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!!
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
The Arabs of Israel-No Surprise-nothing has changed since Benjamin Kahane wrote these words in 1988 and Islamist MK Will Serve as Knesset SpeakerBy TPS / Tazpit News Agency and Why Is There Antisemitism? By Aron Moss and Power Couple Stewart and Lynda Resnick Gift Israel’s National Library with Stunning Entrance Plaza and Hall By David Israel and Israel is moving to daylight savings tomorrow night- Here’s how it’ll affect you
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.
Member of Knesset (MK) Mansour Abbas, head of the Islamist Ra'am party, will serve as Knesset Speaker when the current Speaker, Mickey Levy, is abroad.
The Knesset Committee approved on Sunday Levy's request to appoint Abbas and MK Zvi Hauser as Levy's replacements during his absence from the country.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
Israel is moving to daylight savings Friday night . Here's how it'll affect you
By DR. MOTI LEVI/WALLA! Published: MARCH 17, 2022
Daylight savings time is approaching, and it's affecting the biological clock ticking in our bodies. This is how this transition will affect your sleep, and also how to prepare for a smoother transition. Every year, on the last weekend of March, Thursday night comes and we suddenly switch to daylight savings time. In this transition, we lose an hour of sleep but gain another hour of light from the next evening until we "fall back" in October. In contrast to the transition to wintertime, which might depress some people, the spring transition produces an optimistic feeling for many.
But such a transition, like any transition and change in life, doesn't always go smoothly and requires a period of adjustment. The transition can be easier with the help of a deeper understanding of our biological clock and the rhythms which characterize the human body.
Every person has a biological clock that serves as a regulated and timed mechanism of a significant part of the body's functioning throughout the day, through determining the rate of hormone secretions that affect biochemical, physiological and mental processes. The biological clock coincides with the cycles of the day, and is affected by changes between light and darkness. The longer the cycle of the biological clock matches daytime, the better we function. Modern life is often cut off from nature. We live in closed, air-conditioned rooms and aren't really connected to the seasons and daylight hours. Despite this, the internal rhythms of the biological clock are synchronized with day and night – light and darkness – and the body will secrete melatonin, the hormone which facilitates sleep when darkness comes. This secretion will intensify later to allow for a better and deeper sleep. Our internal biological clock is a very complex mechanism that synchronizes various bodily functions at once which we don't feel like hormone secretion, blood pressure regulation, heart rate fluctuation, etc.
Our current lifestyle based on artificial lighting and living in enclosed spaces most of the day may disrupt biological clock function. When this happens, we may see a significant increase in traffic accidents, disease outbreaks, an increased risk of hyperactivity, sleep disturbances, and even behavioral changes like a tendency to argue and outbursts of anger. Daylight savings time: How to connect our inner clock to the current time The best way to achieve balance and prevent disease is to live a healthy lifestyle. One component of this lifestyle is adopting a day and night rhythm: good sleep at night and waking during the day. It's recommended to make sure that the bedroom doesn't have LED lighting as this deceives the human eye, causes premature aging of the retina, and inhibits melatonin secretion. You should also avoid screens an hour or two before bed and ensure sufficient hours of sleep depending on your age and health status.
Recommended sleeping hours:• For babies and children up to the age of 5, it's recommended that they sleep 11 hours a night and nap an hour and a half during the day.• Children aged 5-11 should sleep 10-11 hours have kids aged 12-14 sleep 9-10 hours, Teens 14-18: 8.5-9.5 hours Adults are advised to sleep between 7 and 9 hours..
People who work at night and sleep during the day should seek treatment to help the body cope with the stress which causes significant damage to the body's natural rhythm. Today there are a variety of complementary medicine treatments that can help with this: touch therapies (massage, reflexology, shiatsu etc.), acupuncture, biofeedback naturopathy, etc. The role of all of these is to facilitate relaxation and help better sleep. How to prepare for the transition to daylight savings time There is no single action that can help with this, as it isn't a change of consciousness but an internal and uncontrollable mechanism. What do you do? Perform actions that mimic darkness earlier and create a calmer and more inviting sleeping environment. Take for example a child up to the age of 5 who needs to sleep for at least 11 hours. If parents want their kids to go to sleep but the sun is still shining, you can create a relaxing atmosphere in the house to induce sleepiness. Darken the house, shut off all screens, create a relaxed atmosphere, serve dinner earlier, and establish nightly rituals: a calm bath, stories, and songs. For kids who have more difficulty than others, seek out complementary therapies whose main goal is to create an inner calm in children. Contact therapies will usually be the preferred option, with alternative practitioners sometimes offering to combine homeopathic treatment or give Chinese medicine treatments like shonishin i.e.acupuncture without needles, specifically for kids. Dr. Moti Levy is the chief physician of Clalit health fund complementary medicine.
