What We Don’t Know CAN Hurt Us!

08 Monday May 2023

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“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

–Carl Jung

Do you ever find yourself repeating a pattern in your life that you seem helpless to avoid? Or find yourself in a situation wondering how you got yourself into this mess? Chances are excellent that you are in the grip of an unconscious pattern or motivation.

Carl Jung also said that we think we know 80% of who we are, and that 20% is in shadow, when in reality, we are aware of only 20% of who we are, and 80% is in shadow! Like a background program, the majority of our psyche that is “in shadow” behind the scenes is running patterns that influence nearly every aspect of our lives. The more the we can uncover our unconscious motivations, patterns and mental models, the more we can consciously direct our lives, rather than being directed by unseen forces.

These forces are not evil in intent, they simple reflect unconscious beliefs, hidden agendas, and coping strategies intending to keep us safe in a complex and surprising world. One question we can ask our selves when we find we’ve gotten ourselves into a place we don’t want to be is “What’s the payoff here? Does this help me dominate or avoid domination? Does it help me avoid something, like more responsibility or risk? What’s the particular cheese at the end of this tunnel?”

Have you noticed that wherever you go, there you are? What shadow pattern can you bring to light today?

Carl Gustav Jung  (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. He created some of the best known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex and extraversion and introversion. Jung was also an artist, craftsman, builder and a prolific writer.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, woodworker, mentor, and student of The All. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@joe.laur.com.

The Danger of Being Certain

01 Monday May 2023

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“It ain’t what we don’t know that gets us in trouble, it’s what we know for certain that just ain’t so.” 

 – Anonymous

In the Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, Rabbi Kahana is quoted as saying that if the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish court,  unanimously finds an accused person guilty, he is acquitted. Why? Because we have learned that tradition dictates that a judgment must be postponed awhile in hopes of finding new points in favor of the defense. Talmudic commentary explains that when a Sanhedrin unanimously convicts a defendant, collusion must be suspected. Since a verdict is reached without any dissenting opinion, the judges on the Sanhedrin are not doing their job properly.

In other words, we should be suspicious of, even set aside, any conclusion without an element of doubt or dissent! Certainty is suspect! 

I recall visiting  Aushwitz-Birkenau some years ago with one of my rabbis, Sheila Peltz Weinberg. Having gazed into the ovens, and as we literally stood upon the ruins of the crematoria, the rabbi remarked, “I pray I am never this certain about anything.” In otherwords, so certain in our cause as to commit genocide.

In my own life, the times I have gotten into the biggest messes have been when I was the least reflective and the most certain. Having no shred of doubt blinds us to other possibilities in an infinite world. We cannot function of paralyzed. But the wisest counsel when we choose a course of action, is to be aware that there may be other worthy  paths, and that despite our best reasoning and intentions, we may be wrong. 

Where in your life are you overly certain, to your peril? 

Versions of the opening quote have been attributed to Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Josh Billings, and Artemis Ward, among others. However, it cannot definitively be ascribed to any of them. It seems to have been collectively developed over many people, times and places. Ironically, the authorship remains uncertain. 

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, executive, consultant, and student of The All. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@joe.laur.com.

The Soul’s Long Journey

12 Wednesday Apr 2023

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“To what does the journey of the soul compare? To a person who planted a vineyard in his garden, intending to grow sweet grapes, but it grew sour ones. He saw that his planting didn’t succeed. He notched it and broke it off and cleared out the sour vines, and he planted again a second time. ‘Until how many times?’ [his students asked.] He said to them: ‘To the thousandth generation.’ ~ Sefer Bahir 185

In our high speed internet era, where nearly every need and whim can be satisfied with a mouse click, it can be challenging to accept that personal growth does not work that way. Our souls have their own timeframe, not measured in minutes, hours, days and years.  

Our souls are on learning journeys, and the greatest learnings are the ones that come to us only after many failed attempts at success. In fact, the case can be made that we deeply learn only by repeated failures.

when i learned to ride a bicycle, i did so primarily by being out of balance most of the time, falling down a hundred different ways, until I found the sweet spot where the force of gravity and the force of my legs balanced, where I rode that dynamic knife edge between left and right, moving forward on a path of balance. Once learned, it is not easily forgotten. You never forget how to ride a bike.  

Our souls are on the greatest trip of all, riding the sweet spot between wonder and knowledge, fear and exhilaration, love and solitude, heaven and earth. I don’t know if my soul is immortal or not. I do know that it belongs to eternity, and will travel that path of learning, passing it down through a thousand generations. 

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, executive, consultant, and student of The All. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@joe.laur.com.

