Preparing for the High Holidays, like preparing to engage in strenuous physical activity, requires a warm-up. For physical exercise, we have to stretch our muscles; for spiritual exercise we have to stretch our minds.
For many years, I have collected quotations that are meaningful to me. Some are quite long; others are only a sentence or two. To help you warm up for the “spiritual exercise” of the holidays, I have selected 29 short quotations which I hope will help you start to stretch your “spiritual muscles.” I’ve put a date by each one, so you can use them day by day up to the morning of Rosh Hashanah. Of course, feel free to read them all at one time if you wish, but I suggest you spread them out over the month of Elul, which begins August 12th.
8/ 12 “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
8/ 13 “Those who do not hear the music, think the dancers mad.” – Unknown
8/ 14 “A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.” – Cicero
8/ 15 “You will never remember an ordinary day. Rituals make ordinary days special – and so, we remember them.” – Sol Weber (my dad)
8/ 16 “The only ‘original’ sin is to lose (our) connection with our origin and to be oblivious to the great gift of our life.” – O’Sensei, quoted by Mitsugi Saotome, The Principles of Aikido
8/ 17 “A miracle is often the willingness to see the common in an uncommon way.” – Noah benShea
8/ 18 (Shabbat) “The best things in life aren’t things.” – Anonymous
8/ 19 “The difference between a mountain and a molehill is your prospective.” – Al Neuharth
8/ 20 “Reason explains the darkness, but it is not light.” – Noah benShea
8/ 21 “A learning experience is one of those things that says, ‘You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.’” – Douglas Adams
8/ 22 “Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.” – Al Neuharth
8/ 23 “Welcome to the planet Earth. We walk on a giant ball. Losing our balance is part of the journey.” – Noah benShea
8/ 24 “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” – James Michener
8/ 25 (Shabbat) “It is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown.” – Anatole France
8/ 26 “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” – Kurt Vonnegut
8/ 27 “Fear is the main thing. Almost everyone is afraid of being afraid.” – Barbara Brown Taylor
8/ 28 “No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.” – George Jean Nathan
8/ 29 “It were better that I err seriously through unjustified love than through unjustified hate.” – Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook
8/ 30 “There are two ideas which are major causes of stress: 1) You must do everything to perfection; 2) you must make people happy.” – Rod Machado, aviation psychologist
8/ 31 “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss
9/ 1 (Shabbat, Erev Selichot) “We play games with the amount of divine participation we can tolerate in our lives.” – Rabbi Lawrence Kushner
9/ 2 “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” – Anaïs Nin
9/ 3 “If you continue to think like you always thought/ You’ll continue to get what you always got.” Anonymous
9/ 4 “No one you have been and no place you have gone ever leaves you. The new parts of you simply jump in the car and go along for the rest of the ride. The success of your journey and your destination all depend on who’s driving.” – Bruce Springsteen
9/ 5 “There is always an easy solution to every human problem – neat, plausible and wrong.” – H.L. Mencken
9/ 6 “It’s a fine line between a groove and a rut .” – Alexander Kiselev, TRT Member
9/ 7 “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw
9/ 8 “It cannot be said too often: All life is one. That is, and I suspect will forever prove to be, the most profound true statement there is.” – Bill Bryson
9/ 9 “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank
Shira joins me in wishing you a wonderful summer, a challenging Elul and a sweet, healthy and good New Year!
Rabbi Don Weber
