The Heart

A prayer (of sorts) for today from Chabad.org that resonates:

The human heart is beautiful.

The human heart can know secrets deeper than any mind could fathom.
The mind cannot contain G-d, but deep inside the heart there is a place for Him.

Yet there is nothing more dysfunctional than a brain controlled by its heart. Indeed, the finest mind is capable of the most horrid crimes when under the management of the heart.

Let the heart be quiet and hear out the mind. In that quiet listening, she will discover her true beauty and her deepest secrets will awaken.

Beautiful eulogies

If the Jews had not fought back against the Arab armies and had been destroyed in 1948, we would have received the most beautiful eulogies throughout the world. Instead, we chose to stand our ground and defend ourselves. And in winning, we received the world's condemnation. Me? I'll take the condemnation over the eulogies any day. - Golda Meir

Right on sister, I think this does a good job of summing up my feelings about the conflict, Arab world, reject the three No's: No peace, no recognition, no negotiation, then and only then will we begin to get close to solving this nightmare.

The Place Where We are Right

The Place Where We are Right

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood

Yehuda Amichai

Yom Yerushalaim Sameach

Today we celebrate the 44th year since the miraculous reunification of Jerusalem, the ancient heart of the Jewish people and the capital of the state of Israel. Today we remember the soldiers' words carried on radio waves throughout the world crying הכותל בידינו, "The Kotel is in our hands."

As long as deep in the heart
The soul of a Jew yearns
And towards the east
An eye looks to Zion
Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.
Hatikvah

A Blessed Generation

“I thank God for the privilege of living at a time when I can travel to Jerusalem, be nourished by her being and drink from the cup of her dreams. Ours is a blessed generation.”

Marlene Post, National President of Hadassah, 1996

Wickedness & righteousness

As I live, says the Lord God, I do not wish for the death of the wicked, but for the wicked to repent of his way so that he may live. Repent, repent of your evil ways, for why should you die, O house of Israel! And you, son of man, say to the members of your people: The righteousness of the righteous will not save him on the day of his transgression, and the wickedness of the wicked-he will not stumble upon it on the day of his repentance of his wickedness, and a righteous man cannot live with it on the day of his sinning. When I say of the righteous that he will surely live, and he relied on his righteousness and committed injustice, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered, and for the injustices, which he committed, he shall die. And when I say of the wicked man, "You shall surely die," and he repents of his sin and performs justice and righteousness, the wicked man will return the pledge, he will repay the theft; in the statutes of life he walked, not to commit injustice-he will surely live, he will not die. All his sins that he sinned will not be remembered for him: he performed justice and righteousness; he will surely live.

Ezekiel 33: 11-16

I’ve seen a lot of people mention Ezekiel: 33:11 in connection with Osama Bin Laden’s death, and while it makes sense to me, I think that taking it in a broader context illuminates an important idea. It reminds us that we can’t simply rest on our merits nor should we dwell on our failures and mistakes. For we will be judged not by our past actions but on our current actions, neither the wickedness nor righteousness of past actions matters only what we do in this moment. That is the central teaching found here and it is an important lesson for us all.

L’Shalom

Justice

"When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers."

Proverbs 21:15