Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits; they become character.

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

A Jew for a Quarter

Several years ago, a rabbi from out-of-state accepted a call to a community in Houston , Texas.
Some weeks after he arrived, he had an occasion to ride the bus from his home to the downtown area.

When he sat down, he discovered that the driver had accidentally given him a quarter too much change.

As he considered what to do, he thought to himself, 'You'd better give the quarter back. It would be wrong to keep it'.

Then he thought, 'Oh, forget it, it's only a quarter. Who would worry about this little amount? Anyway, the bus company gets too much fare; they will never miss it. Accept it as a 'gift from G-d' and keep quiet'.

When his stop came, he paused momentarily at the door, and then he handed the quarter to the driver and said, 'Here, you gave me too much change'.

The driver, with a smile, replied, 'Aren't you the new rabbi in town?'
'Yes' he replied.

'Well, I have been thinking a lot lately about going somewhere to worship. I just wanted to see what you would do if I gave you too much change. I'll see you in Shul on Shabbos'.

When the rabbi stepped off of the bus, he literally grabbed the nearest light pole, held on, and said, 'Oh Rebono Shel Olam (=master of the universe), I almost sold a Yid for a quarter.'

Our lives are the only thing some people will ever read.

This is a really scary example of how much people watch us as a JEW, and will put us to the test!

Always be on guard -- and remember -- You carry the name of HaShem on your shoulders when you call yourself a 'JEW'.

old friends

Who can tell the passage of time in a busy world? Do you take steps away from others when you decide to move on in life? How else would you become far from the people you love?
When does someone you know become someone you knew
When does your best friend go from being "a friend" to someone you "went to school with"
None can judge, but all know things in life somehow come and go...
It is my most sincere wish that thoughout my whole life you guys will be someone I know... at every moment to know you're still there
I miss you all and if anyone still reads this... hope to talk to you soon

Learning? or researching?

We were learning the other day on somebody's couch. It was a nun-beis sicha, which we try to learn every week. Another girl came by, asked us curiously, "What are you guys doing, research?" she paused, saw our faces, then added, "Learning?"

We nodded, a little bit confused. What would we be researching anyway? 

She walked out.

I thought about that. She was right. Takeh.

Were we learning? or were we just researching? Could you call it learning when it's just collecting knowledge? or were we actually taking it in?

Food for thought.

And maybe it's about time to start learning.

Inspiration - or not

So I've been listening and looking out these weeks... contemplating, meditating, honestly just asking and learning trying to find an answer that i liked.
Then it hit me.
It's not about what I LIKED!
If it was up to what I liked... well then I'd just arrange that i'd live a super constant inspired life and then yeah, it would be easy. wouldn't it?
Hmmmm. Well obviously. And just as obviously, if that were the case then Hashem wouldn't have to create people. We would all be like malachim, where we always are inspired and feel close to Hashem, and always do what He wants.
But He did create people. Because He wants us to be people. That is - uninspired, physical, maybe even uninterested people. And even so, to do what He wants because we know it is right, and because we know that deep down, somewhere maybe in a hidden place, we really are essentially connected to Him and actually love him.
Inspiration, living as Chabad Chassidim, with concepts like Rebbe, farbrengens, chassidus - that's a bonus. It's just a plus that we get to try to make our avodah more meaningful. But the point is not the inspiration. Nope. (yep, that article posted by cmbc - that's the answer...)
Sorry for the disappointment.
I feel it too.

And I wish you the greatest success in fulfilling the ultimate purpose of Creation.
It's up to you. I mean - me.
Moshiach Now!

Help

I know there aren't that many people visiting the blogs these days, but the day you do get a chance, or even if it's going to be in a few months or whatever, I still think it's worth it.

Here the million dollar question:

Sometimes I'm inspired, motivated, feel connected - all that, and then doing the things I'm supposed to, or that I took upon myself, doesn't feel so hard. I'll stay up the extra twenty minutes to finish my chitas, daven maariv, say shema, etc. before I go to bed. Maybe it's during achos, in seminary, i don't know. But what about when that leaves me? When everything just feels way too abstract and up there to push me anywhere and I'm totally apathetic and lazy about doing anything. What happens then? Is there any way I can get back into things?

I know for a fact I'm not the only one with this question, and while for myself I've kinda worked things out I think, I would still love to hear what everyone else has to say about it.

So the day you read this - go for it! If it's short, make it a comment, long - a post. But please do share!!!

Breaking the Rules

Most of you have been in Israel recently. Or are now.

Well there's this funny thing I've noticed about the language here, as I try to break my teeth and communicate with my fellow Israeli apartment-mates. Besides for the fact that it's NOT Lashon Hakodesh (which some girls still haven't really caught onto, but i'd learned a few years back), there's also such a thing as sfat hadibbur (the spoken language) and sfat haktiva (the written language). The written language is actually much closer to its origin, where words are combined into more sophisticated words than in the spoken language. Like "my mother" would be imi in written language, but ima sheli in the spoken language. It's broken down into little bite-sized pieces, not too complicated for anybody. So I soon got used to that too, and modified my speech to the same simple words my friends were using. It seemed almost too good to be true - everything was so easy and babyish!

