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!!
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Below was our Friday trip one week ago to Brno Czech, the second largest city, where we went to get our PCR test
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
The Portion of Bereisheet
"Who covers Yourself with light as with a garment" (Psalm 104;2)
In the beginning of the creation of the world G-d created heaven and earth and light. The earliest time in the morning that one may don his tallit is when he can differentiate between the color "techelet" (pale blue) of the sky and white (Mishnah, Tractate Brachot).
The following is found in Midrash Raba: Bereisheet Raba (Vilna), portion of Bereisheet, portion 3:
Rabbi Shimon ben Yehotzadak asked Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman: since I have heard that you are an expert in Aggadah (non-halachic rabbinic literature), are you able to tell me from what was light created? He answered that we learn that the Holy One, Blessed Be He, enwrapped Himself as with a garment and spread the light of His glory from one end of the world to the other.
The light is the garment, as it were, the garment which covers the Creator and this is the source of the light which brought light to the world during Creation. It is for this reason, therefore, that we say the verse "Who covers Yourself with light as with a garment, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain" (Psalm 104;2).
An allusion to this is found in the letter "reish" in the words "or" (light) which is written with a special addition to remind us of the proper time for donning the tallit exactly at the moment of the source of the creation of light. (Sefer Tag'i of Rabbi Elazar from Germaizah)
Bus driver in tragic traffic accident had 51 prior conviction
Bus driver in deadly traffic accident veered out of his lane, police investigation shows.
Israel Police are continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding a deadly traffic accident on Route 89 which left five dead on Wednesday evening.
According to Maariv, the bus driver, who was also killed in the crash, had 51 prior convictions for traffic violations.
The investigation showed that bus driver Asher Bason veered out of his lane in a no-pass zone, bumped into the guardrail, and flipped over. In the course of the accident, he hit three vehicles, causing a total of five deaths, with 57 other people suffering injuries.
According to Israel Hayom, in 2017 Bason was convicted of running a red light and fined 1,000 shekel. The legal protocol showed that he has been driving since 1966, and from then to 2017 was convicted of traffic offenses 38 times. In other words, the site pointed out, since 2017 - four-and-a-half years ago - Bason was convicted 12 times of traffic offenses.
Police intend to gather additional testimonies on Thursday.
In addition to the bus, which was carrying Bnei Akiva youth returning from a field trip, the crash involved three private vehicles, one of them a taxi.
The Mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in the Media
Twitter image
Farley Weiss(JNS)
In an article in The Daily Beast on Aug. 12, entertainment reporter Tirhakah Love bashed actress Mayim Bialik, one of the stars of the hit sit-com "The Big Bang Theory" and recently tapped host of the program "Jeopardy!"
In the piece, Love attacked Bialik, an Orthodox Jew, for her 2014 donation towards bulletproof vests for the "genocidal" Israel Defense Forces.
Love went even further, deriding Bialik for encouraging women to dress modestly, and called into question her selection as "Jeopardy!" host. But Bialik, who has a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA, not only is a perfect choice for the trivia show, but is an audience favorite.
Love's assault, then, had nothing to do with Bialik's credentials or skills Instead, it focused on her being a religious Jew who supports Israel. This is anti-Semitism, plain and simple.
On Aug. 13, the day after the article appeared, Love was asked by a Twitter follower to "define Zionism."
Love replied in a tweet, "[It's] a faux ethno-religious liberation movement that is staunchly imperialistic as it's an extension of British colonialism and an articulation of white supremacy."
In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) formulated the "working definition of anti-Semitism," which since then has been widely adopted around the world, including by the U.S. State Department.
According to the IHRA, manifestations of anti-Semitism "might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity, [though] criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism … is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits."
By this measure, Love's description of Zionism as an "articulation of white supremacy" perfectly meets the IHRA criteria for being anti-Semitic.
The question must then be raised: What action has The Daily Beast taken against Love? The answer, as of today, is "none." The article is still on the publication's website, and Love is still on its staff.
