Rosality - Reflections on Life from a Different Perspective
2010 Rosh Hashana, February, January, 2009 December(2), December, November, October, September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February, January, 2008. 2007. 2006
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But much like the prince in Poe’s classic tale who tried to evade a plague by locking himself in a fortress, the noxious poison is seeping in despite my best attempts. Our mailbox receives three local newspapers a week which admittedly aren’t that bad. However recently we have found upon opening our front door in the morning, newspapers left there surreptitiously in the pre-dawn which we have neither subscribed to, nor do we want and have tried to cancel. I was told, “Leave them outside, they’ll stop delivering,” but they have not.
I share an office at work with two really, really nice guys. They have two faults. They like keeping the office as cold as possible (I refer to them affectionately as bears) and they listen unrelentingly to the radio. Not soothing music but offensive talk shows with people hurling vitriolic comments at high decibels using objectionable language. I beg them to turn it off but turn it down is as good as it gets and in the name of peace I try and shut it out.
We try so hard to barricade ourselves against intrusive influences (at whatever level we find them offensive), but they seep in anyway. Society at large doesn’t allow us to languish in our self-created oasises and bastions of purity. It seems God doesn’t either. We have to struggle with the corrupt influences of the world as part our tests in this life.
When my son was ten, till 120 I took him to Paris. We were traveling with a friend trying to get to Monmartre by foot by day when we erroneously meandered into the red light district of Pigalle. My son, not knowing where he was but knowing he shouldn’t be there, said, “Oy, my poor Neshama (soul).”
And I echo his sentiments. Our poor neshamot are exposed to things which defile them and hurt them and we seem helpless to prevent a lot of that exposure despite the pains we take at scrupulously choosing our neighborhoods, schools, work environments and media.
The spiritual pollution seems too overwhelming to contain and it leaks out of society at large and seeps into our cloistered lives despite the many filters we engage to keep it out.
Nevertheless, we must continue to employ the utmost vigilance. But necessity dictates that we be proactive and take offensive measures because defense is no longer sufficient. We need to be outspoken in protecting the borders we hold sacred but realize that we will be tested again and again and must take it upon ourselves to be the role models, paragons and defenders of propriety. At the same time we need to be able to explain to our children what the dangers are in terms they can understand because we can’t always keep the bad stuff at bay.
Each of us has a line which we feel shouldn’t be crossed; an invisible border which protects our minds, our homes and our hearts from trespass of unwanted elements. We must continue to stand sentry at that border no matter how far society moves the line back.
Isn’t that what the Maccabees fought for two millennia ago? The right to keep their lives, their Temple, their homes, their families, pure? And aren’t we still fighting that battle, trying to keep objectionable influences that masquerade as propitious changes out of the sanctuaries we try to carve out in our lives?
We are all warriors, waging our battles against society’s moral white elephants of today.
We must be vigilant and pray for divine guidance and providence for that is our only hope.
A Happy and Bright Chanukah!
Rosally
I have always had Quixotic tendencies – hopelessly romantic, insanely idealistic, I can’t tell you how many lances I’ve broken between windmill slats.
Don Quixote is one of my favorite people. Though I never finished reading Cervantes’ book, I perused the pages appropriately enough in a castle common room.
Many, many years ago, I remember seeing a man at a bus stop who caught my attention so utterly that I stared at him for some time. He was a religious man but instead of being dressed in a black suit, he had a suit of steel blue. He had a luminescent face and white-yellow hair, long white beard and piercing blue eyes. He was tall and thin and looked somewhat Quixotic. I remember he had a nobility of bearing, he seemed to exude spirituality and he gave me the feeling of wanting to be closer to God. I saw him a couple of times but I never spoke to him. But decades later, I still remember him clearly and that feeling he gave me.
Cervantes was right. We are here to change the world and to strive to do this no matter the obstacles, to fight for the right, love pure and chaste and see the good in people. We are all meant to change the world and all capable of doing so. We can do so by dramatic actions, by stirring words, with our positive thoughts, with our feelings and sometimes just by our presence. Often, that alone is the inspiration someone needs.
We can’t know how much we have succeeded in our quest until the last page of our life history. But we must always pursue our idealistic dreams no matter how unreachable they seem and remember that our destiny calls and the windmills are waiting.
Rosally
Seeping In
By
Rosally Saltsman
I try to live a sheltered
life. The only periodicals we read aside from the ones I write for is a
Chareidi family magazine and a special religious edition of National
Geographic. I don’t have cable and rarely watch television. I
don’t listen to the radio. When I listen to music it’s
discs and tapes. I wage an ongoing campaign against immodest and/or
vulgar signs in my neighborhood and am on very good terms with the lady
at City Hall who looks after this. I send my son to a private religious
school which the Rosh Yeshivah likes to refer to as “an
island”. I’ve been referred to as an ostrich and it
isn’t because of my elegant stride.But much like the prince in Poe’s classic tale who tried to evade a plague by locking himself in a fortress, the noxious poison is seeping in despite my best attempts. Our mailbox receives three local newspapers a week which admittedly aren’t that bad. However recently we have found upon opening our front door in the morning, newspapers left there surreptitiously in the pre-dawn which we have neither subscribed to, nor do we want and have tried to cancel. I was told, “Leave them outside, they’ll stop delivering,” but they have not.
I share an office at work with two really, really nice guys. They have two faults. They like keeping the office as cold as possible (I refer to them affectionately as bears) and they listen unrelentingly to the radio. Not soothing music but offensive talk shows with people hurling vitriolic comments at high decibels using objectionable language. I beg them to turn it off but turn it down is as good as it gets and in the name of peace I try and shut it out.
We try so hard to barricade ourselves against intrusive influences (at whatever level we find them offensive), but they seep in anyway. Society at large doesn’t allow us to languish in our self-created oasises and bastions of purity. It seems God doesn’t either. We have to struggle with the corrupt influences of the world as part our tests in this life.
When my son was ten, till 120 I took him to Paris. We were traveling with a friend trying to get to Monmartre by foot by day when we erroneously meandered into the red light district of Pigalle. My son, not knowing where he was but knowing he shouldn’t be there, said, “Oy, my poor Neshama (soul).”
And I echo his sentiments. Our poor neshamot are exposed to things which defile them and hurt them and we seem helpless to prevent a lot of that exposure despite the pains we take at scrupulously choosing our neighborhoods, schools, work environments and media.
The spiritual pollution seems too overwhelming to contain and it leaks out of society at large and seeps into our cloistered lives despite the many filters we engage to keep it out.
Nevertheless, we must continue to employ the utmost vigilance. But necessity dictates that we be proactive and take offensive measures because defense is no longer sufficient. We need to be outspoken in protecting the borders we hold sacred but realize that we will be tested again and again and must take it upon ourselves to be the role models, paragons and defenders of propriety. At the same time we need to be able to explain to our children what the dangers are in terms they can understand because we can’t always keep the bad stuff at bay.
Each of us has a line which we feel shouldn’t be crossed; an invisible border which protects our minds, our homes and our hearts from trespass of unwanted elements. We must continue to stand sentry at that border no matter how far society moves the line back.
Isn’t that what the Maccabees fought for two millennia ago? The right to keep their lives, their Temple, their homes, their families, pure? And aren’t we still fighting that battle, trying to keep objectionable influences that masquerade as propitious changes out of the sanctuaries we try to carve out in our lives?
We are all warriors, waging our battles against society’s moral white elephants of today.
We must be vigilant and pray for divine guidance and providence for that is our only hope.
A Happy and Bright Chanukah!
Rosally
This article also appears in the Jewish Press
Here, There and Everywhere
By
Rosally Saltsman
The phone rang. I listened.
Someone was playing me a Beatles tape, the song Here, There and
Everywhere. I smiled waiting to know what this was about then, I
screamed. “Oh Wow, it’s live!” And I started to sing
along with the other 40,000 people at the Paul McCartney concert in
Israel last month. I was very touched, that my friends who had gone
(the husband had bought his British wife tickets for their
anniversary), thought to call and include me in this historic concert.
