Walk the Talk by Aliza Davidovit

Abracadabra--You’re a frog! You’re not? Ok, but I tried. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that the magical incantation abracadabra originates from Aramaic and means “I create as I speak.” And though most of us can’t just cause rabbits to appear from top hats, our words do make a difference—if they didn’t then there would be no such thing as slander law. Our words, on many levels, make an impression on the universe, and our prayers do as well. The question is, when we pray, whom are we talking to? When people pray at the Western Wall are they just talking to a wall? If G-d has everything and needs nothing from us mortals why does He insist that in our prayers we praise and thank Him for all that He has blessed us with?

A possible answer is it’s not for Him or His needs, it’s for our own! Each time we pray we are moved to count our blessings and to express our appreciation for what we do have. Instead of depressing ourselves with our own words, we fortify ourselves and empower ourselves. We make contact with the god inside of us. I have always found it beautifully symbolic that in the Hollywood epic The Ten Commandments, the voice of G-d was Charlton Heston’s, the actor who also played Moses; for, if the voice of G-d is our own voice, then we have the power within to heal our lives and access happiness and success.

But praying is not enough. When the Jews panicked upon confronting the Red Sea with no way to escape the pursuing Egyptian army, how odd it is that after making such a big production of His ability to free the slaves, God says to Moses, “Wherefore thou criest unto me?” [Exodus 14:15]. If Moishe Dayan had tried that answer after boxing in his Israeli troops they would have scratched out his other eye.

G-d is teaching the Israelites an important thing here about faith: G-d helps those who help themselves. G-d surely knows what His job is, but do we know ours? It says in this week’s Bible portion that when Moses raised his arms and prayed for the Israelites, they succeeded in fighting against Amalek, when his arms and prayers wearied, Amalek was stronger. So we learn two things here. Yes, we have to pray but we have to take up arms against the challenges in our lives as well. In 1948, when the fledgling State of Israel was attacked by five Arab armies, Jews didn’t only pray as did the Six Millions murdered Jews of the Holocaust, this time they also fought back. The Jews in Israel at the time could have cried out as did the Jews who were liberated from Egypt and said, “Were there no graves in Egypt [or Auschwitz] hast thou taken us to die in the wilderness [Israel]? This time they not only prayed to G-d but supplemented their words with action. Both are necessary. You don’t lose weight, make money, or meet the man of your dreams by sitting and doing nothing and just praying, so what makes you think that miracles happen just because you have faith alone. You must be an equal active partner with faith.

There have been studies that showed sick people who were prayed for faired better than those individuals who were not prayed for. Although there is no substantive scientific proof that prayer works, I have found it fascinating that a Japanese doctor named Dr. Masaru Emoto, through Magnetic Resonance Analysis technology, provided factual evidence that human vibrational energy—thoughts, words, ideas and music—affect the molecular structure of water. To extrapolate on his finding, it may very well be possible that prayers can change reality on a microscopic level and thus influence how things evolve.

Yet, biblical scholars say that the waters did not part for the Jews despite their crying, until one individual by the name of Nachshon jumped into the sea neck deep. Upon his action AND faith, the waters opened. If you want a miracle dear friends, work it baby, work it. G-d knows his job description. As for all of us, while we are “crying” let’s do a little trying.

Adolf Hitler: A Makeover by Aliza Davidovit

I remember my favorite childhood song from Sesame Street, where they flashed four pictures and sang: “One of these things is not like the other; one of these things just doesn't belong.” It was up to discerning children to figure out that the picture of the vegetable didn’t belong in the group of fruits, or that a letter didn’t belong in the group of numbers. Children are smart you know!

But are we? Can we still discern when something is just not right and just doesn’t fit? It is the trend these days in reality TV to redo everything we don’t like, thus the barrage of makeover programs, such as What Not to Wear, The Biggest Loser, Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, Supernanny, Nanny 911, Restaurant Makeover, From G's to Gents and Extreme Makeover, just to name a few. So should we be surprised when filmmaker Oliver Stone announces that he, too, is going to make a makeover series and do a Nip and Tuck on history and give Hitler and Stalin a whole new look? The famed director has decided to put Hitler “into context” in an upcoming Showtime documentary called, “Secret History of America.”

