Stay POSITIVE??

A quick word on the Parsha…may these words be for refuah shleima for kol cholei of am Yisrael and Leuil nishmat for all the beautiful souls who returned to the Creator these past weeks.

It’s hard to focus. I know. But we are going to try.

First step, at least my first step. I ask Hashem to help me, because I surely can’t, not on my own.

“Hashem, help me focus. To focus on the good. To see what I do have and not what I don’t. To see what is working and not what’s not.”

My second step. Build up a treasure box of positives or at least neutrals that I can use in those difficult times. When the negative thoughts come, the ones that want to contaminate me and start to invade I look at them. I confront them. I don’t fight them. That’s right. I accept them trying no to judge them. Judging them, battling them, just gives them more power to thrive.

Instead I use the power of distraction. I try to replace them-chalavai with something positive and if not, then at least neutral.

Because you know how it is. When you are on a diet all you do is think about food. It consumes you, takes up all your energy and your time. But if you replace those thoughts with “look at all that I can eat and enjoy…” then that power of the mind which can only think one thought at a time will attract itself to something positive.

So here we are in this week’s Parsha, Shemini, and it talks about animals-which ones are kosher and which ones are not.

First it tells us what IS kosher, what is permissible, we can eat. Then, for our information and knowledge, it lists the prohibited ones.

Yes, first we build up the positive, the blessing, the bounty, all that we can have and do have. Then we can gain the insight to see what that we lack isn’t good for our souls at this time.

May we be blessed to see all that we can of the open good in our lives.

Shabbat shalom,

Elana