What Makes You Happy?

In the senior citizen program I attend on Thursdays we begin with group discussions. This past week, we were asked what we love and enjoy about children. All of us who attend are parents and grandparents, so we do get to see the younger generations.

One thing many of us mentioned was the fact that children are so accepting and how they are seeing things for the first time. That enthusiasm is lost too quickly once people grow up. We get too jaded and take much too much for granted. We also get disappointed, sometimes more quickly and more deeply than youngsters who have an innate optimism.

A grandchild of someone I know from somewhere else has recently been diagnosed with cancer, and I'm always amazed at the smiles that glow from the pictures they post. It's clear that the sick child doesn't really understand the serious ramifications and lack of grantees, but the parents and grandparents also show large optimistic smiles. I guess they are doing the right thing, since as long as there is life and a chance of a complete recovery, there is no need to allow fear and depression to reign.

That optimism is the secret ingredient that makes every second we live a true blessing and pleasure. May Gd give us the strength to always see the joy in life, to see what's in the cup and not what's missing.

רפואה שלימה

Refuah Shleimah

A Complete Recovery to All Those in Need, Gd Willing

Disillusions, A Book Review

Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer, The Real New World Order by Yemima Bakol manages to be both a very serious philosophical and theological book mostly about Judaism, but light, fun and easy reading, too. Now, that is a very amazing accomplishment. It certainly helps that it's short, less than two hundred 200 pages, and divided into chapters.

Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer & The Real New World Order is a fresh, even fun (and quirky!) approach to learning Torah, equally for the ben-Torah as for the ba’al teshuva. While the story’s framework is essentially an answer to two international bestsellers, Richard Bach’s 1977 Illusions and Dr. Stephen Hawking’s 1988 A Brief History of Time, Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer & The Real New World Order is an easy-flowing, novel-form narrative that brings together most of the central spiritual concepts of Torah. Restaging and recasting Bach’s two characters as Aryeh Lieb and Dan Shimon, though not requiring the reader to have read either addressed books, Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer & The Real New World Order redefines the concept of illusions, as are other spiritual precepts, but according to Torah. The characters embark on a mind-stretching, mental and spiritual challenge that is uplifting and inspirational, as they explore and define the “navigational” tools Torah gives us to raise our consciousness and direct us toward the upcoming Geula, being Hashem’s New World Order...

Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer is made up of a series of connected events and conversations about life and faith and Gd. Normally I don't read any philosophy, but this book wasn't hard to get into. All that was missing was a glossary, since many of the words and terms would be incompressible for its potential readership. Even though I have been living a Torah observant life for over half a century, I'm still very sensitive to the differences in everyday language, or I try to be. Sometimes we say things that are perfectly clear to us in the Torah observant World and forget that the word usage makes no sense to others.

On the whole, Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer, The Real New World Order is a delightful book and can be enjoyed on many levels. Excerpts of Yemima Bakol's book can also be used to stimulate discussion.

• Paperback: 182 pages
• Publisher: Targum Press, Incorporated; 1 edition (November 13, 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568716435
• ISBN-13: 978-1568716435
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

"Mussar," Never Planned, But That's A Mussar Lesson

Over the many decades, actually over half a century, since I began to live a life of Torah and Mitzvot, of the little I heard about "Musser," it didn't attract me.

Yesterday, the Shabbat just after Rosh Hashanah, actually a Tzom Gedalya when we feast rather than fast, I was searching for a book to read. I knew that I had a pile of books from various friends, and usually there are some great ones. Nothing interested me. I really tried, but after a few pages, they were closed and piled up. I gave each a chance by reading at least ten pages, and the pile of rejects was growing. I was getting pretty frustrated and depressed by the time I got to Climbing Jacob's Ladder: One Man's Journey to Rediscover a Jewish Spiritual Tradition, by Alan Morinis. And when I discovered that it was about Musser, I audibly groaned.

I know pretty much nothing about "Mussar," except for the expression a "a musser spiel," which seems to mean some sort of rant that criticizes how a person or group is behaving. At least that's how I've always understood it.

But I was desperate enough to try reading the book. I was pleasantly surprised. The way that Morinis defines Mussar, which he found after his search for a spiritual reawakening, is very different from what I had been expecting. It does involve trying to improve yourself, but it's closer to the what I had learned a few years ago in a "Life Coaching" course. And it involves learning how to accept and take advantage of the unexpected, like my finding davka that book in the house, and davka the day after Rosh Hashanah.

From what I now understand, Mussar doesn't tell us how to live, it tells us how to deal with life, make the best of life, or how to play with the cards we've been dealt.

Apparently, we're supposed to "train" ourselves, since there are Mussar "exercises" to prepare us for life's difficulties. I guess it is like Life Coaching. And also like Life Coaching, each Mussar teacher teaches it differently.

There are definitely some very valuables principles in Mussar, and I must adapt them into my way of thinking and living. More on this at a later time, Gd willing.