Category Archives: Wisdom, Poetry and Musings

A beauty beyond skin deep – The story of Penny Loker

As a little girl, she never got a valentine at school parties.

As a teenager, she never had a best friend, a boyfriend or a date.

As a woman, she’s never had a relationship. She’s never been kissed.

Her dream to one day become a wife and mother is fading as she grapples with the reality that it may never happen.

Penny Loker, 31, was born with hemifacial microsomia andGoldenhar Syndrome, two birth defects that left her with a disfigured face. Hemifacial microsomia causes a malformation of the ear and/or the structure of the lower jaw. Goldenhar Syndrome is a congenital condition that produces abnormalities of the head and the bones of the spinal column. It usually affects the appearance of eyes, ears, facial bones and the mouth.

…..

Her only regret?

“I have so much love to give and I would love to share that with a family of my own. I understand it will probably never happen, and I’m learning to accept it. But I am sad about it,” she says. “It feels like the one great loss in my life.

See the rest of the article here – A Beauty Beyond (http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/14/health/loker-profile/index.html?hpt=hp_c4)

If you don´t see yourself as part of the problem, you cannot be part of the solution.

Every culture teaches this through a similar story. Joseph Campbell, anthropologist and advisor for Star Wars, called it “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” The hero starts his journey feeling at the mercy of external circumstances. By the end, he realizes he is in control of his destiny. He knows that he can choose how to behave, learn and grow.

Teaching accounting at MIT, I saw how numbers shape perceptions. Coaching leaders all over the world, I learned how stories shape lives. Good stories inspire you; bad stories disempower you. The worst stories are the ones that have you as a victim.

Heroes are not just mythical characters. They are examples of you at your best. Here are five suggestions to always remember who you are.

1. No problem — Take the challenge

There is no such thing as a problem. What you call “a problem” is not a thing independent of you, but a situation you don´t like. It is “a problem for you.” To deal with it more effectively, put yourself in the picture. Think of it as your challenge. Take the difficulty as an opportunity to show your true colors.

I often catch myself saying, “the real problem is…” followed by the thought, “…that you don´t agree with me!” Equally often, my counterpart argues that “the real problem is…” that I don´t agree with him. Unless we recognize and give up these bad stories, we will each push hard to overcome the other. Push versus push equals stuck: a very expensive stalemate where we both spend tremendous energy for no result.

2. Drop “Who’s responsible?” – Be response-able

You didn’t do it. So what? You are suffering from it. People and things are out of control. It is tempting to blame them and play the part of the innocent victim. Don’t. The price of innocence is impotence. That which you blame you empower. Become the hero of the story; focus on what you can do to respond to your challenge.

The inspiring question is not, “why is this happening to me!” but “what is the best I can do when this happens?”

I once coached a financial services executive who would always blame external factors: regulation, competition, the economy, his employees, his boss, his peers. All these forces did impinge on his goals. It was the truth, but not the whole truth. The truth that he refused to accept, the one that blocked his growth, was that he was able to respond to these forces.

3. Forget what you don´t want – Focus on what you want.

Consider an issue that troubles you. What would you like to have happen? I ask this every time I coach. Infallibly, I learn what my client would like to not have happen anymore. This is a bad end for a hero´s journey. Avoiding what you don´t want will take your energy away from achieving what you do want.

Your brain doesn’t compute “no”. What you try to avoid you unconsciously create. If you don´t believe this, try to not think of a white bear right now and notice where your mind goes. Define a positive outcome precisely. Ask yourself, “What do I really want?” and visualize it in as much detail as you can. This will force you to put some flesh on the conceptual bones. Furthermore, ask yourself, “How would I know that I got what I wanted? What would I see? What would I feel?” In this way you will be sure that your vision has observable standards by which to measure success.

4. Take one eye off the ball – Go for the gold.

It’s not about hitting the ball; it’s about winning the game. Set your mind on what you are ultimately trying to achieve. Build a chain from means to ends, taking you from getting the job, to advancing your career, to feeling professionally fulfilled, to being happy. The ultimate goal and measure of success is happiness.

“What would you get, if you achieved X, which is even more important to you than X?” Ask yourself this question and discover that you never ask for what you really want—and neither does anybody else. We all ask for what we think is going to give us what we really want. Have you ever bought set of golf clubs hoping they would make you play better? And what would you get, if you played better, which is even more important to you than playing better?

5. Failure is not an option – Succeed beyond success.

Commit fully to achieve what you really want. Know that you deserve it and give it your best. This will make you more likely to get it. Success, however, is not the most important thing. To be a hero, pursue your goal ethically, as an expression of your highest values. Success may give you pleasure, but integrity leads to happiness.

