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!

The Gift of You!

I couldn’t reach a book this morning so I flipped over a hard plastic trash can nearby to step on which gave me the extra leverage I needed to grab the hardcover volume. Sure enough it also gave me the lead-in to this article which is always the hardest part. What makes the garbage can so poignant this morning is that I was actually reaching for a copy of the Torah and it took something “low” and “base” to allow me to reach up high.

It was upon that realization that this week’s Torah reading began to make ever more sense to me. How many of us are belabored in our lives because of lousy childhoods, or self-perceived flaws, or old-fashioned mindsets that seem to have no home in the "modern" world? For most of us there is always that ONE thing that seems to come between us and the life we’d rather be living. We all know what our one thing is: It’s the thing that has conditioned us to start our sentences/excuses with, “If I only…then I would….” And though that one thing seems to continually do us harm, we can’t let go of it because it’s like a little baby that we’ve nurtured for so long with great stubbornness and have become so attached to that it seems intrinsic to our very being even as it destroys us. But my friends, who says you have to get rid of it? Perhaps God has given it to you as a gift and you are misusing something that is really a blessing in your life.

In this week’s Torah reading, Miketz, we read about the story of Joseph and how his dreams of being honored by his brothers stoked their hatred against him. If only he wasn’t such a dreamer, then he could have had a normal life and avoided a pit, a dungeon, being sold into slavery and being estranged from his family for 22 years. Kenny Rogers was perhaps right to sing: “Don't fall in love with a dreamer/ 'cause he'll break you every time.”

But alas, “There’s the rub.” It was Joseph’s dreams and his ability to interpret them that launched him to great heights and to reign in Egypt side by side with the mighty Pharaoh. It was a pit that was his springboard to those heights. And the dungeon to which he is condemned is actually called a “house of light” in Hebrew.

What I am saying dear friends is that Joseph took the figurative garbage can that was his life, turned it over, and used the very same tool that brought him down to reach up high. God didn’t make us who we are so we can squash ourselves and crush our own spirits. He gave us our gifts and inclinations with the biblical recommendations that we direct them wisely and hone them for good use. When pop culture tries to turn us into clowns or when religion tries to turn us into clones, I say never let either of them destroy the gift that is YOU!

King David was known to have a bad temper, yet it is written about David that he executed justice and righteousness unto all his people,” (II Samuel VIII, 15). David didn't miraculously shed his temper, he redirected it and used it appropriately on the battlefield to kill God’s enemies, unlike Esau who killed for the sake of killing (Rabbah, 63). It was David's "one thing" that killed Goliath; it was Moses one thing--humility--that made him God's greatest prophet; it was Joseph's "one thing" that made a dreamer into one of the most powerful men in the world.

As we light our Chanukah menorahs and Christmas trees this week, perhaps in the romantic glow of their lights we should take another look at the ONE THING in our lives. And instead of letting it burn us out and leave us charred maybe we can all learn to use it as the miraculous drops of oil that will not only sustain us but also set our potential on fire. Hey, who would have ever thought that a garbage can could be a step up in life?

Trees to their Knees

I watched mesmerized for hours through my large windows as the snow descended upon the many and mighty trees that line the back of my building. The snow began ever so lightly and lovely but soon the trees were masked for Halloween and they much resembled a glistening white-powdered paradise. I wished I could have gone outside to catch a snowflake with my tongue as I did as a child. But as the day wore on, the tranquility of the perfect snow globe day was interrupted by snaps, crackles and pops which crescendoed into a frightening semblance of a cannonade as tree trunks snapped in half--after over 60 years of standing proud they were brought to their humble knees by the ever gentle snowflake.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that nature acted out on the very weekend the story of Noah is read in synagogue. Rain drop by rain drop the world was destroyed. The lessons should be clear to us all: little things should never go underestimated or unguarded. They are like little docile pellets that cumulatively act as a war of attrition for that which they seek to bring down.

The Palestinians first fought their war of attrition against the mighty Israeli army with pebbles; men can whisper soft sweet nothings and woo open brassieres fashioned in Fort Knox; little droplets of water over time will eat away at solid stone; it was a tiny gnat that brought down the great Roman Emperor, Titus, by slowly eating away at his brain for seven years.

We learn this week in the story of Noah that God did not destroy the world because of rampant and brazen BIG sins but rather, the world was destroyed because the people were guilty of chamas (not to be mistaken for chummus or Hamas). Chamas means “taking” something of an insignificant amount which cannot really be defined as stealing. For instance, someone goes to a market and tears off a grape and eats it — not much damage done. However, then the next person comes along and does the same thing, and so on. It is not long before that bunch of grapes, or nuts or olives is diminished both in appearance and quantity — and the owner really has no one to blame for the theft. Nonetheless, the damage is done.