Stone has been quoted as saying, "I've been able to walk in Stalin's shoes and Hitler's shoes; to understand their point of view.” Perhaps Stone would have done better to walk in the pile of hundreds of shoes on display at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum. They are the shoes of murdered men, women and children that have long outlasted their owners. Perhaps he should have walked on one of the death marches from Nazi concentration camps, where prisoners were forced to walk half-naked and shoeless over long distances--with death often coming as a mercy.
Stone may also want to travel in the shoes of people who were just like you and me-- living their lives, laughing, enjoying, paying bills, kissing, and loving, who began their days as regular citizens and ended their days as lampshades or piles of hair and gold teeth. Let him walk in fields where Jews were stripped naked in front of their father’s, mothers, friends, neighbors and rabbis, humiliated, their heads shaven and forced to run around for Nazi entertainment before being shot to death. Let him walk the terrifying road where Jews trembled with fear as they were herded into buildings where they entered as mothers and children and exited as ash and smoke. Let him walk in the shoes of individuals who were the guinea pigs of Nazi medical experiments, all to advance the “Übermensch” ideal.

Until he does indeed wear those shoes, it seems so fitting for Stone to have said that "Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history,” conveniently forgetting that 6 million murdered Jews were a much easier scapegoat. How chilling it is in the face of such evil that Stone can rationalize and tell the Television Critics Association that, "We can't judge people as only 'bad' or 'good'. [Hitler] is the product of a series of actions. It’s cause and effect.”

It seems highly ironic that Stone’s announcement came out the same week that Miep Gies died. She was the woman who risked her life smuggling food and supplies to Anne Frank and her family and some others she hid from the Nazis in an attic in Amsterdam. Gies also preserved Anne Frank’s Diary as a testament to the evils Hitler perpetrated on innocent human beings.

In this week’s Bible portion Jews read about the “darkness” that came over Egypt. It was said that the darkness was so thick it was tangible. It is that same darkness that came over the world during WWII, when neighbors did nothing to stop the inhumanity of Hilter’s regime. Evil was not seen as evil and others did not wish to see at all and just closed their eyes to the suffering of their friends and neighbors.

We are now at a juncture where one who risked her life to shed light has died and one who wants to give evil a makeover is about to arise. We have already given the war on terror a makeover by calling it "overseas contingency operations" and changing terrorist acts to "man-made disasters." Now it's time to give Hitler a makeover too. While Stone is at it, in celebration of MLK Day, why doesn't he put slavery into "context" too? Or is that not a la mode yet? These revisionists of history scare me not only for what they are trying to erase, but for what they are planning.

We must not let the darkness spread again. It will begin with Stone’s remake and who knows where it can end. I urge you to take a stand against Showtime before they allow that series to air and to not go gently into that ever-darkening night! This is one makeover show that “just doesn’t belong,” for the day that it does, we will all be “the biggest losers.”

What's Ruining Your Life? by Aliza Davidovit

It is our habits, not our wishes that shape our lives. How many of us are still keeping our New Year's resolutions? Are you? It is said that 90% of people break their New Year's Resolutions before Valentine's Day. We enter the new year with the best of intentions to access the better part of us--the svelte, more successful, smarter, happier version of ourselves. They are worthy goals, reachable goals, yet in the un-actualized state they feel like “from here to eternity.” And though we deem ourselves free men in the world's greatest democracy, we are rendered slaves not by taskmasters but by our own doing. We become the imprisoned victims of our habits and slaves to our passions, be they food, gambling, sex, materialism, anger, etc. Such indulgences which we deem as self expressions of freedom are really shackles and leashes on liberty.

