A few years ago, I took up rappelling, the art of descending sheer cliffs by rope and harness, so that we could explore the red-rock canyons of Southern Utah. After I had begun to learn the basics, Steve, our guide, said to me, “You’re one of those people who wants to speed up when your adrenaline starts to flow.”
Some things in life have to be earned, and some things cannot be. We can earn respect and reputation by our behavior, but sometimes we need help, or forgiveness, or just a break, that we haven’t earned and don’t deserve. And we can also give to others gifts they don’t deserve and don’t have to earn. That sort of undeserved kindness is captured by the word Hesed, often translated as lovingkindness.
The other day I had coffee with Hal, the father of one of our chavurah members. He had just written his second novel, this one based on his amazing experiences as a Jewish-American soldier fighting the Nazis in World War II. We got together to talk about his book.
One of the current terms of religious discussion that I’ve grown to suspect is “spirituality.” I’m tired of hearing people say, “I’m not religious; I’m spiritual,” which often means I don’t have any outward signs of religious or transcendent life, but, trust me, I possess many lofty sentiments.
Chesed or loving-kindness is an essential human attribute, but it’s first of all a divine attribute. If we want to cultivate chesed, we should pay attention to how Hashem exercises it. And God’s chesed is on display at the conclusion of the Haftarot of Comfort, the passages from Isaiah that we read during this period between Tisha B’av and Rosh Hashanah.
The service check light never came on, but the sticker on my windshield is telling me that I need to get my oil changed. It's not like I couldn't think of a myriad of other things I would rather be doing. What I do know is that if I continue driving my car much longer without that oil change, I put my car in closer proximity to having engine difficulties and serious car bill headaches.
Cleanliness is the rung of immediate interest. Many of us are aware of the well-known phrase, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” For as cleanliness leads to holiness, or separation, holiness thus brings us to a higher level in Hashem through saintliness. This gives us good reason to practice cleanliness on a higher level.
in this general mussar teaching, rabbi rafael helps us understand the nature of human choice and the battleground of the soul
{enclose 2010-10-03-Mussar-Point-of-Choosing.mp3}
{enclose 2010-10-13_patience_life_without_a_script.mp3}
rebbetzin malkah explores the idea of our lives being unscripted, and how to cope with life’s expected unexpectedness through employing patience and tolerance
art-questions
Use these questions to evaluate your day:
What were the "seeds" that started to affect your order today?
Did you start your day with a plan? Did that plan come to fruition, did it fall apart, or were there glitches in it? How did you handle this?
If you or your possessions became disorderly today, what was the cause of this?
If something unfortunate happened today because of lack of order in your life, how did you overcome it or remedy the situation?
Were you able to use prayer or meditation to help create clarity so as to add more order to your day?
Did you employ any new order/routine into your day as something that will be permanent fixture?
How do you need to reorder your life tomorrow, this week or this year?
Use these questions to evaluate your day:
What were the "seeds" that possibly affected your decisiveness today? Social, financial - what were they?
Think of how your day progressed - were you able to make decisions with clarity? Why or why not?
If you wavered on making a decision today, either regarding something that was for the present or for the future, what was the reason for your vascillating? Were you finally able to make the decision, or are you still up in the air?
Were you able to use prayer or meditation to help with decision making?
Use these questions to evaluate your day:
What were the "seeds" that started to affect your cleanliness today?
Were you able to be pure in your deeds and thoughts today?
What events today caused you to stray and perhaps not act as ethically and wholesomely? How did you respond to them? Were they in speech? Movies? Television? The Internet? Emails?
Were you able to use prayer or meditation to help you through the circumstances?