The only tweak was made in response to outrage expressed by members of the Jewish community: The Daily Beast replaced the word "genocidal" with a quote from an April 2021 Human Rights Watch report falsely stating that some of Israel's actions "amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution."
In other words, the publication traded one blood libel for another.
In so doing, The Daily Beast is either promoting anti-Semitism or, at the very least, is complicit in its spread.
This isn't the first time that The Daily Beast has been on the wrong side of anti-Semitism. In a March 2019 article, contributing editor Justin Baragona berated comments I made during a Fox Business Network interview with Stuart Varney. In response to a question by Varney about whether U.S. House Reps Ilan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) had said anything about Hamas's firing rockets on Israel, I said, "I haven't heard anything from [them], and I think that we shouldn't hold our breath to hear anything from them. They don't seem to side with Israel; they seem to side with the terrorists."
In May, when Hamas launched more than 4,000 rockets at innocent Israeli citizens during "Operation Guardian of the Walls," Omar, Tlaib and several of their colleagues not only failed to condemn Hamas; they condemned Israel—on the House floor. Omar even lamented that it was unfair for Israel to possess the Iron Dome missile-defense system, while Hamas did not have access to it.
Hamas, a terrorist entity under U.S. law, calls in its charter for the death of all Jews. My remarks to Varney two years earlier that the two Congresswomen "seem to side with the terrorists," thus, was actually prescient.
The legitimization of anti-Semitism has led to violence against the Jewish community across America. This includes physical attacks in Los Angeles and New York.
It's extremely dangerous when nothing is done about well-known publications like The Daily Beast employing anti-Semites and publishing anti-Semitic diatribes, such as Love's against Bialik. It's horrifying that this has become commonplace.
Anti-Semitism should have no place in America, certainly not in Congress. Nor should it be tolerated in The Daily Beast.
Only by speaking out against the spouting of anti-Semitism on Capitol Hill, and the printing of anti-Semitic garbage in mainstream media outlets, can we hope to reverse the rise of the phenomenon in America and around the world.
Farley Weiss, former president of the National Council of Young Israel, is an intellectual property attorney for the law firm of Weiss & Moy. The views expressed are the author's, and not necessarily representative of NCYI.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Frederick Douglass,
Social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman
1965 US Postage Stamp
The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.
Ernest Hemingway
Novelist, short story writer, and journalist
1989 US Postage stamp
Blessed are the hearts that can bend;
they shall never be broken.
Albert Camus
Philosopher, author, and journalist
Multiple French Postage stamps
I no longer want reminders of what was, what got broken, what got lost, what got wasted.
Joan Didion
Journalist and writer
Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken.
M. F. K. Fisher, Food writer.
You can't break what's broken already.
LeAnn Rimes, Singer, songwriter, actress and author
Love is a promise delivered already broken.
Steve Martin
Actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician
Government can supply bread, but it can't mend a broken spirit.
Rand Paul, Politician and physician
OFFICIAL Somewhere over the Rainbow - Israel "IZ"
Israel "IZ" KamakawiwoÊ»ole's Platinum selling hit "Over the Rainbow" OFFICIAL video. Loved all through the world, IZ's version of "Over the Rainbow" has touched millions. With each passing year, IZ's presence in the music industry and the sales of his recordings continue to grow despite the trends that surround the industry. An amazing story about an amazing man, the man referred to by some as the "Hawaiian Suppaman". While IZ has always been revered in Hawai'i, his worldwide influence came later. IZ's music first gained national attention in the mid 1990's. Produced by Jon de Mello for The Mountain Apple Company • HAWAI`I - Subscribe for more IZ! Check out the Best Of Israel "IZ" KamakawiwoÊ»ole here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list
Beyond the Rainbow" The Legacy of IZ Documentary. 25 Years of "Facing Future
In November 1993, "Facing Future" was released. It turned Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole from a favorite Hawaii musician to an artist on the world stage. To mark 25 years since the release of "Facing Future," the most successful Hawaii album of all time, Hawaii News Now compiled a special series and digital documentary that looked at IZ's life and his legacy. Credits: Billy V, Lacy Deniz and the HNN Team Buy "Facing Future" Now: http://izhawaii.com/facingfuture/
STUDY: Eating A Serving Of Chicken Wings Shortens Your Life By More Than 3 Minutes
For fans of hotdogs, every single one eaten with a bun shortens your life by more than half an hour.
