By Dr. Erica Brown

A centuries-old song, iconic in Judaism, teaches a very contemporary business strategy all People of Faith would be wise to embrace

“Last made, but first planned.”
— From "Lecha Dodi"

In the 16th century, Rabbi Solomon Alkabetz of Salonika, composed a poem to greet the Sabbath queen that has become an iconic song of rest robed in beauty: Lecha Dodi - Let us go, my beloved.

As was common with Hebrew acrostic poetry, if you put together the first letter in each of its stanzas, you will come up with the author's name. In the song, we greet the Divine or the Sabbath as the beloved and rise up to see her and invite her in, giving her presence the pride of place.

In the song, we acknowledge the Sabbath as a wellspring of blessing. We shake off the cares of the week -- "Arise, leave the midst of your turmoil" -- to touch a little piece of transcendence.

"Dress in your garments of splendor, my people," says the song, mirroring our own change of clothing to acknowledge the majesty of the royal Sabbath. We prepare for redemption. We note that light is coming with an appeal to rise and shine.

One particular stanza always moves me:

To greet Shabbat, now let us go.
Source of blessing, it has ever been so.
Conceived before life on earth began.
Last made, but first planned.

This stanza suggests that although the Sabbath was the last work of His creation, it was conceived of first, the crowning achievement of this intense spurt of divine creativity. All of creation moves towards this shared end of rest and introspection.

Today, we might call this strategy design thinking. Design thinking often starts with the end product -- where you want to go -- and then establishes the best strategy to achieve those ends. It's a methodology using logic, intuition and imagination to approach complex problems more systematically.

According to the business website Fast Company, there are four stages to design thinking: 1) Defining the problem, 2) Creating and considering many options, 3) Refining directions, 4) Repeating. There's a lot written on design theory, but in my mind, Lecha Dodi sums it up beautifully: last made, but first planned.

To throw some more interesting research into the mix, Dr. Jihae Shin from University of Wisconsin-Madison's business school and Katherine Milkman from University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School demonstrate that the best plans we make should not include a plan B.

"Simply contemplating backup plans makes you want to achieve the primary goals less, which makes you put less effort into it," claims Dr. Shin.

This is true both for individuals and teams. They conclude that it's best for two teams to come up with two different plans to tackle a problem or create a new strategy than for one team to create a plan A and a plan B.

It seems that the moment you conceive that your optimal plan might not work, you are, in some small way, resigning yourself to something less than your best.

Creating a plan B may make us feel appropriately thoughtful, cautious and prepared for every circumstance. What this new research suggests is that such thinking can also undermine the achievement of a bigger dream, preparing us mentally to succumb to something more mediocre than our first, best idea just simply by the act of acknowledging another way to get something done.

Reading the reports of this study made me consider about our own creation narrative. There was no plan B.

Maybe it's easy to achieve plan A if you're G0D. Mortal beings don't stand a chance. Or perhaps a more subtle view of the first chapters of Genesis has the Divine evaluating and re-thinking creation once the world is up and running.

In other words, rather than create a plan B, He tweaked the universe after plan A, tinkering and tinkering up to and including today.

Perhaps we will sing Lecha Dodi with a little more introspection, allowing the beautiful lyrics and melody to pose the question: what is the design thinking that guides my life, the goal or goals to which all of my efforts are ultimately directed?

If we identify that end goal - our plan A - we might work towards it differently.

About The Author:

Dr. Erica Brown is a writer and educator who lectures widely on subjects of Jewish interest. She is scholar-in-residence for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, DC and a consultant to other Jewish organizations. Dr. Brown is the author of Confronting Scandal, Spiritual Boredom and Inspired Jewish Leadership and co-author of The Case for Jewish Peoplehood. Her "Weekly Jewish Wisdom" column has appeared regularly in The Washington Post. She lives with her husband and four children in Silver Spring, MD.

He prepares the solemn meal with all yearning.
The Food is His heart.
The Drink is His love.
The Invitation is His desire.
With all His love, girding His loin, He waits on us.

