. Apologize if needed.
3. Commit to not doing it again - just this one trait. But if you're truly committed, you'll have a plan of how to eradicate it, such as reading a self-help book, or practicing meditation, etc. Without a concrete plan, you're paying lip-service but you're not real. Make it your mission, with daily practice, to conquer this trait before next Rosh Hashana.

We all share these bad habits to a greater or lesser degree. In this sense, they're like the ubiquitous, monotonous, homogeneous black rain coats. We've put on the homogenized raincoat of our socialization.

But to conquer one bad habit - even a small one - is so rare, that doing so is like wearing a new custom-made coat. Do this and there won't be any chance of mistaking it for someone else's. This is the path to revealing the real you beneath the socialized façade.

Wishing you a Shana Tova

and a

Shabbat Shalom



 PS - This year's High Holidays prep class is a short 45 minutes. To hear the audio and get the handouts, including the new "24 Questions to Think About from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur", click here.

PPS - Help your friends and loved ones break in their new iphone or ipad: The most amazing Jewish app -  http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink (Android version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar )

And of course you can search our free database of the best Jewish books and gifts here: http://bestjewishkidsbooks.com .

What Matters Most

The purpose of this email is to provide something different for Shabbat table conversation. Please print and share.

Note -  This year's High Holidays prep class is a short 45 minutes. To hear the audio and get the handouts, including the new "24 Questions to Think About from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur", click here.


Last week, I promised some thoughts about how to use the High Holidays to make an incremental but real change in yourself so that 20 years from now people who haven't seen you every day will do a double take.

I'll give you one simple thought, and one simple, true story that I think sum up what Rosh Hashana is all about.

The thought:

The main theme of Rosh Hashana is once a year to stand up and justify why you deseve another year of life.

Whether you are a true believer or agnostic or even atheist, the exercise of justifying your own existence is pretty powerful stuff.

What do you hope to accomplish in the next year that justifies your continued existence?
And your answer doesn't have to be earth-shaking.

It could be as humble as, "If I can live another year, I want to conquer my complaining. I want to become a person who appreciates everything that I have! A happier person!"

The rabbis teach that if I person could conquer even one negative character trait, that would not only justify his/her own life, it would justify the existence of the entire universe.

Think about it.

That's Rosh Hashana. Try to do this on Monday/Tuesday next week, and then next Friday I'll send a short email on how to actually achieve that change.

Now here's the story:

The New York Times this week reviewed the new exposé by former Lance Armstrong teammate, Tyler Hamilton.

Hamilton tells in detail how the doping is/was done, not only by Armstrong, but by himself and practically every other cyclist.

Evidently it became so pervasive and the peer pressure so great that if you didn't dope, you might as well not compete. Here are Hamilton's own words:

“I think everybody who wants to judge dopers should think about it, just for a second. You spend your life working to get to the brink of success, and then you are given a choice: either join in or quit and go home. What would you do?”

I'll leave you, dear reader, with Hamilton's question to field at your Shabbat and Rosh Hashana tables.

Wishing you and yours a sweet, healthy, happy, successful 5773!

May you be inscribed in the Book of Life.


Shabbat Shalom and l'Shana Tova

PS -  This year's High Holidays prep class is a short 45 minutes. To hear the audio and get the handouts, including the new "24 Questions to Think About from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur", click here.

PPS -  http://bestjewishkidsbooks.com has great High Holidays books and gifts.
Another great Jewish gift: The iPhone/iPad app http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink
( Android version: http://tinyurl.com/amazingandroidcalendar )

Is it About You and Your Garbage or You and Your Dad?

You are 16 years old and your father has told you to take out the garbage.

This is the job you hate most in the world.

So you acknowledge that you heard what he said, and then you walk out of the house to go to school without doing it. When you arrive home, your father calls you into the room and asks you why you didn’t take out the garbage. You reply that you forgot and you will do it. But then you start thinking about the smelly garbage room and the bugs. You go to sleep without taking it out.

The next morning your father asks again why you didn’t take out the garbage. You apologize profusely and then go to school without taking it out.

When you arrive home, your father calls you again and asks you why you didn’t take out the garbage. This time you know that you are in trouble.

”Son/Daughter, I want you to know that you have done something really wrong. The issue is not that you haven’t taken the garbage out for these three times. The issue is that you have hurt our relationship. Three times you told me that you would do it and each time you promised me. Now I know one thing; I cannot trust your word anymore. This shows that, on a certain level, you don’t respect me or value our relationship. I want you to think over what you have done and decide what you need to do to rectify the wrong you have done."

Your father’s words really make an impression. Now you really feel bad. It finally hit you what you have done. You want to return to your father and tell him you are sorry. It is not so simple in this case to just say you are sorry. There is something more serious involved here. You have damaged your credibility with your father. Just saying you are sorry is not enough to repair the damage.

So you decide to make a plan. After thinking about what you did, you decided to take the following steps:

Step One - You sincerely feel regret for what you have done. You will not try to push away these feelings of regret over what you have done but rather you will let yourself use them in order to spur you to take the steps necessary to change.

Step Two - You will listen to your father. Until you get forgiveness from him you will make sure to listen to everything else that he asks of you.

Step Three - You will go to him and ask forgiveness for what you have done. You will tell him that you are sorry.

Step Four - You will tell him that you have made a decision to listen to his instructions and will not procrastinate any longer.

The next day you go to your father and explain how sorry you are, and that in the future you promise to listen to him immediately when asked to do something. You pour out your heart to him and beseech him to forgive you. Upon seeing your great sincerity and change in attitude, your father wholeheartedly forgives you and warmly welcomes you back into his good graces.

What has occurred here? You have restored your relationship with your father. You have taken a situation of a wounded relationship with him and turned it around. Because you took the time to think it out and sincerely change, you were accepted back by him with joy.

For an explanation of this parable, click here.

If you find this approach to Rosh Hashana useful, you might enjoy the following as well, all thanks to R. Aryeh Nivin.

2. Waking Up to the Sound of the Shofar: Self-evaluation quiz

3. How to use the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana

4. Defining the spirituality of Rosh Hashana

Shabbat Shalom



“It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.” - Churchill