Don’t aim at success–the more you aim at it and make it (your final) target, the more you are going to miss it. For true success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Listen to what your conscience commands you to do and carry it out to the best of your knowledge.” — Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.

Questions for Readers

How is life challenging you to be a hero right now? What values would you have to express to be proud of yourself regardless of the outcome?

(Source: Linkedin post by Fred Kofman Director at Conscious Business Center)

7 Rules of Life

1. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

2. What others think of you is none of your business.

3. Time heals almost everything, give it time.

4. Don’t compare your life to others and don’t judge them. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

5. Stop thinking too much, it’s alright not to know the answer. They will come to you when you least expect it.

6. No one is in charge of your happiness, except you.

7. Smile, You don’t own all the problems in the world.

Electricity

Electricity helps us understand the hidden G‑dly force that sustains the universe.

It cannot be grasped with any of the five senses—we can know it only from its effects and related phenomena. Indeed, we cannot explain it in any other terms.

Yet it permeates all of our experience, and from it we derive great light and power.

Beauty

Beauty cannot be touched. It cannot be described or explained. The more we uncover Beauty, the more she eludes us.

Beauty is the world’s window through which the light of the Infinite bursts in.

Sunglasses of the Soul

The body is not something to be abhorred or rejected. On the contrary, the body serves as sunglasses for the soul.

Without the body, the soul can perceive G‑dliness only in an abstract, ethereal way. The body allows the soul to stare straight into the face of G‑dliness, in tangible, concrete terms.

The Metaphor

Everything we see about us is but a reflection of that which is above.

A king in our world reflects dominion above.

The sweetness of a fruit reflects the sweetness of the wisdom above.

The form of the human body reflects the inner structure of the cosmos, so that each limb and organ parallels a particular divine force.

Each of these things descends from its G‑dly place into our material realm to take tangible form—so that we can grasp those G‑dly concepts from which they extend.

Even those inventions that arose only in the modern era were hidden all this time within the Creation, waiting for us to discover them and reconnect them with their G‑dly source and meaning.

An idea: metaphorically speaking, sun/light metaphorically refer to clarity, positivity and joy in life. “Have a bright day.” “May His light shine upon you.” These statements refer to a positive experience due to an external cause (sun/light.) Not much physical effort on behalf of the individual, rather it requires more conceptually clarity and a willingness to receive the light. The positive experience is shared between both the external cause and the psychological efforts of the individual.

In contrast, also metaphorically speaking, darkness is a gloomy experience. Dark moments in life can cause much sadness and depression. The brightness in life has disappeared, the external source of light is lacking. Therefore, in order for the individual to find light in moments of darkness, he must make the effort. He must kindle a light when times are dark. The absence of light can be a result of his own actions or circumstantial external occurrences. However, to combat the darkness, the emergence of light relies more on him than external sources. A human being must therefore be the originator and provider of light in moments of darkness.

In conclusion, the dark moments of life allow for man to produce beneficial activity that would not have been able otherwise, had the light always been present. The darkness of life allows for a brighter man to emerge.

Musings on beauty

My entire life, I have always been a people watcher and have been fascinated by human appearance, experience and expression. The question of beauty is something that has always intrigued me. The following are my initial unstructured musings on the topic, a stream of consciousness:

The Power of Beauty

“Such is the power of our innate, undeniable, and often-suppressed desire to look good, achieve greatness and make sure others know about it. Such is the overlooked and underappreciated exercise of our own vanity. To put it bluntly (and to riff off that Hollywood icon of vain glory, Gordon Gekko), Vanity is good. Vanity is right. Vanity works, Caring about ones appearance, in the right way, is no character flaw. It is actually an essential train in a world that lavishes its attention, money, jobs, respect, and all around deference on good-looking people.”

“Studies have found that leaner, fitter, better-dressed, better looking people are paid more, promoted faster, and given more positive evaluations.”

“Researchers at Medaille College in Buffalo asked students to rate 400 professors on their helpfulness, caliry and looks. They found that the hottest teachers also rated highest in the other categories.”

(Source: Mens Health Look Great Grooming Guide Summer 2012)

Beauty is Objective

Physical attractiveness has objective and subjective elements; however there is general consensus, that there is a foundational objective standard of beauty that defies race, culture or personal preferences. This beauty can be quantified in terms of Symmetry, structure and proportion. (See Beauty Analysis http://www.beautyanalysis.com and further writings/research of Stephen Marquardt)

The changing role and evolution of Beauty

In previous generations, divisions among people were determined by social status, class, race, wealth, intelligence, political power and influence.  In today’s generation there is a new element that although always present, now has a much greater weighting – physical attractiveness.

