"Mazel"

What is 'mazel'?  Is it just luck or is it something more?

The word "mazel" is derived from the Hebrew verb "nozel" which means to flow. Mazel is the energy which flows to us and we often wish each other "mazel tov," which really means, "may you have a flow of positive energy."

Why is that some people seem to attract all good things to themselves and others are as if made of teflon with regard to mazel - it just rolls off and away from them?

Sometimes I feel very blessed and overflowing with mazel in my life.  I am healthy, I feel fine, I have work, my relationship is good, my home is watertight, my kids are great - what more could I ask? At other times I feel like the person who wrote a letter to an on-line rabbi asking why nothing seems to go right in their life, even though on the surface everything is fine.  I liked the answer given to this poor self-pitying guy.  The rabbinic answer was that we all have have areas of our lives in which we have mazel and other areas that don't go so well.  There is no such thing as a life of unrelenting positivity.  Actually I am almost horrified at the tedium of a life without variety in that way.

The reason this came up today is that I have been checking the long range weather forecasts for the two places I will be visiting for the next week.  One is Florida - as we all know, orange groves, beaches and winter sunshine and the other place is NY/Connecticut.  NY I expect to be cold, but somehow in March I don't expect freezing temperatures and possible snow. In Florida at the moment it is reasonably temperate, but not even beach weather.  My flight to Florida may well not get out of NY tomorrow because of expected snow storms - see what I mean, no mazel! 

I'm sure it will all be fine. At the worst I will be jet-lagged, exhausted and trapped in JFK for hours.  At best, I will be in balmy Florida tomorrow evening.  Whatever... I cannot control this.

I will try and carry on writing over the next days. Computer access may be limited so I might give myself a few days break.  I'll see.  I want to carry on writing since I promised myself I would do this daily.  That might mean that I write every day and post things in chunks. 

Till next time...