The next day, I called to thank them and asked how it had been. “Couldn’t have been better,” he said. Then he provided the details. They had arrived around 3:00 p.m. because the gates were opening between four and five (the concert was starting at 8:00 and ran till 10:00). Because they had been early they were able to get up to the fence (McCartney was performing behind a fence apparently) but since there were upwards of 40,000 people at the concert standing squished into each other, they couldn’t get the food out of their backpacks and water was not allowed (probably same security issue as planes) now this is Israel in September so security guards were passing glasses of water to whomever they could reach.
Apparently even at 66 (till-120) Paul McCartney still appeals to the teenybopper crowd because my friend said there were a lot of teenagers, one of them standing next to him screaming in a way reminiscent of the 1960s. The thousands of baby boomers who were there were singing along to their old favorites.
Now I realize that Paul McCartney is a musical icon and that the concert was a once in a lifetime experience. But personally I would have found paying 1000 shekels (500 shekels a ticket) to stand for 8 hours in a crowd of tens of thousands of people packed like sardines pressed up against a fence unable to eat, drink or move a much less than pleasant experience. But they had not one word of complaint.
We are entering the month of Mar Cheshvan. Mar not in the deferential sense of Mr. But in the sense of bitter. It is so-called because it is the only month in the Jewish calendar that doesn’t have any holidays.
We are living in an age of unprecedented comforts, opportunities, luxuries and advantages. We’re not without our justified reasons to complain but we do complain even about our great abundance. We are often bitter about our lot even though our lot is a lot better than almost any previous generation in history even with all the troubles we endure. How many of us say, “Thank God, life couldn’t be better.”
My friends were oblivious to the discomforts at the concert because they felt privileged to be there. In the long and winding road of life we are privileged to experience many special moments and gifts from our Creator: Family, friends, recognition, prosperity, health, love but we get sidetracked because there’s always something wrong that also goes along with it. We have joys in some areas, and problems in others. Life isn’t perfect and we usually focus on what that is.
Cheshvan is the beginning of fall, my favorite season. Fall, despite its nostalgic hue holds the promise for me of new beginnings. The month of Cheshvan, like life, isn’t really so bitter and if we keep our focus center stage, on what really should be holding our focus and not get distracted, we’ll enjoy the show! Because if we have the right attitude, things really couldn’t be better.
Rosally
The next day, I called to thank them and asked how it had been. “Couldn’t have been better,” he said. Then he provided the details. They had arrived around 3:00 p.m. because the gates were opening between four and five (the concert was starting at 8:00 and ran till 10:00). Because they had been early they were able to get up to the fence (McCartney was performing behind a fence apparently) but since there were upwards of 40,000 people at the concert standing squished into each other, they couldn’t get the food out of their backpacks and water was not allowed (probably same security issue as planes) now this is Israel in September so security guards were passing glasses of water to whomever they could reach.
Apparently even at 66 (till-120) Paul McCartney still appeals to the teenybopper crowd because my friend said there were a lot of teenagers, one of them standing next to him screaming in a way reminiscent of the 1960s. The thousands of baby boomers who were there were singing along to their old favorites.
Now I realize that Paul McCartney is a musical icon and that the concert was a once in a lifetime experience. But personally I would have found paying 1000 shekels (500 shekels a ticket) to stand for 8 hours in a crowd of tens of thousands of people packed like sardines pressed up against a fence unable to eat, drink or move a much less than pleasant experience. But they had not one word of complaint.
We are entering the month of Mar Cheshvan. Mar not in the deferential sense of Mr. But in the sense of bitter. It is so-called because it is the only month in the Jewish calendar that doesn’t have any holidays.
We are living in an age of unprecedented comforts, opportunities, luxuries and advantages. We’re not without our justified reasons to complain but we do complain even about our great abundance. We are often bitter about our lot even though our lot is a lot better than almost any previous generation in history even with all the troubles we endure. How many of us say, “Thank God, life couldn’t be better.”
My friends were oblivious to the discomforts at the concert because they felt privileged to be there. In the long and winding road of life we are privileged to experience many special moments and gifts from our Creator: Family, friends, recognition, prosperity, health, love but we get sidetracked because there’s always something wrong that also goes along with it. We have joys in some areas, and problems in others. Life isn’t perfect and we usually focus on what that is.
Cheshvan is the beginning of fall, my favorite season. Fall, despite its nostalgic hue holds the promise for me of new beginnings. The month of Cheshvan, like life, isn’t really so bitter and if we keep our focus center stage, on what really should be holding our focus and not get distracted, we’ll enjoy the show! Because if we have the right attitude, things really couldn’t be better.
Rosally
Being Really Sorry
By
Rosally Saltsman
A few months ago, I was
teaching a class, when one of my students, whom I had addressed, in a
manner that was not to her taste, told me to shut up. The assistant
principal was outside so I entrusted her to his care. After the lesson,
she came and handed me what was supposed to be a note of apology.
Initially there was an apology immediately followed by an accusatory
justification in which she explained how I had brought this on myself.
Besides English, she obviously also needed to be taught how to write a
note of regret. I told her I would not accept this and left it for her
homeroom teacher to deal with.
The next morning, I had gotten around to taking a bowl I had received for Purim, which had been full of mishloach manot to the dish mikveh near my house. As I was relocking the door, I was splashed with dirty water from a bucket which the woman who was cleaning the synagogue was empyting into the trash beside me. I felt like Haman. But what was totally incredible was that even as she was apologizing and explaining how she empties the water into the trash every day and that no one ever comes to the mikveh this early (it was 9:00 a.m.), she continued to shower me with the contents of her bucket. And when I pointed this out to her she said, “So move,” and then “I’m sorry”.
Now what is probably clear to you, although it wasn’t to these people for some reason having to do with subjectively obscured vision, is that neither of these apologies was sincere. They were uttered in a spirit of noblesse oblige if that. The girl who had insulted me had done so before and would no doubt do so again, because she hadn’t internalized the message, or even believe it for that matter, that what she did was wrong. The cleaning lady continued doing what she was apologizing for, accompanied by an explanation that it was my fault for standing in that exact spot so early in the morning so she had every right to empty a bucket of dirty water on my head. If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed that her apology didn’t hold water for me.
While come Yom Kippur, we have to find it in our hearts to forgive these misguided people, we must learn the lesson that they apparently have not. When we ask forgiveness we must mean it and seek to redress our wrongs, intentional or not and seek to mollify the feelings of the people we have hurt. Even if we don’t believe what we did was necessarily wrong or even our fault, we can still genuinely and honestly regret the pain our words or actions have caused. To err is certainly human and surely forgivable. But our desire for forgiveness must be heartfelt for it to reach the heart of the other person.
On a hopeful note, when I read this to the student who had been rude to me, she appeared to get the message and seemed genuinely contrite.
I know this story isn't really the most positive way to start off the New Year. But when we start taking this repentance stuff seriously is when we can make some serious changes with heartfelt sincerity and that's the key to giving forgiveness and being forgiven. With enough patience and Heavenly assistance, we can reach the light of mutual understanding.
As an interesting footnote, on the eve of my sending this out, I was called upon to practice what I preach. A friend called me, apropos last month’s missive to inform me that she was finding it difficult to be at whole with our relationship because…she felt I had not been sincere in an apology I had made about an incident seven years previously. The truth was I hadn’t been because but in the interests of peace I had made the apology. “Get over it!” I said. But apparently, as I’ve just been saying, people only get over it when you apologize sincerely. So we went over the incident again, both of us trying to be sincerely remorseful and expressing the hope that we could put this behind us.
It’s much easier to apologize to God. He knows where we’re coming from, so He finds it easier to forgive us. But even God can’t forgive us for wrongs committed against other people until they themselves do. And people can be in pain a long time.
