The Search For Happiness

There is no place where people are as short-tempered as on the road. They scream, curse and the blood pressure sky-rockets. [One thing I have noticed in my life is that it is ALWAYS - with rare exceptions - the other guy's fault and not the person who is driving in my car. Interesting how it works out that way....]

Recently my cab driver wanted to get through a certain road block but the security guard was giving him trouble. He was FURIOUS. FUMING. He screamed "אתה באמת דפוק או רק עושה את עצמך ככה" - "Are you really stupid or are you just acting that way??" Somehow - this argument didn't convince the security guard to let us through.... [This "gem" has been repeated numerous times in my house since then, sending everyone squealing with laughter].

Why is this so? Why are people most hot-headed on the road??

People feel as if they are missing SOMETHING. True happiness eludes them. Traveling is a way to somehow pursue that yearned-for feeling of fulfillment. Maybe if they go to that other place they will be happier. I often walk down the street and wonder where everybody is going. What were you missing at point "A" that compel you to go to point "B". People spend tremendous amounts of money and suffer many inconveniences, all to be in a different place [how much does a flight cost?]. Believe me, if people were really happy on the inside they would find no reason to be anywhere other than where they are.

When people are on this literal journey in search of fulfillment they are tense. Something is NOT RIGHT. They don't have the wherewithal to be patient and calm.

Marriage, all relationships, require the opposite. Calm, relaxed, at ease, PATIENT. We need to have the capacity not to turn assumptions into conclusions. To talk. To LISTEN. TO HEAR. To be ACCEPTING.

We have a lot more to say....:)

ועוד חזון למועד

The Dog Won't Let Me

The "Oilam" tells the following story:

There were once two guys walking in the forest and one of them was shaking with fear because of the possibility that he might be attacked by dogs and eaten alive. His friend told him not to worry. There is a sgula that has been proven to be effective that wards off dogs. One says the pasuk written about yetzias mitzrain "ולכל בני ישראל לא יחרץ כלב לשונו" - "No dog barked at the Jews" and the dogs will not touch him.

His fears were realized when a HUGE beast of a dog attacked him. With great distress he tried to escape. His friend, who was standing in the distance, called out "Why don't you say the pasuk?"

He cried back "The dog won't let me."

When one gets married, he [and she] often enters the marriage with a host of poor character traits. Anger, self-absorbtion, laziness, insensitivity etc. etc. He reads marriage books and even listens to shiurim on the ideal marriage, but when push comes to shove the "dog" inside of him won't let him practice what he learns.

The eitza is to buy a Sichas Mussar of Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz and work hard on his middos so that the "dog" is exorcised from his spirit.

ספר האיש מקדש עמ' תמד