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, November 24, 2022
Barbara And Chaim Ginsberg shares Rabbi Meir Kahane The Jewish Idea (Or Hara’ayon)WAR AND PEACE (Excerpts) and Where did Jewish surnames come from? and South Africa is the dirty pot calling the Jewish kettle black and The largest primate on Earth and Rabbi Schwartz Jokes and Israeli foam to reverse receding gums soon set for human use, after success on dogs
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.
Meir Kahane The Jewish Idea (Or Hara'ayon)WAR AND PEACE (Excerpts) (Today November 23, 2022 it is way past time to learn we have always been and are today at war with our enemies the ARAB. Today, 2 bombs went off near bus stops. It was the morning hours that young people went to school and adults to work. A 15-year-old from Canada and attending a yeshiva in Israel was killed and buried the same day, more than 14 others are in serious or critical condition. This is not an isolated case or a situation - this is war within our own land)bg "I will grant peace in the land" (Lev.26.6): Perhaps you will say, "Well, there is food and there is drink, but if there is no peace then all this is nothing!" Scripture therefore states, "I will grant peace in the land" This teaches that peace counterbalances everything. It likewise says (Isaiah 45.7), "I will make peace and create evil." This teaches that peace counterbalances everything. (See Bamidar Rabbah, 11:5-6) Since peace is limited to its own time, it follows that in wartime all traits associated with love, kindness and mercy are redefined. It is then kind and merciful to go to war against the wicked. Our sages teach (Kohelet Rabbah, 3:[8]1): There is "a time to kill" – during war; "and a time to heal" – during peace. There is "a time to break down" – during war; "and a time to build up" – during peace – There is "a time to seek" – during peace; "and a time to lose" – during war. There is "a time to rend" – during war " and a time to sew" – during peace…There is "a time to love"- during peace; " and a time to hate" – during war. There is "a time for war" – during war; "and a time for peace" – during peace. The word of the Living G-d! And how relevant they are to our day: there is a time for war – during war; and a time for peace during peace. We might ask why Scriptures must tell us that there is a time for war. Might anyone think otherwise? Our sages were teaching that, in fact, some might really think so, especially with the insane, alien culture holding portions of our people captive in its sullied hands. Above I quoted Tanchuma, Shoftim15: "When you go forth to battle against your enemies (Deut.20:1)… What is meant by "against your enemies"? G-d said, "Confront them as enemies. Just as they show you no mercy, so should you not show them any mercy." We have to realize that the non-Jew who goes to war against Israel is our enemy and not our friend. How unaware people are nowadays of this simple yet profound principle! Our sages also said (Sifri Shoftim 192): You are going to war against your enemies and not against your brethren. It is not Judah against Simeon or Simeon against Judah such that if you fall captive they will have mercy on you…It is against your enemies that you are waging war. If you fall into their hands, they will show you no mercy. Indeed, a timely war is a mitzvah, a duty, a kindness and an everlasting act of righteousness. Ex.24:6, which enumerates G-d's attributes, ends by mentioning "truth": The L-rd, the L-rd, Omnipotent, merciful and kind, slow to anger, with tremendous resources of love and truth." I have already explained that there cannot be "mercy, kindness and tremendous resources of love," without "truth." We often find the combination of "kindness and truth," to teach us that that same Deity who is "merciful, kind and loving," is above all else a G-d of truth. Likewise, G-d is described as follows (Ex.15:3): "The L-rd is the Master of war, 'Hashem' is His name." Despite His name being "Hashem," a name indicating mercy, He is still "Master of war." That same Hashem of mercy is also a Master of war against the wicked. All this is the plain truth. There is a time for war and cruelty and a time for mercy, kindness and clemency. It all depends on G-d's laws, the laws of war by the Master of war. Our sages said (Mechilta,Ibid): "The L-rd is the Master of war, Hashem is His name: Our sages teach us a great lesson here regarding love for one's fellow Jew and the duty one bears to him: It is not enough for a Jew not to murder. Surely, "Turn away from evil" (Ps.34:15) applies here, but a much weightier duty applies too: he must do all he can to save his fellow Jew from danger, to eradicate every danger and mishap, to defeat every foe who imperils the Jewish People before he can harm them. A non-Jew who tries to attack or kill a Jew must be punished, and if that non-Jew flees to save himself from