| Start by Admitting your Mistakes When someone is angry at you, organize wisely what you wish to say. Begin speaking in a manner that is likely to have a calming effect. For example, begin by admitting your own mistakes. When you start off in an appeasing manner, the person will pay more attention to your words, and this will prevent him from causing you harm or loss. We find an example when Abigail successfully calmed down King David, who was furious at her husband (see Shmuel 1, 25:25). She began by admitting that she herself had made an error. Only then did she present her arguments to King David. When you concede that you are wrong, others calm down.
When someone is angry at you, and you start out by either blaming him or denying it, you will usually increase the person's anger. If you want someone's anger to escalate, the best way to do this is to either say: "It's your fault, not mine."
It takes courage to admit your own mistakes. Even if you are only responsible in a small way, it is still best to start off by saying something like, "Yes, I could (or should) have done differently. I'm sorry for any pain or inconvenience I have caused you."
This will put the other person in a calmer state, and he will then be much more likely to listen to what you have to say in your own defense.
Love Yehuda Lave |
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| Terrorists Get National Insurance Payments
Yossi Tzur, lost his 16-year-old son Assaf in a Hamas-orchestrated bus bombing in Haifa in 2003. Incredulously, terrorists who perpetrate these murders are still getting national insurance payments. "Bereaved father Yossi Tzur has drawn my attention to the fact that the law we passed to revoke the permanent resident status of anyone involved in terror does not have practical implications on the ground ,and the terrorists continue to receive national insurance payments," Internal Affairs Committee Chairman MK Yoav Kisch (Likud) said Monday during a meeting on the issue. "We will examine how the law can be amended so that terrorists will be banned from living in the area where the terror attack took place, similar to the law which drives out sex offenders."
MK Kisch called on the Attorney General to approve the request to revoke the resident status of 20 people who were involved in terror, in addition to the 10 people whose resident status has already been revoked since the law went into effect. "I want to hear within two weeks that the matter has been referred to the Interior Minister," he said. "The Committee will examine legislation that will allow the State to revoke permanent resident status, but will not replace it with temporary resident status, which still grants the person his full rights. We will define a status that will allow only work, and not any other right," MK Kisch added. Einat Korman, deputy director of The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, said "the sense is that the scales of the rights of the terrorist and the rights of the victims are unbalanced. The scales are disproportionally tipped in favor of the terrorist's rights. Bereaved families beg [the State to prevent the terrorist] from returning to the city where the act of terror was committed." "There are restrictions on sex offenders. Why not impose them on terrorists?" Unbelievable |
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Contents of Israel's Moon Time-capsule Revealed
 The Bereshe et spacecraft. The Israeli SpaceIL group and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) presented this week a time capsule that will travel to the moon with the first Israeli spacecraft. The time capsule consists of three discs, each containing hundreds of digital files, which will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in February. The files traveling to the moon include Israeli national symbols, like Israel's Declaration of Independence, the Bible, Israel's national anthem "Hatikvah" and the Israeli flag.
