The Lord is just and generous. Everything is a test. How many will be tested in order for one Jobe to be found? How many trials must I undergo in order to prove to myself that I am worthy?
The Lord creates the environment. He calls on us to be as Noah, to prepare and adapt to it. He gives no justification.
In his wisdom, he leads us from slavery through the desert. We place our trust in him. He lays us down in green pastures, he leads us beside the still waters.
To be able to sit quietly and listen to one’s own thoughts, as they are guided by G’d, is something to be learned. Yet, this feels like something that I have only recently conceived of.
How short life, and how sweet.
Bicycle stolen – Hashem works in many ways. It was daylight savings time, and I had been looking forward to riding to work. Maybe He did it to protect me from an accident. Maybe He did it to remind me not to become too attached to material things. Or maybe to relax a little and spend some more money. Or that all things that I have are borrowed.
Signed lease and moved some things into apartment – There is no cell-phone reception inside. None. But I can pay $20/mo for Wi-Fi. That’s pretty good. Maybe this is to let me spend less time alone surfing the internet. I can always go to the clubhouse and play the piano and use their internet.
I overheard a woman step away from a man she was visiting, calling a friend to tell her to call another man for her. Call this second guy Man T. She had told her mom that she would be at Man T’s place. Her mom called Man T and she wasn’t there. Man T blocked her phone number. She told her friend to call Man T to reassure him, saying “don’t listen to what my mom said. She’s crazy.”
I am staying at an Airbnb. The main lessor is subletting to me (as an Airbnb) and another guy. Call him Man R. Man R spent Sunday with his brother and sister, sightseeing in San Francisco and having Korean BBQ. He got home at about 20:00, and the lessor said “home late.” Which I thought was mean. Man R looks up to the lessor. Should have said hello.
Man R is a funny drunk, but stuck in the same patterns. He’s happy about how much money he makes, and is not yet over his ex-girlfriend.
Let go of my story. Saw a video by Wayne Dyer that we should let go of our story, meaning we tell ourselves a story by which we are convinced that we deserve something. Maybe that is something that we don’t have or have lost. But that’s not the way G’d works. The sooner we can let go of our story, the sooner we can live for today. Dr. Orion Tarraban said that the best way to redeem past suffering is loving engagement in the present.
Hashem is also testing me to see if I can forgive the one who stole the bicycle. And also reminding me how much I care for my wife – I’d bought the bike for her. It would have been perfect, though a little small for me.
In aikido practices
In studying the Torah
In studying the Torah with someone
In nudging people to responsibility
In sparks created
In truths promulgated
In helping people have a better opinion of themself
In smiling children
Show me more
Seeing small but habitual lying on the job makes me so sad.
The LORD judge between me and thee, and the LORD avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee.
B”H
In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge. They become aware of their own vulnerabilities, their nakedness, and see to cover it up. When G’d calls them forward, they are afraid, and hide, instead of walking with Him.
I had a chance to share this story with some Aikido students of mine, where I explained that the great tragedy here is not that they ate from the tree of knowledge (face it, they didn’t know any better), but that they hid instead of owning up to it, and were afraid to walk with G’d when he called. I ended saying “Do not hide. Bravery is when you realize you are weak, but still say what needs to be said, or do what needs to be done, and in so doing, walk with G’d.”
I see the students weekly, and through the medium of Aikido teach trust and respect. One of the teachers has taken an interest, and helps in class.
This teacher recounted what happened last Sunday. Sunday is their off-day. No classes, and teachers will take them out of the orphanage to eat a boxed lunch and to see a museum or have fun outside. It was proposed that they go to a certain museum. One of the students, C.C.., said he did not want to go, and would not say why.
“Then offer up an alternative.” said the teacher. C.C. offered no alternative. “Then if you don’t say why you don’t want to go, the other students will go, and I can take you back to the school [the orphanage] to do homework.” Yet this still did not satisfy him, and his gloomy silence persisted over lunch, which C.C. refused to eat.
Finally, the teacher said. “Have you forgotten what [the Aikido teacher] said? ‘Do not hide.'”
And C.C. said without tears or agitation that the museum was the last place where he had seen his grandmother and his father, and the place where his father had abandoned him.
And the teacher asked “Do you think, being brave enough to say this, that you are also brave enough to go to the museum?” And C.C. said “I think it is worth a try.”
But it came to be that the time had passed where they could go to the museum that day, so the teacher said “It’s already afternoon, so we’ll play some badminton instead of going to the museum today, but next time, you can tell us you want to go, we will all go together.”
[… and so doing walk with G’d.]
My student is growing up 🙂 Also, what a great teacher she was, to have persisted in asking for the answer.
Psalm 19:8-10
The Torah of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul.
The decrees of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart.
The mitzvoth of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever.
