The holiday of Shavuot - the day the Torah was given - begins
Tuesday night May 14, 2013, through Thursday night, May 16, 2013
GOOD MORNING! Tuesday evening, May 14th, begins the two day holiday of Shavuot (or Shavuos in the Ashkenazic pronunciation). (Yizkor is on Thursday, May 16th.) It is the anniversary and celebration of the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai to the Jewish people 3,325 years ago. It is a time of rededication and commitment to learning Torah.
Some LITTLE KNOWN JEWISH influence on the history of the world.
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Tuesday night May 14, 2013, through Thursday night, May 16, 2013
GOOD MORNING! Tuesday evening, May 14th, begins the two day holiday of Shavuot (or Shavuos in the Ashkenazic pronunciation). (Yizkor is on Thursday, May 16th.) It is the anniversary and celebration of the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai to the Jewish people 3,325 years ago. It is a time of rededication and commitment to learning Torah.
Q & A: What is Shavuot and How is it Celebrated?
The Torah calls Shavuot the "Festival of Weeks" (Numbers 28:26). The very word "Shavuot" is Hebrew for "weeks"; it refers to the seven weeks that one counts from the second day of Passover (when the Omer [barley] offering is brought) until the holiday of Shavuot. It is one of the three Regalim, holidays, (Pesach and Succot are the other two) where every man in the land of Israel was commanded to come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival when the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, stood in Jerusalem.
Torah is the life blood of the Jewish people. Our enemies have always known that when we Jews stop learning Torah, our assimilation is inevitable. Without knowledge there is no commitment. One cannot love what he does not know. A person cannot do or understand what he has never learned.
A Jew is commanded to learn Torah day and night and to teach it to his children. If a Jew wants his family to be Jewish and his children to marry other Jews, then he must integrate a Torah study program into his life and implement the teachings into his home and his being. One can tell his children anything, but only if they see their parents learning and doing mitzvot, will they inherit the love for being Jewish. Remember: a parent only owes his child three things -- example, example, example.
How can we utilize this opportunity to grow and strengthen our self-identity as Jews? Just as a baby crawls, then toddles and then walks, likewise with the mitzvot (commandments). A person should undertake one more mitzvah, do it well and then build on it. For some mitzvot that you might enjoy taking on...
A Few Suggestions
1. Read the Torah! The Almighty gave it to you as a gift. It is the instruction book for living -- how to be happy, choose the right spouse, make your marriage work, raise your children with values, get more joy out of life.
2. Attend a Torah class --
3. Make sure you have a Kosher mezuzah on at least your front door. (A Jewish home should have mezuzot on all doorposts except for the bathrooms). Learn the deep, inner-meaning of mezuzah and reflect on it when you look at the mezuzah.
4. Pick one non-kosher food item that you won't eat -- just because you're Jewish.
5. Say the Shema and its three following paragraphs at least once a day. Learn what the words mean and the ideas included. It will change your outlook and attitudes. A
6. Do something to make Shabbat special -- light two candles with the blessing before sundown, have a Shabbat Friday night family dinner and make Kiddush and HaMotzei (the prayer before eating the Challahs -- the special loaves of bread).
The Talmud says, "All beginnings are difficult."
On Shavuot there is a custom to stay up all night learning Torah. Virtually every Orthodox tsynagogue and yeshiva have scheduled learning throughout the night ending with the praying of Shacharit, the morning service. The reason: the morning the Jewish people were to receive the Torah on Mt. Sinai, they overslept. We now can rectify the tendency to give in to our desires by demonstrating our resolve through learning the whole night. It is a meaningful experience to share with your children. It would be wonderful if you could find a synagogue, JCC or yeshiva with a program that night; at very minimum, how about reading the story of the giving of the Torah to your family (Exodus 19:10 -20:23).
For Shavout--here is a little joke song
Shavuot Song - "Stay Up All Night"
iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/stay-up-all-night/id441236995 Amazon link: http://www....
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A Caveat before reading below. I have seen websites that dispute many of these claims, so it is just interesting, no guarantees
Some LITTLE KNOWN JEWISH influence on the history of the world.
1) The Roosevelts were Dutch Jews who arrived in NYC in 1682. Claes
Rosenvelt before he changed his name to Nicholas Roosevelt, was the first
Roosevelt ancestor to set foot in America, and Sarah Delano, FDR's mother,
descended from Sephardic Jews.
2) Joseph Stalin was originally named Joseph David Djugashvili (translated
as: "son of a Jew".) All 3 of the women that he married were Jewish.
3) Dwight Eisenhower's father was a Swedish Jew, and listed in West Point's
Yearbook of 1915.
4) Lillian Friedman, a Jewish woman, married Cruz Rivera. They named their
baby Geraldo Miguel Rivera (it doesn't sound Jewish), but according to
Jewish Law, anyone born to a Jewish mother is Jewish. Thus, Geraldo Rivera
is Jewish.
5) Fiorello Laguardia, famous former mayor of New York City, whose mother's
name was Jacobson. His father was not Jewish. Laguardia spoke seven
languages fluently, including Hebrew and Yiddish.
6) Winston Churchill whose mother's name was Jenny Jerome, a Jew.
7) Cary Grant, whose mother, Elsie, was Jewish. His father, Elias Leach, was
not. Grant's original name was Archibald Alexander Leach; (Robin Leach is
his first cousin).
8) Peter Sellers' mother, Margaret Marks, was Jewish. His father, Bill
Sellers, was not. Peter's real name is Richard Henry Sellers.