Acting Locally and Cosmically

21 Monday Mar 2022

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“Every man who begets a free act projects his personality into the infinite. If he gives a poor man a penny grudgingly, that penny pierces the poor man’s hand, falls, pierces the earth, bores holes in suns, crosses the firmament and compromises the universe…. A charitable act, an impulse of real pity sings for him the divine praises, from the time of Adam to the end of the ages; it cures the sick, consoles those in despair, calms storms, ransoms prisoners, converts the infidel and protects mankind.” -Leon Bloy

I try to carry dollar bills or gift cards for food stores with me at all times. That way, when I see that ragged face standing at the street corner withe cardboard sign, or a pile of dirty clothes with a person inside sitting near the entry to the market, I have something in my hand to drop into theirs.

My mind says “They’ll only use it for drugs!”, or “That food card will free up money for them to use for booze!” I often have harsh judgements about personal responsibility failures and scam artists grabbing instead of working. But it’s none of my business what why use the money for. I could just as easily imagine them as using it for food for their kid, or medicine they need, or to pay rent.

My job is not to judge. My job is to respond to humans in need. Moses didn’t question if his sister Miriam needed healing. Jesus never asked for a co-pay. When I have a little extra, and i meet sdneon who doesn’t have enough, it’s time to follow the Second Law of Thermodynamics and let things move from a higher level of concentration to a lower one. It’s not just solid physics, it’s righteousness.

The next time I meet someone in need, how can I do the right thing?

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Léon Bloy (11 July 1846 – 3 November 1917) was a French novelist, essayist, pamphleteer, mystic and poet, known for his influence within French Catholic circles.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, artist, builder, naturalist, consultant, and EcoKosher mashgiach. He lives with his wife Sara in western Massachusetts, where he serves as head groundskeeper and resident singer songwriter. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@joelaur.com.

The Fullness of the Earth

22 Friday Apr 2016

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“The Fullness of all the Earth is (G!D’s) Glory!” 

“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” 

-Isaiah (Isaiah 6:3 and 55:12)

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I’ve always thought that Earth Day should be called Humans Day, because it’s really not about saving the Earth. She’ll do fine without us. It’s about saving our place on the planet.

I’ve always been fond of these lines from Isaiah. The first is usually translated “the Earth is full of G!D’s glory!” but the Hebrew more literally says that the fullness of the Earth is G!D’s glory. That all of creation not only reveals, but is the fullness of the Divine.

The second line is one of many biblical lines that suggest that Creation praises the Divine, and that we are part and parcel of it all, part of the praising, part of the fullness, participants in the glory. If the landscape can sing and the foliage clap, why are we holding back?

What a difference if we saw the earth this way every day! That all of creation is alive, infused with Divine Presence, sacred throughout its entirety. Earth Day could be a celebration of all creation, a day of joy and wonder, and not one of extraction, fabrication, pollution, annihilation. What if it really is the Fullness of Creation itself that is the Glory of G!D?

What can you do to celebrate creation today?

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Isaiah (Hebrew: Yeshayahu, literally: “Yah is salvation”), was a prophet documented by the Biblical Book of Isaiah to have lived around the time of 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, executive, consultant, and a lowly rabbinic student. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@godsdog.net.

The Enemy is Fear

21 Thursday Apr 2016

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“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate, but it is fear.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

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The purpose of fear is awareness. And when we are fully aware, our fear becomes our friend. Fear wakes us up, tells us to look alive, because we need to pay attention to what is coming, right now. The word “Beware!” is actually a contraction of “Be Aware!”

When Gandhi says that fear is our enemy, he means we must not be driven by fear: fear of others, fear of failure, fear of success. We must have our fear, rather than letting our fear have us.

If we are unafraid, hatred fades as a force, either expressed by us toward others, or others toward us. It’s not worth the effort hating what we don’t fear!

With fear at our side, keeping us alert, it becomes an ally rather than an obstacle. We don’t have to fear our fear!

What fear can you transform into an ally today? What do you need to be aware of?

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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi ( 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahatma (Sanskrit: “high-souled”, “venerable”) —applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa,—is now used worldwide. He is also called Bapu (“papa”) in India. In common parlance in India he is often called Gandhiji. He is unofficially called the Father of the Nation.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, executive, consultant, and a lowly rabbinic student. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@joelaur.com.

Running Against The Wind

19 Tuesday Apr 2016

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“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

-Jimmy Dean

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I love  river rafting on a hot summer day. Sometimes it’s good just to go with the flow. But I also love to sail with my wife on the Cape. And then we use the flow to go where we want to.

So it is in every day. It’s the better part of wisdom to discern when going along for the ride is just fine, and when we want to run against the wind. Isn’t this what free will is all about? We can choose to revel in whatever G!D sends our way, but like Jacob wrestling with divine energy, we can use that energy to sail our own course. It just takes a vision of what we want and the courage to run with the wind in our faces.

