All posts by Guest Post

Spirituality, Religion and a Language for the Soul

November 8, 2021

Guest Post by Rabbi John Crites-Borak
Launching Leaders Advisory Council

When we see God’s vision for us and live according to the spiritual guidance we receive, we are aligned with the divine. —Launching Leaders: An Empowering Journey for a New Generation, p. 61

Head, heart and guts. Every successful journey requires three aspects of being: the intellectual, the spiritual and the physical. Each of us embodies them in a unique ratio. The stronger they are, and the more balanced the ratio, the more prepared we are to chart the course of our lives and achieve our goals. Public and private schools provide physical and intellectual education for all students, but where does one go to develop his or her spiritual aspect of being? My own journey to the soul may be instructive.

I rejected God and religion early in life. I mocked believers as intellectual and emotional cripples. Religious institutions, I claimed, produced only hypocrites, people who failed to meet the standards they preached. God is love? Nonsense! “John,” a close friend asked in my early 20s, “are you really an atheist?” Yes. “In that case, I have a question for you. Just who is it you’re so angry at?” The question caught me out. It revealed a great flaw in my reasoning: I was furious at God even as I denied His existence. If I was angry — and I was — Who was the object of my fury. God? I was in a relationship with Something. I could no longer claim to be an atheist.

I would be spiritual, but not religious. Religions, with all their rules, boundaries and limitations, were the problem. That lasted several years. Then I heard someone ask Dennis Prager, a religious Jewish thinker and author, if spirituality is enough. Mr. Prager’s reply changed my life. He said, “Religion is to spirituality as language is to thinking. Religions give us the way to organize, develop and express what goes on in our souls, just as language does for what goes on in our minds.”

The idea intrigued me. I conflated soul and mind. Were they separate and distinct? Then I contemplated life without language. What if I could not read and write? What if I could not converse? Most distressing of all, what if I had no internal dialogue? How bleak and meaningless life would be! Had I misunderstood religion? Was religion the key to accessing, developing and expressing my spiritual aspect instead of an ill-fitting straight jacket?

If so, which religion — which ‘language of the soul’ — would serve me best? Which would be the ‘native tongue’ of my soul? I wiped the slate clean of all my judgments and prayed for guidance. I sampled many: Pentecostal; Roman Catholic; Buddhism; Christian Science; Native American Church; Christian & Missionary Alliance. My search led me eventually to Judaism, which I embraced at age 40.

We need body, mind and spirit to be fully successful and joyous in our professional careers and our private lives. The ‘language’ we choose for relating to the God of our understanding strengthens and guides us in every journey.

Life as a Journey

October 1, 2020

Guest Post by Rabbi John Crites-Borak
Launching Leaders Worldwide Advisory Council

Certain words and phrases come to mind when I think about Launching Leaders: personal development, leadership, faith, values, planning, progress, purpose, fulfillment, success, joy. Each addresses an individual aspect of the Launching Leaders program linked by—and contained in—a larger concept I think of as ‘journey’.

My dictionary defines ‘journey’ as an act of traveling from one place to another. That’s good as far as it goes, but it raises important questions as we consider what to do with our lives. First of all, what is our destination? Where do we want to go over the course of our lives? How will we get there? What lies between where we are and where we want to be? What useful assets do we already possess? What will we need to acquire before we set off, and what might be collected along the way? What obstacles might we encounter? How will we stay on course? Will we need a guide? What will inspire and give us strength to overcome the inevitable difficulties?

The Old Testament Book of Exodus offers an instructive model. The ancient Hebrews are slaves in a land they call Mitzrayim. They have been slaves for over four hundred years. Though they may yearn for freedom, they see no possibility of it. Then Moses arrives bearing a message from God: Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said, ‘I have taken note of you and of what is being done to you in Egypt, and I have declared: I will take you out of the misery of Egypt … to a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:16-17).

The Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayim, literally means “narrow places.” God vows to take the Hebrews out of the ‘narrow places’ of their current circumstances to a Promised Land where all their aspirations might be fulfilled. It is a land of plenty, a land flowing with milk and honey. Between the two lies a journey, an adventure requiring daring, hard work, persistence, faith and fellowship. It is the journey through a Wilderness toward fulfillment, success and joy.

However you define the narrow places of your current life situation, no matter what your destination, Launching Leaders will facilitate your journey toward the future. In the company of similarly dedicated and motivated people, together with a Mentor who knows the territory, you will achieve the promised land of your highest aspirations.

Passover, Moses, Baseball and Launching Leaders – Part 2

April 24, 2018

Guest Post By Rabbi John Crites-Borak
Launching Leaders Worldwide Advisory Council

In my previous guest post I was recounting a conversation I had with a father about his struggles with guiding his son…

Last week a father contacted me for advice on how to counsel his college-age son. The young man dreamed all his life of becoming a professional baseball player. He has some talent, but not nearly enough to achieve his ‘promised land’ of a spot even on a minor league roster. He’s on the baseball team at a local community college, ignoring his studies, taking menial jobs well below his abilities. The boy is adrift and his parents are worried.

