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Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor

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

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Why? Because every human being has a root in the Unity, and to reject the minutest particle of the Unity is to reject it all.

Baal Shem Tov

Everybody is unique. Compare not yourself with anybody else lest you spoil God's curriculum.

Baal Shem Tov

Before you can find God, you must lose yourself.

Baal Shem Tov

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, some of the Caribbean islands, and Liberia.

It began as a day of giving thanks and sacrifice for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Similarly named festival holidays occur in Germany and Japan.

Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States, and around the same part of the year in other places. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.

Pilgrims and Puritans who emigrated from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. The modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is traced to a well-recorded 1619 event in Virginia and a sparsely documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1619 arrival of 38 English settlers at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia, concluded with a religious celebration as dictated by the group's charter from the London Company, which specifically required "that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned ... in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God." The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest, which the Pilgrims celebrated with Native Americans, who helped them pass the last winter by giving them food in the time of scarcity.[7][8][9]

Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.[10][11] According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden.[12] Now called Oktober Feest, Leiden's autumn thanksgiving celebration in 1617 was the occasion for sectarian disturbance that appears to have accelerated the pilgrims' plans to emigrate to America.[13] Later in Massachusetts, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planned the colony's thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623.[14][15][16] The practice of holding an annual harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.[17]

Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress,[18] each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes.[19] As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".[20

Firms Gather In Israel To Share Ideas For Doing Good

How can a company incorporate ideals like sustainability and social responsibility into its DNA? That's the role of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy, a hot topic at companies large and small.

On December 4, Israeli nonprofit organization Maala is hosting the Innovation for Good Life International Conf(fair)ence in Tel Aviv in conjunction with the launch of Leaving No One Behind,its book on Israeli CSR case studies and insights written with CSR pioneer Prof. David Grayson from the UK.

Maala CEO Momo Mahadav says the annual conference is a platform for dialogue with global players in CSR and sustainability.

"The main topic we focus on is business impact on inclusive growth," he says. "Many of our colleagues in US and Europe focus on climate change and the global supply chain, while we're more passionate about inequality, social gaps and social mobility. Those issues are gaining momentum."

The conference is structured into tracks for professionals from HR, marketing, finance, digital, procurement, environment, health and safety and R&D.

"The title of the book doesn't aim to imply that Israel has solved the problem of inclusive growth; this is more a call to action," says Mahadav.

"We have practices and inroads to share. The conference is designed as a workspace for connecting, engaging, learning, and sharing between various professionals and sectors who aspire to increase their social impact. It is a place where you can discuss your ideas, initiatives and models for takingsustainability forward."

Last year's conference drew nearly 800 participants from 100 companies, including multinationals with branches in Israel. Mahadav says most of the foreign participants are from the US and Europe.

The 2019 Maala Index rated 161 companies in Israel for their CSR impact. Criteria include workforce diversity, employees, trust, work-life balance, volunteering, corporate giving, procurement and environment.

"We're happy that number has increased from 150 in 2018. The increasing numbers represent an effort we started three years ago, offering a basic threshold index to suppliers of companies rated on the advanced level. It's a way to go beyond looking only at large companies and what they can accomplish in CSR," says Mahadav.

Full Story (ISRAEL21c)

Hall Of Famer Roger Staubach Honored For His Support Of Israel

Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach was honored "for his work as a strong supporter of Israel and other Zionist causes."

The Bnai Zion Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in the United States that identifies and funds capital projects in Israel, presented the Dallas Cowboys great with its 2019 American-Israel Friendship Award at an event in Dallas on Monday.

Full Story (Israel National News)

The Village That Went Vegan 50 Years Ago

Everyone knows that Tel Aviv is the vegan capital of Israel, right? After all, it's home to scores of vegan restaurants and many of the 5 percent of Israelis who eat a plant-based diet.

Well, here's a surprise: Long before you could get veggie shawarma in Tel Aviv, a community in the desert town of Dimona pioneered the vegan lifestyle in Israel.

They're called the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem and they live in a compound called Neve Shalom (Village of Peace). The original 138 members of the community, mostly natives of Chicago, arrived in Israel in 1969.

"We don't number ourselves, but I guess we're about 3,000 people. We've had 1,150 babies born in our House of Life [maternity center] since 1972 or 1973," official community spokesman Ahmadiel Ben Yehuda tells ISRAEL21c.

Hebrew Israelites see themselves as spiritual descendants of the ancient Israelites. They are not Jewish, but they consider the Bible their history and guidebook.

In Genesis 1:29-30, a plant-based diet is prescribed for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree on which is the fruit yielding seed; to you it shall be for food. … everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green herb for food."

"That became the foundation for how we have to conduct ourselves," says Ben Yehuda.

