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, December 7, 2017

Russia was the first to recognize Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel-- Trump made the US next

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Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor

Assess Your Growth In Marriage and yut tet Kislav (yesterday)

Everyone wants a happy marriage. The best way to ensure a happy marriage is to master the ability to experience joy in your life with each moment of growth.

And each moment is an opportunity to grow. There are many forms of growth in marriage. Growth can mean you are happy with your marriage and constantly grateful to G-d. Growth can mean that you have a partnership that is eternal for both of you.

Growth can mean that you are increasing your appreciation for doing acts of kindness. Growth can mean that you are improving in your character traits. Growth can mean that you act in an elevated manner even though things are difficult. Growth can mean that you develop resources to turn around a difficult situation. Growth can mean that you transcend your natural tendencies in order to be compassionate and forgiving.

Growth can mean that you make sacrifices for the benefit of your spouse and children. Growth can mean that you sustain a loving and respecting manner - even though this may not be reciprocated. Growth can even mean that you have the courage to end an abusive situation. Growth always means that you act according to G-d's will.

Growth always means that the Torah is your guide for which patterns of speech and action to increase... and which to eliminate from your repertoire.

I was so excited about the recogniution of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, by the US yesterday, that I didn't think clearly until I got to Minion yesterday morning at 6:15 (the time we daven). I realized like the many other miracles that G-d has done for us (The first Chabad Rabbi was released from prison on this date) that G-d did another miracle on this date for us. From now on, pursuant to the Gemora which G-d wants us to be grateful and do Hallel for Great miracles, we should do Hallel on this date in the future.

Love Yehuda Lave

Russia recognizes Jerusalem as Israel Capital last April 6

On April 6, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow issued a statement which should have led to extensive Israeli diplomatic efforts all over the world. The sensational part of the announcement is that Russia is the first country in the world to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital in an official statement, signed by the president.

Granted, it's only a recognition of the western part of the city, alongside a statement that the eastern part of the city will be the capital of the Palestinian state when that state is established, but still, the statement as is stands as a significant development, and also a surprising one, in light of the identity of the country making the statement (Russia) and a rare diplomatic opportunity to receive similar recognition from many other countries. In a normal country, the Israeli Foreign Ministry would have turned this statement into a major PR campaign. -more

Boeing 737 Max takes off with 90 degrees of nose flare

How is this for a takeoff. I wonder if they tell passengers to buckle their seats?

Relocating US Embassy to Jerusalem – US interest! 
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, "Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative"
December 6, 2017, http://bit.ly/2AByXTx
1. Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and relocating the US Embassy to Jerusalem - as prescribed by the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act - represent President Trump's resolve to focus on US interests, defy Arab pressure/threats, and overrule the politically-correct bureaucracy of the State Department.

2. Relocating the US Embassy to Jerusalem underscores the resurrection of the US independent unilateral – rather than multinational – action.  It distinguishes the US President, Congress and most Americans from the US foreign policy establishment, the UN worldview, and Europe's vacillation and cave-in.

3. It signals a determination to resurrect the US posture of deterrence, reflecting the realization that succumbing to Arab pressure/threats fuels violence, while defiance of pressure/threats deters rogue elements and advances security, and therefore advances the prospects of peace.

4. Palestinian terrorism and hate-education were fueled by the December 1988 US recognition of the PLO, the 1993 Oslo Accord Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, and the 2005 Israel's uprooting of Jews from Gaza.  On the other hand, the 2011 US veto of a UN Security Council condemnation of Israel's settlements policy was not followed by anti-US terrorism, contrary to assessments made by the State Department.  

5. The non-implementation of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act has not advanced the peace process, but radicalized Arab expectations, forcing them to outflank the US from the maximalist side. It has undermined the US posture of deterrence, which is critical for the US national security and global sanity.

6. Relocating the US Embassy to Jerusalem is consistent with the US ethos from the early Pilgrims and the US Founding Fathers until today. It is reflected by the 18 Jerusalems and 32 Salems (Shalem was the original name of Jerusalem) in the US, and by the spelling of JerUSAlem.

7. Relocating the US Embassy to Jerusalem reflects a determination to avoid repeated errors, thus bolstering the US posture of deterrence, while complying with the US law of the land, and embracing the state-of-mind of most Americans.

Amazing horse story

what a horse!

A cat that loves the water

seeing is beliveing

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner's Op Ed in the NY Times - An Israeli Solution for North Korea

Article By Nitsana Darshan-Leitner  • 3 December 2017To Stop North Korea, Act Like Israel A soldier in Lebanon near the northern border of Israel, which has been relatively quiet for years.Credit: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The news last week from the Korean Peninsula about yet another ballistic missile launch was déjà vu all over again. This one had an estimated range of 8,100 miles — long enough to hit Washington, D.C., or anywhere else in the continental United States. President Trump responded with angry tweets, but Kim Jong-un has good reason to be cocky.

The strongman knows all too well that a military response is highly unlikely. There are some 8,000 North Korean cannons and rocket launchers aimed at Seoul, in effect holding the approximately 10 million inhabitants of that city hostage. All sides realize that the human and economic costs of another Korean war are simply unfathomable.

Several American presidents have tried to persuade the Kim dynasty to abandon its nuclear ambitions, through a combination of sanctions and negotiations. But these efforts have been unsuccessful.

