This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch, aka Maggid of Mezeritch
I cannot teach you the ten principles of service. But a little child and a thief can show you what they are. From the child you can learn three things: He is merry for no particular reason; never for a moment is he idle; when he needs something, he demands it vigorously. The thief can instruct you in seven things: He does his service by night; if he does not finish what he has set out to do, in one night, he devotes the next night to it; he and those who work with him love one another; he risks his life for small gains; what he takes has so little value for him that he gives it up for a very small coin; he endures blows and hardship, and it matters nothing to him; he likes his trade and would not exchange it for any other.
Character | Life | Life | Little | Love | Nothing | Principles | Reason | Service | Teach | Work | Child | Learn | Value |
Rabbi Avraham of Sochotchov NULL
Life is something you measure not in years but in precious moments - and in how you value those moments. The responsibility for making such moments meaningful is yours alone. There are no definitions of failure or success except the ones you specify for yourself. You are the meaning of your own life.
Character | Failure | Life | Life | Meaning | Responsibility | Success | Failure | Value |
Contracting our Infinite sense we behold Multitude, or expanding we behold as one.
William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker
A man without religion or spiritual vision is like a captain who finds himself in the midst of an uncharted sea, without compass, rudder and steering wheel. He never knows where he is, which way he is going and where he is going to land.
The meaning of life is experienced when we are in touch with our unique essence, sometimes called the divine spark within... It is both individual and universal. When we are fully aware of this unique inner radiance, we feel what it is to be utterly alive. We experience unconditional love. We sense complete safety because that spark also connects us to the universal divinity within all things.
Character | Divinity | Experience | Individual | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Sense | Unique |
Sentiment and principle are often mistaken for each other, though, in fact, they widely differ. Sentiment is the virtue of ideas; principle the virtue of action. Sentiment has its seat in the had; principle, in the heart. Sentiment suggest fine harangues and subtle distinctions; principle conceives just notions, and performs good actions in consequence of them. Sentiment refines away the simplicity of truth, and the plainness of piety; and "gives us virtue in words, and vice in deeds."
Action | Character | Deeds | Good | Heart | Ideas | Piety | Sentiment | Simplicity | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Words | Vice |
The spirit of true religion breathes gentleness and affability; it gives a native, unaffected ease to the behavior; it is social, kind, cheerful; far removed from the cloudy and illiberal disposition which clouds the brow, sharpens the temper, and dejects the spirit.
Behavior | Character | Gentleness | Religion | Spirit | Temper |
Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties. It is the cause of patience; gives endurance; overcomes pain; strengthens weakness; braves dangers; sustains hope; makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them.
Cause | Character | Devotion | Earnestness | Endurance | Hope | Light | Pain | Patience | Sense | Weakness |
I had the opportunity to deliver babies... In each of these numinous moments, I knew that life had meaning; each experience was accompanied by an upwelling of gratitude and humility. These moments, which can be called an experience of the self, or archetype of meaning, are akin to the act of finally seeing the Holy Grail after a long quest... It is through these moments of grace and gratitude that we acquire a sense of meaning and a desire to live a meaningful life. The personal challenge is now.
Challenge | Character | Desire | Experience | Grace | Gratitude | Humility | Life | Life | Meaning | Opportunity | Self | Sense |