Ruminations

Pirkei Avot, a well-known collection of rabbinic sayings, teaches us: “Who is rich? He who is happy with what he has.” Why then—I wonder—did I feel compelled to buy a Powerball ticket when the jackpot reached a tantalizing 1.5 billion dollars? By doing so, was I suggesting that I was not satisfied with what was mine? Was I, in buying a lottery ticket, showing that I am truly at odds with the ethos of Judaism?

Believe it or not, in the ancient world, there were people who considered sleep a fraught activity. In the Babylonian Talmud, the ancient rabbis state that ‘sleep is like one-sixtieth of death.’  However, while the rabbis might have considered sleep dangerous, they also saw in it important potential…