The Source Weekly

The Gift of You!

2011-12-18T12:35:00.000-08:00

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

2011-10-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-10-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

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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How the Heck Do You Do This?

2011-10-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

I spent the Jewish holidays with friends who are big into brain teasing gadgets of the Rubik's Cube kind. There is always a trick to these toys which is counter intuitive to logic, such as getting a ball out of a hole which is smaller than its circumference or a getting loop over a bar that is double its size. And though I was dead set on entering the New Year by leaving old problems behind, the masochist in me picked up these puzzling and mind boggling new ones that kept me enraptured for hours. What made matters even more frustrating was that others in the household were able to catch onto the trick and unlock these craftily engineered mysteries with ease and facility while I was nearing hysteria saying, “How the heck do you do this?; it’s impossible.” I think I even saw the family dog put his paws over his eyes because she couldn’t take watching me do the same motions over and over again and meet the same unsuccessful end. Finally, I did something I have never really done my whole life. No, I didn’t cheat and bust the games open with a hammer (though it did cross my mind). I just stopped trying to do it on my own and asked my gracious hostess, “How do you do it? What’s the trick?”

I believe that there are no coincidences in life. This episode was a symbolic lesson to me that perhaps what I needed to learn this New Year more than anything else was that the solution to untangling old problems once and for all may be to ASK! It happens so often in life that we have an issue we can’t resolve on our own but we keep pulling at it with both hands and instead of unraveling it, we keep tightening the knot. The sweat gathers on our brow but we won’t let it show. After all, we know it all, right? We are smarter than everyone we know, right? No one would understand my problem, right? It has to be my way, right? WRONG! Sometimes we just have to ask and we also have to listen. What point is there to reinvent the wheel when we can benefit from someone else’s wisdom and roll with it?

There was no greater imparter of wisdom to the world than Moses. He was privy to the mysteries of the universe, saw God face to face, and was shown the entire panorama of history from the beginning to the coming of the Messiah. And Moses bequeathed to mankind the key to this “gadget” we call life, and that key is the Torah. The question is: Do we want to listen once and for all or keep doing it our way?

Our world is growing ever darker and complex. We seem to be caught in an intractable mystery, a haunting labyrinth in which any hopeful pathway is blocked by a dooming encroaching wall upon which we knock our stubborn heads. How we are going to get out of the mess we're in is a brainteaser of the highest order. Did logic get us into it? Will logic get us out?

Perhaps the “key” to today’s mysteries is “to listen.” Our blessings and curses are just a breath apart when Moses speaks: “If you do not hearken to the voice of God…all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.” But if we do listen, “God will open for you His storehouse of goodness.” Just as those brain teasing toys come with instructions that facilely extricate an otherwise Gordian knot, so too our lives come with instructions and directions: the Bible.

Perhaps it’s time for all of us to start “listening” while God is still whispering--albeit pretty loudly. How many more frequencies will we tune out before we are awakened by a thunderous clang and God asks, “Can you hear me now?”

Just Five More Minutes (and then Life Passed Me By!)

2011-09-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

It was impossible to make it to the gym at 6 a.m. this morning because I only woke up at 7. And I asked myself, "Is this going to be another year like that? You know the kind! The one where a better version of you is thriving in your heart and mind, but in real-time the snooze button is getting more traction than the treadmill.

In a few days we will all hear another kind of wake-up call, and it will emanate from the shofar, the ram’s horn meant to serve our soul like a well-intentioned alarm clock, and shake it from its slumber. So many times I've heard the sounds from that instrument, sometimes in mighty blasts and sometimes petering out because the blower ran out of steam. In either case its holy sounds invigorate my best intentions and make me want to run a spiritual marathon and do everything "right" in the year ahead. I doubt there is a single person who exits the synagogue at the end of the holidays that doesn't strive to be better and want more for himself in the year set to unfold.

But we are doomed to conk out in the first mile for one simple reason: we are still dragging along all our old habits, insecurities and excuses of years gone by which surely muffle the beckoning call of the finish line. So perhaps the better question is not, "Is this going to be another year like THAT?" but rather are YOU going to be like THAT again this year? (Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result.)

It's funny how we all get so incensed when politicians tell us what we want to hear, but the truth is we lie to ourselves and pander to ourselves more than anyone else. We manufacture excuses for ourselves with great agility as to why we didn't, why we shouldn't, why we can't. So I'm here to tell you something you have never heard before: Yes we can! God has put into us everything we need to succeed. All we have to do is stop hitting the snooze button and coddling ourselves in fake comfort zones while bemoaning how bad our lot is.

Before turning to heaven in the coming year and asking "God where are You?" Ask yourself "Where are YOU? Is your head in the refrigerator while you're praying to be skinny? Are you sleeping at noon while you're praying to be successful? Are you hiding in your house while praying to meet the man of your dreams? Are you screaming at your spouse while praying for a better marriage? Are you gossiping about people while praying to be a better person?

I like to imagine that the New Year is a vicious and scrupulous customs officer, so before I get "on board" it's best to clean out my baggage and leave the garbage behind.

Friends, here's your declaration card-- what are you bringing into the New Year?

And here I conclude with a prayer that we will all be inscribed in the Book of Life and that the echoes of the shofar will resonate all year long in our hearts and minds so that our feet will stay in lockstep with our best intentions and deliver them to the finish line. Shana Tova!

Say it, Pray it, Do it!

2011-09-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

It really amazed me when I first learned that God doesn't recognize the Jewish people from one Yom Kippur to the next. No, it's not because Mr. Schwartz lost ten pounds or Mrs. Cohen got a shot of Botox, but rather because the pure soul that left the synagogue after fasting and praying for its life a year earlier has returned in a blemished state one year later. And I can't help but question, "At what point did good intentions go wrong?" It's like looking at my white carpeting and wondering when did it become so spotted, and after which spill did I stop caring?

I'm not sure why God believes us anymore. We pray, we promise, we vow, we repent and sure enough we mess up all over again. Whereas God and His word are ONE, human beings' actions and their words are so often antithetical to each other, disconnected and so double-faced it is no wonder that God doesn't recognize us.

Maybe I'm dreaming of a time that never was. But I do believe that in the past when people said something, whether to God or to each other, it meant a lot more than it does today. One would think that today our words are made in China because we use them in crass abundance and they seem to come very cheap. With texting, emailing, IMing, Facebooking and Tweeting, we've all become schmoozers, wordsmiths, commentators, seducers and revolutionaries who entertain ourselves and our audiences with grand pronouncements (but little service to God or mankind). We live in a time where the "word" seeks to replace the deed. Wouldn't it be great if we could just work our way into heaven by texting God that cute haloed angel emoticon?

And though man has sinned from the beginning, I think in unprecedented fashion we have lost respect for words because the more we say things we don't mean, the easier it is to continue saying them. We have also found the lazy way out by empowering words so much that we think our mere saying them is good enough and action need not follow. And that is why the Torah warns, "Accursed is the one who will not uphold the WORDS of this Torah to PERFORM them."

As we enter the Jewish New Year I just pray that we will each have respect for the things we say to each other, to ourselves and to God—and mean them. My parents used to always say, "To talk and to promise costs no money." In the end, however, I do believe there is a price and that price is the crumbling of our societal, spiritual and moral foundation. Perhaps after Yom Kippur it's easiest not to follow through on everything we promise God because we think He’ll let us get away with it like a forgiving parent. But we should not be so presumptuous. And so, this year, I wish that our words and vows will bug us, not like parents, but like nagging kids on a road trip who want exactly what we promised them at the outset and won't stop grating on us until we reach our destination so that when God greets us in the coming year He'll say, "Yiddelach, you've never looked so good!"

Hug a Jew Day

2011-02-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

It's so hard to feel love for another when their opinions and views of the world are antithetical to everything we believe in. So what is the alternative? To hate? What has that done for us lately?

I can't help but think of my very close friendship with my editor, my best friend. There is probably nothing we wouldn't do for each other. But when we talk about politics, I swear I want to hit him on the head with my T-Fal frying pan. Suddenly, a wall exists between us and it's fascinating to observe how our loving feelings take a dive as he slams my views and I slam his. It made realize, in a sense, how during WWII neighbor turned on neighbor and families turned on each other because of ideology.

I can’t help but think back to the destruction of the temple and the reason cited for its fall: The hatred Jews showed toward each other. Can any rational mind believe that hate can bring about a positive result? Please cite me an example where calling an opponent a shmuck has won any argument.

In this week's Bible portion we read about the breastplate worn by the kohanim, the priests, of the Temple. On its façade were twelve precious stones, each representing a tribe of Israel. The high priest wore that breastplate over his heart and it symbolized the duty of Jews to love one another regardless of how different, diverse or disenfranchised they might be.

Jewish teachings tell us that when the "Patriarch Jacob left his parents’ house to start his own family, he rested on Mount Moriah, the future site of the Temple, for one night, and placed 12 stones under his head, a symbol of the twelve tribes that he would found. Those twelve stones then merged into one single entity."* Today, we are so fractured. The Kabbalah too, teaches, that there is no blessing on things that are broken, whether it be a cup or a people. In fact, it is in the crack where spiritual impurity enters, just as in the physical world bacteria can fester in a crevice.

Jewish unity is probably more necessary now than ever before. I'm not the one to invent the slogan "United we stand, divided fall." Do we need another Hitler, G-d forbid, to remind us that we are all Jews? With events unfolding in Egypt as they are, the Jewish State is in serious jeopardy. "A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph." (Exodus 1:8) History repeats itself. Will a new leadership in Egypt throw three decades of peace by the wayside?

My dear Jews, how can we be a light unto the nations when we can’t even be a spark of inspiration to each other? If, symbolically, we are each a stone that sustains the "temple," tell me which structure can stand when the stones fight among themselves, and won’t unite in common purpose?

I will make this short so as not to compete with a buffalo wing and the Super Bowl. But my suggestion is to start engaging our fellow Jews as if they were a lover that you want to get into bed. Talk sweetly, talk nicely, make your points wisely with facts and love. You can try and get lucky by screaming them into submission--good luck! Just a reminder--tomorrow is “Hug a Jew Day” (not to be confused with Madoff's “Mug a Jew Day”) My advice to all is "speak softly and don’t carry a big shtick."
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Check out my new book: "The Words That Shaped Me"

Footnote
* Rabbi Elie Munk, The Call of the Torah, 1994, p.402

Journalist and Former Rabbi’s Wife Takes on 400 Rabbis and Glenn Beck Detractors

2011-01-27T14:42:00.000-08:00

I’m very impressed that in such difficult economic times 400 rabbis were able to come together to raise $100K for a newspaper ad in the Wall Street Journal condemning Glenn Beck and what they deem as his improper “references” to the Holocaust.

What a shame that these same rabbis and their confreres who are so worried about the preservation of Jews didn’t read the January 19th article in Haaretz: “Israel’s greatest threat is not security, it's poverty” with 1,774,800 citizens living in destitution. They sure could have bought a lot of sandwiches for $100,000. And how many of them actually work on behalf of the impoverished Holocaust survivors still extant who barely make ends meet and have to beg at the doorstep of Federations, Jewish Family Services, and the Claims Conference?

I’d also like to know where Glenn Beck’s “thank you” note is from these same rabbis for being among the very few journalists/commentators who stood up for Israel during the Gaza Flotilla crisis when the whole world was against it. Couldn’t George Soros lend them 44 cents for a stamp? They may want to watch Beck’s show of 06/02/10 wherein he expounds upon Israel’s history and points to the facts legitimizing the Jewish Homeland when its very right of existence is being questioned and threatened at every bend. With sanctions, boycotts and divestments being the latest vitriolic war against the Jewish State, odd how Glenn Beck’s use of the word Holocaust is what’s ratcheting up their ire?

I’m sick and tired of Jews who keep sticking up for our enemies. And George Soros, at the center of this issue, is no friend to Jews or Israel. As one of the world's richest men, let his relatively sparse philanthropy toward Jewish causes speak for itself. Let his support for J Street with its alleged agenda to delegitimize Israel speak for itself. In 2003 the Jewish Telegraphic Agency ran a story saying, “George Soros says Jews and Israel cause anti-Semitism.” Wow, is there anything lower than blaming the rape victim for the rape.

Perhaps these same rabbis love watching CNN and the BBC where Israel seems to be blamed for all the world’s ills. Is it so hard for them to digest that Fox has been unbiased toward Israel from Operation Cast Lead to the flotilla fiasco?

Why don’t these rabbis take out ads against the United Nations whose Human Rights Council has adopted more resolutions against Israel —than any other country in the world, while terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, who are fighting a proxy war for Iran, are given immunity by that scam of an international body.

Did these same rabbis write angry letters to Columbia University when it invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust ever happened, to speak to impressionable young students?

Did the same rabbis write letters to President Obama saying they were offended that he is forcing Israel to make peace with a Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Ph.D thesis was a blatant denial of the Holocaust? Or do they only know how to love those who hates us and hate those who love us?

Maybe these same rabbis are also part of the Goldstone fan club and prefer to gaze east from the gas chambers than from Mt. Scopus.

In addition, since when is there a copyright over the word Holocaust and how it can be used? All Jews are equal shareholders. I own the history too! But, moreover, since when has the word Holocaust become solely a Jewish fiefdom? Can only a Jew make such references with impunity? Or is this group no better that the Muslim fundamentalists who decry the use of the name of Mohammed by infidels—surely cause to exterminate the offender…not! Whether you like it or not, the Holocaust is just a word, just as is Nazi. What counts are the millions of people who were murdered--if these same rabbis want to honor the memory of the dead, let them behave like menschen and say thank you to today’s friends.

And so, I thank Glenn Beck for keeping not only the memory of the Holocaust alive but the evermore important lesson, how the Holocaust came to be to begin with. By teaching how history unfolded he is doing much more than simply reiterating the slogan “never again,” he is pointing to the incremental steps that eventually led to the Holocaust and alerting us to the signposts.

As an aside, I’d like to remind these rabbis about the Talmudic decree that it is a sin to embarrass a person in public which is regarded as tantamount to murder. If they have a problem with Glenn Beck or Fox, why not raise their complaints behind the scenes? Their act makes it obvious that there is a much bigger agenda at play here.

The Jewish state is in greater peril now than perhaps it has ever been since its coming into existence. Antisemitism, as well, is also on the rise. It would serve our people much better to galvanize around the common purpose of survival rather than posing centerfold in the Wall Street Journal. If they are looking for a word war let them play a crossword puzzle in the New York Times. They will find themselves at home there.

Let My People Know

2011-01-23T14:28:00.000-08:00

The biggest challenge for today’s Jews is “to let our people KNOW.” A new generation of Jews needs a good history lesson. They know not what Israel is fighting for, nor how important Israel is to the survival of Jews across the world. Thus this week, in place of my blog, I’ve interviewed a young man, Josh Friedman, 24, who has just returned from his first trip to Israel through the Birthright program which offers free educational trips to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18-26.

Josh’s answers were so good and touching that I decided not to turn this into a story but just to serve up the Q’s & A’s as they are. Please pass this interview around to inspire other young adults to partake of this incredible program.

Q: What did you know about Israel really before you left?

A: I really didn’t know all that much. I knew it was the Jewish “homeland” and there was a ton of blood spilled to make it happen, and I knew it was a holy land with many landmarks, but other than that I didn’t know much besides what I saw in the media and heard through word-of-mouth.

Q: When you got there was it what you imagined it to be?

A: Not at all. I thought it would be a giant desert with missiles flying overhead and threats of suicide bombers everywhere. What I found was a modern city (Tel-Aviv) and a holy place (Jerusalem) with a lot of open, beautiful land in between. The people, at least the ones I met, were similar to New Yorkers – a bit rough around the edges, but once you crack the surface warm.

Q: Were there any parts that made you cry or touched your heart more than others? Where? When? why?

A: There were many moving moments, but the most intense had to be at Har Herzl. This was towards the end of the trip when we had all bonded with the soldiers. To see the empty space where future soldiers would be buried, with them, was an experience I’ll never forget. I consider them all my brothers and sisters and to see a plot of land where they could potentially end up moved me to tears.

Q: What surprised you most about Israel?

A: The bond with the soldiers surprised me most. I expected to meet them, get along, then say our goodbyes. What I got was (hopefully) life-long friends. I am in touch with all of them already on Facebook and we all can’t wait for them to come to the United States or for me to go back. They were just like American kids I grew up with except for an added toughness and maturity from their time in the army. They showed me what it meant to be an Israeli and a good person.

Q: What inspired you to go?

A: The fact that the trip was free and I was getting closer to being 27, which was the cut-off, and my desire to re-connect with my Jewish faith and roots.

Q: How do you feel about being Jewish now as opposed to before?

A: Religious-wise the same--unsure about what’s out there--but I’m much more proud to be Jewish and have Israel as my home.