The divine Love deepens boundlessly only by scorns and rejections.
Oh, what Agony of the greatest Lover!
Pierce my heart, Lord, expose my soul;
I am crying for You…
I am crying with You...

What a cruel exchange for the delicacy of His Love!
May You not be alone to endure the divine Agony,
Yours become my suffering too.

I am pleading, Lord, for the Grace
Which You has bestowed upon this wretched sinner
To be given to all his brothers.

Choose them, dearest Lord, apply the same to their poor souls.
May I be loving enough to bring them to You,
With all of my feeble,
Only to bring a lasting smile to Your broken lips.

Lord, bless me to imitate you most solemnly
To live the life of the Servant.

Whatever your cross,
whatever your pain,
there will always be sunshine,
after the rain ....

Perhaps you may stumble,
perhaps even fall,
But God's always ready,
To answer your call ...

He knows every heartache,
sees every tear,
A word from His lips,
can calm every fear ...

Your sorrows may linger,
throughout the night,
But suddenly vanish,
in dawn's early light ...

The Savior is waiting,
somewhere above,
To give you His grace,
and send you His love...

Prayers to the Holy Spirit

First, there is her famous little prayer to the Holy Spirit. Today it is known and prayed by people all over the world:

Holy Spirit, inspire me.
Love of God, consume me.
Along the true road, lead me.
Mary my Mother, look upon me.
With Jesus, bless me.
From all evil, from all illusion,
from all danger, preserve me.

Again, to the Holy Spirit:

Source of peace, Light,
come and enlighten me.
I am hungry, come and nourish me.
I am thirsty, come and quench my thirst.
I am blind, come and give me light.
I am poor, come and enrich me.

Devotion to the Holy Spirit

The world and religious communities are seeking novelties in devotions, and they are neglecting true devotion to the Paraclete. That is why there is error and disunion, and why there is no peace or light. They do not invoke light as it should be invoked, and it is this light that gives knowledge of truth. It is neglected even in seminaries . . . . Every person in the world that will invoke the Holy Spirit and have devotion to Him will not die in error.

Message to Priests

Every priest that preaches this devotion will receive light while he is speaking of it to others. I was told that each priest in the world should be required to say one Mass of the Holy Spirit each month, and all who assist at it will receive very special grace and light.

Personally, I have taken this message to heart. As a rule, I offer a Votive Mass of the Holy Ghost on the first Monday of each month.

Suffering

God is hidden in the fruit like seed in the apple. Open an apple and you will find five seeds in the center. God is thus hidden in the heart of man. He is hidden there with the mysteries of His passion represented by the five seeds. God has suffered and man must suffer, whether he wishes it or not. If he suffers through love, in union with God, he will suffer less and will gain merit. The five seeds that are in the depth of his heart will germinate and produce abundant fruits. But if he rejects the trial, he will suffer more, without gaining any merit.

Love

Only love can fill the heart of man. The just man is satisfied with love and a pinch of earth.

Sin

In heaven, the most beautiful trees are those that have sinned the most. But they used their miseries as dung that is around the base.

After receiving Holy Communion

Now I have everything.

On the virtue of hope

I hope in God against all hope.

My God, in spite of all my miseries and sins, I will always hope in You. Even if You cast me into hell, I will still hope in You.

I am nothing, I can do nothing, but You can do all. I hope in Divine Mercy.

by Francis Thompson (1859-1907)

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat--and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet--
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,

By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities
(For, though I knew His love Who followed,

Yet was I sore adread

Lest having Him, I must have naught beside);
But if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of His approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.

Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;

Fretted to dulcet jars

And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.
I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon;
With thy young skyey blossoms heap me over

From this tremendous Lover!

Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.

But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven

Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet--

Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat--
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

I sought no more that after which I strayed

In face of man or maid;

But still within the little children's eyes

Seems something, something that replies;

They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair

With dawning answers there,

Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children, Nature's--share
With me," said I, "your delicate fellowship;

Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning
With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses'
Banqueting
With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured daïs,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice

Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."
So it was done;

I in their delicate fellowship was one--
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.

