Image is Everything?!!! by Aliza Davidovit

Many of us have an image we feel we have to upkeep in order to face the world. So maybe we wear a little too much makeup, buy a car we can’t afford, or show a brave face when we are crying inside. Images are only skin deep. For instance, the Titanic may have had an image of great elegance and imperviousness but the iceberg wasn’t too impressed and as a result 1500 people died. The Wizard of Oz, had the image of an all-powerful magician, but when the curtains were pulled, he was nothing more than a little man with a megaphone. Image is the bait that ensnares us, hypnotizes us, and lures us down the Yellow Brick Road-- often to find disappointment at its end. It is unfortunate that we try and put our best face forward at the expense of what is really going on behind it.
Even the TV we love to watch is all about improving life aesthetically and superficially. It is the trend these days in reality TV to renovate the externals of our existence, thus the barrage of makeover programs, such as What Not to Wear, Nip & Tuck, The Biggest Loser, Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, Supernanny, Nanny 911, Restaurant Makeover, From G's to Gents and Extreme Makeover, just to name a few. I question why there are no shows that force people to be nicer. Why don’t they take some mean yutz and put him through the process of attending church, doing acts of kindness and in the end showing how his life has been changed for the better because of it.

We apathetic viewers allow media image makers to shape the mindset by which we evaluate people and events. A perfect example is President Obama, who came upon the national scene with a nice smile and a gift of gab. As a result, most of America was hypnotized by a manufactured image that promised to “fundamentally change” the country. We failed to insist that the media dig deeper and to uncover the depth and breadth of a man who would be president.

But how can we demand more of others when in a large measure we evaluate ourselves superficially as well? At the end of most days we bash ourselves if we are overweight, if we didn’t make enough money, if we aren’t as successful as the other guy or gal. But how many of us take ourselves to task at the end of the day for not doing enough charitable deeds that day or being a kinder person? Few of us engage in a makeover that starts on the inside.

In this week’s Bible portion the Israelites gather at the foot of Mount Sinai to witness Moses descend with the Ten Utterances (Commandments). God does not pick a fancy building or the highest mountain to bring his laws into the world nor does he ask His people to adorn themselves with jewels and expensive garb, but rather he addresses them in the wilderness, where they have nothing and are nothing more than a wandering people. The Jews had humility after leaving Egypt—after all, what pride can a former slave have? As such they were prime candidates to receive the word of God. Pharaoh had pride and haughtiness and thus could not absorb God’s laws. He was impressed with his own image and all the makeovers that Egyptian idol makers and beauticians could conjure. But gilded armor does not a mensch make.

A rabbi once asked his young student where can God be found? The student proud to know the answer said, “God can be found everywhere.”
“Wrong,” his rabbi replied, “God can only be found in a humble heart, not one that is filled with ego, for two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time.”

Biblical scholars teach that it is relevant that the Ten Commandment were engraved in stone and not inked on parchment or gilded with gold letters. Something engraved shows humility because it is able to surrender a part of itself and allow something meaningful to be etched in its stead.

So my dear friends, when we look at our lives and contemplate “makeovers” and image boosters, close your eyes! Look inside yourself beyond the mirrors, choose substance over surface. When we reach the end of our days it is only our good deeds that will gain us entry into God’s kingdom, and at that heavenly gate, there is no bribing the doorman.

Finding Light in the Darkness ©

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"I'm too Miserable to be Happy" by Aliza Davidovit

Some books are so “good” that once you put them down, you cannot pick them up again. For certain it’s human nature to put down things that we lose interest in. But what if that book is the story of your life? Will you put it down because it’s not a pleasant read?

In today’s difficult times, with the unemployment rate in the double digits and much of our securities vulnerable, it is easy to fall into despair and fear. In line with the “misery loves company motif,” we have joined in a communal depression. Our quick-fix society finds itself paralyzed in the face of challenges which seem to have no immediate exit strategies. Thus, ironically, a country that lost it’s international manufacturing edge still rates high in manufacturing excuses of why we cant be happy or forge forward in our lives even through very difficult times. “How can I be happy now that I lost my job?” “How can I be happy when the whole country is going to hell?” “How can I be happy my wife dumped me?” “How can I be happy when my best friend has everything and I can hardly afford the rent?”

We continually focus on what we are missing instead of what we have. The decisive question is, do you have gratitude or baditude? Because it is indeed your attitude, nothing else, that will be your happy indicator in life.

The first step to inviting happiness into your life is realizing that not everything has to go your way. You don’t always have to own everything you desire, you don’t have to be the most beautiful, or thinnest, or wisest, or even be the happiest to be happy. In fact, it reminds me of an episode of the Twilight Zone: It was about a man who sinned all his life and when all his sinning came to an abrupt end upon death, an angel comes to escort him to a place that clearly gives semblance to heaven. His every desire is met at a moment’s notice. If he desires a beautiful woman, poof, there she is. If he desires to win at the casino, poof he hits the jackpot. When he desires the finest of caviar, poof, there it appears. Day after day, night after night, all his pleasures are satisfied. Eventually this afterlife of plenty and gluttony gets to him and he pleads with the angel who ushered him to this generous place, “Please I can’t take heaven anymore, get me out of here.” To which the angel responds, “Who, my dear sir, told you that this was heaven?”

