The story “A Silver Dish” is recounted by a colleague. We meet a successful business man from South Chicago. His father “Pop” died in his arms and he was heartbroken by his father’s passing. And the savvy, worldly man, was trying to deal with all the grief he felt.

He was able to cope with his grief by recalling lots of memories. Pop had not been a saint. He had been a totally unscrupulous rogue, a crook and a con artist. “Pop” had walked on his wife saying, “it’s okay. I put you all on welfare.

Pop took advantage of  everyone, including his son. Pop’s attitude was “that’ll teach you to trust your father!” But the son didn’t mind. He enjoyed Pop’s outlook on life because it was honest and unlike so much of the hypocrisy he saw around him.

Still caught up in his reverie, the businessman recalled Pop’s most outrageous con and how he, his son, age twenty, paid the emotional price for it. At the home of the wealthy patron who was paying for his son’s schooling, Pop stole a silver dish from a cabinet in the living room.

Totally aghast, he told Pop to put it back. But he refused. The son wrestled with his father for the silver dish. And Pop punched him in the face three or four times and kneed him in the mouth. Pop walked out of the house with the silver dish. A few days later, the patron noticed that a silver dish was missing from his cabinet. And Pop’s son was kicked out of school.

Now recalling the more recent past, he went to the hospital. There he found Pop trying to pull out the intravenous needles, wanting to go. And the son climbed into the hospital bed and held Pop in his arms to soothe him and keep his father with him. But little by little, Pop faded away.

The son surely passed the moral test. He dearly loved his father and, despite all of Pop’s selfishness and course outrageous conduct, he was truly there for Pop at the end.

There is no question that Pop and his son were kindred spirits. They had enveloped a deep emotional and physical bond, a closeness exemplified by the imagery of the son trading serious punches with his father on the one hand and climbing into the hospital bed to hold his father on the other.

As much as he was most certainly his father’s son, he succeeded in bringing out the best in himself. While Pop had abandoned his family, his son took full responsibility foe everyone. As much as Pop had been selfish, he was unselfish, he was a far more decent man than Pop had ever been.

At one point in the story, the son tells us why he conducted himself differently. He said, God’s idea was that this world should be a love-world, that it should eventually recover and be entirely a world of love. He couldn’t explain why he thought so; all the evidence was against it. Nevertheless, there it was at the center of his feelings.”

The son was right. The most powerful change agent is love. Who wants to admit being wrong? It’s humbling. Who wants to confess a mistake? It’s embarrassing. Who among us wants to break comfortable old habits of thought, feelings, or action?  They require way too much effort.

It is love that makes us grow. It is love that pulls us out of our comfort zone. It is love for our loved ones that motivates us to become a different person. a better person for their sake. It is love that makes us want to put our loved ones’ happiness above our own.

Life is messy and complicated and we are far from perfect. A wise person has written, ‘what an extraordinary gift it is – what a blessing, what a miracle to be raised by imperfect parents to who did their very best; to share our life with a partner no more flawed than we are; to count as a friend one who accepts us most of the time.

How brave, how hard it is to be “good enough” in our ties to one another: To give, even when we are exhausted; to love faithfully; to receive the love imperfectly offered to us.

May love be the meaning of your world.

Soul searching is a very difficult thing for us to do. We often avoid it and instead we plunge ourselves into very bad habits…We feed our egos and lie and manipulate to gain power over others. We strike out defensively and shame and embarrass people who stand in our way  and don’t deserve it. When we put people down to raise ourselves up we are actually lowering ourselves.

We wrestle with our demons but if we are honest with ourselves we might not be OK with our behavior and we might be wounded but we can hold our heads high and go forward.

In the Jewish tradition there are no quick and easy ways to do right by others. We have to first ask forgiveness from those we have hurt. We have a custom where we go to our family and friends on the Holy Days and say…if anything I have done over the past year has caused you pain, whether deliberately or unintentionally , I am truly sorry.

