Get to Heaven Keep the Seven

Everybody wants spirituality. To be a good person means to walk in G-d's ways. How does that translate to reality? The only guidebook to spirituality that has stood the test of time is the Hebrew Bible. The Bible says that the Jews will be a light onto the nations. But if you are not a born Jew, you have to convert, which is not so easy!! If you do convert, it is a lot of work to be a Jew (three times a day prayer, keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath).

This blog will show you how to be Jewish without the work!!

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Weizmann Institute tramp in March and two wonderful trips in Chul Amod Pesuch--read inside

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Rabbi Yehuda Lave

Courage Is Inner Control

There are many instances when we will lack the ability to control a situation. Some people feel strong when they feel in control. But they feel overwhelmed when they can't control events.

You always have the ability to control your mental attitude toward what occurs. Courage enables you to maintain an inner sense of empowerment even when you lack the power to control external events.

Love Yehuda Lave

 

 

Two great Trips for Chol Hamoed Pesach First on Wendesday April 12 th with Shalom Pollock

We haven't finished the itenary yet on this trip, but I just need you to save the date.  We will stay close within 2 hours of Jerusalem so there won't be so much driving and we will see stuff you won't see on any other tour. It will be reasonably priced as well. I need you to trust me and confirm with me right away so you won't lose your spot on these two tours.  Email  and confirm with me so you don't miss out as soon as possible.

Best to email my personal email at AAmerican@gmail.com

Yehuda

 

Second Great Trip on Thursday April 13th With Ruti

DAY VISITING VITAL OUTPOSTS – CHOL HAMOED

PESACH, yud-zion Nisan – THURSDAY, APRIL 13, '17

 

Come, join us in what promises to be another unforgettable, very worthwhile, enjoyable & meaningful experience in the vitally strategic, gorgeous, Shomron mountains -- a full-day Pesach tiyul. By our very visit, we will be bringing chizuk & encouragement, at the same time as getting to know parts of our Precious Land.

This time our day will concentrate on bringing support to those families whose homes have been senselessly and cruelly destroyed by our evil, anti-Jewish establishment, in the context of its constant harassment of our wonderful people trying to live their lives in Yesha & with a pitiful IDF, bereft of all Jewish Halachic principles..

 

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DAY:

  • 8:45 am departure from Binyanei HaUma

  • In both Ivrit & English

  • Meet some of the wonderful people who are holding on to our Precious Land

  • Bullet-proof bus with us throughout the day

  • Licensed tour guide with us all day

  • Bring your Pesach lunch & plenty to drink– to be eaten at some picturesque spot

  • Return time to Binyanei HaUma – 19:00

 

. Price : Only NIS 150. p/p Payment Options:

* Or, as a last resort: Cash on the bus (160 NIS, subject to space)

Scheduled to visit: (subject to change):

  • Amona

  • Ofra

  • Kfar Tapuach

  • Neve Tsuf - people's homes were burned by our enemies

  • Yitzhar

  • Itamar or Elon Moreh

NOTE: On the last "Pesach Ma'achazim Tour", the bus was completely full & I was forced to turn people away, so make sure your reservations are paid for now! Avoid being disappointed!

We all know how very precious & vital these Outposts (Ma'achazim) are to our beloved Land and what wonderful people populate them. I am continuing my endeavor to put a variety of them on our map for our awareness. We'll be learning more about each one of them, first-hand, meeting some of their marvelous inhabitants.

 

Yehuda and Yael take a tramp to the Weizmann Institute

The indigenous people of Papua New Guinea saved hundreds of wounded soldiers in WWII

http://mashable.com/2017/03/18/fuzzy-wuzzy-angels/

Exposé: NIF Funded School Trip Where Jewish Children Bowed in Mosque Prayer

The trip last week where Israeli Jewish children from Caesarea were made to bow in prayer during a school trip to a mosque in an Arab town just north of their city was arranged by an organization that receives its funding from the New Israel Fund, Channel 20 TV revealed on Tuesday.

Channel 20 also revealed that four Orthodox Jewish children who participated in the school trip went hungry the entire day because the only food available had been prepared by local Muslim parents and no kosher food was available.

The Yad L'Achim group wrote Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi) demanding to sever his ministry's ties with NGO Efshar Aheret (A New Way) over the incident in Jisr az-Zarqa, north of Caesarea.

According to Channel 20, the NGO, which has been part of the Education Ministry's program for 18 years, received more than $94,000 from the NIF in 2015. Also, according to the NIF IRS form 990 for exempt organizations, in 2007 A New Way was the recipient of $20,136.

