The Problem with Being Too United

Click to watch:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vWlv8OTx1Cg

Not Forgetting Doesn't Mean You Remembered

DO YOU KNOW YOUR HEAD FROM YOUR FEET?

How many of us will say last year sucked and I’m ready to put it behind me and start a New Year?

Well, if we want the year ahead to be better than the year behind, we have to know our head from our feet. Notice, the Jewish holiday is not called the Jewish New Year but rather Rosh Hashana, meaning the HEAD of the year.

What’s the head got to do with it?

The answer: Just as the head is the command center that directs the rest of the body—our arms, our feet, our tongue etc. — so too Rosh Hashana is the command center that creates the energies that will tell the rest of the year what to do.

Basically, Rosh Hashana is like a time release capsule: what you put into will sustain you or poison you in the days ahead. That is why it’s tradition not to sleep the whole day on the holiday because it’s believed that if we do then we will sleep the whole year away. That is why Jews pray feverishly for life on Rosh Hashana not so that we will live only that day, but for the entire year to come. And that is why many people won’t eat nuts on RH, because the numerical value of the word “nut” in Hebrew is equal to the word “sin,” and God forbid we should sin the entire year ahead—unless it’s really worth it!

Another reason we call it Rosh Hashana is because it’s at this time of year where we must use our heads to think and analyze what went wrong in the past. This auspicious time gives us the intellectual opportunity and responsibility to assess ourselves with diligence. You see yesterday is not something to run away from like a mugger trying to take something from you, rather it’s a guru with something great to give.

Before Jacob passed away, he gathered all his sons, the future 12 tribes of Israel, to bless them. However, he knew that in order for his sons to have any chance at a healthy tomorrow, they had to take a reckoning of their past. And so, in his last breath, Jacob tells off those who sinned and points out their faults, their flaws and misbehaviors, sounding much more like a Jewish mother than a father.

It’s our duty too, as mothers and fathers of our own destinies, to go into the new year with our HEADS and not our feet. In fact the Hebrew word for foot, regel, has the same root word as ragil, which means like usual. And the lesson is we can’t let our foot (regel) lead the year (kragil). Remember Einstein said that one can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

Every new year most people make resolutions as to how they can improve themselves: This year I want to lose weight; this year I want to learn Spanish; this year I want to make something of myself. These are great goals, but usually by day three our hands are back in the cookie jar and we are back to old habits, letting our feet lead the way instead of our minds and our will. As obedient victims of habit, we again let out habits victimize us and hold us bound to what is small in us and not what is great.

It’s never enough to simply hope the New Year brings you great things. Success or failure lay in what you bring to the new year: yesterday’s habits, yesterday’s wrong friends, yesterday’s shopping cart, or a determined HEAD that will guide you to your own personal greatness.

Shana Tova and may our heads always prevail and tell our feet what to do and not the other way around.

Let My People Know--Obama's Not Good for Israel

There is the old joke that if you have two Jews in a room you will have three opinions. But thanks to President Barack Obama, he has been able to accomplish what even Moses couldn’t do, create a consensus among Jews, well at least Israeli Jews. They have by a strong majority united on one thing: They don’t like president Obama. A recent poll commissioned by the Begin Sadat Center at Bar Ilan University and the Anti-Defamation League revealed that only 32% of Israelis have a positive view of Obama as compared to 2009, when his likeability among them was at 54%.(1)

You see, Israelis tend to be a very action oriented people, hence their ability to turn an arid desert into a high-tech verdant success in quick time. They know talk is cheap, promises have expiration dates, and words make for poor armament when rockets hit their towns and their buses are blowing up. As such, when the current American President says, “I have Israel’s back,” Israelis are not convinced. With aggressive enemies at every bend they have developed heightened survival skills and have eyes behind their backs, and frankly, they don’t like what they see coming out of this White House. This consensus, among a highly opinionated people, should be the paramount indicator that the current president is not conducive to Israel’s well-being.

Israel does not even need to engage in war to be wiped off the map. Just last week the BBC refused to indicate that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital on the Olympics’ section of its website. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office wrote two letters to the broadcasting corporation, to no avail. This wasn’t a shot at Israel’s back but a shot straight through its heart.

So where was the President on this one? At a recent press conference when insistent journalists asked James Carney, Obama’s press secretary, what the White House considered Israel’s capital Carney, adamantly evasive, refused six times to say Jerusalem.(2) Oh, a friend indeed, begrudging Israel what is already theirs even before the onset of peace talks…or a war. Why couldn’t our friends in the White House simply answer that question?