Let’s start the New Year by sincerely appeasing our friends of old wrongs we might have committed against them. Let’s try to be more sensitive to other people’s needs and try and be more understanding when they can’t be sensitive to ours and forgive them anyway. And let’s steer clear as much of possible of any relationships and any issues within them that might lead to conflict.
Let us have a happy and peaceful year!
Ktiva VeChatima Tovah!
Rosally
The next morning, I had gotten around to taking a bowl I had received for Purim, which had been full of mishloach manot to the dish mikveh near my house. As I was relocking the door, I was splashed with dirty water from a bucket which the woman who was cleaning the synagogue was empyting into the trash beside me. I felt like Haman. But what was totally incredible was that even as she was apologizing and explaining how she empties the water into the trash every day and that no one ever comes to the mikveh this early (it was 9:00 a.m.), she continued to shower me with the contents of her bucket. And when I pointed this out to her she said, “So move,” and then “I’m sorry”.
Now what is probably clear to you, although it wasn’t to these people for some reason having to do with subjectively obscured vision, is that neither of these apologies was sincere. They were uttered in a spirit of noblesse oblige if that. The girl who had insulted me had done so before and would no doubt do so again, because she hadn’t internalized the message, or even believe it for that matter, that what she did was wrong. The cleaning lady continued doing what she was apologizing for, accompanied by an explanation that it was my fault for standing in that exact spot so early in the morning so she had every right to empty a bucket of dirty water on my head. If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed that her apology didn’t hold water for me.
While come Yom Kippur, we have to find it in our hearts to forgive these misguided people, we must learn the lesson that they apparently have not. When we ask forgiveness we must mean it and seek to redress our wrongs, intentional or not and seek to mollify the feelings of the people we have hurt. Even if we don’t believe what we did was necessarily wrong or even our fault, we can still genuinely and honestly regret the pain our words or actions have caused. To err is certainly human and surely forgivable. But our desire for forgiveness must be heartfelt for it to reach the heart of the other person.
On a hopeful note, when I read this to the student who had been rude to me, she appeared to get the message and seemed genuinely contrite.
I know this story isn't really the most positive way to start off the New Year. But when we start taking this repentance stuff seriously is when we can make some serious changes with heartfelt sincerity and that's the key to giving forgiveness and being forgiven. With enough patience and Heavenly assistance, we can reach the light of mutual understanding.
As an interesting footnote, on the eve of my sending this out, I was called upon to practice what I preach. A friend called me, apropos last month’s missive to inform me that she was finding it difficult to be at whole with our relationship because…she felt I had not been sincere in an apology I had made about an incident seven years previously. The truth was I hadn’t been because but in the interests of peace I had made the apology. “Get over it!” I said. But apparently, as I’ve just been saying, people only get over it when you apologize sincerely. So we went over the incident again, both of us trying to be sincerely remorseful and expressing the hope that we could put this behind us.
It’s much easier to apologize to God. He knows where we’re coming from, so He finds it easier to forgive us. But even God can’t forgive us for wrongs committed against other people until they themselves do. And people can be in pain a long time.
Let’s start the New Year by sincerely appeasing our friends of old wrongs we might have committed against them. Let’s try to be more sensitive to other people’s needs and try and be more understanding when they can’t be sensitive to ours and forgive them anyway. And let’s steer clear as much of possible of any relationships and any issues within them that might lead to conflict.
Let us have a happy and peaceful year!
Ktiva VeChatima Tovah!
Rosally
Positing for Peace
By
Rosally Saltsman
I was driving back from a
celebration with friends and they were lamenting the fact that many of
their friends weren’t on good terms with one other. They are soon
making a bar mitzvah for their son, which they plan to hold at a hotel
to which they will be inviting their closest friends and family of
which I am grateful to be counted. The mother said that it’s like
having members of your family not talking to each other.
About twenty-five years ago, and for the better part of a decade, we were all part of a group of friends not unlike those in television sitcoms. We got together as a group and shared our plans our dreams and our free time. In time we married, had children and as we shared the milestones of our growing up we also grew apart as each of us faced our own challenges, grew, changed, moved away and got caught up in the triumphs and vicissitudes of life, many of which we shared with each other but many of which we couldn’t.
Now, about to celebrate a milestone in their own lives, they are faced with trying to get these disparate people together to share a Shabbat and sing in harmony the way we used to. The truth is though, we are all singing our own life songs in altogether different keys.
But since we begin the month of reckoning and forgiveness, of self-examination and rectification I would like to offer the opinion that all that has happened is not a bad thing and not all is lost.
First of all life is a process of growth which necessitates change and a parting of ways at its crossroads. The fact that we don’t all walk the same path anymore only illustrates that we have made different choices not rejected our former friends. Everyone has to forge their own path in life and that means giving up older ones. We have not rejected our old lives, only embraced other initiatives.
Many times we go through our own pains and problems and that makes us be insensitive to others.. It doesn’t even have anything to do with them. On a recent visit to some old friends up North, a friend told me that his daughter had been offended by me a few visits previously. Apparently she had come to hug me after not seeing me for a few years and I had shrunk back without being aware of it.. When he told me this, I had cried, not only because I had insulted her, when no insult had been intended, I was happy to see her and perhaps not ready for her effusive greeting, but because I had obviously become so skittish as a result of being hurt by others that I recoiled at a true show of affection. I didn’t mean to hurt her but it was an unconscious defense mechanism. While I mourn the loss of my ingenuousness, it had absolutely nothing at all to do with my desire for closeness with her.
When others hurt us, it is usually a manifestation of their own pain. People are generally not malicious, they are vulnerable and most insensitivity comes out of their own vulnerability and our misunderstanding of it. Do you really think your friends want to hurt you? Of course not. A moment of insensitivity is usually the result of a moment of inattentiveness. What cements the rift however, is the person then not taking pains to alleviate the hurt. Sometimes this is because they don’t realize it because the person hasn’t told them and often when they finally do, too much time has elapsed to allow the person to extricate themselves graciously from the gaff.
Another thing is that people generally want to be good. When we are different from them, often their only way of acknowledging their basic goodness is to attack our version of what is right to justify their behavior and beliefs. All fights and arguments about existential truth is the result of our wanting to do what’s right and having others’ beliefs and opinions threaten that. Many of us are not good at live and let live. I happen to be one of those people. In our fight for the right, some of our friends become casualties. We must always be careful to differentiate between the other person who is our brother or sister and their value system which we don’t accept. We can be true to ourselves while disagreeing with others. Also, many times our concern with the way others live their lives and truths is true concern. We don’t want others to agree with us out of a selfish desire to control them but because we really truly want what’s best for them. Think of your parents.
A couple of months ago I reconnected with an old friend. I had been hurt when she had chosen to stop being in touch but by her own admission this wasn’t deliberate, it just happened because she was involved with her own life, and I was admittedly with mine. Now that we have reconnected we are closer than ever and moreover what we have experienced separately over the years is enriching the relationship and making our contribution to each other’s lives that much more valuable. Some relationships require us to detour away from one another only to help guide each other on our paths once we have returned. We don’t ultimately part from one other until we have left the confines of this world. Relationships don’t actually end they become redefined.
I don’t believe that any act of reconciliation is going to make us best of friends when we reconnoiter at our friend’s bar mitzvah. I do believe with a hundred percent certainty that we are going to be civil to one another and friendly even and draw on our once mutual affection to get along at least for the sake of our friends. I further believe without a doubt that we will be sharing something more important than mutual history or memories. We will be sharing the unmitigated joy of our friends’ simcha and naches and we will all be under the umbrella of the love that they extended to us in inviting us to celebrate with them. Whatever storms may have raged between us, we will be sheltered from them for one weekend. And we will serve as each other’s umbrellas.
