Category Archives: family

My Cup is Half Full…

6 Replies

My Cup is Half Full

I love coffee. It’s common knowledge among those who know me. One of the perks at my job is that the coffee machine is calibrated with filtered water (it makes a difference, really) and the water-to-coffee-ratio is perfect. The decanter holds a standard 40 ounces. Only one problem, we’ve got these 16 ounce cups by the coffee machine. Basically for every pot brewed we get 2 1/2 cups of coffee. Today I made a pot, went back to my desk, and then 3 minutes later got up to get some bean. Much to my dismay, the coffee decanter was empty (again). With determination, I made another pot. I watched it brew and thought about how quickly this batch of coffee will disappear. I then made a choice. Not a big life-changing choice, but I did go against my natural inclination. I only filled my cup half way. Let someone else get a shtickel more coffee in their cup, I thought. I really wanted that full cup of coffee. Things don’t work out the way we usually want them to (more on this in a future post, bli eyen hora). But, they usually balance out. Yesterday being the case.

I had a great 4th of July. Spent time with my Modern Uberdox wife and kids. Got to take my kids swimming, had a great BBQ with my neighbors, and then joined my neighbors and a few other friends for a spectacular fireworks display. My wife did me the chessed she does for me every year… she told me what colors the fireworks were. I’m red-green color blind, you see. While I can tell the colors in a traffic light, I get lost when it comes to fireworks. All in all, a great day. If I end up not getting the cup of coffee I wanted at work in the morning…no problem. I know I can’t approach every issue that comes up in life the way I dealt with my “half cup of coffee”. But, I’ll try to remember how good I felt doing a chessed for someone else.

Our Sense of Taste

11 Replies

Parasha Beha’aloscha contains a passage about the mannah, or mun. I would like to share something I read from Rav Shimon Schwab’s writings.
Before Rav Schwab left Europe he went spent Shabbos with the Chofetz Chaim for Shabbos. Shabbos night a group of students came over to the home of the Chofetz Chaim and he said:
We know the mun had the ability to take on whatever taste we wanted it to. What happened when the person eating the mun didn’t think about what he wanted it to taste like?
The Chofetz Chaim answered his own question: Then it simply has no taste.

This gets me every time. It’s one of my favorite d’vrei Torah. If I don’t think about my Avodas Hashem, then it has no taste. If I don’t appreciate the people my family, it’s like they don’t exist. How often does my learning or mitzvah performance seem like tasteless mon?

I struggle to approach each day as a new one.I never want to be too comfortable with my Yiddishkeit.

Torah Judaism require that we think about what we do. We owe it to our creator.
My tefillah is that I hope I keep on tasting.