And putting this on Facebook or Tweeting doesn’t cut it.

We have our broken pieces, side by side, with our stronger selves. We can’t just expect the Infinite One to take our burdens away. We can give these failings up, release them, liberate ourselves, by being willing and doing the work and be truly willing to change.

There is a saying, “Pray as if everything depends on the divine, but act as if everything depends on you.” The truth is that there are times  when we fall, but the Wise Ones tell us that we are not required to complete the work, but we cannot evade it. We don’t have to be perfect!

Rabbi Harold Kushner said it best: “When we do something wrong, because we are human and our choices are so complicated and temptations so strong, we don’t lose our humanity. But we lose our integrity, our wholeness, of being the same person all the time.

We create a situation where part of us, our good self, is at war with another part of us, our weak and selfish self. We lose the focus, the singleness of purpose, that enables us to do the things that matter to us. That is when we need the gift of forgiveness. But should we ever conclude that there is no point in trying to be better because we can never be good enough, that is when we lose everything.

Being human can never mean being perfect, but it should always mean struggling to be as good as we can and never letting our failures be a reason for giving up the struggle.”

 

 

 

 

 

My friend Linda, teacher to the stars, founded Fone a Friend, which asks celebrities, who are willing, to call sick and lonely children. She told me that of all the famous people Robin Williams set an exceptional example when he went beyond just calling someone and cut short his vacation to invite a lonely disfigured boy to his home to lift up his spirits. Robin extended a lifeline to this lonely child.

I am struck by a rabbi’s take on the game show, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” When players get stuck for an answer they can use a “lifeline.” In an earlier version of the show, you could call a friend.

In our loneliest and saddest moments, we sometimes overlook the lifelines in real life. So we use a lifeline and ask you the audience. Who are your lifelines? Recall for a moment a time in your life when you lost hope. Maybe you were going through a really tough time and felt like you had hit rock bottom – a setback in your career, a low point in your marriage or relationship; a worry so strong about a child, aging parent or close friend – that you couldn’t see any hope.

Whatever it was, think about the people in your life who became a true lifeline. If you feel that way now just think about the ones who could offer you a lifeline if you would but reach out.

The rabbi played “ask the audience” with his congregation and challenged them to “call a friend.” He said, “Now it’s your turn to “call a friend.” When you have a few moments to yourself, call a friend who came through for you. Tell the people you love how they gave you hope when you needed it most. They may already know this. They may not need your gratitude. They may feel it’s unnecessary. Tell them anyway!

The Jewish mystic and poet envisioned hope as a crimson cord that could reach heaven. So when you are lonely and despair reach out to your friends and family and maybe a total stranger, who were there for you when you felt abandoned and alone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently, as much as 75% of the  television audience is watching reality television. We watch what happens when you put a bunch of people in a house and ask them just to live there.

On the Apprentice we watch competitors vie to be top dog. On an island we watch people  struggling to survive. We look at the people on these shows and wonder why they would want to be watched. Why would anyone have millions of voyeurs watching the intimate details of their lives?

Television and pop culture has gone from “pop culture” to “peep culture” scrutinizing the lives and misfortunes of others. How quickly did the scripted format of Desperate Housewives get spun off into all the the versions of The Real Housewives ?

Author Hal Niedviecki, in his book  The Peep Diaries, explains how we eat this stuff up: In Peep Culture he writes, “we all have  lives worth SELLING“-not worth TELLING!

While we can criticize a culture where everyone can be an instant celebrity…While we can look askance at the Kardashians, instead of asking why they would want to be so watched – maybe we should ask ourselves: Why are we watching? These shows wouldn’t exist if we don’t binge on them.

Looking at these exaggerated characters on reality TV enables us to avoid doing something we really need to do. We need to be able to look at ourselves blemishes and all.  And watching the supposedly “real lives” of others lets us off the hook from examining our own lives. We are so enthralled with the lives of others, that we never really look at how WE can be better.

