Shabbat Shalom ~ Toldot

Dear WJC Family,

I just wanted to send a quick note today to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving holiday. By now, I hope you are all familiar with the 613 Mitzvah Campaign and have participated. If not it isn’t too late. But for this weekend I have a different project: the “100 Blessings Challenge.”

The Talmud teaches us that we are supposed to recite at least 100 blessings every day. Why would this be required? Is God so needy for our praise that God requires all these blessings? That can’t be it. No, when we stop to recognize and give gratitude for the things around us and recognize the Creator Who is the source of our good fortune, it changes us. Doing so one hundred times in a day will change your day. Doing so one hundred times every day, well, that will change your life.

So, this Thanksgiving, I challenge you to do the 100 Blessing Challenge – write out one hundred things you are grateful for and take a moment to give thanks for each and every one. I hope it will change your holiday for the better and maybe have an even bigger impact than that. I’d love to hear some of the things you come up with too, especially when you get into the ’60s or ’70s and it starts to get hard!

Also, in honor of Thanksgiving, I am re-sending the Thanksgiving video message from last week, in case you missed it.

After Thanksgiving we have Shabbat—Rabbi Segelman will be speaking Friday evening and in the main sanctuary on Saturday morning. I will be with Cantor Goldberg in “Simple and Soulful” where our theme will be “Appreciating the Blessings and Overcoming the Challenges of Gathering as a Family.” We will also celebrate an auf ruf in Simple and Soulful, which will be exciting! Then in the afternoon, I am going to teach the shiur entitled, “The Curse of Blessings.” We will look back at the source for the 100 Blessing Challenge and then hear and explore one of my all-time favorite stories, “The Curse of Blessings,” by Mitchell Chafetz.

See you in shul,
RJA