Friday, January 25, 2019

Neot Kedumim, the world's only Biblical Landscape Reserve on Tuvbshavt

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Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor

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

SUCCESS SEEMS TO BE RELATED TO ACTION. SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE KEEP MOVING. THEY MAKE MISTAKES BUT THEY DON'T QUIT. --CONRAD HILTON

Love Yehuda Lave

Baseball is like driving, it's the one who gets home safely that counts. ~Tommy Lasorda

Quotes from my sister

I believe that everybody comes from pain and a certain amount of dysfunction.  Mariel Hemingway  Actress.

. All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.  Max Beerbohm ESSAYIST 

Fantasy is the only canvas large enough for me to paint on.  Terry Brooks, WRITER 


If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.  Maya Angelou, WRITER 


The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.  Albert Einstein FORCE OF NATURE

Truth will flourish in fantasy, only to wither and die in what you are pleased to call reality.  Bernard Schubert  screenwriter and television producer during the early sound era of film and early days of television

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.  Iris Murdoch novelist


Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.  Fran Lebowitz  Actress


Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.  Malcolm Forbes  Publisher


The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.  Andrew Carnegie Promoter of Public Libraries 


When everyone goes home, you're stuck with yourself.  Layne Staley Musician


I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing. -        Michel de Montaigne Philosopher

  Every man stamps his value on himself ... man is made great or small by his own will. - J. C. F. von Schiller poet, philosopher, physician, historian, and playwright. 

  It's just like magic. When you live by yourself, all your annoying habits are gone! - Merrill Markoe author  

It is not the eyes of others that I am wary of, but my own. - Noel Coward playwright

  What you think about yourself is much more important than what others think of you. - Marcus Annaeus Seneca statesman

  Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it. - Tallulah Bankhead actress

  You don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

Neot Kedumim, the world's only Biblical Landscape Reserve

Neot Kedumim, the Biblical Landscape Reserve in Israel, is located halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

This unique recreation of the physical setting of the Bible in all its depth and detail allows visitors to see life as it was lived by our ancestors 3,000 years ago. More than a "garden" showing various plants, Neot Kedumim embodies the panorama and power of the landscapes which shaped the values of the Bible and provided the rich vocabulary for expressing those values.

On 625 acres of hills and valleys, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, lies a world apart. Neot Kedumim – the Biblical Landscape Reserve in Israel. a unique endeavor to re-create the physical setting of the Bible in all its depth and detail. it embodies the panorama and power of the landscapes that both helped shape the values of the Bible and provided a rich vocabulary for expressing them on a variety of disciplines – such as Bible scholarship, botany, zoology, geography, history, and archaeology – to bring the Bible and its commentaries to life.

By reuniting text and context, it opens up before the visitor Israel's nature as the idiom of the Bible.  The symbols, prayers, and holidays of the Jewish and Christian heritage, observed and preserved for thousands of years, blossom in a new and colorful dimension at the world's only biblical landscape reserve.

 

A non-profit organization in Israel, Neot Kedumim has received international recognition as a model of restoration ecology – the reclamation of ravaged landscapes.  In 1994, Neot Kedumim won the Israel Prize, the highest honor awarded by the State of Israel, for its special contribution to the society and the state.

Rabbi Binyamin Kahane  - Parshat Shemot

Kahane on the Parsha

 

"YOU'LL RUIN EVERYTHING!!!"

At the end of Parshat Shemot, the officers of the Children of Israel confront Moses and Aaron. G-d had asked Moses and Aaron to carry out what seemed like a suicide mission: to enter Pharaoh's palace, uninvited, and request that he let the Jews go free. Despite the odds, Moses and Aaron, with faith in G-d, fulfilled their mission.

Naturally, Pharaoh rejected their request out of hand. The problem, however, is that Pharaoh not only rejected their request but, in addition, made the Jews' working conditions harsher in order to quell any undesirable excitement or hope that Moses and Aaron may have aroused. Pharaoh ordered that henceforth the Jews would no longer be provided bricks to build with. They would have to make the bricks themselves.

The officers of the Children of Israel now enter the picture. From the text in Exodus and the commentary of our Rabbis, we know that they were essentially decent men; in the final analysis, they only wanted to lighten the burden of the Jews. And they were actually beaten by the Egyptians for protecting those Jews who couldn't meet the daily quote of bricks (Exodus 5:14).