In this month of introspection and retrospection, let us be grateful for the people who have shared our pasts even if they are not the most salient part of our present. I have reason to be grateful to everyone of those aforementioned if erstwhile friends because each one has shared with me a joyous time, a momentous occasion and supported me in a difficult one in ways that only your close friends can.
In this journey that we take we are each other’s companions, guides and guards and when we part ways we can do so even in the most inconstant of circumstances with a wish for peace and that when our paths cross again, we acknowledge each other with a warm smile of recognition and humility not one of loss and bitterness. The road is both too short and too long to carry a grudge along with us.
As always, I hope that those with whose lives I’ve intersected this past year will forgive me any unintentional (or in a moment of weakness intentional) slight or indiscretion; That we will all be blessed with the best in the coming year and that as we ready ourselves spiritually emotionally and physically for the days of judgment, awe and hope, that we are blessed with peace among the nations, within ourselves and most, most importantly with one another.
This article also features in The Jewish Press.
All the best,
Rosally
For example, 27 years ago Dany got his driver’s license. This was two years before I even met him. A friend of his, in a moment of great generosity, or absence of mind, allowed him to drive his car, on the highway. The car was brand new, fresh of the lot, plastic still on the seats. You can imagine his friend’s nervousness brought on by his act of impulsive altruism.
Dany was understandably demonstrating the hesitancy of a new driver (on the highway driving his best friend’s new car). He overtook a car but in his tentativeness, he was not doing it very fast.
“Accelerate! Accelerate!” his friend shouted! So he did.
A few minutes later, he saw his friends on their way to the Wingate Institute where he learned waving to him as they passed. So spurred on by being left behind and wanting to please his friend, he accelerated.
“Don’t accelerate!” Yelled his friend.
This anecdote evolved into a running joke whenever Dany saw this friend. Since this friend introduced Dany and I, it later became a running joke between us. When Dany, my son and I drove up to Mt. Hermon a couple of years ago, Dany was shouting “Accelerate” the whole way while my son laughed. Believe me, you don’t want to accelerate driving up the steep and winding road to the Hermon.
Dany has recently gone back to school to retrain as an English teacher. I was helping him study and he noticed an English book on my balcony which I had bought for my son, Josh, for his upcoming English matriculation. The title of the book was “Accelerate”. And of course Dany enjoyed that tremendously.
My had his matriculation exam.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said.
“What did you write your composition about?”
“We had to write a description about a problem we had and how we overcame it. So I wrote about how I was driving and a friend of mine wanted me to accelerate.”
“You’re kidding.” I said.
He wasn’t kidding. What’s more noteworthy is that my son hadn’t yet started taking driving lessons. But after hearing the reference a thousand or more times, that’s what he chose to write about.
Now imagine, a word uttered spontaneously 27 years ago, ten years before my son was even born by a person he’s only heard about determined what he would write his final exam composition on a generation later. Not an extremely important life-altering event (though English grades are pretty important in Israel) but significant nonetheless. Think of the ramifications.
All day long we say things we hardly give any thought to and many of them, especially those said in the heat of emotion, will have a ripple effect down the years, the decades, even the generations in a way we can’t begin to fathom. Words are life transforming. Think of some things that can change your life by their utterance: I love you; Will you marry me?; You’re fired; You’re my best friend; I’m sorry. Words are the tool by which our lives intersect in meaningful ways.
As the above incident demonstrates, we have to watch what we say because our words leave a lasting impression and make a permanent impact. And that’s no joke.
In case you’re wondering how my son solved his imaginary dilemma, he decided to stop the car, get out and tell his friends that he was going to drive the way he wanted to. Well, I’m certainly glad he internalized something about road safety.
“Coincidentally” a few days later, we drove up North for some R&R and to visit Dany and his family. Dany gave Josh his first driving lesson. He did very well, thank God. As they were finishing and leaving the lot where they had been practicing, who should drive by? The car-lending friend in the above story who “happens” to live in the same town.
What goes around, comes around and drives around, I guess.
We have to be completely cognizant of the power and impact of our words and make sure that we steer them in the right direction.
May we all watch carefully where we’re going and what we’re saying. And be safe!
All the best,
Rosally
About twenty-five years ago, and for the better part of a decade, we were all part of a group of friends not unlike those in television sitcoms. We got together as a group and shared our plans our dreams and our free time. In time we married, had children and as we shared the milestones of our growing up we also grew apart as each of us faced our own challenges, grew, changed, moved away and got caught up in the triumphs and vicissitudes of life, many of which we shared with each other but many of which we couldn’t.
Now, about to celebrate a milestone in their own lives, they are faced with trying to get these disparate people together to share a Shabbat and sing in harmony the way we used to. The truth is though, we are all singing our own life songs in altogether different keys.
But since we begin the month of reckoning and forgiveness, of self-examination and rectification I would like to offer the opinion that all that has happened is not a bad thing and not all is lost.
First of all life is a process of growth which necessitates change and a parting of ways at its crossroads. The fact that we don’t all walk the same path anymore only illustrates that we have made different choices not rejected our former friends. Everyone has to forge their own path in life and that means giving up older ones. We have not rejected our old lives, only embraced other initiatives.
Many times we go through our own pains and problems and that makes us be insensitive to others.. It doesn’t even have anything to do with them. On a recent visit to some old friends up North, a friend told me that his daughter had been offended by me a few visits previously. Apparently she had come to hug me after not seeing me for a few years and I had shrunk back without being aware of it.. When he told me this, I had cried, not only because I had insulted her, when no insult had been intended, I was happy to see her and perhaps not ready for her effusive greeting, but because I had obviously become so skittish as a result of being hurt by others that I recoiled at a true show of affection. I didn’t mean to hurt her but it was an unconscious defense mechanism. While I mourn the loss of my ingenuousness, it had absolutely nothing at all to do with my desire for closeness with her.
When others hurt us, it is usually a manifestation of their own pain. People are generally not malicious, they are vulnerable and most insensitivity comes out of their own vulnerability and our misunderstanding of it. Do you really think your friends want to hurt you? Of course not. A moment of insensitivity is usually the result of a moment of inattentiveness. What cements the rift however, is the person then not taking pains to alleviate the hurt. Sometimes this is because they don’t realize it because the person hasn’t told them and often when they finally do, too much time has elapsed to allow the person to extricate themselves graciously from the gaff.
Another thing is that people generally want to be good. When we are different from them, often their only way of acknowledging their basic goodness is to attack our version of what is right to justify their behavior and beliefs. All fights and arguments about existential truth is the result of our wanting to do what’s right and having others’ beliefs and opinions threaten that. Many of us are not good at live and let live. I happen to be one of those people. In our fight for the right, some of our friends become casualties. We must always be careful to differentiate between the other person who is our brother or sister and their value system which we don’t accept. We can be true to ourselves while disagreeing with others. Also, many times our concern with the way others live their lives and truths is true concern. We don’t want others to agree with us out of a selfish desire to control them but because we really truly want what’s best for them. Think of your parents.
A couple of months ago I reconnected with an old friend. I had been hurt when she had chosen to stop being in touch but by her own admission this wasn’t deliberate, it just happened because she was involved with her own life, and I was admittedly with mine. Now that we have reconnected we are closer than ever and moreover what we have experienced separately over the years is enriching the relationship and making our contribution to each other’s lives that much more valuable. Some relationships require us to detour away from one another only to help guide each other on our paths once we have returned. We don’t ultimately part from one other until we have left the confines of this world. Relationships don’t actually end they become redefined.
I don’t believe that any act of reconciliation is going to make us best of friends when we reconnoiter at our friend’s bar mitzvah. I do believe with a hundred percent certainty that we are going to be civil to one another and friendly even and draw on our once mutual affection to get along at least for the sake of our friends. I further believe without a doubt that we will be sharing something more important than mutual history or memories. We will be sharing the unmitigated joy of our friends’ simcha and naches and we will all be under the umbrella of the love that they extended to us in inviting us to celebrate with them. Whatever storms may have raged between us, we will be sheltered from them for one weekend. And we will serve as each other’s umbrellas.
