About 250 years ago, way before Starbucks reinvented coffee as the drink of the age, my parents bought me a Pavoni espresso machine for my thirtieth birthday.

I have that machine to this day. I love it. It has more chrome on it than a Chevy Impala. The Pavoni is the Harley-Davidson of coffee machines. It’s built to tolerances of about plus or minus half an inch, which makes it incredibly easy to service and repair - just get the parts somewhere near each other and it’ll work.

Many times I have thought about replacing this twenty-nine-year-old tank with one of the modern microprocessor-controlled beauties I’ve seen around. The last time was a couple of months ago, when I de-scaled it. When I’d finished de-scaling it , the coffee tasted dreadful.

It took me a good few days to realize that I’d used the wrong kind of vinegar to clean it out. During the couple of days that its “head was on the block” I went through something that I can only describe as withdrawal symptoms (and not from the coffee - I used instant in the meantime.)

Here was this old warhorse whose guts I knew, which I had managed to repair more than once, about to be replaced by a machine that would be impossible for me to do more than—make coffee. If - and more probably - when it broke down, I would have to take it to a repair center where doubtless they would tell me it would be far cheaper to buy a new one.

Repair is a dying art.

Apart from any nostalgia of which I may be guilty (nostalgia tends to increase in proportion to the number of years over which you have to nostalge), repairing something gives us a sense of achievement that merely producing our credit card fails to do by miles.

But I think there’s a deeper reason here as well.

The world was made to be fixed.

When G-d created the world, He didn’t create it as a complete and finished entity, rather He created a single point - a rock that sits on a small hill about 3/4 of a mile from where I’m writing this called the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - and the rest of the Universe expanded from there. At a certain point He said the Hebrew word, “Dai!”, which means “Enough!”

In other words, the potential for more exists in this world, but G-d intended that the world should be left lacking, incomplete, and that Mankind would have the opportunity - and the obligation - to bring it to its completion.

The world can be - and needs to be - fixed.

One of the ways this latent motivation emerges is in the ecology movement.

Judaism has always recognized that Mankind has the ability to build the world or to destroy it. In fact, ecology has always been a fundamental part of Jewish thought. However, there exists a deeper side to ecology than is generally understood.

Judaism’s concept of ecology is that when we do a mitzvah, one of G-d’s commandments—be it the simplest action, by kindness, by prayer, we elevate not just ourselves but the world’s eco-system as well.

My desire to fix that espresso machine is none other than my aspiration to fix the world - masquerading as a cup of coffee.

L’Chaim!

get the podcast here—> Judaism and The Art of Espresso Machine Maintenance

“Certainly, the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights. But we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they had been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and so a personal redemption; of collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. Without Jews it might have been a much emptier place.”

- Paul Johnson
(Historian, author of “A History of The Jews”)

No, I’m not talking about business ethics.  I mean the Earth. It’s crooked. Tilted about 23-1/2 degrees. The axis that the Earth revolves about (that imaginary line that goes from the South Pole to the North Pole) doesn’t go straight up and down, it’s tilted to one side. For 3 months it faces the sun, for 3 months it faces away and for 6 months it’s facing somewhere in between.

So what’s so good about that?

Seasons.

If the axis was straight up and down, chances are most of us would either be Eskimos or Bedouins since the Earth would always be frozen at the poles and boiling at the equator. (The tilt of our axis has a far greater effect on the change of seasons than even the elliptical path of the Earth around the Sun).

So why do we need seasons? Aside from the obvious benefit of having “variety”, another reason is because it says so in the Bible.

God tells the Jewish people – “Be sure to observe the holiday of Passover in the Spring”. Spring represents freedom, birth, rejunevation. Hence the need for something called Spring. And while we’re at it, we need a season for planting, for harvesting for hibernating and for enjoying. So God said, “No problem!”

TILT!

But that created another problem:

Did you ever see the Harlem Globetrotters spinning basketballs on their fingertips?  Or perhaps magicians spinning plates on top of poles?  Or maybe something a little closer to home – did you ever spin a dreidel?  Ever try spinning it on a tilt? Doesn’t work. The spin has to be perpendicular to the forces of gravity. Even if it starts off wobbling, once it gets going, it always straightens itself out.

So how come the Earth doesn’t straighten itself out? It’s been rotating everyday at a speed of about 1,000 miles per hour (a lot faster than that dreidel) for thousands of years (perhaps even longer according to some theories).

If all it takes is changing the laws of nature to make My creations enjoy life more, no problem.

See you at the beach, or on the slopes or somewhere in between!

Suppose for a moment you were blindfolded and escorted into an empty room.  When the blindfolds were removed, you sensed that you were wearing a pair of glasses.  When you looked around you, everything appeared to be pink.  How would you know if the walls themselves were pink or only appeared to be pink because you might be wearing a set of pink glasses?  If you couldn’t remove the glasses for whatever reason and you couldn’t cheat by looking out of the sides of the lenses, you would never know the real color of the walls.

This might seem like an unusual experience, yet in a somewhat similar manner, an element of uncertainty enters into all of our knowledge of the world.  In order for us to know something, we first have to perceive it and then pass along the sensations to our brains for understanding.  But this understanding is based on the structure of the human mind and therefore we can’t necessarily assume that what we perceive is a true reflection of the real nature of the world.  (Are the walls pink or do we see them as pink?)