Q: What do you want the world to know about Israel?
A: That it’s not what the media says. There aren’t rockets flying overhead, and Israel’s soldiers are DEFENDING Israel, NOT attacking enemies. There’s always a story behind headlines like “Israeli soldier kills Palestinian boy.” Soldiers there act to defend Israel. That’s why it’s called the IDF, Israel Defense Force, not army. Also, Israel itself is much more modern than you might think. Tel Aviv could pass for any American city.

Q: Why is it important for young Jews to go on this trip?

A: Number one, it’s a free trip, that should be enough. But more importantly, it’s a chance to travel to your homeland and truly discover your Jewish roots and to see what your faith really is. It’s a chance to travel to a place that many would kill to get to even once. And it’s a chance to see what Israel is really like, not what people tell you or what you hear. To get to travel to the places you’ve only heard and read about is a priceless gift that every Jew should take advantage of.

Q: What was the most fun you had on the trip?

A: Any activities with the soldiers. They gave us glimpses into their personalities and lifestyles while making us all grow closer as a family. Either those activities or when we spent time at bars in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Not just the alcohol, but it also allowed us to spend time--free of worries--with our new Israeli family.

Q: What food did you like the most?

A: Schwarma!

Q: What did you feel when you saw young men and women, younger than you, in the army?
Would you have joined the army?

A: It really put things in perspective – these kids are defending Israel at an age where I was playing video games and worrying about what college I was going to. They’re mature beyond their years, by far. And they’ve been through more than I could have imagined. Nine/Eleven is definitely the most traumatic event I’ve been through, but all these kids have known at least more than one person killed in the Israeli army and have been in war first-hand.
I am thinking about joining the army, the only thing stopping me is my fear that I’m not tough enough for it.

Q: Please share the range of emotions you felt on this trip.

A: Everything from laughter to the point of stomach pain to tears and everything in between.

Q: How has this trip changed your life?

A: I am more proud to be Jewish and am very much pro-Israel. I was neutral before the trip. After being to Israel and seeing first-hand what its citizens do to defend the land, I have a greater respect for the place itself and its residents. I also am more motivated to set goals in my own life and achieve them, because wasted time is not an option for Israelis, nor should it be one for me.

Q: What is the most meaningful memento you brought back?

A: An Israeli flag. Although I could have gotten that anywhere, the fact that I bought it in Jerusalem and it now hangs in my room will remind me of the trip everyday.

Q: What part of Josh do you feel you left behind?

A: Hopefully the angry, bitter, cynical part, or at least some of it.

Q: Did you have any interactions or episodes with Arabs?

A: No.

Q: Who is your favorite music group?

A: Metallica.

Q: What kinds of fun things do you do in NY?

A: Go to bars, explore Manhattan and sight-see, attend games and concerts, spend time in Times Square.

Q: Did my Gaga for Israel T-shirt campaign, which you helped me work on, influence you in anyway?

A: Yes, because I had not heard of many of the figures before the campaign. The campaign inspired me to find out more, which I did on my own somewhat, but my knowledge expanded infinitely after my trip.
**********************************************

Josh asks for all inquiries to be directed directly to him: Friedman.josh.d@gmail.com. If he can recruit ten more people to join the next trip he can return again as a counselor.

How Quickly We Forget

2011-01-09T14:47:00.000-08:00

How many of us have seen the movie Gone with the Wind and wished that Rhett Butler would make an about face and actually “give a damn?”

It is with that same remorse that I read about the Biblical Joseph’s death and how a new “Pharaoh arose over Egypt who knew not Joseph”--the very Joseph who made the country rich and saved it from ruin. And so the new Pharaoh showed his gratitude by enslaving Israel and murdering their firstborn. Talk about appreciation. A “Thank You” card would have sufficed for me.

But Bible experts say that the new Pharaoh was not a different person at all, but rather the very same Pharaoh arose with a NEW attitude. Once the bad times were over, he figured the Jews were expendable; he didn’t need them anymore and he didn’t want to owe them anything. After all, a lifetime of gratitude is a heavy debt to pay, no?

Boy oh boy, doesn’t this Biblical tale sound all too familiar? How many of us can think of all those times when we were there for people when they were down and out? But then one day, when they "made it," they forgot our name, forgot all we did for them, and offered begrudging hellos when they saw us? Once they walked through those doors of opportunity, they never turned back; they no longer seemed to “give a damn.” And poor us. We gave our hearts, our time, our money with the best of intentions and we are left standing there like epic idiots, depleted, hurt and bitter. And so the fundamental question is: Does gratitude have an expiration date?

And are we any different? It seems we often remember what we do for others, even the $5 we lent someone 20 years ago and insist we are only upset "on principle" that they didn’t pay us back. But when we owe others, we can manufacture excuses a mile a minute as to why the account has been settled.

It took the Jews less than five minutes to forget the Ten Plagues and the splitting of the sea and everything God did for them. Thus, it is no wonder that He had to command the Jews to remember that He took them out of bondage. Nonetheless, He still gave them the choice to remember, as it is our choice to fulfill the commandments or not. For the burden of feeling that we owe anybody anything may seem tantamount to slavery; we may feel that it shackles our pride and stride to drag along that weighty ball-and-chain of knowing that if it wasn’t for so-and-so, I’d still be a nothing and a nobody. Mankind does not want to be a slave, either to taskmasters, to favors, or to the past.

And so God freed the Jews from slavery and with their new freedom, He gave them a gift of sorts — the ability to forget. But along with that gift (batteries not included), came very important instructions: REMEMBER!!!

At the end of day, it all comes down to one thing. Are you a mensch? Are you a grateful person? Do you live your life in gratitude and appreciation? Do you think people are just rungs on a ladder that you can step on as you rise? I advise you to remember and to “be grateful to people on your way up because you will meet them on your way down.”

And for those of us who feel like the steps on the ladder, know that the Hebrew word for ladder (sulam)and Sinai (the host mountain where God gave His commandments) both have the same numerical value of 130. So, know you’ve done the right thing and you add up to decency. Be grateful that the Almighty endowed you with something to give. And know also that God has a long term memory, despite all those who quickly forget!

Your Money or Your Life?

2010-12-12T16:16:00.000-08:00

I’m stuck between two generations, my parents’ who emigrated from Europe and had $98 between them on their honeymoon and now their grandchildren’s who have every iPhone app and life enhancing accessory that the merchandising world has to offer. My family is just a microcosm of how so many Jewish families have evolved. Parents have become so obsessed with giving their children what they didn’t have growing up that they forgot to give them what they did have: appreciation for things, a work ethic, respect and sense of responsibility toward the greater Jewish community and mankind.

I cannot help but cry over the suicide of 46-year-old Mark Madoff who was found hanged yesterday by a dog’s leash attached to a ceiling pipe. The American dream has turned into a nightmare for many because of greed and a disconnect between what Judaism really has to say about money and how a new generation never inherited the right lessons along with their trust funds.

To start, there is nothing wrong with making money. In fact, the Jewish view of wealth is set forth in the first chapter of the Bible in a description of the Garden of Eden wherein it is said that the “gold of this land is good.” Materialism and wealth is validated from the onset. Even God promises Abraham great riches and many of the patriarchs and prophets were wealthy. But, money was always supposed to be a means to an end, not the end. It was never meant to be worshiped by Jews, but used to make this world a better place. The giving of charity is fundamental to the entire structure of Judaism: “You shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand to your needy brother.” It is also taught that he who turns his eyes from alms-giving is as if he worshiped idols...for if one values his money more than human lives, then he has undoubtedly turned his money into a god.

Still, it’s so hard not to get caught up in this world of plenty. This time of year is a perfect example. As we walk through the malls during the holiday season massive amount of “stuff” cries out to us “buy me, buy me.” We feel as if our own self-worth and happiness are measured by what we have instead of who we are. Our lives have become more ornamented than over-decorated Christmas trees as we smother our organic true selves with superficiality. It is thus no surprise that the moral spine of a nation would snap just as an overburdened branch.

In this week’s Bible portion we read how Joseph brings his brothers to Egypt where they could enjoy all its riches and survive the famine. But he does not let them live in its capital fearing they’d become tainted by the rampant idol worship there. He didn’t want them, especially their children, giving up God for gold. For life is not about living off the fat of the land, it’s about nurturing and cultivating the ground we walk on. Will your children reap in joy what you have planted?

There is a Talmudic story of a man who was passing along a road when he saw an old man planting a carob tree. “How long before that tree bears fruit?” asked the passerby.
“Seventy years,” replied the old man.
“Will you be alive in seventy years to enjoy the fruit?” the traveler asked.
To that the old man answered, “When I was born, this world was filled with carob trees planted by my ancestors. And likewise will I plant trees for my children.”

My dear friends, what proverbial fruit are you planting for your children's future? Will those fruit hang from the Tree of Life?

Madoff was the quintessential idol worshiper. Money and assets, boats and houses, fine dining and status, were more important to him than people and human lives. These status symbols meant to raise him above everyone helped dig his own son’s grave. The desolate and fatal field that he tilled should prove to us all how poor a fertilizer gold truly is.

I Don't Want To Look Like Them!

2010-12-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

Several years ago, a book came out entitled, When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It’s Time To Go Home. Although the book was primarily about travel, the title struck me as a metaphor for life’s journey. The question is: What and who do we want to look like at our journey’s end?

When I first moved to New York, I often wondered why people were so mean and why it seemed impossible to ask anyone for a favor. Eventually, I began to deduce that maybe these people used to be nice, but after meeting so many obstacles, mean-spirited characters and "no's,” they learned to become as hard and heartless as the people they once despised.

It's hard to know what to do when people don't behave kindly towards you. Do you forgive them and move on? Do you hold a grudge? Do you seek revenge? Do you rub it in their face when you succeed, to spite their condescension and efforts to squelch your rise? Do you become like all those faces I've seen where the spirit of kindness has been replaced by godless Grinch-like frowns?

I have come to realize that the big city, too, is a metaphor for our life’s journey. God sends us to this earth with our talents, our desires and our ambitions. He also sends us tests along the way which we can use to refine us or to redefine us. And as we abandon ourselves and succumb to those who try and change us, the miles between us and where we came from become ever wider

And then there are those people who drove us away from home, the ones who saw us as small and insignificant (most likely because they were) and so we strove to prove them wrong and make it big. By hook or by crook, we made it our goal not to return home without a hero’s welcome.

But will you look like your passport photo when it’s time to go home?

I remember as a little girl my mother used to send me to school spotlessly clean with two ponytails which were so precisely divided as if measured by an engineer. I always returned looking as if I had ridden a roller coaster during a tsunami. “Can’t you ever come home the way I sent you?” she often asked me. Perhaps only now I’m really qualified to answer that philosophical question. Yes!

After so many years in NYC, I acknowledge that being nice is a wimpy survival tool. But on the other hand, if we start to become like all those people who wouldn’t give us the time of day or conspired so that we would fail then they won just the same. Either way they have controlled who we become. So should we be mean to people who were mean to us and become “bitches” in the making? I think, no. As tempting as it may be, I just won’t do it for the very simple reason that I just don’t want to look like them.

In this week’s Bible reading we read about Joseph’s reuniting with his brothers. Now as second-in-command to Pharaoh he could have easily gotten even with his brothers for selling him into slavery and nearly killing him. Instead of doing so, he cries before them and tells them not to feel bad about what they did to him as it was all part of God’s plan.

Interestingly, the Bible tells us that Joseph was very handsome and scholars teach that he looked very much like his father Jacob. Yet the Bible never speaks about Jacob’s looks. The answer is that Joseph’s beauty was a reflection of his pure soul and it was in that manner that he resembled his father. He never let anyone or anything diminish his light. He chose to forgive instead of hate; he chose to help instead of hurt; he chose to return “home” even better than God sent him out on his journey to the big city. How about you?

I Can See The Light

2010-11-28T14:37:00.000-08:00

I was on a ferry in Connecticut 15 years ago when a man jumped overboard and committed suicide. My heart ached for that stranger whose name I did not know. The tragic episode made me deeply question how cruel and sad a world we must live in that some people feel life is not worth living. It made me question my own life and wonder if anything could drive me to such despair if the blessings were plucked out of my existence one by one. How does life become so black that one can no longer see the light at all? At which point does death start looking prettier than life?

I’m by no means a psychologist, but I think part of the problem is that we were suckled on fraudulent notions of what life is all about and grew up on fairytales that promised “happily ever after” endings. We are taught that if we behave we will be rewarded and if we do wrong we will be struck by the plague. But then life happens and we are ill equipped to discover that it isn’t always fair, that good guys don’t get the breaks, and that the pie in sky can leave you with a serious case of indigestion.

From disappointment to disappointment we hop along as the sun begins to set and retract its warmth only to be replaced by chilly intimidating shadows. The last place we can find to warm our hearts and hands is over the roaring fire called hope, without which the darkness becomes a gravitational abyss from which we cannot extricate ourselves.

Interestingly, it is at this time of year when the nights are longest and darkness seems to prevail that we read about the story of Joseph, who found himself in the darkness of the pit into which his brother’s cast him and then later in the darkness of Pharaoh’s dungeon. What truly did he have to live for? One day he was the beloved favorite son of Jacob; the next day his brothers sold him into slavery.

Joseph had grown up on the fairytales of his own dreams, which saw him ruling over his brothers. But from the purview of the pit he saw no “happily ever after” ending for himself. They had stripped him of his coat of many colors, also taking from him his pride, his innocence, and the years he could have been by his father’s side. In some measure they killed everything about him, except hope. Luckily, hope knows not shackles or taskmasters or pits or self pity—it sees only the light. The Bible teaches us something very interesting about Joseph’s attitude throughout his great suffering. The dungeon to which he is condemned is called “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.”

We must learn to do the same as we go through our own trials and tribulations. Instead of waiting in despair to find the light, BE the light! With laser-like intensity keep hope shining until it cuts right through the “dungeon” wall. It is a sin to succumb to despair and it is idol worship to believe that life is only worth living when we are riding high.

No, life is not about having fairytale endings. It’s about facing the hardships with grace, elevating the lowest moments instead of letting them bring you down; it’s about realizing that no matter what is taken from you, they can never take YOU. It’s about believing relentlessly that the sun never sets if it lives inside of you.

Sue Yourself for Theft

2010-11-14T09:07:00.000-08:00

I saw a silly teen-oriented movie a few weeks back; but wisdom can be found, I believe, in all places. One great line from the film hit me on the head like an old lady pummeling a mugger with a handbag. The main character in the movie, who was a vivacious, young, American girl, tried to subdue her free-spirit to fit into a starchy, upper-crust conservative milieu to please others. All the things that made her special soon became unrecognizable. It's at that point her boyfriend wisely said to her, "I don't know why you are trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out."

The thing is, we were ALL born to stand out. But, we become afraid. We kowtow to peer pressure and conventional ways of thinking and living because we don't want to look like an idiot and want to be liked and accepted. It takes a lot of guts to be different and sometimes it's a lonely road.

But, you can be sure that if you are not being yourself then you are living a lie. That is not the reason you were born. You were born to shine and to share with the world all that is uniquely you. It is ironic how we boldly fight for liberty while at the same time forsake so easily the "freedom to be ourselves." Does it really matter at the end of the day what is oppressing you?

I even feel that while we all need advice, there is a point of excessive dependence. If you ask for others' opinions too often, you will find yourself living someone else's dreams and fears — and someone else’s mistakes. In that case, they may as well put someone else's name on your cemetery headstone. After all, whose life did you live?

The Biblical commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Steal," does not only pertain to physical items, like money and gold watches. It also has its philosophical, intangible and spiritual correlatives, i.e, you are not permitted to manipulate others, to steal someone's time or rob them of their good name. AND you are not allowed to steal away your own destiny/potential from yourself by giving in to fear-- through which you'd also be guilty of robbing yourself of your own time and talents.

Last week in the Biblical portion we read about the birth of Jacob's twelve sons, the fathers of the twelve tribes. What really was the need for twelve tribes? Wouldn't the Jewish nation be better served if they pitched themselves under one figurative tent? The answer is, no. Each tribe had their talents and strong points and destiny which were vital to the greater survival of the whole. This point is further driven home by the blessings Jacob gave his sons before he died. He does not give one blanket blessing to them all, but rather hones in on their individuality.

My dear friends, do not be afraid to be YOU. Stop empowering others by being oversensitive to their opinions and judgments. Take yourself off of auto-pilot and stop auto-silencing the voice that is uniquely yours. Dare to think and live out of the box for soon enough we will all be in a box permanently. Cookie cutters were made for cookies so don't let anyone shape you; and stop trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out!

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That Sounds Sexy

2010-11-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

Are you misogallic, i.e., a hater of all things French? Well even if you are, you have to admit whatever you say in French sounds really sexy. In that language someone can tell you to drop dead and you’ll just want to take your clothes off.

