Wednesday, December 2, 2020

My Jewish Press article: If you spot it you got it and What Schools Should Teach About Race & Slavery By Dennis Prager and what are some mind-blowing facts about Canada and my You tube video Jewish homes in the Muslim Quarter one of three

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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.

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The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
If you spot it you got it!

In last week's Torah Parsha, "Toltot" we have the famous story of Jacob taking the blessing of Esau by deceit. The Torah commentators spend a lot of ink on whether Jacob was entitled to the blessings or not, but the story is clear that Jacob deceived his Father by lying to gain the blessings.

After learning of the deceit, Esau vows to kill Jacob. He says that he will not kill Jacob until after his father dies, but Rebecca received this report by divine inspiration as she was a prophet. The Or HaChaim states that she was afraid that Jacob's daily proximity would inflame Exaus so much that he might lose control of himself and kill Jacob while Isaac was still alive.

She revealed the prophecy to Jacob saying "Behold, your brother Esau is consoling himself regarding you to kill you. So now, my son, heed my voice and arise: flee to my brother Laban, to Haran. And remain with him a short while until your brother's anger against you subsides and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send and bring you from there; why should I be bereaved of both of you on the same day! (Genesis 27:42-44)

As it turns out, the twin brothers did not die on the same day, but they were buried in the cave of Hevron on the same day.

The short while turned out to be over 20 years Rebbeca never sees Jacob again.

The Sefer Haflaah was written by Rabbi Pinchas HaLevi Horowitz of Nikelsburg (1730-1805) who was the rabbi of Frankfurt and the author of Sefer Hafla'ah and Sefer HaMikneh -- commentaries on the Talmud -- and Panim Yafot, an exegesis on the Torah. Rabbi Pinchas and his brother Rabbi Shmuel Shmelke were students of the Mezritcher Maggid. They were amongst the first adherents to the Chassidic movement to hold rabbinic posts in Germany. The famed Rabbi Moshe Sofer, known as the Chatam Sofer, considered Rabbi Pinchas to be one of his main teachers.

Rabbi Horowitz says that Rivka implied the following: Runaway to my brother Laban and wait until your bother gets over his anger. How will you know when that time has arrived and he is no longer angry at you? When you yourself stop holding a grudge against him. Rivka understood the reciprocity of human emotions. Love is reciprocated with love, and hatred elicits a like response in others.

There's a common kind of pop psychology that suggests that if you see a problem in someone else, you should assume it's because that same problem applies to you. For example, if you are annoyed by a co-worker who is a big self-promoter, the implication is that you're annoyed because you too are a self-promoter. If you spot it, you got it.

Projection, a well-known cornerstone of psychological defense, distracts our awareness of our own undesirable traits by making us "see" those traits in others. The tough question implied is not, "How do I deal with this difficult person?" but "What is this person showing me that I don't want to know about myself?"

'You spot it, you got it' occurs when we get irritated by behavior in others, which we are choosing to deny in ourselves. In other words, what I hate the most in you, maybe what I hate the most in me.

Our hypocrisy comes from the fact that we have blind spots. We simply can't see those parts of ourselves that we condemn in others. Or we choose not to. But by raising our self-awareness and understanding the 'you spot it you got it' phenomenon, we can start to reduce those blind spots and accept all the parts of ourselves. When we own our flaws we become aware of our triggers and are less likely to become irritated when we see them in other people.

Our brains are funny things. We invariably experience more of any thought or feeling when we try to avoid it. Let's try something. For the next 10 seconds, do not think about pink elephants. Go. Of course, you will think about pink elephants.

Our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. So, what we experience repeatedly is an opportunity for us to learn something about ourselves. For example, if you are constantly experiencing aggressive behavior in others and are triggered by it, if there's a consistent pattern and certain thoughts become very dominant, then there's a good chance that you have what you're spotting.

This opportunity to learn is never more apparent than with our children. Children are great mirrors. The things that wind us up about our kids are often an indication that there is something to get curious about within our own psyche. Remember this the next time you scream at your kids to stop shouting.