In our own lives, we too must remain vigilant to the tiny tests that surround us and not let them trick us into thinking, “Ah it is so small and irrelevant that I have nothing to worry about.” These tiny tests dress for Halloween all year long and cloak themselves as being innocuous. That “harmless” person you shouldn’t be friends with, that small sip of alcohol that can do no harm, that married woman with whom you are “just” emailing — all these benign little things that twirl around you like a soft summer breeze can eventually pick up momentum and ensnare you in a hurricane and whisk you away. And then we awake one morning too late and question: “How in the heck did this happen to me? I didn’t see it coming.”

Yet, all this talk of mighty little things should give us hope, not despair. Using the same argument, we must realize that no challenge is too great for us, whether it be keeping a diet, conquering corporate America, winning the woman of your dreams, or felling large trees — sometimes showing up as consistently as a snowflake instead of a chainsaw will lead to a steady and sure victory. As a society, we are trained to think in Costco sizes, but I say, "Think small friends, and you will soon find that 'little strokes fell great oaks.'"

I Want it and I Want it Now!

We live in a world that demands immediate gratification. In a super-speedy world somehow even our microwave ovens seem to be not fast enough anymore. We are used to giving voice commands and pressing buttons and getting what we want in quick time. People are sleeping together by the third date; Amazon orders are at your front door the next morning; basically the Internet can bring you anything you desire in a moment’s time. We have only to look at the young people occupying Wall Street who have just gotten out of university and are already incensed that they aren’t the CEO of a company. The spoiled brat mantra that seems to echo in all areas of our life is: “I want it, and I want it now.”

So I must admit in times like these where the bridge between a desire and its satisfaction is ever shortening, that it becomes ever harder to have patience with God. How many prayers I have made that remain unanswered. Do we have to invent an iPrayer app to get God to get busy doing His job, namely serving me and my every wish and desire? And that is really the crux of today’s problems both spiritually and in the chaotic self-centered world we live in: We have forgotten who is here to serve whom. And that forgetfulness has been coated with impudence and impatience. We act like we are entitled to everything and tend to be appreciative of so little.

I heard a great line a few months back that questioned: “What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?” Personally, I would have awoken this morning with a great parking space. So often I hear from people that they don’t understand why God is being so hard on them or why they just can’t seem to get what they ordered from that big eBay in the sky. And I answer them the same way I answer myself: We are not here to give orders to God but rather to serve His purpose in all that we do--and that is to better ourselves and the world we live in. The point is not to be nice and content when you get what you want, the point is to elevate each terrain you walk upon until you reach your destination. In a sense I agree with Herman Cain who said that if you are not rich it is your OWN fault. No, sometimes God doesn’t bless our best efforts and not all of us can be financially rich regardless how hard we try, but the person we are inside and the world we engage along our journey can be enriched if we strive with dignity, kindness, mercy, compassion and generosity.

But we are so busy serving and overstuffing ourselves with our immediate wants and desires that we don’t realize that from a spiritual standpoint we look like blubbery busting corpulent Romans suckling on grapes of wrath. But the word of God, our spiritual trainer, is here to refine us and shape us into fit, beautiful appreciative souls. It’s in serving God in all our doings--in how we say “hello” to strangers; in how we talk to people who bug us; in how we treat those who need us, in how we plow through life with our strivings--that we become mensches and really fulfill the reason we were put on this earth.

So, as a journalist, when I attend events with very affluent people who are so used to getting what they want that they tend to be mean, rude and condescending to waiters and hired help, I cannot but think: No sir, you did not make it, you LOST it.

In the Torah there is a strict prohibition against cutting down fruit trees. Doing so can bring terrible luck, perhaps death. Even if a person has a valuable property and wants to erect a house in place of the fruit trees, NO CAN DO. It should make us realize that if we have to go to such lengths to build our lives around the living fruit tree, then how more do we have to guard the dignity of people while we strive forward in life? A take away lesson for me is clear: As we strive to make our way and stake our territory in personal relationships, in work and in our community, we cannot fell life to pave our way. People’s lives, feelings, time, money etc., cannot be collateral damage to fulfill our needs.

So to make full circle here, I’d say the biggest gift a human being can have in life is the ability to appreciate. When you have that gift, even if you have a little in life, it is as if you have a big treasure. On the other hand, though our spoiled generation may have every gimmick and gadget in the world, it is as if they have nothing at all because they don’t appreciate what is in their hands. And though our fast paced world and technology have the ability to take that gift of appreciation away from us, God in His great wisdom does everything in the right time. Yes Domino’s Pizza may get to your house quicker than God at times, but let’s never forget as we grumble and groan that we are here to serve Him and maybe he is waiting for us to deliver.

