Leaping from thought to thought on Leap Day

• It's kind of funny to me that from time to time I get interviewed by people ... as if I knew something! Flattering, amusing and a little scary. The latest is this article on judging people positively in The Jewish Angle, an entertaining and educational Jewish eZine.
• I love the question: If God is all-powerful, could God create a rock so heavy that God couldn't lift it?
• Tzimtzum -- the Divine act of contraction to make room for Free Will -- is the Big Bang thrown briefly into reverse.
• Rabbi Menachem of Chernobyl said the Hebrew letter aleph, being closest to the Divine Emanation, contains such brilliance that it couldn't be approached by the lower levels of existence. So with each letter of the aleph bet, God contracted a little more, until the final letter, tav, which stands for both tiheyeh -- 'you shall live' -- and 'timut' -- 'you shall die.' This last is the level at which we operate -- the lowest, sandwiched between life and death, in the narrow space provided in the realm that has the faintest of Divine emanations. I'm just saying that's a pretty cool idea.
• I didn't know what it meant to lose "spring in your step" until I was about 45. All of a sudden, when I was running, it just hurt. My knees felt like worn-out shock absorbers.
• This morning as I was getting into my car to go to work, I heard a cardinal singing. Nature's great anti-depressant is the first birdsong that pierces the thinning shell of winter.
• The cardinal sang the day after the first Spring Training ballgames were played. Perhaps it knew...?
• Somehow, the Midwest produces days when there are no clouds out and the Sun still doesn't shine. It's not pollution -- it's some kind of collective, meteorological gloom: the reflection of all this frozen slush back up into the atmosphere.
• Scotch seems to be in now. Why is Scotch so in?
• I wonder: if I'm fortunate enough to grow old, but unfortunate enough to become infirm, which kid -- if any -- will look after me?
• I am addicted to the "BrickBreaker" game on my BlackBerry. It's just Pong with better graphics.
• My son told my brother that I'm more like a big brother than a dad. Is that a good thing ...?

Shabbat Shalom.

--T.A.

(DISCLAIMER: many if not all thoughts contained herein are not original in form or content. Author denies any intent or attempt to plagiarize, mimic, lift, nip, tuck or otherwise alter or expropriate the works of other authors without attribution. Offer good while supplies last.)

Comments

[amba]

The cardinal sang the day after the first Spring Training ballgames were played. Perhaps it knew...?

He must've though he was in St. Louis.