In part that's because the Kim family never ran North Korea like a normal nation. Even in a rogue nation like Iran, the vise of economic embargoes can force hard-liners to change their behavior. Not so with North Korea, which has been able to skirt sanctions and United Nations resolutions because it is run more like a Mafia fief than a state.

The North's criminal empire is vast and global. According to the Strategic Studies Institute, it includes narcotics trafficking and the counterfeiting of United States currenc
y. North Korea has also been accused of the online hacking of bank accounts; the sale of nuclear know-howblack-market arms salesincluding scud and other missiles to Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, Eritrea and other nations; and a whole military enterprise set up to steal crypto currencies.

This criminal syndicate is run out of North Korea's mysterious Office 39, a bureau that, according to the Treasury Department, "provides critical support to North Korean leadership in part through engaging in illicit economic activities." Every cog of the nation's machinery is mobilized to facilitate the regime's racketeering: Defectors have described schoolchildren working in poppy fields; they say cash and smuggled goods are brought in on state-owned merchant vessels; and diplomats peddle heroin. Crime is North Korea's national industry.

As in any organized crime entity, the underbosses keep Mr. Kim's regime afloat. Their loyalty has been bought and paid for with lavish wealth and privilege. So far, these crime bosses have been masterful at circumventing the sanctions that have primarily hurt the enslaved North Korean population.

That's why the United States and its allies ought to take a page from an Israeli playbook and wage financial warfare against Mr. Kim and his cabal.

The notion behind using money as a weapon against terrorism belonged to Meir Dagan, a legendary soldier and spymaster who developed the idea in the nascent days of Israel's fight against Hamas and terror groups supported by Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Mr. Dagan rightly believed that money was the oxygen that fueled the groups' suicide bombing campaign against Israel. If Israeli security services could suffocate the funds that paid for the bloodshed, the attacks would stop.

In 1996, Mr. Dagan created a task force code-named Harpoon that mobilized government agencies to focus on the money reaching terror cells from state sponsors and international charities. When Mr. Dagan became head of the Mossad, in 2002, Harpoon became an operational unit inside Israeli intelligence. His spies used the same aggressive action and imaginative chutzpah that had made the Mossad a storied force to follow those funds and to go after Mr. Arafat's millions and the charities around the world that funneled cash into Hamas's coffers.

Harpoon targeted the banks that held accounts belonging to Palestinian terrorist commanders, and the unit encouraged lawyers — including me — to launch suits in United States federal court seeking monetary damages for victims of state sponsors of terror so that countries like Syria, Iran and even North Korea would realize that the costs of blowing up buses outweighed the political ends the carnage hoped to achieve.

The combined espionage, military and legal offensive helped end the intifada by making it too expensive to continue.

The unit's greatest success came several years after the intifada, during the Second Lebanon War, when Mr. Dagan urged the Israeli Air Force to destroy the banks where Hezbollah kept its cash. Although Hezbollah, the Iranian-supported Lebanese terrorist group, received hundreds of millions of dollars a year from Tehran, it was a global criminal enterprise involved in everything from cocaine trafficking to stealing cars and money laundering. These activities funded its operations against Israel and against American forces in Iraq.

With the assistance of branches of the United States government, including the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department, Harpoon went after Hezbollah's cocaine business in Venezuela and in Lebanon, as well as its money-laundering activities in West Africa and America. Brilliant operations and cons were carried out against Hezbollah's captains — operations that ultimately stripped them of the vast fortunes they had assembled over the years. And when the Hezbollah hierarchy was cash strapped, Harpoon targeted the financial institutions that allowed the terrorists to move their cash across continents, ultimately shutting down the Lebanese Canadian Bankone of the largest banks in the Middle East. It took the Syrian Civil War, and Hezbollah's enormous military involvement on behalf of the Assad regime on Tehran's tab, to provide the Party of God with a financial lifeline. But the fact remains that one of the results of Israel's financial war against Hezbollah has been that Israel's northern border has remained relatively quiet for more than 11 years.

Most military commanders acknowledge that there are very few, if any, feasible solutions to today's standoff with Pyongyang. The only effective path is to unleash an offensive press against Kim's inner circle.

The United States must take the lead by ramping up a covert campaign against the regime's criminal enterprises. This effort ought to include a full-court press of dirty tricks, coercion, heavy-handed threats and even direct action, all covert and deniable, against Kim's financial wizards who handle the finances, dispense the narcotics and hijack Bitcoins.

Such tradecraft must also be applied outside North Korea and Asia against the businesses and banks in Europe, South America and elsewhere that enable Kim's criminal empire to flourish; bankers and businessmen are less likely to have the mettle to resist a late-night visit by men who could ruin their lives. And as North Korea is recognized as a state sponsor of terror, helping groups like Hezbollah with arms and expertise, a numbing slew of lawsuits should be filed seeking damages; those damages will result in the forfeiture of North Korean assets — open and hidden — around the world.

Sanctions alone will not work. They have done nothing to stop the missile tests and the saber rattling. Only when the money dries up will the loyalty of the men in Kim's inner circle be compromised and cut away. The North Korean dictator will then be under enormous pressure to do whatever he can to alleviate the effects of the spies tapping into his cash and control. With full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula as the only other alternative, there isn't much of a choice.

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See you Sunday

Shabbat Shalom, Yehuda

Rabbi Yehuda Lave

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