The time capsule also includes cultural objects and materials, such as paintings collected from the public over the years for sending to the moon, dictionaries in 27 languages and encyclopedias as an indication of knowledge accumulated by humanity, Israeli songs, books of art and science and Israeli literature, information about Israeli scientific and technological discoveries and developments that influenced the world, and photos Israel's landscapes and of leading figures in Israeli culture. The time capsule, along with the spacecraft, will remain on the Moon indefinitely, even after completing Israel's first lunar mission. With no plans to return to Earth, the spacecraft and information within the time capsule's disks could possibly be found and distributed by future generations. In February, the spacecraft, recently named Beresheet (the Hebrew word for Genesis), will launch alongside other satellites as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The precise launch date remains undetermined, as SpaceIL awaits final confirmation from the launch company.  The Beresheet spacecraft. "This is another step on our way to the moon," said Ido Anteby, CEO of SpaceIL. "Inserting the disks into the spacecraft, which is a real time capsule, indicates the spacecraft's readiness to blast off from the launch site in a few weeks." SpaceIL's crews and IAI have completed testing of the spacecraft and its systems, and are preparing for the "beginning of the amazing and complex journey that exemplifies innovation, creativity and courage," he added. Yonatan Winetraub, one of three SpaceIL founders, said, as he inserted the time capsule into a spacecraft that "this is a very emotional moment. We do not know how long the spacecraft and the time capsule will remain on the moon. It is very possible that future generations will find this information and want to learn more about this historic moment." Opher Doron, IAI's Space Division General Manager, noted the pride in being the first non-governmental entity in the world to go to the moon. The spacecraft successfully completed a series of recent tests to examine the integration of systems and a series of complex experiments aimed at testing its durability, and will soon be transferred to Florida. Source: United With Israel |
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Destructive Jewish Guilt By Rabbi Meir Kahane (January, 1988)
[ He knew the truth, wrote the truth, spoke the truth and was hated for the truth. But loved by so many for trying to save the Jewish people. As we see today, he was "always right!!!!! "]
There is a specter haunting Israel and its American Jewish supporters. It is called guilt. Guilt over the "repression of Palestinian human rights". Guilt over the refusal to remove "the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East - the occupation of the Arab land seized in 1967". Guilt over the unwillingness to give the "Palestinians" their own state in the "occupied lands". And now, guilt over the killing of "Palestinians" and innocent civilians in the "Occupied territories". It is a powerful weapon, this guilt; Jews have a difficult time coping with it. A people that has been the most debased of losers for 2,000 years finds it difficult to cope with victory. It finds it extraordinary difficult to remain normal. It inherits insecurities, complexes, guilt. It begins to believe its enemies' slanders. It loses its self-respect and longs for the love of a hating world. That is especially true for the Jewish liberal! It is important that those who have retained their self-esteem and sense of Jewish survival speak out against the disease of guilt and moral insecurity. No guilt.
Are the lands of 1967, "occupied" by the Jews, the main obstacle to peace? Is the year 1967 the origin of the conflict? How peaceful it must have been in 1966 when Sinai and Gaza were in Egyptian hands and the Golan was possessed by the Syrians to shell, for 19 years, the Jewish settlements below, and when Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem were in the hands of the "moderate" King Hussein. Why did they go to war? What did they want then? When they had all the "occupied lands" before they were "occupied"? When one has East Jerusalem and attacks Israel, can it be that he desires West Jerusalem? And Tel Aviv? And can it be that that is what they really want again? Now? And why did the "innocent Palestinian women and children" take to the streets then, in 1967, when Jordan and Egypt ruled them to call for "Israel in the sea"? What "occupied lands" did they want back then? And could it be that that is what they want now?
And what did they wish in 1947 when they rejected the "Palestine" state offered them by the United Nations and went to war, killing fully 1 % of the Jewish population? And what did they wish in the riots of 1936-38 when there was no country called Israel and they murdered more than 500 Jews? And in 1929 when no "Zionist occupation troops" were in Hebron, why did the "Palestinians" rise up to murder 67 Jews in one day? And why the pogroms in Jerusalem and Jaffa in 1920 and 1921? What troubles the Arabs is the very presence of large numbers of Jews in the land, and Israel of any size. Zionism. That is what troubles the Arabs. That is the obstacle to peace. Let us inscribe that on our hearts lest we open the doors to a repetition-on a grand scale-of that which the Arabs have done to Jews since 1920. A horror of slaughter by knives and axes. And the bearers of guilt would do just that.
No guilt. There is one sublime reason why we should not give up a centimeter of land...it belongs to us. If we have no right to Judea and Samaria and Gaza, then we indeed have no right to Tel Aviv. Abraham did not walk on Dizengoff Street nor did our ancestors live in Israeli cities that were built in the 20th century. But Abraham, who lived in Hebron, and Jacob who lived in Shechem, now Nablus, and David in Bethlehem are the sole legitimate reasons that Jews can lay claim to a Tel Aviv and the kibbutzim of the guilt-ridden Left. The land belongs to us because the G-d of Israel, creator and Titleholder of all lands, gave it to us. No guilt.
