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Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor

As children, we gave huge importance to people's opinions, sure that those opinions reflected the whole truth! Thus, a fragile sense of self-worth is easily destroyed by disrespect. To protect your self-worth, realize that a label can never reflect the entire truth. Ask the magic question: "IS IT TRUE? IS IT THE WHOLE TRUTH?"

Love Yehuda Lave

Beyond Words

Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,

1960-1990

Volume 7

Interview with Rabbi Meir Kahane as He Faces Possible Barring from U.S.

Written November 9, 1990

This interview took place a few hours before Rabbi Kahane's assassination

Q: Rabbi Kahane, you have had an extraordinary life, during which you have become beloved and hated to a degree that few have seen. You are among the most controversial and well known Jews in the world and the pressures on you must be enormous. How do you continue and what do you see as your future?

A: I have done and will, please G-d, continue to do the things I do because the things that I say are true, are parts of the authentic Jewish Idea. The fact that so many cannot see and understand, or attack and defame and worse, is not relevant to truth or to my obligation to that truth. The rabbis tell us that the ALL Mighty appointed Moses and Aaron as leaders of the Jews on condition that they accept being pelted with stones. Things have not changed.

Q: Yet you were barred from the Knesset and also face numerous legal problems. What about them?

A: concerning the Knesset barring – an act of totalitarianism which saw an obscene silence on the part of Jewish liberals and every Jewish establishment group – we are, of course, working on running for the next Knesset within the constraints of the present law. We have studied it carefully and know what changes must be made to have me run. They were changes we did not have the time to make in 1988. This time it will be different and we will use the loophole we have found to run. I must add that if and when, please G-d, we do, we will amass a huge number of votes and seats since the events of the past two years have made countless Jews realize how right I was over the past 20 years. Not only will we be the third-largest party but we will challenge Labor as the second party and no nationalist government will be formed without us. And that will be the beginning of an historic change in Israel and the creation of a truly Jewish state made in the image of the G-d of Israel.

Q: and your legal problems?

A: As of this moment, I await the decision of my citizenship trial in Washington. That entire thing is a sordid example of a joint effort by the United States and Israeli governments to insure that I will not be able to enter the United States since, if I do lose my citizenship, the U.S. will never issue me a visa. Both the U.S. and Israeli governments have a vested interest in my not being able to raise money and support here, since if I achieve even substantial power in Israel, the Baker Plan and every other American attempt to pressure Israel into dangerous concessions will be rejected and U.S. Mideast policy thwarted.

I have a superb attorney, Nat Lewin, one of this country's finest constitutional lawyers, and he believes that we have a strong case in opposing a clearly outrageous political scheme. The great problem here is the judge, Aubrey Robinson, who sentenced Jonathan Pollard to life imprisonment. During my hearing he was openly hostile and sarcastic and his anti-Semitism came through clearly. Even if I lose, I will of course appeal (I have two more appeals), but so will the State Department if I win. The big question is whether Robinson will allow me to enter the U.S. pending that appeal. If not, I will have to depend on good Jews replying to the Israel-U.S. conspiracy by voluntarily sending me the large amounts of funds needed.

Q: And what about your Israeli problems?

A: Two serious criminal cases face me there, both outweighed only by the totalitarian nature of the proceedings. In the first, involving my speech at a protest rally in Jerusalem following the murder of 16 Jews on an interurban bus near Jerusalem, at which I called the Arabs a "cancer in our midst," I am being tried under a British Mandate law that defines "sedition" in a way that any totalitarian state would envy and under which any Jew in Israel could be jailed daily for stating political views. Worse, this law bars me from proving the truth of my statement since under the law truth is not relevant.

For a while there was hope that the case would be thrown out since the state simply forgot to sign the indictment, and the statute of limitations had passed. But the judge in the case (a leftist who had also ruled against the Jews who purchased an Old City building from the Greek Orthodox Church some time ago) allowed the state to rule that an unsigned indictment was valid, since "one could not escape the truth through a technicality." This, in a case in which the truth is not relevant!

