This coming Thursday is Anzac Day. I am not an Australian though I have a deep sense of respect and gratitude for the sacrifices Australia has made in a number of wars over the years. In September 2012 I walked the Kokoda Track and it gave me a profound appreciation of what the ‘Diggers’ (Australian soldiers) endured. The battles along the Kokoda Track were brutal, and it would be hard to find a more inhospitable place on planet earth where a war was ever fought. The Diggers, with incredible bravery and determination, held back the Japanese who were bent on taking Port Moresby from where they could then attack Australia.

I hope over the next few days to post more about my Kokoda Track experience and how I walked it solo in both directions. For now here is an article about my Kokoda walk.

Parshas Vayakhel-Pekudei: Finding Our Mission in Life

For some reason, finding one’s “mission in life,” or one’s” purpose in life” has come up in conversation a lot over the past few months.  I remember sitting and talking to my friend Mia about it for hours, and Rabbi Ben brought it up to me this week.  It also cropped up in a book I’m currently reading, given to me by a friend.  It must be pretty important if everybody’s talking about it.

When I asked Rabbi Ben about it, he said our purpose in life is to do mitzvos and to follow the Torah.  Well, obviously this is what G-d wants us to be doing. But is it our mission?

Judaism embraces the concept of a “tikkun.”  Tikkun is the work we must do in the world, and can refer both to our own self-improvements and to the accomplishments we’re aiming for.  So maybe our purpose as Jews is to keep the Torah… but our tikkun as individuals is as varied and unique as a fingerprint.

Interestingly, in this week’s parsha, we see some people discovering some hidden talents, some of their missions in life.  As the parsha says, “Every man whose heart inspired him came…” which the Ramban teaches refers to the weavers and carpenters who built the mishkan (tabernacle).  They were very talented at their crafts, which required fine skills. Yet, how did these lowly Hebrew slaves, who previously had done nothing more crafty than making bricks out of straw, know how to do these things?  The Ramban answers that they were divinely inspired: G-d Himself gave them the skills to be able to do things they had never learned.

We also have lots of G-d given talents and abilities, but how many of them do we find?  How often do we balk at trying something new? How often do we limit ourselves instead of pushing ourselves to the next level?

In the book I’m reading, God Winked by Sara Yocheved Rigler, the author shares some good advice from Rabbi Aryeh Nivin on how to identify your life’s mission:

• Ask yourself: “What were the five or ten most pleasurable moments in my life?”
• Ask yourself: If I inherited a billion dollars and had six hours a day of discretionary time, what would I do with the time and money?”

One of your most pleasurable moments may have been when you did something small, like climbing a hill – but if you had all that time and money, you would climb Mt. Everest (I know that’s what Rabbi Ben would do!).  You’ve limited yourself. But if G-d has given you a talent and an aptitude for doing a certain thing, then maybe that’s your mission in life – and if you limit yourself, you will never achieve your potential.

This week, let’s all work on achieving our full potential and working toward our life missions!

Shabbat shalom!

Read more on Parshas Vayakhel-Pekudei: Building a Home for Hashem

Parshas Ki Savo: Expressing Gratitude is Good for your Health

I have found the secret to happiness.  I’ve done exhaustive research and discovered a list of things you can do every day to truly pursue happiness.

Every day you should:

• Express 3 Gratitudes
• Keep a Journal
• Exercise
• Meditate
• Engage in some Random Acts of Kindness

Expressing gratitude increases your social resilience and makes you feel good.  Why? It forges a bond between you and the person you’re expressing gratitude to. It also helps you to see the world in a more positive light.  In this week’s parsha this particular aspect comes out loud and clear. Bringing the first of our fruits to the Temple as an offering for G-d is one way we can express our gratitude to Him for all the bounty He’s given us.  And just as expressing gratitude to another person helps forge a stronger bond between the two of you, so too does expressing gratitude to Hashem increase your bond with Him.