This man was actually in hell. And where one would usually equate hell as a place of scarcity, that is not so! The only thing missing in hell is the ability to appreciate what we have. Are you guilty of making your own life here a hell here on earth? If you have a little or a lot, you have nothing if you don’t appreciate it.

Just because things don’t always go our way it is no reason to put down the book of our lives and basically stop writing it until things get better. We cannot walk away from ourselves and fall into depression and start gaining weight and drinking too much and cheating on our spouses as palliatives to our pains. Quit it with the contingency happy plan which dictates if only I had this or that then I’d be happy. Challenges are here to make us stronger, to fortify our faith and our efforts, not to weaken us or send us into despair, or keep us hiding in the dark, in our bathrobes, and courting our pain as if it was some great lover.

This week’s reading in the Old Testament speaks of the Patriarch Abrahams returning from Mount Moriah, where God had sent him to sacrifice his son Isaac. The trauma and suffering Abraham must have endured before God’s angel stayed his hand from striking his son is unimaginable. After passing this great test, Abraham goes home not to rejoice, but to find that his wife, the matriarch Sarah, had died. These were just two among the great travails and tests Abraham had to go through in his life. But biblical scholars teach us that this great father of many nations did not succumb to grief; his mourning was contained. The man did not fall apart but kept an optimistic eye on the future and proceeded to find his son Isaac a wife even though he had just lost his own. Abraham didn’t put down writing the narrative of his life but ensured that his story continued through his son and his seed. He refused to be a slave to grief but rather chose to be the taskmaster of hope.

We don’t need to learn from Abraham that life can be tough. But we can learn to keep on moving and to stop mourning over what was or what will never be again. If two things or thoughts cannot occupy the same place at the same time, then you must choose what you want to fill the vacuum of your life with—happiness or regrets, despair or hope, apathy or action, courage or fear. “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, Therefore choose life.”
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This week's blog is dedicated to the memory of the 13 killed at FT. Hood, patriots whose chances at happiness were mercilessly murdered.


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Bible Talk: Green-Eyed Monsters

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What's More Important, Yesterday or Tomorrow?

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Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who is the Biggest Turkey of All? by Aliza Davidovit

I have often questioned if our mission in life is about becoming all we can be or about maintaining who we started out as? There is no better place than New York City to watch that experiment unfold. Wannabe actresses, singers, journalists, entrepreneurs, and others come from across the nation and across the world believing the city’s sparks of magic and opportunity will turn them into the next American Idol in their respective fields.

Indeed many come armed with great talent, but from the moment they unpack their bags a war of attrition is launched against their values, their upbringing, their religions, and their innocence. The road to success is rough and tough in a big city and for every beauty there is a younger, better looking beauty, for every talent there is a greater talent. Thus, often that trunk we packed at home with all our beliefs and belongings can burden our pace. So, ever so slowly, imperceptibly we lighten our load shedding that which shackles our rise to the top--kindness, integrity, morality, our small town mentalities and God. We begin to ask ourselves: How can I make it in the movies without sleeping with a producer? How can I make it by being mister nice guy? How can I make it if I observe the Sabbath? These doubts don’t happen overnight, and yet they do as night after night, in unguarded moments, Satan taunts us and teases us and lures us away from ourselves, breaking down one barrier at a time.

It is often during such times as Thanksgiving and other holidays when we return home to our familiar surroundings and look into those mirrors that watched us grow up, that we can see how much we have changed.

The big city is but a metaphor for our life’s journey. God sends us to this earth with our talents, our desires and our ambitions. He also sends us tests along the way which we can use to refine us or to redefine us. But when we return to our heavenly maker, will He recognize us? Will we resemble the innocent soul He set upon this earth? How many of us have had a New York “makeover” that has rendered us unrecognizable even to ourselves and to all that we used to be.

It is said that after Adam and Eve took a bite from their “big apple” God called out to them in the Garden of Eden and asked, “Where are you?” Certainly an All-knowing God knew where they were, but it was a question meant to instigate introspection. “Where are you in this world? What do you stand for? What do you fall for? He asks them where they are because once they sinned their souls became unrecognizable.

As a journalist who interviews the who’s who, I have a staple question I ask: “Was there a price to your success? The answer is always, “yes.” And many, depending on their age, say the price wasn’t worth it--usually the older, the wiser. It evokes a term that stuck with me from my torturous economics classes: the law of diminishing returns—at a certain point producing “more” actually decreases the value of returns.

In last week’s Bible portion read in synagogues, we learn that the same God who commanded Abraham to leave his place of birth tells the patriarch Jacob to do the complete opposite: “RETURN to the land of thy birth.” For Jacob, unlike Abraham, home would be the uncompromising backdrop that would reveal if and how he had changed.

When Jacob left home he possessed nothing but his will to serve God. His propensity was toward spirituality, not materialism. Yet he returns with great wealth, with wives and children and herds of animals. This accumulation of worldly things was so uncharacteristic of him that when his brother Esau, who had not seen him for 20 years, saw Jacob’s entourage, he asked, “Who are these to you?” It was not the same Jacob who had left home. Leave it to family to remind you.

