Showing posts with label Existence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Existence. Show all posts

December 19, 2020

I Know He Exists

                             

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, "I Know He Exists."

G-d, who is infinitely compassionate, did the most compassionate thing, which was to create us and give us the ability to be compassionate on others. The way we bring Hashem to reside with us is to transform the world (tikkun olam) “to make it a place that G-d can call home.” We do this by performing acts of loving kindness, making the mundane holy, and manifesting G-d’s divine providence. In essence, it’s not enough for us to know G-d exists, but we need to be a light unto the nations to reveal G-d’s unity, sanctity, and ongoing relationship with his creations to everyone in the world.

Like the story of the priest from the Holocaust, we don’t believe G-d exists, but rather, we know He exists. And when we perform our mission in this world by doing good deeds and manifesting G-d’s oneness and divine providence then we make this a place where G-d wants to reside with us in this world as well as in the world to come.

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


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December 14, 2017

My Realness and My Dreaminess

Just a quote from the show Homeland that I wanted to share:
"My dreams have a realness...
My Reality has a dreaminess..."
This is so true!

Dreaming and reality have a definite touchpoint and carryover between them. 

In Judaism, their is a saying that:
"Sleeping is one-sixtieth of death."

Life-sleeping-death all exist along a continuum. 

The elements of our being cross all three of these domains. 

When we are alive, there are elements of dreaminess--and it often doesn't feel quite real. 

When we are asleep, our dreams can often seem so real that we actually feel them and physically react them--we may even scream and wake up an incredible fright. 

When we are dead, I believe that we live on--that our soul never ceases--that it is a part of our everlasting G-d. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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January 4, 2017

Our Lives Matter

I thought this saying by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was very profound. 

"The day you were born is the day G-d decided that the world could not exist without you."

We all need to know that our lives have a purpose and meaning.

...that it's not all in vain that we live and toil.

There are many such notions tied to this:

- Jewish blood is not cheap.

- Black lives matter and Blue lives matter.

But the question is why do our lives matter? 

Kurt Vonnegut has an interesting piece on this:

"In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness. And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely. "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. "Certainly," said man. "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He went away.”  
So the answer is that we bring purpose to life. 

In what we learn, and do, and how we grow...this is our purpose. 

For each of us, it's different.

G-d created us in "His cosmic loneliness" to think on this and make meaning from the lives that he so graciously granted to us. 

Now we must go and do something positive with it.

Because G-d decided the day you were born that "the world could not exist without you." ;-)

(Source Photo: Forwarded to me by Michelle Blumenthal)
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December 14, 2016

Life After Death

This was a beautiful article in The Sun about life after death. 

British physicists and research scientists are claiming that the soul exists at a sub-atomic quantum particle level. 

Evidence, they say, points to information (our consciousness) "stored in microtubles within human cells."

When a person dies, the quantum particle information is released from the body into the universe. 

If it's a near-death experience, the consciousness leaves only temporarily, but is then brought back to the cells in the host, and the patient revives. 

However, if the person dies, "it's possible that this quantum information, can exist outside the body, perhaps indefinitely, as a soul."

This theory is endorsed by researchers at the renown Max-Planck Institute, Germany's most successful research organization with 18 Nobel laureates  and 15,000 scientific publications a year. 

This is certainly one of the most hopeful and uplifting ideas that any of us can maintain--that life is not just finite, but that we are part of something infinitely larger, enduring, meaningful, and G-dly. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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June 2, 2016

Should You MYOB?

Great Salt And Pepper comic in the Wall Street Journal today.

"What makes you think the meaning of life is any of your business."

Man goes to mountain. 

Man seeks to know the meaning of his existence. 

Mountain tells man to mind your own business.

I guess it's just not that easy. 

No one will just tell us how each of us is to make our difference in this world. 

Of course, there is faith and religious teachings to guide us.

But each and every one of us must find our path to G-d and our mission to his world. 

In doing that we struggle through life's trials and tribulations. 

It is painful at times, but we change and grow especially when the pain of what we are doing wrong becomes greater than the pleasure we gain from it. 

The meaning is in the journey and in the destination we seek. 

Our paths are not straight, but winding and hilly and not without obstacles--but it is a trek not only to the mountain, but to the very heavens itself. ;-)

(Source Photo: 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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March 14, 2013

The Not Useless Machine--You!



This machine is hilarious. It is called the "useless machine," well...because it is utterly useless. 

When you push the switch to turn it on, it does only one thing--a lever comes out and hits the switch in the other direction to turn itself off and the lever retracts. 

There is another version of this with eight switches (here), called the "advanced useless machine," and it will turn all switches backed off--however many of the eight are turned on. 

Why do we create such mind-numbing inventions?

Because,

- We can.

- It's funny.

- It goes viral.

On some deeper level, I think we can connect to this idea of uselessness in parts of our mundane life--where we get into a habit, and basically do the same thing day after day--until we ask ourselves, where is the meaning of it all? Is our existence really important? Will anyone ever really care that we were even on this planet (for whatever period of life G-d grants us)?

Like this box, there are people and times when they just wish they could turn themselves off--some attempt it!

But we have to realize that we are given a choice every day to love and care for the ones we are blessed with, to do good selfless acts of kindness, and to try to give something back to the world--however big or small--even if it's just a useless box that makes people laugh and introspect. ;-)


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