punishment, it clearly is not just permissible but a mitzvah and duty to shoot to kill him. Whoever opposes this and orders that the enemy be allowed to flee, thereby enabling him to return later and kill Jews, will never be able to rise up and proclaim, "My hands have not spilled this blood." He is aiding a rodef, is allied to murderers of Jews, and should be treated like a criminal (Moreover, such non-Jews not only fail to accept upon themselves taxes, slave status, and G-d's and Israel's sovereignty over the Land, but they declare war on the Jews, attacking and murdering us. We are duty-bound to wage a milchemet mitzvah against them, a compulsory war, and they deserve death, as I shall write below.) King David said (Ps 9:17), "The L-rd has made Himself known. He has executed judgment." That is, the nations will know G-d and His glory only when he executes judgment in His war against them. He also said (PS 24:8), "Who is the King of glory? The L-rd strong and mighty, He is mighty in battle." The wars Israel was commanded to wage were not meant to satisfy any selfish urge on their part, any craving for land or desire for personal glory, but to sanctify G-d's name and cast down the wicked, who plunder and afflict the upright. Just as every part of Israel's life must be holy, so must be their wars. Due to our sins, the reason we were exiled from our land, the laws of war, have been so corrupted and confused by so many fine students that ignorance on this matter has surpassed all limits. Some have no understanding whatsoever of what a milchemet mitzvah is, and in their blindness ask whether the war between us and the Arabs today is such a war. Woe, to the ears that hear this! Rambam writes (Hilchot Melachim 5:1) In a milchemet mitzvah, the king need not obtain permission of the court. Rather, he may go forth himself at any time and compel the people to follow. With milchemet reshut, however, he may only compel the people through a court of seventy-one. Here is the law before us. Clearly, no king is needed either. After all, the judges who preceded Saul were not kings nor were the Hasmoneans when they rose up against the Greeks. How long can our disgraceful ignorance of these laws go on?- Holiness and knowledge of G-d elevate a person from bestiality, fear and confinement to trust in G-d. Kiddush Hashem brings the redemption "speedily."
Rosh Chodesh tov and Shabbat ShalomBarbara
to BarbaraAndChaim, bcc: me
Barbara's DesktopRabbi Meir Kahane The Jewish Idea (Or Hara'ayon)WAR AND PEACE (Excerpts)
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
Israeli foam to reverse receding gums soon set for human use, after success on dogs
Peer-reviewed study shows biological foam made of proteins helped reverse condition in 9 dogs; innovators say human version may be approved within two years
Illustrative image: gum recession in a human mouth. (alex-mit via iStock by Getty Images)
Israeli inventors are working on a foam to reverse gum recession in humans, after running a successful test on dogs and starting to market the product for canine use.
ReGum, made by the Yokne'am-based company BioChange, is a protein-based foam designed to prompt gums to repair themselves. It is administered as a dental implant.
A peer-reviewed study, conducted by Slovenia-based veterinary dental specialist Dr. Ana Nemec, found that it was effective and had no side effects on a sample of nine dogs.
Forty percent of adult humans are believed to experience moderate to severe gum recession. Ishay Attar, BioChange's founder and CEO, told The Times of Israel that the product is currently only available for canines, but he expects a version for humans to receive regulatory approval within two years.
"In our study we succeeded in regenerating the complex periodontal tissue, which is composed of four different tissue types, supporting the tooth," he said. "No other product has been able to achieve such results of safety and efficacy so far."
Gum recession in humans is currently either ignored or treated using grafting procedures, debridement surgery which involves removing lots of dead tissue, or antibiotic-releasing implants. Dentists have long hoped for an easier and less cumbersome solution.
A magnified image showing. the structure of the ReGum dental implant foam. (Courtesy of BioChange)
Periodontal diseases are normally caused by chronic infections and inflammation of the gums that surround and support the teeth. In the early stage, called gingivitis, the gums can become swollen and red, and they may bleed.
As inflammation progresses it becomes known as periodontitis. The gum can then pull away from the tooth, the bone can be lost, and the teeth may loosen and fall out.
IIshay Attar, BioChange's founder and CEO. (Courtesy of BioChange)
Attar said the foam was the result of long-running research that the company is using to develop a range of products to prompt tissue to repair itself.
