This week, I attended a meeting at my synagogue hosted by my rabbi, Elan Babchuck, and featuring Irwin Kula one of his mentors and a national thought leader about the nature of contemporary religion.  I don't read most of the announcements that come to my house and email about events because I don't have them on my radar as things I would generally consider attending.  In this case, Elan invited me personally and the title, "Disruptive Spiritual Innovation" was certainly intriguing.  Elan shared that his goal for the meeting was to understand some national trends facing organized religion and to consider innovation as a lens for thinking differently about the future of synagogues, and the future of religion more generally.

When I think about my own life or observe the world around me, I've often wondered about the factors determine success in our lives.  I've always valued the role of confidence in the equation - but this week, saw it play out in powerful, demonstrative ways.

"No cancer, your pathology was negative" I have a gift...  When my surgeon told me he believed the polyp on my vocal chord was 99.9% likely to be non-cancerous, I believed him. I received an email from Bari (in San Diego) on the morning of my doctor appointment asking if I had heard anything from the doctor about the pathology.  That was the first clue.  Bari hadn't forgotton that there was a slim but real chance that the pathology would come back with an announcement of bad news - even while I had gone about my daily routine being completely oblivious to the impending news.  I jotted a quick email reminding her that the appointment was that morning and promising to be in touch as soon as I left the doctor's office.  When the doctor arrived in my examination room, he acknowledged that I might have been worrying about the news by delivering it even before a polite greeting "No cancer, your pathology was negative".

... make lemonade.  Sounds so trite, but this week, I had surgery - and normally, I would think that having surgery would be more lemon than lemonade.  But with the help of a good sense of humor - and a cousin that gave me some fun ways to think about things, I am happily drinking sweet LEMONADE. It all started with this video: