Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor | | | The Greatest Day of Your Life What would help you view today as the greatest day of your life? If today you have a greater awareness of your immense intrinsic value than ever before, then today is the greatest day of your life. If today you decide to upgrade your character beyond ways that you have done before, then today is the greatest day of your life. If today you make goals and plans that go beyond previous goals and plans, then today is the greatest day of your life. If today you have a greater spiritual awareness and feel more connected with the Creator than ever before, then today is the greatest day of your life. I bless you to know that today is the greatest day of your life. Love Yehuda Lave | | How to Reinvent Yourself After a Life of Mistakes By Rosally Saltsman Dear Rachel, I want to change my image. Without going into too much detail, the person I've become—or rather, the image I project—is not one I want to continue. I've made The image I project is not one I want to continue some mistakes. Well, maybe even a lot of them. I'm still young, but I'm afraid to be stuck with this image forever. I don't want to have to move away and start a new life; I like where I live and many of the people I know. I want to start over, but don't know if I can, and more importantly, if others will let me forget my past. The Wrong Image Dear New Image, First of all, I want to congratulate you. It takes a lot of maturity and self-awareness, as well as plain old spunk, to say This is not who I want to be, I can be better. Change is hard. But not impossible. The Talmud says (Yoma 86a) that a completely righteous person cannot stand in the place of a baal teshuvah. In other words, it is the height of holiness to feel remorse and make amends, to change your ways and choose a new path. A new path begins with just one step; that's all you have to take. G‑d helps those who try to change. The midrash on "Song of Songs" (5:2) says: "Open up for me an opening like the eye of a needle, and in turn I will enlarge it to be an opening through which wagons can enter." You've got the best personal coach in G‑d. And the amazing thing is that when you make that change, all your negative behavior becomes positive in retrospect. The act of change—remorse, teshuvah—turns liabilities into virtues. It redefines who you were by who you have become. Change doesn't have to be major to be effective. You don't have to move away to another city, although there is the expression that someone who changes his place changes his luck. The change could be small, like where you sit (in school, on the bus), where you spend your free time (the library, or a bar), and where (and with whom) you socialize. Here's some suggestions on how to change: - First, decide what you want to change about yourself and your life. Get a clear picture of what you want your new image to be. Visualize what you and your new life will look like when that change has been accomplished. When you have set those goals, make a list of the steps you have to take to get there. Make sure they are a sequence of small, doable steps. Also, the more areas of your life they cover, the more complete the change will be.
- It's usually easier to start with external visible changes. There's a concept of naaseh v'nishma—"we will do and then we will hear." You do the action, and then it changes you internally. So changing how you dress, how you walk, and your vocabulary (which is important, since speech affects thought) are easier changes to make. And always make the easier changes first. They will give you the jump start you need to tackle the bigger ones.
- Develop relationships with people who reflect the new values and lifestyle you are trying to emulate. Our social circles have a very big effect on who we are and who we become. Surround yourself with people who inspire you to be your best, and taper off your relationships with people who are a bad influence on you. Read about people who inspire you, about their challenges and how they overcame them. Great people are not born, they're made. And they become great through perseverance and hard work.
The Amoraic sage Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, also known as Reish Lakish, was the quintessential baal teshuvah. He went from being a highway robber to becoming a master Torah scholar, thanks to his teacher and brother-in-law, Rabbi Yochanan, who believed in his potential. Be among people who believe in your potential. - Write some affirmations that depict your ideal self and repeat them to yourself on a daily basis. Sentences like "I am confident in my own decision," "I am valuable and unique," will help you realize your self-worth and live up to that image of yourself.
As for other people letting you change, well, let them try to stop you. You are who you are, and no one's opinion can change that. People are wary of others who claim to have changed. You'll have no choice but to prove it to them by being consistent in your new behavior. Some people will find it hard to accept the new you, but that's not your problem. - There are three steps to doing teshuvah: apologize for your wrongdoing (to others or to G‑d); make any amends that are necessary; and promise not to engage in the same behavior again. These steps can be taken at any juncture in our lives.