But were this only the first time. In May of 2011, President Obama unilaterally called for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based on 1967 borders, borders universally acknowledged as indefensible.(3) (Prior to 1967, Israel was 9 miles wide at its narrowest point.) And then there was the whole issue of settlements in 2009 where President Obama set preconditions for Israel even before negotiations with the Palestinians got started and objected to Israel accommodating for natural growth of its own people.(4) This is the same president who whole-heartedly accommodates illegal immigrants into this country but doesn’t want Israelis to house its own citizens in its own country. So thank you Mr. President for Iron Dome, but by your concurrent initiatives you will leave us very little to protect.

Perhaps it is the above that is eating away at the percentage points of the president’s likeability among Israelis. Or maybe it is his mishandling of Iran, the Middle East powder keg nation that has leveled an existential threat at Israel, threatening to erase the Jewish Homeland from the globe.(5) It is a good thing that the president keeps appointing Jews to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council because if Iran has its way, I suspect the council will be evermore busy and understaffed.

Adding to his ill-conceived diplomatic attempts to posit the U.S. as an honest broker in the Middle East, there are many who feel the President threw longtime ally Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak under the bus and by his weak leadership helped install a new enemy on Israel’s borders, the Muslim Brotherhood, which views past peace agreements as merely bad literature(6). Furthermore, as if the Middle East isn’t precarious enough, the President’s lack of leadership on the Syrian crisis now leaves chemical weapon stockpiles in a vulnerable position with potential use against Israel. Obama asked Israel not to intercede with the result that Israelis are now rushing to get government-issue gas masks.(7)

Then there are the “little” things that when sprinkled on the above menu make the case for Obama’s friendship toward Israel ever more unsavory. While some will say President Obama is good for Israel—

• He is also the same president who thinking his mic was off, was caught in November of 2011 saying disparaging remarks about Netanyahu to France’s President Sarkozy.(8)

• He has literally bowed before many a world leader(9) and hosted a state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao(10) but the Prime Minister of Israel wass left waiting for an hour while the President went off to eat dinner with the First Family.(11) The White House also avoided releasing a photo-op with Netanyahu for four days.(12) In addition, it’s reputed but disputed that Netanyahu was let in through a backdoor to the White House.

• He has never gone to Israel as President.(13)

• As President he went to Egypt to address the Muslim world in a speech where he juxtaposed the plight of the Palestinians with Black slavery and equated it with the Jewish Holocaust.(14)

• His first formal TV interview as president was with an Arab newscast, Al Arabiya.(15)

• Prior to his presidency he toasted his friend, pro-Palestinian Rashid Khalidi, at what was said to be an event where Obama allegedly condoned Rashid’s work. The tape of that event is being guarded by the Los Angeles Times with the vigilance of Fort Knox. If there is nothing condemning on that tape, why won’t the Los Angeles Times release it?(16)

• While positing an affinity for the Jewish State, this is still the same president who sat in a church for 20 years wherein anti-Zionism was spewed from the pulpit and where church bulletins featured anti-Israel articles by Hamas’s Mousa Abu Marzook and The Nation of Islam. It is a long time to sit in a pew if you don’t share the view.(17)

• The first time Mr. Obama attended AIPAC prior to his presidency, he said in no uncertain terms that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel. The applause was thunderous. The next day, in a pivot Barishnikov would envy, he modified his words.(18)

Dear readers, I’d love to write a smashing ending for this article, but sometimes the facts just speaks for themselves. And I thought it time to let my people know.
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1.http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-07-23/israel-worries-us-ally/56444560/1
2.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGEn1TZtEmQ
3.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/middleeast/20speech.html?pagewanted=all
4.http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/136437#.UBWN_qPUTKB
5.http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/101999#.UBWPXqPUTKA
6.http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=278769
7.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120725/ml-israel-syria/
8.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl7idMV92MA
9.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WlqW6UCeaY
10.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/world/asia/19dinner.html
11.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/7521220/Obama-snubbed-Netanyahu-for-dinner-with-Michelle-and-the-girls-Israelis-claim.html
12.http://www.haaretz.com/news/four-days-late-u-s-releases-photo-of-netanyahu-obama-meet-1.4200
13. http://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/obama-campaign-president-will-visit-israel-during-second-term/2012/07/24/
14. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html?pagewanted=all
15. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/26/al-arabiya-obama-does-fir_n_161087.html
16. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-video29-2008oct29,0,7568849.story
17.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-EBc2xaz44
18.http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=103640

I’m the one who did it—Aren’t I great? by Aliza by Aliza by Aliza

I wrote it and I want credit for it. Isn’t that in all our natures? We do something we deem good and want to make sure our name is soldered onto it. It is what you call “ego.”