If you want to get technical, 'you spot it you got it' is a psychological defense mechanism where our subconscious denies our own thoughts, attributes, or emotions and then ascribes them to other people. It validates the theory that you cannot experience a feeling, emotion, or trait, if you don't have an inner experience of it. You have to have a connection to be able to notice it in others and when it triggers a negative response in you, it is because you are denying it in yourself.



But it isn't all doom and gloom. The good news is that 'you spot it you got it' works positively too. If you find yourself inspired by someone who is creative, intellectual, a great communicator, or visionary, you must have an inner experience of that which you admire, to be able to notice it in others. Furthermore, it might be that this trait is bursting to get out and you are suppressing it. The wonderful possibilities are endless.

When something triggers us, the degree of emotional response is an indicator that there is something within us to be healed. Pay attention. Observe your anger or frustration and immediately own whatever it is. When you have healed that which is ready to be healed, one of two things will happen – either you will quit drawing that particular behavior into your life or you will notice that it no longer bothers you at all.

It appears that it took Yakov 20 years to forgive himself for his action of taking his brother's blessing. Other commentators said the birth of Joseph, gave him the strength to face Esau. In any case, one must pay attention to the idea, "If you spot it you got!"

Speaking of self-awareness, did you hear the story of the lady on the Egged bus here in Jerusalem?

A lady was riding an Egged bus in Jerusalem was reading a newspaper article about life and death statistics. Fascinated, she turned to the man next to her and said, "Did you know that every time I breathe somebody dies?"

"Really!?" he said. "Have you tried mouthwash?"



Yehuda Lave is an internationally known speaker, lecturer, journalist, author, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and life coach, with degrees in business, psychology, Jewish and American Law. His motto: Remember, it only takes a moment to change your life. Learn to have all the joy in your life that you deserve!!! Subscribe to his free daily blog by sending an email to YehudaLave@gmail.com

Jewish Homes in the Muslim Quarter One of three.

On a beautiful November day, Shalom Polock and Daniel Lourie - Executive
Director of Ateret Cohanim Founded in 1978, ( originally known under
the name Atara Leyoshna (lit. "[returning the] former glory"). opened as
a new association called Ateret Cohanim with a yeshiva. While the
activities of Atara Leyoshna focused mainly on locating Jewish assets in
the Muslim Quarter and transferring them into Jewish hands through
legal means, the activities of Ateret Cohanim involves acquiring houses
in the Muslim quarter or renting them from government companies and
populating them with Jews. The association owns many buildings in the
Old City, where over 80 families live. Some estimate that 1,000 Israeli
Jews live in houses that Ateret Cohanim purchased in the Old City since
1978
The head of the association is Mati Dan

What are some of the most mind-blowing facts about Canada?

  • Canada possesses the most lakes in the world, it has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.
  • Canada has the longest street, Yonge Street, in the world, at 1,896 km (1,178 mi).
  • Canada has the longest coastline in the world.
  • Canada is the most educated country in the world, with over half its residents having college degrees.
  • Canada has the 3rd largest oil reserves in the world.
  • The border between the United States and Canada is the longest international border in the world.
  • In Churchill, Canada, the residents leave their car doors unlocked, to offer a means of escape for anyone who might encounter polar bears.
  • Licence plates in the Canadian Northwest Territories are shaped like polar bears.
  • Police departments in Canada can give out 'positive tickets', used for commending people who do something positive.

What Schools Should Teach About Race & Slavery

By Dennis Prager

Regarding race and much else, America's students are not taught history. In fact, they're not taught; they're indoctrinated. With anti-Americanism.

The purpose of teaching about race in American schools is to engender contempt for America. They are, therefore, "taught" the lies of The New York Times' "1619 Project" – that the United States was founded to preserve and protect slavery – and of such works as Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility.

So, then, what should American schools teach about race?

They should, of course, teach students about slavery and racism. But, if truth and moral clarity are to matter, students must also learn that slavery was universal. They would therefore learn about Muslim-Arab slavery, slavery among Africans, slavery among Native Americans and Native South Americans, and slavery in Asia and India.