"It took us several years to figure out how to stimulate damaged tissues to repair themselves," he said. "We developed a biological foam made of proteins, cross-linked to form a unique 3D structure."
Attar stated that the foam is expected to help with gum recession resulting from periodontal diseases, as well as that arising from hard brushing.
"Studies demonstrate contradictory findings regarding the correlation between hard brushing and gingival recession," he said. "Our product is designed to treat receding gums, regardless of the cause of the disease."
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TERRIBLE FASHION JOKES OF THE WEEK
A fat fashion designer found a time machine one day. Thinking about how many opportunities for discovery await him, he went inside and clicked a button. He soon found himself in ancient Rome.
He noticed all the plebs wearing cool ancient clothes so he quickly went to the nearest shopping center. Being fat himself, he asked the shopkeeper if they can sell him XL shirts.
That question made the shopkeeper curious, thus he asked the designer:
"Do you really want to purchase that many shirts?"
(it took me twice to get that one…)
Did you hear about the fashion designer who was on the phone while driving and nearly got into an accident? It was a clothes call.
Why can't fashion designers play uno? Because they always draw a cardigan.
What do you call a fashion designer that rejects everything? Calvin Deklein.
2020's fashion was really terrible. Probably because nobody had any taste
COVID is like fashion…
We started hearing about it in Italy…
Became popular in LA and NYC…
Florida ignored it…
And it was all made in China in the end.
How many trainers will it take to teach Tommy fashion design? None. Hilfiger it out..
Never talk to me about fashion. It just goes in one year and out the other.
My doctor really likes my choice of sensible footwear...I overheard him telling his colleague that I had "Serious healthy shoes".
Little old Yankel gets on a crowded city bus, every seat filled. A tough-looking goy with a lot of prison tattoos is kicking his feet onto the seat opposite him, keeping it from being used. Yankel waddles over says 'scuze me' and pushes the tough bloke's legs off the seat.
Agitated, the tough bloke starts pointing to the prison tats on his face and says 'You know what these mean, little man?'
Yankel nods in a knowing fashion "means you got caught"
A guy goes into a bar wearing a shirt open at the collar, and is met by a bouncer who tells him he must wear a necktie to gain admission. So the guy goes out to his car and he looks around for a necktie and discovers that he just doesn't have one.
He sees a set of jumper cables in his trunk. In desperation he ties these around his neck, and manages to fashion a fairly acceptable looking knot and lets the ends dangle free. He goes back to the restaurant and the bouncer carefully looks him over, and then says, "Well, OK, I guess you can come in - just don't start anything."
I once met someone who refused to talk to people unless the conversation was about fashion.
He was very clothes minded.
My lawyer has such a good sense of fashion, he wins every court case
Where do fashionable ghosts shop? Bootiques.
Why do the clothes in Beauty and the Beast look so old-fashioned? Tailors old as time…OYY…
What do you call yoshka at a fashion show? A Cross Dresser…. YES!!
South Africa is the dirty pot calling the Jewish kettle black
Quick-fire accusers -No member of the United Nations quite matches South Africa for speed of condemnation of Israel.
A President presides over the putrid carcase of what used to be a country with pretensions. The Mandela logo could not stir a celebrity black movement of some vibey and violent adventurers; the luxury of liberating a country was too removed from the practical work of governing it. So a rainbow nation born with contagious hope and fierce ambition took a decade to blend with chaotic Africa.
Successive mobster layabouts were not up to maintaining the bare minimum – rule of law and public services – to spare the people. By any definition South Africa is a failed state whose cause and consequence are corruption, chronic poverty and violence. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/failed-state
Take violence. Every administration, from the time of President Mandela to the time of the incumbent Ramaphosa, cemented the country as a byword for murder. From the birth of majority black rule in 1994 to the year 2022 some half a million innocents had their lives terminated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_South_Africa
What gives this bloody record and reputation a sardonic turn is the haste of all its guilty governments to call for Israel to pay the price for shedding Palestinian blood.
No member of the United Nations quite matches South Africa for speed of condemnation.
