Skip to main content

"Holding on to our Insights and Practices" By Rabbi David Lapin

I'm not sure about you, but I don't feel really ready to go back to normal. I'm not sure we should ever really be ready to go back to normal. I was thinking of the idea of teshuva, which means repentance or literally returning, going back. We go back when we've taken a wrong turn. When we've done something incorrect, we go back to correct what we've done. But when we've taken a right turn, we don't go back, we go forward!

And I can't help thinking but the world has taken so many turns to the right in many different areas. living in Israel, a country known for people who are impatient, I look around me and find people so much more patient. We see people around the world so much more caring of others. We see that we and others around us have slowed our life down from the frenetic pace at which we used to live. We're focusing more on local local communities, family home, we've invested or investing more in our hands. We've re calibrated our values and questioned our assumptions. Things that used to be important to us aren't as important anymore and things that were not that important to us, it became more important to us. We're using our time more wisely, we're learning more and commuting less. We're easy on the environment and we see the results.
We haven't taken a bad turn.
Let's not go back. We've taken right turns. It might  be helpful to make a note of all the new insights and practices that you've generated through this period. Hold on to those insights and practices. So that when normal returns, it's not something you go back to, but something to go forward to!

By Rabbi David Lapin

Audio Recording

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hoda'ah

  “Were the existence of gratitude and recognition of the good lacking from existence, the human spirit would be left without sparkle or shine.” Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook For the Perplexed of the Generation 4:9     I recently was honored to receive the following email:   Dear Rabbi Weinberg;   I am grateful that both my parents survived Covid in the ICU.   I am grateful that my husband is home, although with oxygen, but no longer on a ventilator.   I am grateful for the Jewish community, of which I am not connected, for food, drivers, shopping, and all sorts of help too much to list.   Someone printed a page from Partners In Prayer and scribbled your email on the bottom. Can you teach me how to pray? Is there a way I can use prayer to express my gratitude? Can I pray without becoming religious?   My husband and I and our children are willing to celebrate Hanukah this year. Is that okay?   My ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Creation

 All was destroyed during the month of Av. Creation began on Elul, and, so it will again. We recite this prayer for the New Month focusing on Creation. “God created the world in order to do good to an other (Derech Hashem 1:2:1).” Creation was an expression of absolute love, the “other” had done nothing to earn it. This is why Elul, the month of Creation is also the month of intense love between God and Israel. I recite this prayer imaging myself participating in the final Heavenly planning meetings before Creation. I am not praying as one who has already existed and experienced success and failure, but as one who has the opportunity to see the world before Creation, and request in this moment of intense love all that I could possibly need and want. I use this prayer to prepare for all my Elul prayers until the 25th of the month when Creation began. For what shall I ask? What will I need to succeed? How will I define success? What do I hope to achieve? Rabbi Simcha Weinberg
Post a Comment
Read more

Birchat Hamazon

By: Machberes Avodas Hashem The Chafetz Chaim taught: "At the conclusion of the main portion of Grace after Meals we add a series of,' May the All Merciful.' We add numerous such petitions, indicating that a request to God after the performance of a mitzvah is especially acceptable before Him (Michtevei haRav Chafetz Chaim, page 45)." One of the primary issues of the Exile is, "You wrapped Yourself in a cloud that no prayer can pierce (Lamentations 3:44)." It is more difficult to pray during the Three Weeks than other times during the year because we experience this "cloud." With COVID unfortunately around, this year proves to be even more difficult because our time in shul has changed drastically, and we have never experienced the pain of the three weeks while in a situation similar to the present state of the world. We can use this strategy of the Chafetz Chaim, that of praying immediately after the performance of a mitzvah, so that we may feel t...
Post a Comment
Read more