[Avodah] ha-sameach be-chelko

[Micha Berger]

With these replies to posts in v23n196, I caught up on my 5 week backlog.
Didn't read 197 yet, but at least this ends the current Micha Marathon.
(And lets me go to bed at 12:14, a mere 2:37 after I started.) Now all
I have is a major email for <chevrah at aishdas.org>, but I think that will
have to wait for tomorrow.



On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 08:04:41 -0400, RJR <JRich at sibson.com> wrote:
: I always understood it as the usual dialectic - constant
: struggle yet realization that  (after the fact) we strive to be happy
: with where we are(were) - along the lines of R'YBS explanation of
: choshed bkshairim/kapdeihu vchashdeihu

To translate my later comment, made 12:57:33 -0400 (EDT) the same day:
: It's one who is happy with their challenges, their tafqid, their path
: to sheleimus and deveiqus.

: Not contentment with what one has, but with one's lot in life. And
: that includes what I personally am set on the path to strive for...

I would need to shift it from phrasing the path in terms of meeting and
overcoming challenges, and take it into RJR's space -- RYBS's model of
the dynamic of dialectics.

I would say "samei'ach chelqo" is not one side of a dialectic, it's
both. I have a lot of conflicting values and worldviews, dialectics to 
face. I have both sides and the task of navigating their tension; all
three are my cheileq.

R Simon Montagu <simon.montagu at gmail.com> replied to RETurkel's orignal
question on Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:25:41 +0200:
: On the linguistic level, I suppose what I am saying here is that  "sameach
: bechelko" doesn't mean "happy with, one's chelek" in the sense of not
: wanting to improve one's position or to have an easier time finding tuition
: fees, but "happy, with one's chelek", and I think this fits better the
: Mishna's proof text from Tehillim "Yegia` kapeicha ki tochel, ashreicha
: vetov lakh".

But "be-" means "with" in the sense of "via" or "through the aegis of".
Not "together with".

And I think the proof text is exactly my thesis -- simchah with one's
particular version of the task of continual growth.

GCT!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             "And you shall love H' your G-d with your whole
micha at aishdas.org        heart, your entire soul, and all you own."
http://www.aishdas.org   Love is not two who look at each other,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      It is two who look in the same direction.