Take the last of quick mini wars between Gaza and Israel. "Operation Breaking Dawn" was so quick that the compulsory condemnations of Israel from every quarter were forestalled. Only South Africa had the quickness to complain. Naledi Pandor, the very ugliest of anti-Semites in the President's cabinet, pleaded with the international community
"to intervene and end the current and continual attacks by apartheid Israel against the people of Palestine".
The point is not her infantile words or her fibs. Being a quick complainer is also beside the point. And so is the crude and common tactic of manipulating Palestinian Arab "suffering" for a lightning rod to strike at the Jews. The real point is the bedlam of a mind oblivious to a very black pot calling the Jewish kettle black.
How would a bigot's rhetoric look superimposed on reality? Take Palestinian Arabs killed under Israel's watch and compare it with innocents killed under the watch of Israel's quick-fire accusers.
Palestinian Arabs killed in IDF Ops of all types, including anti-terrorist raids
Average # Palestinian Arab fatalities during 25 years:: 411 per year
Average # murdered in SA during 28 years:: 19 178 per year
Murder victims in the SA toll were 100% innocent. Fatalities in the Palestinian Arab toll are mainly terrorist combatants..
Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword. Therefore remove terrorist combatants so that stats relate only to innocent Palestinian Arab 'civvies.'
According to Int. Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism: http://www.ict.org.il unarmed Palestinian Arabs killed as % of all Palestinian Arabs killed = +/- 5%!
Therefore:Palestinian Arab civilians killed by Israel = 21 per year
For the comfort of Israel's quick-fire accusers who look on the IDF as a brutal killing machine, the tally should be in the hundreds of thousands. The yearly toll of 21 innocent Palestinian Arabs is too low for the comfort of accusers.
Contrast this with violent SA (a country not at war) at 19 000 murders per year. Israel's killing toll - while at war - is therefore 913 times lower than the murder toll in peaceful South Africa.
The emotion of hatred is perverse. It may corrode even a nation by consuming it inside out. From King Abimelech in Genesis to Adolph Hitler, from Iranian mullahs to the crazies of Gaza and the comrades who consigned South Africa to the junk heap: haters obsess about the Jews at the cost of their own.
"Quite sane leaders when it comes to Israel lose their minds. Nations and political establishments warped by Israel-hatred tend to make one dumb decision after another."
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks converted 'mind-losing' to propaganda.
"To overthrow (Israel) you have to invent your own discourse, your own narrative. All that matters is that people believe it. That is what is now happening in the campaign against Israel. It brings together people who have nothing (except hatred for Israel) in common."
And all too frequently, ugly haters such as Naledi Pandor are enemies of human rights, and even the sanctity of life itself.
Steve Apfel is an authority on anti-Zionism and a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction. His blog, Balaam's curse is followed in 15 countries on 5 continents
Where did Jewish surnames come from?
How did Jews get surnames?
A. The Austria/Hungarian emperor made Jews have surnames. The names often chose themselves by being distinctively Jewish, e.g. Cohen, Levi, Levin, Israel, Rabbinovitch, Kantor, Shechter, Shammash, and Katz (from "Kohen Tzedek", righteous priest) or linked with lineage, e.g. Jacobs, Isaacs, Abrahams, Solomon, Hyamson, Mirkin (from Miriam). There were abbreviations such as Bard ("Ben Rabbi David") or Brasch ("Ben Rabbi Shimon").
Some names came from places (Moskovitch, Wiener, Berlin, Brody, Katzenelenbogen), occupations (Schneider, Schuster, Becker, Lehrer, Drucker), animals (Adler, Baer, Wolf, Fox), appearance (Gross, Klein, Hochstein, Unterman), or wealth (Reich, Gold, Silber, Diamant). Some names reflected colours (Schwarz, Weiss, Green, Gelb).
Before houses had numbers they often bore signs which became the residents' surnames (Rothschild, red shield; Kahn, a boat; Vogel, a bird; Baum, a tree).
Gentile authorities gave nice names for a large bribe (Roseman, Lilienthal) or offensive names for a poor bribe (Eiselkopf, donkey-head; Spielvogel, gambler; Gans, goose; Froschwaig, frog's spawn).
WALKING AFTER GOD
The sidra says, "After the Lord, your God shall you walk" (Deut. 13:5).