There is no such thing as a "Palestinian people". They are Arabs, part of the Arab nation, possessor of 21 lands. Let them live in peace in any or all of them. But there are no "Palestinians". It was the Roman emperor Hadrian who, after the Jewish revolt against the Romans, angrily erased the name of the state, Judea, and invented the name "Palestine" after the Philistines. In every normal case, an existing people gives its name to a land. The Franks named it France and the Angles, England, and the Germanics, Germany. Only in this ludicrous case does a Roman invent a name, give it to a land, and the arriving Arab trespassers become "Palestinians". One presumes that had Hadrian not changed the name, Israel today would be fighting Yasir Arafat and the Judean terrorists. There are no "Palestinians" and there is no "Palestine" in the land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael. No guilt.
The "Palestinian" civilians in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Lebanon cheered and supported every P.L.O murder and terror of Jews. They are united in hatred of Israel. It would be nicer if they did not stone our soldiers and try to kill Jews. It would be nicer if they did not rise up in revolt in order to force us out of Judea, Samaria and Gaza as the first step to the elimination of the State of Israel. But since they do, let Jews not allow themselves to be destroyed by "Palestinian" women and children. And if the only way to survive is to take the lives of people who attack us we have no choice. I wonder how many Americans and British and French mourned and protested the killing of German civilians during World War II bombings of Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden?
There is nothing ethical about dying or anything moral about another holocaust. There is nothing immoral about winning and nothing necessarily noble in a loser. Let us cast off the chains of guilt and reject the accusations of its bearers. The greatness of Judaism is its spirit, but no spirit can survive without a living body. If we do not want to kill Arabs--and we don't; and if we want to put an end to the nightly television pictures of violence; and if we do not want to see those pictures tomorrow inside Israel itself, with Israeli Arabs fighting soldiers; and if we do not want to see the threat of Arab demography destroying the Jewish State--then let us have the courage to take the one difficult but immutable step that will free us of all this and guarantee a Jewish State: Remove the Arabs from the land and let them live with their brothers and sisters in any of the 22 Arab states. Anything short of that will see the horrors of today escalated a hundred-fold tomorrow. And let us not fear the world. Those who stood by during the Holocaust and when Israel faced destruction in 1948 and 1967 have nothing to tell us.
Faith in the G-d of Israel and a powerful Jewish army are the only guarantors of Jewish survival. Let us not fear the world. Far better a Jewish State that survives and is hated by the world, than an Auschwitz that brings us its love and sympathy. No guilt Rather faith in G-d and a return to authentic Torah laws; rather pride and strength, and the love of our people rather than the enemy that would destroy us. That is sanity; that is Judaism. |
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"Gather and I will tell you" (Genesis 49:1) Tevet 13, 5779/December 21, 2018 Knowing that death is imminent, Yaakov avinu, (the patriarch Yaakov), calls all of his twelves sons near him: "Gather and I will tell you what will happen to you at the end of days. Gather and listen, sons of Yaakov, and listen to Israel, your father." (Genesis 49:1-2) Many, many years ago, fleeing from his own brother Esau, who swore to kill Yaakov, Yaakov arrived at a place that he would name Beit El, the House of G-d, gathered together twelve stones, placed his head upon the stones, went to sleep and dreamed a dream that would change the world forever. He dreamed of a ladder extending from earth to heaven, and from the top of the ladder G-d spoke to Yaakov, saying "I am HaShem, the G-d of Avraham your father, and the G-d of Yitzchak; the land upon which you are lying to you I will give it and to your seed. And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall gain strength westward and eastward and northward and southward; and through you shall be blessed all the families of the earth and through your seed. And behold, I am with you, and I will guard you wherever you go, and I will restore you to this land, for I will not forsake you until I have done what I have spoken