Why Is There Antisemitism? By Aron Moss
It seems like anti-Semitism is everywhere these days, and almost becoming acceptable again. Why do so many people hate Jews? Why is anti-Semitism still flourishing today, even in modern society? And what can we do about it?
Answer:
The deepest analysis of anti-Semitism can be found in a deceptively simple Talmudic passage discussing the Purim story, and its wisdom still rings true today.
Haman was an anti-Semitic minister in ancient Persia who wanted to see the Jews annihilated. He approached King Ahasuerus and offered to pay him a hefty sum in return for permission to fulfill his vile wish. The King responded, "Keep your money and do with the Jews as you please!"
The Talmud uses a parable to explain the king's response:
A farmer had a problem. There was a big mound of dirt in the middle of his field. His neighbor had a different problem, he had a ditch in the middle of his field. The owner of the ditch saw the mound and thought, "I would pay money for his mound to fill my ditch." The owner of the mound thought, "I would pay money to get rid of my mound in his ditch." The two finally met, and the ditch owner asked to buy the mound. The mound owner said, "Please take it for free!"
In the same vein, when Haman offered to pay Ahasuerus to rid his kingdom of Jews, the king said, "Go ahead! No need to pay." Ahasuerus saw the Jews as a mound sticking out in his kingdom, but what Haman saw was a hollow ditch, a deep hole.
And that is the story of anti-Semitism.
Ahasuerus and Haman represent two layers of hatred, the conscious and the subconscious. On the surface, anti-Semites hate Jews because they are a mound. But deep down, they hate Jews because they hate the ditch.
Anti-Semites make all sorts of contradictory statements about why they hate Jews. Jews are rich and own everything, or Jews are poor and stateless; they are religious extremists or they are secular cosmopolitans; they assimilate or they stay separate. Jew-haters say, "Go back to Israel!" and they say, "Get out of Palestine!" They say, "The Nazis should have finished the job," and they say, "The Holocaust never happened."
All of these accusations are really saying the same thing: the Jews are a mound in our field. You are in the way. You don't belong here. You are an obstacle, an eye-sore, a blot on humanity. But these are all just pretexts and excuses. None of these is the real reason for anti-Semitism. The true cause of anti-Semitism is not the mound, it is the ditch.
At their core, those who hate others actually hate themselves. Beneath their macho exteriors lies a profound emptiness, a vacuous hole in their souls. They subconsciously sense that their ideology is false, their beliefs empty, their lives void of meaning. And when you are empty, you hate those who are full. When you lack meaning, you envy those who have it. And there is no people that represents higher purpose and eternal truth than the Jewish people.
This is why there are anti-Semites who have never even met a Jew. It's nothing personal. Their hatred is a symptom of their anger at themselves, which they refuse to face, so they project it on another. And the ultimate other is the Jew, the eternal Jew who has watched civilizations come and go, who has outlived all the ditch owners that tried to wipe him out.
In every generation there are evil ideologies. They take on various facades, but they share one common feature: they all hate the Jews. If you want to know which ideology is the destructive force of the age, look at the ones that embrace anti-Semitism. No matter how cultured and intelligent they look, at their core lies a nihilistic ditch, and they are dangerous.
So what should Jews do about anti-Semitism? What can anyone do about someone else's existential emptiness?
We take our cues from the Purim story. The Jews of the time, under threat of annihilation, did not become less Jewish, but more so. We don't fight emptiness by becoming more empty, and we don't make someone else's problem into our problem. In the face of irrational hate, we stay proudly and defiantly Jewish, trusting in G‑d, and loyal to our people.
But the Jews of Persia also took political and military measures to protect themselves. Because while we hope that all those haters will one day find some meaning to fill their void, we will not sit by and be victims of those who haven't.
Haman never filled his ditch. But he gave us Purim. Every year Jewish children celebrate and make noise when they hear Haman's name read in the Megillah. Because we won't be swallowed into somebody else's dark ditch. We will continue to fight evil and emptiness, by bringing more light to the world.
