Monday, August 31, 2015

CHURCHILL on Paraprosdokians and Becker on the denial of death


Ask What You Need to Know


If a person lacks money to support himself, he should be willing to do work that would normally be considered beneath his dignity. This is preferable to acting as if he has plenty of money, when actually he is in want of bread. The bible teaches this is a reasonable  and responsible  person.
Similarly, when it comes to the area of the bible and wisdom. A person should admit that he does not know, and be willing to ask others. Don't be embarrassed. Don't pretend you know what you do not really know. It will only cause you to remain ignorant.
Today, think of a question you would like to have answered, but have refrained from asking out of fear of embarrassment. Muster your courage and ask someone the question!
All you have to lose is your ignorance.

Love Yehuda Lave


Israel Museum tour of Rembrandt's Jeremiah weeping on 8/30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlQb1KGCcXc&feature=em-upload_owner

Barbara Streisand and Judy Garland singing a classical "Happy Days are here again"

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFVxX3RtyhQ



Racial Prejudice in Iran is  exposed! This deserves Re-imposition of Sanctions,and Human Rights protest.  A follow up thought is, that if Barenboim were an accredited American diplomat of the Jewish Faith,he would be barred from Iran for his freedom of worship.

Article title: Iran bars Barenboim, thwarting Tehran concert plan

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4695917,00.html
Click the link above to go to the article.




Winston Churchill loved paraprosdokians
"paraprosdokians =  figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected."

1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.
2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on my list.
3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.
5. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
6. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
7. They begin the evening news with 'Good Evening,' then proceed to tell you why it isn't.
8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
9. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out, I just wanted pay checks.
10. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put "DOCTOR."
11. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
12. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street...with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
13. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.
14. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.
15. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
16. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.
17. There's a fine line between cuddling and...holding someone down so they can't get away.
18. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.
19. You're never too old to learn something stupid.
20. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
21. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
22. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
23. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

Finally:
24. I'm supposed to respect my elders, but now it is getting harder and harder for me to find one.




Rabbi Wein in a recent class quoted a book that is quite interesting in my work with people to recognize the reality of death. I found these quotes from the work on the Internet:



The Denial of Death Quotes


The Denial of Death The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker

The Denial of Death Quotes (showing 1-30 of 46)
"The road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"When we are young we are often puzzled by the fact that each person we admire seems to have a different version of what life ought to be, what a good man is, how to live, and so on. If we are especially sensitive it seems more than puzzling, it is disheartening. What most people usually do is to follow one person's ideas and then another's depending on who looms largest on one's horizon at the time. The one with the deepest voice, the strongest appearance, the most authority and success, is usually the one who gets our momentary allegiance; and we try to pattern our ideals after him. But as life goes on we get a perspective on this and all these different versions of truth become a little pathetic. Each person thinks that he has the formula for triumphing over life's limitations and knows with authority what it means to be a man, and he usually tries to win a following for his particular patent. Today we know that people try so hard to win converts for their point of view because it is more than merely an outlook on life: it is an immortality formula."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Yet, at the same time, as the Eastern sages also knew, man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with. The lower animals are, of course, spared this painful contradiction, as they lack a symbolic identity and the self-consciousness that goes with it. They merely act and move reflexively as they are driven by their instincts. If they pause at all, it is only a physical pause; inside they are anonymous, and even their faces have no name. They live in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being. This is what has made it so simple to shoot down whole herds of buffalo or elephants. The animals don't know that death is happening and continue grazing placidly while others drop alongside them. The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it. They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over. But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one's dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that's something else."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awarness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. As awarness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget. In the mysterious way in which life is given to us in evolution on this planet, it pushes in the direction of its own expansion. We don't understand it simply because we don't know the purpose of creation; we only feel life straining in ourselves and see it thrashing others about as they devour each other. Life seeks to expand in an unknown direction for unknown reasons.