I thought of the Passover Seder and of Launching Leaders. “Where does your son want to be in five years?” I asked the man. “Where does he want to be in ten, in twenty? What does he want to have accomplished when he’s your age, and mine?” (In other words, what is the son’s ‘promised land’?) “And what are his core values?”

“I have no idea,” the father replied. “I don’t even know how to ask him questions like that. They will only remind him of his failures.”

His comment reminded me of my own history. How I wish I’d had parents who sat down with me to develop a long-term plan for my life. What a difference it would have made if they could have helped me conduct a realistic assessment of my life, establish my core values, put my dreams into words and guide me in crafting a workable plan for long-term success. Unfortunately, my parents had neither the ability nor the interest. They left it to me to figure things out and, for the most part, I made a mess of my life until I was in my early 40s. Better late than never, but sooner would have been better still.

The man sitting with me in my study wanted to help his son. He had the will, but he did not know how to begin. All he needed was support. I retrieved the spare copy of the book by Steve Hitz, Launching Leaders: An Empowering Journey for a New Generation, I keep on my bookshelf and opened it to the table of contents. “This book will help you help your son,” I said. “Launching Leaders will provide a broad outline and general principles.” We reviewed the chapters by name and content, then discussed specifics.

“Let’s say I had to give up my dream of becoming a professional baseball player, but I still loved baseball and wanted to be paid to go to the ball park. What questions do I wish my parents had discussed with me? First, what other jobs would allow me to remain in baseball as a career? Coaching and managing are obvious answers. Other possibilities include sports medicine (anything from trainer to physician); agent; broadcaster; equipment manager; groundskeeper; travel secretary or other front office job, etc. The list is almost endless. And then the answers need to be refined with follow-up questions. Let’s say I wanted to be a coach. At what levels – youth leagues, college, university, minors, majors, domestic or foreign – do I want or need to coach to progress toward my ultimate goal? What specific steps must I take? In what order should those steps be taken? What’s the time-line? What way-points can I build in to evaluate my progress and stay on course? How will I fund my life as I go along? And who could I ask to be my mentor, my personal ‘coach’ to help me succeed?”

The father smiled. “I get it,” he said. “My job as his father is to help him see beyond his disappointment to the possibilities that remain. I can do that.”

Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey once said, “Luck is the residue of design.” Laurence Day said, “In order to do good it helps to have done well.” Like the Torah and Moses, the Launching Leaders book and online course offer the possibility of journeying from our current situations, whatever they may be, toward ever-brighter futures.

Passover, Moses, Baseball and Launching Leaders

April 20, 2018

Guest Post By Rabbi John Crites-Borak
Launching Leaders Worldwide Advisory Council

We Jews focus on freedom during Passover. We recount the moment the Exodus began, contemplate the journey through the Wilderness and embrace the dream of arriving in a Promised Land. All of these are good and proper, worthy of commemoration and celebration, but there’s another aspect of Passover too often overlooked: the introduction of the divine concept of freedom into Egyptian society.

The Hebrews had been slaves in Egypt for more than 400 years, yet the Torah contains no indication they ever considered freedom until Moses arrived. How radical the idea must have seemed! Yet everything that happened afterward depended on the Hebrews adopting a faith that, through God and with Moses, the impossible could be achieved. Before the Exodus came the idea.

Moses understood the journey and the value of the destination better than the people heled. More important, he introduced to Egyptian society – that land of so many ‘narrow places’ – the idea of freedom as a possibility through God. (The Hebrew word for ‘Egypt’, mitzrayim, literally means ‘narrow places’) I’ve always seen Moses as a kind of mentor. Now I wonder if Moses didn’t also serve as a surrogate parent.

Last week a father contacted me for advice on how to counsel his college-age son. The young man dreamed all his life of becoming a professional baseball player. He has some talent, but not nearly enough to achieve his ‘promised land’ of a spot even on a minor league roster. He’s on the baseball team at a local community college, ignoring his studies, taking menial jobs well below his abilities. The boy is adrift and his parents are worried.

I thought of the Passover Seder and of Launching Leaders. “Where does your son want to be in five years?” I asked the man. “Where does he want to be in ten, in twenty? What does he want to have accomplished when he’s your age, and mine?” (In other words, what is the son’s ‘promised land’?) “And what are his core values?”

“I have no idea,” the father replied. “I don’t even know how to ask him questions like that. They will only remind him of his failures.”

[What advice will the rabbi give this father? How will Launching Leaders help? Watch for the next post…]