9) David Bowie's mother is Jewish, his father is not. One of Bowie's albums
discusses his Jewish ancestry. His real name: David Stenton Haywood Jones.
10) Robert DeNiro's mother is Jewish.
11) Shari Belafonte's mother is Jewish. Her father, Harry's grandfather is a
Jew.
12) Olivia Newton John's grandfather, a Jew, was a Nobel Prize winning
physicist.
13) Harrison Ford's mother is a Russian Jew, his father is Irish Catholic.
14) The first theater to be used solely for the showing of motion pictures
was built by a Jew Adolf Zukor.
15) The first full-length sound picture, The Jazz Singer was produced by
Jews, Samuel L. Goldwyn & Louis B. Mayer (MGM).
16) A Jew, Dr. Abraham Waksman, coined the term antibiotics.
17) A Polish Jew, Casimir Funk, who pioneered a new field of medical
research, gave us a common word -- vitamins.
18) The first successful operation for appendicitis was performed by a
Jewish surgeon, Dr. Simon Baruch.
19) Dr. Abraham Jacobi hailed as America's father of Pediatrics, is a Jew.
20) Until a Jewish doctor, Dr. Siccary proved it differently, people
believed that tomato was poisonous.
21) A Jew, Levi Strauss, is the inventor/originator of jeans & Levis, the
largest clothing retailer in the world.
22) In 1909, four Jews were among the 60 multi-cultural signers of the Call
to the National Action, which resulted in the creation of the NAACP.
23) A Jew, Emile Berliner, is the man who developed the modern day
phonograph.
While Thomas Edison was working out a type of phonograph that used a
cylinder as a record, Berliner invented a machine that would play a disc.
The machine he patented was called the gramophone, and the famous RCA
trademark is a picture of a dog listening to "his master's voice" on
Berliner's device. The gramophone was superior to Edison's machine. In
short, Emile Berliner made possible the modern record industry. His company
was eventually absorbed by the Victor Talking Machine Company, now known as
RCA.
24) A Jew, Louis B. Mayer (co-founder of MGM), created the idea for the
Oscar.
25) European Jews are the founding fathers of all the Hollywood Studios.
26) Jews comprise a mere 1/4 of 1% (13 million) of the world's population
(of over 6 billion), and while 99% of the world is non-Jewish, 72% of
Pulitzer Prize winners are Jews.
27) Three of greatest & most influential thinkers dominating the 20th
Century are Jews - Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx.
28) The most popular selling Christmas song "White Christmas" was written by
a Jew, Irving Berlin.
29) Of the 660 Nobel prizes from 1901 - 1990, 160 have been awarded to Jews.
More Jews have won more Nobel prizes than any other ethnicity. They have won
40x more than should be expected of them based upon their small population
numbers.
30) A Jew, Dr. Jonas Salk, is the creator of the first polio vaccine.
31) Hayam Solomon & Isaac Moses, both Jews, are responsible for creating the
first modern banking institutions.
32) Jews created the first department stores in America in the nineteenth
century.
The Altmans, Gimbels, Kaufmanns, Lazaruses, Magnins, Mays, Strausses became
leaders of major department stores.
Julius Rosenwald revolutionized the way Americans purchased goods by
improving Sears Roebuck's mail order merchandising.
Hart, Schaffner, Marx, Kuppenheimer and Levi Strauss became household names
in men's clothing.
33) Marc Chagall (originally Segal) a Russia Jew, is one of the great 20th
century painters.
34) The fortune(s) of English Jews -- Isaac Goldsmid, Nathan Rothschild,
David Salomons, and Moses Montefiore -- helped England become a world
empire.
35) In 1918, Detroit, a Jew, Max Goldberg, opened the "first" commercial
parking lot.
36) In 1910, a Jew, Louis Blaustein, and his son opened the "first" gas
station, eventually founding the American Oil Company (AMOCO). The
Blausteins became one of the richest oil families in the world.
37) A Jew, Dr. Albert Sabin, developed the first oral polio vaccine.
38) A Jew, Steven Spielberg, is the most successful filmmaker since the
advent of film.
39) A Jew, Emma Lazarus, wrote the famous poem, ´The New Colossus" which is
inscribed on the Statue Of Liberty.
40) A Jew, Harry Houdini (Weiss) is the father of magic and illusion.
41) Abraham, is the father of the Jews and Arabs, and from whom the world's
3 major religions: Judaism, Christianity & Islam originated.
42) Jews are the oldest of any people on earth who have kept their national
identity and cultural heritage intact.
43) George & Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin, all Jews, are three of the most
prolific composers of the 20th century.
44) Isadore & Nathan Straus, who are both Jews - "Abraham & Straus,"
eventually became sole owners of Macy's, the world's largest department
store, in 1896.
45) Dr. Paul Ehrlich, a Jewish physician, was awarded the Nobel Prize in
1908 for finding the cure for syphilis.
46) Armand Hammer, a Jew, of "Arm & Hammer" fame. a physician & businessman
originated the largest trade between U. S. and Russia.
47) Louis Santanel, a Jew, was the financier who provided the funds for
Columbus ' voyage to the New World (America).
48) Sherry Lansing, a Jew, became the first woman to become president of a
major Hollywood studio, Paramount Pictures.
49) Flo Zigfield, a Jew, of "Ziegfield Follies" fame, is the creator of
American burlesque.
"BE YOURSELF - EVERYONE ELSE IS TAKEN"
"A day without laughter is a day wasted" - Charlie Chaplin said that
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Visit my Blog: http://yehudalave.blogspot.com
or http://www.yehudalave.com/