It is thus only upon Jacob’s return to the land of his birth that he wrestled with an angel-- a symbol of evil born out of his new found materialism. Now that Jacob had a foot in both worlds, the material and the spiritual, each was struggling to dominate him. In his fight with the angel, Jacob’s spiritual strength won, but his leg was injured and he walked forevermore with a limp. The biblical lesson is clear: The attempt to live life with our feet planted in two worlds so far apart is a hard way to travel and often extracts a painful price.

So many of us walked away from the Thanksgiving table popping antacids not only because we overate but because some annoying family members made us nauseous, criticized us, told us we changed, got on our case, or simply bored us. But perhaps the better remedy is to take a brutal look in that old and honest mirror and question how many miles and morals away from home we have traveled and what is the full price have we paid?


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Are You a Turkey or a Dumb Blonde? by Aliza Davidovit

Turns out that blondes may really not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time(although many do think they can drive, put on mascara, text and drink a latte concurrently). But it was just last week while I was on the treadmill listening to an audio book on my ipod when I literally forgot to walk for a moment and found myself nearly flying. Quantum physics is no easy subject to absorb even while sitting, but trying to take it in while trotting proved to be a painful experiment both to my ankle and to my pride. Literally so caught up in thought, I stopped walking. But as someone who goes through life packing my purse with life lessons and thinking that all things have a reason, I sought to find one here. “What could God be trying to tell me?” I asked my very practical mother, seeking guru-like profundity. But with her usual caustic wit she replied, “God is telling you that you have to keep on walking.”
Indeed, the answer was as simple and deep as that. In today’s very difficult times, so many of us are going through great personal hardships financially, psychologically, and emotionally. Many people find themselves without jobs or their beloved careers and are living on their last dime, getting increasingly depressed and demoralized. The “hope” and “change” many relied on has not panned out and from day to day, things seem to be getting worse. So many of us have just stopped!
The job search seems not to be worthwhile; getting dressed in the morning becomes a bigger chore; getting off the couch becomes evermore challenging, and hope, well hope, is just a taunting stretch of the imagination that only a skilled wannabe-president can evoke.
But are each and every one of you so “blonde” that while tuned into an ipod of despair you have become immobilized? Time spins by so fast that we cannot feel its passage, just as we cannot feel speed when we are in an airplane. But whether we perceive it or not, life is a treadmill and we have to keep walking no matter what--you cannot let it throw you off! Indeed, no hope will be found in the pockets of your bathrobe or in the cracks of your couch, at the bottom of your cognac or in idleness--Satan’s arms. Sitting around and waiting for things to change is the lazy accomplice of despair.
Which brings me to the subject of Thanksgiving.
Traditionally, Thanksgiving is a time of expressing our gratitude for all the blessings we have in our life. So, in effect, this holiday is badly named; it should really be called Thanks Taking, for we are the lucky recipients of God’s bounty and grace. And though this year many people will have “skinnier” turkeys because money is tight, perhaps this year can give us a true perspective of what the holiday may really be about.
Sages teach us that man is not measured by what he has in life, but rather by what he can give. Instead of fretting this holiday because we have less to be thankful for, be evermore grateful for all the things which you are able to GIVE. Can you play an instrument? Then volunteer at a seniors’ residence. Do have your sight? Then volunteer to help the blind. Do you have legs? Then commit yourself to help the handicapped. Do you have your health? Then visit the ill. In our giving not our taking we realize the depth of gratitude we owe our Maker. When we take stock of our personal inventories as human beings and acknowledge all that we have to “give,” we become more evolved than the ego-stuffed turkeys we so often resemble.
In the Bible segment studied in synagogue’s this week, we read about Jacob’s ladder upon which the angels were ascending and descending. Nowhere does it say the angels got tired or lazy, so they hung on a rung and chilled for awhile. In life you are either going up or going down; there is really no such thing as the status quo. And I’m not talking about the ladder to success that is rooted in BS and ascends to idolatry and sin. I’m talking about the ladder to God that the Bible tells us was rooted in the earth and ascended to Heaven teaching us that the path to God is planted in the mundane. We can elevate the nitty-gritty of life--our hardships, our pains, our trials--by facing it with dignity, decency, integrity and courage. Our duty is to keep climbing upward. Moses wandered the desert for 40 years, but you never heard him complain that his feet hurt. He never said I’m staying in my tent and watching Oprah today, I’ll deal with Pharaoh tomorrow.
Interestingly, the great patriarch Jacob’s name means heel (of the foot) in Hebrew. In terms of marketing a patriarch--the family head--certainly God could have done better. But Jacob’s name suited his God-given destiny. Jacob had to continually hit the pavement during his life. He was always running from one place to another in order to survive. In the end God changed Jacob’s stage name to reflect his next act in life: He named him Israel, who became the father of the twelve tribes and a blessed nation. The secret to his earned success is that he never ever got off the treadmill. Maybe he, too, had a mother who counseled him during the hardest of times, “Gods telling you that you HAVE TO keep on walking.”


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