On the other side of the coin, salted peanuts, baked salmon and rice with beans could all add time to your life.
Honestly, this will do nothing to stop me from eating chicken wings. I already don't eat hot dogs, but this won't move the needle for me at all on the wings front.
If I die because I ate too many chicken wings, then just know that I went out smiling. Seriously, if I die over a plate of chicken wings, then know that I died doing what I love.
Am I seriously supposed to care about losing 3.3 minutes of my life because I'm eating wings? The answer is a hard no.
The only thing I'm thinking about when eating wings is when I'm going to order another round of food and cold beer.
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TERRIBLE HEALTH FOOD JOKES OF THE WEEK What's orange, healthy for you, and sounds like a parrot? A carrot
Why are trees so healthy? They always have light meals.
It is proven that the celebration of birthdays is healthy. Statistics show that those people who celebrate the most birthdays become the oldest.
They always told me to put 5 colors on my plate to stay healthy. So how did I get diabetes on my M&M only diet?
What did the health conscious German say, when he entered Whole Foods? Gluten Morgen
Chicken soup is healthy for you. As long as you're not the chicken.
Fitness experts recommend walking 10,000 steps per day to remain healthy. That is an awful lot of trips to the fridge.
Healthy eagles come from America. Ill eagles come from Mexico.
Today marks 4 weeks of isolation. Been running 2.5 miles a day, drinking 2 gallons of water, cut out ALL meat, sugar, dairy and flour. I feel great! Zero alcohol, a healthy vegan diet, gluten free, caffeine free, sugar free and a 30 minute home workout each day. I have no idea who originally posted this, but I am really proud of them so I decided to copy & paste!
Why is eating honey so healthy? It contains a lot of vitamin Bee
You know, experts say that it's healthy to cut carbs and they're probably right. I just don't know whether I should cut them with a knife or a fork.
Yankel and Breindy were an 85 year old couple is going on holiday, when they suddenly die in a plane crash... They had been married for 60 years, and kept in good health due to their healthy diet and regular exercise. When they reached heaven, the heavenly angel took them to their mansion, decked out with a fully stocked kitchen, master bath suite, and their very own jacuzzi. As Breindy 'oohed' and 'aahed' at their new possessions, Yankel asked the malach how much all of this was going to cost. "It's all free," the malach replied. "We are in heaven, after all." Next they surveyed the lush championship golf course behind their home, where they were entitled to play every day.Of course, all Yankel wanted to know, was: "How much are the green fees?""It's free!" came the reply.Next, they went to the club house, and saw the lavish buffet on offer, with all of the world's different cuisines on offer, every meal cooked to perfection." How much do we have to pay for two?" asked Yankel." Don't you understand, yet?!" the angel replied, exasperated. "It's all free, you're in heaven!"" Well, where are the low fat and cholesterol tables then? The food won't have too many calories, will it?" the old man asked, looking quite worried." That's the best part of heaven," the malach said, excitedly. "You can eat as much of whatever you want, and you won't gain a single gram!" With that, Yankel went into a fit of anger, throwing down his hat and stomping on it wildly. His wife and the Malach tried to calm him down, asking what was wrong.Yankel looked at Breindy and screamed "This is all your fault! If it weren't for you and your blasted bran muffins, I could have been here ten years ago!
Until the industrial age produced railroads, steam shovels, dump trucks and other powered excavation and transport equipment it was prohibitively expensive and time consuming to move heavy rubble around.
It is the nature of all ancient cities to rise steadily over the centuries, especially those cities that were built primarily of brick and stone masonry. When it became necessary to raze a structure due to earthquake damage or age, it was common to simply level the rubble and build atop it . . . over and over again.