concerning you." (ibid 28:13-15) When Yaakov awoke from his dream the twelve stones had turned to one stone, which Yaakov placed upright, anointed with oil, and said "And if I return in peace to my father's house, and HaShem will be my G-d; Then this stone, which I have placed as a monument, shall be a house of G-d, and everything that You give me, I will surely tithe to You." (ibid 28:21-22) The twelve stones which Yaakov gathered at Beit El have now become the twelve sons of Israel, and before he dies it is his task to form these twelve sons into one nation, just as he had done at Beit El. So he gathers his sons around him and announces that he will reveal to them the end of days, perhaps intending to reveal to them his vision and his promise to G-d at Beit El. Yet the spirit of prophecy leaves him and instead he blesses each one of his sons individually. Has Yaakov missed the mark? Has he failed to turn his twelve sons int a single unified nation as his last act on earth? The Book of Genesis opens with creation, and creation concludes with the creation of man. G-d gathered dust from the four corners of the earth, placed it in Eden, shaped it and breathed life into it, creating from a multitude of earth a single man - Adam. G-d then breathed life into Adam, making him into a living being, the father of all mankind. As the Book of Genesis draws to a close, we witness Yaakov, now Israel, taking the twelve stones he gathered at Beit El and, having formed then into a single physical unit, attempting to turn that physical unit into a living breathing, spiritual unity - the children of Israel. But at the critical moment, when Yaakov/Israel is called upon to breath a unifying spiritual life into his children via the spirit of prophecy, prophecy eludes him. Our sages tell us that, sensing their father faltering, the twelve sons of Israel declared in unison, "Shema Yisrael, HaShem Elokeinu, HaShem Echad - Hear [our father] Israel, HaShem our G-d, HaShem is One." The twelve sons of Israel preempted their father: before he could breathe into them the living spirit of a unified nation, the one he dreamed of in Beit El, they became animated with the essence of the very life force that would sustain the nation of Israel till the end of time. Now that they had self-transformed from twelve brothers into a single people, via their uttering of the "Shema," Yaakov could allow himself the luxury of blessing each of his sons individually, gratified and satisfied that they had become the indivisible seed that he dreamed of at Beit El. But Yaakov had one last order of business. At Beit El he concluded his dialog with G-d by saying, "And if I return in peace to my father's house, and HaShem will be my G-d; Then this stone, which I have placed as a monument, shall be a house of G-d, and everything that You give me, I will surely tithe to You." Having given his word to G-d, now Yaakov turns to his sons and commands them to assure his burial with his fathers in the cave of Machpelah in Hevron. The first act of the sons of Israel as a unified nation was to see to it that their father's vow to G-d would be kept. Now buried with his fathers, as he foretold G-d, Yaakov's vow is intact and his vision will live. The children of Israel will endure and the House of G-d, the Holy Temple, will be established on the very place where Yaakov laid his head, dreamed of a people that would rise from his loins, and of the nation that they would form in the knowledge and recognition of the Oneness of G-d. The Book of Genesis begins with the creation of man and, in a parallel fashion, concludes with the creation of a nation whose purpose would be to declare G-d's unity to all mankind, just as Israel's sons declared G-d's unity to their father on his last day. The ultimate expression of this declaration will be the fulfillment of Yaakov's vision of a House of G-d, or in Isaiah's words, "a house of prayer for all nations." (Isaiah 56;7) The minchah (afternoon) prayer said on Shabbat is yet another affirmation of Yaakov's trust in his sons: "You [G-d] are One, and Your Name is One, and who is like Your people, Israel, one nation in the land [of Israel]." Amen. |
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Israel is a beautiful country and often you only appreciate it after the rain has fallen.
Here are 4 stunning photos taken from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority from after the rain yesterday in Israel. The photos are from up North.
Enjoy!
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See you tomorrow
Love Yehuda Lave |
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