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Overwhelmed & Distracted: A Rosh Hashana Thought

9/24/2014

I’d like to share with you what I find challenging on a day like today and an idea that came to me that’s helpful.I often find myself feeling overwhelmed and distracted before a major opportunity like Rosh Hashana.

It’s such an awesome day – have I prepared sufficiently? Do I even know how to prepare sufficiently? How will I put forth successful prayers? Nagged by those questions, I often find myself getting busy with other things.

Then it occurred to me: though there’s something I might or might not put in motion, there’s something much greater that is definitely being set in motion. The Creator of the universe is renewing His creation. The Intelligence of all life that sustains the world, carries His people for thousands of years, guides my physiological functions, and plants insights in my mind is renewing His commitment to His world. He’s inviting us to sign on.

Like my teacher, Rav Noach Weinberg, ztl, used to say, we’re like the construction worker guiding a several ton load suspended by a massive crane. It looks like he’s pushing a several ton load. He’s just nudging a force that is already in play.

Mostly what I have to do is show up and acknowledge that He’s the senior partner and I’m the junior partner in a successful Rosh Hashana. With that, I’m a little more clear about the value of just giving it all I got.

Warm regards for a Good Sweet New Year,

Henry Harris

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If you don’t love yourself, do me a favor and don’t love me

9/12/2014

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My teacher, Rabbi Noach Weinberg, obm, used to say this in his teaching on what is and isn’t love.

Not loving here means not seeing the good, the humanity, the sincere goodness in a person despite his flaws and mistakes. It begets conditional love, criticism, and even persecution.

It’s axiomatic of the human experience that one cannot see in others what one doesn’t first see in himself. Hence, if your relationship with self involves a lot of recrimination, don’t be in a relationship with me.

But the Talmud says, “A person never errs unless a spirit of insanity enters him.” We’re endowed with a healthy and wise essence; sometimes (reliably) insane thoughts pop in.

Rabbi Weinberg also used to advise his students to form a “Sane Society” with others where membership is predicated on knowing that you’re prone to insanity.

Here are a couple of thoughts that I find encouraging.

First, we’re in a time of year now where there’s a special opportunity to learn about love and forgiveness, about the health in ourselves and others. Trust that even humble efforts to look for this wisdom will bear fruit. Trust that even the desire to look for it is ennobling, even if it doesn’t bring immediate fruits.

Second, some of my warmest and nicest memories include finding forgiveness. Surrender to the fact that forgiveness feels amazing. Look for it; want it.

Shabbat Shalom,
Henry Harris

PS - Stay tuned for "Health in Relationships," a 4-part webinar featuring Rabbi Shaul and Chana Rosenblatt of London starting at a date TBA after the holidays.

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The Knowing Heart in a Broken Mind

9/5/2014

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One of the clearest ways to affirm our capacity for spiritual knowledge - knowledge that transcends the rational mind - is the understanding sometimes found in dementia patients.

I was told recently the story of a beloved rebbetzin who in her 90s began to lose her faculties. She could no longer recognize close family and caregivers. She could no longer remember simple events. In short, one could say her mind began to fail.

A longtime nurse began to feed the elderly woman and asked, “Do you remember my name?”

The rebbetzin paused and thought for a moment.

“No,” she said, “I don’t. But,” she added as she took the woman’s hand and looked into her eyes, “I know that you are very deep in my heart.”

To me, this is a deep affirmation of our access to understanding that goes beyond our ability to analyze. Experiencing love and awareness of connection to another comes from a place of deep knowing – a knowing heart.

Rabbi Avigdor Miller says that the appropriate translation of the word “lev” – “heart” in modern Hebrew – is “mind.” The reason that’s so, he says, is because in Judaism the most valuable knowledge affects us on a feeling level; it’s knowledge that comes from beyond us and elevates our character.

It’s often tempting to rely heavily on the rational faculty of our mind.

“How’s this going to work out?”

“If I do this, what’s her response going to be?”

“How am I ever going to cover my bases?”

We try to map out our world in a way that fits our personal analysis of what is pleasing and right. In truth, we are not in control. Reality often seems to violate our analysis of what’s good.

Fortunately, we have an additional faculty for understanding. Sensing the limitations of personal thinking and becoming interested in our access to Divine understanding will bring us closer to the gift of a knowing heart.

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Overwhelmed & Distracted: A Rosh Hashana Thought

If you don’t love yourself, do me a favor and don’t love me

The Knowing Heart in a Broken Mind

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