Be aware of the positive attributes and behaviors of the people with whom you come into contact and help them build upon their strengths. Encouragement is a much more powerful tool for change and growth than blaming and condemning. You can bring about miracles in people's lives if you believe in their potential.
Love Yehuda Lave
The hidden empire below Stonehenge: Radar scanners find 17 more sites near ancient stones
Archaeologists from Birmingham University have spent four years mapping the area and now believe the ancient site was at the centre of a vast network of religious monuments.
Read the full story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
10 September 2014
I sent out a video about the Morgan Motor company on 09/1014.. Here is a video on a Dutch hand build car company Spyker:
Here a small film on Spyker, a Dutch car.
Fifth Gear Europe visits Spyker: http://youtu.be/sbq9AWZWVtc
Who Will Live, Who Will Die
A contemporary explanation to the High Holiday’s most moving prayer.
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The fast of Yom Kippur begins Friday evening October 3rd,
through Saturday night, October 4, 2014 |
The chazzan begins to hum the familiar tune of Unesanu Tokef, an ancient prayer said on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Familiar, not because I've heard its melody in my synagogue for the
last few decades, but it is a part of me as I see its consequences every
waking day of my life.
As the Associate Director
of Chai Lifelines Crisis Intervention and Bereavement Department, the
mental health responder for Hatzaloh in the Five Towns and Far Rockaway,
as well as the consultant for crisis and bereavement for Achiezer,
ATIME and Ohr Naava, I am in some way involved in every type of crisis,
trauma and tragedy that affects the Jewish Community locally, nationally
and internationally.
My prayerbook’s pages turn to this epic liturgy and the words jump off.
Unesanu Tokef. Let
us begin to relate the power of the day's holiness, to the power of the
prayer’s meaning...but do we really? Can we, with all our distractions
of an eye on the clock till we can survive our fast, really connect with
the concept that it’s a “day filled with awe and fright?“
The images continue: “Like a shepherd tending His flock....” I
cannot erase the visions of flocks of pure white, not lambs, but ivory
souls of children whose stories I embraced, nurtured and mourned over
the past 12 years. I close my tear-filled eyes and see how each part of Unesanu Tokef is written. I see a child lost, a family forever changed. The powerful meaning of the words runs stings my soul.
The salve to that pain is
action. Perhaps through sharing some of my experiences, albeit painful
to hear, you can find new meaning in the words and together we can pray,
scream, beseech our Father of Mercy to put an end to all the tragedies
of the Jewish nation.
Who will live and who will be passed over for life
It is hard to imagine that
many mothers chanted this very prayer just one year ago, never
fathoming that the lives of their children hung in the balance on that
Rosh Hashanah day. “On Rosh Hashanah the year’s decree is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who will live and who will die…”
These are not just words
to countless families who struggle now to live with the new reality of
an altered family structure. They lost a piece of their collective
heart.
Who in the right time, and who prematurely
Can one conceive of a son
dying at three years old? How can that be the right time? Barely in
playgroup, there is his bar mitzvah, college, his wedding scheduled for
the future! After all, at his bris we prayed for him to merit to be
brought to his chuppah. He needs more time! Potential good deeds, no
longer viable.
What of those women who never made the baby shower or celebratory bris at the right "time" as their journey to physical motherhood ended before birth? The death of a child is never ‘the right time’ for a grieving parent, however our faith that God only knows the right time for each sustains us.
Who by water
I shudder as visions
playful and joyous children swimming and boating on hot summer days turn
to tragedy. I only meet these families immediately after the drowning. I
walk into a home and see frames filled with pictures of toothless
grins, group shots at family barbecues or moments preserved from
visiting day.
Who by fire
My mind wanders with the chazzan's next words as I sigh and remember several members of one family engulfed from a vicious fire.
Who by the sword
Did we not just lose three
of our holy nation’s precious boys this year? Deaths from violence,
brutal murder and unprovoked evil are unfathomable to our peaceful tribe
of Israel. I smell the stench of its consequences too often, whether I
am intimately involved with the bereaved family, or apprised of the
countless incidents of trauma caused by terror attacks in Israel, France
or America.
Who by a wild animal
A young child attacked by wildlife in the otherwise idyllic countryside.
Who by hunger, who by thirst
It's mind boggling to
consider starvation in our neighborhoods. But in the 21st century, in
the suburbs, a cornucopia of food can never revive those deteriorating
from an eating disorder. Right at this moment in shul my 25-hour fast
begs thirst quenching life of water, yet my body's needs are dulled by
the pain of remembering the vision of a father watching a living
skeleton, his preteen daughter, as she fades away before his eyes. And
what of those children who died from food-related deaths; choking,
allergic reactions or food borne contamination?
Who by storm
Natural disaster is a
phenomenon we hear too often in the news. It became much more close to
home during hurricane Sandy. During my work with victims of Superstorm
Sandy I saw the demise of stability, the casualties and loss expressing
itself in a myriad of ways.
Who by plague
For a mother to watch her
child suffer and perish slowly as a result of cancer or other terminal
illnesses is debilitating. It rips your heart apart. Prior to my trauma
work I was one of the directors of Camp Simcha and Camp Simcha Special,
Chai Lifeline’s camps for children with cancer and other long term
illnesses. There I stared disease in the eye. I saw it sadly triumph and
engulf precious children’s bodies and ultimately take their lives. As I
continue seeing the scourge of disease test families through my current
work, it never gets easier.
Who by strangulation
Imagine the suffocation of
the victim who succumbs to their battle with cystic fibrosis and lungs
that were too sick to sustain them, or the child smothered by the sand
tunnel he innocently was building on the beach.
Who by stoning
Sticks and stones may
break my bones but words will never harm me. If only. Victims of abuse
-- physical, sexual or emotional -- die literal deaths and figurative
deaths. Stoning also connotes images of vehicles hitting children
innocently walking, biking and skateboarding.
Who will rest? Who will wander? Who will have serenity? Who will be distraught?
Some mothers awake in the
morning to find their child has not and will not ever wake up again.
Restful, without apparent suffering, but torturous and unexpected. Some
are forced to watch their child linger in a death-like coma for weeks,
months even years, and never expected to be revived.
Who will be tranquil? Who will be torn?
Which deaths will be sudden, shocking, traumatic, jarring and which expected, prolonged, anticipated yet dreaded?
Which families will suffer the private consequences of emotional disease? A child who feels that taking his own life is his only healing. Who will be impoverished? Who will be wealthy? Who will be brought down? Who will rise up?
Yes even today in our own
communities, there are families who live in such extreme poverty that
their very existence is death-like and may even lead to actual death.
The degradation that the children feel as a result is enough to kill
them.
Reciting this prayer, my
eyes have been closed and full of tears, seeing the visions of these
lost children and so many others. I open my eyes now and see my
children, the children of my neighbors and friends and I am filled with
an overwhelming sense of humility, gratitude, and strength. I turn my
eyes upwards and I thank God and plead for a good year, a year of
comfort, strength, health, salvation and joy.
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