What course do you want to sail today?

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Jimmy Ray Dean (August 10, 1928 – June 13, 2010) was an American country music singer, television host, actor and businessman. Although he may be best known today as the creator of the Jimmy Dean sausage brand, he became a national television personality starting on CBS in 1957. He rose to fame for his 1961 country crossover hit “Big Bad John” and his 1963 ABC television series, The Jimmy Dean Show, which also gave puppeteer Jim Henson his first national media exposure. He was nominated for the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2010, although he was formally inducted posthumously.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, executive, consultant, and a lowly rabbinic student. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@godsdog.net.

Friendship as Food

18 Monday Apr 2016

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“The primary joy of life is acceptance, approval, the sense of appreciation and companionship of our human comrades. Many men do not understand that the need for fellowship is really as deep as the need for food, and so they go through life accepting many substitutes for genuine, warm, simple.”

-Rabbi Joshua Loth Liebman

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The psychological researcher Harry Harlowe demonstrated that primates raised in isolation  preferred a cloth surrogate mother to one that fed them, and demonstrated strange and aggressive behavior in life. Not only family, but nurturing friendship is a critical “nutrient” to our well being.

In  the second chapter of Genesis, the first thing G!D says about the new created adam– literally, earthling or human- is also the first thing that G!D sees as “lo tov”-not good. “It is not good for the earthling to be alone.” Even the Divine recognizes the need for friends and companions.

They say you can’t get enough of what you don’t really need. If we substitute TV, drugs alcohol, work or other surrogates for friends on a regular basis, we may become a little odd. Hermits are traditionally eccentric. It’s no coincidence that recovery from addiction involves fellowship, and that addiction thrives in isolation. Paradoxically, we need others to be wholly ourselves.

What friend can you reach out to for nourishment today?

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Joshua Loth Liebman (1907–1948) was an American rabbi and best-selling author, best known for the book Peace of Mind, which spent more than a year at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, executive, consultant, and a lowly rabbinic student. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@godsdog.net.

No Place Like Home

16 Saturday Apr 2016

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“If you go anywhere, even paradise, you will miss your home.”

-Malala Yousafzai

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Dorothy may have had it right. There is a story of Yankel, the tailor of Pletstk, who dreamt he saw a bridge in Rome guarded by a soldier with a treasure buried beneath it.

In the morning Yankel packed his bag and journeyed to all the way to Rome. When he arrived, he saw the bridge and soldier, just like in his dream! He began digging beneath the bridge. When the soldier stopped him, he told him of his dream.

The soldier laughed, “You fool! I dreamt I saw a treasure buried beneath the stove of a little tailor named Yankel in a Jewish town called Pletstk! Crazy stuff! Now get out of here.”

Yankee immediately turned for home, and pulled up the floor beneath his cast-iron stove. There it was – a buried treasure!

Home may not be the house we grew up in, or sometimes, sadly, the family we grew up with, but each of us has one, somewhere. The longing for home is a function of our souls, only sometimes linked to geography. It is the place where our true treasure lies. We may journey the world over, but as Malala says, even Paradise will not replace it. Home is not only where the heart is, it is our heart, and soul, and G!D willing, destiny.

How can you journey toward home today?

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Malala Yousafzai  (born 12 July 1997) is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. She is known mainly for human rights advocacy for education and for women in her native Swat Valley in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of northwest Pakistan, where the local Taliban had  banned girls from attending school. Yousafzai’s advocacy has since grown into an international movement.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, executive, consultant, and a lowly rabbinic student. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@godsdog.net.

Not The End Of The World

15 Friday Apr 2016

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“Everything will be okay in the end.
If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” 

— John Lennon

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A friend once gave me some sage advice: “Joe, the only thing that’s the end of the world, is…the end of the world.” In other worlds, every situation, no matter how dire, is not the End of Times, unless, of course, it IS the End Of Times.

Most of what we experience, no matter how painful, distressing, or scary, we survive. The worst thing that happens is that we live through it. Maybe we are chastened, wiser or scarred afterward, but we survive, and usually grow stronger or more savvy as a result.

Perhaps, as John Lennon claims, everything will be ok in the end. He certainly knows, wherever he is now, whether or not that’s true for certain; the rest of us go on faith. But life is sure a lot more enjoyable if we live in the paradigm of OK-ness, rather than one of fear and dread of the future. We get to choose the stories we live by, and I usually go for the ones of growth and evolution.

What can you become “okay” with in your life today?

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John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE ( 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer and songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as a co-founder of the band the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. With fellow member Paul McCartney, he formed a celebrated songwriting partnership.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, executive, consultant, and a lowly rabbinic student. Send him your favorite teaching quote for commentary. He can be reached at joe.laur@godsdog.net.