The major driver of this change has been technology, which means that we now live in a truly visual and global society. We are inundated with imagery of attractive, beautiful people. Magazines, Television, Movies, Internet, Advertisements, Billboards, Facebook, all of these are visual driven mediums that perpetuate beauty.

Society today has a stronger focus on health, exercise, eating right, and having a well-toned, athletic physique. Advancement in cosmetics, hair and facial products, plastic surgery, and digital imagery has resulted in enhanced, heighted standards and expectations of Beauty. You can say in a sense, we are seeing an evolution of beauty.

Self-Awareness and Social Rank

People have a self-awareness of their own appearance and have an innate ability to identify beauty, intuitively knowing their place in the attractiveness spectrum. It always interesting to note that for example in a high school setting, the “cool kids” those who are at the top of the social pyramid, are as a rule the best looking kids in the grade. The rest of the grade acknowledges that fact, placing them on a  pedestal, wanting to befriend them, imitate their mannerism and style of dress.

In general society, you will often notice that people of a similar rank in beauty will associate, befriend and “hang-out” with people who are of a similar rank. What you will also find is that people who are not considered attractive, are treated as “second class citizens” mocked and looked down upon. It was a curious phenomenon I observed many times in a high school setting, that people who were friends in their early years, become disassociated (sometimes via cruel mechanisms of character assignation and public disgrace) as they got into their late teens purely because of their physical appearance. (This interplay is often the theme of teen movies, eg “Never been kissed” with Drew Barrymore)

The cruel reality of life:

Human beings are very judgmental creatures, in an ideal world, people would be judged by their spiritual worth, moral choices they make and the good deeds they perform. However we do not live in an ideal world and that is not how reality works. People are perpetually judged on their personality, wealth, social status, race, intelligence, influence, opinions, families, associates and first and foremost by their physical appearance.

Granted, everyone has to “play the cards they are dealt”, and maximize their persona/appearance as best they can. Society is excited by this notion of “tikkun” correcting people’s lives and physical appearances for the better. — think of television shows like the The Biggest Looser, The Swan, Extreme Makover.

However there are always clearly defined limits of what can be achieved. There is an unfortunate cruel reality that not everyone can be good looking/beautiful, just as not everyone can be wealthy, intelligent or be an athlete. To be beautiful is a product of fate, of divine choosing.

When Yita Halberstams article was published, there was uproar. In my personal opinion she was just stating the harsh truth that is the reality of human existence. The less attractive you are (the article focuses on woman, but it applies just as equally to men) the harder time you are going to have finding people who want to date you.

Change of Focus for Society

You can’t deny reality, human nature is what it is and the makeup of our psychology is that physical appearance will forever be a dividing line among mankind; your face is your trademark defining the brand that is you.

However and this is where a change of focus has to occur on a societal level. Obviously, physical appearance is important, and no one is denying that, but the entire fixation of contemporary society and culture is on physical beauty and youth. This is to everyone’s detriment in the short and long term.

-          Without stating the obvious, not everyone can be beautiful and therefore to take the top 1% of physically attractive people, blast them over every visual medium is inevitably going to set a standard that is unattainable by the vast majority of mankind. With that standard in place, inevitably you are going to create a society of unhappy people and all the social ills, eating disorders and self-esteem issues we are witnessing. You cannot form a society based on standards and expectations that the vast majority of people can never attain, it doesn’t work and in a certain sense can only be considered cruel.

-           And even for the 1% of beautiful people, beauty does not last forever, eventually everyone’s body is going to wither away and everyone’s beauty will fade with time. Yes, the realm of cosmetic surgery can slow/reverse that trend, but nothing can stop the clock.

-          With a focus on youth and beauty, respect for the elderly, those with wisdom, depth and experience is rejected. People with inner qualities are not seen as role models anymore. As a consequence, attractive people, celebrities and athletes hold more authority on lifestyle, moral and political issues than people who really should have the final say on such matters. People often forget that being good looking, does not make you a good person

-          With an exclusive focus on external appearance there is no emphasis made on self-improvement, kindness, charity and good will, qualities that should really be the foundation of the society we build together.

-          A Torah perspective, any society that has man at the top of the pyramid, as opposed to G-d has a very short sighted, self-centered view of existence. Existence cannot be focused on something that is not eternal, that will not out live you.

-          A thought I have been musing over is that no human being has ever “seen” their own face, it is always via another medium (reflection, mirror, video recording). Many life lessons to learn from that paradigm.

