This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
As fast as each opportunity presents itself, use it! No matter how tiny an opportunity it may be, use it!
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon: As yet the early-rising Sun Has not attain'd his noon. We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a Spring; As quick a growth to meet decay As you, or any thing.
Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah
Lo, I return with my spirit in torment May God have mercy upon you, my brother! A day ago I buried you But even now my complaint is bitter. Greetings I bring you! Do you not hear When I call to you with all my might? Answer me: Do you not recognize The response of my crying lament? Are your bones starting to wither And your teeth loosening in the jaw? Has your moistness fled in the night Even as mine is running in my tears? O first born of my father, I have left you As security in the hand of my Creator Whose assurance I trust That you will go in peace.
Good | Haste | Tears | Friendship | Friends |
Questions abound in our teaching and learning. Questions abound in our effort to establish and clarify a vocabulary that we can use to communicate with each other and to commune with the resources of the past. What is meditation? What is mindfulness? What is spiritual practice? What is prayer? What are mitzvoth? What is authentically Jewish and what is not? And, of course, what is the relationship between any of these things and the others. There are two fundamental ways to approach these questions. The first is “What do we do?” and the second is “Why do we do it?” I find the “what” question a question that opens into multiplicity and the “why” question one that leads to unity. In other words, there are multiple forms of meditation, prayer and spiritual practice but ultimately they tend toward the same or similar aims. We may use different language to describe these aims, but I would suggest that they are different ways to speak about the same thing. What are we speaking about? What do we hope will be accomplished by spiritual practice? Here is a list of aims or intentions that may be all pointing at the same center. Establishing and expanding our relationship with God. Expanding our awareness, becoming more awake in our lives. Expanding into a higher consciousness, perspective, understanding. Living with Divine qualities of openheartedness, compassion, patience, tolerance, loving kindness, generosity, humility, trust, reverence, gratitude, etc. (middot). Expanding our ability to receive and give love from Divine and human sources – Ahavah Rabah through V’ahavta. Experiencing and acting from integration, unity, wholeness- of body, mind, emotions, spirit, of inner and outer, of different dimensions of existence, of the seeker and the sought. Understanding the relationship between acting wholesomely and a sense of being part of the Whole. Living with more ability to make choices that conform with our intentions. Being more responsive in relation to oneself and others, rather than acting out of habit and reactivity Being more peaceful not because one is withdrawn or indifferent but because one has an understanding of what contributes to aggression and violence and what alleviates it. Having a perspective that is more able to include the different dimensions of existence including the unpleasant, the different, the weak, the uncertain, the fleeting. Understanding the relationship between suffering and the self that is craving a thing, an experience or a state of being. The ability to live with joy and praise. The transformation from being a slave of Pharaoh, controlled by unconscious inner and outer forces and a servant of God, one who is able to be in relationship with the Eternal unfolding of existence from moment to moment. Being less self centered and more other centered, not in order to manipulate others but out of a true identification and sense of commonality. All of the above is to the end of being part of a holy community and a redeemed world.
Capacity | Heart | Opportunity | Practice | Qualities |
Russell H. Conwell, fully Russell Herman Conwell
The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.
Man | Opportunity |
Any sandpiper is great in his own swamp. (It is easy to brag of your deeds in familiar surroundings where you are safe from danger and not likely to be put to proof)
Good | Opportunity |
When the belly is empty, the body becomes spirit; and when it is full, the spirit becomes body.
Haste |
No goal is too high if we climb with care and confidence.
Day | Giving | Joy | Opportunity |
John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
Wherefore, I exhort you, when we receive children from the nurse, let us not accustom to old wives’ stories, but let them learn from their first youth that there is a Judgment, that there is a punishment; let it be infixed in their minds. This fear being rooted in them produces great good effects. For a soul that that has learnt from its first youth to be subdued by this expectation will not soon shake off this fear. But like a horse obedient to the bridle, having the thought of hell seated upon it, walking orderly, it will both speak and utter things profitable; and neither youth nor riches, not an orphan state, not any other thing, will be able to injure it, having its reason so firm and able to hold out against everything.
God | Good | Opportunity | God |
Nevertheless, when one is ill, one should be submissive to the doctor and obey him.
Care | Haste | Principles | Reason |
I would rather him to bear patiently with it than to put himself in danger of a greater evil.
Opportunity | Service | Will |
There are good, God-fearing persons who still fall into certain faults, and it is better to bear with them than to be hard on them.
God | Haste | Important | Providence | Time | Will | Loss | God | Negotiation |
What a reason the Company has for observing its Rules faithfully: to do what the Son of God came into the world to do! That there should be a Company, and that it should be the Company of the Mission, composed of poor men, and that it should be entirely dedicated to that purpose, going here and there through hamlets and villages, leaving the towns behind-something that’s never been done-and going to announce the Gospel only to persons who are poor; yet, those are our Rules!
Any one may say that the organizations of labor invade or deny liberty to the workmen. But go to the men who worked in the bituminous coal mines twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, for a dollar or a dollar and twenty five cents, and who now work eight hours a day and whose wages have increased 70 per cent. in the past seven years -- go tell those men that they have lost their liberty and they will laugh at you.
Better | Children | Effort | Ignorance | Life | Life | Man | Opportunity | Spirit | Worth |
I beg to say in reply that if it be decided by both the colored and white workers of your city [Austin] that it would tend to the best interests of the movement to organize separate central bodies there is no reason why such a course should not be pursued.
Authority | Effort | Improvement | Law | Men | Opportunity | Guilty |
It is true we did not defeat as many men as we should like to have done, but I want to tell you what we did. We put the fear of God into them. We cut down their majorities, we cut down their pluralities. . . . Our opponents will not be so arrogant toward the representatives of labor as they have been in the past.
Men | Object | Opportunity | Organization | Present | Receive | Time |
We are proud of the country which we claim as our own; we are proud of its history, proud of its heroes and proud of its traditions, and we hope as we struggle for its glorious future. But we maintain that patriotism does not mean the hatred of our neighbor. Nor do we believe that it is a wise policy, as some would advocate, that a foreign war might be a good cure for our domestic evils.
Art | Duty | Life | Life | Opportunity | Peace | Practice | Skill | World | Art |