Dear all,
I’ve been an active Scrabble player for years now, and I enjoy how random tiles can transform into point accumulating words. As I was playing recently, I thought about how Jewish life parallels my Scrabble board.
Each day comes with new opportunities. How will we manage our time? What choices will we make? How can the simplest of interactions transform into a Jewish value?
Last week, a child walked into Temple Akiba with a five dollar bill. “Rabbi,” she said, “I found this on the ground, and I wanted to place it in the Tzeddakah box.”
That’s how we find a Jewish value from random daily stuff.
This week, a Bar Mitzvah student told me his football jersey was number 54. While the number was arbitrarily assigned, he recognized it as “triple chai” (18/ life).
That’s how we find a Jewish value from random daily stuff.
What value will you find this week? What meaning will you seek out, creating a holy moment in time out of an ordinary world?
The tiles of life are all there. It’s in your hand to put them into a meaningful order!
With love and shalom,
Rabbi Zach Shapiro