Something to Remember Me By

I saw a Mel Gibson movie the other day and in it his character said that the bad thing about not having kids is that there is no one to bury you when you die. I found it a painful sentence until I digested it and thought, no, the bad thing about not having kids is that there is no one there to keep you alive in seed and deed and memory. I couldn't help but think back to last week during Yom Kippur when all Jews who have a deceased parent were obligated to say a prayer of homage called Yizkor, which in Hebrew means "remember." Maybe it’s a silly thing to make it obligatory for descendants because who would ever really forget a parent? But there is a substantive difference between not forgetting and remembering. The former is easy and convenient for the lazy and passive, the latter involves actively keeping the person, their teachings, their legacy, their heritage, their sacrifices alive. And just as God breathes life into man in Genesis in this week's Torah reading, we have to continually breathe life into those who have returned to the dust.

But remembering is also a national duty for all peoples. Probably the worst slogan that grates on my sensitive ears is the one in regard to the Holocaust: "We shall never forget." First of all, who is the "we" that will never forget: the generation who lived through it or the one today that is being taught that the Holocaust never happened? Perhaps it’s the ones being told it was a gross exaggeration by Zionists fabricating a casus belli to snatch the Promised Land? Is it Holocaust denier Ahmadinejad who will never let us forget or revisionists like Mahmoud Abbas whose Ph.D. thesis denied the Holocaust as well and who aids those denying the legitimacy of Israel's archeological sites?

What is it exactly that we won't forget? Hitler? Or the number six million? Is that all we have to remember in order to never forget, in order to recognize the warning signs when a new massacre for our people is being fomented on the streets of the world? If we truly haven't forgotten, then please I invite you to ask the average teenager today what were the Nuremberg Laws or ask them if they know what Treblinka is. Just don't be shocked if they think it's an iPhone app. I'm sure few would know it was a concentration camp where 800,000 men, women and children were murdered simply because they were Jews. So please, who are we kidding when we say "we will never forget”? It's meaningless and trite.

This week marks 38 years since the Yom Kippur War when Israel was hit by an Egyptian and Syrian surprise attack and 2,688 Israelis lost their lives. So who cares anymore, who remembers? The history books have recorded it; it’s time to move on. Right? Wrong! Those who do not remember the past will be condemned to repeat it.

Yes, it is a tragedy when you don't have kids to keep memories alive, but the bigger tragedy today is that parents are not giving their kids WHAT to remember. They don't even know for what Israel is fighting and if they do they are ashamed of it. Two weeks ago I went to listen to Alan Dershowitz speak about the rampant anti-Semitism on campus and he said one of his students was afraid to let people know he was a Zionist because then he wouldn't be able to get a date. So, silently, he walks through his campus as Israel's enemies attempt to delegitimize the state and call for divestments and boycotts. I can't help but think of Menachem Begin and his contemporaries who as teenagers risked their lives over and over again to boast about their Zionism and who fought for a homeland’s existence until they held its soil in their hands and turned sand and swamps into the beautiful verdant Eretz Yisrael.

How come we are not firing up the souls of our Jewish youth anymore to make them realize that Israel is our proud birthright and fundamental to our survival? Christians are fired up and standing tall for Israel with pride, why aren’t we? As Netanyahu said, Israel is not what is wrong with the Middle East, it is what is right about it. Today's Jews, however, seem to have bequeathed to their children the materialism of the American Dream without also nurturing their Jewish pride, their sense of Jewish history, their Jewish place in this world and without honing their Jewish survival instincts. How dangerous it is in a time when Israel's enemies are indoctrinating their kids with a strong sense of purpose and history, albeit an invented one and we leave our kids with a vacuum of knowledge that Israel's haters fill with their poison. And I'm scared. I truly thank God for Israel's Christian friends who stand up for Israel when so many Jews are sitting down on the job.

The Jewish people are so quick to forget over and over again who they are and from whence they came when their very survival is in the remembering, in keeping the history alive just as Scheherazade kept herself alive by never stopping to tell her narrative. You see, I'm not worried that Jews will have no one to bury them, for that they will find many volunteers. I'm worried that Jews have squandered their best asset, their sole means of survival and justification for the Holy Land: Jewish memory. I'm not worried who will say Yizkor, I'm worried that soon will arise a generation that asks, "What is Yizkor?"
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