This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The physical loss is not sufficient for mourning. Purely on a physical level what would a person gain if he lived many more years? What is the ultimate gain in devouring hundreds more chickens and thousands more loaves of bread? What is the overall difference if the deceased left all this to others? The Torah obligates us to mourn to emphasize the loss of the true value of life; which is the spiritual elevation a person could have gained if he were still alive. The Almighty placed him on this earth for this purpose. The person’s death should remind the mourners to fill their lives with the spiritual growth that they are capable of.
Character | Death | Earth | Growth | Life | Life | Mourn | Mourning | Purpose | Purpose | Loss | Torah | Value |
Strange and hard that paradox true I give, objects gross and the unseen soul are one.
Complete happiness will not come to one’s soul through gratifying physical desires. The only way to achieve perfect happiness is to find spiritual fulfillment which leads to being satisfied with one’s material situation.
Character | Fulfillment | Soul | Will | Happiness |
Thomas Wolfe, fully Thomas Clayton Wolfe
I think the enemy is here before us... I think the enemy is simple selfishness and compulsive greed... I think he stole our earth from us, destroyed our wealth, and ravaged and despoiled our home land.
Character | Earth | Enemy | Greed | Land | Selfishness | Wealth | Think |
Have I met the hour patiently, without fear, at the portal? Now is my name called, of the lip of my love has spoken: Do I mistake you, O divine Signaler? is it after all some other soul that is hailed. My self is my answer: there’s that in my heart responds, meeting the call with equal voice, establishing forever the unspeakable bond! Bond that does not bind - bond that frees - bond that discovers and bestows. Look! I am flushed with inexhaustible possessions! The old measures vanish, I am expanded to infinite sweep... Before birth, seeing birth, after life seeing life!... This minute grown infinite, the far worlds spread before me, the endless drift of soul...
Birth | Character | Fear | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Mistake | Possessions | Self | Soul | Old |
There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself. Be true to the highest wisdom within your soul and then allow yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionalities or arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle.
It is by what we ourselves have done, and not by what others have done for us, that we shall be remembered after ages. It is by thought that has aroused the intellect from its slumbers, which has given luster to virtue and dignity to truth, or by those examples which have inflamed the soul with the love of goodness.
Character | Dignity | Love | Soul | Thought | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Intellect | Thought |
Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman
Whatever satisfies souls is true; prudence entirely satisfies the craving and glut of souls, itself only finally satisfies the soul, the soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own.
Self-inspection - the best cure for self-esteem... By all means sometimes be alone; salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear; dare to look in thy chest, and tumble up and down what thou findest there.
Yehuda Alharizi, also Judah ben Solomon Harizi or al-Harizi
When is a prayer heard? When the soul is subdued.
There seems to be an unalterable contradiction between the human mind and its employments. How can a soul be a merchant? What relation to an immortal being have the price of linseed, the tare on tallow, or the brokerage on hemp? Can an undying creature debit petty expenses and charge for carriage paid? The soul ties its shoes; the mind washes its hands in a basin. All is incongruous.
Contradiction | Mind | Price | Soul | Wisdom |