The Preciousness of Each Human Being
The individuals belong to the community and complement one another existentially.
Each individual possesses something unique, rare, which is unknown to others; each individual has a unique message to communicate, a special color to add to the communal spectrum.
Hence, when lonely man joins the community, he adds a new dimension to the community awareness. He contributes something which no one else could have contributed.
He enriches the community existentially; he is irreplaceable.
Judaism has always looked upon the individual as if he were a little world (microcosm).
With the death of the individual, this little world comes to an end. A vacuum which other individuals cannot fill is left.
The saying: Whoever saves one life, it is as if he had saved the entire world. (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4, 5)
Soloveitchik, Rabbi Joseph B. "The Community." Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought 17:2 (1978): 7
The individuals belong to the community and complement one another existentially.
Each individual possesses something unique, rare, which is unknown to others; each individual has a unique message to communicate, a special color to add to the communal spectrum.
Hence, when lonely man joins the community, he adds a new dimension to the community awareness. He contributes something which no one else could have contributed.
He enriches the community existentially; he is irreplaceable.
Judaism has always looked upon the individual as if he were a little world (microcosm).
With the death of the individual, this little world comes to an end. A vacuum which other individuals cannot fill is left.
The saying: Whoever saves one life, it is as if he had saved the entire world. (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4, 5)
Soloveitchik, Rabbi Joseph B. "The Community." Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought 17:2 (1978): 7
Who was George Floyd?
“He was looking to start over fresh, a new beginning...He was happy with the change he was making.” said Christopher Harris, Floyd’s lifelong friend.
"As a teen in Texas he was a football star many nicknamed “gentle giant”.
But he lost his job as a bouncer at a restaurant when Minnesota’s governor issued a stay-at-home order.
"Floyd, 46, grew up in Houston’s Third Ward, one of the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods, where he and Harris met in middle school. At 6ft6in, Floyd emerged as a star football player, positioned as the tight end for Jack Yates’ high school team, and played in the 1992 state championship game in the Houston Astrodome.
“Quiet personality but a beautiful spirit,” Cooper said.
"Harris, Floyd’s childhood friend, said he and some of their mutual friends had moved to Minneapolis in search of jobs around 2014. Harris said he talked Floyd into moving there as well after he got out of prison.Floyd landed a job working security at a Salvation Army store in downtown Minneapolis. He later started working two jobs, one driving trucks and another as a bouncer at Conga Latin Bistro, where he was known as “Big Floyd”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/29/george-floyd-who-was-he-his-friends-words
“He was looking to start over fresh, a new beginning...He was happy with the change he was making.” said Christopher Harris, Floyd’s lifelong friend.
"As a teen in Texas he was a football star many nicknamed “gentle giant”.
But he lost his job as a bouncer at a restaurant when Minnesota’s governor issued a stay-at-home order.
"Floyd, 46, grew up in Houston’s Third Ward, one of the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods, where he and Harris met in middle school. At 6ft6in, Floyd emerged as a star football player, positioned as the tight end for Jack Yates’ high school team, and played in the 1992 state championship game in the Houston Astrodome.
“Quiet personality but a beautiful spirit,” Cooper said.
"Harris, Floyd’s childhood friend, said he and some of their mutual friends had moved to Minneapolis in search of jobs around 2014. Harris said he talked Floyd into moving there as well after he got out of prison.Floyd landed a job working security at a Salvation Army store in downtown Minneapolis. He later started working two jobs, one driving trucks and another as a bouncer at Conga Latin Bistro, where he was known as “Big Floyd”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/29/george-floyd-who-was-he-his-friends-words
(כד) יְבָרֶכְךָ֥ יְהוָ֖ה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ׃
(כה) יָאֵ֨ר יְהוָ֧ה ׀ פָּנָ֛יו אֵלֶ֖יךָ וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ׃
(כו) יִשָּׂ֨א יְהוָ֤ה ׀ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְיָשֵׂ֥ם לְךָ֖ שָׁלֽוֹם׃
May God bless you and keep you
May God’s presence shine upon you and be gracious to you
May God's presence be with you and give you peace.
Chesed חָֽסֶד: “an inner quality that grows within us out of the perception that we are not really separate from the other.” Alan Morinis, Everyday Holiness
LovingKindness (Chesed) Meditation
May you feel protected and safe.
May you feel content and have "enough."
May your physical body provide you with strength.
May your life unfold smoothly with peace and ease.
(Sylvia Boorstein - Buddhist-based Metta practice)
May you feel protected and safe.
May you feel content and have "enough."
May your physical body provide you with strength.
May your life unfold smoothly with peace and ease.
(Sylvia Boorstein - Buddhist-based Metta practice)
Tourists
Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
They squat at the Holocaust Memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's Tomb
And on Ammunition Hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust after our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms.
Once I sat on the steps by agate at David's Tower,
I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists
was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see
that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch
from the Roman period. Just right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!"
I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them,
"You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it,
left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family."
From "Tourists" by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)
Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
They squat at the Holocaust Memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's Tomb
And on Ammunition Hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust after our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms.
Once I sat on the steps by agate at David's Tower,
I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists
was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see
that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch
from the Roman period. Just right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!"
I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them,
"You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it,
left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family."
From "Tourists" by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)