What follows is an edited version of a speech that Judea Pearl, the father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, delivered upon accepting an award on his son\’s behalf from the Los Angeles Press Club on June 22, 2002.
Real estate entrepreneur Brad Gluckstein had a vision. Perhaps not as dramatic as one of those sightings of Mary Magdalene, but a vision nonetheless.
I recently visited a hospital patient, an elderly gentleman with a name, a gaze and a life story from the old country. His deterioration had advanced to the stage of inhibiting verbal communication, so he spoke to me instead through gestures, nods and stares. But slowly, we drew closer. We shared sorrow, distress and worry. Eventually, exhausted, he told me he wanted to get some rest. I recited the \”Shema\” for him, and he closed his eyes in fatigue.
As we enter the new millennium, fitness professionals are becoming more aware of the movement toward spiritual forms of exercise. Programs like Pilates, Yoga, Tai Chi, meditation, and body work are common in fitness clubs and community centers. To keep up with today\’s stressful lifestyles, we must do more than increase our heart rates and pump iron to maintain maximum health. Mind and body fitness can facilitate this by achieving inner balance and harmony in mind, body and spirit.
There is something otherworldly about the experience of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. It is perhaps the preeminent spiritual-cultural paradox in all of Jewish life. When girls and boys focus so intensely on this personal lifecycle event, each possesses a transcendent, timeless and eternal quality.
There\’s a Yiddish saying that goes: \”I\’ve been poor and I\’ve been rich. Believe me, rich is better!\” In the Midrash we read: \”Nothing in the universe is worse than poverty; it is the most terrible of sufferings.\” (Exodus Rabbah 31:14)
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