Late Morning Pause

I spent the morning teaching about the Yosef story. It's of interest that the Torah says that Yaakov loved Yosef from all his SONS, while the brothers felt that Ya'akov loved Yosef from all the BROTHERS. Throughout the rest of the strory the word brothers is used. From their perspective Yaakov was choosing one brother over the others, while in reality - for whatever reason (favorite wife's first born in old age) he had an affinity for him as a son, but viewed them all equally as brothers who were to be his successors.

The same thing happens every year around this time. People start asking/telling me that school is almost done. Closing day, when paper-work is all due, is June 22. Never assume.

I gained 4.8 pounds over Pesach. I'm hoping I lost some weight this week. I've been eating in a healthful way. For three weeks before Pesach I lost between 1 and 3.8 pounds 3 weeks in a row. I always remember how the first challenge of man had to do with food. Repentance via sacrifices was related to food. We must eat to survive. And yet...

I don't have the urge to share very much right now but I felt like opening the blog and seeing what would happen.

In the last five minutes of class I shared a story. To make it short - a king says that whoever can reach the top of a ladder he's constructed will get great reward. When people see the ladder, hundreds of rungs five feet apart, they give up. One man perseveres. He gets up three rungs and as he's hanging by his fingernails he jumps up instead of falling is pulled to the top by a vacuum like magnetic force. The king explains that he just wanted to see who would try their best and he'd help them the rest of the way. So too G-d wants us to try and helps us the rest of the way. Now in the Omer time our goal is to ascend from our level when we left Egypt to our level when we received the Torah. May we be so blessed.