What are we to make of creation in which routine activity is for organisms to be tearing others apart with teeth of all types - biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one's own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses residue. Everyone reaching out to incorporate others who are edible to him. The mosquitoes bloating themselves on blood, the maggots, the killer-bees attacking with a fury and a demonism, sharks continuing to tear and swallow while their own innards are being torn out - not to mention the daily dismemberment and slaughter in "natural" accidents of all types: an earthquake buries alive 70 thousand bodies in Peru, a tidal wave washes over a quarter of a million in the Indian Ocean. Creation is a nightmare spectacular taking place on a planet that has been soaked for hundreds of millions of years in the blood of all creatures. The soberest conclusion that we could make about what has actually been taking place on the planet about three billion years is that it is being turned into a vast pit of fertilizer. But the sun distracts our attention, always baking the blood dry, making things grow over it, and with its warmth giving the hope that comes with the organism's comfort and expansiveness."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Guilt results from unused life, from the unlived in us."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
tags: life
"Mother nature is a brutal bitch, red in tooth and claw, who destroys what she creates."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves"
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"The man of knowledge in our time is bowed down under a burden he never imagined he would ever have: the overproduction of truth that cannot be consumed."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Obviously, all religions fall far short of their own ideals."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"The great boon of repression is that it makes it possible to live decisively in an overwhelmingly miraculous and incomprehensible world, a world so full of beauty, majesty, and terror that if animals perceived it all they would be paralyzed to act. ... What would the average man (sic) do with a full consciousness of absurdity? He has fashioned his character for the precise purpose of putting it between himself and the facts of life; it is his special tour-de-force that allows him to ignore incongruities, to nourish himself on impossibilities, to thrive on blindness. He accomplishes thereby a peculiarly human victory: the ability to be smug about terror."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Man is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with atowering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"the best existential analysis of the human condition leads directly into the problems of God and faith"
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Relationship is thus always slavery of a kind, which leaves a residue of guilt."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
"The root of humanly caused evil is not man's animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst."
― Sam Keen, The Denial of Death
"...Erich Fromm wondered why most people did not become insane in the face of the existential contradiction between a symbolic self, that seems to give man infinite worth in a timeless scheme of things, and a body that is worth about 98¢."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
"Why would a person prefer the accusations of guilt, unworthiness, ineptitude - even dishonor and betrayal- to real possibility? This may not seem to be the choice, but it is: complete self effacement, surrender to the "others", disavowal of any personal dignity and freedom-on the one hand; and freedom and independence, movement away from the others, extrication of oneself from the binding links of family and social duties-on the other hand. This is the choice that the depressed person actually faces."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"the essence of man is really his paradoxical nature, the fact that he is half animal and half symbolic."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"It is fateful and ironic how the lie we need in order to live dooms us to a life that is never really ours."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consiousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression and with all this yet to die. It seems like a hoax, which is why one type of cultural man rebels openly against the idea of God. What kind of deity would crate such a complex and fancy worm food?"
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"The key to the creative type is that he is separated out of the common pool of shared meanings. There is something in his life experience that makes him take in the world as a problem; as a result he has to make personal sense out of it."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Man cuts out for himself a manageable world: he throws himself into action uncritically, unthinkingly. He accepts the cultural programming that turns his nose where he is supposed to look; he doesn't bite the world off in one piece as a giant would, but in small manageable pieces, as a beaver does. He uses all kinds of techniques, which we call the "character defenses": he learns not to expose himself, not to stand out; he learns to embed himself in other-power, both of concrete persons and of things and cultural commands; the result is that he comes to exist in the imagined infallibility of the world around him. He doesn't have to have fears when his feet are solidly mired and his life mapped out in a ready-made maze. All he has to do is to plunge ahead in a compulsive style of drivenness in the "ways of the world."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Too much possibility is the attempt by the person to overvalue the powers of the symbolic self. It reflects the attempt to exaggerate one half of the human dualism at the expense of the other. In this sense, what we call schizophrenia is an attempt by the symbolic self to deny the limitations of the finite body; in doing so, the entire person is pulled off balance and destroyed. It is as though the freedom of creativity that stems from within the symbolic self cannot be contained by the body, and the person is torn apart. This is how we understand schizophrenia today, as the split of self and body, a split in which the self is unanchored, unlimited, not bound enough to everyday Things, not contained enough in dependable physical behavior."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"The neurotic opts out of life because he is having trouble maintaining his illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

