Jewish Musings, Friday/Shabbat, February 9-10, 2024

[peachymom1]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Frieda (hopefully)?
Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[peachymom1]

Good morning! Since DS33’s wedding is a little more than a week away, I thought I’d share some quotes about happiness. Which ones do you like? I’d love to hear your comments.

Thank you all for your participation this week. Shabbat shalom!

1. “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
2. “Happiness is a warm puppy.” ― Charles M. Schulz
3. “Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get” ― W.P. Kinsella
4. “Whoever is happy will make others happy.” ― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
5. “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” ― Abraham Lincoln
6. “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
7. “The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it's all that matters.” ― Audrey Hepburn
8. “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” ― George Burns
9. “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ― Marcel Proust
10. "There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved." – George Sand
11. "Happiness can exist only in acceptance." – George Orwell
12. "Happiness is good health and a bad memory." – Ingrid Bergman
13. "The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself." – Benjamin Franklin
14. "Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length." – Robert Frost
15. "Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it." – Bernard Meltzer

[hollygail]

There are too many of the 15 listed that appeal to me on numerous grounds. I'll take just one upon which to expand. Audrey Hepburn seems to have taken a clue from my own late DF. He always said, "Be happy" as his parting words. I'd heard it so much in my life that I sometimes took it for granted. But once he was gone, I could still hear his voice (note: he'd had laryngeal cancer and so lost his vocal chords about 5 or so years before he died, so he had no voice at all at the end of his life) saying those two words in the same cadence he'd said them.

The weather had been terrible these last few days. Alternating either showers or downpours with sunshine, but each day's temperatures in the high 40s/low 50s. I've gone to morning minyan all week (it's less than a 2-mile drive from my house to the shul) so I've been out in it all week. Yuck! My neighborhood hasn't had any flooding that I know about, so we're safe, although even I hear the news about how bad some of the flooding has been near where I live...

And in general, I've been busy. On Tuesday I realized that I'm reading Torah tomorrow morning at my own shul and I hadn't even looked at the verses more than maybe once or twice in the last month. So Wednesday and Thursday I studied. And I think I'm okay, and should be fine by tomorrow morning. I've read each day's thread the following day, but ran out of time to respond. My apologies to you all.

Gut shabbes / Shabbat shalom.

[peachymom1]

Holly, I love the story about your dad. What a wonderful thing to remember about him. And good luck on your Torah reading tomorrow!

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please pray for Israel.

hollygail, Great story about your dad. I sometimes hear my dad's voice talking to me, and he's been gone since 1989.

Re today's topic: I like so many of the quotes!! I am reminded of a little song, which follows:

Happiness runs in a circular motion
Love is but a little boat upon the sea
Everybody is a part of everything anyway
You can have it all if you let yourself be.

Offhand I don't remember who wrote or sang this, but I hear it my head and sing along frequently.

I'll see you on Sunday, and somebody remind me if I do the leads starting on the 25th (I think that's right), please.

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[louise]

Yesterday I felt so useless I never even posted - read and slept all day. Go figure.
I love so many of these about happi ness I don't know what to choose. I think for today I'd go with the one about "what you get".
Somehow I still have the blues - maybe crashing after my zoom, which went very well.
Shabbat shalom.

[peachymom1]

Louise, I wish for the blues to leave you and for peace to come in its place. (((Louise)))