Showing posts with label Senses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Senses. Show all posts

August 30, 2022

Madness and The Soul

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "Madness and The Soul."

Whereas normally the soul guides and directs the body, in the case of mental illness, the soul becomes imprisoned in the body and mind that is sick. When this happens, a person reverts to their wholly animalistic nature, and hence, what we are seeing is like a car without a driver, accelerating and careening dangerously until, usually, a horrible accident and end.

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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June 22, 2021

Bicycle and Flowers

Why do flowers and bicycles go so well together?

Either way a beautiful display! 

G-d has made such an amazing world for us. 

And all our senses get to enjoy it. 

If you let yourself stop and experience it, your heart and soul can be uplifted with the joy of it all!  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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February 3, 2021

The Sniffer Isn't Working


Someone really had a premonition posting this sign before Covid!

The sign says simply:

Smell Me!!

The response to this now-a-days would be the person with Covid yelling back:

I can't smell (or taste) anything!

Now frustrated, the other person replies:

But please, please smell me. 

Second person, tries and tries again:

Sniff, sniff--darn, the sniffer just isn't working. 

Get out the smelling salts!

Six months later, I still can't smell a skunk in the same room. 

What type of crazy pandemic is this!  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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September 15, 2020

Garden of 5 Senses

Garden of Five Senses in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

I hear it and I see it, but I can barely believe it.  

I can touch it, and I can even taste it, but that's going too far. 

I can smell it, but in a good way.  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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October 17, 2016

From Cocoa Trees To Honey Pizza








Had a chance to take in the United States Botanic Garden. 

Loved going in the greenhouse. 

The air was fresh and the flowers beautiful. 

The 2nd to last photo is a cocoa tree, which I had never seen before. 

It was incredible to me that those pods hold the amazing stuff that gives us chocolate. 

G-d's creations are so amazing. 

Also, we went for dinner and my daughter had this amazing pizza with cheese, figs, spinach, and honey. 

I couldn't have the dough because of my Paleo diet, but I just tasted the toppings, and it was literally like heaven. 

I was glad that the taste didn't show up on the scale this morning. 

To me the wonderment is how our senses can literally indulge in so many wonderful things almost like the Garden of Eden. 

Thank you G-d for giving us life and the ability to enjoy your amazing creations. ;-)

(Source Photos: Andy Blumenthal)
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February 10, 2015

Live With The Eternal In Mind

I really like this saying.

I heard it this weekend on a popular television show at the burial of one of the characters. 


"What you see is temporal; what you don't see is eternal."


Everyday, we think we are living in the "real world," but this is just our mortal experience, one constrained by our senses and the dictates of time and space.


However, beyond this mere earthly experience and existence is the eternal G-d. 


Perhaps, we can take comfort and live a life of meaning, if our existence in the temporal world is always with the eternal in mind. ;-)


(Source Photo: here with attribution to Terry Dennis)

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November 15, 2014

Guard Your Menorah

This was a funny picture I took of a zebra with the stripes that are in the shape of a Jewish menorah. 

The menorah has a center stem from which to light the branches extending upward to the left and right on the menorah. 

Last night at a Shabbat dinner, someone said something very interesting about keeping G-d commandments and staying innocent and holy.

He said a person face, which has 4 of our senses (mouth, eyes, nose, and ears) is actually like a menorah.

These start at the center of the face and then are emanating upwards and outwards:

- First, the mouth (speech)  is sort of the center stem--and our words needs to be carefully spoken so that we speak nicely to others and not to hurt them with what we say. 

- Second, our nose with 2 nostrils (smell)--we should smell holy things like the sacrifices and incenses to G-d, and not things that make us improperly attracted to worldly impurities, like inappropriate sexual partners, drug, smoking, and alcohol. 

- Third, our 2 eyes (sight)--we need to see the good in others and the world around us, but guard ourselves so that we do not see things that make us want, desire, and lead us astray after falsity. 

