Jewish World Review Jan. 25, 1999 /8 Shevat, 5759

Bar mitzvah truths

By Hillel Goldberg

THIS WEEK I CELEBRATE the 40th anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah. In the intervening years I've arrived at my own truths. One is to appreciate certain truths of others. One of my favorites:

"Spiritual needs are more important than physical needs, but another person's physical needs are my own spiritual obligation" (Rabbi Yisroel Salanter).

My own truths:

• Take care of your body before it is too late. Worship of the body is a form of idolatry, but taking care of the body is a form of Divine service.

• To trust, and to be trusted: both are dangerous, and both are indispensable.

• A person may not say, "My suffering is worse than his, since I suffered this, while he only suffered that." It is impossible to measure suffering or compare different people's suffering.

• It is said that no one on his deathbed ever said, "If only I had spent more time at the office." This is not necessarily so. A person needs work, productivity, and purpose.

  

• Collect your favorite words. Write your personal lexicon. Let these words be your guide, as they project your individuality. They also assert the primacy of humanity in a world that increasingly blurs the distinction between man and animal by exalting the inarticulate: the constant throb of background music; the replacement of public discourse with sound bites; the dominance of the pictorial, through television, movie and computer screens.

• It is good to be open to the promptings of one's soul, to the calling of trees swaying easily in the aftermath of a fresh spring rain, to the majesty of a mountain, to the twist of a sun ray on one's window.

• An overplanned life is a boring life. To trust in G-d is to give G-d room for the surprises with which he can enliven one's destiny.

• Stand up for what is right. It is painful. The alternative is worse.

• Gratitude is difficult because it entails temporary submission to another person - or to G-d. Gratitude is a quality that attaches one to G-d, since all gifts ultimately stem from G-d. Gratitude cannot be embraced often enough.

• Loyalty is a quality that cannot be treasured highly enough.

• Still, friendship may be more satisfying than loyalty. Friendship is mutual, while loyalty may be one-directional.

• The greatest gift is a mate. Next are children. If they are Jewish, they will not become faithful Jews by themselves. This requires rigorous discipline, training, education and role-modeling. In their personality, however, let children be themselves. They should not be an extension of parents.

• Besides the oneness of G-d, the most radical religious teaching is equality. Not only I count; everyone counts.

• Help others, but carefully. It is easy to hurt or demean others while supposedly helping them.

• Life is full of fads. They waste time. Be yourself, not a fad.

• One may identify with, or even surpass, a given trait or ability of a giant in Torah (gadol ba-Torah), but a giant in Torah is greater than the sum of his parts.

• At a time of death, do not question people's emotions, judgements or actions.

• Do not hesitate to visit mourners. It is good for them and good for you.

• To memorize parts of the Torah, then to study and re-study them by heart, provides a link with G-d and all Jews, "generation to generation," that is not duplicated any other way.

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg is managing editor of The Intermountain Jewish News.

12/09/98: Mending the cosmos
11/02/98: Peace for rent?

©1999, Rabbi Hillel Goldberg