The Arabs of Israel-No Surprise-nothing has changed since Benjamin Kahane wrote these words in 1988
Once again, Israeli leaders and Jewish Establishment groups are "surprised." In the wake of the riots which saw Arab citizens of the Jewish state stone Jewish buses, attack a police station and firebomb security vehicles — the one word which Jewish leaders, intellectuals and news media used over and over again was "surprise." Suddenly, all the years of efforts by Israeli and Jewish leaders to persuade the world — but more important, themselves — that the Arabs of Israel were loyal citizens of the Jewish state exploded in the wake of the Arab riots — not in the territories, but inside the Israeli cities of Jaffa, Lydda, Ramle, Acre, Nazareth, Um el Fahem and, of course, Jerusalem.
The most surprising thing about all this is the fact that Jews are surprised. It is this "surprise" and shock which is the direct result of decades of deliberate efforts to avoid dealing with the real, root cause of the problem, a madness that continues to this very day. All the absurd "explanations" and rationalizations: the problem, we were told, is that the Arab economic and social position is not equal to that of the Jew. Or the problem is that the "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza is causing anger and upset among the Israeli Arabs. As if those are the reasons Israeli Arabs take to the streets and cry "Palestine! We will free the Galilee with blood and spirit!" As if giving Israeli Arabs more sewers and more indoor toilets will put an end to the problem. As if a "Palestinian" state in the territories will send the Israeli Arabs back to their homes, happy and satisfied.
The root of the growing Israeli Arab revolt does not lie in economic inequality. It lies in a problem that is so basic and so painful and so terrifying for secular Israeli and Jewish leaders that they flee from confrontation with it — thus assuring that it will grow to proportions that will threaten the very existence of Israel.
The root of the Israeli Arab hostility and, indeed, hatred of Israel, lies in the very definition of Israel as a "Jewish state." It lies in the very basis of Zionism, which arose to recreate the "Jewish state" that twice stood in the land. And Israel which, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, was to be "a Jewish state in the Land of Israel," by definition could never allow the Arabs to be equal. It could never allow the Arabs the opportunity to become the majority — albeit peacefully — and democratically change a Jewish state into an Arab one, an Israel into a Palestine. Indeed, the root of the problem and of the liberal Jewish nightmare is that there is a basic, immutable contradiction between Western democracy and a Jewish state.
Western democracy eliminates all such concepts as national background or religion. Whoever are the majority rules, and both Arabs and Jews have the right to become the majority in Israel — under this Western democratic credo — and do with the country what they, the majority, will. Certainly, such a basic law as that passed by the socialist Zionist government of David Ben-Gurion in 1950, the Law of Return, that allows Jews automatic right to immigrate and become Israeli citizens, is not what Western democracy would adopt.
But that is exactly the kind of law that Zionism and a Jewish state did adopt and must adopt, for the Jewish people's main dream is that of a Jewish state, and all that can be done to insure the Jewishness of that state is not only proper but mandatory. A Jewish people, for 1,900 years, lived in involuntary exile, as a minority in Christian and Moslem countries. It enjoyed such minority benefits as Crusades and Inquisitions and pogroms and, of course, Auschwitz. It decided that never again would it be trampled upon, spat upon, gassed to death and burned alive. It decided that it would have a Jewish state in which the Jew was master of his fate, never dependent on others.
That is Zionism and that is Israel — the Jewish state — and there is nothing for any Jew to be ashamed of. But let him never deceive himself. A Jewish state can never be a Western democratic one, and it can never allow the Arab political equality with the Jew, no matter how much the liberal and Left in Israel and the Jewish Establishment refuse to face it.
And that is why the Arab in Israel riots and hates the Jewish state. Because it can never be his, by virtue of the stark fact that he is not a Jew. It is the contradiction between Zionism and Western democracy that is at the heart of the inevitable Arab hostility. And all the economic benefits and all the Palestinian states in the world will never remove the reality of the Israeli Arab who will never accept the Jewish state. It will get worse. Much worse. The Arab birthrate and the new generation of young, educated and hostile Israeli Arabs guarantee that in the years to come, the world will watch on its television screens rioting and shooting of Arabs in the Galilee and the cities of Israel.