The second case involved the murder of two elderly Jews in May 1989, on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, in which I led a large crowd of Jews in a protest march to the Old City, and the police charge me with having refused to disperse (the crowd was tear-gassed and 11 Kach people, including myself, arrested). In the United States a conviction on such a charge would be a minor affair but in Israel the maximum is five years imprisonment (the same as with my first case).

Q: I must return to a previous point since so many people raise it. The lies and defamation and attacks on you must surely wear you down. How do you cope with it?

A: I answered that previously, at least in part. But let me add a bit to that. To begin with, one rule is basic: Never responds to vicious and filthy lies that are clear attempts to defame and destroy and that are funded and planned by enemies of the Jewish people. When one responds to these things, that is exactly what the enemy wants, since it only helps to publicize the defamation. When one gets into the mud with the swine, one must emerge filthy. King David said (Psalms 69:5): "They who hate me without reason are more than the hairs of my head," but he also taught us how to react to the haters in Psalms 39:2: "I will keep a curb on my mouth, while the wicked one is before me."

In a word, one does not bark back at barking dogs if one is a person and not a dog.

This landscape is unbe-leaf-able!

This scene is from Utah

During Passover, an Orthodox Jewish mother walks into

her son's room and sees some kind of white powder on his desk.
In panic and anxious she asks him: "What is this?"
The young man replies: "Cocaine, Mom, I sniff it and sell it, too."
Says the mother: "What a relief, for a moment I was afraid it was (chometz) flour!"

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Crimes and Misdemeanors is a 1989 film about an opthamologist's mistress who threatens to reveal their affair to his wife, while a married documentary filmmaker is infatuated by another woman.

Written and directed by Woody Allen.

Judah Rosenthal[edit]

God is a luxury I can't afford.

One sin leads to a deeper sin.

I remember my father telling me, "The eyes of God are on us always." The eyes of God. What a phrase to a young boy. What were God's eyes like? Unimaginably penetrating, intense eyes, I assumed. And I wonder if it was just a coincidence that I made my specialty ophthalmology.

Jack lives in the real world. You live in the kingdom of heaven. I'd managed to keep free of that real world, but suddenly it's found me.

Clifford Stern[edit]

When he tells you he wants to exchange ideas, what he really wants is to exchange fluids.

I don't know from suicide. Where I grew up in Brooklyn, everybody was too unhappy to commit suicide.

What's the guy so upset about? You'd think nobody was ever compared to Mussolini before.

The last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty.

A strange man defecated on my sister.

Honey, you're the one who stopped sleeping with me, okay? It'll be a year come April 20th. I remember the date exactly, because it was Hitler's birthday.

Professor Louis Levy[edit]

We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more.

When we fall in love, we are seeking to re-find all or some of the people to whom you were attached as children. On the other hand, we ask our beloved to correct all the wrongs that these early parents or siblings inflicted on us. So, love contains in it the contradiction, the attempts to return to the past and the attempt to undo the past.

I've gone out the window.

But we must always remember that when we are born we need a great deal of love in order to persuade us to say in life. Once we get that love it usually lasts us. But the universe is a pretty cold place. It is we who invest it with our feelings. And under certain conditions, we feel the thing isn't worth it any more.

Lester[edit]

If it bends it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny.

Idea for a farce. A poor...loser does a documentary of a great man and in the process learns some deep values.

I'll be honest. You're not my first choice.

Comedy is tragedy plus time.

Dialogue[edit]Lester: If you play your cards right, you could have my body.

Halley Reed: Wouldn't you rather leave it to science?

Halley Reed: [about Lester] After all, he is an American phenomenon.

Clifford Stern: Yeah, but so is acid rain.

Lester: I told you I'm putty in your hands.

Halley Reed: What am I gonna do with a handful of putty?

Halley Reed: [on the philosopher Lewis Levy] He was very eloquent on the subject of love, didn't you think?

