Good Vuch

Not a perfect world?
G-d created perfection
Watch out for people

When I was 16 or so I read (what was then called) Eight Questions People Ask About Judaism. One line that struck me from the book was a quote citing someone who said that - after The Holocaust believe in G-d is difficult but belief in man is impossible.

Yeshivish People
quote Rav Yerucham a lot
Mussar may live on

I was moved at at recent gathering to hear Rav Yerucham referenced so often. Rabbi Levovitz was a mussar master who along with stressing intensive Talmudic study also stressed the hard work of mussar, the shaping of one's character. (For a bit more about him, and a photo, click on the Wikipedia link in the haiku).

Hakarat HaTov
means not thanks, but seeing good
"it don't come easy"

At the same gathering there was a beautiful presentation given about what Hakarat Hatov means and how it doesn't happen without work.

Perched much like a bird
My parched soul, ready to soar
We are born ready

May G-d bless us all to not waste time.

A dear friend of mine is preparing a presentation for a group in a sleep away camp on the topic of laziness. He's asked me for ideas.

I recalled that Mishlei - Proverbs speaks often about laziness, often in using similes and metaphors. I googled the words mishlei and laziness together and found with a plethora of leads and links. Here's one example that I looked at and thought about:

Mishlei (19:15) says that "laziness puts one into a deep sleep and an idle person will starve. In their version of Mishlei Leonard S. Kravitz and Kerry M. Olitzky cite various commentaries on this line:

Rashi applies this to a Torah scholar who answers a question without looking into it, as if asleep.

(The word traslated here as idle, in Hebrew, is remiyah, which Ibn Ezra translates in it's coventional sense - as deceitful.)

Rabeinu Gershom connects to halves and explains that Shlomo haMelech is saying that one who is lazy and does not garner essential knowledge will via this neglect be klacking/starving physically and spiritually.

The authors point out that the opening phrase, in vernacular, can be said to mean that laziness makes you unconscious. This reminds me of the things that Pirkei Avot says have the effect of being Motzi Et HaAdam Min HaOlam. That phrase literally means "takes a person out of the world," this can be understood to mean that it takes a person out of a true understanding of reality, lowers ones consciousness (three of these things are jealousy, desire, and honor.)