Closing Thoughts

There is much to write and in a certain sense I struggle with how I want to end this post so I will end with this point:

The place where the issue of beauty and physical appearance has the most weight is when it comes to dating and finding ones life partner. To be alone, is a terrible state to be in, something that G-d acknowledges himself (“Genesis 2:18. And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man is alone”). We live in world where the body is important and many wonderful people are alone and single because of our visual driving society. It is fair to focus on the body but let us not forget the soul. For remember we are all created in the image of G-d and G-d does not have a body or form.

Its my prayer that everyone should have a year of health, and happiness, a year a self confidence and acceptance of our own appearance, a year where people who are looking for their soul mate should find it, where we focus more on peoples inner qualities, and where we build a society based on eternal G-dly qualities, for in that way we shall bring about the day where “ And the Lord shall become King over all the earth; on that day shall the Lord be one, and His name one. – Zechariah 14:9″

The End

Following my interview with Luke Ford  I have been meaning to write a post about “Human Beauty”.

As a preamble, I have included a list of sources that explore this topic in depth. I am going to collate my own personal thoughts and put them together as Part 2. I look forward to hearing comments, feedback and any other sources.

Articles:

Torah Musings – Beautiful Wife
Torah Musings  Beautiful Wife – Part II

Purim And The Tyranny Of Beauty: A Plea to Mothers of Girls in Shidduchim

Responses to Purim and the Tyranny of Beauty:

1) How to Solve the Shidduch Crisis WITHOUT Advocating for a Bunch of Nose Jobs
2) A Response To Yitta Halberstam, Good Looking Jews And Jewish Mothers
3) Frum Bridalplasty? On Shidduch Dating and Bean Counting – by Rabbi Zev Farber
4) The shidduch crisis comes down to girls being too unattractive
5) Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Make Men More Mature Rather than Send Girls Under the Knife
6) Gila Manolson: A Response to Yitta Halberstam’s Plea to Mothers of Girls in Shidduchim
7) Advice Under The Knife: My Response to Halberstam

Videos:

America’s Obsession: A Documentary
Beauty Pressure
The Photoshop Effect
Dove evolution
The Photoshop Effect
The Photoshop Effect: Part 2 Controversy
The Photoshop Effect: Part 3: Peer Pressure
Media’s Effect on Beauty
The Sexualisation of Girls
How Beauty Changed
Media Distorts our Perception of Beauty
The Media’s Distortion of Beauty
Hollywoods Stars Before and After Plastic Surgery

The Human Face – Beauty (Documentary with John Cleese and Elizabeth Hurley)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

1991 Miss ISrael Miri Goldfarb visits the Lubavitcher Rebbe

A Different Peace
Tammuz 2, 5772 · June 22, 2012
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson

True peace is not a forced truce, not a homogenization of differences, not a common ground that abandons our home territories.

True peace is the oneness that sprouts from diversity, from a panorama of colors, strokes and textures. From the harmony of many instruments each playing a unique part, not one overlapping the other’s kingdom by even the breadth of a hair. There, in the most delightful beauty of this world, there shines G‑d’s most profound oneness.

Those who attempt to blur those borders, they are unwittingly destroying the world. Beginning with the crucial border between man and woman—for this is the beginning of all diversity, the sharpest focus of G‑d’s oneness, shining intensely upon His precious world.

—Likkutei Sichot, volume 18, Korach 3

Hi. I’m Chaya, and I am a Chassidic Jewish woman. I am also a media professional with a degree in Women’s Studies from a large, very liberal university (magna cum laude, baby!).

In the past few days, I’ve been reading the backlash against “the asifa,” a recent mass meeting of religious Jewish men meant to draw a few boundaries around Internet use in our homes (meaning religious Jewish homes; not your house).

Whenever religious Jews make a stink about some cultural issue, the media moves in on it with a bizarre kind of vengeance. Like yesterday, Katie J.M. Baker published an article on Jezebel about the event, in which she actually compared Jewish men to ants!

See: “While men in traditional Orthodox garb filed into Citi Field as steadily as a never-ending line of ants approaching an anthill…” Um, where have I seen Jews compard to insects before? Oh, wait, WWII.

As a resident of Brooklyn, the epicenter of all things hipster and the home of many, many clad-in-black religious Jews, I’d like to clarify a few things for all of you. Here are a few things you need to know about Chassidic women:

1. We are not imprisoned.
The last time I checked (which was right now), I am free to do whatever I want to do. Nobody is making me do anything. If I want to leave the community I live in, whether to go grocery shopping or to put on a pair of pants and go to a disco and snort coke, I can. Nobody is going to stop me. Would I wear a pair of skinny jeans and snort coke in a disco? No. Why?

