JEWISH THOUGHT OF THE DAY - Time Keeps on Slippin

JEWISH THOUGHT OF THE DAY - Time Keeps on Slippin


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The Joker and Personal Growth

A Streetcar Named Desire…

“In the film A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois, sliding into insanity, is one of the greatest and most challenging roles available to an actress. In recent years, Ann Margret lost ten pounds and grew depressed and anxious playing Blanche. Jessica Lange got panic attacks.”
- National Public Radio, All Things Considered

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The Joker and Personal Growth

Cupid, Bad. Love, Good. - Jewish Thought of the Day

Cupid, Bad. Love, Good.

Cupid’s Arrow

Cupid may be adorable, but don’t let that baby face fool you. Behind Cupid’s innocent looking eyes lies a crafty little god. Cupid is the playful god of love who scampers about shooting golden-tipped arrows that carry the promise of eternal happiness and endless bliss. Once struck, two people fall madly in love, and are overcome by a passion so fiery they know it can never be extinguished.

Down with Cupid

Unfortunately, perfection is an illusion, and Cupid is a myth. If you dream of one day being struck by Cupid’s arrow, and falling in love forever, you are asking for big trouble. In fact, it is the very hope of falling in love that all but guarantees that you will also fall out of love, and discover the painful truth that Cupid’s arrow is in fact a double edged sword.

Falling In and Out of Love

The phenomenon of falling in and out of love inevitably confounds singles and couples alike. If you’re single, it works like this: “Of course I want to marry someone I’m in love with, but I know people tend to fall out of love with the people they are in love with.”

If you’re married, it works like this: “I can’t tell you exactly when it happened, but the magic just isn’t there any more.”

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Cupid, Bad. Love, Good. - Jewish Thought Of The Day

WHAT EXACTLY IS MARRIAGE ?

The Big Leap

Today, marriage seems to be a kind of evolutionary accident. After a period of getting acquainted, dating and becoming romantically and intimately involved, comes the stage of restlessness. This is where a couple confronts one of life’s most terrifying questions: Now what? When their answer to “Where do we go from here?” is marriage, this innocent couple ends up wedged between the panic, split and run —“a part of me will always love you” routine—and deciding to take the big leap. This leap lands them under the marriage canopy vowing to share their lives—their joys and sorrows—“till death do us part.” The only thing missing is “…and they all lived happily ever after.” Because these days, most of them don’t.

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What Exactly is Marriage?

Jewish Thought of the Day

Jerusalem: The Focus of Eternity

Jerusalem occupies a place in the life of the Jewish people that is so utterly unique that it defies description. In a way, describing Jerusalem is like describing a sunset—it can’t be done. All that one can do is hope to convey something of the drama and the awe stirred by the sunset and then stand back and hope that somehow one heart has touched another. So too Jerusalem. You don’t describe it, you emote it …

Jerusalem is a prayer and a dream and a child’s home. Her late-night echoes are the melodies of a hundred generations; of yesterday and eternity. Its stone-hard walls are a soft and aged embrace. Its beauty melts the soldier’s battle-hardened heart: By the thousands. Jerusalem isn’t a place at all—it’s she, it’s us, it’s simplicity. It’s a vessel, a corridor, a light. It is everything. A holy whisper and an unfathomable aching for peace. It’s God’s dew-covered garden path, and it’s something to never be forgotten.

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Jewish Thought of the Day

Stand still and see

JEWISH THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Look and See

“When it comes to the most important things in life, we all have a form of attention deficit disorder.” - Sam the Turtle, renowned armchair philosopher and political analyst

“Stand still and see!” - Moses, just before the sea split

Look Again

When I was growing up, it often happened that I would misplace things, and that didn’t exactly go over big with my parents. After combing my bedroom or the backyard, I would sheepishly declare to my mother, “It’s not there, I looked everywhere.” And my mother’s reply was always the same: “Sam, go look again; and this time look with your eyes open.” And guess what? I almost always found what I was looking for. These days, I find myself echoing my mothers words to our youngest son.

