As we prepare to enter Hanukkah this year, let’s pack a bag to take with us, filled with two dozen bits of wisdom from the late beloved Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe.
These came from a number of different sources, and in no particular order, except you should be prepared for the last one. But don’t look ahead. (Do, however, pay special attention to No. 14; it’s perfect for all of us at this time of this year.)
1. You cannot add more minutes to the day, but you can utilize each one to the fullest.
2. Lead a supernatural life and God will provide the miracles.
3. Existence is the greatest of all miracles.
4. Wealth is not a mansion filled with silver and gold. Wealth is children and grandchildren growing up on the right path.
5. This is the key to time management: to see the value of every moment.
6. When the soul is starved for nourishment, it lets us know with feelings of emptiness, anxiety or yearning.
7. There is no need to accept the standards of the world at large.
8. When you waste a moment, you have killed it in a sense, squandering an irreplaceable opportunity. But when you use the moment properly, filling it with purpose and productivity, it lives on forever.
9. God gave each of us a soul, which is a candle that He gives us to illuminate our surroundings with His light.
10. Man can never be happy if he does not nourish his soul as he does his body.
11. We cannot rest until every child, boy and girl, receives a proper moral education.
12. A successful marriage is dependent on inviting God into the relationship.
13. Love is the transcendence of the soul over the body.
14. Your home should become a light that illuminates the entire street and community.
15. Charity transforms matter to spirit, and turns a coin into fire.
16. We must translate pain into action, and tears into growth.
17. If you see what needs to be repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the work that God has left for you to complete. But if you only see what is wrong, and how ugly it is, then it is you yourself that needs repair.
18. Miracles are all around us; we must open our eyes to see them.
19. Everyone must be a leader.
20. The world says that time is money; I say that time is life.
21. If you wait until you find the meaning of life, will there be enough life left to live meaningfully?
22. What matters is not so much where you stand, but with what force you are moving in which direction.
23. Our mission on earth is to recognize the voice — inside and outside of us — and to fill it.
24. All Jews share one and the same Torah, given by the one and same God. While there are more-observant Jews and less-observant ones, to tack on a label does not change the reality that we are all one.
25. This last is not from the Rebbe, but from Max Edelkopf of New York, who posted it on Facebook more than two years ago, but it is fresh and new and real, today more than ever:
At a conference for neurologists that took place in the United States, a professor got up to explain why it is that there are people who, upon arising in the morning, suddenly faint. It seems that this is a problem many people suffer from, and the speaker explained that it takes 12 seconds for the blood to leave the feet and get up to the brain, and if someone gets up very quickly, he or she could faint. She recommended that all people, upon arising in the morning, sit for at least 12 seconds before they actually get up. At this point, a Jewish professor got up and said, “I’d like to explain to you that the Jewish people have had a custom for thousands of years: to praise God upon arising. And the prayer that they say is exactly 12 words long — and if you say it properly, it takes 12 seconds.”
Enjoy. Have a Happy, Happy Hanukkah.
Harriet Gross can be reached at harrietgross@sbcglobal.net.