Hyehudi.org

Hi,

“Hitbodedut is a great level, surpassing everything else. This means to set aside at least an hour every day to be alone in a room or a field and to speak with one’s Creator, explaining oneself, appeasing, and supplicating Him to bring oneself close to true divine service. And this prayer and discussion should be held in the vernacular, i.e. Yiddish… for it is hard for us to speak in Hebrew, which we are not used to… But in Yiddish, which we are accustomed to, it is easier to express oneself… One should express all that is in one’s heart before G-d: regret and teshuva regarding the past and supplications to draw close to G-d… It is important to practice this every day at an appointed time and the rest of the day is to be joyous. And this practice is very great and constitutes an excellent method for drawing close to G-d… for everyone can do this and in doing so one will reach a great level. Happy is he who follows this.”

(Rabbi Nachman of Breslav, Likutei Moharan II 25, translated by Zvi Leshem, Tradition 47:3 (2014))

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Having to read a book that I was planning on reading sometime before I died anyway, is a minor point. What happens when my wife decides that Smith’s labor based monetary theory is totally inadequate to describe a post-industrial revolution economy and therefore converts to radical Austrianism? My wife is already the more religious one in my family. It would not be be fair if she becomes a more fanatical libertarian than me. I will not be able to lecture random strangers about the innate illegitimacy of government for minutes on end until she drags me away, because I will be too busy trying to stop her from lecturing people. I will have to apologize to statists, which will be totally embarrassing. What if my wife decides that her conscious cannot abide being a government employee, using special-ed children as means to defraud the public and resigns? I will actually need to go out and get a real job for the two of us as my wife stays home to dedicate herself to writing an anti-government blog.

I married this woman on the assumption that she was an Obama voting California liberal. It says openly in our make believe social contract that her role in this marriage is to make me feel guilty about eliminating welfare and public schools so I could compromise with Milton Friedman moderate positions like negative income tax and school vouchers. It is just like my wife to be so dastardly and so wonderful as to make me read more books and push my libertarianism to the next level.

I love my wife!