You Are Not Your Job!

A Life That Matters

When a person says that he is making a living, what he means is that he is making an existence. Earning money is merely surviving. No matter how much money a person earns, it does not make his life meaningful.[1] Making a living means making meaningful contributions to the world. How is the world now a better place because of you? How will the world look differently by the time you exit it?

 

A chassid asked his Rebbe what his thoughts were on the age-old quandary of whether the cup was half empty or half full. The Rebbe said that the answer is obvious — the cup is completely full. It is half full of water and half full of air. People can live without water for a while but it is not possible for a person to live without air for more than a few minutes. People look at their lives and see that it is half empty but that is insignificant compared to how full it is with what matters. The air of life is your contributions to the world, the meaning you add to the world. Will anyone miss you when you leave this world? Why will they miss you? What have you achieved? What significant contributions will you leave behind in this world?

 

At the funeral of a very successful millionaire named David, the eulogizer, Jay, mentioned the wealthy man’s accomplishments. He praised David’s many great business dealings, the real estate he acquired throughout his life, the immense amount of luxury cars he owned and his brand-name watch collection.[2] Jay suddenly realized that David’s family felt embarrassed. They requested that Jay make the focus on his accomplishments in meaningful arenas such as the charity he gave and the Torah he learned.

 

Why did those present feel awkward when David’s material achievements were mentioned? The answer is because everyone wants to leave this world being remembered for their meaningful, deeper, spiritual accomplishments. Most people spend the majority of their time chasing physical matters even though they know internally that this is not the legacy they want to leave behind. Who wants to be remembered for their muscles, nice appearance or wealth? We must ask ourselves: “What do you want people to remember about you after you leave this world?” Once we obtain the answer to this, we can dedicate the rest of our days pursuing those things.

 

[1] A Holocaust survivor once synopsized the contrast of Jewish life in Europe to Jewish life in America where she moved to later in life. “In Europe, no one earned a living but we lived. Here (in America), people earn a living but they don’t live.”

[2] A chassid once asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe his opinion of him choosing to become a typist. The Rebbe retorted, “You can make a living typing, but don’t become a typist.”

I am excited to announce that my newly released book “Dazzling Money Insights: Illuminating Torah Essays about Money” is now available (as a paperback and Hardcover) for purchase and delivery on Amazon at  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6P6H5B1 or by sending an email to yalt3285@gmail.com.

Rabbi Yehoshua Alt

Writer of the weekly Fascinating Insights Torah sheet in English, עברית ,אידיש and Français.

Author of Five Books including the recently released “Magnificent Marriage Insights: Captivating Torah Essays about Marriage”

To purchase any of the author’s books (hardcopy or e-book) and get it delivered to your door, please send an email to yalt3285@gmail.com or visit https://amzn.to/3eyh5xP (where you can also see the reviews).

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You Think You’re Worshipping in Solitude. In Reality, They’re Spying on You and Writing About It…

BRESLOV IN MY BACKYARD

By Shoshana Friedman | AUGUST 31, 2021

Finding the essence of prayer in a Jerusalem wadi

I was born in Brooklyn, where davening happens in shuls that are heated in the winter and air-conditioned in the summer. If people get emotional during davening, maybe their whispers are a little loud. But most keep their emotions to themselves.

The wadi in my current backyard — a ravine hugging the edge of Jerusalem — is a long way from Brooklyn.

Those first few nights after we moved in, I was alarmed to hear repeated desperate yells outside my window. But when morning came, I realized that no one was being attacked out there. The screams were coming from a motley group of Breslover chassidim who’d chosen this wadi as their destination for daily hisbodedus — some in the early morning hours, some shrouded in the lonely darkness of the Jerusalem night.

With time, my take on those yells changed from annoying to curious to passionate to inspiring. And my view of the men who visit the raw valley changed, too: from foreign, off-putting wanderers to authentic spiritual seekers.

In Jerusalem of 2021, there are clogged highways and self-checkout in the supermarkets. There are LED signs advertising the next minyan outside the local shtibel and electric scooters zipping up and down the streets. If you’re seeking a place that’s quiet, a place untouched by asphalt or technology, a place to feel small and needy against the vast expanse of creation, then you too might make your way to the wadi behind my building. There you can feel your smallness and His greatness, voice your most intimate needs, and find your deepest self.

Continue reading…

From Mishpacha, here.