The decrees of the LORD are firm, and all of them righteous.
Because I have shared the mitzvah of studying the Torah, I have participated in this story.
Every mitzvah counts.
Why did I start reading the Torah? Because I missed Chabad Japan (www.chabadjapan.org Donate!). After many years of living away from Japan and not studying the Torah with Chabad Japan, I tried to find some people to study with, but was dissatisfied with their interpretations, but what could I do but study by myself? This led to finding commentaries online, to studying with my family, and to sharing the story of Genesis 3 with the children of the orphanage.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, once said that every setback is a chance to grow by spurring us to draw on untapped resources. So it was that my disappointment led to me to finding ways to study by myself. So it was that C.C. is learning to surpass his abandonment by not hiding from it.
If I have done nothing else in Taiwan, I have at least played a part in this story. Yet after hearing this story, I begin to see possibilities, and that there is so much more to do.
We are living in the time of the redemption, where there are many tools by which we can amplify good. Every mitzvah counts. May we through our actions shine the light of lovingkindness out into the world. May we thus make the world more joyous and habitable. May we not fear that our shortcomings will prevent us from doing so. May we direct our attention and energies outwards as G’d bade Adam and Eve. May we make straight the road for the Messiah. And may He come quickly in our time.
“O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.”
–
We often say “don’t be judgemental,” as if judgment were a bad thing, yet Jeremiah begs for judgement, and not anger. Judgement here is guidance from someone we trust – someone who knows our strengths and faults, loves us, and can elevate us when they judge we have fallen short of what we should be aiming at.
今夜道場の方々とサルサのライブを聴きに行き、踊った。武道、舞踊、音楽三昧の一夜だった。踊っている時には、足を踏まない合間がある。それこそ、一歩一歩が大切で、安穏に踏んでいなければならない。止まる合間を感じないと動きが荒れてしまう。これはまさに武踊一如。
長年、日常でも、出張でも、暇でも、忙しくても、笑っても、落ち込んでても、毎週に規律よく稽古していたら、とにかく合気道が一つ息抜きの合間になっている。
そして、少なくても歩く時に安定に踏むことができるような体づくりになった。これからも長く、稽古の相手の皆さんが日頃の修行でそれぞれ一歩づつ邁進できるよう、心からお祈り申し上げます。
Socrates’ Apology is an account of Socrates’ legal defense of himself against charges that he was corrupting the youth of Athens (for unspecified reasons) and for not believing in the gods.
How precisely he corrupted the youth of Athens is not clear, as there is no statement given by his accusers. We can, however, infer that he offended a great many people. He would go to politicians, poets, and artisans, saying he was looking for wisdom, then ask them a bunch of questions to prove that they didn’t have any wisdom, yet neither did he have the answer to any of the questions that he posed. For example, to a citizen he asked if he had found a good teacher for his children. “who is he?” asked Socrates. “and of what country? And what does he charge?” “Evenus the Parian,” the man replied. “and his charge is five minae.” To which Socrates replied, “happy is Evenus, if he really has the wisdom, and teaches at such a moderate charge.”
In my notes here I have written “Socrates is an asshole.” He makes people feel stupid, yet he offers nothing helpful. Socrates charged no tuition, but one can imagine that the youth of Athens had a great time learning rhetorical techniques and making their authority figures run in rhetorical circles.
So, he must have conducted himself in such a way to make many powerful enemies. Yet, the Apology seems unjust – it is not wholly clear how his accusers have been materially hurt by him, nor even exactly what he is being accused of. At one point, Socrates refers to a satirization of him by Aristophanes that it is not true. Are the accusations being leveled at him so nebulous as to require him to defend himself against a satire?
Never mind what he did – the accusation that he didn’t believe in their gods is an accusation of “thought crime,” which doesn’t seem just.
Many features of what we now consider due process in the American court system are missing – the right to confront and cross-examine one’s accusers, the requirement that one bringing a civil lawsuit demonstrate that he has suffered harm, the right to freedom of speech. Yes, Socrates was an asshole, but one hopes that simply having made powerful enemies does not warrant imprisonment or death (though that sort of thing certainly happens), as seems to be happening in the case of Russia’s Alexander Shestun.
He made people feel stupid, while not offering any answers himself, but we remember Socrates as a martyr for freedom of speech and thought, sentenced to death without due process by insulted cronies.
The relevance to modern life? Legally, A society that preserves free speech should have more protections for the accused than did the Athens of Socrates, and in the United States, indeed there are. Personally? It’s not good to go around pedantically making people feel stupid.
たったいま大学のコンビニでビールとナッツを買ったところ、「学生証ありますか」とも聞かないでコンビニのお兄さんが学生割引を負けてくれた。もしかして、一目学生にまた見えるのだろうか。
Earth, Wind, and Fire 