Dear all,
I didn’t fully realize it until yesterday morning… You see, every time I opened my closet door, an avalanche of stuff would explode into the room. I did this so often that it was normalized.
But when I found that I no place to store important treasures because of the clutter, I opened my eyes. I spent the next few hours culling. It felt really good. But what about removing clutter makes us feel better?
There is a lesson from a 13th Century Jewish text called, “Sefer HaChinuch/ The Book of Teaching”: Our external surroundings have a huge impact on how we feel inside.
I thought of this teaching and realized: When we free ourselves from the slavery of clutter, we can more easily focus on our lives:
Do we make time for what matters?
Have we surrounded ourselves with good people?
Are we nourishing our days with art, music, literature, and culture?
Is there space for prayer and meditation, exercise and well-being?
Cleaning my closet did NOT take a moment in time! But the hours of labor allowed for a moment of rebirth of my spirit.
With love and shalom,
Rabbi Zach Shapiro
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.