רכישת לוחות שנה עתים לבינה תשפ”ד ולוחות עם תאריכים אישיים >>> הזדרזו להזמין‎

שלום וברכה,
גם השנה ניתן לרכוש את הלוח שנה הפופולרי ביותר לוח “עתים לבינה”
באתר קיימים מגוון לוחות לבחירה:
לוח קיר בגודל A4 – לוח באותיות גדולות יותר, מותאם בעיקר למקומות ציבוריים
בנוסף קיים לוח קיר סטנדרטי, בגודל 24*16.5 ס”מ, לוח כיס מוגדל, לוח כיס ויומן כיס

שימו לב: הזמנות שיתקבלו עד לתאריך י’ באלול יהיו מוכנות בעז”ה עד לר”ה התשפ”ד.

רוצים גם השנה להפתיע עם לוח שנה עתים לבינה מותאם אישית?
המתנה האידיאלית לכל מי שחשוב לכם!
 מותאם אישית

לוח שנה במהדורה משפחתית בגודל A4 עם כל התאריכים והאירועים האישיים שלכם!

ימי הולדת, ימי נישואים, יארצייטים, הגיגים משפחתיים וכו’

כל התאריכים האישיים שלכם משובצים בלוח הפופולרי “עתים לבינה”

התחדשנו עם מגוון אפשרויות לבחירה:
לוח אישי מיוחד, לוח אישי קלאסי, לוח אישי פרימיום ולוח אישי ספיישל
 

שימו לב: הזמנות שיתקבלו עד לתאריך י’ באלול יהיו מוכנות בעז”ה עד לר”ה התשפ”ד.

[התקבל במערכת]

Bitachon Enables Mitzva Observance!

Quoting the transcript of Rabbi David Ashear’s “Living Emunah” shiur of 9 Av 5783, “Bitachon and Geula”:

The Rambam writes the purpose of the fast is to get us to remember the bad deeds that caused the destruction and then accept upon ourselves to fix them. The main cause of the churban was people hating each other. If our bitachon in Hashem would be stronger, there would be no room for hatred because we would believe b’emunah shelemah that everything, even what people do to us, is caused by Hashem for our best.

Chazal tell us, the first Tisha B’Av of calamity was when the people cried from the words of the meraglim, which was due to their lack of bitachon in Hashem. If they would have trusted in Hashem, they wouldn’t have been afraid of anybody. When we truly believe that there is only Hashem in this world and nothing else, we will be able to rectify all the sins that have prolonged this galut.

The Gemara tells us, Mashiach will come אם בקולו תשמעון – when we heed Hashem’s voice and nobody else’s.  The Shomer Emunim writes, when a person’s bitachon is the way it is supposed to be, he will be able to overcome so many tests that the yetzer hara gets people to fall to. When a man is walking in the street in the summertime and wants to guard his eyes from seeing the wrong things, the evil inclination will tell him he needs to be on the lookout in case he sees somebody he needs to speak with or in case he sees a store that he needs to go to. And once the person’s guard is down, he will undoubtedly see things he is forbidden to look at. A person with bitachon in Hashem will say, “I will not lose by following Hashem’s will. If there is somebody I need to speak with, Hashem will send him to me.”

A person who is careful not to talk to others before he prays in the morning may have his evil inclination tell him, What if the person next to you now could help you? Maybe it is worth it to talk to him. Someone with bitachon would say, “If I accepted upon myself a stringency to honor Hashem, there is no way I will lose anything as a result.”

A concerned mother who is trying to get her daughter married may think, maybe I should compromise a little on my daughter’s standards of modesty so she will get married quicker. If her bitachon was where it was supposed to be, she would immediately say to herself, “The One who is in charge of marriage has a standard that He loves. It doesn’t make any sense for me to compromise on His standard if He is the One producing the shidduch.”

A woman who just started the Amida hears the doorbell ring and doesn’t know who it is, the yetzer hara will tell her, Rush through your prayers so that you can go see who it is. If her bitachon was strong, she would say, “I am talking to the One who is in control of the entire world. Does it matter which one of His puppets is at my door right now?”

If a person is learning Torah and the yetzer hara tells him if he leaves early to tend to his affairs, it’ll be so much better for him. Bitachon will say, “I am doing the will of Hashem now, I’ll only gain if I stay.”

Hashem will not necessarily make it obvious to a person that he gained by doing the right thing, but that is only to keep a person’s free will balanced. When our bitachon is strong, our middot will be the way they are supposed to be. We won’t be arrogant, we won’t get angry, we won’t be jealous, and we’ll be happy to do the job that Hashem sent us here to do. Let us resolve today to strengthen our bitachon in Hashem and, b’ezrat Hashem, that will be the zechut we need to bring the geula shelemah. Amen. תזכו בנחמת ציון.

Reprinted with permission.