l'chaim

Yesterday I had the privilege of spending time with pastors, prayer leaders and Christian educators in Brentwood.  One of the people there was Rabbi Ira Book of Congregation B'nai Torah in Antioch.  Ira is also the chaplain of Folsom prison, the famous prison where Johnny Cash recorded an album, where he leads services for thousands of inmates weekly.  Besides hearing interesting stories as a chaplain of a prison he shared with us some of his Jewish culture.  He said that the word "life" in Hebrew has two words located in the middle of it.  One is "community" and the other "God."  Life, in the Jewish mindset, is to be lived in community and God must be at the center of everything.  This couldn't be further from the American mentality, which is isolated and materialistic.  What if we as Christians defined life as living in community and putting God at the center of everything?  It is easier to understand the meaning of life when you define it this way.  Christians would define the meaning of life to be to love God and to love one another.  Jews would have an advantage to understanding the biblical definition of a "good life" because of the root meaning of their word for life.  L'Chaim! (to life) 

If you are an aspiring biblical scholar and would like more information on Jewish culture and context of the Bible the Rabbi told me to read the book Jewish Literacy by Joseph Telushkin.

(I couldn't verify Rabbi Book's information on the Hebrew meaning of life, so I trusted that the Rabbi knew what he was talking about.)