My favorite words of French origin all end with the suffix -oir, such as peignoir, a sexy see-through dressing gown; boudoir, a woman’s private chamber; and trottoir, a sidewalk. When those words rolled off my Parisian mother’s tongue, I thought they were the sexiest words I had ever heard.
Thus, when I first came across the phonetically delightful word abattoir, I believed it to be the most beautiful word I had ever heard--until I looked up its meaning: a slaughterhouse, a place where poor, unsuspecting animals go to die. I was distraught and so surprised. Leave it to the French to engage in such bait-and-switch trickery as they did in WWII, leaving many wondering whose side they were really on.

The moral is clear: Do not shirk good sense for good sound. Too often in life we are taken in by words that sound good because we want them to be true. We hear only what we want to hear and wake up with buyer’s or voter’s remorse. How many times have men offered women the moon and the stars but took off at the crack of dawn? How many times have you been whispered sweet nothings which amounted to just that, nothing, and left you not sweet but bitter? How many times has a diet product promised a whole new you and you woke up with ten pounds more of the old you?

There are basic principles which survivors adhere to and one of them is avoiding traps. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

I cannot help but think of President Obama’s comment after the crushing defeat his party faced on November 2nd. He said, “…that leadership isn’t just legislation. That it's a matter of persuading people.” In other words, he realizes it’s time to reemploy the seductive rhetoric he used to get Lady Liberty into bed during his successful presidential run. It’s time to deliver a new load of sweet-sounding bunk to bamboozle America. I just pray that this president whose teleprompter has more frequent-flyer miles than I do, won’t get the electorate into bed for a second screwing with his newly refined rhetoric.

But he is not the one I’m really worried about, because those of us who know better will not be taken in as we were not the first time. I’m more concerned about the new lot of Republicans we are sending to DC. They, too, had convincing slogans and promised us they would take back America, stop federal spending, reduce the size of government and restore America to her former glory. Sounds sexy to me.

But we need to shut off our ears and open up our eyes wide. I suggest that the day these newly-elected officials take office we begin our letter campaign to THEM letting them know that we are watching them vigilantly, that it is not enough to tell us what we want to hear but the time is now for action and to live up to their word. We must keep the vise tightly on the screw until things turn around.

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter who is lying to us. We cannot let either the Democrats or the Republicans lead this country in “French” style to the abattoir.

In the biblical reading this past week we learn that the patriarch Isaac loved his son Esau more than his son Jacob because Jacob, though a pious man, was a quiet character; Esau however “knew how to trap,” meaning he had the gift of gab and entrapped his father with his manipulative words. He knew what his father wanted to hear and he fed it to him.

Now biblical scholars say that our physical ailments in life usually are manifestations of our spiritual failings. Could it be that Isaac was stricken with blindness because he would not see the true difference between his sons’ but instead lent his ears to deception?

So dear readers I urge you not to be taken in by sexy sounding words which will lead you to the abattoir one way or another. Too late, you will find this country hanging upside down on a meat hook swinging side by side with a hog and a mutton, because of those who listened but did not look.

Eh, She’s Not for Me!

2010-10-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

I had a good laugh today when I read that a Taiwanese woman was so disillusioned with the men in her city that she married--herself. The question I ask is, "Who gets to keep the house in case of a divorce?"

It’s not easy being a woman on the blind date circuit, especially in big cities. In “New York, single women outnumber single men by more than 210,000. In the Philadelphia area and greater Washington, D.C., single women outnumber single men by 50,000.”1 Thus, it’s no wonder that a woman spends seven hours in the mirror before a blind date and then, after a whole night of listening to an egotistical man speak only about himself and his ex-wife and turning you into his therapist, a dejected woman returns home to a freezing liter of Haagen-Dazs and a hot shower wherein the pretenses of such nights and layers of makeup gradually clog up the drain.

Women begin questioning, “Will I ever meet anyone?” “Is it me or them?” “Why should I bother anymore?” All these failed dates begin to shape how they see themselves as women. One guy thinks they talk too much, so they tone it down; then, the next guy thinks they have no conversation. It comes to a point where women just don’t know who to be anymore. Then your friends all advise, “Just be yourself.” We would, if we remembered who we were to begin with. All these interludes eat away at us like Hannibal Lecter and what’s left is usually unrecognizable and bitterly unappetizing.

Men, too, have it hard as their cojones are cut off by today’s superwomen who often make more bucks and scream sexual harassment when the guy opens the car door for them, those vain women who never met a mirror they didn’t like. Men also get put off by obnoxious gold diggers—you know the kind—those graduates from the Ivana Trump School of Mergers and Acquisitions who are trained to want the only wedding ring displayed behind bulletproof glass. Males are left no longer sure whether to be gentlemen or jerks. And as we keep banging off of each other in these failed dating expeditions, the definitions of the sexes are constantly evolving as we keep reshaping ourselves to adapt.

I think we have become such a superficial society that even when we seek our mates—the most important relationship in our life--we often overlook substance for external traits.

Then I think about the bible reading of the week wherein Abraham seeks a wife for his son Isaac with the conditions that she comes from a good family and suitable place. And so, the patriarch’s servant looks to find a woman who is also kind and compassionate and of substance, who has common values and is worthy of perpetuating the seed of Abraham. He finds Rebecca. And the Bible tells us that Isaac took her as his wife and he loved her. In today’s society we invert that order. First we think we have to be crazy in love and then we can think about marriage. We have only to look at the statistics of divorces and adultery to see how well that is working out.

Stop thinking of whom you have to impress by having a charm on your arm. Everyone goes home to their lives and no one really cares if you are alone or not, except you. Remember, no matter how good looking a girl is, there is always some guy who is tired of sleeping with her. The search for finding someone "even better" is endless. Ask the Taiwanese woman who is spending her honeymoon in a twin size bed, alone. I just hope she doesn't run out of quarters for the shake-o-matic bed.

Maybe it’s time to look at people a little deeper as to what is “hot” and what is “not” before we whittle away our days alone on our hypercritical perch.

------------------------------------
Footnote:
1.Richard Florida , “A Singles Map of the United States of America,” The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/
bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/03/30/a_singles_map_of_the_united_states_of_america/

My Eyes Adored You by Aliza Davidovit

2010-10-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

I was so angry this morning after I caught someone I love lying to me and manipulating me that I almost couldn’t write this blog. All the calm feelings and even-keeled sentiments needed to compose an inspiring article were nowhere in reach except perhaps at the bottom of a bottle of kosher wine. But it’s only 10 a.m. and still twenty minutes too early to start drinking.

So what do you do when those you trust let you down? Do you close your eyes? Do you open them ever-wider? Do you start an all-out war and put them in their place?
The truth is I have no answers for this today except to look into the biblical teaching of the week and hope something applies to me.

Turns out this week’s portion speaks of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. How apropos because I’m ready to come down like a wrecking ball on this friendship of mine as the betrayal is sticking in my throat like a stubborn long spiky fish bone which won’t come up and won’t go down.

So, I’m with God when He says He is going down to visit this sinning town and wipe it out. But then the words of Abraham come to quantify the wrath and he starts negotiating with God asking if He would save the cities if even only 50 good men could be found and the Good Lord concedes. Abraham keeps whittling away at the number until he is assured that S&G will be saved even if only 10 good men could be found in their midst.

And so I too am forced to start assessing what redeeming qualities can be found in my friend. I’m further reminded of the Talmudic teaching that says a person was created with two eyes so that with the left eye (which represents judgment) he should look at himself to find his own faults and work on eliminating them; and with the right eye (which represents mercy) one should look upon others with compassion and kindness. For certain, since love is blind, when it comes to ourselves we only see perfection; yet when evaluating others in our lives we have 20/20 vision.

But I think the deeper lesson here is what we tend to focus on, be it the good or the bad, will grow and will change us. They say every single thing has a negative and positive aspect to it and the one that will dominate is the one you “feed” the most. If I focus on the “lie,” then from now on every sneeze my friend makes will be subject to my analytical scrutiny and to my second guessing. In the process, I become the ugly one, the one who becomes obsessed with deviousness even as I try to dodge it, whereas the great Patriarch Abraham focused only on the good, even in the vilest of places. In this same biblical portion we also read about Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, who in thirsty despair focused only on the parched desert around her and therefore did not see that a well was right beside her too.

Friends, despite these great biblical lessons, this is one of those situations where personally, I just don’t know where to look. So in the meantime, I’m looking for the corkscrew.

Yes You Can! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-10-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the biggest impediment between what we want and where we are is our own voice inside our head. “I can’t do it,” “It’s too late for me,” “I don’t have what it takes,” etc. We sit in the bleachers watching our lives pass us by and instead of cheering ourselves on, we boo ourselves out of the game even before we start playing. And in this cold world where everyone tries to drown you out either because of jealousy or their own insecurities, we join them in self-deprecating language as to why we can never be what we strive to be or to get where we want to go. Our own negative words erect blockades before us where none have to be.

Now, whether you like her or not is your affair, but I can’t help but think of Oprah Winfrey when I think about words. Hers is the epitome of the triumph of the underdog story. Everyone told her she wouldn’t make it. Whatever it is, she didn’t have it. All kinds of negativity was hurled at her. Yet she never let the words, not her own or those of others, shackle her--a daughter of slaves who chose to free herself. Not words nor negativity would she permit to be her taskmasters.

We all know that speaking disparagingly of others is not a nice thing to do. So what makes it nicer when we can’t find a kind, encouraging or hopeful word for ourselves? We must choose the vocabulary of our days very deliberately because it becomes the narrative of our lives. How can you really believe in God if you don’t believe He gave you everything you need to forge forward? You may not have had the economic advantages of your neighbor, or the education of your brother, or the looks of your sister, but you have something they will never have, YOU! Moses held in his hand not a golden gilded sword for the task ahead of him, he had but the staff of a shepherd and he made it work for him, with faith not fear.

When we look at many of the biblical giants, none of them were perfect. Moses had a speech impediment; Jacob had a limp; Issac became blind. Yet each of them had the self-confidence to take chances. None of them stayed home all day watching soap operas and living their lives vicariously bemoaning their lot in life.

So dear friends, I urge you to let go of all the negative words that are shackling you to your discontent--just as the Patriarch Abraham in this week’s Bible reading left all the things that defined him behind. It may be interesting to note that the Hebrew words that command Abraham to get up and go (lech lecha) have the numerical value of 100, the same as his age when his son Isaac was born. All his potential, the seeds of destiny, were bred in his optimism in breaking with yesterday, in seeking new definitions of himself, so much so that even God renamed him changing Abram to Abraham.

Look in the mirror and say “Yes I can” over and over again until the mirror reflects your potential even before you show up. Great things await you; they are just waiting for you to put in a good word.

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And the Congeniality Award Goes To... by Aliza Davidovit

2010-10-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

It starts early on our desire to be accepted. Often the price for admission is our individuality. We suppress what is different about us either in opinions, morality, stance or proclivities because we don’t want to stand out, or be laughed at or be disliked. How often on Facebook or other blogging sites do you find yourself among fellow conservatives or liberals pandering to the conversation with trepidation that if you say something out of the accepted norm of your “clan” that you will be ostracized?

But our potential dear friends lies not in sublimating what is unique about us and in squelching our voice but rather speaking boldly, come what may. A herd mentality is a dangerous thing no matter which part of the political or religious spectrum you may be on.

In this week’s Biblical reading we read about the Tower of Babel wherein God looked down upon those who set to build this tower into the sky and said: "Lo! [they are] one people, and they all have one language.” So what’s wrong with that? It’s not like they were committing murder. What is wrong with it is that they were so single-minded, so much in lockstep, so much of “one language” that no one questioned the other or challenged the other as to whether their actions were correct or not. Such uniformity in mind and action is a dangerous thing as it is bound to succeed, as did the Nazis to a great extent.

No, it is not easy to stand against the establishment; it is not easy to be that only voice which speaks out against wrong or injustice, but it is our duty to destiny which lies not only in the Kingdom of God but our kingdom here on Earth.

I’m reluctant to point to it, but I can’t begin to tell you how many people laughed at me when I ripped up my masters diploma from Columbia University in protest of its invitation to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. One blogger wrote that I ripped all proof of having any brains at all. I was pretty much called every name under the sun from Zionist bitch to, well, it doesn’t matter. Throughout, I kept in mind the famous quote, “It doesn’t matter what they call you, it’s what you answer to!” And I was answering to a call of duty, not to those who looked down on me, but to those who looked up to me.

I urge you all to be that voice that rings out in the silent halls of consent, the one to make a ruckus when something is not right whether it’s on a national scale or an old lady being mistreated by a checkout clerk at the supermarket. Let’s not pretend we like to mind our own business while every other second of the day we are on information overload seeking out what’s going on in every dark place in the world from celebrity to gossip to local riffs and tiffs.

Also in this week’s biblical portion we read about the story of Noah. In a world of complete depravity, he had the courage to be the sole voice of decency, to walk a righteous path and to live by example. For certain he wasn’t winning any popularity contests as he was hardly speaking “the language” of the times. Both he and his ark were oddities to deride until came the rain and the rising of the tide. In the end the “joke” was not on him at all.

I’ll bring this blog to a close with a poem I learned as a little girl:

No Enemies?

You have no enemies, you say?
Alas, my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes! If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You've hit no traitor on the hip,
You've dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You've never turned the wrong to right,
You've been a coward in the fight.

~ Charles MacKay (l814-l889)

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All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned from a Cup by Aliza Davidovit

2010-09-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Who says we can only learn things from other people? This week I learned a lot from a porcelain cup. As I warmed up a delicious soup and poured it into my favorite mug, I started reading the ingredients on the can searching for the calorie count only to realize this soup I was lusting over had ingredients that rendered it not kosher. As I tearfully bid farewell to the noodles as I threw the soup away, it dawned on me that the content had also rendered the cup itself not-kosher as per Jewish law. The porous nature of porcelain makes it an absorbent and it is thus altered, however minutely, by that with which it commingles.

It made me think, that we too, humans, are all vessels, “cups,” who must be on constant vigilance of what we are allowing to fill us up. Do your cups runneth over with honeysuckle wine or with artificially-sweetened poison that slowly kills the great person you are, putting the best of you to rest one sip at a time.

Our fives sense are the openings through which we take it all in, the means through which we fill that "cup" which is "us." So I ask: What are you looking at? Who are you listening to? What are you eating? What are you touching? What are you smelling? These senses are all gifts from God. Ask the blind man or deaf man if you don’t believe that it is so. Ask an elderly person who no longer has the ability to taste, or a brain tumor patient, such as my dad was, whose sense of smell was destroyed. Do not for one moment take for granted the access points through which we imbibe life. When you learn to appreciate and cherish them, you will learn to use them wisely and put a burly bouncer at each entry to ward off the crap from entering your life.

We may think we are impervious to listening to hateful things; we may think we can watch whatever we want on TV and just close the channel and it’s over, and so on. But it is not the case. Human beings are evermore porous and continually altered by what they allow in both physically and spiritually.

This week we begin the Bible reading again with the story of creation and Adam and Eve. We learn that it was all the senses, except the sense of smell, that led Eve to sin. She opened her ears to the snake’s beguiling tongue; she visually lusted over the beauty of the forbidden fruit; she touched it; she tasted it. She let in all the wrong things—one fateful step at a time—and shattered the pure vessel that she was, bringing mankind down with her.

So my friends, before you fill your cups, take a good look at the ingredients and make sure that you are always drinking “to life.”

As an addendum, I also learned something from another inanimate object in my home, a crystal snake? Someone once gave me this expensive Daum crystal serpent as a gift which I abhorred for obvious reasons. For many months I’d pass by it and say, “Feh, I hate it” and dreamed of ways to get rid of it or break it without insulting the giver. But as time passed by, I completely stopped noticing it. And that too is a lesson. Our senses eventually become lulled by over exposure (ask any perfume sales girl), and you can have a snake right before your eyes and not even see it for what it is. So, don’t let your senses fall asleep on the job. But rather, stand guard, be on alert, for there is no interaction that leaves you as you were before.

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I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello by Aliza Davidovit

2010-09-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

A heavy heart may be the weightiest thing we lug around. It is so hard to forge forward when we are laden with despair, sadness, fear and regrets. Our endless romanticizing of what could have been, what should have been, keeps us bound to the past with little hope for tomorrow. Instead of burying yesterday, we bury the future and all its possibilities by encumbering them with all our gripes against what life has “done” to us and how unfair God and circumstance have treated us.

I, too, feel compelled to cry when I look at the grim parts of my life that are unbeknownst to my readers. And so the tears flow easily when I read this week’s final chapter in the Bible which speaks of Moses’ death. Poor Moses. After all he did for humanity and God, how unfair it is that he never got to enter the Holy Land. Every year when I read the text I’m hoping it will have a different ending--perhaps in the sequel.