Looking at more walls won’t help because we would be using the same standard of comparison that may not have any basis in fact in the first place.  The problem is that our minds have a natural tendency to assume that all of the phenomenon of the world can be explained rationally.  The laws and principles of science are based on the way scientists perceive the likely effect of a set of causes.  But because these results are being analyzed by a human mind, we can still never be sure why a ball falls to the ground or if, in fact, it will continue to do so 100% of the time.

Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, one of the most brilliant writers and educators of the 19th century wrote,

“Without the belief in the spiritual aspect of the universe, scientists could never be sure that they are not deducing dream from dream and proving dream by dream.”

According to this, the reason we perceive a universe is because everywhere we look, in everything we sense, God fills in the blanks.  He allows us to feel, hear, see and smell only those things that He wants us to experience.

The conception of an orderly and meaningful existence, therefore, can only be based on the view that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator and Ruler of the universe, Who sees true reality.  Scientists only assume that there is a rational world for us to experience, but they can’t prove it because, hey, they’re only human.

I don’t mean to get personal, but when was the last time you thought about your kidneys?  That’s okay, most people don’t.  They filter about 1,000 pounds of blood every day removing all the waste material and eliminate it from the body through the urine.

When was the last time you changed the filter in your kidneys?  In your car you have to change it every 3,000 miles.  How come you don’t have to change anything in your kidneys?

Speaking of cars, when they’re running low on gas, the “Low Fuel” indicator lights up.  When we’re running low on fuel, the sensation or hunger takes over and we know it’s time to refuel.  In a car, when it’s low on water, the engine’s temperature gauge moves to “Hot.”  Humans just realize they’re thirsty and gladly shell out a buck and a half for a cold bottle soda.

And speaking of temperature gauges, did you know that even when the thermometer says you’re body temperature is 98.6, you have organs that are normally hotter and others that are normally colder.  The body automatically self-regulates both the temperature and the blood pressure of every organ individually.

To do this, the body has a system of glands that secrete hormones that have to be perfectly measured, or the organ and the body cease to function.  The thyroid, for example, that regulates blood calcium, heart rate and digestion, produces only one teaspoonful of thyroxine per year and it has to be released in exact measured doses.  And for most people for most of their lives, that is done perfectly.

Ever have to fix your car and you didn’t have the right tool?  You know what substitutes for pliers, hammers and screwdrivers?  Our hands!  And they’re are also capable of writing, sewing, drawing, soothing, scratching and expressing our innermost, animated thoughts (especially if you’re Jewish).  Our hands are more highly developed than those of any other living creature and are the most marvelous and versatile of all our features.

This wondrous machine, our body, has been entrusted to us for 80, 90, or 100 years, to enjoy the pleasures of this world, to help make the world a better place and to use it in the service of God.

And just as it says in that last clause on a typical car lease, we’ve got to return it back to the Original Manufacturer in good condition (except for normal wear and tear).

At first, the scientific world believed that the universe was eternal. Then in 1978, the director of NASA’s Goddard Space Center, Dr. Robert Jastrow, published a piece in the New York Times Magazine outlining the overwhelming evidence that our universe inexplicably burst into existence, and concluded saying:

“This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth… For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

On the one hand, these constant reversals prevent the scientific community from speaking with any real authority. On the other hand, it is fascinating to note how the reversals in recent years have more often than not bolstered the Torah perspective. The writings of many of today’s top astronomers, chemists, biologists and physicists are entirely consistent with our tradition. And even in the words of those who despise religions and religious values, and who would never consciously offer support for God’s existence, we can often detect inadvertent arguments for our perspective.

click here for more

‘Tis the season when most Americans, and possibly others, gather together to say thank you. This is the time of the year when people take time out from their busy shopping schedules to thank their Creator, their families, their bosses and their country for all of life’s blessings.

For us as Jews, we use every day to thank Gd.  We start early each morning as soon as we open our eyes – Modeh Ani Lefanechah – I give thanks before you. We continue all day through with blessings of thanks for the food we eat, the ability to eliminate the food we eat from our bodies and for the various commandments we fulfill each day.

There are many big things for all of us to be thankful for, Jew and non-Jew alike. Life, liberty, health, a home, a job, family.  Yet for some who are lacking these bigger things in life, it often becomes difficult to say thank you.  The loss of a job or a loved one, not having a family surrounding them, lack of health, religious or physical persecution. Then it becomes time to look at the little things in life and say, what would life be without them?

For those of you who may lack the micro-focus, here are some of those wonders and conveniences of life that still make life pleasurable:

Snooze alarms, white-out, paper clips, calculators, calendars, toys, disposable diapers, paper plates, umbrellas, non-slip bath mats, the little light on the toaster oven so that you know it’s still on, pajamas, sunsets, screen doors, dollar bills, matching forks, knives and spoons, nail clippers, rocking chairs, cell phones (well, you can decide about that one), Sweet ‘n’ Low, the remote control, the first winter snow, toilet paper, post-it notes, yellow highlighters, dishwashers, matches (the ones made in China or in Heaven), allowance, weekends, retirement, hugs, toothpaste, micro-chips, commuter buses and trains, dictionaries and shopping bags.

(I may have left out a few, so be sure to fill in some of your own favorites).

So, before you gobble down your turkey dinner or savor the tasty pumpkin pie, take a look around you and realize what you have.  Some have more, some have less, but the truly rich person is the one who takes pleasure in his lot (Ethics of the Fathers, 4:1). It’s never too late to stop and smell the roses.