And a Little Child Shall Lead Them...

A lofty purpose?

A few days ago, one of our community members, Yosef, had a stroke. Yosef is not just an anonymous man who comes to services, does his thing and goes home. He is like an extra grandfather to my children, and is always kind and loving, dispensing hugs and lollipops every shabbat. 

We wish him a full return to health. Please meditate on him and send him healing - his name is Yosef ben Rachel.

When I told my daughters about what happened and that Yosef was in the hospital, Miriam burst into tears and sobbed in my arms for about twenty minutes. Then she, along with the others, set about making him get well cards, which we gave to his daughter-in-law on shabbat to pass along to him. 

But it didn't end there. All during the Torah reading and meditations, which lasted about two and a half hours, my 8-year old and my 6-year old sat in the lobby and scanned the Zohar to send Yosef healing energy. Later, Leah, the 6-year old, patiently explained to her little sister how to scan for healing. "You scan from right to left," she told Rebecca, "and you say 'Please, please, please, Man in the Sky, make him feel better!" (Okay, so I know we need to work on terminology, but still...)

I'm not telling you all this to pat myself on the back as a great parent. Through this terrible event, I got a view into my children's heads, and I was stunned by what I found. 

Most kids are self absorbed. The Zohar talks about how babies are born with their fists clenched tight, signifying their desire to receive for themselves alone. The growing up process is supposed to be us learning how to transform that into a desire to receive for the sake of sharing. As parents, we are constantly trying to instill good values in our children, and it may seem as if they just don't hear us. But they do. They hear everything you say (and a lot you don't say) and they store it away in their consciousness until they need it, and then they surprise you.

The other point I want to make is the amazing power in teaching kabbalah to children. You may think they are too young to grasp the metaphysics, and you are probably right. But there is a tremendous amount you can teach them, even at a very young age. If the spiritual seeds are planted and nurtured, they will grow, and these children will change the world. So, support programs like Success for Kids, which provides these invaluable lessons to kids from all walks of life, and all religious backgrounds. The world won't change until we change it.

Beeing Mindful: What We Can Learn From Bees

Bees are fascinating creatures. When we look at them, they seem at first blush very different from humans, but if you look at little closer, you will find that they have a lot to teach us.

1. When you live in unity with a shared purpose, you can receive all that you need to live, plus more. – Honeybees each have their own individual roles in the hive, but they all work in unity for the good of the hive. Working together, with the queen producing the next generation and some bees gathering nectar, others building the hive and feeding the young, etc., the entire hive prospers and produces more than enough honey to feed the colony. Try to surround yourself with people who share your goals and have complementary skills, so that you can all work together. Ideally, your family and your work environment will function like a hive. If not, choose the role of queen bee and try to bring unity to the group.
2. Choose a leader and follow him or her. – Honeybees have one queen, and that is the one they are loyal to. Whether you are talking about a spiritual leader or a spouse, pick one person that you are committed to and then stop looking for someone else who may be a little bit better.
3. Nothing is impossible. – According to the laws of aerodynamics, the bees’ small wings cannot possibly support their relatively large bodies, so it should be impossible for them to fly. Yet they do it. Maybe because they don’t know the laws of aerodynamics, they don’t limit themselves (sort of like in the Roadrunner cartoons where he runs off the cliff and doesn’t fall until he looks down).
4. Guard your entrances. – Bees produce a substance called propolis, that they spread at the entrance to their hives. The propolis seals the cracks in the hive and protects them from incursion from ants and viruses.  Similarly, we can make sure that our entrances, our eyes and ears, are protected from negativity. When people continually complain and find fault, when people speak badly of other people, we need to walk away or change the subject. We can also protect what we see by avoiding gratuitous violent or sexual images. And we can make an effort to surround ourselves with positive people with good values and avoid the other kind.
5. Choose your battles. – When a honeybee stings a person or animal, it dies because its stinger is closely attached to the rest of its body and the back part of its body comes off with the stinger. This makes it extra important for the bee to decide very carefully when it is worth sacrificing its life. So the next time you get mad about something, think if it is worth your life to react, because little by little, anger can lead to heart attacks and other dangerous conditions, albeit at a much slower pace than for bees.
6. Work hard. – We don’t say “busy as a bee” for nothing! Bees know the value of hard work, and they are willing to put the energy in to get their desired result.
7. Share your knowledge. – Like bees, people are not meant to be solitary creatures. When a bee finds a good source of nectar or identifies a potential threat to the hive, it communicates to the other bees through scent or by doing an elaborate dance. We don’t have to dance, but we should tell people we care about if we see an opportunity or a threat that may impact them. 
8. Immortality is possible. -  When archaeologists unearthed the ancient tombs of the pharaohs in Egypt, the found honey among the personal effects. Even after thousands of years, the honey was still good and perfectly edible! If we keep the right consciousness, we may be able to last as long and remain as sweet as that ancient honey.