How many unknown soldiers are turning in their unmarked graves because their headstones cannot boast their heroism by name? How many ghost writers are haunting the bookshelves because others take public credit for all their work? Facebook and Twitter are the best modern examples to show that we all want witnesses for our lives. Some go so far as to post what they ate, how they slept, that they are sitting in traffic, that they sneezed, that they walked, that they breathed, reporting their lives in real time down to the most preposterous minutiae. After all, if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it really make a sound at all? We are all, in our own way, sending out flares to let others know we are alive.

And then there is Moses. The most humble man in history, besides Obama of course. Moses was the man offered the greatest job in history by God Himself, and he was reluctant to accept. He wasn’t looking for that place “to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.” But, it turns out, he’s a household name nonetheless. Yet, in this week’s Bible reading his name is nowhere to be found. It’s a first since the recounting of his birth. But what makes it evermore strange is that this week’s Torah reading usually falls during the anniversary of Moses’ birth and death. If ever there was a time to honor him and put his name in neon lights it would be in this current chapter. But the omission underscores everything that Moses really was, even more than Cecil B. DeMilles’ film, wherein “Moses” was nominated for a Golden Globe. This great man had led the Jewish nation out of slavery, destroyed the mighty empire of Egypt, played a huge role in unfolding the ten plagues, brought a people through a sea that split in two, received two sets of the Ten Commandments and after that action-packed life he tells God that if You intend to destroy the Jewish people because of the sin of the Golden Calf, then take my name out of your book. And God did.

From Moses we learn that life is about a fight for things bigger than ourselves. Perhaps ego is necessary to give us a spine and a little incentive, but it cannot be the wind beneath our wings. Pharaoh was motivated solely by his ego and his own prestige, and he and his gilded kingdom are but mere dust in parched tombs and his army and chariots lay buried deep under the sea. Moses’ ego was MIA. He lived for his people and led them to the Promised Land with fertile teachings from which a nation blooms and to this day sings his praise in their daily prayers. In fact, most great people live in perpetuity because they lived for things greater than themselves.

Okay, obviously not anyone of us is a Moses. But we can be to the people in our own lives. We can choose to make peace among family members and not take credit for it; we can leave food by the door of a poor person and not stand there waiting for a thank you; we can pray for someone who’s sick for a year with only God as our witness. When we direct our energy outward to help others and to live “big” lives and not ones that can be tweeted in 140 characters or less, then our lives will speak for themselves. We will not need the bullhorns or billboards to announce to the world, “my name is so and so and I’m just so fabulous.” The truth is none of us would ever need an obituary to prove that we died if all along we had purposeful and unselfish lives to prove that we lived. If it is true that man’s mission is to fix the world and make it a better place for all, sometimes you just have to sign out as “John Doe.” And as the old expression goes: "There is no limit to what a man can do so long as he does not care a straw who gets the credit for it." Humility is a great thing—I intend to try it sometime. By Aliza By Aliza By Aliza By Aliza

I Love You, Ya, Ya, Maybe!

America is awash in red. No the communists aren’t coming (well maybe they are). But for now, it is Valentine’s decorations which envelop storefront windows and red velvet boxes that line supermarket shelves. Love is definitely in the air—this week.

But, come Wednesday morning when all the ruddy-wrapped accessories are stripped away and the only remnants of “loving” are a hangover, a half-eaten box of chocolates and scattered lingerie, many will find themselves singing that famous Foreigner song, “I Want to Know What Love is.”

Tragically, Whitney Huston’s short life reveals that even “learning to love yourself is [actually not] the greatest love of all.” Perhaps self-centered love is the worst of all because in our day and age we don’t even know how to love ourselves properly. All our efforts at “self-improvement” which mask as self-love, i.e., going the gym, striving for success, marrying for money, getting plastic surgery, lead to self-worship, not really to self-love. When our hearts are filled with too much self-worship, how can there ever really be room for another occupant, even God? Our every interaction with others, even those we profess to adore, will always be fettered by the self-serving interests of our primary lover, ourselves.