Well soon i realized that there actually were more words I still had to learn, more phrases and expressions... some "sleng" expressions... but i was getting there, bit by bit. My apartment-mates were patient enough, and tolerated my mistakes with straight-faced corrections. But one day I said something I was pretty sure was correct, and instead of getting the usual expected response to whatever it was i was saying, they all started to laugh. So I got like all embarrassed and I'm like "ok, so what did i say wrong this time?". But instead of a correction, they laughed, and said, "no, no, you didn't say anything wrong!!" and laughed again.
Well i definitely didn't know what to say to that, so I just stood there, with this like idiotic smile on my face like i don't know what you want me to do now, so whatever!

Boruch Hashem, one of my apartment-mates finally decided to be kind enough to explain it to me. "You said it right, but it's really fancy to speak like that."
Oh so that explains it. Back to the "sleng" issue. "So how do you say it?" I was like totally fed up now.

I'm not going to get into the whole Hebrew grammar issue, but that's what it was. Instead of using the form of speech for "I" when you are talking about yourself in future tense, I was now informed that people "don't talk like that" and that really you should use the "he" form of speech. Like you don't say "ani elech" but "ani yelech".

I don't know about you, but I thought that was ridiculous. I found out soon that i was not the only one. Another foreigner in my apartment who knows Hebrew pretty well i would say, told me she never speaks that way. But I kept my ears open over the next few days, and I saw that they were right! Even some of the teachers (or most) spoke that way! So I could choose to keep to the rules and be weird... or be normal and break them like everybody else.

I thought about it a little, and I decided that a language wasn't such an important thing that I couldn't break the rules even though I though it was really odd. So yeah, I break the rules. Like everyone else.

Then it struck me. It's scary or sad or maybe just reality, but there's really lots of areas in life where the same applies. Where you can either keep the rules and be weird... or be normal and break them. And the parallel goes even further. That when you're little and you're only just learning the rules, you don't dream of breaking them, and you never imagine that others do either. You do everything just right, and if and when you do something wrong, you honestly regret it. That's like when you're just learning the language - you start off saying everything exactly just right. But then you start growing up... communicate a little bit with the big wide experienced adult world... and you start to adjust. You discover all the "slengs", where it's accepted to break the rules, and strange to keep them. It starts with small things, you know - saying a bracha quickly quietly instead of loud and clear as you should - and gets to bigger things - like davening aleinu while putting away your siddur after davening (yes everyone learns that from someone!) - and sometimes might even get to even bigger things, like skipping davening when you woke up in the afternoon hours....

Ok, I'll admit it, some things you do because of your own laziness, but I believe way too much of it is influenced by the behavior of others around you. And that's no good.
All it takes is a little awareness... and some strength of character too. We all have those things we naturally have no problem with, and would instinctively do it right, only that it's easier to just "be normal" and do it wrong like everyone else.

But we're chassidim of the Rebbe, and so we should do better than that. We can change the flow, change the "sleng" in our surroundings, and make it normal to follow the rules.
And most importantly of all, to bring Moshiach now!!!

So let's go for it! together!
Amen!

The Rebbe Knows Us ... More Than We Think!

Hi everyone!
If this gets published it'll be a miracle but we all believe in miracles, right?
So here goes...
I came across this paragraph in a sicha i thought was sooo powerful i had to share it. twas a sicha on parshas noach and the Rebbe was talking about how we too have the avodah of going "into the teivah" to protect us from the mabul.

To preface i'm gonna summarize a little of the sicha:
The teivah refers the the "teivos" (words) of learning and davening, and the mabul is anything that takes a person away from that. The mabul came from two directions: above and below, and it refers to gashmius things that distract a person (parnassa, etc.) and ruchnius things such as being involved in tzorchei tzibbur or andere zachin. both are part of the mabul when they take you away from learning.
Anyway so the sicha then spoke about how when we get up in the morning we right away say brachos thanking Hashem for all the regular things we have every day... we wake up, we get dressed, we wear shoes, we stand up and check ur local siddur for the rest. so why are we thanking Hashem every day?

The answer is because we are supposed to look at life in a ruchnius way, when the only thing that is for sure is that Hashem exists. from that perspective, all gashmius does not exist, and so neither do our clothes or our shoes... so we thank Hashem that we get them. It's like the Rabbi that used to ask Hashem to give him food when the food was already placed before him... the first thing we know is Hashem... gashmius is only a maybe if Hashem wants.

So that's where the powerful paragraph came in. it said how when someone has the wrong perspective chas vesholom, then it affects his performance of mitzvos too. for him, gashmius (including his tayvos and his desires altogether) is what's most important and so while he is going through the day, his attitude is, as the Rebbe says, "what's allowed is for sure allowed... and what i'm not positive is not allowed... is probably allowed tooo!"
and here we are thinking no one knows how we cheat around things!
Think about it!!! the Rebbe knows exactly what's going on!

And then the sicha contrasts this with the chassidishe way: "what we can't do, we can't do... and what we can do... we don't need to do!!"

Food for thought. please share urs.