(33.40) LCK There Ought to be a Law


The 77% Weekly
The 40/52-weeks-a-year, quick-reading, thought-lingering, spiritual-religious newsletter.

Religion-Outside-The-Box (oldrotb.wpengine.com) is a donation supported not-for-profit empowering adults to find and be with (the) God (of their understanding).  

Forward this issue to a Friend

33/40
From the desk of Dr. Laurence C. Keene

There Ought to be a Law
Logo for 77% Weekly

Dear Lord, she had been with the company longer than most of the people there. The promotion should have been hers. She had earned it. She was fully qualified for it but the promotion went to someone else. It went to a newcomer to the company. He had become a close friend with the boss. It was the old-boy network at work again. It was so unfair and cruel. 

Oh God, it seems to me there ought to be a law against such unjust and unkind behavior. But maybe we can’t write laws that will require or guarantee moral behavior on our part. Maybe we can only write laws to prevent the expression of immoral behavior. I wish we could sometimes give goodness and morality a helping hand. There ought to be a law.

Would decency look as good to us if it was legislated? Maybe decency wouldn’t appear so attractive to us if decency was the only choice a person could make in life. I know I would like it much better if people were nice to me because they wanted to be nice and not just because they were forced to be. I wish, somehow, that niceness and fairness were so commonplace among us that people would conclude that someone must have passed a law requiring such actions.
However, I suppose if morality didn’t come from our heart’s deep desire, the law would never ever be able to put a pretty face on it.

Love,

Larry.
larry@rotb.org

The 77% Weekly

The 77% Weekly: The Religion-Outside-The-Box Newsletter
helps people find and be with (the) God (of their understanding) 40 out of 52 weeks a year.

 

Why 77%?
Two reasons:
1) 40/52 = 0.76923. The newsletter is sent every Monday except the last of each month.
2) In school 77% was a passing grade and ROTB wants to remind you that life isn’t graded.

Religion-Outside-The-Box is a donation-supported,
non-denominational, internet-based, 501c3-tax exempt religious congregation.

 

 

Stuff Gets To Me

✧✧✧ As I pack up to leave after my workout, someone asks me, “Hey, Rabbi, how are things going?” I’m not one for small talk. Especially after being called by my title. “Well,” I reply. “I’m sad.” “Why?” “I’m thinking about the girls who went to school in the morning in Minab, Iran—over a hundred of them—killed by a bomb.”

Read More »

My Letter to Habakkuk

✧✧✧ To my dearest pen pal, Habbakuk: First, let me say, no one remembers the prophets who did not deliver on the goods. Your predictions came true. And, 2500+ years later, you are still remembered. Do you remember Lenny, that guy? Kept going around Judea telling people “the goats will lay down in green pastures,” and, then, remember? It started

Read More »

Me, Rabbi.

✧✧✧   I am a rabbi.   I have a Masters Degree in Hebrew letters and a Doctorate of Divinity, and I am ordained as a rabbi.   I have each credential framed, in my office, just behind where I sit.   They’re not individually affixed to the wall—they lean against one another in a stack.   I like the

Read More »