In this month of introspection and retrospection, let us be grateful for the people who have shared our pasts even if they are not the most salient part of our present. I have reason to be grateful to everyone of those aforementioned if erstwhile friends because each one has shared with me a joyous time, a momentous occasion and supported me in a difficult one in ways that only your close friends can.
In this journey that we take we are each other’s companions, guides and guards and when we part ways we can do so even in the most inconstant of circumstances with a wish for peace and that when our paths cross again, we acknowledge each other with a warm smile of recognition and humility not one of loss and bitterness. The road is both too short and too long to carry a grudge along with us.
As always, I hope that those with whose lives I’ve intersected this past year will forgive me any unintentional (or in a moment of weakness intentional) slight or indiscretion; That we will all be blessed with the best in the coming year and that as we ready ourselves spiritually emotionally and physically for the days of judgment, awe and hope, that we are blessed with peace among the nations, within ourselves and most, most importantly with one another.
This article also features in The Jewish Press.
All the best,
Rosally
Acceleration and Impact
By
Rosally Saltsman
I have a friend, Dany, who
has the quirk of latching on to words and phrases uttered by his
friends and repeating them ad infinitum forever. These don’t have
to phrases of great import or consequence but through continuous
repetition they become so.For example, 27 years ago Dany got his driver’s license. This was two years before I even met him. A friend of his, in a moment of great generosity, or absence of mind, allowed him to drive his car, on the highway. The car was brand new, fresh of the lot, plastic still on the seats. You can imagine his friend’s nervousness brought on by his act of impulsive altruism.
Dany was understandably demonstrating the hesitancy of a new driver (on the highway driving his best friend’s new car). He overtook a car but in his tentativeness, he was not doing it very fast.
“Accelerate! Accelerate!” his friend shouted! So he did.
A few minutes later, he saw his friends on their way to the Wingate Institute where he learned waving to him as they passed. So spurred on by being left behind and wanting to please his friend, he accelerated.
“Don’t accelerate!” Yelled his friend.
This anecdote evolved into a running joke whenever Dany saw this friend. Since this friend introduced Dany and I, it later became a running joke between us. When Dany, my son and I drove up to Mt. Hermon a couple of years ago, Dany was shouting “Accelerate” the whole way while my son laughed. Believe me, you don’t want to accelerate driving up the steep and winding road to the Hermon.
Dany has recently gone back to school to retrain as an English teacher. I was helping him study and he noticed an English book on my balcony which I had bought for my son, Josh, for his upcoming English matriculation. The title of the book was “Accelerate”. And of course Dany enjoyed that tremendously.
My had his matriculation exam.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said.
“What did you write your composition about?”
“We had to write a description about a problem we had and how we overcame it. So I wrote about how I was driving and a friend of mine wanted me to accelerate.”
“You’re kidding.” I said.
He wasn’t kidding. What’s more noteworthy is that my son hadn’t yet started taking driving lessons. But after hearing the reference a thousand or more times, that’s what he chose to write about.
Now imagine, a word uttered spontaneously 27 years ago, ten years before my son was even born by a person he’s only heard about determined what he would write his final exam composition on a generation later. Not an extremely important life-altering event (though English grades are pretty important in Israel) but significant nonetheless. Think of the ramifications.
All day long we say things we hardly give any thought to and many of them, especially those said in the heat of emotion, will have a ripple effect down the years, the decades, even the generations in a way we can’t begin to fathom. Words are life transforming. Think of some things that can change your life by their utterance: I love you; Will you marry me?; You’re fired; You’re my best friend; I’m sorry. Words are the tool by which our lives intersect in meaningful ways.
As the above incident demonstrates, we have to watch what we say because our words leave a lasting impression and make a permanent impact. And that’s no joke.
In case you’re wondering how my son solved his imaginary dilemma, he decided to stop the car, get out and tell his friends that he was going to drive the way he wanted to. Well, I’m certainly glad he internalized something about road safety.
“Coincidentally” a few days later, we drove up North for some R&R and to visit Dany and his family. Dany gave Josh his first driving lesson. He did very well, thank God. As they were finishing and leaving the lot where they had been practicing, who should drive by? The car-lending friend in the above story who “happens” to live in the same town.
What goes around, comes around and drives around, I guess.
We have to be completely cognizant of the power and impact of our words and make sure that we steer them in the right direction.
May we all watch carefully where we’re going and what we’re saying. And be safe!
All the best,
Rosally
Chocolate Centers
By
Rosally Saltsman
There is a chocolate importer
near my current place of work. I began frequenting the establishment.
The box of chocolate I brought home for Shabbat was a big hit. We left
a symbolic two or three pieces for Shabbat but ate the rest in short
order. There weren’t really that many to begin with. But they
were good.
The next week we were going away for Shabbat, so I went into the store and bought four boxes – one for home, two to give our hosts and one for the office. While I was there I mentioned where I worked and the cashier gave me two chocolates: One for the secretary (who also comes in to buy chocolate) and one for me.
I brought the secretary her chocolate, ate mine and gave the box to my boss. He put out the chocolates and they were gone in five seconds give or take a nanosecond. I myself only had one or two.
The chocolate fest continued as one of the women brought in her chocolate and gave me a piece. As I was passing another woman’s office she offered me some chocolate she had bought at the duty free. I thanked her but at this point, I couldn’t eat any more chocolate.
Now, many people hearing this story would say that the law of attraction was at work here. No doubt it was. Having chocolate brought more chocolate in its wake. Which attracted even more. But there was another rule at work here. The Golden Rule. The rule that says, give and give and give some more. Cast your chocolate upon the waters and it shall return to you in an assortment.
We’re all very obsessed lately with attracting wealth and abundance. And that’s nice. But the best way to feel abundant is to share. Our generosity will no doubt return to us. That shouldn’t be our primary reason for giving but whether we give altruistically or with an agenda the law works either way. This is God’s law. We are meant to give, just like He gives to us in abundance.
A few days later, I went to see a friend who I hadn’t seen in almost a decade and a half. We talked, we reminisced, we caught up. I gave her the representative fruits of my creative labor, a book, and she gave me the representative fruits of hers, a disc. We gave the best of what we do to each other and we received the best of what the other had to give. But really, our best was our giving.
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler said the world is divided into givers and takers. This begs the question, How can you have givers without takers? Givers receive but they don’t take. Receiving can be a form of giving when it allows the other person to act in a Godly way and give you their special gifts whether they come from the mind, the heart, the soul or the chocolate shop.
Have a good month!
Rosally
The next week we were going away for Shabbat, so I went into the store and bought four boxes – one for home, two to give our hosts and one for the office. While I was there I mentioned where I worked and the cashier gave me two chocolates: One for the secretary (who also comes in to buy chocolate) and one for me.
I brought the secretary her chocolate, ate mine and gave the box to my boss. He put out the chocolates and they were gone in five seconds give or take a nanosecond. I myself only had one or two.
The chocolate fest continued as one of the women brought in her chocolate and gave me a piece. As I was passing another woman’s office she offered me some chocolate she had bought at the duty free. I thanked her but at this point, I couldn’t eat any more chocolate.
Now, many people hearing this story would say that the law of attraction was at work here. No doubt it was. Having chocolate brought more chocolate in its wake. Which attracted even more. But there was another rule at work here. The Golden Rule. The rule that says, give and give and give some more. Cast your chocolate upon the waters and it shall return to you in an assortment.
We’re all very obsessed lately with attracting wealth and abundance. And that’s nice. But the best way to feel abundant is to share. Our generosity will no doubt return to us. That shouldn’t be our primary reason for giving but whether we give altruistically or with an agenda the law works either way. This is God’s law. We are meant to give, just like He gives to us in abundance.
