Good Vuch World

I am on. In the middle of my take on being scholar in residence. I'm in my host rabbi's home. He's on his iPad. I'm on the PC. His rebbetzin is shuttling some of their kids. He'll be off to parent teacher learning in a few minutes.

I am grateful to G-d that I was invited to be scholar in residence at The Etz Chaim congregation. I spoke for about an hour about Humor in Judaism ("A Laughing Matter?") at the oneg last night. Today's drasha was "Five Ways to Ruin A Joke (and other reflections of a rabbi/comedian)." And the Shalosh Seudos shmooze was "Happiness: A Serious Topic For A Talk."

In a short while I will be performing two sets of stand up. Before and after the routines there will be sales of my book and signing, along with the same for three other authors. I need to go and plan out the routines. Thank G-d for time before shows. The week was so hectic that I didn't have much breathing space. I'm glad to have an opportunity now to prepare in a somewhat chilled way.

The following is an edit of thoughts I composed on Thursday but didn't post till now.

The student who'd lost her wallet on Wednesday morning found it later in the day. It was in a pocket of her knapsack that she never uses but used this once. It could happen to anyone. And this type of thing does happen to everyone. I very much appreciated that she came back to me to let me know that she found it, such a thoughtful thing to do.

With my va'ad class yesterday (if you're curious what a va'ad class is all you have to do is ask) we were discussing losing things. One student had a story about how she doesn't usually wear rings but her mother got her this beautiful ring and she wore it (and it happened to have been expensive) and one day she couldn't find it. She was so worried that her mother would be mad at her that she told everyone in her family not to tell her mother she'd lost it. It turned out that her mother had it, mom had seen it and picked it up and didn't think it was a big deal and just said, "Oh, here's your ring." This reminded me of the time a couple of years ago that one of my colleagues misplaced her diamond wedding ring and was understandably anxious. She'd put it down when she washed and then it wasn't there. I helped her look all around, and tried to help her stay calm. In the end, a couple of hours later, someone gave it to her after explaining that he saw it and picked it up for safekeeping. This reminded another student of the time that her mom wrapped her ring in a napkin and then it got thrown out and her dad relentlessly searched through all the garbage and found it. May we all be blessed to stay calm in the wake of the frustrations connected to losing and finding or not finding that is endemic to life.