I knew all the swift importings
On the wilful face of skies;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;
All that's born or dies
Rose and drooped with--made them shapers

Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine--
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart

I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat;

But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's gray cheek.
For ah! we know not what each other says,

These things and I; in sound I speak--

Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;

Let her, if she would owe me,

Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts of her tenderness;
Never did any milk of hers once bless

My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
And past those noisèd Feet
A voice comes yet more fleet--

"Lo naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,

And smitten me to my knee;
I am defenseless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,

And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,

I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years--
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.

Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;

Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.

Ah! is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?

Ah! must--
Designer infinite!--

Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;
And now my heart is a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever

From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind.
Such is; what is to be?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mist confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.

But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound

With blooming robes, purpureal, cypress-crowned;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields

Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields
Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
"And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing,

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught," He said,
"And human love needs human meriting,

How hast thou merited--
Of all man's clotted clay rhe dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee

Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms.

But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for the at home;
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

by Dr Mrs Mercy Abraham

I am lost in the labyrinth of ways
I was walking through ways that seemed familiar
searching for my home.

I was in my church in a worship service
I was tired by the people and their rituals
so I came out and walked through
bye lines that were familiar ------ by lanes??
but I lost my way, I am tired.

how can I find home and reach
surroundings of my familiar village
where people know me.

now I am in another continent
across seven seas. I see people
and faces that are arrogant.
here there is nothing familiar,
there is no friendly smile and I
hide myself when I hear a footstep.
I peep through the shadows that
surround me, it is dark even though
the street lights shines around.

I think about the warmth and home,
where mother cooks the cozy dinner.
the aroma of her food streams across to me.
even though I am so far,
I want to go back in time and be
a little girl, where everything is pleasant
around her, even though
there are no riches, there is love
that surrounds her and protects her.
here there is nothing except futile thoughts
and darkness like a pall of smoke.

oh Lord, show me a ray of light
a golden thread, a rainbow of colours
across the drizzling rain
let me watch and be glad
in this gloom of clouds and fear.
Lord, you are merciful and kind
have pity on this forlorn traveller who
has lost his way in the labyrinth
who wants to reach home and rest
after all his futile wanderings and
heartbreaks in the labyrinth of the world
and its riches, ways that mislead me across time.

Come, you thankful people,' and let us praise the only-begotten Son,'
who for our sakes did clothe Himself in mortal nature,'
deigning to suffer and die for us,'
trampling down death and raising us with Himself,'
who in His great mercy and love for us His children,' has granted us salvation.
Lord, in your mercy....

Come, you thankful people,' and let us praise the Holy Spirit,'
who descended upon the Apostles,' making them fishers of men,'
through whom the earth has received,' the knowledge of the Holy Trinity,'
who in His great' mercy and love for us His children,' has granted us salvation
Lord, in your mercy.... .

+ + +

by by Mario de Andrade
(San Paolo 1893-1945)

I counted my years
& realized that I have
Less time to live by,
Than I have lived so far.

I feel like a child
who won a pack of candies:
at first he ate them with pleasure

But when he realized
that there was little left,
he began to taste them intensely.

I have no time for endless meetings
where the statutes, rules, procedures
& internal regulations are discussed,
knowing that nothing will be done.

I no longer have the patience
To stand absurd people who,
despite their chronological age,
have not grown up.

My time is too short:
I want the essence,
my spirit is in a hurry.

I do not have much candy
In the package anymore.

I want to live next to humans,
very realistic people who know
How to laugh at their mistakes,

Who are not inflated by their own triumphs
& who take responsibility for their actions.

In this way, human dignity is defended
and we live in truth and honesty.
It is the essentials that make life useful.

I want to surround myself with people
who know how to touch the hearts
of those whom hard strokes of life
have learned to grow
with sweet touches of the soul.

Yes, I'm in a hurry.

I'm in a hurry to live
with the intensity that
only maturity can give.

I do not intend to waste
any of the remaining desserts.

I am sure they will be exquisite,
much more than those eaten so far.

My goal is to reach the end
satisfied
and at peace
with my loved ones
and my conscience.

We have two lives
& the second begins when you realize
you only have one left now.