Life Is All About Stones

Today, Rabbi Haim Ovadia gave an interesting speech at Magen David Synagogue about the life of Jacob and his relationships to stones. 

Here’s what I took away from this: 

– Jacob took a stone to rest his head on (i.e. a pillow) and went to sleep. 

– After Jacob dreamed about the Angels ascending and descending the ladder to the heavens, he anointed the stone with oil and consecrated it to G-d. 

– When Jacob sees Rachel coming to water her father, Laban’s sheep, Jacob rolls the stone from off the well to quench their thirst. 

– As Jacob blessed his 12 sons, he is called the “stone of Israel.”

So what’s the significance of all this stone in Jacob’s and in our lives?

MILESTONES: We celebrate major stages (milestones) in our lives like births, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, graduations, weddings, and jobs/promotions,  and we also give diamond (stone) rings to our beloved upon engagement. 

CORNERSTONES: We build the foundations (cornerstones) for progress and advancement with our contributions to the world (giving to others, leaving the world a better place than when we got here). 

HEADSTONES: We mark and honor a person’s life and place a headstone at their grave to signify our love, respect, and gratitude for everything they have done. 

I’d add that hopefully, along the way in our lives, we don’t have too many problems and too much stress and get KIDNEY STONES. 

Interestingly “Some people have a heart of stone, and some stones have a heart.”

Like the Western Wall (“The Kotel”) of the Temple in Jerusalem where the Jews pray to G-d–the stones in the wall have history, they have seen the joys and challenges of the people, and they have heard the stories and prayers of the worshippers that go to pray there.

Stones themselves are neutral–they can be used to celebrate, consecrate, build, and memorialize, with, and stones can also be used to hurl and smash and kill with.

For Jacob and his children, even simple stones are a way to worship G-d Almighty.  😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The Difference Between Planning and Reality

Wow, I really love this graphic.

The top are our plans, along with our hopes and dreams that we get to where we want to, in a basically smooth, straight line–no troubles, no fuss–whoola success!

The bottom is our reality, where we work our way towards our target goals (which we may, or more likely not, ever fully achieve) and that along the way, we encounter all sort of life’s tests and challenges–it’s an uphill climb, but with tangible achievements and milestones, as we progress.

If it was as easy as the top–it probably wouldn’t be worth doing.

The challenges test our mettle–and what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.

Even so, sure wish I could get some wings and jets on that bicycle. 😉

Thank you sis for sharing this with me.

(Source Photo: here from DogHouseDiaries)

Be Who You Are

I watched an interesting TED video presented by Brene Brown, who has a doctorate in social work and is a author many times over–she talked about one book in particular called The Gifts of Imperfection: Letting Go of Who We Think We Should Be and Embracing Who We Are(2010).She said that from all her studies and research, what she learned is that purpose and meaning in life comes from the connections we make and maintain.

But what gets in the way is shame and fear–shame that we are not good enough and fear that we cannot make real connections with others.To move beyond shame and fear, we need to feel worthy as human beings–true self acceptance–and say “I am enough.”

However, she points out that as a society there is a lot of numbing going on (i.e. plenty of shame and fear) and that is why we are the most in debt, obese, addicted, and medicated society in history.  I liked this presentation and thought about how hard we are on ourselves–we are never good enough.

• All our lives we pursue signs of advancement from that gold star in grade school to collections of degrees, awards, promotions, material goods, and even relationships.
• We constantly push ourselves further and faster on the treadmill of life–in part to learn, grow and be better, but also to try to achieve our sense of self-worth and -acceptance.

Yet, as Brown points out those that are successful with relationships and have a strong sense of love and belonging are those that feel they are inherently worthy. They have self-esteem without having to achieve any of these things.

That sense of self-worth and confidence, Brown says, enables you to achieve three key things in life:

1. Courage–This is the courage to be yourself and to tell others who you are with a whole heart (i.e. they don’t hide in shame).
2. Compassion–That is compassion for others, but also for yourself first–you accept yourself.
3. Connection–Getting to solid relationships in life is a result of our own capacity to be authentic.

When you have that self-worth and confidence then you can embrace your vulnerabilities and make them beautiful, rather than numb yourself to constantly try to cover the disdain you feel for your frailties and weaknesses.

From my perspective, our growth and contributions to the world are good things–leave the world better than you found it!

However, the proving ourselves and amassing “things,” while milestones in life, are not a measure of a person’s true worth.

Sometimes it is fine to get over it all–accept yourself, be yourself, and stop worrying that you are never good enough.

In the Torah (Bible), when Moshe asked G-d his name–G_d replies in Exodus 3:14: “I am that I am.”

To me, this is really the lesson here–if we but try to emulate G-d, then “we are what we are.”

That is not defeat or giving up on bettering ourselves, but acceptance of who we are, where we came from, and wehre we want to go in our lives.

We don’t have to beat ourselves up for being those things or for making good faith mistakes along the way.