The Lion and the Ox: Two Modes of Jewish Leadership

Seeing the big picture will change your life for the better.

It will:

1) Improve your relationships as you realize the eternity of human interactions.

2) Allow you to see the inevitable frustrations of life as opportunities for humility and greatness.

3) Focus more on recreation and less on mindless entertainment, and so much more!

Photo by Simon Migaj from Pexels

If you find yourself focusing too much on structuring your life, you might just miss the real you.

You are really thoughtful and compassionate.

The real you has a deep desire to contribute and serve.

Too much noise and superficiality will hide the true you from sight.

Over focusing on structure will lead you to think that you're in control.

Let go and let God; and He will guide you in becoming the very best you.

Ambition and drive can lead to greatness or ruin; what’s the key to proper ambition?

Man is all about potential; not for some ‘out there’ achievements, but to express one’s true inner greatness.

Learn to differentiate between pure ambition and its false counterpart, and you will change the world for the better.

Ecclesiastes/Koheles 5:7-19.

If you see in a province oppression of the poor and suppression of right and justice, don’t wonder at the fact; for one high official is protected by a higher one, and both of them by still higher ones.

Thus the greatest advantage in all the land is his: he controls a field that is cultivated.

A lover of money never has his fill of money, nor a lover of wealth his fill of income. That too is futile. 

As his substance increases, so do those who consume it; what, then, does the success of its owner amount to but feasting his eyes? 

A worker’s sleep is sweet, whether he has much or little to eat; but the rich man’s abundance doesn’t let him sleep. 

Here is a grave evil I have observed under the sun: riches hoarded by their owner to his misfortune, 

in that those riches are lost in some unlucky venture; and if he begets a son, he has nothing in hand. 

Another grave evil is this: He must depart just as he came. As he came out of his mother’s womb, so must he depart at last, naked as he came. He can take nothing of his wealth to carry with him. 

So what is the good of his toiling for the wind? 

Besides, all his days he eats in darkness, with much vexation and grief and anger. 

Only this, I have found, is a real good: that one should eat and drink and get pleasure with all the gains he makes under the sun, during the numbered days of life that God has given him; for that is his portion. 

Also, whenever a man is given riches and property by God, and is also permitted by Him to enjoy them and to take his portion and get pleasure for his gains—that is a gift of God. 

For [such a man] will not brood much over the days of his life, because God keeps him busy enjoying himself.

(courtesy of Sefaria)

Thought, speech, action. That is the magic formula of human effectiveness.

Speech is the most powerful human faculty, and Solomon's enjoins us to use it well.

1. Keep your mouth from being rash, and let not your throat be quick to bring forth speech before God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth; that is why your words should be few.
2. Just as dreams come with much brooding, so does foolish utterance come with much speech.
3. When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. For He has no pleasure in fools; what you vow, fulfill.
4. It is better not to vow at all than to vow and not fulfill.
5. Don’t let your mouth bring you into disfavor, and don’t plead before the messenger that it was an error, else God may be angered by your talk and destroy your possessions.
6. For much dreaming leads to futility and to superfluous talk; rather, fear G-d.

Our minds might be flooded with anxious and confusing thoughts. But we get to choose which thoughts to develop and verbally express, and which thoughts to discard.

Choose your words carefully. Only make commitments that you know you'll carry out, and you will become a new person.