But just three sentences after mentioning the passing of Moses, the greatest prophet of all time, it says that the people mourned for him for 30 days and then the mourning was over. There is definitely a lesson to be learned here for us all: Mourning and sadness, even over the loss of one as great as Moses, must have limits. We have to always move onward and upward. Moses’ final words to the nation of Israel were not recriminations for past behaviors, nor nostalgic sentiments. He parted this world with blessings for the future, a future we must embrace with enthusiasm and faith. When we cater to despair we are worshiping the angel of death; when we cling to hope and refresh our hearts only then do we have a chance to grasp the Tree of Life.

It is customary in all synagogues to immediately read the first chapter of Genesis which speaks of creation right after reading the final chapter of Deuteronomy, wherein Moses dies. This, too, is symbolic of the course our own personal lives must take. Goodbyes don’t have to lead us to dead ends but rather can bring us to new portals and fresh luck. Every ending contains within it a new beginning and bright opportunities. So take your despair off of life support and instead give love, faith, hope, courage, optimism and joy a new dose of oxygen to animate your days and months ahead.

Have an easy fast & may you all be inscribed in the Book of Life!

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How Sweet It Is to Be Loved By YOU! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-09-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

As I sat before a blank page one year ago with only the will to write these blogs but not certain I had the words, I really wasn’t sure I’d make it through the year. I’ll be honest, I’ve tried it before. But wandering through the desert for 40 years was a difficult task, even from the comfort of my living room. Usually by the second book of the Bible, I’d say, “Sundays are for relaxing,” and I’d put my pen to rest. But as the Jewish people are apt to do, I ask myself a few questions: “Why was this year different than all the other years? What gave me the incentive to keep on going?” The answer was “YOU!” From week to week the support and encouragement you gave me has kept me fired up and inspired, even the criticism too. For it is impossible to have two Jews and one Jewish mother among your readers and not be met with criticism. But, I just want to say that I have never had friends like you before. God has truly surrounded me with very special people from every faith and almost every country. I believe each of you has been handpicked by Him and your friendship has touched me deeply. As I enter the Jewish New Year, I pray for all of you to have friends like YOU who will lovingly get you to whatever finish line means the most to you.

The famous Rabbi Lapin has said that anything good that happens in life involves the coming together of things: molecules need other molecules for matter to form; letters need other letters to make words and sentences; notes need other notes to make music. And most of all people need other people. The hermit in me never knew that—until I met all of you! As Barbara Streisand once sang, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” I need all of you and consider myself now the luckiest person to have found you.

So as we enter Rosh Hashana, my friends of all faiths, I pray that God showers you all with blessings and with true and righteous friends who encourage you to grow and to be better, people who look upon your face and see that you are made in God’s image and remind you everyday that you can surely live up to the part.
Shana Tova!

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Jew to Jew: On the eve of the high holidays! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-08-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

I’m sure mothers are the same in every ethnic group but please oblige me if I pick on Jewish mothers because it’s just plain fun. Last weeks’ Bible reading in which God lists 98 curses that will befall the Jewish people if they don’t behave reminded me of a Jewish mother’s warning every time her child leaves the house: wear your hat or you’ll catch pneumonia; don’t forget lunch or you’ll get an ulcer; park close to the door or you’ll get mugged; call me as soon as you get there or my blood pressure will go up and you won’t have a mother to worry about you, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Then they bid you to have a good day. We didn’t even leave the house yet and we are already advised of 98 ways our lives will be ruined.

Perhaps the above approach does not engender the current trends of positive thinking. But one thing is sure, every advisory, from God and our mothers is packed with deep, deep love. Our souls are all on journeys and when they leave their heavenly house they too are not sent off with such platitudes as “have a nice trip,” but rather are given warnings and codes of behavior. It’s almost like a travel advisory from the State Department.

But when God hides his face from his people and our dear mothers are no longer, who is left to love us? Judaism teaches that each Jew must love the other and watch out for his physical and spiritual well being because even though one may be on the political left and the other on the right, they are in essence part of one body and the injury of any part is deleterious to the whole. The one thing that can sustain the Jewish people is their love and respect for each other--just as Rabbi Hillel summed up the entire Bible by saying what is hateful to you do not do to another. The second temple was destroyed not as a punishment for lascivious behavior but because Jews showed hatred toward each other and lack of compassion, love and understanding.

As a people we cannot preserve ourselves or what we love by hating each other. There are times when the religious right frustrates me and there are times when liberal leaning Jews exasperate me. But just as Hitler did not discriminate over which Jew he hated, the antidote for our people is that we can’t discriminate over which Jew we love. In the open courtyards the Nazis stripped Jews down to nakedness and there were no rich or poor, liberal or conservative, religious or secular. “You are standing today, ALL OF YOU, before Hashem, your God.”

On the eve of the high holidays, all Jews must recognize that we are responsible for one another which also means that as a Jew when you engage in the secular world, in business, and in all affairs you must conduct yourself with decency and integrity so that when the next Jew walks into the building there are no aspersions cast upon him because of your dealings.

My friends, if the blood or bone marrow of a Jew you disagree with or hate was the only one that could save your child’s or your life, would you reject it? Of course not! So, don’t be so quick in hating. Our survival is symbiotic whether you like it or not. The mitzvah of ahavas Yisrael (Jews loving one another) is said to be the deed which hastens the coming of the Messiah. If we don’t love each other, why are we surprised that antisemites hate us? Yes, we are our brother’s keeper, so here, take my hat. It’s a cold, cold world out there.
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I Hate to Bug You, But… by Aliza Davidovit

2010-08-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

The infestation of bedbugs in NYC may have many scratching their heads and other body parts as well, but in a country with so many ways to stay clean, it’s truly a wonder. In recent years we have seen a rise of animals coming out of their natural habitat and attacking people in suburbs and in cities. Snakes are slithering their way out of the rain forests into fancy swimming pools in Florida; coyotes are coming out of the woodwork on the east coast; human deaths by shark attacks have increased; bear attacks are also on the rise. We must surely ask “why?”

Now if you don’t believe in God that’s fine, you can get your facts from Animal Planet. But if you are a believer, you may want to take a look into His Good Book to discover the last time the boundaries between the animal kingdom and mankind’s realm broke down and what the result was: the Flood.

Today, as then, the borders between animal and man are crumbling because the one thing that separates man from beast is his keeping of God’s laws. If not for charity, decency, morality, mercy, and compassion we are just like any other animal. When we stop living as though we were created in God’s image, we start looking more and more like animals every day, driven solely by baser instincts.

Wherein the Garden of Eden man had dominion over the animals, today it appears that the animals have dominion over us--which brings me back to the bedbugs. Man once ate animals to sustain himself, and now these bugs eat upon man’s blood for sustenance. We have become a smorgasbord for them and other beasts.

How ironic it is that New York’s most proud and haughty edifice, the Empire State Building, should be plagued with bedbugs, just as are some of New York’s fanciest hotels, shops, and businesses. And these are only the reported cases. I suspect it won’t be long before it reaches the White House too. It was God who hit the mighty columns of Egypt not with big bombs, but with lice. Leave it to God to bring “the great” to their knees by the tiniest of mites, making fools out of those who flout His word and His ways. Those with no humility come to fear not the sword, but the bedbug.

I cannot help but be reminded of Titus, the emperor of Rome who, according to the Babylonian Talmud, "had an insect fly into his nose which then picked at his brain for seven years. When he died, they opened his skull and found the insect had grown to the size of a bird. The Talmud gives this as the cause of his death and interprets it as divine retribution for his wicked actions in destroying the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.”

As more and more people throw God’s laws out the window with the sanction of corrupted religiosity, of courts and of schools, our country is rotting at the core. Turns out that the sunshine Nancy Pelosi spoke of hasn’t been the best disinfectant after all. Maybe we should give the Ten Commandments another try.
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Hope is not a Dirty Word! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-08-15T13:45:00.000-07:00

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It turns out that “the hope we could believe in” wasn’t a bag full of miracles after all. If anything, these days, many of us feel a heightened level of despair and optimism is a hard-to-come-by refuge. But my friends, negativity is a dour compass and sure to lead us nowhere. We are obliged to bequeath to our children not slogans of doom and gloom, but rather to empower them with hope, real hope, based in faith and consolidated by action.

I have only to look to the Jewish people, the most persecuted group in history, to note a nation who is always worried about the future; Jews may as well change their national slogan to “Oys R Us.” With their ever-fearful mindset, it is surprising how God’s “chosen people” have been able to achieve anything at all. But the answer is because stronger than their qualms was their communal investment in hope. Dedicated to their faith, they never succumbed to despair even in the darkest hours when the Nazis’ black boots seemed to stamp out tomorrow. The faith and hope Jews clung to were Disney-like nourishing grounds which feed man to imagine a better life and world beyond crushing realities--to visualize a Promised Land beyond the barbwire fence of a concentration camp. Hope was cultivated to a premium and became a cultural tool that continues to encourage Jews to dream big and to push forward both personally and as a people.

Today, the State of Israel is a remarkable testimony to the power of hope. And it is no coincidence that its national anthem is Hatikvah, which means “the hope.”

As Samuel Smiles said: “Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.”

It is often in human nature to give up when one is beaten down over and over again. And when we look at what is becoming of America and the world today, it may be easier to say, “It’s too late; it’s gone too far. What can I do?” But are you really ready to throw your hands up in the air and surrender? Will we let the world’s devils beat us into submission, or will we, God’s faithful, raise the sword called “hope” and fight for our tomorrows believing that God sits at the tip of our every effort?

Psychologists say that hopeful people differ from the less hopeful in some intriguing respects: “Firstly, they have the ability to envision a broader range of goals; secondly, they have greater willpower and energy in pursuing those goals; and thirdly, they have the skills to generate a greater variety of routes to reach their objectives.” Hope is a smorgasbord and despair a starvation plan. At which table have you seated yourself?

Let’s stop focusing on how and when the world will end and stop escorting the saboteurs to the finish line. Let’s fight to take our country back and the whole world will follow America, as they always have. Yes, hope is indeed something we can believe in, so let’s show ‘em how it’s done!
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Shape Up! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-08-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

When we were children my brother had a distorted old pair of running shoes which he refused to throw away because they were so comfortable. My mother, to no avail, kept telling him that distorted shoes affect your walk and can misshape a growing foot. She also had her own theory for me too when I was a teen. She’d say, if you walk around in baggy sweatpants all the time, you’ll grow into them and won’t feel yourself getting fat.

Now this is no blog on orthopedics or weight, but the running shoe and sweatpants admonishments have become symbolic life lessons for me. Where she was a pragmatist, I was a philosopher. How often in life do we fall into what is comfortable for us instead of what is good for us? Too often! People are so reluctant to leave their comfort zones as though it was some exemplary state of being or Shangrila. I can tell you two things: Wearing tight clothes has kept me thin; as for my brother, I’ve seen straighter feet.

The comfort zone, dear readers, is not your friend. It’s a place where we lull ourselves with excuses and it is also a place where we stop seeing who we are and what we are becoming. How many of us have chosen friends because we feel “comfortable” to be “ourselves” instead of finding friends who egg us on to try harder and be better, not out of our envy of them necessarily but because they make us realize that we can be better too. How many of us get too comfortable in jobs that are beneath us or “love” relationships that diminish us or body sizes that inhibit or habits that kill us? We even grow comfortable in our misery: The whole world is bad, I’m the only good normal person left and as such I will disengage, stay in my bathrobe, eat a can of Pringles and watch TV.

Yes, it’s intimidating to dip one’s toe in the big wide world because even as we think we are great, we really think everyone else is better than us, smarter than us, more capable than us. We fear to venture forth and the comfort zone sustains the status quo, we think. But it does not. Life is like a treadmill and it’s always moving; you are either going forward or being pulled backwards, sometimes imperceptibly slowly but going backwards just the same.

From experience I can tell you the world is filled with people just like you and me and some, excuse me, are schmendricks of the highest order. The only difference for the most part between them and us is they got of bed an hour earlier than us and stepped out of their comfort zones. Billionaire Mark Cuban who started out selling garbage bags door to door told me that he got into the computer business not knowing a single thing about computers. You know what his advice to me was? “No balls, no babies!”

This week on the Hebrew calendar marks the month of Elul, which is a month of introspection wherein people try to improve themselves prior to the oncoming high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But change can never really come if we don’t hone in on what needs to be changed. A first clue is offered to us in this week’s Bible reading: “Is there a man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, that he should not cause the heart of his brothers to melt, as his heart." In other words take a good look at who you are “hanging with” and how they are influencing you to advance or retreat in life. It is also written, “You shall set up judges...for yourself,” which on the face means what it means. But it also means to surround yourself with habits, people, environments, challenges that will not let you get too comfortable and which will inspire you and enable you to grow, that will be deliberate in watching you! Don’t be a shrinking violet. Your potential is not to be found amidst the lint in your bathrobe pocket. Comfortable is overrated. Get yourself a new pair of running shoes and as the Nike slogan says, "Just Do It."
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What Are You Worth? by Aliza Davidovit

2010-08-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

One of the first assignments I had as a Columbia journalism grad student was to write my own obituary. And though I suspected the demanding curriculum would be the death of me, I never imagined it would happen so quickly. But looking at my life backwards, as that assignment forced me to do, gave me an unusual purview. The obit, after all, is the summary of our life stories. What narrative did I want my existence to tell? What story would you want your obit to tell about you? Let me guess, you’d want to be remembered as a good person and in your defense you’d say, “I minded my own business and I never hurt anyone.” A lot of people minded their own business too while Jews where being carted off to gas chambers; a lot of people minded their own business while politicians stole the soul of this country; a lot of people mind their own business while homeless and hungry people “accessorize” their alleys, church steps and park benches. Yes we are all good people but “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

When I had interviewed comedian Jackie Mason and asked what he wanted his obit to say, he answered, “As still living.” I laughed at first but later thought there is indeed a way to live on posthumously and it’s by living a purposeful life wherein your actions and impact on others breathe on in perpetuity. The thing is we really wouldn’t ever need an obit to prove that we died if all along we had purposeful and unselfish lives to prove that we lived. And so when my journalism professor used to tell my overtired and overworked classmates and me, “You’ll sleep when you’re dead,” I knew he was right. There is much to do in this lifetime and the time is short.

And so on this leisurely Sunday I urge us all not to relax too much. The reason we are born is to join God in perfecting this world and making it a better place--in Judaism it is called tikkun olam, i.e., fixing the world. In 2009, on an average day, nearly everyone age 15 and over (96 percent) spent 35.7 hours a week on leisure activities. With our social networking and i-application addictions I suspect the numbers are even much higher than that with respondents embarrassed and reluctant to tell the truth. We have really specialized in the art of relaxing, chilling out, escaping, “decompressing,” and closing off when there is a great wide world out there that is calling for us to engage and begging for our help. We may say what we are doing is harmless, but nothing in this life is neutral, it is either hurting or helping. What have you been busy with lately? We are such a lonely generation because all we care about is ourselves. We are proficient takers and such poor givers. What a beautiful example we are setting for our youth.

In this week’s biblical portion it is written, “I present before you today a blessing and a curse.” It does not include a gray zone. Offering the Sabbath as the day of rest, God then gives His people a lot of things to do and rules to keep, including feeding the poor, sustaining the widow and the orphan, and rooting out corruption. He also decrees, “You shall not harden your heart or close your hand.” Yes we work hard the whole week, but to what end, only for plasma TV’s and other gadgets? Will watching reruns of Seinfeld and playing FarmVille on Facebook be our bequest to the world? Albert Einstein once said, “The value of a man resides in what he gives [to the world] and not in what he is capable of receiving.” By that standard, ask yourself what you are really worth.
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IF by Aliza Davidovit

2010-07-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

There are many strong, eloquent words in the dictionary, even very long ones, such as Floccinaucinihilipilification. At 29 letters it is considered one of the longest non-medical words in the English language. While saying it you even get to spit in someone’s eye and pretend it was by mistake. Ironically, the word is much ado about nothing and means “the estimation of something as valueless.” It seems like a lot of effort at articulation to deem something worthless.

Conversely, the word "if," so short and succinct, is often taken for granted though it is among the most powerful words in our lives. It is upon this very simple two-lettered swivel point that our entire lives spin.

It means, basically, “on the condition that.” We learn the conditional value of "if" early on in childhood: “If you behave, you will get a toy”; “If you eat your spinach, you can have cake.” It’s a slippery word that slides so easily off our tongues that we don’t take notice of how it controls us day in and day out.

If my parents weren’t so tough, I’d have more confidence.

If I was working full time, I wouldn’t be gaining weight.

If I get a promotion, I’ll propose to her.

If I saw a miracle, then I’d believe.