The Likud party, Bennett's rival, did not miss the opportunity to rebuke the National Religious minister for his apparent penchant for multiculturalism, suggesting he should stop making baseless accusations against how the 2014 Gaza war was run and focus on trying to make sure Jewish schoolchildren not start praying in mosques.

The Efshar Aheret's pitch on its website reads: "Try to imagine Jewish and Arab children growing up together in a relationship of love and friendship. Studying, investigating, singing and playing in an atmosphere of mutual esteem and respect. A New Way transforms this vision into a daily reality, and enables an ongoing dialogue based on multicultural equality in Israel."

The NGO's secretary-general Dr. Tikva Bracha said in a statement that the prayer incident was the result of a misunderstanding: "As part of the visit, the children of Jisr az-Zarqa demonstrated their prayer ceremony and the Caesarea kids joined them, of course with no instruction on the part of the Imam or the numerous guides that accompanied the event. Because of a moment's misunderstanding, the Jewish students joined the demonstration and some of them bowed on the rug."

A member of the Caesarea parents' steering committee told Channel 20 that no one had told them that no one had coordinated the mosque visit with the parents.

So far, the Education Ministry's official response has been that they have confidence in their school administrators' judgement in offering enrichment programs to their students, and, besides, the Caesarea administrator has already apologized to the parents and promised nothing like that would happen in the future.

Perhaps now would be the time for Minister Bennett to get involved.

IRS Rushed Satanists Groups' Tax-Exempt Status But Stalled Conservative Orgs.

Written by Philip Hodges for The Lid website}

While the IRS was busy stalling tax-exempt applications from conservative, Christian, Tea Party and Pro-Israel Jewish organizations, they had no problem approving and even rushing applications for satanist groups.

It took a grand total of ten (10) days for the IRS to approve the tax-exempt status of the After School Satan Club back in 2014, newly released documents show.

Secular groups – including 'satanist' organizations – routinely complain of anything that smacks of Christianity in public schools. Since public schools are government-owned and operated, there can't be any semblance of religion in and around them, according to angry atheists, because of the 'separation of church and state.' This includes nativity scenes, Bible verse displays, Ten Commandments, prayers, and any student group that distributes Bibles or other Christian literature.

Atheist organizations respond to these 'incidents' of religion by saying that if the authorities won't do anything to stop them, then atheists and satanists should be afforded the same rights. It's one of the few scenarios where atheists acknowledge being religious.

The IRS seems to prefer the satanist organizations to the Christian ones.

Breitbart reported:

Documents obtained by Judicial Watch show the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) fast-tracked tax-exempt status for an "After School Satan Club" in Tacoma, Washington, while the federal agency was discovered to be either denying conservative and Christian groups the same status or making them wait for years.

According to the watchdog group that uncovered the IRS scandal during the Obama administration, the After School Satan Club at Point Defiance Elementary in Tacoma applied for its tax-exempt status designation on October 21, 2014 and received it only 10 days later on October 31, 2014.

Breitbart News reported in October of 2016 the announcement by the Satanic Temple of Seattle for its proposal of the After School Satan Club in the Point Defiance Elementary school.

"After School Satan Clubs will focus on free inquiry, rationalism, science, and character building," the temple's website says, and continues:

All After School Satan Clubs are based upon a uniform syllabus that emphasizes a scientific, rationalist, non-superstitious world view.

While the twisted Evangelical teachings of The Good News Clubs "robs children of the innocence and enjoyment of childhood, replacing them with a negative self image, preoccupation with sin, fear of Hell, and aversion to critical thinking," After School Satan Clubs incorporate games, projects, and thinking exercises that help children understand how we know what we know about our world and our universe.

Judicial Watch reports Reason Alliance, based in Somerville, Massachusetts, operates as the Satanic Temple of Seattle with Lilith X. Starr as the director.

The group's documents show the parent permission form used for children to join the club "asks for the name of the child's church and pastor." Records also indicate that Starr told Carla Santorno, superintendent of the Tacoma school district, that After School Satan Clubs are led by "caring Satanists."

Jeff Dunetz notes:It is so typical of anything connected to the Obama administration, the IRS hurt Conservative, Tea Party, Pro-Life, Pro-Israel and other groups with political objectives the President didn't like…But an after-school devil worshiping program, that gets the VIP treatment.

MJE 18th Annual Dinner - Saturday Night Fever Parody!

BS"D Parashat Vayak'hel 5777

Rabbi Nachman Kahana

The Power of National Service

The last four parshiot of Shemot deal with the first national project of Am Yisrael – the holy Mishkan (Tabernacle) – that embraced all segments of the nation's population.