Clifford Stern: I wish I had met him before I got married. It would've saved me a gall bladder operation.

Halley Reed: [about Lester]: He wants to produce something of mine.

Clifford Stern: Yeah. Your first child.

Sol Rosenthal: Whether it's the Bible or Shakespeare, murder will out!

Judah Rosenthal: Who said anything about murder?

Sol Rosenthal: You did.

Clifford Stern: I actually wrote you a love letter.

Halley Reed: I didn't get it.

Clifford Stern: It's probably just as well. I plagiarized most of it from James Joyce. You probably wondered why all the references to Dublin.

[Judah is telling Clifford about the murder, disguising it as an idea for a screenplay.]Judah Rosenthal: And after the awful deed is done, he finds that he's plagued by deep-rooted guilt. Little sparks of his religious background, which he'd rejected, are suddenly stirred up. He hears his father's voice. He imagines that God is watching his every move. Suddenly, it's not an empty universe at all, but a just and moral one, and he's violated it. Now, he's panic-stricken. He's on the verge of a mental collapse, an inch away from confessing the whole thing to the police. And then one morning, he awakens. The sun is shining, his family is around him and mysteriously, the crisis has lifted. He takes his family on a vacation to Europe and as the months pass, he finds he's not punished. In fact, he prospers. The killing gets attributed to another person — a drifter who has a number of other murders to his credit, so I mean, what the hell? One more doesn't even matter. Now he's scott-free. His life is completely back to normal. Back to his protected world of wealth and privilege.

Clifford Sten: Yes, but can he ever really go back?

Judah Rosenthal: People carry sins around. Oh, maybe once in awhile he has a bad moment, but it passes. With time, it all fades.

Clifford Stern: Yeah, but now his worst beliefs are realized.

Judah Rosenthal: Well, I said it was a chilling story, didn't I?

Clifford Stern: I don't know. I think it would be tough for someone to live with that. Very few guys could live with something like that on their conscience.

Judah Rosenthal: People carry awful deeds around. What do you expect him to do, turn himself in? This is reality. In reality, we rationalize, we deny, or we couldn't go on living.

Clifford Stern: Here's what I would do: I would have him turn himself in. Then your story assumes tragic proportions. I mean, in the absence of a God, or something, he's forced to assume that responsibility himself. Then you have tragedy.

Judah Rosenthal: But that's fiction, that's movies. You see too many movies. I'm talking about reality. I mean, if you want a happy ending, you should see a Hollywood movie.

Mount Zion Wedding of Rabbi Bittner

In many ways like the Story of Ruth and Boaz, Rabbi Bittner marries for the first time at 80 to a new Jew of 50. May they enjoy long years of happienss

Solar-powered electric car set to launch in 2019 - and it'll be cheaper than you think

http://shr.gs/CT74ugl

Because God is in Heaven and you are on the earth, therefore let your words be few (Ecclesiastes 5:1).

I remember reading that every person is born with an allotted number of words that one may speak during one's lifetime. When this allotment is exhausted, one's life comes to an end. This idea would explain the above verse: God is infinite, but people live in a finite world where everything has its limitations. Some things may be greater, other things may be less, but nothing on earth is infinite. Since the number of words a person may speak must also be finite, we should speak as little as possible simply to extend our lives.

Even if one does not accept this concept as factual, it is an excellent guideline. People on a fixed income will budget themselves carefully, since any unwise expenditures may deprive them of the means to obtain necessities. If we think of our words as being limited, then those squandered in non-essential conversation have become unavailable to us for more important things.

When we discover that we have wasted money, we are likely to become very upset with ourselves. We usually then resolve to be more cautious and discriminating in our future purchases. Let us now think back on how many words we have wasted, and even if they were not outright lies or slander, nevertheless, they were simply useless. We would be wise to make a reckoning of our words as well as our money and similarly resolve not to be wasteful of them in the future.

Today I shall ...
... consider my words as valuable assets which, while in sufficient supply, are nonetheless limited; I will therefore try to act accordingly.