A Moment in Time: Bouncing Back

I attended a 4th of July picnic with my family yesterday. It had been a particularly difficult week for me, and I was trying to gain perspective. While my nephew was in the bouncy house, Ron reminded me, “We should never miss an opportunity to bounce back when we can.”

Life can be uncertain. And we will endure difficult times. But we don’t give up – because we don’t want to miss out on even the dimmest of rays of goodness. Our liturgy teaches that light folds into darkness, and darkness folds back into light (Ma-ariv aravim prayer). And so we capture the moment in time to bounce back, reach for tomorrow, and embrace life. And boy, is it worth it!

With love and Shalom,

Rabbi Zach Shapiro
Temple Akiba of Culver City

A change in perspective can shift the focus of our day – and even our lives. We have an opportunity to harness “a moment in time,” allowing our souls to be both grounded and lifted. This blog shows how the simplest of daily experiences can become the most meaningful of life’s blessings. All it takes is a moment in time.

Rabbi Zach Shapiro is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Akiba of Culver City, a Reform Jewish Congregation in California. He earned his B.A. in Spanish from Colby College in 1992, and his M.A.H.L. from HUC-JIR in 1996. He was ordained from HUC-JIR – Cincinnati, in 1997. He was appointed to the HUC-JIR Board of Governors in 2018.