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From the Rabbi

Rabbi Abrams Rabbi Mendel Abrams

November 2008

FROM THE RABBI’S DESK:

I recently came across these 9 rules for being human. 

  1. YOU WILL RECEIVE A BODY.  You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.
  2. YOU WILL LEARN LESSONS.  You are enrolled in a full-time, informal school called life.  Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.  You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
  3. THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, ONLY LESSONS.  Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation.  The ‘failed’ experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately ‘works’.
  4. A LESSON IS REPEATED UNTIL IT IS LEARNED.  A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it, then you can go on to the next lesson.
  5. LEARNING LESSONS DOES NOT END.  There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.  If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
  6. THERE IS NO BETTER THAN ‘HERE’.  When your ‘there’ has become a ‘here’, you will simply obtain another ‘there’ that will, again, look better than ‘here’.
  7. OTHERS ARE MERELY MIRRORS OF YOU.  You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
  8. WHAT YOU MAKE OF YOUR LIFE IS UP TO YOU.  You have all the tools and resources you need; what you do with them is up to you.  The choice is yours.
  9. THE ANSWERS LIE INSIDE YOU.  The answers to life’s questions lie inside you.  All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

Some thoughts for us as we commence living in a New Year.

 

Rabbi Mendel L. Abrams was born in the wild, snow-covered north country of Minnesota a number of decades ago. He found early in life that the snow and cold of Minneapolis were not for him. Ergo, he migrated after receiving his undergraduate degree to the "civilized" canyons of Manhattan to complete his education.  While residing in Gotham, he met and married Lila.

Upon ordination, the U.S. Army "requested" his presence, and he spent the next two years saluting and memorizing Army regulations. Following his separation from service, he became the rabbi at Am Echod in Waukegan, Illinois, where his most famous congregant was comedian Jack Benny. After four and a half years on the shores of Lake Michigan, the Abrams family (now numbering 5) moved to Youngstown, Ohio, where he spent two and a half years as Rabbi of Anshe Emet Congregation, before alighting finally here at Beth Torah in 1971.

The Rabbi's Resume details his credentials. Rabbi Abrams treats patients both through the Washington Pastoral Counseling Service and through private consultation.

 

 


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