This is why archaeologists are able to determine the makeup of ancient cities by digging down and finding the remains of older civilizations right under the later ones.
As the foundations of the buildings kept rising, the streets would rise with them for practicality and because there was plenty of rubble available. Monumental ancient buildings like the Pantheon that have survived for very long periods found themselves surrounded by a rising land surface.
The Pantheon once had a number of steps leading up to the entrance, but now the ground is almost level with the main floor while nearby land has risen even higher.
Slovakia government apologizes for WWII anti-Jew laws
Jews from the city of Dunajska Streda, Slovakia, being deported to Auschwitz, June 1944.
During the Holocaust, Slovakia sent over 70,000 of its Jewish citizens to Nazi concentration camps, where most of them perished.
By Associated Press
Slovakia's government apologized on Wednesday for World War II legislation that stripped the country's Jews of their human and civil rights.
Marking the 80th anniversary of the "Jewish Code" adopted on Sept 9, 1941, the government said in a statement that it "feels a moral obligation today to publicly express sorrow over the crimes committed by the past regime."
The code also prevented access of the Jews to education and authorized the transfer of their property to non-Jewish owners.
The government said the anniversary is an opportunity to remember the crimes against Slovak Jews.
Slovakia was a Nazi puppet state during World War II. It sent over 70,000 of its Jewish citizens to Nazi concentration camps, where most of them perished.
The code is considered one of the toughest anti-Jew laws adopted in Europe during the war.
When Antisemitic Lunatics Take over the Academic Asylum
Photo Credit: TEST Divest The Evergreen State College Divest campaign's settlement protest tent representing the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa.
The vicious doctrine of "intersectionality," which links different categories of "victims" together and demonizes their purported "oppressors" such as white people, men or those who believe in biological differences between men and women, also targets Zionism and the Jews.
Those who support Zionism often find themselves "canceled." That's because the Marxist dogma of identity politics divides people into powerful and powerless according to crude economic or political status.
Consequently, tiny, besieged Israel is viewed as a white oppressive country (even though the majority of its people are brown or even black-skinned) simply because it's considered a Western nation, has a powerful military (albeit solely for its defense) and is supported by America. So on account of these supposed "crimes," its supporters are targeted for vilification, too.
Andrew Pessin, a philosophy professor at Connecticut College and a Jew, experienced this in 2015 when he was falsely accused of having dehumanized the Palestinians by supporting Israel during its 2014 war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Branded a racist peddling "hate speech," he was subjected to death threats and antisemitic abuse and forced to take medical leave from teaching for two years.
Now he has fashioned his experiences into a literary weapon in Nevergreen, a sparkling and savagely satirical novel about campus "cancel culture."
The book is set in the ultimate "woke" environment of Nevergreen, a college situated on a remote island. The name alludes to an infamous event in 2017 at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.
A biology professor there, Bret Weinstein, was hounded out of his post after he objected to the college asking white students to absent themselves for a day to attend a course on race issues. Like Pessin, Weinstein was physically intimidated and not allowed to defend himself against the accusations made against him.
In Pessin's novel, a physician generally referred to only as "J" is invited to Nevergreen to give a lecture. Although not one student hears this presentation, the rumor mill immediately accuses J of making an unspecified offensive statement that has flouted the college's Virtue Code.
Required to confess, he is never told what he has done. Unable to leave the island on which he is stranded, he finds himself running for his life from students intent on killing him. He faces being literally canceled.
The narrative brings to life the surreal, nightmarish quality of finding oneself in an asylum where the lunatics are in control. Pessin achieves this by relentlessly following the insane circular logic of identity politics, demonstrating that it is as ludicrous as it is terrifying.
At Nevergreen, the students hate the hate that, to them, people like J represent, and so accordingly hold sessions of "hate-hate." Yet as haters of hate, the students themselves embody what they claim to be against.