Habits seem so benign. Even phonetically the word is soft and subtle unlike such words that grate on our ears and sensibilities like cancer, Al Qaeda, foreclosure. But habits, though they be silent infiltrators, wreak more havoc into our lives than the aforementioned. That glass of Scotch is ever so comforting as we go through our divorce, our financial troubles, our rough patches. And, as with all bad habits, it enters one’s life like a guest but it proceeds like the host. What’s one small piece of cake, cookie, potato chip? They are the momentary appeasers that wear away your will. If one cookie didn’t kill you, neither will two. Well, then, how can a third? Then your mindset changes: Well I already had so many what’s the difference now if I have more. Bad habits, my friends, are little devils chaining you to the past and murdering your future. They try and please you and appease you as they steal your life away.

For how many years have you been trying to lose weight, quit smoking, cut down on alcohol, learn Spanish? As I’ve written before, we must learn to be masters of the moment and not succumb to them, for the aggregate of these moments is your life. The distance between our wishes and goals seems like “the longest yard” because we are not focusing on the immediate step in front of us but on the entire conquest--exhausting us by its magnitude even before we get started. You must learn to say a decisive “NO” when a bad habit offers you an invitation--not a taste, not a sip, not another single lazy minute in bed.

In this week’s Torah portion we read about the seven of the ten plagues and how Pharaoh hardened his heart against freeing the Hebrew slaves. The question has often arisen whether Pharaoh ever had free choice as to what he would do because it says on some occasions that it was God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart. But Maimonides teaches that the Egyptian ruler was himself responsible because he used his free will to “deal wisely with the children of Israel” and refused to let them go. He developed some pretty bad habits and the more a person engages in wrongdoing the harder it is to do good. He became a victim of his own actions. His lash may have enslaved the Jews, but the repetition of his own misdeeds enslaved himself and prevented him from repenting. Turning one’s back on God is hard the first time. It gets easier every time one does it. Pharaoh was caught in his own cycle of abuse. The initial performance of a wrong doing may arouse serious guilt, but when a person repeats it over and over again one eventually comes to deem it as permissible and soon elevates it to the status of a good deed: “If I didn’t have that drink, I’d go crazy”; “If I didn’t sleep with that other girl, my marriage would have never survived”; “If I didn’t eat that chocolate bar, I’d have no energy.” We are masters at manufacturing excuses for our weaknesses. But the prosecutor has the winning argument-- Exhibit “A”: Let the results speak for themselves.

My friends, tomorrow, later, the first of the month, New Years are all false starting dates. There is nothing magical on those days that will transform you from what you are to who you want to be. The magic is in the current moment. It is up to you whether you will be its master or its slave.

Who Looks Up to YOU? by Aliza Davidovit

I got really nervous when I heard Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital last week. All kinds of thoughts started running through my mind. On a personal level I would have been greatly saddened if anything had happened to him. On a national level I said, “Oh, oh. Who will be the voice of conservatism in this country if Limbaugh never wakes up?” Then I started to realize how dangerous it is to vest all our hopes and confidence in one individual as we did with President Obama who cannot walk on water after all. We all know rationally it’s not wise to put all our eggs in one basket or all the bets on one horse. Yet we do it over and over again.

Our tendency to deify individuals has two serious traps, either they die and leave us at a loss of what to do next, or maybe they let us down by the mere fact of being human. Then we are left without role models and the things we can believe in become evermore tenuous when the mighty fall. We are always looking outward for external saviors instead of searching within and cultivating what we have to offer. When the eyes of a younger generation look upon you to find leadership, to learn from your example, what have you taught them? Your nieces, nephews, kids, the people who know you, when they walk away from interacting with you, how have they been improved? Did you know that today's youth spend approximately six hours a day in front of a screen, either the TV, the computer, video games, iPhones, etc.? So, who is filling the moral gap for them, the leadership? Tiger Woods? Tom Daschle? Rod Blagojevich? Michael Vick? Timothy Geithner? Britney Spears? Can you imagine taking the morality of all these individuals, putting them in a blender and then pouring this slimy smoothie into an impressionable youth? You'd end up with an adulterous alleged mother-beating dog-killer who doesn't wear underwear while shafting the country as he auctions off a Senate seat for which he refuses to pay taxes while playing golf. Just add a splash of vermouth to the mix and you have a future congressman.

