Sayings of the Fathers 1

The Sayings of the Fathers or פרקי אבות  is "The Secret" of Jewish life.  The Rabbis of the Mishna collected here all the mussar sayings, that is all the advice they have for you to live a happy and healthy life.  They start with the history, telling us that all this knowledge and that of the Torah, Oral and Written comes ultimately from Moshe, Our Teacher on Mount Sinai.  It was passed down through the ages by word of mouth by each successive generation until it came to Rebbe, of Sainted Memory when it was written down for us to study and apply to our lives.  Each week, Jews all over the world study a chapter of the Sayings of the Fathers.  In this way their wisdom continues to guide and inspire us every week.

This week, I received as a gift from a distant cousin, who lives down the street from me coincidentally, and we are friends, (rare in my family).  So she gave me a copy of the פרקי אבות, with commentary of Rabbi Dr. Joseph H. Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, published in 1945!   Well, as I study in the original Hebrew, usually, I picked up the book expecting to use it to just read the Hebrew, but the commentary opened my eyes to the פרקי אבות as never before!  


 I turned to Chapter 1 Mishna 14 the famous יד)  הוא היה אומר אם אין לי מי לי וכשאני לעצמי מה אני ואם לי עכשו אימתי

14. He used to say, If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  And if I am only for myself, what am I:? And if not now, when?

In America where I grew up we read this Mishna to mean that we have to do social action.  Help the poor, feed the hungry, and during the 1970's when I was a kid, we gave our Tzdaka money every week to help get the Jews out of Russia.

Well the Jews are out of Russia, and the poor and hungry will not leave the Earth.  We need to do social action, but there is much more in this Mishna than meet the eye at first.

He - the Mishna is talking about Hillel.  "Had Hillel left us but this single saying, we should be forever grateful to him; for scarce anything can be said more said more briefly, more profoundly, or more earbestkt: (H. Ewald)  page 24 Hertz

What does this saying have to say?  To me, it says that Hashem has given us all certain talents,  circumstances, time frame that we live and the century.  It is up to us to use these G-d given attributes to the best of our abilities.  We are not dealt a blank page on which to write.  We are given tools to work with.  It may take time to figure out exactly which tools that will be the most useful, profitable and enjoyable. If you don't use your talents to the best of your ability, then you not achieve anything in this world.

But it not enough to only to use these talents for yourself.  You have to be engaged in the world.  You have to make the world a better place.  We can't all be Mahatma Ghandi, The Rebbe or the Prime Minister to change the world.  You can be yourself and carve out your own niche. Decide what type of problems you like to solve.  A doctor solves health problems.  A teacher solves learning problems.  A Real Estate agent solves housing problems.  What type of problems do you like to solve? Or are you good at solving?

The last part is the call to action.  We live in the present.  Always.

The past is gone.  I can remember the past, I can change my memory of the past, I can change my feelings about the past. This is what we do when we use NLP to change our feelings about past events.

The future is not here yet.  I can't live in the future, for then it will never come.  I can plan for the future.  I can make appointments for the future.  I can set goals for the future,  and I write them in the present tense.  I am successful.  I have a loving family.  These may be goals for the future, and if I feel them, see them, visualize them as happening now, then they are happening now.

Take this Mishna and feel it.  Use it.

Have a great week.

Shavua Tov


Rachael Orbach  
LifeCoachJerusalem@gmail.com


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Rachael Orbach Certified Master Life Coach - American University of NLP Certified Master NLP Practitioner - American University of NLP B.A.- UCLA Los Angeles www.lifecoachjerusalem.weebly.com Blog: www.lifecoachjerusalem.blogspot.com Skype: life-coach-jerusalem 052-750-0608