A few days later, I went to see a friend who I hadn’t seen in almost a decade and a half. We talked, we reminisced, we caught up. I gave her the representative fruits of my creative labor, a book, and she gave me the representative fruits of hers, a disc. We gave the best of what we do to each other and we received the best of what the other had to give. But really, our best was our giving.
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler said the world is divided into givers and takers. This begs the question, How can you have givers without takers? Givers receive but they don’t take. Receiving can be a form of giving when it allows the other person to act in a Godly way and give you their special gifts whether they come from the mind, the heart, the soul or the chocolate shop.
Have a good month!
Rosally
Tale of a Hamster
By
Rosally Saltsman
A couple of years ago, my son
decided that he would like some hamsters. We had had hamsters before
and chinchillas and a rabbit and mice (not all at the same time) and we
could be described as rodent-friendly. Our previous furry friends had
been passed along or passed away and seeing as we both love animals,
and hamsters are low maintenance pets, we got two female Siberian ones
plus paraphernalia and headed home. My son named them Cassie and Lily
and we all settled in to live together in inter-species harmony.
After a year and a bit, Lily died. I buried her near a rose bush and Cassie continued alone. But over the last few months we had been feeling she was not as happy as she could be. She was alone, neither my son nor I had the time to give her attention and since she had began biting a lot, we had less inclination. So we decided we’d find her a more hamster-interactive home. I told all my friends that I was interested in giving her to their children but there were no takers. I advertised on a list and some guy said he would come take her for a petting zoo but he didn’t show up. To make a long story short, my boss at work asked a friend of his who had a day care center if he’d be interested. He was waiting for me when I go home that day and took her to what I felt relieved and sure was a good home.
As we were waiting for the elevator, and Cassie and I were saying our goodbyes, my across the hall neighbor got out of the elevator. She asked what we were doing and I told her I was giving away our hamster. And she said, “Why didn’t you tell me you were giving her away? My kids would have loved to have her!” I told her next time though I’m pretty sure that the hamster saga is over in our home at least until my son has his own kids God willing. (The kids, not the hamsters).
The moral of this story, once you clear away the wood shavings, is that everything has its intended recipient. Cassie stayed with us as long as she was meant to then she went to my boss’s friend. She wasn’t meant to go to the neighbor or to the guy with the burgeoning petting zoo or to any of my other friends.
Everything we have or receive in our lives has our address as its destination. Things and people end up with us from far away, from close by, from across continents and across the hall when and why they’re supposed to. We don’t always understand it, yet it is all divinely decreed. Everything has a purpose and a place under Heaven.
And as everything from the world to the worm to the hamster wheels turns, we have to have faith that what comes to us is supposed to and what doesn’t isn’t. We just have to know to recognize and appreciate what’s meant for us and welcome it with open arms. Even if it bites.
After a year and a bit, Lily died. I buried her near a rose bush and Cassie continued alone. But over the last few months we had been feeling she was not as happy as she could be. She was alone, neither my son nor I had the time to give her attention and since she had began biting a lot, we had less inclination. So we decided we’d find her a more hamster-interactive home. I told all my friends that I was interested in giving her to their children but there were no takers. I advertised on a list and some guy said he would come take her for a petting zoo but he didn’t show up. To make a long story short, my boss at work asked a friend of his who had a day care center if he’d be interested. He was waiting for me when I go home that day and took her to what I felt relieved and sure was a good home.
As we were waiting for the elevator, and Cassie and I were saying our goodbyes, my across the hall neighbor got out of the elevator. She asked what we were doing and I told her I was giving away our hamster. And she said, “Why didn’t you tell me you were giving her away? My kids would have loved to have her!” I told her next time though I’m pretty sure that the hamster saga is over in our home at least until my son has his own kids God willing. (The kids, not the hamsters).
The moral of this story, once you clear away the wood shavings, is that everything has its intended recipient. Cassie stayed with us as long as she was meant to then she went to my boss’s friend. She wasn’t meant to go to the neighbor or to the guy with the burgeoning petting zoo or to any of my other friends.
Everything we have or receive in our lives has our address as its destination. Things and people end up with us from far away, from close by, from across continents and across the hall when and why they’re supposed to. We don’t always understand it, yet it is all divinely decreed. Everything has a purpose and a place under Heaven.
And as everything from the world to the worm to the hamster wheels turns, we have to have faith that what comes to us is supposed to and what doesn’t isn’t. We just have to know to recognize and appreciate what’s meant for us and welcome it with open arms. Even if it bites.
A Moment of Reflection
By
Rosally Saltsman
The jury on the
nature/nurture debate is still out. However, I would like to reflect on
one attribute of nurture - reflection. The same way we get an idea of
how we look by the image that is reflected to us by our mirrors, we get
more potent feedback from the reflections we get from other people.
However, unlike our mirrors, they are far more subjective and
unfortunately more critical. We build our self-concept and self-esteem
on those reflections, from the first smile our mother gives us to the
entourage of friends and associates we surround ourselves with.
You know the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. I’d like to add another option – and the strength to walk away. To walk away from people who are destructive, unhelpful, judgmental or critical. I’m not recommending walking away from significant relationships: difficult spouses, parents or children God forbid. However, in any distressing situation we can choose to be accepting, galvanizing or simply walk away, taking the road to serenity.
Although we couldn’t choose the people who shaped our self-image as children, why do we continue to choose or accept the company of people who do anything but give us positive feedback, nurturing, encouragement for growth and make us feel good about ourselves? As adults, we have the capacity, most of the time, to be in the presence of people who can make us feel wonderful about ourselves, appreciate our strengths and reduce our weaknesses by minimizing them. Many times, our sense of security is diminished or augmented by what other people say about our skills and talents. So why not spend time with the friends who embrace us, not condemn us, the employers who appreciate our contribution not make us feel lucky to be working for them and the family members who make us feel like family? That goes for choosing everyone we interact with on a daily basis: Shopkeepers, waiters, bank clerks, handymen, postal clerks. In every place that we conduct business or have social interactions, we can choose those people whose interactions we value and augment our sense of well-being.
There are over six billion people in the world and we have access to more of them than ever before. We can choose those people who smile when they see us not grimace and grunt. We can keep the friends who have proven their stalwartness and stop hanging out with people who drain our energies with criticism, gossip or other negative behaviors. We can put ourselves at arms-length of people who help us tap the vast potential and endless resources we have all been divinely given.
Of course, relationships shouldn’t be selfish. We should have compassion and demonstrate altruism and find ways to benefit others. But even that should be giving us a good feeling.
After a few interactions this month in which I keenly felt the power of reflection, both positive and negative, I’d suggest that we start noticing how we feel after our interactions with the people in our circles and how we contribute to the results of those interactions. Where we can improve a relationship, we should make the effort to do so but we should also be more discerning about which relationships we choose to nurture based on which relationships nurture us. It’s a loving cycle. Like growing things, that we are, we need to bend towards the light if we are to achieve our maximum potential for flourishing.
I know this is the Omer and it’s the time for seeing the good in each other and loving one another. But we’ll love each other more if we hang around people who affect us most spiritually.
Have a good month!
Rosally
You know the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. I’d like to add another option – and the strength to walk away. To walk away from people who are destructive, unhelpful, judgmental or critical. I’m not recommending walking away from significant relationships: difficult spouses, parents or children God forbid. However, in any distressing situation we can choose to be accepting, galvanizing or simply walk away, taking the road to serenity.
Although we couldn’t choose the people who shaped our self-image as children, why do we continue to choose or accept the company of people who do anything but give us positive feedback, nurturing, encouragement for growth and make us feel good about ourselves? As adults, we have the capacity, most of the time, to be in the presence of people who can make us feel wonderful about ourselves, appreciate our strengths and reduce our weaknesses by minimizing them. Many times, our sense of security is diminished or augmented by what other people say about our skills and talents. So why not spend time with the friends who embrace us, not condemn us, the employers who appreciate our contribution not make us feel lucky to be working for them and the family members who make us feel like family? That goes for choosing everyone we interact with on a daily basis: Shopkeepers, waiters, bank clerks, handymen, postal clerks. In every place that we conduct business or have social interactions, we can choose those people whose interactions we value and augment our sense of well-being.