More Denial of Death Quotes



The Denial of Death The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
3,283 ratings, 4.19 average rating, 288 reviews
The Denial of Death Quotes (showing 31-60 of 46)
"Man had to invent and create out of himself the limitations of perception and the equanimity to live on this planet. And so to the core of psychodynamics, the formation of the human character, is a study in human self-limitation and in the terrifying costs of that limitation."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Rank asked why the artist so often avoids clinical neurosis when he is so much a candidate for it because of his vivid imagination, his openness to the finest and broadest aspects of experience, his isolation from the cultural world-view that satisfies everyone else. The answer is that he takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art. The neurotic is precisely the one who cannot create—the "artiste-manque," as Rank so aptly called him. We might say that both the artist and the neurotic bite off more than they can chew, but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an ex­ternal, active, work project. The neurotic can't marshal this creative response embodied in a specific work, and so he chokes on his in­troversions. The artist has similar large-scale introversions, but he uses them as material."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"doesn't matter whether the cultural hero-system is frankly magical, religious, and primitive or secular, scientific, and civilized. It is still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakable meaning. They earn this feeling by carving out a place in nature, by building an edifice that reflects human value: a temple, a cathedral, a totem pole, a skyscraper, a family that spans three generations. The hope and belief is that the things that man creates in society are of lasting worth and meaning, that they outlive or outshine death and decay, that man and his products count."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Take stock of those around you and you will … hear them talk in precise terms about themselves and their surroundings, which would seem to point to them having ideas on the matter. But start to analyse those ideas and you will find that they hardly reflect in any way the reality to which they appear to refer, and if you go deeper you will discover that there is not even an attempt to adjust the ideas to this reality. Quite the contrary: through these notions the individual is trying to cut off any personal vision of reality, of his own very life. For life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost. The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it over with a curtain of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his "ideas" are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"[Man] literally drives himself into a blind obliviousness with social games, psychological tricks, personal preoccupations so far removed from the reality of his situation that they are forms of madness, but madness all the same."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"He has no doubts, there is nothing you can say to sway him, to give him hope or trust. He is a miserable animal whose body decays, who will die, who will pass into dust and oblivion, disappear forever not only in this world but in all the possible dimensions of the universe, whose life serves no conceivable purpose, who may as well not have been born, and so on and so forth."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"The point is that if the love object is divine perfection, then one's own self is elevated by joining one's destiny to it."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"I drink not from mere joy in wine nor to scoff at faith—no, only to forget myself for a moment, that only do I want of intoxication, that alone. —OMAR KHAYYAM"
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression and with all this yet to die. It seems like a hoax, which is why one type of cultural man rebels openly against the idea of God. What kind of deity would create such a complex and fancy worm food?"
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"To grow up at all is to conceal the mass of internal scar tissue that throbs in our dreams."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Necessity with the illusion of meaning would be the highest achievement for man; but when it becomes trivial there is no sense to one's life."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"To live is to engage in experience at least partly on the terms of the experience itself."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"From the child of five to myself is but a step. But from the new-born baby to the child of five is an appalling distance. —LEO TOLSTOI"
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Consider, for instance, the recent war in Vietnam in which the United States was driven not by any realistic economic or political interest but by the overwhelming need to defeat "atheistic communism."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"The crisis of modern society is precisely that the youth no longer feel heroic in the plan for action that their culture has set up. They don't believe it is empirically true to the problems of their lives and times."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

"Understanding this, Rank could take a great step beyond Freud. Freud thought that modern man's moral dependence on another was a result of the Oedipus complex. But Rank could see that it was the result of a continuation of the causa-sui project of denying creatureliness."
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

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Sunday, August 30, 2015

WHY ATHLETES CAN'T HAVE REGULAR JOBS.



         As we learned in the Bible this week:
  • In self-mastery one cannot wait for the war to come to you – you have to take the initiative, go out, and wage war on your terms
  • That means to go out of your way, not just encounter your weaker self in the process of actual life, but take time to to introspect, recognize and correct - mindfulness
  • I am practicing all these principles with my new found awareness that food is a drug. I treat it as such.
Love Yehuda Lave


A real cardiologist friend of mine who reads my blog daily wrote me that the section in this past Thursday's blog on how many glasses of water to drink during the day and at what times to drink them to maximize health benefits---was pure hogwash. So obviously take the water info with a grain of salt or at least a glass of water.

7 Ways to Worry Less

7 Ways to Worry Less

Don't worry, be happy. 7 great quotes with photos.

by Sara Debbie Gutfreund


"You wouldn't worry about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do." Eleanor Roosevelt.

1. "You wouldn't worry about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do." Eleanor Roosevelt.

Worrying about what other people think about you is unproductive and illogical. Most people, most of the time, are thinking about themselves, not you. So don't waste your time.

"We worry about tomorrow like it's promised." Anonymous.

2. "We worry about tomorrow like it's promised." Anonymous.

We don't know what tomorrow will be like and no amount of planning and worrying can control life's unexpected turns. Just do the best you can today.

"Be happy not because everything is good but because you can see the good in everything." Anonymous.

3. "Be happy not because everything is good but because you can see the good in everything." Anonymous.

There is good in everything and in every day. Search for it.

"If you try to be something you're not, you'll end up being nothing." Anonymous.

4. "If you try to be something you're not, you'll end up being nothing." Anonymous.

Don't pretend to be someone you're not and anxiously live as a fraud. Be yourself. All other roles are taken.

"Some things are not important."

5. "Some things are not important."

A huge amount of energy is typically spent worrying about details and situations in life that, in the big scheme of things, don't really matter. Let go of the what ifs, the playbacks, the myriad little things we worry about. Move on.

"If you want to know how rich you are, find out how many things you have that money can't buy." Anonymous.

6. "If you want to know how rich you are, find out how many things you have that money can't buy." Anonymous.

We forget how many priceless things we have in our lives. Make your list and appreciate them daily.

"God knows what is better for us." Rabbi Avigdor Miller.

7. "God knows what is better for us." Rabbi Avigdor Miller.

We often worry when our plans take an unexpected turn or we are challenged in a way we would have never chosen for ourselves. The best antidote to worry is recognizing that God has a plan for each of our lives and despite our own ideas, He always knows what is best for us.



WHY ATHLETES CAN'T HAVE REGULAR JOBS 
  
1. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model:
"I wan' all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan' all the kids to copulate me."
  
2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when  asked about the upcoming season:
"I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first.."
  