Three monetary "endowments" were required: one half shekel with which to purchase the animals and other items for public sacrifices; another half shekel from which were formed the base supports for the Mishkan's ten amot (five-meter-high) wooden planks; and an open donation for all the other articles required for the Mishkan's construction and sacrificial activities.

A national project of Am Yisrael that required the heart, soul, and physical efforts of every Jew.

 

Laboring vs. Serving

Pirkei Avot (1,2) quotes Shimon Hatzadik:

על שלשה דברים העולם עומד על התורה ועל העבודה ועל גמילות חסדים.

The survival of the world is dependent on three things: Torah, Labor, and Good Deeds.

 

Torah refers to the intimate connection one achieves with the Creator when delving in intellectual Torah study. It can be roughly compared to an electronic receiver activated by a transmitter when both are tuned to the same frequency.

Labor refers to the activities performed by the Kohanim and Levi'im in the Bet HaMikdash.

Good deeds are the minute by minute social interactions with one's fellow Jew in accordance with the letter and spirit of the verse: "Love thy fellow Jew as yourself".

As a Kohen, the concept of "Labor" in the Bet HaMikdash is especially intriguing.

Whenever I perform any of the functions incumbent upon a Kohen in our time, like the daily blessing of the congregation or a pidyon haben (redemption of a first born male child), including all the manifold functions in my mind's eye that I and my fellow Kohanim will perform in the rebuilt Bet HaMikdash, the words "labor" or "work" are the furthest from my mind. When the Bet HaMikdash will again be built on the Temple Mount, we will not labor, nor will we work. We will serve.

Indeed, the word "lechahen" (to function as a Kohen) means to serve – not to labor.

I recall my wife once asking our son, who is a senior officer in Tzahal, how many hours a day he works. He replied: "Imma, I don't work. I serve".

On the conceptual level what he was saying was that when one is involved in spiritual matters – Torah study, mitzvot -the most lofty being defending Jewish lives (which defers even Shabbat and Yom Kippur), one does not work or labor, but rather one serves HaShem, as a child serves a parent.

In a wider sense, we in Eretz Yisrael, notwithstanding one's profession, serve HaShem and the Jewish nation. This is the meaning of Moshe's message when he informed Am Yisrael that HaShem had declared them to be:

ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש

A kingdom of Kohanim and a holy nation

 

That even though Kohanim make up about 5% of the nation, in Eretz Yisrael where we all contribute to HaShem's mandated goal of fashioning a God centered society through agricultural halakhot, industry, medicine and road paving, we are all ascended to the status of Kohen, for here we all serve HaShem.

A friend from Bnei Brak once told me the following incident involving his teenage daughter. She was normal in every way, until with no apparent reason, she suddenly became extremely introverted. After many failed attempts to persuade the girl to disclose the reason for her changed behavior, she finally revealed the reason for her despondency.

She never knew what her father's profession was. Until one day when traveling from Petach Tikva to Bnei Brak, she saw her father paving the road. She described her profound embarrassment because her friends also saw her father – a common laborer.

He then told his daughter the following: "True, I am not a rosh yeshiva nor am I a talmid chacham, however, on the road that I am paving, many thousands of people will travel. The vast majority will be going to perform a Torah mitzvah, each in his own way. As a teacher or student, a soldier, a son or daughter going to see a parent, or the myriad activities that make up one's life. In the world to come when they calculate my mitzvot, I will have a share in every one of the mitzvot from all the millions of cumulative kilometers traveled on the road I helped build by people who will be implementing the Torah in their lives in Eretz Yisrael."

His daughter's eyes opened widely. She kissed her father and begged for forgiveness for not understanding that in the holy land whatever ones does, is by definition an act of holiness.

 

The 20 Percent

Today, on the 19th of Adar, our grandson Shai, son of our youngest daughter Shulamit and her husband Uri, was inducted into the tank corps of Tzahal, where his older brother Amir is already serving. Shai is named for my father Harav Yechezkel Shraga Kahana, who was born in Tzfat in 1904. What has transpired in the 113 years since my father's birth, when Eretz Yisrael was under domination of the Ottoman Empire, until the day when Shai became part of a Merkava 4 tank unit, defies the imagination. But one thing is clear, nothing could have happened had it not been for HaShem who loves, aids and abets those Jews who sacrifice in order to serve Am Yisrael.

At this time, so close to Pesach, we should recall that only 20 percent of the Jews merited to leave Egypt. They were the ones who felt compelled to serve HaShem; while the other 80 percent died there because they chose to serve themselves.

Shabbat Shalom,

Nachman Kahana

Copyright © 5777/2017 Nachman Kahana

Rabbi Yehuda Lave

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