But it’s our fault when we feel let down because we keep investing too much hope in individuals and deferring responsibility instead of assuming some ourselves. Glenn Beck alone cannot re-found America, and frankly it’s fraught with danger to empower him so.

The desert Jews made the same error when Moses went up to the mountain to receive God’s laws and because his return was delayed they speedily turned to sin and built the Golden Calf. Indeed, there are many great leaders appointed and empowered by God but they alone cannot sustain the world in which we live. We are continually looking for someone to bless or blame instead of assuming the role of responsible leadership ourselves.

This week in synagogues around the world we begin the second book of the Bible and read about the birth of Moses. Yet the book is not named in his honor, but rather in Hebrew is called “Shmot” which means “names”-- a dedication to all of us because the life we live is all of our stories, not just one man’s.

It’s fascinating to know that as Moses was on his initial journey to save the Jews from slavery “God countered him and sought to kill him,” [Exodus 4:24] because he was negligent in fulfilling the commandment of circumcision on his son. Even Moses was dispensable to God, as there are many agents who can fulfill His will.[1]

So my friends, as we travel through our days let’s never forget that we are the custodians of the moments. We each must be leaders for the young eyes that watch us, even as we follow. And instead of seeking external saviors out there we must learn to save ourselves and make ourselves worthy of the final redemption.


[1] Rabbi Elie Munk, The Call of the Torah, Mesorrah Publications, 1994.
**********************
****************************************
Sponsored by the Wordsmithy for all your editing needs. Contact: pr@davidovit.com for further information

Will Tomorrow Ever Come? by Aliza Davidovit

The year 2009 is now being deferred to history as 2010 is about to be discovered. As with the first page of a school notebook, the first week of a new year, or the first day of a diet, we cannot help but be filled with optimism and the desire to reset our behaviors when the chance to be a “new you” presents itself. Yet it is not long into the week that our neat handwriting that marked an optimistic beginning yields to scribbling; it’s not long into the year that yogurt yields to cheesecake and that our gym card becomes as lazy to get off the couch as we do.

As we look through Time magazine’s lists of 2009 that reflect on everything from the people of the year to the worst gaffs, scandals, feuds and breakups, it’s hard not to wonder how things went so wrong. How could Governor Sanford disappear to Argentina with a mistress and think he’d get away with it? How could a clean-cut guy like Tiger Woods be such a yutz? How could no one see what Bernie Madoff was up to? How could uninvited guests gallivant right into the White House? How could it be decided that 9/11 terrorists will stand trial in a New York court? It would have taken a Disney stretch of the imagination at the onset of 2009 to predict all the troubles and trauma that kept us on our toes and out of jobs in the past year.

The question is why do we keep getting ourselves into trouble time and time again even as we try as individuals, as leaders, as pop icons, to turn a new leaf? The answer came to me both in this week’s Bible reading which marks the end of the book of Genesis and the beginning of the Jewish exodus. It also came to me with the kind wishes of someone who said, “Hope the New Year brings you great things.”

It is upon that wish that I realized how troubles brew. For what I noticed by going through Time magazine’s epic failures of the year, is not what 2009 brought to people, but rather what people brought to 2009. Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Is it any wonder, then, that if we brought to 2009 everything that we were in ’08 that nothing had a chance to get better but rather was condemned to failure? We are so gung-ho on attaching ourselves to the blank slate of what lays ahead simply because it is the easy way out: “Oh, let’s see what tomorrow brings.” But as we traverse that pristine white landscape of tomorrow we are still wearing yesterday’s filthy muddied boots. How do we then wonder how we’ve ruined this too and made such a mess?