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Stand still and see

Lucky Number Eight

Lucky Number Eight

Life on the Planet Eight

Have you ever sensed that there is more to life than you can touch or feel or smell? That there is a dimension to reality that cannot be experienced by any of your senses but that you know to be as real as the feeling you have when holding the hand of someone you love? Are you convinced that you have a soul, a nonphysical core to your being that will never be detected by an x-ray, MRI or any other type of technology? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then the number eight is for you.

The world was created in seven days and therefore, in Jewish thought, the number seven represents the natural, physical world, the world that we can touch and smell and feel. The number eight, on the other hand, represents that which transcends the natural world, that which emanates from beyond the limits of our senses but that we can reach out and touch—and be touched and stirred by.

Seven is the world we live in. Eight is the world that fills the lives we lead with depth, meaning and spirituality—and that is our great challenge: To infuse the common place, natural, physical, pedestrian activities of life with the refined spices of kindness, integrity, spirituality and the pursuit of meaning.

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Lucky Number Eight

Jewish Thought of the Day - To Harness the Power of Speech

To Harness the Power of Speech

We have all experienced the power of speech.

The right words can break a person’s heart, inspire a nation, lift a friend’s spirits, destroy a child’s self-esteem, propel a man to the White House, and bring a fresh smile to a tear-drenched face.

To harness the power of speech, and to use it as a force for good—in life and in the world—is a daily challenge. Speech confronts us at every turn.

Jewish wisdon teaches us that—

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Jewish Thought of the Day - To Harness the Power of Speech

ISRAEL'S SPIRITUAL MIGHT

Israel’s Spiritual Might

Written by: Avital

As our boys defend our homeland, possibly with their lives, in the Gaza strip, we all must stop and take a few minutes to say Tehillim for them, or add a personal prayer for them into our daily routine. For the skeptics who don’t see how prayer can help such a situation, allow me to offer an example that might illustrate the power of prayer.

A friend related this short Dvar Torah to me today, and it struck a chord with me: Two of the most well known celebrations in the Jewish calendar are Purim and Chanukah. On Purim, we remember how Haman tried to wipe all the Jews in the Persian kingdom off the face of the map. He did not care if this Jew was assimilated or didn’t believe in Judaism, he wanted to physically kill out every single trace of Judaism he could. On Chanukah we remember how the Greeks tried to assimilate us. Our life was not their desire, just our culture. As long as we acted as Greek as we could, they were happy. They wanted to destroy Judaism not physically, but spiritually. On Purim, we combated Haman’s physical threat to our existence with prayer, fast and a slew of spiritual acts. On Chanukah, the Maccabim raised their weapons and waged war on the Greeks.
In both stories, the Jews were not destroyed. After all, here we are, reading Tzipiyah.com! Interesting to note that in both stories, the Jews successfully overcame their enemies with the force opposite that of the threat. When we were physically intimidated, we fought back with prayer, with spirituality. When we were spiritually intimidated, we fought back with war, the physical.

As a physical war wages on in the Middle East, as our boys put their lives on the line to protect those of the citizens of Israel, perhaps what we need to gain an edge is the force opposite that of the threat. Perhaps, to combat the physical attacks on our lives, we need some spirituality. Some prayer?

And, on another spiritual note, we are about to commemorate Asarah B’Tevet, the day that the Babylonian army laid siege to Jerusalem, eventually leading up to the destruction of the first Holy Temple. We commemorate this day spiritually, with fast and prayer. Over the course of the day, every time you get a pang of hunger, a desire to break the fast, if it really isn’t an emergency, think of our boys, risking their lives, and in their merit, overcome the hunger! Persevere as they are trying to do for us. A few hours without food is comparatively a small gesture for us to do for them.

May we soon see the end of this hardship, and may we merit seeing the light pierce this heavy, heavy darkness. May we witness the coming of Mashiach, Bimhera BiYamenu, Amen!

taken from : Tzipiyah.com