There is not a second or circumstance of our lives that is not controlled by ifs. It allows us to manufacture excuses by the dozen whereby we blame conditions or the lack thereof for every move we make--or don’t make.

After 40 years of wandering and blaming their rebellious nature on the desert conditions and every possible reason to justify disobedience, God brings the Jews to the border of the Promised Land with an "if" of His own. Basically, He tells the Jewish people that they will be impervious to anything harmful, such as illness, famine, enemies, drought, infertility, etc., on the proviso, “IF” they keep his laws. But in the Hebrew text, the same word used to imply if--the word ekev--also means “heel,” as in the heel of a foot. In short, the same foot that hits the pavement to usher them into the land has the ability to pivot—to turn on one’s heel--and to drive them out if they stray from God’s laws.

We thus learn from this week’s Torah reading that our own actions will contribute to creating perfect conditions and not vice versa. I’ve heard many a Jew say, “If I had more money I wouldn’t work on the Sabbath” instead of having full faith that by not working on that day God would step in and help. When we start doing what we must and stop making excuses why we can’t, we will find Him there to sustain us even in our times; for, “man does not live by bread alone, but rather by whatever comes forth from the mouth of the Lord does man live.” We survive not only by the sweat of our brow but also with faith and service to the Almighty.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times as a student, as a journalist and working at ABC News and Fox how observing the Sabbath posed a challenge. Yet I chose God and things always worked out in my favor regardless of how I stressed over it at the time.

Both in our personal lives and in our relationship with God, we have to stop relying on ifs, i.e., those perfect conditions in which we will find the impetus to pick up our tuchuses from the couch and start doing what’s good for us in life. We have to create the conditions in which we thrive and thrive in all conditions. The plant, the Wandering Jew, was named as such because like the people no matter where it is planted it adapts and grows. As individuals we must all learn to do the same. The perfect time and place hardly ever comes. And so, perhaps the best sentence starting with the word "if" is from the great rabbi Hillel who said, “If not now, when?”
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Where Do I Go from Here? by Aliza Davidovit

2010-07-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

I’m sure most women can relate when I say I tried on everything I own, nothing looked good, nothing fit right and by the time I left it looked like a hurricane had hit my bedroom, leaving clothes scattered all over the bed and hanging from door knobs. Even as I drove to the event, I grumbled inside how I hated my shoes and lusted for a glass of cold wine to fix my foul mood. But as I entered the hotel to attend the black-tie event, it was not the big mirrors of the banquet hall that made me realize I was a schmuck of epic proportions, nor was it the gorgeous and fabulously dressed who’s who also in attendance. It was the hundred-plus individuals who entered the building at quite a different pace—they rolled in on wheelchairs to attend “A Magical Evening,” the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation fundraiser dinner for those with spinal cord injuries.
The startling contrast between the two worlds of those on heels and those on wheels breathed life into the old adage: “I envied the man with a pair of [designer] shoes, until I saw a man with no feet.” But, as the night unfolded, the adage transformed before my eyes. Those who could not walk took to the dance floor in their wheelchairs, while others took to the stage to inspire us, demonstrating how life can go on beautifully despite our handicaps. Where one initially saw those who could not stand or walk due to spinal cord injuries, one could yet envy these individuals who have outpaced most people with their courage, unyielding determination, and joie de vivre. By night’s end it became less clear who was there to help whom.
I wondered, however, whether it was equally bad to compare oneself with those who have it “worse” as it is to compare oneself with those who have it better. I concluded in my mind, that as long as we are looking at each other to learn and not to judge or covet, then it is okay.
The question I was left with is how can we go on when our life changes overnight, when everything we have lived for dies?
I can never forget the story of female basketball player Rayna DuBose. She was 6’3”, very pretty, and embarking on a promising college basketball career at Virginia Tech in 2002. Her skills as a player were quite special. She could have reached the “heavens” with her talent and jump shot. One day at practice, Dubose wasn’t feeling too well and fainted. She was rushed to the hospital where the doctors told her parents that she was the sickest girl in Virginia and may die. She was in a coma for three weeks. Dubose had contracted meningococcal meningitis, a bacterial infection that had wreaked so much tissue damage the doctors were forced to amputate both her hands and feet. Today, wearing prosthetics and high-heeled shoes, she sees only the good in her story. Her website is themed: “Winning the Game of Life.” When people tell her that she inspires them or is very strong she asks, “How can I inspire when I feel so normal in this world?”
When Tour de France champ Lance Armstrong was asked how cancer changed him his answer was, “It was the best thing that ever happened to me because it made me a better man.” He went on to say that “there are two Lance Armstrongs, pre-cancer and post and evidently, the best man won.”
When Parkinson’s disease threw Michael J. Fox out of the driver’s seat of his life, he was distraught. Today, he says, “I’ve seen illness. I’ve seen, you know, certainly over the years, a lot of young children get ill… if I want to feel bad for anybody… there is a long list of people’s names—and my name is not on it.”
He recounts how every morning he passes the mirror, “I look at it and I say, what are you smiling at? And then I realize that because it just gets better from here.”
Although sometimes we can become petty, believe me my wardrobe is the least of my problems and I’m certain the least of yours too. But when big things do hit us in life -- sickness, divorce, bankruptcy, the death of people we love -- undoubtedly a part of us dies too, but it is still not yet time to put up our tombstones. Don’t tell God how big your problems are, tell your problems how big God is. Chose the tree of life and live to love another day. Just keep on walking even if you hate your shoes.
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You Can Do it! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-07-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

The Talmud asks, “Who is wise?” The answer: “He who learns from every man.” So please indulge me in that from all the world’s sages, I have chosen to quote Bon Jovi and not Aristotle.
"Welcome to wherever you are
This is your life, you made it this far
Welcome, you gotta believe
That right here right now, you're exactly where you're supposed to be"

We are often so hard on ourselves and critical of where we are in life that our negativity ends up being the biggest blockade of all. “I’m not smart enough,” “I can’t do it,” “The best years are behind me,” “Things are so bad, they just can’t get better,” are phrases with which we often brainwash ourselves, all the while hating where we find ourselves in life. Can you then imagine if you are finding yourself in a rut, how the wandering desert Jews felt going in circles for 40 years. Could God and Moses have been better served with a GPS? Why did they have to make 42 encampments and wait so long between their Egyptian enslavement and tasting the milk and honey of the Promised Land, all the while complaining bitterly?

In our lives, we too often feel like we are going in circles. So many yesterdays merge into one big blur, one indistinguishable from the next. But the truth is we really are on a spiral, and though we think we are passing the same point over and over again, it is always on a different level: either a higher one or a lower depending on what we do with the moment.

The reason we often find ourselves stuck in one perpetual Groundhog Day is because we have not yet learned the lessons and passed the tests. As such, until we get it right, “right here, right now, you're exactly where you're supposed to be.”

The same was true for the Jews who left Egypt. They were not physically able to seize the prize, i.e., the land, because they were not ready spiritually. Each encampment was a testing a ground for them, and they did not move on to the next one until their spiritual mission was accomplished. Their shlepped-out journey was boot camp for the soul. God is always trying to teach us something and make us better, even if we don’t approve of “the accommodations.”

In our own lives, instead of hating every second of the “now” perhaps we should question what spiritual failing is holding us back. But there is another point I want to emphasize, and that is the language we use when we talk to ourselves--which also solidifies the status quo.

In the case of the Jews, throughout every century and within every country they have lived, they have been called the vilest of names by antisemites. Considering that type of talk, it’s a wonder that Jews haven’t developed an inferiority complex and confined themselves to the ghetto to make mud patties, but rather have excelled in every industry and jumped to the forefront of the world stage. It is because, in my opinion, their main coach, GOD, talked up their game, called them a special and chosen people and told them they are to be a light among the nations. All the confidence that haters of Jews tried to suck out of them, was ineffectual because God breathed his eternal confidence and praiseworthy words into them.

Therefore we too, as we struggle to move forward in life and to fight our spiritual battles, must alter the language we use when we talk to ourselves: “You are smart enough,” “You can do it,” “The best years are ahead,” “Things are hard, but they will get much better.” Don’t think of yourself as stuck in a dead end, think of yourself as engaged in an opportunity. As Bon Jovi says, “Welcome to wherever you are” and work with it, don’t let it work against you. God’s faith and his word are upon each of us, and the slogan for his “army” has always been “Be All You Can Be.” For in truth, what makes a land flourish with milk and honey is what we bring to it, not what we take from it.
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Throwing Pessimism on the BBQ

2010-07-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

Ask most people what they want from life and they will say, “I just want to be happy.” Yet with that goal in mind most of us are still walking around depressed and miserable, especially when we are sober. It’s funny how when we drink girls look prettier, we believe we can dance, and our problems don’t seem that bad. These alternate perspectives enhanced by Cosmos or Screwdrivers should tell us one thing, that our minds have the power to re-frame reality. And though booze may provide the express train to positivity, if we can get there with it, we can there without it too. A greater part of reality is created by our attitudes and our outlooks. As Dennis Kucinich once said, “We are not the victims of the world we see, we are the victims of the way we see the world.” And so, my friends, it is time to throw pessimism on the BBQ and start grilling the process and the things that make us so hard on ourselves.

I can point to a few causes. There are so much external stimuli telling us what’s wrong with us on a regular basis--from advertisements promoting picture-perfect people to a slew of shows that bring in figurative and literal wrecking balls to knock us down and make us over, offering better versions of our lives. Anyway you look at it a makeover show is saying what you are now is not good enough. Personally, I wasn’t fully cognizant of how deficient I was until I walked into a Barnes & Noble bookstore and was assaulted by hundreds of titles that promise how to make yourself better and to be the best at just about anything: How to be the Best Lover, How to be the Best Date, How to be the Best Terrorist, How to be the Best Friend, How to be the Best at Being the Worst—okay, that one I made up. But the point is that these books are really trying to sell us prescriptions for “happiness,” though, I think, they really just contribute to misery. They set up impossible goals for us and when we fail to become all they promise, we become depressed and insecure and wallow in the valley of the gap that exists between our fantasy world and reality.

And just let’s say we follow the directive of one such “self help” book, what happens then when another “better” person comes along? Does our happiness commit suicide? What if a few people buy the same book, (as publishers hope they might), who will be the “best lover” by the last page, you or the other reader? Can there be two bests? We live by such exaggerated standards it is little wonder people are depressed in increasing numbers.

The exit to “happiness” is not found along that interstate of false versions of ourselves. We see so many people today who go through endless plastic surgeries to achieve “bestness.” These processes, however, have nothing to do with being the “best YOU can be”; they are really about being better than the next guy or gal. Well brace yourselves, for there will always be someone better, younger, faster, sexier etc. The only winnable competition is against yourself and the only measurement for true happiness is are you a bit better of a person than you were yesterday? Have you overcome your own stubborn nature and done what’s good for you today? Or are you still trying to be better than your brother-in-law?

Start looking at yourself as if you were drunk and start liking what you see. I believe that there really is only one book that can help you be the best you can be and that’s the Good Book. In it you will find how great and precious you already are. For, how can we really love our neighbors as ourselves if we hate ourselves? Change your attitude from baditude to gratitude and you will see the world change before you.

In such difficult times, it’s evermore important to put smiles on our faces and start appreciating all that we do have. Stop coveting your neighbor’s ass and start watching out for your own.
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Goodbye America. It was nice to know you! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-06-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

The other day I incidentally drove by the Apple store in Manhattan and was really amused and disheartened by the long line of thousands of people waiting to pick up their iphone 4G. As this country is falling apart it becomes evermore clear to me why: We are still living in La La Land. I questioned when was the last time New Yorkers formed such a queue to protest a government wrongdoing and lined up outside their congressman’s door. Undoubtedly these hoarders of high-tech phones have seen a news flash or two and are aware that times are no good and are spiraling quickly downwards. So why don’t they get it? Why don’t they realize that they are standing in the “wrong” line? And it dawned on me because we are a society and a generation reared on Hollywood endings. Things will be okay; things will work out; America will bounce back. We will all live happily ever after.

But, my dear readers, as the president and his administration proceed to fundamentally transform America as he promised, the floor under our feet, the one we were hoping to bounce back from, is being shattered. There is a dark deep abyss beneath, an unknown that those not blinded by the happy-ending syndrome believe is a socialist agenda at best, that will destroy the United States of America.

Please tell me why, if the president doesn’t believe in exceptionalism for our country which succeeded in being great because of its freedoms and unparalleled system, then why does he believe in personal exceptionalism? Why did he rise to the top and become a president and not remain a community organizer? Is he the only one allowed to reach for the top, to be exceptional, while the rest of us peons have to wait until he and his mammoth and ever-growing government doles us out what they think we deserve?

We all know the numbers. The stimulus and bailouts, punishing the rich and businesses with higher tax burdens, the universal healthcare bill and cap and trade are all means of overtaxing the system and redistributing the wealth. In addition to the unsustainable stress on our economy, let’s not pretend redistribution is governmental philanthropy, it is plain out government theft. If it is my body that’s in the gym every morning at 6 a.m., is it fair that you should be accruing the muscles that I’m working so hard for?

The second step after controlling the purse strings is controlling the masses, which then leaves little surprise that this administration is so accommodating to illegal immigrants, even criminal ones. There is power in numbers.

Sometimes I wonder if Obama is trying so hard to implode the system that maybe, just maybe, there will never be a 2012 election. Maybe a revolution is already in place but it is starting from the top down instead of by the people.

Yes, this country, the leader of the free world, has gone through deep crises in the past, but the one factor that gave us optimism and hope was the integrity of the structure, i.e., our Constitution and the certainty that this was a democratic and capitalistic country which was respected by its allies and respected them in turn. Even our fallings and failings were sure-footed because America would always be America. Don’t count on that anymore.

My friends, as you show off your new i-phones with more applications than you could ever use in a lifetime, I urge you to tune into its built-in alarm clock and WAKE UP. The challenges we now face are unprecedented. I cannot help but think of this week's biblical story of Pinchas, where one sole man saw the threat to his nation and he alone took action to save the day. Of course I’m not calling for violence, God forbid, but I am calling for action. Are you doing all you can do, my fellow Americans, to save this great nation? Which line are you standing in? Are you a lawyer? A writer? A speaker? A singer? Whatever you are, take the talent that God gave you and use it to fight to save this great country right now before it’s too late and they lay the yellow tape around the map of America to demarcate the greatest crime scene and slaughtering of liberty the world has ever known.
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Fill in the Blanks by Aliza Davidovit

2010-06-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

“Why am I here?” and “What’s my purpose in life?” are popular questions among most people, especially those who find themselves down and out. Ultimately these are spiritually driven questions, yet the askers never seem satisfied with the spiritual answer: serving God and elevating the world is your purpose.

“Nah, has to be more than that,” is a reply I’ve often heard by those attempting to shirk off any religious duty that would interrupt their daily schedules. As palliatives to empty hearts and flagging souls these searchers fill their lives with materialistic things and external decorations. Yet, happiness evades them.

The epitome of such lives can be found in the entertainment world where the beautiful people seem to have it all, yet their lives are fraught with divorce, depression, drugs and often early demise. These glaring examples in neon lights should teach us that the shallow pursuit of more and plenty will never satisfactorily answer the questions above but will even further exasperate us as our hands are filled with “gold” but are our hearts empty of peace. It is true for people; it is true for nations.

I find the question, “What does God want from us?” the most wasteful question we can ask. He has already told us. He has given us his Good Book filled with directives. It’s there in black and white. Yet we are more inclined to believe the print in the National Enquirer than God’s own word. God and all his rules are such an inconvenience; there must be a quicker fix to happiness than that burdensome book. And so mankind builds its golden calves....How’s that been working out?

I’ve always hated when people preached religion to me even as I was inclined toward it, so I won’t preach here. But I will say, don’t ask those questions if you don’t want the answer. It’s tantamount to the person who asks, “How can I lose weight?” When he is told that it would involve eating less and exercising, he gets frustrated and opts for other ways such as diet pills, mouth braces, and gastro-surgery, etc., as he watches himself get fatter every year. When it comes down to TRUTH, you can’t go shopping for answers that you like.

It is the law of nature that every empty space calls to be filled--crevices get filled with dirt or water, blank walls cry out for art work, a bucket, a chair, a heart and a soul all desire to be filled. But the choice has always been ours with what we fill emptiness.

In this week’s Biblical portion we read about how king Balak sought out Bilaam to curse the Jewish people. He brought Bilaam to three different vantage points to observe them and to assess what their vulnerabilities might be so that his curse could have effectiveness. Bilaam could find none. Because the Jewish nation at the time had filled itself with God’s word, they left no gap or crevice wherein a curse could enter and eat away at them. They were impervious to any harm because they didn’t open the door to Satan with such insipid questions as, “What’s my purpose?” They read God’s memo; they knew. “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel.” As such those who cursed them would be cursed and would drown in the overflow of their own hate.