It’s at this time of year, while making resolutions, that we should be looking to the past and scrutinizing our behaviors and cycles of weakness. I’m not suggesting we flog ourselves for our mistakes but rather we take an honest look at why they happened and set up flares and barbed wire around the things that led us astray. The new you that you desperately seek will not be found in the health club membership card, it will be found inside of you. We know academically that nations who forget their history are condemned to repeat it. The same logic applies to our personal lives.

In this week’s Bible reading, the last of the patriarchs, Jacob, dies. But before he passes away, he gathers all his sons, the future 12 tribes of Israel, to bless them. Jacob, however, knows that in order for his sons to have any chance at a healthy future they have to take a reckoning of their past. In his last breath Jacob scolds those who sinned and points out their faults, their flaws and their misbehavior, as well as their strengths—it’s hardly a touchy-feely Hollywood goodbye scene. He does not accommodate their weaknesses in one everything-will-be-okay- happy-go-lucky blessing. The custodians of the future need to know “what” and “why” they did things wrong in the past and then fix it. Yesterday is not something to run away from like a mugger wanting to take everything away from you, it is rather a guru, a teacher, with something great to give you.

So my dear friends, as we accelerate into 2010, don’t forget to take a look into the rear-view mirror once in awhile and to leave your muddied boots on the doormat that read “2009.”

*******************
This blog is dedicated to all my Facebook friends. May God be with you always and Happy New Year!

Sponsored by:
The Wordsmithy the master word smiths for all your editorial needs
Pump Fitness where staying fit keeps you pumped for life.

Tell Me Who Your Friends Are? by Aliza Davidovit

On a daily basis we are bombarded with an enormity of information. Facebook, Twitter, texting, emails, 24-hour-news cycles, etc. What we don’t realize, perhaps, is how this barrage of overfeed continually attempts to define and influence who we are. Each byte is competing to shape our thoughts, instigate our emotions, and capture our attention as did some over-possessive childhood friend who always tried to tell you what to do. He was the friend your parents advised you from hanging out with because in his company you always ended up in trouble.

In today’s information rage, we also obsessively cling to certain media and sites as an entertaining companion who is there for us day or night. Rarely do we stop and ask whether these are “friends” with whom I should be spending time? Do you ever find yourself posting something especially harsh and uncharacteristically “you” because the peer pressure on whatever side of the political blogosphere you’re on is rooting you on? Have you ever found yourself becoming too friendly online, as a married person, with someone of the opposite sex? Have you ever spent too much money shopping online because you’ve been lulled into a mindset of needing?

These unguarded moments can accumulate and soon that statement you posted gets you into trouble, maybe even costing your job. That woman at the end of the send button soon invites you for more than a chat. That online spending soon leads you into unsustainable debt. These are the ways of the Serpent, our evil inclination, who never comes dressed as a snake anymore. Today he comes dressed in a miniskirt, in an irresistible sale, in many subtle forms that tweak us ever imperceptibly out of Eden.

How many of us were deeply bothered by President Obama’s affiliation with Reverend Wright and other individuals. Were we just condemning the reverend’s anti-Americanism, or were we instinctually feeling that if you sit long enough in the pew, you’ll come to share the view.

Thus it is for good reason too that the Talmud cautions us to “keep away from a bad neighbor” even if your morals are antithetical to his and you think that you can withstand the influence of his evil ways. Remember that evil has been around a lot longer than we have and that it is an unabatable fire with the sole mission of scorching your soul. Remember always that when you play with fire you get burned. You cannot spend your days in a fish store and come out smelling like roses.

We learn in the Biblical story of Joseph, that day after day the wife of his Egyptian “boss” would make sexual advances to him. Reared in a pure home, he continually spurned her advances not wanting to sin against God. However, the Zohar teaches that Joseph almost yielded.