They would learn that it was the West – beginning with England and America – that abolished slavery. And they would learn that the abolitionists were overwhelmingly religious Christians, animated by the Bible and Judeo-Christian values.

They would learn that, unlike the slaves under Arab-Muslim rule, most black slaves in America were allowed to have children and form families. They would read Herbert Gutman's The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925, about which The New York Times wrote when it was published in 1976: "Gutman has performed an immense service in burying the idea that slavery destroyed the black family." For the record, Gutman was a professor of the left and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

They would learn that the tens of millions of African slaves under Islamic-Arab rule were not allowed to form families (most males were castrated). They would learn that while about 340,000 African slaves were transported to America, 12 million were transported to Brazil.

They would learn that far more blacks – about three million from Africa and the Caribbean – have come to America willingly than came as slaves. They would read a 2005 article from The New York Times called "More Africans Enter U.S. Than in Days of Slavery," in which they would also learn how much less racist America is than any other country:

"Agba Mangalabou, who arrived from Togo in 2002, recalls his surprise when he moved here from Europe. 'In Germany, everyone knew I was African,' he said. 'Here, nobody knows if I'm African or American.'"

They would learn about white slavery, too, from one of the greatest economists of the last half-century, Thomas Sowell, who wrote: "More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed. White slaves were still being bought and sold in the Ottoman Empire, decades after blacks were freed in the United States."

None of that would be taught to diminish the evil of the transatlantic black slave trade, let alone to justify it. America's schoolchildren should, of course, be taught about the horrors of the slave auctions, of the separation of many families, of the rapes, the beatings and the lynchings. But nothing in history is understandable without perspective.

As regards the Arab-Muslim slave trade, students should read Ghanaian professor and minister John Azumah's book The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa, in which he writes, "While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Islamic slave trade. Two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.

"While the mortality rate of the slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as 10%, the percentage of the slaves dying in transit in the trans-Saharan and East African slave market was a staggering 80 to 90%.

"While almost all the slaves shipped across the Atlantic were for agricultural work, most of the slaves destined for the Muslim Middle East were for sexual exploitation as concubines in harems and for military service.

"While many children were born to the slaves in the Americas, millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the United States today, very few descendants of the slaves who ended up in the Middle East survived.

"While most slaves who went to the Americas could marry and have families, most of the male slaves destined for the Middle East were castrated, and most of the children born to the women were killed at birth."

They would read some of the left's favorite "America-is-racist" books, such as the national bestseller White Fragility. But, unlike any school in America that assigns that book, they would also assign a black professor's review of it. In The Atlantic, John McWhorter, a Columbia University professor of linguistics, wrote this about White Fragility:

"[It's] actually a racist tract…. the book diminishes Black people in the name of dignifying us…. White guilt and politesse have apparently distracted many readers from the book's numerous obvious flaws. For one, DiAngelo's book is replete with claims that are either plain wrong or bizarrely disconnected from reality."

They would read and listen to a variety of black thinkers and authors, not just those who detest America. Here is a partial list, in alphabetical order, including one of their books:

Larry Elder, What's Race Got to Do With It?

Ward Connerly, Creating Equal

John McWhorter, Losing the Race

Candace Owens, Blackout

Jesse Lee Peterson, The Antidote

Jason Riley, Please Stop Helping Us

Thomas Sowell, Intellectuals and Race

Shelby Steele, White Guilt

Carol Swain, Abduction

Clarence Thomas, My Grandfather's Son

Walter Williams, Race and Economics

That these brilliant thinkers are unfamiliar to most Americans is proof of the bias and superficiality that pervades American academic and intellectual life. If they read these books and are taught the truths about race outlined in this article, it is perfectly acceptable for them to read black and white leftists on race. In fact, it would be advisable.

See you tomorrow bli neder

We need Mosiach now!

Love Yehuda Lave

Yehuda Lave, Spirtiual Advisor and Counselor

Jerusalem, Jerusalem
 Israel

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