2. We like ourselves the way we are. And most of us are happy.
Poor Deborah Feldman got the short end of the stick. She got a dysfunctional family and a crummy school. But listen: That happens everywhere. How many (non-Jewish or secular Jewish) friends of yours come from dysfunctional families and crappy schools and just couldn’t wait to leave home? Did they represent your entire hometown?

We call becoming lax in religious observance and adopting a secular lifestyle “frying out.” People fry out all the time. Most of us, though, feel like we are leading pretty rewarding lives.

Look at it this way: When your friends go to India to learn how to meditate and come home “leading spiritual lives” and suddenly won’t go out for barbecue with you, you think it is cool. Your friend is leading a spiritual life. Spiritual lives involve boundaries and not just doing whatever your body feels like at that second. We lead spiritual lives. Leading a spiritual life is rewarding.

3. We find our husbands attractive.

You know those guys with the long beards and the black coats who are always reading something in Hebrew on the train and you’re kind of freaked out by them? So they’re our husbands.

My husband has a very impressive beard. He wears a black suit, and a kippah and a black hat. He is also the most handsome, hot, attractive man in the entire world to me. Nobody forced me to marry him. My father did not trade me to him for a flock of sheep.

Fun fact: Jewish law prohibits marrying someone who you’re not attracted to. Another fun fact: In the Jewish marriage contract, one of the conditions of marriage is that a husband is obligated to sexually satisfy his wife. If my husband would deny “conjugal rights” to me, that’s grounds for divorce. Pretty effing progressive if you ask me.

4. We have been happily shagging for millennia. Jews never had the concept of “original sin.”

Judaism is the original sex-positive culture. What? You heard me right. Y’all need “sex-positive Third wave feminism” to help you feel like having sex is OK. Jews bypassed the whole Christian idea that all sex, even in marriage, is a sin. And Protestant asceticism just never happened for us.

G-d likes it when a married Jewish couple has sex. Jews never got a message that sex is dirty. We think sex is good. It is so good that having it is actually a commandment. No, we cannot shag “anything that moves.” No, we can’t sleep around or have sex outside of marriage. But once you’re married, sex is totally cool and awesome and G-d likes it.

I don’t know who made up the dumb story about having sex through a sheet, but let’s bury that old chestnut now. Having sex through a sheet is actually prohibited by Torah and we are commanded explicitly by G-d to get totally naked to shag. Just in case you’re wondering.

5. Mikveh is awesome. We don’t go to the mikveh because we’re “dirty.”

Holy moly! How many times have I heard feminists totally misread the Jewish practice of abstaining from sex during one’s period and then immersing in a mikveh (a ritual bath)? It is hard to explain this one to people who grew up in Puritan America.

When you hear the word “impure,” it has a totally different meaning than the meaning it has in the context of Torah. In Torah, you’re dealing with states of being that are related to the service in the Beis HaMikdash (the Great Temple). It’s called “ritual purity” and “ritual impurity.” These states of being have nothing to do with being dirty or clean. You could, in fact, not shower for days and roll in the mud and you’d still be “ritually pure.”

Are you confused? You should be. We think about these things in a paradigm that is so not the dominant paradigm.

All you need to know is that the practice of not touching your husband when you’re on your period and then immersing in a mikveh is awesome. Most women’s mikvehs are like spas. Picture the most beautiful spa you’ve ever been to, in a quiet all-girls safe space, and that’s mikveh.

Incidentally, Orthodox Jewish women have one of the lowest rates of cervical and other reproductive cancers because of…wait for it…these customs. We do not have sex at times that our vaginas are vulnerable to infection (such as right after birth). Because we do internal checks for menstrual blood the week after we finish menstruating, the rate of early detection of (G-d forbid) tumors and cysts in the vagina is very high.

You think we are sexually repressed and afraid of our own bodies just because we dress modestly? Every single Chassidic woman you see sticks her own fingers in her own vagina at least twice a day for 7 days of the month. The chicks in my women’s studies classes didn’t even do that.

In conclusion…

When you slam Orthodox Jews because you think you’re defending or somehow liberating the women of our communities, you’re actually doing us a huge disservice. When you slam Jewish men, you’re slamming us, too. Not in my name, gals.

The next time you see a Jewish lady in a wig pushing a baby carriage through Brooklyn, I hope you won’t see an imprisoned waif who is just waiting to be liberated. Cuz we’re not like that. We’re strong. We’re invincible. And we make delicious kugel. L’chaim, chicas!

(Source: http://m.xojane.com/relationships/hasidic-women-sex)

Update: See interesting critique by R’Eliyahu Fink (http://finkorswim.com/2012/05/22/dear-chaya/)