There is a teaching that  a person should have two slips of paper, one in each pocket. On the first, we should have written, “I am but dust and ashes.” This is to remind us, when we get too inflated and extreme in our sense of self, that we come from humble beginnings. And on the second slip of paper, we should have written, “For my unique self, the world was created.”  

If we have one slip in each pocket, then as we go about our lives we will realize that we are between two extremes. Real life, not reality TV, is lived with the insight to know our worth, to steer clear of the extremes, and to reflect on how we might live better, humbler, but also stronger lives.

Maybe I had to endure serious illness in order to help people find meaning and strength in adversity. In the words of Albert Camus: “In the midst of winter I found there was within me an invincible summer.”  Finding meaning requires that we overcome our self-absorption with material goods. We spend too much time dwelling on what is missing. We worry and complain and anxious over trivial pursuits. We count our money instead of our blessings and appreciating all that we have. We are continually dwelling on what we don’t have. We all think: ” I would be happy if only…”

According to Psychology Today, 50 books were published on happiness in 2000 as opposed to last year when more than 4000 books appeared. My prescription for happiness is not sugary promotions. It is not the power of positive thinking. It is not to be beautiful, wealthy and successful.

The key to living a meaningful life is the same as it always was.It is learning to do the tough work of mastering our baser impulses and nurturing our most exalted selves by refusing to indulge in fear or anger and opting instead to feed our capacity for kindness and compassion.

It is to recognize all the gifts that come your way and appreciate those gifts and those around you. My prescription is contrary to much of what pop psychologists preach. I teach that what we do in this world matters. Our words have power: Power to hurt or wound, but also the power to heal and comfort. We wish we could be perfect but we are not perfect. We hurt people we love and we lose our temper. We speak with sarcasm. We can be petty and small minded.

But if we realize what we said, and regret what we did, then words can have a tremendous power. And if we admit the things we have done wrong and change the the way we act then life is not absurd. Our words and actions, our thoughtfulness and compassion, can fill our lives with meaning.

In the Jewish tradition, when we wake up in the morning we say: “Let me be as swift as a deer and strong as a lion to do the will of the Holy One.” We realize that every day is a struggle between our good and bad impulses, and though many things are predestined we have the innate power and freedom to make moral choices.

The Sages made sure to point out that both the bad inclination and the good inclination are essential aspects of our humanity. Whether we like it or not, these impulses are part of us – much like the hemispheres are essential parts of our brain. The point is not to deny or repress the bad inclination, but to channel and master it.

The Sages ask: Who are mighty?  The ones who master their inclination.”

 

When I was diagnosed  with leukemia I thought, “Why not me?” As a rabbi visiting patients for so many years, I realized that no one is immune and anyone can get sick – the rich and the poor, the young and the old. My childhood nickname was “Sunshine”, and with my bright outlook and positive spirit I asked the doctor, “What can we do?”The belief in the possibility of hope is the narrative of the Jewish people. We have historically been geniuses of hope. The gateway to Hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy has the inscription, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Playwright Eugene O’Neill said, “Human hope is the greatest power in life and the only thing that defeats death.”

False hope is dysfunctional, and can lead to to disillusionment. False hope makes people vulnerable to hucksters and and simplistic “pie in the sky by and by.” But we can believe in the extraordinary around us.

The quality of hopefulness should not be left to chance. Hopefulness comes from immersing our lives in values larger than ourselves, enabling our lives to touch the eternal and leave a lasting impression on the world.

One of the problems of living in a self-centered culture is that we avoid dedicating ourselves to changing the world for the good of others. Why is it that so many World War II veterans are reported to have looked back on their experience as the best part of their lives? Why is it that many people do not start living until they face the end of their lives?

It is because deep within us we want our existence to matter. We worry that we may leave without having and impact, that the fact that we lived will never be noticed ow remembered. That we may have lived for nothing.

If my people could overcome the despair of the death camps, then certainly life can be filled with hope each and every day. The song of the Jewish partisans during the Holocaust proclaims, “Never Say You Walk the Final Road!”