- Fourth, our 2 ears (hearing) --we work to avoid hearing "evil speech" about others and instead seek to perceive words of insight, spiritually and growth. 

I would add the following to complete our 5 senses:

- Fifth, our 2 hands (touch)---because if we but lift our hands up to heaven in prayer and servitude to G-d, then we use our sense of touch for helping rather than hurting people. 

So while this zebra has a menorah on his side, we have it built into our very faces and bodies. 

And with a little effort, we can use all our senses for doing good, and guard ourselves from the otherwise seemingly natural impulses to do otherwise.  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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October 25, 2014

What Will You Regret?

My friend used to tell me from his learning that no one on their death bed regrets not working more, instead what they regret is not spending more time with their loved ones (family and friends).

Think about it, could you imagine someone hooked up to IVs and palliative medicines saying, "Listen to me, one thing I've learned in this life is that work is it!"

Sure we should work hard and do a good job, but usually, it's the other way around, where people endlessly chase material things, wealth, power, and prestige...they work days, nights, weekends...and almost to hell with everyone and everything else.

Hey they say, with this beautiful excuse, "I've got to make a [good] living!"

So the people we love and should be caring about suffer, needlessly. 

So of course, it goes without saying that we regret the mistakes we made, the opportunities to do good that we missed, and the hurt we caused others. 

I have some colleagues though that I really admire...who work hard and do a damn good job--they are some of my best people, yet the funny thing is they put family first!

How can that be you say?

I don't know for sure, but perhaps because they know their real purpose in life, and live with balance (work-life, materialism-spiritualism, etc.) and true caring for others, they are able to be more sensible and balanced in getting their jobs done. 

Honestly, these are the people that are able to get things done--presumably at home and with community--but I see it with my own eyes, at work.

Another thing...

My older daughter the other day sent me an article about people sick (with cancer etc.) and dying and how they look back at life and one thing they wish is that they had appreciated their bodies more. 

I guess now that their bodies are sort of degrading with illness and age, they appreciate what they should've appreciated, but likely didn't before, their physical health.

Some of them said things like they wished they had exercised more, enjoyed sex more, spent time outside enjoying the beauty of the world more, and so on.

I've been thinking about this, about my body and my physical senses and what they mean to me.

What is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, the sweetest smell, the best voice or music I've ever heard, the most luscious taste, or the softest thing I've touched. 

It really is amazing the senses that G-d gave us and the beauty all around us that cradles us in this world.

We need to savor the great creation that G-d has bestowed on us and take care of those we love around us. 

Maybe that's why we fight for life, until we can't any longer. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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September 21, 2013

Restoring Hearing Using Bionics



A mother wrote in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about the miracle of Cochlear Implants.

Lydia Denworth described when her 2-year old son, who is deaf, got these implants and how now he is now able to attend 5th grade in a "mainstream school" and is "nearly indistinguishable from the other children."

These implants allow her son, Alex, to have a conversation with another child about the hearing device that "can open up the world of sound and spoken language."

Denworth states at the end of the editorial, "Moments like that make me deeply grateful for the technology."

For me, reading this was an opportunity to go learn about the amazing bionics that has already restored hearing to 320,000 people!

While hearing aids amplify sounds and make them louder, they don't resolve permanent damage to the inner ear. 

A cochlear implant bypasses the damage by receiving sounds in a microphone, digitizing them, and converting them to electrical impulses that are sent directly via implant to the auditory nerves-- bypassing damaged or missing sensory cells in the ear--in a way that the brain can understand.

I am in awe of the inventors--Graeme Clark, Ingeborg Hochmair, and Blake Wilson--who are being recognized for their pioneering research leading to the development of Cochlear Implants.

Hopefully, soon we can do for sight, smell, taste, and touch what we can do for hearing and restore the impaired to fully functioning again.

We are living in a time of great miracles--thank you G-d!

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Bjorn Knetsch)
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