The Hebrew text clearly says, "walk", but since by definition God is totally incorporeal and has no bodily form or shape, how can we say that He walks? Isn't walking a physical action?
The Targum Onkelos, constantly alert to any anthropomorphism, expands the verse so that it becomes a metaphor, "You shall walk after the service of the Lord your God". In other words, "walk along the path of Divine service".
The Midrash (Sifrei) and Talmud (Sotah 14a) say, "emulate the attributes of God – As He is merciful, so should you be merciful; as He is full of lovingkindness, so should you show lovingkindness".
BLESSINGS & CURSES
The Torah reading commences with the principle of free will. It says, "Re'eh" – "See, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse" (Deut. 11:26). The blessing is specified in the following verse. It is, "if you heed the command of the Lord your God".
There are at least two ways of understanding these words. One way is that if you heed God's word you will receive a blessing.
The second, which is the interpretation put forward by Rashi on the basis of earlier rabbinic teaching, is that the blessing is the fact that you choose to hearken to and obey the command of the Almighty – i.e. the blessing is that you make the choice to accept the mitzvot, and the curse is that you choose to reject them.
THE INNOCENT SWEPT ALONG BY THE GUILTY
There is a moral problem with the harsh punishment of a city that has turned to idolatry (Deut. 13:13-17).
Even if most residents are guilty, there is surely a minority that is not swept along by the forces of sin.
Tractate Sanhedrin argues that there never was such a city, but even if it is only hypothetical the moral problem remains. We know it from Sodom and Gomorrah, where God will only save the city if there is a visible minority of righteous people. In its own interest, the minority might find the pressure to conform just too strong.
Painful as it is to leave home, they should leave, to save themselves from bad influences and from being punished for something they did not personally do.
THE MONTH OF WAITING
Ellul – the month that begins this Shabbat – is the lead-up to the High Holy days.
Each day until Sh'mini Atzeret we add Psalm 27 to the service. We greet people with words that evoke the rarefied atmosphere of the festive season.
Whatever we can do or say during Ellul has a tinge of the Days of Awe. The closer we get to the end of the month, the more our spirits are aroused. Ellul is the month of waiting, knowing that any day now we will reach the year's peak.
The imminence of the new year moves us and excites us. Indeed the whole of Judaism is a spiritual waiting room, though it isn't a train we are waiting for. We are waiting for history to reach its culmination in the coming of Mashiach, when the world will be (as Alenu says) "perfected under the Kingdom of the Almighty".
Rabbi Dr. Raymond Applewas for many years Australia's highest profile rabbi and the leading spokesman on Judaism. After serving congregations in London, Rabbi Apple was chief minister of the Great Synagogue, Sydney, for 32 years. He also held many public roles, particularly in the fields of chaplaincy, interfaith dialogue and Freemasonry, and is the recipient of several national and civic honours. Now retired, he lives in Jerusalem and blogs at http://www.oztorah.com
Gigantopithecus was first identified in 1935 by palaeontologist Ralph von Koenigswald thanks to a unique dental specimen.
The mysterious and gigantic simian is believed to have lived in the forests of present-day China, India and Vietnam from two million years ago until around 300,000 years ago. The ape, which is known to have been herbivorous from microscopic plant fossils found in some teeth, attained enormous proportions, exceeding those of real gorillas. A palaeoproteomic analysis revealed that Gigantopithecusblacki belongs to the same clade as the orangutan, its closest living relative. Scientists believe that the gigantopithecus went extinct when its environment changed from forest to savannah during some glaciations in the Pleistocene or Ice age.
The Portion of Toldot
A Bride with "Yichus"
Our portion begins with the births of Jacob and Esau and continues to relate the various events in their lives. When they reach marriageable age, Isaac blesses Jacob and sends him to his ancestral home in Padan Aram to find a wife. "Arise, go to Padan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father, and take yourself from there a wife of the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother" (Genesis 28;2).
Esau, when hearing Isaac's blessing and his directive to Jacob against marrying a woman from the local tribes of Canaan, marries a woman with "yichus":
"So, Esau went to Ishmael, and he took Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, the sister of Nebaioth, in addition to his other wives, as a wife" (Genesis 28;9).
All this is alluded to in the additional crowns atop the letter "heh" in the word "Avraham". (Remazei Yoel)
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