Ben Yehuda, who immigrated from Washington DC in 1979, said the decision to eschew animal products didn't come from a health perspective.

"However, as we continued, we found many reports and research that substantiated the reason for veganism. Very simply, humans are not designed to consume flesh; we are designed to consume plants."

Neither did their decision originate from a place of animal rights, "but that is a great added benefit. We have come to understand that humanity needs to take care of the creation better."

A healthful plant-based diet – whole fresh foods, with little or no refined sugar or table salt — is one of several pillars of Hebrew Israelite culture.

"We eat foods in season and no foods that are seedless. For example, no seedless grapes or watermelon. That goes back to the biblical verse about 'every herb bearing seed.' There's something about the seed that makes it the proper food for our consumption and if you tamper with that it would have a negative effect," says Ben Yehuda.

Every Saturday, community members over age 13 ingest nothing but water. "We're not fasting to torture ourselves but to allow the body to relax and cleanse. If someone feels weak, they can grab a piece of fruit," explains Ben Yehuda.

Four times a year, at the changing of the seasons, Hebrew Israelites consume only "live" (uncooked) food for a week to cleanse their bodies.

Bean curds, fruit and vegetable salads, raw buckwheat, dehydrated flaxseed and pumpkin-seed crackers, bacon-like dehydrated squash and eggplant strips, prune juice and natural fruit leather for the kids are among the foods eaten during that week.

Community members also have monthly massages, exercise three times a week, don't smoke and don't drink alcoholic beverages.

Teva Deli is born

In the early days, the Hebrew Israelites could not find vegan staples like tofu and soymilk in Israel. So one community member was sent to Japan to learn how to manufacture them.

"When he came back, we invested in a factory producing tofu and that led to an entire range of foods that [we] began to develop from soy and other sources," says Ben Yehuda.

The factory supplied the community and a few vegan restaurants that the community opened in the 1980s around Israel, including Taste of Life in Tel Aviv, which closed two years ago after 35 years.

In 1995, the factory rebranded as Teva Deli and grew into a national business.

"We didn't start and maintain this business because we saw a market to exploit," says Ben Yehuda. "There was no demand for vegan foods. We had to create the market for it!"

Teva Deli has formulated many vegan products for the Israeli palate – including the cheese substitute that Domino's of Tel Aviv used to launch the global chain's 2013 pilot of vegan pizza, and the raw ingredients for Tel Aviv's iconic Buddha Burger, an eatery that operated from 2006 to 2018.

Among Teva Deli's 200 consumer products are meatless shawarma, Jerusalem mix and kebabs made from seitan; and burgers made from quinoa, sprouted lentils, almonds, flaxseeds, chia seeds, brown rice, adzuki beans, mung beans and buckwheat.

A separate line of about 50 products for the food-service industry includes raw ingredients such as seitan, tofu and dry soy chunks for preparing vegan main dishes.

"In many of Israel's major restaurant chains that give a vegan option, it's private-label products coming from our factory," factory manager Ben Koliyah tells ISRAEL21c.

Still based in Dimona and employing 50 workers, 80 percent of whom are Village of Peace members, Teva Deli is constantly expanding.

"That is not without its challenges because the more awareness of veganism rises, the more competition we have from big companies like Osem and Tivol," says Koliyah, 53.

"But we were the pioneers and gave options when no one else gave options. And we are still the only totally vegan community."

Adopting the Dimona model in Ghana

The Hebrew Israelites have been working with the Ghana Ministry of Health to shift the African country's approach to healthcare from curative to preventative. Ghana's Regenerative Health and Nutrition Program is based on the "Dimona model," says Ben Yehuda.

The community has set up a vegan food production facility in Ghana. Ben Yehuda says the African Union intends to recommend the Dimona model to other African nations.

In Israel, visitors are welcome to purchase lunch or dinner at The Miznon, the Hebrew Israelites' dining hall in the Village of Peace. It is certified kosher by the Dimona Rabbinate.

"We do like to take some credit for Israel being the No. 1 vegan nation," Ben Yehuda says.

"We feel it was propelled into popularity when our children began entering the IDF and making friends with people from across Israel. The army made a special effort to accommodate them with vegan options."

Ben Yehuda's son, Gadiel, just finished serving in the Israel Air Force. Last spring, Gadiel was on the beach in Tel Aviv and saw Arab Israeli vlogger Nuseir Yassin ("Nas Daily") filming a segment focusing on Tel Aviv as Israel's vegan center.

"Gadiel went over to him and said, 'Tel Aviv is not the capital of veganism; Dimona is.' And right then and there, Nas googled us. That's what led him to come and visit us."

Here is the video that came out of that chance meeting with Gadiel Ben Yehuda of the Hebrew Israelites.

Full Story (ISRAEL21c)