Meaningful life

Yesterday we had a great event at our shul( JRLC of South Beach) where Alon Anava shared his near death and out of body experience. The details of his talk are amazing and very inspiring, he died and got a second chance, the main point he wants us to take is that we have to make our life good and meaningful. At one point he said that when he noticed he was dead he was very upset he died in a taxi and not in a more 'cool' way. This got me thinking a lot. What am I doing with my life? Did I accomplish all my goals? Do I live for the future or the present? How is mine definition if 'cool' way for ending my life? This is only a few questions that passed through my mind.

When I became religious I went to a lot of classes that tried to explain what is the meaning of life. Some were good, other were great, but none of them answered me properly. Why Hashem created us? Was long after when I discovered chassidus that I got an answer that eased my questions: we are here to create a dwelling place for Him. G-d has different names that are related to his different attributes, one of his name is Elokim that has the same numerical value as HaTeva(nature), this shows us that nature is G-d, in other words what we see as trees, lakes, ocean, flowers, bugs, animals, clouds its all G-d, and our mission is to reveal this godliness.

What am I doing with me life? I'm trying(some times harder than others) to reveal godliness around me through doing good deeds and following what I believe is what Hashem wants from me. Did I accomplish my goals? Not at all, but I feel that each day I'm getting there. Do I live for the future or the present? I live for now, the Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches us to live with the time, what I'm doing now is what matters. How is mine definition if 'cool' way for ending my life? By Moshiach coming and starting our no ending lives :) I remember when I used to ask my rabbi about death, after life,... he used to answer you will not die so don't worry and I took this to heart, I will not die moshiach is almost here so lets do one more act of good and kindness to bring him NOW!

Our life goes by very fast, I see this now better than ever with my kids, I remember when my firstborn was in my belly and now hes 3yo I cant even believe. We have to take time to live our lives and not only pass by it, sometimes we are so busy looking at the end goal that we forget about the NOW, we forget that how we get to the goal is even more important than the goal per se. So what I took from Alons experience is that we have to make our life meaningful now. Also he asked everyone to take in at least one mitzvah, that we can say we are doing frequently, I choose to give charity every day, this is something the Lubavitcher Rebbe put a lot of emphasis on and unfortunately I stopped when my twins where born and now I'm taking this mitzvah back :)

www.jrlc.mycharitybox.com (JRLC of South Beach)

Edit to add that I didn't mean to write on my personal good decision to ask people for tzedakah, but yes our synagogue survive on donations, and I see no problem adding the link to it on my own blog :)

Mother's day

Today is Mother's day, I normally don't go by this dates, specially because in the Torah vision mother should be respected every day, if we would do what we are required to our parents, they would feel like is mothers day all the time.
I first want to dedicate this post to the best mother in the whole world, and I'm totally serious she's an amazing mother, and I'm very lucky because she's my MOM :)

She's the most selfless person I ever met, she gave herself to me and my siblings completely, and she still does. She's my biggest example what a mother should be, I'm very happy to have her as a mother and I hope to be like her for my kids.
In a lot of places people are talking about the latest Time cover that shows a mother that is 26yo breastfeeding her son(3yo), and it says 'Are you mom enough?'  This is a very shocking cover, I guess this is what they wanted to have, I didn't read the article but I know is talking about Attachment Parenting(AP). I can't say I'm a totally AP mother, but I like a lot their philosophy, I believe the best way to raise kids is showering them with love and I think this way because this is the way I was raised and I'm very happy how I and my siblings are now :)

I believe nurturing your kids, dedicating yourself to them is the best thing we can do, I'm not saying we should forget ourselves, but specially when kids are little we will have to give up a lot of things for them, and its totally worth it.
AP doesn't equal no discipline, and really the kids from parents I know that follow this way are very well behaved, kids are kids and will be kids, we have to know what to expect from each age. I think a big problem is when parents expect kids to be adults, specially our days this happens a lot, when I see this it saddens me, childhood is such a beautiful phase and taking this away from our kids is the worst thing we can do for them.
I'm not saying AP is for everyone, even I don't follow everything on it. Each person is different, like everything is life I don't believe in a fit all solution, but I'm sharing what I believe for me and my family is the best way.

I'm back :)

I don't post for so long, and so much happened since then. We moved and opened our shul in our new place :) (check https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/JRLC-of-South-Beach/164504393655411)

Things are being great thank G-d, I'm not saying that its being easy but it feels great to do what we always wanted to do. With every new goal there are challenges, and we are facing many, specially money wise, but I can see Hashem brochos(blessings) in our work, thanks to Him we are getting great results. I can't compare our 4 months old shul to the ones that we know, some of them are 10-20 years old, a lot of things comes with time. But it all depends how we look at things, if we have a positive approach even the challenges appear to be good to us.This is not a easy task, but many times I am able to see how people look at the same picture differently and it all depends on how we look at it.

Just last week I spoke to 2 different friends about something, they were describing a place and it was amazing to see how the description was different, they were talking about the same place but one person told me how beautiful it is, how big, and many more complements, meanwhile the other told me it is a old place, ugly, falling apart. I happened to know the place and I was so shocked with the second person description, how can someone only see the negative? I'm thinking about this for the last few days and this is what brought me back to this blog.

Life can be beautiful, it all depends how we look at it, we all have difficulties in our ways. I love this story that a yeshiva student went to talk to the Rebbe MHM about his problems, how hard everything was and our Rebbe MHM answered 'When did u sign a contract with G-d that life will be easy?'(I'm not quoting the exact words, as i don't remember). This phrase is so powerful! Human nature wants to get all good without hard work, but this doesn't exist. Yes life is hard and when we accept this as an fact, it is so much easier to have a positive view and to enjoy it.
Don't expect to live in la-la land and have all the fairy tales things, we will have many challenges in our life but if we see them as blocks that are helping us build a big future makes all the difference. Difficulties is what makes us grow and from this experiences we can take lessons that will help us for next times. If we have a positive view and focus on the good it will be much easier to live our lives.