There is a story about a certain professor who stood up in front of a class with a large sheet of white paper, with a small, black circle drawn on the left-hand corner of the page. He then asked the students what they saw. Their answer was simply, “I see a black dot”. After the answer was given, the professor gave the only response he would have accepted. “What you are looking at,” he said “is a large sheet of white paper that is big enough to hold the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence combined! This plain white piece of paper also has a small, black dot, which all of you made into the only thing you saw!!!”
Too many of us just look at the black dots of our lives and forget that our lives have a lot more to them.
We concentrate on the problems, which make up such a minuscule moment of our existence when compared to all of the best and brightest hours and days and years.
We make the little black spots of our lives too important and the ability to live and love and laugh and create seem overshadowed by them.
If we spend so much energy dwelling on the negatives, which have no value, it is because they stand out from the best and brightest times that should mean the most.
The only way the Jews have survived so long and so well is by forgetting the black spots and making the most of the space he’s had.
Maybe we should too!!!
With much affection,
Rabbi Sally
