YOLB: Month 7

1. Yossi tells Jacobs that he is on thin ice because he is not fulfilling the full requirements of religion. He looks at the bible as a self help book when really, according to Yossi, it is a guide to serving God. Yossi tells the story of the two men who pray, one sits in his office (like he does all the time) and prays for 20 minutes and feels good about himself, the other is rushing around, really busy, and takes 5 minutes to pray in a closet. Yossi says that the hurried frantic one did the better thing because he sacrificed his valuable time to serve God, while the other had the time and did it to boost his own spirits. This latter one is analogous to Jacobs, trying to benefit himself through religion, not really serving God.
**Side note, I find this disturbing because nobody can tell what God really wants, therefore, how you would serve him is up to interpretation. This gives way to the justification of terrible things in order to "serve God" however one may think that should be done. In other words, i disagree with Yossi and think that Jacobs is on the right track with the self help approach.

2. Jacobs realization is that God, if he did all the things the bible says he does, is truly amazing. He compares himself and his creation of an article for Esquire and how proud he was of his work, with God's creation of EVERYTHING. He realizes that God is truly great and lets out a "Praise God." He cures himself of his awkwardness towards the God praising parts of the bible, the parts he thought were always too over the top with his realization and determines that God doesn't necessarily want you to praise him to boost his ego, but rather to take you out of yourself and look at the big picture, and thus, Jacobs becomes comfortable with praising God.