As long as we live and breathe, hope glimmers within; with our every act and encounter we can touch other lives. In his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” the psychiatrist Victor Frankl describes how he endured the Nazi concentration camps and lost almost all of his family in the Holocaust.

While Frankl was in Dachau and Auschwitz he observed that how the prisoners reacted differently to the same conditions of great suffering. Frankl discovered that he people who had a greater chance of surviving were those who set a purpose for themselves. Their positive attitude helped the to triumph over their circumstances; for example to cling to the hope that they would be reunited with their loved ones.

Frankl says we can’t always chose the circumstances of our ordeals, but we can and must chose how we will react to suffering and adversity. No matter what our plight, we are free to chose our attitude toward the tough times. So we can find meaning and hope even in the darkest days.

In the words of the Psalmist. “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.”

 

 

 

 

 

A disciple came to his rabbi and lamented: “Rabbi, I have all these terrible thoughts. I am even afraid to say them. I feel absolutely terrible that I can even think these thoughts. Rabbi, I simply cannot believe. Sometimes I even think that God doesn’t exist.”

“Why not, my son?” the rabbi asked.

“Because I see in this world deceit and corruption.”

The rabbi answered: “So why do you care?

The disciple continued: “I see in this world hunger, poverty, and homelessness.”

And the rabbi once again responded: “So why do you care?”

The disciple protested: “if God is absent there is no purpose to the entire world. And if there is no purpose to the entire world, then there is no purpose to life – and that troubles my soul greatly.”

Then the rabbi said to his troubled follower: “Do not be disturbed. If you care so much, you are a believer!”

When the atheist Stephen Fry is questioned as to what he would say if he met God, he leaves the interviewer at a loss for words when he responds: “if I should meet God I’ll say: “Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world in which there is so much misery that is not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil!”

As a rabbi wrote: “it is time to raise the bar in the conversation about religion and faith, with the knowledge that most people, whether religious, agnostic, atheist, or whatever-ish, truly do want to do what is right, to find and express love, to live a life of purpose, and to be in a meaningful relationship with others.”

“It is good to question and challenge those with whom we disagree, but we deserve more than pithy catch phrases, caricatures of those who we have defined as our enemy, and the childish need to win. Human beings can be glorious creatures who, through conscious choice, can bring healing to the world, and we all need to do this together.”

In my many years as a rabbi, and especially since my illness, I have come to believe that more important than any theology or system of belief is caring, compassion and loving kindness. I have evolved spiritually to believe that no matter what we believe or don’t believe the true heart of our humanity is human goodness and decency.

Hanging on to hope in sickness and adversity.

Joan Rivers, may peace be upon her, once asked her business manager: ” How much money do I have in the  bank because I want it delivered to my house by the end of the day. I want to touch it!”

She was also famously quoted as saying: “People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money you can have a key made.”

An ancient Rabbi asked: “Who is rich? The one who appreciates what he has and is satisfied with her portion.”

We all know of very wealthy people who are terribly unhappy, and ordinary people who are very happy. What the sage was explaining is that happiness is the ability to find joy in what you have. Unhappiness is dwelling on what you don’t possess.

This is what we should do every day. Every morning we wake up and it’s a new day. The sacred teaching is that our souls have been restored. We can breath deeply and take in all that is good if we have a roof over our head and family and friends .

And yet we spend too much time dwelling on what is missing. We worry and are anxious and complain about trivial things. We count our money instead of counting our blessings and appreciating all that we have. We are continually dwelling on what we don’t have.

We all think: ” I would be happy if only…”

But the Holy One of Blessing wants us to be happy right now because if you are not happy with your portion in life, then it does not matter how much you have in your bank account. It is never enough.

Don’t let the imperfections blind you to the blessings you have. The real key to happiness is to see the smiles of the ones you love and the beauty all around you.

And may you discover the richness and joy and power within you that you surely possess and deserve.