From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

Four words.  They are just four words. They make up a simple sentence.  But how you say this sentence makes all the difference in the world. What can I do?  Emphasis on I.  Meaning that I am so small, the world is so large.  My energy is limited. The problems of the world are unlimited.  What can I do?  Not much.  A recipe for contraction. But then there is:  What can I do?  I cannot do everything.  But I can do something.  What can I do to make our world a little more decent.  A recipe for doing something. Which way do you say it?  Are you a what can I do person?  Or a what can I do person?  What life are you living?  What life do you want to live? In the spirit of these questions, and in the week of San Diego and Yom Hashoah, I want to tell you two stories about a man named Rabbi Herschel Schacter who died six years ago at the age of 95.  He never said what can I do?  He made his troubled world a little more decen