I had a student that once came into my office and said, “My father who passed away was an atheist and a fantastic human being. He was such a moral human being. He was such a good human being. I don’t believe that had he been a believer, he would …
The word “prayer” actually comes from the Latin word meaning “to beg” – exactly what many people feel prayer is. They imagine a big king in the sky who is getting a big ego boost from watching his subjects beg. This is a terrible image of our selves and of God.
I was once sitting and learning Torah with the Hollywood Actor, Kirk Douglas, when suddenly he turned to me and said, “You know, Rabbi, I love being Jewish.”
“Oh, yeah? Why?” I asked.
Imagine you walk into a magic store where they sell special flashlights equipped with magic lights of different kinds. For example, you can buy the light of science, and when you point that flashlight at your hand, you see not a hand, but cells and blood vessels and tendons and ligaments. Or you can buy the light of art, and you point that flashlight at your hand, you see your hand as if it were a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci – you see form, and color, and texture.
The ultimate question that we all have to ask is what is the source of our genuine self-worth?
Can we have unconditional self-worth? Is our worth dependent upon what people say about us or about how much money we have in the bank?
Is it enough to be a good person? What does it mean to be a good person?Continue reading“What is our Self-Worth?”
The great Kabbalist and philosopher, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, living at the turn of the century wrote, “There is faith that is actually denial, and there is denial that is actually faith.”
In one of my seminars I asked everyone to look around the room and point to beauty. The first interesting result was that everyone pointed to something different. One man pointed to his wife. Another man pointed to a flower. A woman named Bea pointed to a glass menorah (a Hanukkah candelabra) that was sitting on a windowsill. I asked Bea how she saw beauty in that menorah. Did she see beauty with her physical eyes?
Thinking about what you need to do is depressing. Doing what you need to do is uplifting.
