A Tree of Life

Taking a break from the majority of my religious practices is and has begun to give me a bit of clarity on them. I can't claim I'm totally clear on anything(although that would be really excellent) but I do feel like a little space has given me much needed perspective. A major part of any Jew's daily practice is prayer, something that I generally find to be very rewarding. I connect to prayer mostly because its such an emotional practice, question why are men obligated to pray three times a day with other people and women are not? Because men are generally more emotionally challenged then women. Remember of course that generalizations are good because they are generally true. And I've realized what may seem like a silly point to people, the more I pray, the more often I open up my siddur and read those ancient words, the more connected to god I feel. And more to the point the more I feel open to religious practice in general. The more I just meditate, sit in a corner alone and try to focus my mind on simply being, the more I feel like I simply exist and the less seriously I take the minutia of Jewish halacha. After not opening up my siddur for a solid week or so I thought about one passage in it that I really connect to, its beautiful even in the English, although the Hebrew is for obvious reasons better. It's a passage not read everyday, it is in fact reserved for placing the Torah back into the ark , after the tri-weekly Torah reading. Here it is:

"A tree of life is it(the Torah) for those who grasp it, and its supporters are praiseworthy. Its ways are ways or pleasantness, and all its paths are peace. Length of days are at its right; at tis left are wealth and honor. HaShem desired, for the sake of(Israel's i.e. the Jewish people) righteousness, that He make great the the Torah and (make it) glorious"

Everything in parenthesis I either added for emphasis or clarification or was added into the English translation because Hebrew doesn't have a lot of the connecting words that English has. I think that statement is incredibly beautiful and its a wonderful meditation to think about, all is ways are pleasantness and all its paths are peace. Shouldn't this be everyone's objective shouldn't we all be striving to live or lives in peace and pleasantness? I kind it's a little idealistic for me to think about but still what if we all worked towards this goal? This passage and many others are why I'll never be able to just give up on Judaism even when I have my doubts. Shalom Aleichem.