Today, as the Jewish nation and Jewish people stand at the precipice of opprobrium and curses, we too must remember that armies alone don’t defeat our enemies. Being a light among the nations involves lighting up the world through observance of God’s commandments. Maybe a small clue as to Israel's purpose, for those who forgot, is found in its appellation, “The Holy Land.” For the past few weeks we have often heard how the international criticism of Israel is irrational—so why would we seek an answer in the rational realm? Something deeper is clearly at play. The Jewish State and Jewish people must fill in the blanks spiritually or they will continually be filled by others--hexers and vexers.

They say that there is no soldier in a foxhole who does not pray to God, why, oh why then, my fellow Jews, do we always have to wait until that doomsday hour to seek Him?
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Thank You Israel! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-06-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

I probably sent out 20,000 emails in the past two weeks urging people to fight back against Helen Thomas’s remarks about Jews and Israel as well as Yahoo’s declaring a Palestinian state on their weather page by offering the weather in Jerusalem, Palestine. In addition to those who wrote back “take me off your friggen hate list,” I also received such optimistic notes as “You’re talking to the walls, they’ll never fire Thomas and Yahoo! will not take it down.” Well, it turns out that our collective voice resonated. Though we can’t win every battle, we must fight every battle. Just as in the Jewish State when Israel vacates an area it gets filled with Islamic extremists, so too in the PR campaign we cannot forsake any stepping stone or we will find things closing in on us with no retreat and no ability to fight back. Whoever attacks Israel whether militarily or verbally, must be met with consequence. Once burned, twice shy.

This week, however, I’m not standing on Israel’s defense, but rather putting our best foot forward.
I’d like to know why no one has written a thank you note to Jews or the Jewish State? Though they make up .02 percent of the world population, Jews have won almost 25 percent of all Nobel Prizes and have made great contributions to mankind. How can you not appreciate them when they produced the likes of Sigmund Freud, who gave every human the ability to legitimately blame your mother for everything, and Albert Einstein, who introduced the Theory of Relativity proving that relative to his hair style yours is not so bad? And if we’ve stopped being thankful to Jonas Salk, who developed the first polio vaccine, I know I couldn’t live without my daily dose of Google and Facebook, both created by Jews. How much slower our world would have been if Galileo hadn’t discovered the speed of light. None of us would have a day off from work nor Macy’s a Columbus Day mattress sale if Jews had not invented the astronomical tools that made the explorer’s discoveries possible. And also remember The Manhattan Project, America's World War II effort to develop the atomic bomb which included the contributions of many American Jewish physicists. And then, again, I couldn’t have stitched this beautiful case together for the Jewish people if Isaac Singer hadn’t invented the sewing machine.

The Israeli army is also involved in non-military missions such as the rescue and relief of people around the world, including Haiti post the tragic earthquake. Just this past March Israel offered to send aid to Turkey after a strong earthquake there. Their thank-you note came in the shape of a flotilla. And in 2003 after Iran suffered a quake measuring 6.6 in magnitude, Israel then too offered to be a helpful part of the rescue but Iran officially announced that they were willing to receive help from any country except for "the Zionist entity."

Israel regularly rises to the top in a region known primarily for its oil and intolerance. As Warren Buffett stated, “If you are going to the Middle East for oil, then don’t stop in Israel. But if you are going for brains, energy, and integrity, then it is the ONLY place to stop.” Israel has more university graduates—and particularly more engineers—than any other country on earth. It also has the highest rate of research and development investment per GDP in the world. As a consequence, it has the largest concentration of high-tech companies outside the United States’ famed Silicon Valley. It has more companies listed on NASDAQ than any country outside North America. Every day new, world changing discoveries are coming out of Israel. Both Checkpoint, the leading firewall Internet security system, and Teva Pharmaceuticals, the largest generic drug manufacturer in the world, are Israeli companies. Comverse, ECI Telecom, Keter Plastic, Iscar, Netafim, Amdocs, and Orbotech are also Israeli companies and have become known and respected around the world. Amazing what you can do to a desert in 62 years when you focus on productivity instead of death and destruction.

Shimon Peres, Israel’s President, once said that the Arabs are not the children of the desert, they are the father of it. Maybe the next time the Palestinians pick up a shovel they can use it to plant tomatoes instead of rocket launchers and digging graves. Let them look to Israel as a role model as to what they too can achieve instead of bringing the whole world into a war and into desert ruins.
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The Love Boat & The World’s Romance with Israel by Aliza Davidovit

2010-06-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

There is an expression in Yiddish that poorly translates as “it is hard to be a Jew.” I believe that is very true. This past week once again proved how Israel is always held to different standards and singled out for opprobrium. The biggest murderers in the world are innocent before proven guilty, yet Israel, the only democratic state in the Middle East that has been on the defensive for 62 years, is always deemed guilty before anyone even knows what happened. And though article 51 of the UN charter grants every country the right to defend itself, it seems not to apply to Israel. Hamas’s more savory charter that calls for the destruction of Israel (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7) is deemed more acceptable than any efforts by Israel to simply exist in peace.

Alan Dershowitz points out that “Israel is the only democracy in the world ever accused of war crimes when it fights a DEFENSIVE war to protect its civilians.” All the facts in Israel’s defense are ignored because hate and antisemitism build a better case against the Jewish State. The intellectual liberal elite posture themselves as avant-garde arbiters of truth and fairness, when hate is still the primitive feeding ground that formulates their hostile position toward Israel. I respect Hitler and Ahmadinejad more than the pseudo-intellectuals, journalists and analysts of our times. At least they openly declared that they hate Jews and want them dead—they never pretended that the exclusive bashing of Israel or Jews (and omission of bashing real evil doers) was anything other than pure and blatant good old fashioned antisemitism. (In fact, now we may even know what happened to the two lost tribes. They probably took directions from journalist Helen Thomas along their way and went back to Germany to be met with a warm welcome, okay a hot welcome, okay a crematorium.)

Forget that Ahmadinejad has declared that he will destroy Israel in one week and continues with his nuclear agenda; forget about the atrocities in Darfur and Rawanda; forget that more Muslims are killed every day in Africa and the Middle East by Muslim governments; forget that Hassan Nasrallah, the terrorist leader says that, “We are going to win because they [Israel] love life and we love death;” forget that North Korea torpedoed a south Korean warship where 46 people were killed; forget the wars waged by Russia against Chechnya where tens of thousands of civilians were murdered in cold blood. None of these real atrocities will bring out the cries and crowds in rock concert numbers as do the opportunities to publicly stone Israel. Forget that it was a Turkish Islamist group with a history of assisting Islamist terrorists which played a major part in the “humanitarian sailing” of the Mavi Mamara flotilla. Forget that Article 19 of the Law of the Sea Treaty specifies that “any act of propaganda aimed at affecting the defense or security of the coastal state” or “the loading or unloading of any commodity, currency or person contrary to the customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws or regulations of the coastal state” are deemed “prejudicial to the peace, good order or security” of that state. Forget that Israel compromises its own military edge and jeopardizes the lives and safety of its own soldiers by dropping thousand of pamphlets disclosing to their enemies where they will strike in order to avoid civilian casualties. Forget that every day Israeli doctors and hospitals are saving the lives of Palestinians. Forget that Israel transfers some 15,000 tons of supplies and humanitarian aid every week to the people of Gaza. Forget that Israel left Gaza in 2005 and received its thank you card in the form of thousands of anti-personal rockets aimed at civilians in Sderot, where school kids have 15 second to get to a bomb shelter upon hearing a siren. Forget that Israel has sought peace with its neighbors for 62 years and offered the Palestinians major concessions which were rejected in favor of launching an intifada on Israel instead. Yes, I say forget all these proofs because despite all else that has gone on and continues to go on throughout the world, it is only Israel who warrants UN special emergency sessions on holiday weekends to be vilified for perpetrating sins against humanity. I guess Israel’s consistent detractors subscribe to the belief that the only good Jew is a dead Jew.

The comment that irked me most in this new tirade against Israel was by editor/ publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation who said to Bill Maher,despite the aforementioned litany of proof to the contrary, that “Israel has lost her soul.” No my dear vanden Heuvel, Israel hasn’t lost its soul, its grown a pair of cojones called the Jewish State--and the UN charter and enemies bent on its destruction have given Israel the legal and moral right to use them. Sorry, but gas chambers are just so passé.
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Sweet Land of Liberty by Aliza Davidovit

2010-05-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

They serve with pride for the woman with the biggest mouth in America. No it’s not Hillary Clinton, or Ann Coulter, or even a Jewish mother-in-law. It’s a woman whose mouth is three feet wide and yet has never uttered a single word. For over a century she has stood as a silent witness to the historic inflow of America’s greatest treasures—its people and their burgeoning dreams. She is Lady Liberty and her message has been loud and clear: “We will not forget that liberty here made her home.”

Liberty however does not come cheap; its price is often blood. Yet it’s an easier price to pay when it is someone else’s son and daughter who makes the ultimate sacrifice. That’s just the way it is. To this date, approximately 5,490 soldiers have died fighting a war on terror; nearly half a million Americans died in WWII and over 100,000 perished in the First World War. And then there are those who weren’t lucky enough to die and who assumed duty with bravery and returned home without legs and arms or were burned, disfigured or blinded in action. Someone else’s kid, they fought for you and me.

Some will say the price is too high to pay. Well, if you don’t believe in American exceptionalism, then maybe it is. Yet, if this country is not great, then why are people trying to sneak in over the border in droves instead of sneaking out? It is because Lady Liberty holds the torch up high for all to see. America is the beacon of light to the world as our values of liberty, freedom, hope and promise and all that we stood for and fell for have illuminated the darkest places of the world. We cannot permit anyone to snuff out that light. If we continue to see liberty’s lamp and cling to faith even and especially through the darkest hours, we can and shall prevail.

In this week’s Bible reading we learn how spies were sent into Israel to scout out the Promised Land and its inhabitants and bring back reports to Moses. There were those who came back and said the land was unconquerable and that it consumes its inhabitants. And then there were others who said, “We shall surely ascend and conquer it, for we surely can do it.” All the spies observed the same reality on the ground--they all saw that the “the land was good, very, very much so” and also that it had challenges. The singular difference between the naysayers and optimists was faith. Caleb and Joshua had faith in God and believed in the land’s “exceptionalism” and that is was worth fighting for--just as this great country is worth fighting for.

As we enjoy the beaches and our BBQs and Memorial Day sales this long weekend, let’s try to appreciate those who serve so that we can walk the leisurely pace of freedom. Remember, “It is the soldier, not the priest, who protects freedom of religion; the soldier, not the journalist, who protects freedom of speech. History teaches that a society that does not value its warriors will be destroyed by a society that does.”

And to those who fell for freedom who have no name and are commemorated by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as we look into the faces of a new generation who had the luxury to take freedoms for granted, your spirit is on their smiling faces, in their laughter, in all their comings and goings. In all the greatness that defines America, may your souls rest knowing that all that you have died for still lives.

Sadly, the day has not yet arrived when we can turn our swords into ploughshares. If anything, circumstance seem to indicate that we will have to turn more ploughshares into swords. But, it is worth the fight for this “land [is] good, very, very much so”—oh, sweet Land of Liberty.
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If Tomorrow Never Comes by Aliza Davidovit

2010-05-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

I found it an interesting coincidence that a federal census bureau worker came knocking on my door the same week the Torah portion dealt with the counting of the Jews. It’s certainly life affirming to be tallied among the living. Yet, at the end of the day, it’s a humbling thought that our existence, as per the census at least, is a mere statistic. You have been counted, but do you count?

A heavy cloud is gathering above the world we know and many even question, “Is it the end of days?” Some believe that Messianic times are upon us and fear current events presage Gog and Magog, a bloody apocalypse. So, if tomorrow never comes, will you be ready? What have you counted for in this lifetime? Have you been a mere number or have you counted for one but lived as if you alone were an entire army, an indomitable force that gave life to your convictions, gave love to the world, gave hope to the downtrodden, gave kindness a home, and served the will of God?

This Yom Kippur God taught me a good lesson. About one hour before the holiday started, I became violently ill and for the first time in my adult life was not able to fast on Judaism’s most holy day. As most people do, I took my tomorrows for granted. I can repent tomorrow, next week, on Yom Kippur, etc. But my friends, we have only today and not even today but just this singular moment. Will you make it count? These aggregate moments of doing the right thing and fighting for truth really define who we are.

In the past I have often urged people to become politically active and let their voices be counted. Today I’m talking about making ourselves count in this world by making a spiritual difference in our own lives and the lives of others. In this week’s Bible reading we learn how Aaron, the priest, had the most valued duty in the temple: preparing the wicks and lighting the Menorah. That seems of small significance considering that sacrifices were offered in those days. But it was a decisive metaphor. Creating light in our midst and spiritually illuminating the world we live in, excuse the pun, outshines all else. Giving spiritually is very unlike giving materially. Materialism is finite and when you give to someone of what you own, your resources become diminished, however slight. But when one flame lights up another, the first flame is not decreased but rather creates even more light.

I can’t help but think how the son of Israel’s prime minister has recently won a national Bible contest in Israel and how that may influence Netanyahu’s thinking even though he himself is not religious. Last week was the first time I recall hearing the prime minister speak about how many times Israel is referred to in the Bible. I have often heard him refer to history but not the Torah. Perhaps his son has become a light unto him.

There’s a funny thing that happens when you start doing the right thing. People start getting a bit jealous and feeling guilty. If you are truly genuine and passionate, you become like a torch that passes through the darkness and “ignites” everyone along the way, often without preaching a single word.

Each one of us has a spark within that can be fanned into flames. Choose not only to be counted, but to shine and to count in this world. Pick one good deed and go for it. And put no faith in tomorrow, for it never really comes. Start today!
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Binding Ties and Severing Lies by Aliza Davidovit

2010-05-16T09:17:00.001-07:00

We live in times where we have just about heard it all, so much so that it becomes increasingly hard to hear anything at all. Our ears, eyes and minds simply can’t keep up with the shocking bombardment of events that our marking our times. We once thought it was incredible to try the 9/11 conspirators in a Manhattan court but that seems to pale in comparison to the current plan to build a mosque next to Ground Zero. Before we can digest one travesty a grimier one surfaces to entertain our ulcers.

Yet there is another headline, an evermore subtle one that equally grates upon me. It was the criticism Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, launched against Prime Minister Netanyahu for mentioning the Jewish people's biblical ties to Jerusalem this past Jerusalem Day. He accused the prime minister of “[using] religion to incite hatred and fear.” Never mind the blatant hypocrisy of his condemning “incitement,” a weapon the Palestinians use ever so proficiently, but I viewed it as a fundamental and dangerous strategy aimed at the final delegitimization of the Jewish Homeland. First they accused Jews of behaving like Nazis vis-a-vis Palestinians to justify their terror upon Israeli citizens. Then they decided to launch a war against the “truth” of the Holocaust as to minimize the need of a Jewish refuge and homeland. Now there appears to be a nascent battle against the decisive binding tie to the Promised Land—the Torah--by rendering mention of the Bible as inciting. I take it that it is in the name of peace that Palestinain children are taught from birth to hate and kill the Zionist enemy, that suicide bombings are glorified, that streets and town squares are named after the mass murderers of innocent civilians, that ketuhshas are smuggled underground, that Israeli goods, films and athletes are being boycotted with fervor and glee, including the most current Palestinian attempt to prevent Israel's acceptance into the OECD.

There is only one claim (excluding the UN resolution that voted Israel into modern existence) that the Jews have to Israel, and that is because God gave it to them. It is not the Holocaust; it is not international consent or approval; it is not the strength of their guns. Therefore, the attempt to stifle an Israeli prime minister from speaking of this biblical connection to the Holy Land appears to be an “incitement” of the most dangerous kind. Let me remind those of you who may have forgotten God’s words: "And I will give to you and to your descendants after you… all the land of Canaan as an eternal possession….” (Genesis 17:8).

The Bible refers to Jerusalem and Zion 850 times. It is not mentioned even once in the Koran, nor is it even mentioned in the PLO Charter. Jews throughout the world pray facing Jerusalem; by contrast all Muslims face Mecca when praying. Jerusalem has NEVER been the capitol of any other nation except Israel, nor has it ever been a holy city to the Muslims. No Arab ruler other than Jordan’s King Hussein ever even visited Jerusalem during the 1948-1967 period of unfettered Jordanian rule over the eastern part of the city.[1] Jerusalem is merely an excuse and a symbol of the greater struggle to wipe Israel off the map. Let us not forget that the Palestine Liberation Organization was established in 1964, three years before Israel secured the West Bank and Old Jerusalem. So what was the PLO trying to "liberate" then? Clearly, the entire pre-'67 state of Israel.