If your previous behavior caused any damage, loss or pain to anyone—and you have it in your power to rectify that—then you need to take the steps to make amends. But you don't have to do this all at once. Make a list of the wrongs you are able to right by apologizing, being kind, returning money or any other similar necessary retribution. Know that there will be setbacks. That's normal, and no indication that you won't succeed. Keep believing in your new vision of yourself, and it will become a reality. In the story of Creation, G‑d says: "Let us make man." To whom is He speaking? One opinion is that it refers to the angels. Another opinion is that He is speaking to us—to humankind. We play a large part in who we become. The We have the potential to be G‑dly rest of the verse says that we are made in G‑d's image and likeness. We have the potential to be G‑dly and to project that image. The Torah gives us the tools to do this. Each mitzvah we do—whether it's between us and G‑d, us and other people, whether it's something we must do or something we must hold ourselves back from doing—makes us more refined and polishes our image. Our actions define who we are, and they in turn affect our thoughts and speech. Each of us, including you, has the potential and the responsibility to remake ourselves in our best image. Wishing you a brilliant future! Rachel By Rosally Saltsman Rosally Saltsman is a freelance writer originally from Montreal living in Israel | | The idea behind daylight savings time-the Clocks will change in Israel on Thursday night the 22nd Do you know the history? An original idea behind "Daylight Saving Time" is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Franklin wrote in a letter April 26, 1784, to the Journal of Paris, under the English title An Economical Project: "183 nights between 20 March and 20 September times 7 hours per night of candle usage equals 1,281 hours for a half year of candle usage. Multiplying by 100,000 families gives 128,100,000 hours by candlelight. Each candle requires half a pound of tallow and wax, thus a total of 64,050,000 pounds. At a price of thirty sols per pounds of tallow and wax (two hundred sols make one livre tournois), the total sum comes to 96,075,000 livre tournois. An immense sum, that the city of Paris might save every year." Perhaps a more formal attribution would be that entomologist George Vernon Hudson was interested in conserving daylight so he would have more time to , pursue insects. The New Zealander had shift-work at the Wellington Post Office and wondered how he could catch more bugs in the summer when dusk came early. In October 1895 he proposed a two-hour shift forward in October and a two-hour shift back in March to the Wellington Philosophical Society. While the idea was laughed off at first, Hudson had a friend in parliamentarian Thomas Kay Sidey who spent 20 years reintroducing a bill that would implement the daylight saving measure. Sidey argued that the schedule adjustment would give people more time during the summers to enjoy the outdoors and cut down consumption of artificial light. His labor paid off in 1927, when he passed the Summer Time Act, which trialed an extra hour of daylight. Britain's advocate for daylight saving time was William Willett, who in 1907 proposed setting clocks forward in the summer. Willett proposed setting clocks forward 80 minutes through four 20 minute increments beginning in April. Willett died from influenza in 1915, but Britain implemented the daylight saving time a year later to save fuel during World War I. Daylight Saving Time has been used in the United States and in many European countries since World War I. The plan was not formally adopted in the United States until 1918. 'An Act to preserve daylight and provide standard time for the United States' was enacted on March 19, 1918. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 (15 U.S. Code Section 260a) which was signed into Public Law 89-387 on 12 April 1966, by President Lyndon Johnson, created Daylight Saving Time to begin on the last Sunday of April and to end on the last Sunday of October. Any State that wanted to be exempt from Daylight Saving Time could do so by passing a State law. In 1972, Congress revised the law to provide that, if a State was in two or more time zones, the State could exempt the part of the State that was in one time zone while providing that the part of the State in a different time zone would observe Daylight Saving Time. The Federal law was amended in 1986 such that Daylight Saving Time: - began at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of April and
- ended at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday of October
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. beginning in 2007, though Congress retained the right to revert to the 1986 law should the change prove unpopular or if energy savings are not significant. Going from 2007 forward, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S.: - begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March and
- ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November
In most of the countries of Western Europe, including the countries that are members of the EU, Daylight Saving Time: - begins at 1:00 a.m. GMT on the last Sunday of March and
- ends at 1:00 a.m. GMT on the last Sunday of October
This year may be the last time Floridians have to deal with Daylight Saving Time. The Florida legislature has approved the "Sunshine Protection Act," which would keep Daylight Saving Time intact year-round. It now needs a signature from Gov. Rick Scott and subsequent approval of an exception to the Energy Policy Act from the U.S. Congress to pass it into law. Hawaii and most of Arizona are already on standard time year-round. | | Islam is Not a Religion/ Jewish Spring holidays https://www.israpundit.org/islam-is-not-a-religion-it-is-a-fraud/
As we have entered into the Spring season of the Jewish trifecta of holidays Purim, Pesach and Shavuot, Jews as well as other people need to educate them about the truth of Islam from non p.c. sources. Jews especially must keep in mind Amalek and that in every generation there arises some representative of the spirit of Amalek that wants to kill and commit genocide on klal yisroel.