3. And, upon  hearing Joe Jacobi of the 'Skin's say:
"I'd run over my  own mother to win the Super Bowl,"
Matt Millen of the Raiders said:
"To win, I'd run over Joe's Mom, too."
  
4. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins:
"He treat us like mens. He let us wear earrings."
  
5. Football commentator and  former player Joe Theismann:
"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
  
6. Senior basketball player at the University of  Pittsburgh :
"I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes.."
(Now that is beautiful)
  
7. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach:
"You guys line up alphabetically by height..," 
And, "You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle."
  
8. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison:
"Why would anyone expect him to  come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton ..."
  
9. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker:
"That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes."
  
10. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota:
"He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is."
  
11. Chuck Nevitt , North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice:
"My sister's  expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt.
(I wonder if his IQ ever hit room temperature in January)
  
12. Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player:
"I asked him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance  or apathy?'
He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"
  
13. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D:
"Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."
  
14. In the words of NC State great Charles Shackelford:
"I can go to my left or right, I am amphibious."
  
15. Former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips, Phillips responded:
"Because she's too ugly to kiss good-bye."



 

'Arise and Ascend' — A New Guide to the Temple Mount

Rabbi Yehuda Glick has produced a new guidebook -- 'Arise and Ascend' -- to the Temple Mount.
Published: August 27th, 2015
Rabbi Yehudah Glick on the Temple Mount.
Rabbi Yehudah Glick on the Temple Mount.
After all that has happened over this past year, one would think that Rabbi Yehuda Glick would still be trying to recuperate from gunshot wounds suffered in an assassination attempt by an Arab terrorist last October. But Glick, founder and head of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, has been busy with other things – among them, the creation of a unique new guidebook to the Temple Mount.
"Arise and Ascend: A Guide to the Temple Mount" is already in print in the Russian language. Glick is now in the process of raising funds to publish the guidebook in Hebrew and English.
The book, written by Dr. Meir Antopolsky, is a joint effort between the Foundation and the Meeting Place Association of Jerusalem. According to a release sent to media by Glick's Foundation, the goal of the project is to make the Temple Mount "accessible and meaningful to its visitors and to the millions of people around the world who want to learn more about the site," the holiest in Judaism and third holiest in Islam.
The first advance copy of the book was presented by Glick to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a meeting during which the two discussed the present situation on the Temple Mount.
"He who does not study and understand his past misses out on any understanding of the present and the future," Netanyahu said during the meeting. "This is the only way we can really understand the connection between the people of Israel [and] Jerusalem."
The book is researched from historical, archaeological, religious, and Biblical perspectives. It leads visitors on a self-guided walking tour in a path that Glick says is intended to preserve the sanctity of the Temple Mount.
Included are maps, time lines and color photos, and the book cites scholastic as well as Biblical and Talmudic sources. The text draws from historical accounts, archaeological records and scriptural verses to reconstruct the site as it was in the past and to explain its present condition.
Also included are introductions by "moderate" personalities from each of the three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Each of the three is controversial in his own right, but each also has a mammoth worldwide following.
Israel's Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, chief rabbi of the city of Efrat in Gush Etzion, is known for his interfaith activities and his tolerant views. "According to the Bible, the Creator and Master of the world has a 'dwelling place' in this world. The Holy Temple in Jerusalem – the City of God, the City of Peace (shalom), the City of Wholeness (shalem) – is ultimately to be the source from which teachings of love, morality and peace will extend to all the families of the earth (Isaiah 2, Micah 4)… The Guide to the Temple Mount is a user-friendly handbook that carefully examines the present reality on the Temple Mount and through it provides glimpses of the past and a vision for the future," Riskin writes.
Istanbul-based Islamic scholar and prolific author Adnan Oktar hosts a satellite television talk show on A9TV. He, too, is known for his interfaith work and tolerant ways. "The Temple Mount is a holy place that we wish to be the abode of love, peace and brotherhood," Oktar writes. "We pray that this site becomes a peaceful place where we can express our faith, allegiance, submission and love of God.
American Pastor Keith Johnson is also well known around the world for his moderation and particularly for having founded the Biblical Foundations Academy International. "I pray that all who make their way to this sacred place will interact with the historical, archaeological, and biblical information in this book and personally experience the promise of the One who said, 'I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually." (1 Kings 9:3)
"Arise and Ascend" is dedicated to the memories of Yitzhak and Talia Imas, who were killed by Arab terrorists in 2010 and who were among the earliest advocates for freedom of access and prayer on the Temple Mount. The couple spent many years learning and teaching others about the Temple Mount's importance to Israel.





















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Friday, August 28, 2015

The fabulous Tel Aviv Art Museum right here in Israel and Every Jewish Home is Holy



Steer Clear Of Past Problems

Avoid asking irrelevant questions about the past that will be annoying to others.

 If someone keeps complaining to you about the past, ask him, "What can presently be done about it? If nothing, isn't it better to focus on other things?"