A common misconception is that Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years. Even after the destruction of the Second Temple and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the land of Israel continued and often flourished,[2] and the Jewish hope to reclaim it as their own never abated.

In less ancient history the story is told of Napoleon who, when walking through the streets of Paris, passed by a synagogue and heard people weeping inside. When the emperor asked his companion why they were weeping, he was told that it was the holiday of Tisha B'Av when the Jews mourn the loss of their Temple. Upon hearing that Napoleon then said, "If they are still crying after 1800 years, then I am certain the Temple will one day be rebuilt!"

On May 14, 1948, the Jews reestablished sovereignty over their ancient Biblical homeland with the third temple yet to be rebuilt. But it must be noted that even though many conquerors since 500 B.C.E have conquered the Holy Land -- the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Byzantines, the Romans and the Turks--never during all that time was there ever a people called Palestinians nor any such tribe, certainly none who rose up against those mighty empires and declared that their country was taken from them. The Palestinians and their cause is a modern phenomenon. Jews, their hope, and the State of Israel, however, are an ancient truth. If you don’t believe me, ask God!

[1] Information provided by the ZOA
[2] “Myths and Facts,” http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf1.html#a
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Mother and Daughter: A Personal Tale

2010-05-09T10:13:00.001-07:00

This blog is a personal story and dedicated to my mother for Mother’s Day.

“The foot bone connected to the leg bone, the leg bone connected to the knee bone,
the knee bone connected to the” femur bone, the femur bone connected to the pelvic bone. Let me know when you’ve stopped singing. The femur bone, also called the thighbone, as you may know, is the longest, largest, and strongest bone in the body. It’s an unusual thing to think of for a daughter, but my mother reminds me of a femur bone because it’s her strength of character alone and continued support and love that gives everyone close to her a leg to stand on. She is like an indomitable scaffold that sustains our courage and our family through the hardest of times.

There is not a thing upon which she lays her hands that she does not transform from average to beautiful--from décor, cooking, fashion, to extracting an individual’s full potential. Even death she made beautiful for my father. After the doctors told us that he had six more months to live, she didn’t leave him to their care but rather took care of him at home, herself, and decorated the remaining days of his life with music, love, and laughter until the angel of death closed his big blue eyes.

My parents were deeply in love for 38 years, like Romeo and Juliet. My mother would visit his grave every day for five years straight after he passed away. But I will never forget the night my father died in their bed. Through her sobbing tears, my mother went to blow dry her hair because the funeral was the next day. She said to us that my father loved seeing her look beautiful and even after having lost her parents, a daughter, a sister, and now her beloved sweetheart, she would not allow death to triumph over life. We all looked at her in awe. She was our femur that kept it all together just as that durable bone brings the upper and lower half of the body together.

But life’s a bitch and even as you try and put your best femured foot forward it can ravage you. A few years ago, my sprightly, energetic mother got out of bed one morning and five steps later found herself lying on the floor in screaming agony. It took her three hours to reach the phone. She called my brother, and being the superhuman body builder that he is, he beat the ambulance and broke down her five inch wooden doors with his own hands. I got the phone call in New York. I was on the next plane out. My mother’s complete femur bone was broken, eaten up by lymphoma. My beautiful mother, my best friend who I speak to a thousand times a day--I was not ready to say goodbye. I never will be. I had just signed a deal to ghostwrite a book on Jewish success, but instead of heading to the library I found myself sleeping on a lawn chair in my mother’s hospital room for three weeks and then staying in Canada for the next five months caring for her and her toy French poodle, Papoush. It was excruciating for me to see my mother that way. She was always so independent, coming and going, and now she had to go through chemo and learn to walk all over again with a titanium filled leg. She was my rock but now I had to become her femur. Yet even in the hospital, my mother wouldn’t surrender and refused to wear their hospital gowns or use their bed linens. She may be the only patient in the history of the oncology department who had a chiffon beaded nightgown and 700-thread sheets.

It was the hardest thing that we ever went through. Even the dog fell into a depression during that difficult time. Yet, I found strength in myself that I never knew I had. That strength was shaped like my mother. I have never met a person whose presence brings such light into any room as does hers. That light continues to guide my way. As we went through MRIs, surgery, chemotherapy, hair loss and rehabilitation, I was empowered by all the times in life I saw her fight instead of fall. I’d sing to my mother to distract her from her nerves and would make all the technicians and doctors laugh with my terrible voice. At my mother’s bedside, I wrote a book, nurtured her and her French poodle back to health, found the power of laughter, and realized that I stood in the shadow of the greatest role model a daughter could ever have. But most of all I learned how deep, special, and strong are the bonds of a mother, a daughter, and a French poodle. The femur bone had nothing on us.

On this Mother’s Day, I just want to thank God for the great blessing of a having a mother like mine, a mother who has taken so many lost souls under her wing and taught them to fly, a mother whose honesty will criticize you into perfection not weakness, a mother who has surely done God’s work, when He was busy elsewhere.
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Till, Baby, Till! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-05-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Despite well-meaning alarm clocks and calls of duty, if it weren’t for breakfast and café lattes I’d see very little incentive to get out of bed each morning. Incentives, after all, are what keep us going after our feet grow weary and we run out of breath. They are the pictures in our mind’s eye that urge us to push ourselves just a bit harder. So I can’t help but wonder why God, who had to coax a stiff-necked nation to wander for 40 years before it received its prize, the Promised Land, only offered a land flowing with milk and honey. Quite frankly, it wouldn’t get me out of bed in the morning. If He offered me a land flowing with oil and gold, emeralds and silks, maybe then I’d heed the call of the rooster.

Talk about incentives, there is a story about a farmer who left his lazy sons a farm knowing full well they’d never get out of bed to work the land once he passed on. In his will he thus told his sons that somewhere under the acres of land he was leaving them a treasure was buried. After the father died, looking for the quick fix, the sons got up early every morning to dig up the land to find the treasure. Day after day, month after month, year after year, the sons toiled and tilled the land to seek the riches and gold, but they found no treasure. But as it turned out, because they so thoroughly turned the earth and worked the land, it became resplendent with abundance and they were able to sell the ensuing produce and earned great wealth. They soon realized that their father had tricked them and understood that the land itself was the treasure.

The land of Israel is also a treasure, but God didn’t have to trick His people into working it. When the Jews entered Israel after being slaves in Egypt and when they entered Palestine after the Holocaust, they were used to working hard and were not frightened to do so again. In fact, even to this day in Israel, its people work six days a week. Sunday is no day of rest. As a result of such persistent efforts, in 62 years Israel has become one of the most innovative countries in the world selling its technologies and medical advancements across the globe. It turned a desert into verdant fields of opportunity. Beneath the rubble, pestilence and arid soil, the “milk” of life flowed. Yet still with all their smarts and hard labor, the people of Israel cannot reap the true honey: peace. So wherein lies the treasure?

The treasure is the Torah, what the rabbis refer to as milk and honey. Thus as Jews around the world today till for peace in diplomacy and alliances, they are forgetting to also till the Torah, all the commandments that came along as instructions with the country they call their homeland. Initially, God did not have to taunt the Jews into Israel with gold because after hearing God’s words on Mount Sinai they lusted not for gold or idols but only His word. Offering them gold would have been tantamount to offering them darkness after they had seen the light. But today, many have stopped seeing the light and think the glitter of gold will illuminate the way. Unlike a life flowing with figurative milk and honey i.e., Torah, a life of artificial sweeteners leaves only a bitter aftertaste and one God cannot digest.

He thus cautions the Jews that if they spurn His laws, the very land itself will reject them and oppress them. “I will turn my attention against you, you will be struck down before your enemies: those who hate you will subjugate you...I will make your heaven like iron and your land like copper.”

Friends, today I celebrate my Jewish birthday in conjunction with the holiday of Lag B’Omer, the day in which the secrets of the Torah were revealed thus bringing great light into the world. So let me just make a birthday wish that the Jewish people will temper their ever-wandering struggle for survival and take a good look into God’s book every now and then to find the roadmap home. It’s their most precious and eternal resource, so till, baby, till.
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Words to Live By by Aliza Davidovit

2010-04-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

It’s time for another confession. I am a logophile. Now don’t go hiding your kids, it’s merely a lover of words. As such, and as a writer, I feel the words’ burdens on my shoulders. Words are so powerful and shape the lives we live. Yet, oddly, words cannot be touched or grabbed--they just evaporate in the air and where they land know one really knows. That is why words need a place to land, that is why those of us who want to remember history or change the future must keep pitching out our words with the assurance that they will eventually be caught by those who can make a difference. To surrender to the silence with the belief that you’ve spoken up enough and are fed up fighting for your beliefs is nothing short of traitorous. Haven’t all our mothers told us at one time or another, “For the hundredth time, I’m telling you blah, blah,….” Why do they do that? Because when you love something, whether it be your child, or America, or the State of Israel, or freedom, or the Constitution, you never stop talking.

Indeed, there are days after heated moments in the blogosphere that we log off and in Glenn-Beck fashion say, “Ah, useless. I’m just arguing with idiots.” I have news for you, God felt the same way too speaking to his stiff-necked people. But, not shockingly, the Almighty was very wise and thus said to the Israelites: “And these Words which I am commanding you today shall be ON your heart.” He didn’t say IN. One cannot ram things into a person’s heart for it will only be met with resistance. But if the words are placed upon our porous hearts and reiterated, sooner or later they will sink in. However, though truthful words need a place to land, they are not destined to have a resting place. They must keep moving. And so after they are placed on our hearts, God further instructs, “You shall impress them upon your children, and shall speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.” Further it says, “Teach it to the children of Israel. PUT IT IN THEIR MOUTHS.”
Thus, as I wrote last week, preaching to the choir is also very important because sometimes our hearts know the truth but or mouths can’t articulate the arguments. We lack the words because those who are supposed to teach us are falling short and we ourselves are reluctant students. So we go hot-headed into battle with empty guns.

Have you ever seen the movie Fahrenheit 451? In it, books are outlawed and burned and anyone caught having a book is imprisoned. Yet there is a “resistance” group called the Book People who live in the woods and each commits a book they've chosen to memory. In essence, they become the books. “It just so happened that a man here and a man there loved some book. And rather than lose it, he learned it.” And they continually recite the book they know to a younger person so that the book will live on. But after committing it to memory, they too burn their books because they don’t want anyone taking anything away from them. It reminded me very much of how Judaism survived despite the endless persecution of Jews and attempts to blot them out. Judaism survived because of its focus on teaching its history and religion to its children-- “it put [the words] in their mouths”--so that when the Nazis and others burned their holy books and tried to destroy the religion, they could not because God’s words live in perpetuity.

It’s taught that when Moses, upon seeing the Golden Calf, threw down and destroyed the first set of tablets containing the Ten Commandments, the stones crashed, but all the letters and words flew back up to heaven. You see nothing really is written in stone because when the stone crumbles, when the Constitution is flouted, when the media is complicit, when the government censors, what happens to the words we counted on? They are still there, because truth never dies unless it dies with us. I remember seeing a book about a former Canadian prime minister entitled, “What Trudeau Did for Canada.” When you opened up the book, all the pages were blank. When the time comes for history to write our book, “What They Did for America and Israel,” will our pages be blank too? Or will we go down to death in argument and leave mankind with words to live by.
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Here's a Flower for Your Dead by Aliza Davidovit

2010-04-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

Airtime is very expensive and TV ratings count for everything, so I questioned why Glenn Beck repeats himself so much. He seems to be preaching to the choir over and over again. But it became clear to me that if Beck is still breaking our heads with a singular message, it is because most of us still remain simply an audience and have not yet become “soldiers” of change. Yes, our awareness as a nation has increased, but from aggravating headline to aggravating headline we continue to hit the snooze button and slumber through the perilous changes that our marking our times.

How many of you have been writing letters to your congressman and senators? How many have called the White House hotline to voice your opinion? How many have sought out the 24 senators who did NOT sign the letter addressed to Obama expressing their support for Israel? How many thanked the 76 who did?

You make a difference. In fact, you may make all the difference. Yes you can! There is always the straw that breaks the camel’s back. As a journalist I can tell you that many of these powerful politicians are insecure individuals who went into public life to overcome childhood rejection or feelings of low self-esteem. They want to be liked, and they want to be liked by you. It is vitally important for you to get involved and fight for what you believe in. Tell them they are wrong. Take Domino's Pizza off your speed dial and put the White House instead. Call them every day until they deliver. Both America and Israel are running out of tomorrows.

It is a Godly coincidence that today, Remembrance Day in Israel, when tribute is paid to Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, coincides with this week’s biblical portion which decrees: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your brother” (Leviticus19:16). This command is not just telling us to save someone whose life is being threatened, but also not to stand idly by the blood which has already been spilled. Do not let those who have died have done so in vain. Do not let them die all over again by letting bloody history repeat itself.

Great American heroes have fought and died for this land of liberty, the greatest nation in the world. And great Jewish heroes, including the prime minister's own brother, have fought and died “to be a free people in their own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.” Do we now stand idly by their blood while graver threats loom and let Glenn Beck and his ilk try and save the world alone? He cannot do it alone. Netanyahu cannot do it alone. Ahmadinejad cannot do it alone. Obama cannot do it alone. We are all complicit in how things evolve. Your silence empowers the threats against us and your voices, boycotts, and protests crumble their base. America and Israel are closely tied at the soul in their fight for freedom, democracy, justice and decency. We need each other. But as America’s soul is being outsourced to the United Nations and renovated for international and Islamic approbation, Israel’s corporeal welfare is in jeopardy. Those who do anything less than fight back against Obama’s domestic policies are committing national suicide and those who remain silent on his Middle East policies are standing idly by while their brother’s blood is shed.

I was happy to learn that thousands of people have recently sent Netanyahu yellow roses to show their support for him and Israel, but I personally prefer to count the graveside daisies because they tell us all we really need to know.
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I’ve Got You Babe: Obama, Israel and the Next Holocaust by Aliza Davidovit

2010-04-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Ask 100 people what the most non-kosher animal is and 100 people will tell you a pig. But the truth is that tigers, dogs, horses, camels and so many other four-legged friends are all equally on the “Do Not Eat Diet” for Jews.

So how did the poor pink pig earn such infamy? For the simple reason that it is a hypocrite. There are two essential traits that make an animal kosher: It has to have split hooves and, in terms of its digestion process, it must chew its own cud. Swine posses only one of these two characteristics, which thus renders them not sandwich worthy for Jews. On the outside they showoff their split hooves as if to boast, “Look I’m kosher,” but what’s really going on is another story. A pig never shows its true colors and so you don’t really know who or what you are dealing with and can be charmed into taking a figurative bite. I can’t help but think of the movie Babe, which was about a lovable little pig who wants to be a sheepdog. He is very successful at coaxing the sheep into submission and when asked how he did it, he replied, “I asked them and they did it. I just asked them nicely.”

Babe the pig might have something there. As Marxist philosopher George Sorel advocated, the masses can be united into a social force through nice sounding slogans and myths. Indeed, history has shown us how people have been bamboozled by slogans when they were “asked nicely” to join a cause. As Hitler himself said, “The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.” As such, over the centuries, the world’s greatest dictators and villains offered the unemployed and hungry “sheep” a dream to chew on, and they gobbled it up as if it was bread.

Today, as we contemplate Holocaust Remembrance Day, I can’t help but ask myself as I do every year, how did it actually get to the point where it was okay to send a human being into a gas chamber and turn a person into a lampshade? Such emotional and moral callousness could not have happened overnight. Certainly, it was built up.

I’ve heard it echoed through the years, “We shall never forget,” but I’m not so sure we are remembering the most important part. The number 6 million and the word Holocaust will likely never be forgotten. But what is even more important to remember is how we got there. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which defined exactly who a Jew was, were awful, but the tragedy didn’t begin there. It was incremental. First Jews weren’t allowed in parks, then restaurants, then universities, then into certain professions. Then Jewish businesses were boycotted, Jews could no longer be citizens and Germans were prohibited from interbreeding or marrying a Jew, etc. Every time the Jews thought it couldn’t get worse, it did…as it always does. A rolling ball doesn’t stop midway down the hill unless it is stopped. Yes, today we mourn the victims, but we must also mourn the intermediary steps which went unchallenged and allowed the final carnage to ensue.

Today, another set of incremental steps are taking place that are harbingers of what may be another destructive episode in Jewish history. Readers, I do not like what I’m seeing from Washington vis-a-vis Israel: I do not like it that Israel is being told where Jews can and cannot live in their own homeland; I do not like the path Obama’s nuclear agenda is taking compromising both America’s and Israel’s security; I do not like that Obama has never visited the Jewish State since he’s been President while making time to visit Muslim countries; I do not like it that Obama is considering imposing his own take-it-or-leave-it peace plan; I don’t like that Obama reportedly denied entry into the United States of an Israeli nuclear scientist who works on the Dimona reactor; I do not like it that Obama has refused to approve any of Israel's military requests since he entered office in January 2009. The ball is picking up speed.