These officers were the Jews' representatives to Pharaoh and, as practical men who recognized the nature of the situation, they played "the game." They did not believe in "making noise" or starting revolutions. They were "labor leaders" who desired to improve the Jews' working conditions. In their eyes, any noise or demonstration, any meeting with Pharaoh that wasn't carried out according to protocol, would harm their delicate work of many years.

For this reason, the moment they heard about Moses and Aaron's meeting with Pharaoh, they grew livid: You are novices! You are adventurers! "May G-d look upon you and judge, for you have made us odious in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants, to place a sword into their hands to kill us!" (Exodus 5:21).

Among other things, here was a confrontation between the old-guard leadership of the "status quo" who wished to protect their achievements- which, although modest, were attained through hard work- and new men who not only accomplished nothing with their "extreme" requests but even jeopardized everything that had been accomplished up to that point. In the eyes of the officers, Moses was behaving like a bull in a china shop.

And truthfully, the officers were correct! Just after Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh's presence, a harsh decree was inflicted upon the entire nation. And who suffered as a result? Moses and Aaron? NO! The officers were the ones who suffered. They were the ones beaten for the Jews who couldn't fill the impossible quotas. And all because of the irresponsibility of Moses and Aaron.

The officers seemed so correct that even Moses had doubts. He had so little confidence in his own approach that he sinned by showing lack of faith in G-d by crying out to Him, "Why is evil happening to this people, why did You send me?" (Exodus 5:22).

And yet, the officers were not right. The reason is because there is almost never a revolution whose first stages do not involve the loss of earlier accomplishments. Sometimes this is essential, for the "accomplishments" of the past are often parenthetical and stem from small-minded people who offer arrangements which, while perhaps intended to put out fires, establish a dismal state of affairs which in itself prevents any further change.

Even in the case of real accomplishments, we must understand that in order to bring about change there is no choice but to jeopardize them, at least temporarily, because there will always be one Pharaoh or another who will threaten that if we don't sit quietly we will ruin everything we've achieved. And if we give in to such threats, we will remain captives in the hands of Pharaoh- we, our children, and our children's children...until the end of generations.

In conclusion, whoever wants to progress- and this is true in every area of life- must take into account that he will almost certainly find himself, at least temporarily, losing some ground. Whoever is not prepared for this will find himself, all his life, in the straits of Egypt. Whoever wants change needs to warmly thank the existing "officers" for their accomplishments, and then say to them:

"Now we're advancing. It's possible that some of your accomplishments or any element of them will be lost, either temporarily or permanently. But this is the price of reaching the greater and ultimate goal. We were not born to be slaves with improved working conditions in Egypt. We were born to be redeemed. We were not born to live in villas in settlements surrounded by fences, like ghettos, with conditions of 'Development Area A.' We were born to conquer and rule all of Eretz Yisrael, free of the gentiles and our enemies. And if the price, more or less temporarily, is the loss of 'Development Area A'-status due to lack of participation in the existing regime, or the necessity of gathering our own straw to make bricks for a while, the price is worth it. For we were not born to live with the status quo. We were born to establish an ideal world.

Darka Shel Torah, 2000

Active seniors get married

Two very active seniors (Jacob, age 83 and Miriam, age 82), living in Florida , are all excited about their decision to get married. (to each other!!)
They go for a stroll to discuss the wedding, and on the way they pass a drugstore and they decide go in.
Jacob addresses the man behind the counter: "Are you the owner?" The pharmacist answers, "Yes."
Jacob: "We're about to get married... Do you sell heart medication?" Pharmacist: "Of course we do."
Jacob: "How about medicine for circulation?" Pharmacist: "All kinds."
Jacob: "Medicine for rheumatism?" Pharmacist: "Definitely."
Jacob: "How about suppositories and medicine for impotence?" Pharmacist: "You bet!"
Jacob: "Medicine for memory problems, arthritis and Alzheimer's?" Pharmacist: "Yes, a large variety. The works."
Jacob: "What about vitamins, sleeping pills, Geritol, antidotes for Parkinson's disease?" Pharmacist: "Absolutely."
Jacob: "Everything for heartburn and indigestion?" Pharmacist: "We sure do."
Jacob: "You sell wheelchairs and walkers and canes?" Pharmacist: "All speeds and sizes."
Jacob: "Adult diapers?" Pharmacist: "Sure, how can I help you?
Jacob: We'd like to use this store as our Bridal Registry.

See you Sunday--Shabbat Shalom

Love Yehuda Lave

Rabbi Yehuda Lave

2850 Womble Road, Suite 100-619, San Diego
United States

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