In addition to groups such as the Only Black Lives Matter Club, the White Is A Color Too Club, the Jihadi Martyrs Club and the DIT Club for Diversity, Inclusion and Tolerance, the campus also boasts an Ur-Nazi Club and affirmative action quotas for white supremacists. A tourist brochure says the college is "a real haven for the violent and racist demographic" because its "commitment to full diversity and inclusion attracts those who feel unwelcome elsewhere."
Not only is this a comical paradox, since, of course, white supremacists are anything but inclusive. It is also a comment on liberals supposedly committed to human rights but who march shoulder to shoulder with Islamists and others committed to extinguishing these rights.
Through this sustained satire, Pessin sprays "cancel culture" with the most effective disinfectant – mockery and ridicule. Reflecting the fact that identity politics is as ludicrous and even insane as it is sinister and totalitarian, his novel channels Kafka's The Trial, George Orwell's 1984 and Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. As a result, it is both hilarious and deeply disturbing.
But Pessin has realized something else. Beyond the issue of Israel, identity politics is profoundly anti-Jew. Intersectional zealots don't just target Israel because they see it as Western and therefore colonialist. They target it because it embodies Jewish power.
Like other antisemites, these culture warriors believe that the Jews possess infernal, demonic power that enables them secretly to control the world in their own interests. Since Israel has military power, they view Israel as intrinsically a threat to the world. To them, Jews can never be allowed to have power. They must always remain powerless.
Critical race theory, which sits at the core of intersectionality, is deeply, incontrovertibly anti-Jew. It holds that the Jews control the finances, professions and politics of the West and are therefore part of oppressive and racist "white privilege," even if they are brown-skinned.
So Jews can never be considered victims. In Nevergreen, the deepest element of J's fiendish predicament is that, even while people are hunting him in order to murder him on the basis of an insane lie, he can never be recognized as a victim because he is a Jew.
Notably, however, this remains unspoken. For Nevergreen makes no mention of Jews. Instead, the narrative is stuffed with coded references that can be spotted by alert readers.
The victimized protagonist is referred to at the college only as J. This is an allusion to the novel J by Howard Jacobson in which "J" stands for Jew, the word that can never be mentioned because, in Jacobson's own satirical dystopia, the Jews have been written out of the cultural script.
In a similar vein, there are references in Nevergreen to the "Episode," about which we are told only that students went to the Middle East to help bring peace between warring factions but got slaughtered for their efforts.
We are told that Professor A.M. Alek of the Near East Languages and Literature Department had some kind of role in this " Episode" – not surprising since his name, spelled out, happens to be the name of the ultimate enemy of the Jewish people that the Torah tells us must be both blotted out and never be forgotten.
A Nevergreen student named Ariana, who loves "hating hate with close friends," rejoices that the college is "solidly normal" because of the absence of "those people."
Ariana is warmly embraced by A.M. Alek after she testifies to the "pain" of being denied "the privileges that others took for themselves when it was her people who deserved them, the privileges that specific others took, cheated, stole, from her people … these Fat Cats, these backstabbers, these parasites … ."
There are many more such Jewish references which it's fun to spot, in a grisly kind of way. Yet the striking thing is that, although this Jewish theme is so important, it is concealed in a kind of literary code.
This suggests a caution caused by the fact that that many people are actively turned off by the topic of antisemitism. Despite the record levels of anti-Jewish hatred and attacks on campus and elsewhere, relatively little is written about it.
For antisemitism is the one prejudice that dare not speak its name. Many people are deeply uncomfortable with the Jews being presented as victims.
Partly that's because of western Holocaust guilt. Partly it's because it exposes intersectionality for promoting bogus victimization. But mainly, it's because so many people really don't care for the Jewish people. The murderous hunting of J in Nevergreen suggests the unspoken desire to cancel the Jews that is now poisoning the Western cultural air.
Derangement about the Jews drives the derangement of "cancel culture." Pessin's novel shows how irrationality and total disconnection from reality define both our culture wars and the antisemitic mind, and that these are indissolubly linked. To read this brilliant novel is to laugh – and to cry.