There are over six billion people in the world and we have access to more of them than ever before. We can choose those people who smile when they see us not grimace and grunt. We can keep the friends who have proven their stalwartness and stop hanging out with people who drain our energies with criticism, gossip or other negative behaviors. We can put ourselves at arms-length of people who help us tap the vast potential and endless resources we have all been divinely given.
Of course, relationships shouldn’t be selfish. We should have compassion and demonstrate altruism and find ways to benefit others. But even that should be giving us a good feeling.
After a few interactions this month in which I keenly felt the power of reflection, both positive and negative, I’d suggest that we start noticing how we feel after our interactions with the people in our circles and how we contribute to the results of those interactions. Where we can improve a relationship, we should make the effort to do so but we should also be more discerning about which relationships we choose to nurture based on which relationships nurture us. It’s a loving cycle. Like growing things, that we are, we need to bend towards the light if we are to achieve our maximum potential for flourishing.
I know this is the Omer and it’s the time for seeing the good in each other and loving one another. But we’ll love each other more if we hang around people who affect us most spiritually.
Have a good month!
Rosally
Senses and Sensibility
By
Rosally Saltsman
The coating on my glasses had
peeled off, blurring my vision. As I had a guarantee on the veneer, I
took it to the store to have them redo it. In the meantime, I put on a
pair of glasses from a previous prescription. They were just a bit
weaker. And something amazing happened. I suddenly felt calmer.
Everything seemed less immediate, less urgent. And you know what else,
I didn’t need the multi-focal lens I had for reading. My reading
wasn’t blurred anymore.
My son, who also wanted new glasses had a new prescription filled. But when he put on the glasses, he complained they were too strong and gave him a headache. He said he wanted to try and get them to change them to his previous prescription. The next day though, he told me he would try to get used to them. He did and says he sees much sharper. Now, he needs to get new contact lenses.
The next day, I went to a simcha. The music was blaring at such a high volume I’m certain that it caused a tsunami in some part of the world. We asked them to tone it down, I put paper in my ears but it still was unendurably loud.
What is it about today’s society that requires that we see things the sharpest, hear things the loudest and have the most highly defined sensual experiences? We overcorrect our vision, amplify our music to unheard of decibels, there must be hundreds of types of perfumes on the markets. It’s like we can’t get enough sensory stimulation while we’re already suffering the consequences of overload. Then we get used to the overload and require even more heightened experiences for our senses, which get increasingly dulled.
What happened to appreciation of the muted pastels of Impressionism; the pleasure of birds and crickets chirping? We are awash in a sea of sensory stimuli that is wearing out our nerve endings and making us both demanding and frazzled. It is the result of living in a world hungry for perfection and never satiated looking for higher, deeper, sharper, better, ironically dulling our senses.
And it isn’t necessary. The eye test you have to pass to get a driver’s license or join the army, is much less than 20/20 vision. The physical acuity that you need to survive is much lower than what the average person aims for.
This goes for thrills of a lifetime too. They’re building faster, higher and more dangerous rollercoasters because we’ve already become inured to the thrills and chills of the previous ones. I personally hate roller coasters and don’t put one nerving ending on them.
There’s a point at which we have to stop striving to be super-human or experience super fidelity and super thrills before we lose our ability to perceive subtlety. Maybe this need to tone things down is a function of age. But with age also comes wisdom and maybe it’s wise to take the edge off. We don’t have to see, hear and thrill to everything. We’d probably be happier with a little more subtlety and sensory ignorance. A bit of haze and quiet.
When I got my glasses back, I was able better to appreciate the experience of seeing with greater clarity because I had learned to be comfortable with less than perfection.
To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask not what intensity life can give to you, ask how you can intensify life for others. If we stop demanding the height of sensory experience from the world and start giving the best of ourselves back, both we and the world will reach amazing heights.
Author’s disclaimer: This is not an endorsement for not wearing appropriate corrective lenses or hearing aids when required or taking your kids to amusement parks.
Pessach Kasher veSameach!
Rosally
My son, who also wanted new glasses had a new prescription filled. But when he put on the glasses, he complained they were too strong and gave him a headache. He said he wanted to try and get them to change them to his previous prescription. The next day though, he told me he would try to get used to them. He did and says he sees much sharper. Now, he needs to get new contact lenses.
The next day, I went to a simcha. The music was blaring at such a high volume I’m certain that it caused a tsunami in some part of the world. We asked them to tone it down, I put paper in my ears but it still was unendurably loud.
What is it about today’s society that requires that we see things the sharpest, hear things the loudest and have the most highly defined sensual experiences? We overcorrect our vision, amplify our music to unheard of decibels, there must be hundreds of types of perfumes on the markets. It’s like we can’t get enough sensory stimulation while we’re already suffering the consequences of overload. Then we get used to the overload and require even more heightened experiences for our senses, which get increasingly dulled.
What happened to appreciation of the muted pastels of Impressionism; the pleasure of birds and crickets chirping? We are awash in a sea of sensory stimuli that is wearing out our nerve endings and making us both demanding and frazzled. It is the result of living in a world hungry for perfection and never satiated looking for higher, deeper, sharper, better, ironically dulling our senses.
And it isn’t necessary. The eye test you have to pass to get a driver’s license or join the army, is much less than 20/20 vision. The physical acuity that you need to survive is much lower than what the average person aims for.
This goes for thrills of a lifetime too. They’re building faster, higher and more dangerous rollercoasters because we’ve already become inured to the thrills and chills of the previous ones. I personally hate roller coasters and don’t put one nerving ending on them.
There’s a point at which we have to stop striving to be super-human or experience super fidelity and super thrills before we lose our ability to perceive subtlety. Maybe this need to tone things down is a function of age. But with age also comes wisdom and maybe it’s wise to take the edge off. We don’t have to see, hear and thrill to everything. We’d probably be happier with a little more subtlety and sensory ignorance. A bit of haze and quiet.
When I got my glasses back, I was able better to appreciate the experience of seeing with greater clarity because I had learned to be comfortable with less than perfection.
To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask not what intensity life can give to you, ask how you can intensify life for others. If we stop demanding the height of sensory experience from the world and start giving the best of ourselves back, both we and the world will reach amazing heights.
Author’s disclaimer: This is not an endorsement for not wearing appropriate corrective lenses or hearing aids when required or taking your kids to amusement parks.
Pessach Kasher veSameach!
Rosally
Woman of La Mancha
By
Rosally Saltsman
It doesn’t matter how long the journey as long as you’re following the right road.
It doesn’t matter how long the road as long as you’re going in the right direction.
I have always had Quixotic tendencies – hopelessly romantic, insanely idealistic, I can’t tell you how many lances I’ve broken between windmill slats.
Don Quixote is one of my favorite people. Though I never finished reading Cervantes’ book, I perused the pages appropriately enough in a castle common room.
Many, many years ago, I remember seeing a man at a bus stop who caught my attention so utterly that I stared at him for some time. He was a religious man but instead of being dressed in a black suit, he had a suit of steel blue. He had a luminescent face and white-yellow hair, long white beard and piercing blue eyes. He was tall and thin and looked somewhat Quixotic. I remember he had a nobility of bearing, he seemed to exude spirituality and he gave me the feeling of wanting to be closer to God. I saw him a couple of times but I never spoke to him. But decades later, I still remember him clearly and that feeling he gave me.
Cervantes was right. We are here to change the world and to strive to do this no matter the obstacles, to fight for the right, love pure and chaste and see the good in people. We are all meant to change the world and all capable of doing so. We can do so by dramatic actions, by stirring words, with our positive thoughts, with our feelings and sometimes just by our presence. Often, that alone is the inspiration someone needs.