The Arabs of Israel joined with the Arabs of the territories in rioting, for the simple reason that they are ONE. For them there is no nonsensical "Green Line," of 1967. The Arabs of Israel and the territories, both, are logical and normal. They know and proclaim what normal Jews such as Kahane do. They believe and proclaim that there is but ONE "Palestinian" people and that all of the land — "West Bank" and Israel — is really ONE, "Palestine." To be sure, the Arabs of Israel have no intention of leaving Israel, but surely not because they love Israel. The contention of so many vapid Israeli leaders that the Israeli Arab is caught in the dilemma of being a member of the Palestine nation and citizen of Israel is ridiculous. There is no dilemma for the Arab. His identity is not dual; it is clear and unmistaken. He considers himself to be a member of the Palestinian Arab nation. The fact that he is also a citizen of Israel and lives in the Jewish state is not a dilemma for him, but rather an unfortunate tragedy that he must live with at the moment, but which he strives, daily, to change.
The problem in getting Jews to understand all this lies in the basic dishonesty of the Jewish leadership and the 'gentilized', liberal views that surround them, and from which they spring. It lies in the basic dishonesty of the Jewish news media, intellectuals and clergy (both non-Orthodox and, in great degree, Moderdox Modern Orthodox). This dishonesty is rooted in the terrible fear of admitting the fundamental contradiction between their beloved Western democracy and gentilized social values, and the values and definitions of Zionism and authentic Judaism. None of them has the courage to face up to this contradiction and choose!
It is this cowardice that threatens the very existence of Israel, for the vacillation, the hesitation, the flight from the obvious and only choice — expulsion — sees the enormous growth of Arab population as well as the radicalization of an educated and boldly brazen new generation of Israeli Arabs. The cowardly refusal to choose and to act sees a growing sense of uncertainty and then guilt among young Israeli Jews, young people who — in any event — are naked of Jewish values, thanks to the 'gentilized', secular education they receive.
This cowardly fear of deciding for Zionism and a Jewish state, and rejecting Western democracy, is nothing short of criminal. The signs and the evidence of Israeli Arab hatred of the Jewish state have been there to see for decades! In recent years not even the most blind of people could fail to see it. When Arab Communist Party Knesset Member Tewfik Ziad hears Labor M.K. David Libai speak of Jews defending the right of the Arab minority, he calls out: "The minority that will be the majority, in the future" (Knesset minutes, Dec. 9, 1986).
And when Muhamad Mussarwa, the Israeli Consul General in Atlanta (chosen by Israel as some Uncle Ahmed to show the greatness of Israeli token democracy), tells a group of Atlanta rabbis (come to drink from his feet): "Israel is my country. I do not perceive it as a Jewish state" (Atlanta Jewish Times, Nov. 20, 1987) — he is merely proclaiming what every Arab sees as the most logical strategy. Unable to demand a "Palestine" at this moment, proclaim Israel to be a Western democracy in which Jews and Arabs are truly equal, i.e., Israel is not a Jewish state and Arabs have the right to become the majority and create the kind of state they desire.
This is exactly what the openly pro-PLO Arab M.K., Mohamed Miari (Progressive List), meant when he said: "The State of Israel is not the state of the Jewish people but rather of the citizens who are there by virtue of being citizens of the State of Israel" (Knesset minutes, Oct. 15, 1985).
And this is what Na'ama Saud, an Israeli Arab teacher, tells the newspaper Ma'ariv (May 28, 1976): "Today, I am in the minority. Who says that in the year 2000 we Arabs will still be in the minority? Today, I accept the fact that this is a Jewish state with an Arab minority. But when we are the majority I will not accept the fact of a Jewish state with an Arab majority."
And Muhamed Muhareb, chairman of the Arab students at Hebrew University, tells Ma'ariv (January 20, 1978): "I am first and foremost a Palestinian, resident of Lydda. My Israeli citizenship was forced upon me. I do not recognize it and do not see myself as belonging to the State of Israel. With the final solution common to the Arabs of Palestine and of Judea, Lydda will be in the sovereign boundaries of the democratic state. What will that state be called? Palestine, naturally." And that is why Arab mobs in the Israeli town of Taibe shout: "Katyushas will yet fall again on Kiryat Shemona," and some 6,000 Israeli Arabs come to the Knesset to demonstrate and shout: "We will free the Galilee with blood!"
The Arabs of Israel are a hostile, hating minority in the midst of a Jewish state they hate and despise and dream of overthrowing. The absurd shibboleth that is waved on high again and again by the 'gentilized' cowards to the effect that "the overwhelming majority of Israeli Arabs have never been involved in anti-state acts" is worse than stupidity. One could as well prove that the French or Dutch or Norwegians enjoyed living under the Nazi occupation because so few joined the underground against the Germans. Most people do not risk life and limb by attacking authority. It takes courage to join an underground or a terrorist group. Most people do not relish being caught and serving long prison sentences. That does not mean that they do not admire the PLO or support it. And even those who are against violence are of that mind for the pragmatic reason that they feel it will not work. But all of the Israeli Arabs reject a "Jewish state," reject the Zionist concept of a Jewish state in which they — the non-Jews — must, of necessity, be strangers.