Thus it comes as little surprise in this week’s Torah reading that Joseph advises his father and brothers to tell Pharaoh that they were shepherds, a trade which was despicable to the Egyptians. As such, Pharaoh gave them a place to dwell outside of the city’s hubbub, where idol worship was rampant. Joseph wanted to keep his family far away from any possible bad influences.

No person is strong enough to flirt with a situation or environment over and over again and leave unscathed. Thus, it is essential that each person scrutinize his surroundings and friends, as well as the things he reads and the habits he feeds. For every single thing in your life is a like a sculptor’s chisel shaping the person you become. Stand vigilant so that the best of you is not being chipped away.



Sponsored by Wordsmithy Editing Services

The Lights of Faith by Aliza Davidovit

The Sun’s not coming out today.
Would you come out on a day like this?

The temperature has dropped. It’s freezing outside. The leaves have abandoned the trees once again. And the gray chilling skies make the outdoors evermore uninviting. The sun seems to have absconded as well like a fleeing accomplice to all that has brought darkness upon this great land: the flailing economy, the unemployment rate, the federal debt, the housing crisis, a divisive Congress and the unprecedented uncertainty about the future. It appears to be the winter of our greatest discontent. Doom and gloom has replaced the optimistic morning dew and is choking our spirits and setting us into further depression and despair. It becomes easier day by day to become apathetic and adjust our eyes to the darkness instead of searching for the light and creating new light.

Yet, I urge everyone, even if the sun is not coming out on a day like this, YOU MUST. Interestingly, it is at this time of year, in fact this week, that the nights are longest and darkness seems to prevail as the sun goes to bed early. But it is also the most precious time of year as both Jews and Christians celebrate their holidays of lights with brightly lit Christmas trees and the glow of the Chanuka menorah. Each is a symbolic lesson to us that in the blackest of times, we must be the ones responsible for bringing light to our world and our lives. These holidays of lights are a priceless metaphor that light triumphs over darkness (and it always will).

Orphan Annie was right, the sun will come out tomorrow, but today create your own sunlight. It takes just a single flame to dispel much darkness. If you’re feeling miserable, put on some makeup and make yourself look pretty, if you’re a woman. For a man, shave and go to the gym; you will feel better. If you’re feeling antisocial, go give a few dollars or a cup of coffee to a homeless person--your spirits will be lifted. If you’re feeling depressed, start singing the happiest song you know. Undoubtedly you will crack yourself up, and if your voice is as good as mine you make crack a few mirrors too. You cannot get out of a black hole by entertaining the darkness but rather by seeking the light.

In this week’s Bible portion we read about Joseph. One day he was the beloved favorite son of Jacob; the next day his brothers sold him into slavery; the next day he rose to great prominence in Egypt; the next day he was thrown into jail; the next day he was the most powerful man in Egypt under Pharaoh. The rollercoaster of his life had bigger highs and lows than the 456-foot high Kingda Ka joyride at Six Flags Great Adventure. Nonetheless, he rose from the snake-filled pit into which his brothers cast him to great power, prestige and prominence. And the Bible teaches us something very interesting about Joseph’s attitude throughout. The dungeon to which he is condemned is called in Hebrew “Beit Hasohar,” the “house of light.” Even in the depths of a dark dungeon, Joseph maintained his faith in God, he remained optimistic and hopeful and he created his own “light.”

Yet just as abruptly as Joseph’s problems came upon him, they left him with equal speed as he was beckoned to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams.

My friends, the trials and hardships inflicted on man are limited. Just when a person least expects salvation, it is just around the corner. There is a season for everything in our lives, even a winter of discontent. The things we want most usually hit us by surprise as if God is trying to remind us, again, that our blessings come from Him no matter what else we may think.

Indeed the world stage and our personal stages appear pretty bleak these days. Many people even feel it may be the end of time. I prefer to think in terms of a great new beginning. We can learn from Joseph and our beautiful holidays of lights to never yield to the darkness of despair but rather to have faith in almighty God and trust ALWAYS that the darkest hour is just before the dawn.

Sponsored by Wordsmithy Editing Services