 If the other person persists on talking about the past, weigh the situation. At times you might be doing someone an act of kindness by listening to him.

 In other circumstances you are better off ignoring statements about the past and thus teaching the other person it is not worthwhile to discuss with you something which is over and done with.

Each situation is different forcing you to think. G-d blessed me with a handicapped daughter that repeats herself hundreds of times to help her mind focus. By using the right technique at the right time,  do my best to focus her on what is good instead of focusing on what it bad.

Shabbat Shalom

Love Yehuda Lave

For those that don't want to go to temple mount in person for whatever reason, here is a tourist video that shows off the mount and western wall 
Today's news from Washington

As the vote on Iran in Congress nears, President Obama appears to be under a lot of pressure to have the accord approved, in order to secure his legacy.

After a vacation at Martha's Vineyard, President Barack Obama returns to Washington to face off with the opponents of his nuclear accord with the Islamic Republic.

Speaking to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Obama reportedly described those who oppose the Iran deal as "the crazies." It appears that Senator Ted Cruz and now Donald Trump have thrown their weight to opposing the deal, so therefore according to Obama they must also be crazy. Or anyone who is concerned for the Jewish People. Hmm, I think that includes G-d!!!

 
Susya with Regavim Organization
https://youtu.be/Sn-MBPuxhSQ


Tel Aviv Art Museum


 

Tel Aviv Art museum 081215
https://youtu.be/IRCjYN5reCs



  • Culture
In his own BACKYARD

Culture

By JESSICA VRAZILEK \

08/12/2015 22:28

In his own BACKYARD


Prominent Israeli sculptor Uri Katzenstein's latest solo exhibition is now on view at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

WORKS ON display from Uri Katzenstein's latest exhibit 'BACKYARD' at Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

WORKS ON display from Uri Katzenstein's latest exhibit 'BACKYARD' at Tel Aviv Museum of Art.. (photo credit:REVITAL TOPIOL)

BACKYARD is one of this year's flagship exhibitions at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The exhibition of works by Israel's enigmatic multidisciplinary artist Uri Katzenstein has been well received by visitors and critics alike, and will be on show through September 15, 2015. BACKYARD presents a comprehensive view of Katzenstein's thought-provoking and highly emotive body of work, as he transforms the exhibition spaces into unique visual landscapes that waver between the future and the past.

Katzenstein was selected to exhibit at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art as the winner of the 2014 Dan Sandel and Sandel Family Foundation Sculpture Award, and the Museum enthusiastically chose to enlarge the exhibition to better display the complex and evocative dimensions of Katzenstein's work.

"Katzenstein is one of those groundbreaking artists who undermine the standard experience of observing artworks and blur the boundaries between different artistic mediums," says Suzanne Landau, museum director and chief curator. "His oeuvre exposes viewers to innovative and exciting experimental art, surrounding them and transforming them into an inseparable part of the work."

The exhibition title alludes to things that remain behind the scenes or invisible to the naked eye. As opposed to the order that dominates a front yard, a backyard is a place where thoughts, experiments, and failures accumulate. The title also inspires a dialogue between the medium of architecture and with previous works by Katzenstein.

"Katzenstein's oeuvre contains humor and touching, strikingly beautiful scenes. His works, which combine the worlds of fantasy, technology, contemporary aesthetics and social interpretation, undermine basic assumptions concerning our modes of functioning and our way of understanding the world that surrounds us," says exhibition curator Varda Steinlauf.

Katzenstein (b. 1951, Tel Aviv) is internationally recognized for his innovative and interdisciplinary approach to sculpture, performance, music, machines and film.

Throughout the decades, Katzenstein has exhibited in prestigious venues around the world, among them the State Russian Museum in St.

Petersburg, the Venice Biennale and the Biennale in Buenos Aires, where he was awarded first prize.

In his exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Katzenstein's works are presented in three main gallery spaces.

Each of the spaces lends a separate thematic tone, while harmoniously integrating through collective motifs. Throughout the exhibition, various aspects of Katzenstein's multi-disciplinary work are examined through a range of mediums – video, sculpture, sound and robotics and language, all of which express a metaphorical, imaginary world that echoes danger and menace, whose central axis is the human body and hybrid objects.

"Most of my works are based on hybrid creatures, which always mediate between different approaches. I am interested, for instance, in exploring how music can become something more visual," says Katzenstein.

This can be seen in his performances.

BACKYARD showcases the range of Katzenstein's art-making process. Katzenstein's prize-winning sculptures, painted bronze figures, inhabit the gallery spaces, thus creating an artificial world of androgynous hybrid characters from his imagination. The exhibition vacillates between sculpture and video, and films like Family of Brothers (1999) and Hope Machines (2006- 2007) give the viewer a sense of Katzenstein's intention as he invites music and objects to, in his words, "dance with one another."