Purim saves the best for first in that when it is the Jews darkest hour the Jews are saved through human action even though God's face is hidden throughout. This story and holiday will survive the redemption of Israel.
Then we start cleaning for Pesach and this is a spiritual cleaning as we physically clean the material chometz from our homes.The elimination of every possible itty bitty spot of chometz usually drives us crazy which echos back to Purim and drinking enough not to be able to tell Haman from Mordecai or Mordecai from Haman. The message is that we are slaves in spirit when we are slaves through our body. In Egypt we were enslaved by harsh Egyptian taskmasters; we were not free. We were not free to be Israelites/Jews and our taskmasters could torture us at their will as they worked us relentlessly. We were not free. In the story of Pesach we learn about the many plagues that God brought upon the Egyptians and Egypt. One plague was the plague of darkness. This was a darkness like no other and reminds us again of Purim and the lowest point in that story when it looks as if genocide is the fate of the Jews. This time the darkness effects the enemies of the Jews, the Egyptians in this story, and the Jews will again be led this time by Moshe to freedom.
Finally, we learn what freedom means to the Jews and to each Jew through Moshe leading the Israelites to Mt. Sinai to receive The Torah, The Law. The road to freedom takes years and years and years. Some individuals cannot handle freedom we learn. Theyhave many habits that they cannot change. Freedom actually comes when the Israelites do have for a brief, brief time the Israelites and the mixed multitude that comes along sifted out, purified physically and spiritually, and fit ritually speaking, to be able to experience revelation and accept The Torah and the marriage of the People of Israel to God. Again, the people can't remain in the purified state and when a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt enters the minds of some people the idolatry of The Golden Calf enters the story.The People are castigated by Moshe. Moshe goes up the mountain a second time and returns with another set of holy tablets.The People agree to accept The Torah out of fear and/or love as servants of God. No longer slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, meaning a narrow place, but servants to God, The True God and not in fleedom and license but in freedom. Afterward, there are some hitches as things go on into the future.
The message this year might be interpreted as warning Klal Yisroel again idolatry and to be seekers of true freedom and following God's path as told to us in Torah.
This is why this second consecutive year where the islamic holiday of ramadan, 30 days long, converges with Shavuot on two days is so important because if if not now, when? (to take from R. Hillel). The message is that Jews should NOT celebrate with Muslims and attend the trendy Iftar dinners that have become so popular among many Jews who have not educated themselves properly about Islam and won't accept the idea of stealth, cultural jihad if they even know anything at all about its existence as well as the islamic advocacy of lying to the kufar to advance islam and its agenda which is totalitarian and ruthless toward all non muslims but especially toward The Jew and The Jewish People.
In the name of diversity, cultural diversity, reaching out, interfaith relationships, etc. whatever its is called this week, muslim acting out their islam engage in interfaith as part of stealth, cultural jihad through lying techniques of taqqiya (kitmon, tawrya, etc.) to impress the kufar (the infidel) as people who are reasonable and nice; people who themselves are poor underdogs the victims of much cruelty in The West through islamophobia. Muslims are to be perceived as people like your neighbors and friends which they seems to be a lot although the Koran itself warns muslims not to take Jews and Christians as friends but taqqiya sometimes even obligates the muslim to lie in attempts to eventually convert the infidel to Islam and into becoming muslim. Refusing to convert does have consequences. All that is being sold is for the Jew idolatry. A false god, allah. A false prophet, mohammed. License in the name of idolatry through taqqiya called religion for political conquest which gives a pass to muslims and through taqqiya permits muslims to murder, steal, lie, engage in idolatry, commit sexual destruction of women and men; all sorts of actions forbidden by the Torah which led to Christianity and Judeo Christianity was the foundation of the Western civilized world at one time. Of course, this Western civilized world was imperfect and included corrupt individuals and groups that acted uncivily but that was not the goal of the Western system based on when all is said and done derivation from Torah and its moral system.
When ramadan and Shavuot overlap it signals the Jews to choose between being a slave to islam, the false god allah and the false messiah mohammed, idolatry; or being free, a free individual and a free person choosing to be a servant to God, The One True God who Created the world and who redeemed The Israelities, The Jews, from Mitrayim/Egypt, to take the journey to real freedom and not fleedom into another slavery as a nation in the land, Eretz Yisroel, that God would give to them. The Jews would reject idolatry and accept The One True God and His Torah.
