It always works out

 There was a trend a few months ago. It was "I met my younger self for coffee. So I hopped on the trend and wrote one. But then I realized, I'm still so young!  I feel overwhelmed and sometimes hopeless. What can I even tell my younger self?  Well of course a lot. But I felt my current self needed some encouragement. So I thought what would it be like to meet my older self. To look ahead and realize that the problems I'm facing now may not be as big or scary anymore when I'm older. I'll know more, I'll experience more.  And that gives me hope.  So here it is.  I met my older self for coffee She came more on time then I did, though still a few minutes late.  I don't know what she ordered, maybe a hot coffee, maybe she still liked it iced.  She looked pretty much the same, but calmer.  I sat down dejected , frustrated How did you get out of our bad habits?  I'm in a loop again and again Doing better, then falling again.  She smiled at...

 We just ended Sefira. It's a time of mourning because Rabbi Akiva's students were struck down with a plague and 24,000 of them died. Why? Because they didn't respect each other.  Now this doesn't seem to make much sense. Rabbi Akiva was the epitome of Ahavas Yisroel.  I learned that they loved each other so much they could just not tolerate that their fellow did not understand things “the right way.” They each thought they needed to convince each other of the right thing.  And that was their grave mistake.  But I never related to this until just recently.  I have a certain friend. I see that she's struggling and I have a certain idea of what she should be doing with her life.  And it was so frustrating to me that she just wasn't doing those things. Until someone mentioned to me, you know those things you're saying are not helping her. She feels judged and it's making the problem worse. I was so caught up in what I thought my friend needed that I didn...

 It's Shavous tonight and I have been thinking about what it means to accept the Torah. And what it means to accept life. And those around us. It makes me think of this video of someone asking Charlie buttons, "whats the most important thing in life"? And he replied, "show up. Maybe a little late, but you gotta show up."  I grew up always hearing Naaseh Vnishma. We will do and then we will listen. I always learned it as the jews accepted the Torah and then they said we will listen to whats inside it.   The Midrash writes that Hashem asked the other nations if they want the Torah and they all said "No thank you for Torah theres no time."  Ok well thats the preschool song. What they really said was, well what's in this Torah. So G-D told them and they were like ughmmm that's a looot of work. No thanks! They read the terms and conditions and did not agree. And we did the real jewish thing and just signed at the bottom.  I always heard this. And ne...