The exhibition and catalogue is presented in three languages: Hebrew, English and a creation Katzenstein calls "Backyard font," which graphically represents English in an alternative way. The artist, who himself speaks Hebrew, English and German fluently, and has a good understanding of French, sees this exhibition as his note of intent for his new "language of the future."

Katzenstein is anything but predictable, and the artist's refusal to be generic coupled with his limitless imagination launches his work to a transcendent, futuristic status that must be experienced to be truly comprehended.



Ki Tetzei(Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19) Shabbat 8/28/15

Another Brick in the Wall

by Rabbi Ari Kahn

Over the past few chapters we have noted a gradual shift in the topics Moshe addresses as he imparts his final lessons to the Jewish People. From an extensive polemic against idolatry, the focus shifts to the building of the Temple, and then moves on to other national institutions such as the establishment and mandate of courts, the monarchy and prophets. To a large extent, this week's parashah narrows the lens, moving to commandments of a more interpersonal or individual nature. Though Moshe touches upon many commandments, one particular topic is mentioned numerous times: marriage.1 Although much of the discussion revolves around what might be called "unconventional relationships" – the wife taken as a captive of war, polygamy and preference of one wife above the other, and more – there is one brief mention of love, marriage and happiness.

When a man takes a new bride, he shall not enter military service or be assigned to any associated duty. He must remain free for his family for one year, and rejoice with his bride. (Dvarim 24:5)

The Sefer HaHinuch, an early (anonymous) book of Mitzvot, notes that the concept of marriage is a stark, polar opposite to sexual promiscuity (that is mentioned earlier in this parashah Dvarim 23:18). The selection of one special person, as described poetically by Adam2 in the Garden of Eden, is the ideal:

A man shall therefore leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Bereishit 2:24)

One man, one woman; this a relationship of exclusivity.

In a sense, the nature of marriage mirrors the relationship outlined earlier in Dvarim regarding the Beit Hamikdash. We are told to serve God in one chosen, special place:

Do away with all the places where the nations whom you are driving out worship their gods, [whether they are] on the high mountains, on the hills, or under any luxuriant tree…You may not worship the Almighty God in such a manner. This you may do only on the site that the Almighty God will choose from among all your tribes, as a place established in His name. It is there that you shall go to seek His presence. (Devarim 12:2-5)

While the idolaters worshiped under every tree and upon every hill and high place, the Jews were commanded to worship God exclusively in one centralized place - a place later identified as Jerusalem. We might say that the difference between the Jewish approach to worship and the idolatrous approach is the difference between a "one night stand" and a marriage, between promiscuity and the union of two people joined in holiness. Idolatry, particularly regarding the element of immediate gratification, is spiritual promiscuity.

When a bride and groom rejoice in one another, their happiness stems in no small part from the joy of exclusivity, from the knowledge that their chosen partner is the only person with whom they will share the holiness of marriage and sexual intimacy. This is happiness born of holiness. In this context, the Talmud teaches us that not only is it incumbent upon the husband to bring joy and happiness to his spouse, but all those who attend the wedding are commanded to bring happiness to the new couple. In fact, the Talmud (Talmud Bavli Brachot 6b) goes so far as to say that whoever successfully brings joy to the bride and groom, is considered to have rebuilt "one of the ruins of Jerusalem."

As we know, the ruin of Jerusalem is the Temple itself, a building dedicated to the exclusive relationship between God and His People. When the people "cheated" on God, as was the case during the First Temple era, or simply took their relationship with Him for granted, as was the case during the Second Temple era, the Temple was destroyed. On the personal scale, marriage, with its essential component of exclusivity, serves as a metaphor for the relationship between man and God; in essence, it is a microcosm of that relationship. When a husband and wife find joy in this holiness of marriage, they build not only their own interpersonal relationship, but also the community as a whole, as well as the relationship between man and God. They become partners in the rebuilding of the Temple.

Every Jewish home is holy. In a sense, every Jewish home is a microcosm of the Holy Temple. Therefore, every happy Jewish home serves as a step to the complete rebuilding of Jerusalem.

For a more in-depth analysis see:
http://arikahn.blogspot.co.il/2015/08/essays-and-audio-on-parashat-ki-tetze.html

NOTES

1. This essay is dedicated to the marriage of our son Yosef Dov, to Shoval Cohen.

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Thursday, August 27, 2015

WATER is like Torah it saves lives and Yehuda Glick book on the Temple Mount


Elul 11

In 1950, Operation Magic Carpet, which secretly airlifted 45,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel, was concluded. Many of the Jews had never before seen an airplane; they likened the ride to a fulfillment of the biblical verse, "And I bore you on eagles' wings" (Exodus 19:4). According to tradition, Jews had lived in Yemen since the 7th century BCE. Upon arriving in Israel they were housed in tent camps; there was very little infrastructure and resources to accommodate them, as the Jewish population of Israel nearly doubled in its first three years. Yet within a short time, the immigrants had been absorbed into the fledgling Israeli society.