We can’t know how much we have succeeded in our quest until the last page of our life history. But we must always pursue our idealistic dreams no matter how unreachable they seem and remember that our destiny calls and the windmills are waiting.
Rosally
Newton and Divine Providence
By
Rosally Saltsman
My son is taking physics this
year. Physics defines the laws of the universe, their immutability and
their universality. But are they really immutable and universal?
For example, it is almost inevitable that when I board a bus, no matter how crowded it is, if I wend my way to the back of the bus there will be a seat waiting for me. It may even be surrounded by several standing people as if they know intuitively that that seat is divinely destined for me.
Each of us probably knows at least one woman who can consume 1000 calories of chocolate in one sitting and not gain an ounce. This defies metabolic mandate but it exists.
There are people who despite great intelligence and talent have trouble finding fulfilling work, while there are others who with average intelligence and mediocre talent who are doing extremely well.
There are people who have more than once won raffles, lotteries drawings, and those who never do.
Golda Meir died of lung cancer after chain-smoking most of her life… at 80!
Euell Gibbons, an American health enthusiast who wrote “Stalking the Wild Asparagus", "Stalking the Healthful Herbs” and was spokesman for a health cereal died at age 64!
This is what in Yiddish (via Hebrew) is called Mazel. But it isn’t really luck as much as a testimony to the fact that God runs the universe and not laws or statistics. Each person has his own personalized set of universal laws which apply only to him.
Of course mazel can change. The great wheel of life turns at every performance of Carmina Burana and l’havdil, every year God weighs the scales of our merit to determine our destiny. We can also change the course of our lives through physical, emotional and particularly spiritual endeavor. Our lives are not carved in stone; they are molded in clay. However, the same way we are born with certain talents and predispositions, with certain inclinations and characteristics, we are each equipped with a small internal radar device that scrambles the signals of the laws of the universe and alters to them to make them unique to us.
This is very good news. It means that we all have our own channel to the abundance of the universe, our own personal pipe to plenty. The events of our lives are not predicated upon odds or statistics on “natural” laws or even what you do or don’t do. It is bestowed upon us as a status quo. But you know what? Your mazel can also change because it is subject to God’s will which when all is said and done is what runs the universe.
So lets look into ourselves and ask, “What always works for me no matter what?” And rejoice and learn to tap the potential in that realization! Then we can ask ourselves, “What never works for me no matter what?” And then accept the fact but not the blame; Learn not to be disappointed, just prepared; Try a bit harder but know the results aren’t in our hands. Then we can utter a prayer that things will improve, because, with all due respect to Einstein, there is no such thing as a constant. May we all have Mazal Tov!
Have a good month!
Rosally
For example, it is almost inevitable that when I board a bus, no matter how crowded it is, if I wend my way to the back of the bus there will be a seat waiting for me. It may even be surrounded by several standing people as if they know intuitively that that seat is divinely destined for me.
Each of us probably knows at least one woman who can consume 1000 calories of chocolate in one sitting and not gain an ounce. This defies metabolic mandate but it exists.
There are people who despite great intelligence and talent have trouble finding fulfilling work, while there are others who with average intelligence and mediocre talent who are doing extremely well.
There are people who have more than once won raffles, lotteries drawings, and those who never do.
Golda Meir died of lung cancer after chain-smoking most of her life… at 80!
Euell Gibbons, an American health enthusiast who wrote “Stalking the Wild Asparagus", "Stalking the Healthful Herbs” and was spokesman for a health cereal died at age 64!
This is what in Yiddish (via Hebrew) is called Mazel. But it isn’t really luck as much as a testimony to the fact that God runs the universe and not laws or statistics. Each person has his own personalized set of universal laws which apply only to him.
Of course mazel can change. The great wheel of life turns at every performance of Carmina Burana and l’havdil, every year God weighs the scales of our merit to determine our destiny. We can also change the course of our lives through physical, emotional and particularly spiritual endeavor. Our lives are not carved in stone; they are molded in clay. However, the same way we are born with certain talents and predispositions, with certain inclinations and characteristics, we are each equipped with a small internal radar device that scrambles the signals of the laws of the universe and alters to them to make them unique to us.
This is very good news. It means that we all have our own channel to the abundance of the universe, our own personal pipe to plenty. The events of our lives are not predicated upon odds or statistics on “natural” laws or even what you do or don’t do. It is bestowed upon us as a status quo. But you know what? Your mazel can also change because it is subject to God’s will which when all is said and done is what runs the universe.
So lets look into ourselves and ask, “What always works for me no matter what?” And rejoice and learn to tap the potential in that realization! Then we can ask ourselves, “What never works for me no matter what?” And then accept the fact but not the blame; Learn not to be disappointed, just prepared; Try a bit harder but know the results aren’t in our hands. Then we can utter a prayer that things will improve, because, with all due respect to Einstein, there is no such thing as a constant. May we all have Mazal Tov!
Have a good month!
Rosally
Quotes
By
Rosally Saltsman
Quotes are wonderful things.
They are the pearls of wisdom that when strung together make up the
philosophy of our lives. We all have our favorite quotes. They are
stored in a collection in our heads, on our computer, on the fridge, in
a box, in a kitchen drawer… where else do I have them? They
inspire us and help keep things in perspective when life becomes
overwhelming. This is a small sampling of famous and not yet famous
quotes that I rather like.
What a person actually achieves in his life reveals what he wanted in the first place.
Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe
Nothing is a problem. It depends what we turn into a problem.
Joshua Israel Geller
One man’s scales are another man’s symphonies.
Jim Henson
Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same
number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur,
Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson,
and Albert Einstein.
H. Jackson Brown
Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear
three kinds - all they have had, all they have now, and all they
expect to have.
Edward Everett Hale
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
Douglas Adams
Tough times never last. Tough people do.
Dr. Robert H. Schuller
What you do makes a difference. You have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
Jane Goodall
If you find the best of all possible worlds, save me a space.
Adriane Schuster
Everybody loves to give advice because when they’re giving advice they’re not getting advice.
Maureen Azimov
People are like shadows; their size depends on what light they are seen in.
Sue Shapiro
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
Mark Twain
Never Lose a chance, it doesn’t come every day.
George Bernard Shaw
Two roads diverged in a wood and I
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference
Robert Frost
People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.
Florence Foster Jenkins
The last two are mine:
There’s no such thing as can’t. When you look up can’t in the dictionary, it says, “See can.”
Don’t let other people’s shortsightedness get in the way of your vision.
Send me your favorite quotes. We are here, after all, to inspire one another.
Rosally
What a person actually achieves in his life reveals what he wanted in the first place.
Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe
Nothing is a problem. It depends what we turn into a problem.
Joshua Israel Geller
One man’s scales are another man’s symphonies.
Jim Henson
Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same
number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur,
Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson,
and Albert Einstein.
H. Jackson Brown
Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear
three kinds - all they have had, all they have now, and all they
expect to have.
Edward Everett Hale
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
Douglas Adams
Tough times never last. Tough people do.
Dr. Robert H. Schuller
What you do makes a difference. You have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
Jane Goodall
If you find the best of all possible worlds, save me a space.
Adriane Schuster
Everybody loves to give advice because when they’re giving advice they’re not getting advice.
Maureen Azimov
People are like shadows; their size depends on what light they are seen in.
Sue Shapiro
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
Mark Twain
Never Lose a chance, it doesn’t come every day.
George Bernard Shaw
Two roads diverged in a wood and I
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference
Robert Frost
People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.
Florence Foster Jenkins
The last two are mine:
There’s no such thing as can’t. When you look up can’t in the dictionary, it says, “See can.”
Don’t let other people’s shortsightedness get in the way of your vision.
Send me your favorite quotes. We are here, after all, to inspire one another.
Rosally