The Jewish leaders in Israel; the Jewish Establishment in the Exile; the Jewish news media and the intellectuals — all are bound to Western democracy as some Prometheus, to which their Hellenism so gravitates. All are too terrified and too weak to choose a Jewish state over Western democracy. That is why they doom Israel to years of slow and agonizing torture; to years of Arab rebellion within the country; to years of bloody confrontation with Arabs inside the Jewish state; to years of world condemnation of Israel.
If we do not want that, we must throw off the yoke of the present Jewish leadership in Israel and the Exile. We must reject the sterile anger and protests of sterile Jewish liberals, who are the most dangerous enemies that Israel faces.
If we do not want tragedy, let us throw off our fear of facing the contradiction of Western democracy and a Jewish state. And let us choose a Jewish state, with no guilt. The answer, the inevitable answer is — remove the Arabs to any of their 22 states, and Israel will remain the one Jewish state for the Jewish people. Without liberal guilt or apologies.
Power Couple Stewart and Lynda Resnick Gift Israel's National Library with Stunning Entrance Plaza and Hall
photo Credit: Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron Mann-Shinar Architects, Executive Architect
The Stewart and Lynda Resnick Entrance Hall.
With the new National Library of Israel campus set to open in 2022, it will feature the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Entrance Plaza and Entrance Hall.
Stewart and Lynda Resnick / YouTube screenshot
The Entrance Plaza, across from the Knesset, will be the gateway to the new National Library of Israel building, designed by the Swiss architecture firm founded by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
According to the architects, "Kaplan Street is elevated, necessitating a raised entry vitrine (glass display) that cuts into the stone and provides direct access to the open space at the center of the library. The two vitrine legs closest to Kaplan Street are expressed as independent objects that frame the entry at street level and welcome visitors to the National Library. They are carved to accommodate a seating area and an entry vestibule… A gently curved metal canopy extends from these elements to the entry door beyond. Adjacent to the paved entry walkway, rooftop gardens link the entry experience to the landscape surrounding the building."
Good to know.
The 7,000 sq. ft. entrance hall will serve as the principal access point to the new National Library of Israel building, linking all core areas of the Library, including the reading halls, exhibition galleries, visitor and education centers, auditorium, restaurant, and main information desk. Entering the building from the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Entrance Plaza, visitors will find themselves in the spacious Entrance Hall, spanning the entire 130 ft. width of the building and overlooking the dramatic "Sea of Books" via a 15 ft. tall, 60 ft. long floor-to-ceiling glass wall.
The Stewart and Lynda Resnick Entrance Plaza. / Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron Mann-Shinar Architects, Executive Architect
The California-based couple Stewart and Lynda Resnick own The Wonderful Company, which grows, harvests, bottles, packages, and markets fruits, nuts, flowers, water, wines, and juices, with 9,000 employees and revenues exceeding $4 billion. They have been partners in life and business since 1986 when they purchased the Franklin Mint. They are both dedicated philanthropists, promoting the Jewish values of Tzedakah and Chessed.
Artist's rendering of the new National Library of Israel campus adjacent to the Knesset. / Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron Mann-Shinar Architects, Executive Architect
According to Mother Jones, The Wonderful Company has been criticized for its aggressive consumption of water in the drought-ridden state of California, expanding its business while California residents are facing water shortages and the state's water ecosystem has been irreversibly damaged. Since 2010, The Wonderful Company has made significant improvements to the communities of Central Valley, especially in the city of Lost Hills, where half of every household has at least one family member working for The Wonderful Company. Over the years, the Resnicks and The Wonderful Company have given more than $100 million to build two charter schools, and $20 million to create an agriculture-career college prep program for seven public high schools in California's Central Valley.
Speaking of giving, The National Library of Israel on Wednesday announced the establishment of the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Fellowship, which will bring prominent international scholars and artists to Jerusalem, the vibrant hub of creativity and learning. International scholars and artists who have made a significant mark in their given fields of endeavor will participate in the five-month-long fellowship, which will include remote and in-person elements.
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