Love Yehuda Lave

Ramat Rachel and its history

https://youtu.be/vslY37ge5to



Dudu Fisher sings "Exodus"

http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/david-dudu-fisher-sings-exodus/?omhide=true&utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=The+Story+of+the+Hidden+Jews+of+Ethiopia&utm_campaign=20150816_m126969079_8%2F17+Today%27s+Israel+Connection%3A+The+Story+of+the+Hidden+Jews+of+Ethiopia&utm_term=dudu-fisher-exoudus_png_3F1439712105



From Rabbi Yehuda Glick to me

Dear Friends

I hope that you are doing well. 

I warmly thank again all our supporters for your generous support of my work. You have truly help spur a growing movement making the Temple Mount meaningful and accessible to people from across the globe. But our work is not over. 

Sadly, visiting the Temple Mount today can be very frustrating. People arrive with great anticipation and excitement for a meaningful and spiritually-uplifting experience. But they are met with hostility and a total lack of information to help them understand the many facets of this holy site. 

Join me in returning the meaning, history, and spiritual significance to the people. With your help, we can publish a practical guidebook — in English and Hebrew — and share it with many thousands of people . 

But we need your help to make this book publication and launch reality!

Here's how:
We are launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise $20,000. Thanks to a generous group of matching donors, every dollar donated is worth 2 times as much.


please share with your friends! 

Thank you for your support and for helping ensure the success of our campaign to raise $20,000. 

If you have any questions, I would love to share more details. 

Shalom,
Rabbi Yehuda Glick


Besides thanking G-d for this we can thank the temple activists (Like Yehuda Glick) for getting the authorities to have some common sense. At least for this day anyway.

No Arab Women and Children Hecklers Allowed on Temple Mount

Arab women and children were barred from the Temple Mount on Tuesday following incessant harassment of visitors to the site.
Published: August 25th, 2015


Burka-clad Muslim women who harassed a group of Jews visiting the Temple Mount. One of them viciously punched a Jewish woman in the ribs. No arrest was made.

Burka-clad Muslim women who harassed a group of Jews visiting the Temple Mount. One of them viciously punched a Jewish woman in the ribs. No arrest was made.
Photo Credit: YouTube screen capture

Arab women and children who have spent more than a week harassing Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount were barred from entering the site this morning (Tuesday, August 25) by security forces.

Adult Arab men with Israeli identification cards are being allowed to enter the site, according to Israel Police, but are being asked to leave within a half hour of their entry. In addition, Israel Police are not allowing the men to gather in groups at the exit of the Temple Mount, next to Ohel Yitzchak and harass Jews, as has happened in the past.

There have been reports of clashes at the exit gates of the Temple Mount near Ohel Yitzchak with Muslims who were pushed back after they had attempted to attack Jews within the compound.

Nevertheless, visits to the site were allowed to continue despite the attempted provocations, which are aimed precisely at forcing the police to close the site to non-Muslims.

The restrictions came in the wake of recent violence by the burka-clad women and Arab children, who were terrorizing every Jewish visitor to the site. The Arab hecklers clearly answered to Islamic authorities, who were seen in several videos telling them to be quiet during questioning at the entrance to the site — and they immediately lowered the volume of their chants.

Once away from the entrance, however, the Arab women and children instantly resumed clapping their hands in visitors' faces, bursting water balloons and popping other balloons, and incessantly screaming "Allahu Akbar! (God is Great) at the top of their lungs, crowding as close to the Jews as possible.

Last week one burka-clad Arab woman viciously punched an elderly Jewish woman in the ribs and then swiftly slipped back among the other burka-clad women; it was impossible to know who was guilty of the assault.

About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.

President of Refugees or Holy Land Celebrity? See the palaces of the PLO

 http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/27257/Default.aspx#.Vdy92l5Sscs.mailto



The story of E. Leitz savior of many Jews

The Leica is the pioneer 35mm camera. It is a German product –precise, minimalist, and utterly efficient. 

Behind its worldwide acceptance as a creative tool was a family-owned, socially oriented firm that, during the Nazi era, acted with uncommon grace, generosity and modesty. 

E. Leitz Inc., designer and manufacturer of Germany's most famous photographic product, saved its Jews. 

And Ernst Leitz II, the steely-eyed Protestant patriarch, who headed the closely held firm as the Holocaust loomed across Europe, acted in such a way as to earn the title, "the photography industry's Schindler". 

As soon as Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in 1933, Ernst Leitz II began receiving frantic calls from Jewish associates, asking for his help in getting them and their families out of the country. 

As Christians, Leitz and his family were immune to Nazi Germany's Nuremberg laws, which restricted the movement of Jews and limited their professional activities. 

To help his Jewish workers and colleagues, Leitz quietly established what has become known among historians of the Holocaust as "the Leica Freedom Train", a covert means of allowing Jews to leave Germany in the guise of Leitz employees being assigned overseas. 