Keep a Journal

Keeping a journal of what is going on in your life is a good way to achieve awareness: it helps you look back on your day and reflect.  What did I do right? How could I improve? This is a popular mussar tool recommended by rabbis for centuries. In fact, many rabbis go further and recommend sharing your journal with a friend who you trust.  They can offer feedback and help you solve problems you might otherwise not be able to on your own.

Exercise

Exercise increases your physical resilience.  It should also come as no surprise that this, too, is in the Torah.  We have a commandment to take good care of the bodies G-d gave us.  After all, they are only on loan to us! So we must care for them well.  Exercise and eating healthy is one way to do this.

Meditate

Meditation increases your mental resilience, as you have to concentrate and focus.  In Judaism, we call this prayer. The Breslov Chasidism employ a particular type of prayer called hibotedut whereby you go to a quiet space where you can be alone and just have a conversation with G-d.  They recommend doing it for an hour every day in addition to rabbinically proscribed prayer times.  Meditation helps clear your mind, relieve stress, and restore peace to you, eliminating harmful stress hormones like cortisol and helping you find greater emunah (faith) and bitachon (trust) in G-d.

Random Acts of Kindness

This increases your emotional resilience and also your social resilience.  You can get a feel-good boost by doing something kind for another person.  In fact, this is one way people can escape from depression.  Doing random acts of kindness does more than just help others – it helps you, by showing you how valuable and special you are. You can make a difference in another person’s life! Just go out and try it. No planning necessary! In Judaism, we call this chesed and to us it doesn’t matter if it’s random or planned in advance – either way, it’s a mitzvah and a kiddush Hashem, it sanctifies G-d’s name in the world.

So it turns out that by doing these things every day, you’ll not only be happier, but you will also live 10 years longer. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and do them!

Read more on Parshas Ki Savo: Giving our very best for G-d

Hold Your Breath and Face Your Fears

I just did something that scared me.  I don’t want to say what it was because it really doesn’t matter. We all have our fears, logical or not (usually not!).

This was something that has been keeping me up at night.  Now that I’ve done it, I feel so much better!  And I feel really proud of myself and really good that I did it and successfully took care of it.  You know, we learn in this week’s parsha about how important it is to thank Hashem for everything and not to take excessive pride in our accomplishments because everything is from Hashem.  But the decision to do the right thing we can take credit for because we have free will.  How this turned out was not up to me (and it turned out fine) but deciding to take the step to deal with it WAS up to me and I do feel good about it!

So here are some ways I dealt with facing this challenge:

• Don’t think about it when you can’t do anything about it.  At night when I needed to sleep and couldn’t fix it, I tried deep breathing techniques and make myself think of other things. I wasn’t going to solve the problem in the middle of the night!
• Empower yourself.  I repeated to myself over and over that nobody was forcing me to do this – I was deciding for myself to do it.
• Know that everything is for the best.  One night, I calmed myself by reciting “gam zu le tova,” “everything is for the good” over and over.  This is EMUNAH and it has incredible power to change our lives.  I just knew that even if I couldn’t see it now, Hashem would make this all work out for the best.
• Take it one step at a time.  I tried not to think about all the many, many things I needed to do to accomplish it. I just looked at one tiny task at a time and they added up.
• Hold your breath, close your eyes, and just jump in! (This also works very well when you need to get in a cold swimming pool.) When it comes to that crucial moment, just push yourself to do it, even when you are internally resisting it.  Once you’ve hit that button or made that leap, there is no turning back. You just have to force yourself to do it – and it helps if you look away.

I hope these tips help you to face your own fears and move forward with the challenges in your own life!

If Noah were building an ark today he’d probably have some modern devices like GPS and satellites. The boat would be made mostly of metal and have an engine.

Here is a guy in the Netherlands who’s built a replica of Noah’s ark. I’d like to go there someday and see this ark. Click here to read the full story.

I think the greatest lesson to learn from Noah is that he spent 120 years building the ark. People thought he was crazy yet he kept on doing what he knew was the right thing to do and kept building for 120 years until the floods came. 120 years is the maximum life span of modern man. This means that we should be prepared to spend our entire life doing something we know is right regardless of if the world says we’re crazy.