I wish our rabbis would send this message to Jews and stop encouraging idolatrous choices, especially during Shavuot. Shavuot is a holiday that is often rejected by inattention and ignorance by many, many progressive Jews and not fully understood even by more religious Jews. Secular Jews, of course, will perhaps play mixed multitude? They seem to reject Saying or Commandment number one: I am the Lord thy God.... Atheists put their atheism and themselves before God. They are their own gods, in effect.This hubris holds the possibility of big problems for them through their ignorance of not only their own Jewish heritage but also their ignorance of the facts, the historical facts, about islam an believing muslims who act upon their believed to be holy texts and example of mohammed their prophet. He is no Moses!
For years the Iftar dinner stories of synagogues and Hillels Jews and muslims together celebrating even to choice of many Jews to ignore Shavuot have depressed and upset me. Not all years is overlap with Shavuot present, but this is the second year in a row it will. The secular year is 2018. The eighteen tells us in English to choose life and the two tells us to accept the two tablets and the one tells us to accept the one God, Hashem, and that it will lead to eight, the world to come. The zero tells us there is nothing else.So we are to accept what is or what is not, what is not is idolatry. 5778 is the Jewish year on the Jewish calendar and counting of years. The digits add up to 27 which adds up to 9. Nine is the number of Truth in Hebrew. The seven and eight add up to 15. Fifteen is a number that Pesach teaches about. Many fifteens including the number for ascent to The Temple. Seven which is Shabbat and there are two stands for the two Shabbats to bring redemption and again the eight stands for the world to come. The five stand for the hand of God, metaphorically five fingers equal a hand. The hand of God leads to observance of the two observant Shabbat by Israel which will lead to the world to come. Five plus seven is twelve. Twelve months, twelve tribes.
Okay. So if anyone says I'm going to an Iftar dinner this year, what could it hurt? Well, it can hurt. It can hurt that person and it can hurt us all; it can hurt the children. Can it help? No, I'm sorry but the truth is that it cannot and will not help. Islam will not be reformed as some people dream and history is prelude.
Celebrate Shavuot not ramadan; eat your cheesecake and do not be a slave to men/man and an idolator. Be a free person free to choose to be a servant to God and to perform His mitzvot, to obey His commandments and walk with Him on His path. | | Special Segula for Parnassa (sustenance) from the Shelah HaKadosh Special Segula for Parnassa (sustenance) from the Shelah HaKadosh | | WaPo Columnist Who Advocated Socialism: No, I Really Just Meant Norway. Okay, Here Are Some Facts About Norway. By ben shapiro March 11, 2018 Elizabeth Bruenig is back. The Washington Post columnist memorably wrote last week that she wished for an upsurge in support for socialism. I critiqued that column. Now she's written a response to that critique, claiming that I (among others) interpreted her in bad faith for mentioning several countries that have tried socialism and failed, from Venezuela to the Soviet Union, and for pointing out that many of the supposedly socialist countries that socialists so often proclaim as their examples aren't actually socialist (see, for example, Denmark and Sweden). First off, it's worth noting that Bruenig mentioned no country in her original article. She talked about the concept of socialism in rather classical Marxist terms — terms which better describe Cuba and Venezuela than mixed economies like Denmark and Sweden, as I pointed out. Nonetheless, Bruenig thinks I somehow misinterpreted her purposefully. So, let's consider her latest argument. She writes: Last week, I wrote a column arguing that liberals concerned about ongoing failures in the American experiment should consider socialist remedies. I knew there would be quite a bit of disagreement. And I knew that most — though, crucially, not all — of it would unfold in bad faith…In the case of my column, this meant many interlocutors taking socialism to mean something along the lines of Soviet communism or the Venezuelan system, genocides, calamities, disasters and all. I don't think anybody actually believes I'm rooting for totalitarian forms of socialism, nor for its most devastatingly ill-managed variants: I said I wasn't, after all. If one genuinely thought a person was campaigning for genocide, one surely wouldn't engage with someone so unreasonable. Now this is a strawman. Nobody claimed that Bruenig wants the outcomes we've seen in Venezuela or under the Soviets. But it would be ridiculous to ignore the results of those socialist experiments in responding to an argument calling for the advent of socialism. I seriously doubt whether the original instigators of socialism in Venezuela wanted people eating dogs in the streets. But that's not stopping the starving citizens of Venezuela from eating dogs in the streets as a result of that socialist philosophy in action. | | Top 10 Real Miracles Caught On Tape In The World Real life miracles can challenge our preconceived notions of what's really possible and what isn't. While you'll ultimately have to decide for yourself what happened in the following ten real miracles caught on tape, they are bound to intrigue and challenge your mind. | | See you tomorrow Love Yehuda Lave | | | |
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