My husband passed away 11 years ago. Visiting the cemetery where he is buried and his gravesite during the high holidays is a structure that has led to an ongoing spiritual connection with him. My daughter joins me and we face time with my son who lives out of town. It is a time that was, as a family of four of us, brought into the present which leaves me with a sense of Shalom.
My bike ride is a both a fitness and spiritual practice. When I ride in the morning, I listen to a playlist that uses music from the structured Shacharit liturgy recorded by contemporary Jewish musicians like Kol bseder, Josh Warshawsky, Craig Taubman and others.
Each Shabbat I try and remember Rabbi Finkelstein’s quote
“ When I pray, I talk to God; when I study, God talks to me.”
As a child my Father always had a seat up front in Shul. I can see him in my mind’s eye wrapped in his Tallis. I felt then, and still think now, that he was “ talking to God”. And now I always make time on Shabbat to study, so God will have His time to talk to me.
That study period, regardless of length, seems much more valuable than study during the week.
Thanks, Jim, both for the image of your father in his tallis talking to God — how fortunate you are to have that as an image to live with — and for your endorsement of the uniqueness of study on Shabbat. In this blog I am about to rail against cell phones because there is no doubt that the constant interruptions we face (and we cause) because of phones have a negative impact on our ability to concentrate and persist.
Rabbi Finkelstein’s wise aphorism reminds me of a joke. A boy goes to shul with his father and is disturbed by how much time his father spends chatting with his friends. He finally asks, “Dad, don’t you come here to talk to God?” His father replies, “Greenberg comes here to talk to God. I come here to talk to Greenberg.”
The structure of mourning was very helpful to me - I was a basket case at my mother's burial. If it wasn't for one of my Jewish friends, walking me through the prayers and hand-washing, I don't know what I would have been done. I mean, after decades of saying the prayer for hand-washing, who forgets it? I did. And Seder - as I get older, I'm so grateful for "it's all right here in the Haggadah." Every year I tweak it and add something, but I depend on the structure. One thing I do not do well with is guided meditations for some reason. Maybe because in the 70's, I learned to meditate without guidance, so now I find it annoying and distracting.
My husband passed away 11 years ago. Visiting the cemetery where he is buried and his gravesite during the high holidays is a structure that has led to an ongoing spiritual connection with him. My daughter joins me and we face time with my son who lives out of town. It is a time that was, as a family of four of us, brought into the present which leaves me with a sense of Shalom.
My bike ride is a both a fitness and spiritual practice. When I ride in the morning, I listen to a playlist that uses music from the structured Shacharit liturgy recorded by contemporary Jewish musicians like Kol bseder, Josh Warshawsky, Craig Taubman and others.
You are lucky you don’t live in Toronto anymore. You’d need to get snow tires on your bike!
Each Shabbat I try and remember Rabbi Finkelstein’s quote
“ When I pray, I talk to God; when I study, God talks to me.”
As a child my Father always had a seat up front in Shul. I can see him in my mind’s eye wrapped in his Tallis. I felt then, and still think now, that he was “ talking to God”. And now I always make time on Shabbat to study, so God will have His time to talk to me.
That study period, regardless of length, seems much more valuable than study during the week.
Thanks, Jim, both for the image of your father in his tallis talking to God — how fortunate you are to have that as an image to live with — and for your endorsement of the uniqueness of study on Shabbat. In this blog I am about to rail against cell phones because there is no doubt that the constant interruptions we face (and we cause) because of phones have a negative impact on our ability to concentrate and persist.
Rabbi Finkelstein’s quote
Rabbi Finkelstein’s wise aphorism reminds me of a joke. A boy goes to shul with his father and is disturbed by how much time his father spends chatting with his friends. He finally asks, “Dad, don’t you come here to talk to God?” His father replies, “Greenberg comes here to talk to God. I come here to talk to Greenberg.”
The structure of mourning was very helpful to me - I was a basket case at my mother's burial. If it wasn't for one of my Jewish friends, walking me through the prayers and hand-washing, I don't know what I would have been done. I mean, after decades of saying the prayer for hand-washing, who forgets it? I did. And Seder - as I get older, I'm so grateful for "it's all right here in the Haggadah." Every year I tweak it and add something, but I depend on the structure. One thing I do not do well with is guided meditations for some reason. Maybe because in the 70's, I learned to meditate without guidance, so now I find it annoying and distracting.