On Death

These two snippets are from the periodical Shabbat Shalom.

1. In Mishna Avot 2:9, we read "repent one day before your death." Because no person knows when that time will be, each of us ought to view each day as if it were possibly our last.
   
2. The current prayer book of the Reform movement in Judaism: We do best homage to our dead when we live our lives more fully, even in the shadow of our loss. For each of our lives is worth the life of the whole world."
   
   In this way we are challenged to create lives of meaning in which we strive to fulfill the blessing of being created b'tzelem elohim -- fashioned in the image of God.

Surely the latter is something to reflect on. While you do, also reflect that Covey's 8th Habit speaks to this in an indirect but very definite and inspiring way.

From book Mistakes were Made

"When you enter the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles", you find yourself in a room of interactive exhibits designed to identify the people you can't tolerate. The familiar targets are there (blacks, women, Jews, gays), but also short people, fat people, blond-female, disabled... You watch a video on the vast variety of prejudices, designed to convince you that everyone has at least a few, and thenyou are invited to enter the museum proper through one of two doors; one marked PREJUDICED, the other marked UNPREJUDICED. the latter door is locked, in case anyone misses the point, occasionally some people do. When we were visiting the museum one afternoon we were treated to the sight of four [men] Pounding angrily on the unprejudiced door, demanding to be let in."

The point of this, in the book, is that those men had a blind spot. I'm not going to say those men were. I will let you wonder. Baptists, Catholics, blacks, Jews, Mormons, or who were they. The real point was that they wanted to pretend that they had no prejudices. the truth is that we all do. The truth is that we all have blind spots. That's what that book is about.

The name of the book is "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)." Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts. It will make an honest person out of you if anything will.

Mark Paredes response: Museum of Tolerance, LA

Yes, I'm good friends with the rabbis at the Museum of Tolerance and its parent organization, the Simon Wiesenthal Center.