How can we then keep the commandment to “love our neighbors as ourselves” when we can’t even love ourselves properly? In fact, I’d go so far as to say that we hate ourselves because we are rotting at the core. Basic human decency and compassion have become a valueless currency. I’m not surprised that in our time a bestselling book can be titled: Why Men Love Bitches. Being kind is so yesterday!

We have become overly seduced by visuals and not by substance. A recent study came out that said people who use Facebook too much tend to develop a poor self-image because they get jealous observing how well others are doing. Imagine that, mere status updates on a social networking site can drive our self-love into the dumpster—boy we must be a really deep and confident society, NOT! If we are obliged to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is no wonder that everyone hates each other these days and that razor sharp divisiveness is tearing the world apart. And that is because we have learned to love ourselves and others for the wrong reasons. Go figure that we are a rhinoplasty-crazed society and yet we never looked so ugly. I’m reminded of the book, The Picture of Dorian Gray, wherein the main character remains breathtakingly handsome while a portrait made of him becomes ever more ugly and deformed as he sins and becomes morally corrupt. The canvas reflects the ugliness and degradation of his soul, but his personage continues to be adored because of his exterior beauty and success.

There is only one true guiding love affair that will sustain us in life and that is our love affair with God. And the Almighty does not leave his love affair with people to chance or have them singing “I want to know what love is.” He explains explicitly what He wants by his laws and decrees. How often in our lives do we walk away from a relationship saying, “I gave that person everything I have and they didn’t appreciate it? The better question is, “Did you give them anything THEY wanted or needed?” Jews can keep a perfect “Sabbath” on Wednesdays but at the end of the day would that mean anything to God who asked that the Jews keep it on Saturday?
Perhaps love is not about giving what YOU want to give to yourself or to others, but rather doing what you don’t feel like doing and giving what you don’t have--be it time, patience, understanding, a helping hand or a compassionate heart, etc.

The Bible is the best love story ever told. In adoring God and keeping his commandments we imbue ourselves with true self-worth and with lasting and authentic reasons to love ourselves and to be loved. When on Facebook be jealous not that someone got a new car or a new job, but rather that a friend went out to give charity and help others that day and you did not. You want to know what love is? Ask God. He has never whispered a sweet nothing in our ear.

The Way We Were

We’ve all heard people say it and we all say it ourselves too: “I’m not what I used to be.” Some of us were better looking long ago, we were better lovers, had more patience, ran more quickly, etc. Time wages a war of attrition against us mere mortals and slowly, but ever so surely, like a veritable Indian giver, time takes away all the gifts it once gave us. And sometimes life is not so slow handed and snatches what we value most with the mercy of a guillotine. For even of this great country I can say, "It is not what it once was." Do the Indians want that back too? (Something tells me they wouldn't take it now.) I often feel as if watching America and observing life is like watching the battery bar on my cell phone. Slowly, slowly I see the life force draining away. I'm far from the phone charger and who will hear me now? Who would care to hear me now, after all, I'm not what I used to be.

In the course of interviewing people, I have often asked the following question: "What is the one thing that if it were taken away from you, would make you cease to be you?" The answers varied greatly.

But the universally true answer lies in the Bible, the one true and eternal "charger." For there is only one thing in life that leaves us not "less than we used to be" but rather greater than what we ever were: God's laws. In keeping His commandments we don't cease to be who we are, but rather become ever more who we were meant to be.

Countries and people only decline when they attach themselves to false gods, when they spurn morality and evacuate religion from their lives as though that ONE sustaining force is what's burning down the house.

We learn from the story of Esau how he was tired, even in his youth, because he was always pursuing the next big thing, going for the next big kill. He attached himself to this world alone, he idolized himself, was self-indulgent and never attached himself to a spiritual outlet. He held Kurt Cobain's suicidal philosophy that, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." And he did.

So here is a convoluted sentence for you: Esau was not what he used to be even while he still was what he was. For every second in all of our lives we are continuously diminishing unless we are bringing light to the world and enriching not only our own souls but the universal soul. And conversely, even though the burning bush was enveloped in fire, it was not consumed, it did not burn out, because when we attach ourselves to God's will and live beyond all the ephemeral things we think make us who we are, we get better every day, not worse.

Yes, all the other things we cling to in life are false gods and duplicitous lovers, including our ambitions, our talents, our beauty, our health, etc. In our heyday they may "love us" and satisfy us, but they will ultimately leave us and crown new and younger heads. What will we be left with then?

You have two choices in life: You can lament the loss of what you once were or get busy being and becoming all that you were really meant to be!