Employees, retailers, family members, even friends of family members were "assigned" to Leitz sales offices in France, Britain, Hong Kong, and 
the United States; Leitz's activities intensified after the Kristallnacht of November 1938, during which synagogues and Jewish shops were burned across Germany. 

Before long, German "employees" were disembarking from the ocean liner Bremen at a New York pier and making their way to the Manhattan 
office of Leitz Inc., where executives quickly found them jobs in the photographic industry.

Each new arrival had around his or her neck the symbol of freedom - a new Leica camera. 

The refugees were paid a stipend until they could find work. Out of this migration came designers, repair technicians, salespeople, marketers, and writers for the photographic press. 

Keeping the story quiet, The "Leica Freedom Train" was at its height in 1938 and early 1939, delivering groups of refugees to New York every few weeks. Then, with the invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany closed its borders. 

By that time, hundreds of endangered Jews had escaped to America, thanks to the Leitzes' efforts. How did Ernst Leitz II and his staff get away with it?


Leitz, Inc. was an internationally recognized brand that reflected credit on the newly resurgent Reich. The company produced cameras, range-finders, and other optical systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi government desperately needed hard currency from abroad, and Leitz's 
single biggest market for optical goods was the United States. 

Even so, members of the Leitz family and firm suffered for their good works.

A top executive, Alfred Turk, was jailed for working to help Jews and freed only after the payment of a large bribe. 

Leitz's daughter, Elsie Kuhn-Leitz, was imprisoned by the Gestapo after she was caught at the border, helping Jewish women cross into Switzerland. She eventually was freed but endured rough treatment in the course of questioning.  She also fell under suspicion when she attempted to improve the living conditions of 700 to 800 Ukrainian slave laborers, all of them women, who had been assigned to work in the plant during the 1940s. (After the war, Kuhn-Leitz received numerous honors for her humanitarian efforts, among them the Officer d'honneur des Palms Academic from France in 1965 and the Aristide Briand Medal from the European Academy in the1970s.) 

Why has no one told this story until now? 

According to the late Norman Lipton, a freelance writer and editor, the Leitz family wanted no publicity for its heroic efforts.  Only after the last member of the Leitz family was dead did the "Leica Freedom Train" finally come to light. 

It is now the subject of a book, "The Greatest Invention of the Leitz Family: The Leica Freedom Train," by Frank Dabba Smith, a California-born 
Rabbi currently living in England. 

Thank you for reading the above, and if you feel inclined as I did to pass it along to others, please do so. It only takes a few minutes. Memories of the righteous should live on.

 


             WATER

 How many folks do you know who say they don't want to drink anything 
before going to bed because they'll have to get up during the night!! 
Something else I didn't know ... I asked my Doctor why do people need 
to urinate so much at night time. 
  Answer from my Cardiac Doctor: Gravity holds water in the lower part of your body when you are upright  (legs swell). 
  When you lie down and the lower body (legs, etc.) is level with the 
kidneys, it is then that the kidneys remove the water because it is easier. 
  This then ties in with the last statement! 
  I knew you need your minimum water to help flush the toxins out of your 
body, but this was news to me. 
  Correct time to drink water... Very Important. From A Cardiac Specialist! 
 Drinking water at a certain time maximizes its effectiveness on the 
body: 
 2 glasses of water after waking up - helps activate internal organs 
 1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal - helps digestion 
 1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure  (who knew???) 
  1 glass of water before going to bed - avoids stroke or heart attack  (good to know!) 
 
I can also add to this... My Physician told me that water at bed time will  also help prevent night time leg cramps. Your leg muscles are seeking hydration when they cramp and wake you up with a Charlie Horse.   (this I know for sure!) 
 

A Cardiologist has stated that if each person after receiving this 
e-mail, sends it to 10 people, probably one life could be saved! 
I have already shared this information. What about you? 
  Do forward this message. It may save lives! 
  "Life is a onetime gift."     

 

 Now that we had story of water naturally we need a plumber story!!!

2 015 PLUMBER OF THE YEAR AWARDS – FINALISTS:  

 

Very good reason for not putting the toilet paper on the roll.

Hmmmmm…

Should have measured twice!

Apparently, you don't want anyone seeing your face, but everything else is okay?

The oak seat is a nice touch, though.

And the purpose for the door is?

This stall is for people that have arms like an Orangutan.

This would be the "half bath" noted in the real estate listing?


Very Classy!  And, only three steps to the throne when you're in a hurry!

How does this even get past the planning phase?

I guess you have to pee in your buddy's back pocket if you are not first.  

And now drum roll please…  

AND THE PLUMBER OF THE YEAR AWARD GOES TO:


Absolutely brilliant…  

FYI … ALL OF THESE PLUMBERS ARE THANKFULLY NO LONGER IN THE BUSINESS.  

THEY HAVE BEEN ELECTED TO PUBLIC OFFICE AND NOW SERVE IN VARIOUS POSITIONS IN THE GOVERNMENT.

 




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