Chicken Soup and the Neshama

An advertisement for a restaurant in upstate New York reads:

“Eat here or we both starve.”

This is a great motto for the neshama’s descent to this world. Had the neshama remained in the Garden of Eden, it would have enjoyed a life of spiritual bliss. But G‑d wants us to make a spiritual life in this world; to transform the physical into spiritual.

Chassidus teaches we are not to seclude ourselves and be “spiritual” by neglecting our bodies. By working with our bodies, they will act as a vehicle to elevate the neshama.

Otherwise, both the body and soul will starve.

Life

We can ride a ferry across the river with two attitudes, reflecting two approaches to life.

One attitude is to impatiently await arrival at the other side. We are so concerned with our destination that we are oblivious to our surroundings.

Or we can enjoy the scenery and our fellow passengers.

Either way, we reach the other side of the river. But in the second case our trip is more enjoyable.

Clothed Minded?

Clothes, the ones that make their way into your closet as impulse buys, gifts or obligatory purchases for compulsory events, are about ourselves. What we actually decide to put on our backs each day and venture into the world in has nothing to do with trends or marketing. It has to do with whom we want to show the world we are. Or who we want to convince ourselves we could be.

So perhaps people aren’t the slaves to trends that the fashion industry has so long depicted them as being; perhaps trends are a slave to the individual, who uses them to say something about him/herself…

Clothes are really identifiers of each person as a performer in his own life…

One reason that clothing can stereotype us so inescapably is that even the most minute detail can signify an entire personality type…

The clothes we choose are a better indicator of who we think we are than our faces or our bodies, which we did not choose… They can be a mirror of what’s inside, or a map to display our aspirations.

We are what we wear…

—Excerpts from an article in the New York Times Magazine, Nov. 14 1999

“The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself.”

 

“It’s all in the presentation.”

Today

There are two days in every week that we should not worry about – two days that should be kept from fear and apprehension.

One of these days is “Yesterday,” with its mistakes and cares, its aches and pains, its faults and blunders. Yesterday is beyond our control. No amount of money can recover it. Yesterday is gone.

The other day we should not worry about is “Tomorrow” with its burdens, adversities, and great promise. Tomorrow is also beyond our control. Tomorrow’s sun will rise either in splendor or behind a mask of doubts – but it will rise. Until then, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is unborn.

This leaves only one day – “Today.” With G‑d’s help, we can fight the battles of Today.

It is only when we insist on carrying the burdens of those two awful eternities – Yesterday and Tomorrow – that we break down. It is not challenging experiences that harm us, but bitterness and paralysis from Yesterday, and anxiety and dread of Tomorrow.

Let us journey together one day at a time.

—Adapted from “School Update” Torah Academy of South Africa

“The past has gone;
the future is yet to happen;
the present disappears with the blink of an eye.
So why worry?”
—Ibn Ezra

No Deposit, No Return

A valuable lesson can be learned from the soda bottle:

“No Deposit, No Return.”

We’ll only gain from life as much as we’re willing to invest.

Limitations

Why did the journey from Egypt to the Holy Land take the Jews forty years?

Taking the people out of Egypt took a moment, but taking Egypt out of the people took forty years…

Equality

Why do chassidim dance in a circle?

In a circle no one leads or follows. Everyone is equal.

Redemption

One of the major holidays in the Chassidic calendar is the 12-13th of Tammuz, which is called, “the holiday of redemption.” On this day Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, was released from imprisonment for the “sin” of spreading Judaism in Soviet Russia.

The Previous Rebbe writes in his memoirs that he was informed that he would be set free on the 12th of Tammuz. However, the offices were closed due to a local holiday, and the Rebbe was not released until the 13th of Tammuz.

If so, why do we celebrate the Chassidic holiday also on the 12th of Tammuz? True, the 12th of Tammuz was the Previous Rebbe’s birthday, but both the 12th and the 13th are known as “the holiday of redemption.” On the 12th of Tammuz the Rebbe was still in prison. Shouldn’t the “holiday of redemption” be commemorated only on the 13th?

Perhaps the reason is that, though the Rebbe was in prison on the 12th of Tammuz, he was in a “state” of redemption; he was to leave the following day. Indeed, the same dark prison walls surrounded him, but the atmosphere was redemptive.

Exile is likened to prison. The Rebbe has promised us that we will soon be released. This message imbues us with the strength to overcome the painful and difficult tests of exile. The dark world is the same, yet the Rebbe instills within us an atmosphere of redemption.

May we experience the actual redemption speedily in our days with the coming of Moshiach.