My friends, when Obama was running for office he showed us his kosher-style hooves. When he visited Sderot in ’08 he said, “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughter sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same.” When he spoke pre-presidency at AIPAC, he supported an undivided Jerusalem.” But now, my friends, it is apparent that he may have kosher hooves, but he doesn’t chew his own cud and those who supported him are being left to eat crow.

Every single day that we remain silent the chasm grows and the shadow gets darker not only over the Jewish State but over all that this great country stands for. If we do not, with the full force of our abilities, resist this “gathering storm,” then I advise we change the slogan from “we will never forget” to “we will never learn.” Maybe in the end we are all just sheep pulling the wool over our own eyes while the little piggies go “ha, ha, ha” all the way home.
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The Role of a Lifetime by Aliza Davidovit

2010-04-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

Are you a nice person? What makes you think so? Then there is the better question: Does it “pay” to be nice? The word “nice,” derived from Middle English, once meant foolish and stupid. People do indeed take you for foolish, stupid or weak when you’re nice (especially in places like New York).

Did it pay for Moses to be nice? You can’t get nicer than him. He led his people to the Promised Land via great efforts and personal sacrifice, and in the end he himself wasn’t even allowed in. After all of Jesus’ efforts to spread kindness, healing and love, his days, too, didn’t end with a Lifetime Achievement Award. If being nice pays, how come only the good die young? How come the squeaky wheel gets serviced? How come it’s the guy who punches hardest that wins the heavyweight championship and not the guy who gives him a massage?

It is very hard to keep being nice in a world the often deems you a fool for being so. Let’s face it, nice guys finish last.

But, my friends, if we don’t like the answers it’s because we have approached these questions with a capitalistic mindset. We want payment in the here and now to prove being nice is worth it. However, we are not here to walk our days on earth as collectors of treats because we did something good. Life is indeed a whetting stone and we can use it to shape us into miserable shmendricks or into the best version of ourselves.

As Jesus walked the Via Dolorosa and Moses watched the Israelites cross over into the Jordan Valley, neither said it doesn’t pay to be nice. It is precisely because acts of kindness often get lost in an ever-darkening world that we have the additional responsibility of being extra good, extra nice and extra charitable in order to sustain the light in the world. If each one of us serves as a spark, combined we form an intense ray that can save the world—just like a laser beam (intensified light) can blast cancer.

It is said that when we enter the pearly gates we will be shown two films. One will be a biography of our entire lives, a true nitty-gritty tell-all expose, probably produced by a former 60 Minutes journalist. The other film will be of all that we could have been if we had lived our lives by God’s cues and directions and had given our days the best performance we could. The gap between these two films is a tragic abyss. It is in our hands NOW to decide what movie we want to make and what scenes we want to cut and leave on the edit room floor. Just remember that there are no second takes, the part you play today is a role of a lifetime.
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Holy Bagels! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-03-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, we are close enough for you to know that I suffer from opsomania, which is, the abnormal love for one kind of food. In my case it’s bagels. Therefore, I cannot deny that as Passover approaches, I lament the loss of this round shaped carbohydrate and my spirit sadly flattens like a whole wheat matzo.

But Passover is not just about cutting bread from the menu or getting rid of the last possible crumbs from your fridge, your car, your sock drawer, or anywhere else you are harboring baked stowaways. On a deeper level, Passover, just as Easter, is a time for us to take an introspective look at ourselves, to clean up our spiritual crumbs, and to commit ourselves to do things differently today than we did yesterday.

The yeast that makes bread rise is compared to a man’s pride and to the puffery we entertain ourselves with in our ego-driven lives. Yet matzos are hardly attention getters, either by sight or smell. Everything about them bespeaks humility. Quite frankly, they are a needed reminder to a people who, bloated with their own success, forget that at any moment history can take the air right out of them. The destiny of a Jew can pivot in a second.

This past week, as we watched politics play out with President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we were reminded of that fact. And ominously, in the shadow of Passover, history seemed to repeat itself.

Once there was a leader named Moses who came before Pharaoh and said, “Let my people go!” But Pharaoh’s heart was pumped up on self-importance, ego and pride. Though he had chance after chance to do the right thing, he spurned Moses and God. He was, figuratively speaking, a yeast filled bagel. But egos make for poor scaffolds and thus the Egyptian empire crumbled. Netanyahu, too, arrived in the columned halls of DC with a similar message regarding housing for Jews in Jerusalem, basically saying, “Let my people grow.” The prime minister was met with the same defiance and arrogance of a true enemy of the Jewish people, a dislike that breached all former protocol, decency and semblance of friendship. Pharaoh told the Jews to make bricks with no straw, Obama tells Jews to build houses with no bricks.

My friends, the moment is as brittle as a matzo. This night is certainly different than all other nights as the US-Israel relationship hits an historic low and Iran casts an ominous gloom on the tiny Jewish state. Let’s pray for the sake of sparing lives and friendships that Obama will learn something from the humble matzo and soften his stance toward America’s stalwart ally in the Middle East. As for Netanyahu, like Moses, I implore him to stay the course, despite the pressures, so that God will continue to stand behind him and bless the Promised Land. If the president would have spent less time listening to his reverend’s hateful speeches and more time listening to scriptures he would have learned that the bread you cast upon the waters flows back your way. But, until it all plays out, let us just be glad that Obama bows and bends to foreign leaders as if he was a Geisha girl-- like this he won’t feel too disjointed if the God who watches over Israel has to bring him to his knees.

Happy Passover and Easter!!!
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From Toe to Head by Aliza Davidovit

2010-03-21T14:48:00.000-07:00

As I was lying on my couch with my feet propped up on the armrest reading the Bible that was resting on my stomach, I realized that from above the top of the page I could see my toes. Something about my position seemed disrespectful to me. I didn’t think my feet should be elevated above God’s book. I started to tell myself I was being silly and continued reading but my toe kept looking at me straight in the face. I then began to investigate if there were any discussions about this in Judaic literature and discovered that I didn’t invent an issue where there was none. Turns out that there are many rules on how to handle holy books. For instance, one can’t put a book down on the same bench you are sitting on, or place a book face down or on the floor. It is even a sign of respect to close the book when one is not reading it and to kiss it once done reading it or if you drop it on the floor. This search led me to read on about other traditions that advocate respect, such as requiring a woman to dress beautifully before lighting her Sabbath candles in order to show respect to the holiness of the day, or the past requirement of Talmudic students to sit on a lower level than their teacher, or that of priests officiating in the temple to wear special garb. All these procedures were followed in the name of respect.

These traditions touch me deeply even though they may seem benign and boring to others. It touched me because what I think is at the core of so much of today’s problems, from broken families to strained relationships even on the political scene, is the lack of respect between individuals. When I see all the fences religions erect vis-a-vis inanimate objects in order to preserve respect and to enhance our ability to differentiate between the holy and the mundane, I wonder why it’s not blatantly evident that the same has to be extended to people in order to preserve relationships.

The other week I was walking in a shopping mall when I heard a little girl, probably aged 9 or 10, tell her mother to shut up. I was disgusted with the mother, not the child. For it is obvious that that parent didn’t put up the essential scaffold that maintains all relationships: respect. I’m sure there were many infractions which went unchallenged before that impudent kid had the nerve to tell her parent to shut up. I have seen brides and grooms read their vows with such love and devotion and just a few years later they call each other every name under the sun. As a little girl I used to wonder how people who loved each other could actually get divorced. At what point does it break down, at what point does it become irreversible? We all recently saw how the United States spoke very rough and tough to Israel, its steadfast ally.

Relationships don’t crumble overnight. As we let our guard fall as to how we speak to others and how we let them speak to us, these insipid leniencies that seem meaningless and harmless in the moment end up creating a great chasm. A child shushes you quiet at 5 years old and tells you to shut up at 10, you call you husband “stupid” as a joke the first year of mariage and five years later you’ve expanded your liberties and call him a *!!@$%!@@*. The Holy Book starts off on your bookshelf and ends up as a coaster on the coffee table. Strategic interests unite two nations but harsh words and disrespect seem more potent in defining the future.

I guess this whole blog is to urge us all to guard the moments and to realize how important respect is as the glue to preserve all that’s decent and precious. We’ve become such an informal generation, and respect is one of the greatest casualties. In my temple growing up there was a big sign above the pulpit that said, “Know before whom you stand,” I think I too started forgetting, but my toes served to remind me.
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Who is left to protect Israel? by Aliza Davidovit

2010-03-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

Someone once told me that if you want to see how well Jews are doing just read an antisemitic paper. In it, the Jews, who make up .02 percent of the world population, are alleged to be running the entire world. The statistics alone would prove this to be preposterous.

Yet as my BlackBerry lights up like wild fire with 100s of e-mails a day from legitimate news sources, it is quite evident that Jews are in deeper peril today than ever before. All the fences Jews relied on to protect them are crumbling before our eyes. The troubles facing the Jewish State of Israel lay at the core of these tenuous times for the Jewish people. A new generation has arisen that remembers not the smell of smoke which arose from the crematoriums. This generation knows only Facebook, Twitter and iPhones and faces the world through flat plasma screens and not in 3-D reality where hate is spreading with alarming speed. It does not realize that without Israel every Jew throughout the world is a hated orphan who will be abused, assaulted or even murdered though they have assimilated into their local cultures. Remember the Jews of post-Weimar Germany. They, too, felt more German than Jewish…until they were brutally awakened as to their true status in the Fatherland.

In the past, education and strong ties to Eretz Yisroel have preserved a people confronted by villainous persecutions. But today Jews have become too comfortable in their host countries and have forgotten how much they need Israel for their survival. As such, Jews donate more charitable funds to save opera and whales than they do to save Jews. What message does this send to the next generation? As the "poisoning" of America's elites against Jews and Israel, especially in academia where anti-Israel agenda is metastasizing across campuses, our Jewish youth doesn't even know how to respond because they don't know the facts. Their ignorance has become our enemy’s greatest tool. Our kids live in an educational vacuum that we have let others fill. So, who is left to defend Israel: Obama, Ahmadinejad, Hamas, Hilary Clinton, the United Nations, or you and me?

My friends, I believe that as pertains to the Jewish state there is an enemy in the White House. How can we forget that prior to becoming president, Obama addressed AIPAC in 2008 and said, “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided”—until he changed his mind the next day. Now that’s commitment! Maybe we missed the fine print on his AIPAC statement which modified the word “undivided” as meaning that Jews can’t build houses in Jerusalem but Arabs can.

Oh, and then there was Obama’s promise in that same AIPAC speech in which he promised, "I'll do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” which translates into, “We will do nothing but offer carrots and sticks until they have a chance to complete their nuclear program and be a certain existential threat to Israel and the Western world.” If that devotion to its loyal ally is not enough, the president now sends Vice President Biden to Israel to make sure Israel does not defend itself against Iran in a pre-emptive strike. I ask you again, “Who is left to defend Israel?”

Shouldn’t we all be terrified when Biden calls the United States’ bond to Israel “unshakable” on Tuesday and then three days later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells Netanyahu that building housing for Jews in East Jerusalem puts Israel’s bilateral relations with the U.S. into question. I have never seen something so unshakable shake so quickly.

This week Jews begin to read the third book of Moses, Leviticus. It begins with a call of duty to Moses, but its timing has never been more crucial. It is a call of duty to all Jews and friends of Israel to defend the Jewish homeland by all means. For Jews who voted for Obama it’s time you woke up and realized that behind whatever facade you wear in this life you are a Jew and no one will let you forget it as hard as you may try. It is time to get behind your people and your Jewish homeland; it is time to teach your children and wake up already.

If you still believe in the “yes, we can” man, fine, but put the pressure on him to stand by America’s most loyal ally in the Middle East. Tell the contortionist-in-chief to stop bowing and bending to foreign leaders and to stand up straight for his friends.

The days of wine and roses are over. There is a jihad against our people and the clock is ticking in double time.
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The Shouts Heard Around the World by Aliza Davidovit

2010-03-07T09:47:00.000-08:00

This week’s blog marks the end of the second book of the Bible. And as we review the lessons learned to this point it becomes evermore clear that God's book is not a history book, but a living legacy. It demands not only that we increase the flame but pass the torch from generation to generation. As such, today’s piece will be co-written by my younger cousin Brittany who will be bat mitzvahed in the coming year. As it says: “Teach your children and your children's children” (Deuteronomy 4:9).

Although the first bullet has yet to be shot, America is engaged in a Civil War. There is such polarization between political parties and people that the yellow tape which is usually used to mark a crime scene can now be used to outline the map of the United States. The greatest country in the world has become the brutalized victim of divisiveness because each side is so arrogantly absorbed with its own existence. But any rational mind would know that truth, civility and cooperation are not found in the extremes but rather down the middle of the road. Can it truly be that the Republicans are 100% right? That the democrats are 100% wrong? Can there be no exchange of wisdom and compromise that would serve us all better as a people and a nation?

In this week’s biblical portion God tells Moses to tally the people by taking a half monetary unit from each, in other words, instead of a dollar, each was counted by giving fifty cents. The moral of the story is clear: None of us is SO complete as to obviate the need of others in order to form a perfect whole.

With that lesson in mind, perhaps our country is in urgent need of a humility lesson. For in pride and arrogance and self-absorption, we become evermore fragmented as the parts begin to mistake themselves for the whole “pie.” The dumbest student in the class and in life is always the one who thinks he knows it all.

Just imagine that America is a child in a huge custody battle. Would it serve the child best for the opposing parents to demonize each other and keep the hate alive or to realize that a child needs both parents for healthy balance and growth?

Another powerful lesson we learn from the biblical account is that the Torah was given not on the loftiest and proudest of mountains but rather on Mount Sinai, a comparatively small and humble one. This, too, is a symbolic lesson meant to teach that even God’s laws and wisdom which should be powerful enough to ram through any heart can only enter a humble heart, a heart that does not overestimate its own wisdom.

Perhaps these shouting matches that have deafened a nation along partisan lines should be toned down and a softer and more common sense approach should be used. Often school teachers whisper instead of scream to get their students to tune in and pay attention. Maybe we should try this quieter approach of engaging before it's too late and a nationally fatal shot is heard around the world.
By Aliza Davidovit & Brittany Pekeles
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The Naked Truth by Aliza Davidovit

2010-02-28T12:27:00.000-08:00

These days people have become so shallow that they are more impressed by labels and icons than they are by substance. For instance, it was just found out that a French wine company sold 18 million bottles of a cheap Merlot to Americans passing it off as a pricier Pinot Noir from 2006-2008. No one ever knew. I can just see it now as some pretentious dude is twirling and sniffing the wine and giving the waiter the AOK that the wine is “just fabulous.” We have become so duped by labels and the superficial that it is no wonder our society is crumbling; there is no substantive foundation holding us up. Today, we are more defined by “who” you wear or what you buy than who you are. Chanel, Gucci, Pucci, Armani, Boss, Ralph Lauren, Prada, ect., are the identifiers by which we size other people up and evaluate our own worth. And if you can’t afford the real thing there is always the market for knockoffs as is so prevalent here in New York. People don’t care about the truth or the substance, they care about the show.

Who cares that once you get home you realize that the knockoff pocketbook doesn’t even say “Chanel,” it says, “Channel.” They gave you an extra “n,” and for a discount too. What’s the big deal if the knock-of Isaac Miyake cologne smells like parakeet pee, I think the real one smells worse. And so what if the “Tag Heuer” watch you bought for 15 bucks is just like the people in this town, it won’t give you the time of day. What’s most important is that everyone thinks you own an expensive item and that your worth and esteem in the world have been augmented by whatever fraudulent means. It shouldn’t really matter when the band starts corroding and your wrist becomes affected with gangrene. It’s also hardly relevant that the cheap plastic from your new “Prada” sunglasses is releasing lead into your brain. We only use 10 percent of our brain anyway, and if you’re in Congress, apparently your brain is dispensable altogether. But, I guess it’s like everything else in our country these days, even our bullshit is manufactured in China.

It was sad to read an article by Sharon Osbourne today in which she states that our youth is being destroyed by celebrity. The ambitions of our youth today is to be famous—another label. They just want the title and don’t really care if they have the talent or even care what they are famous for. YouTube moments and reality TV shows feed the beast. We are nurturing a world of empty vessels.

Even when I hear President Obama say at the health care summit that he can speak the length of his choice because he is the President, I get the same ill feeling that a label is being bandied about at the expense of true value. If you are the President, then start acting like it and stop advertising it. This “me”-gocentric labeling does not a president make. Even the secure handles on a real Gucci handbag couldn’t carry the weight of the debt he’s amassing. The hateful divide in this country is a better reflection of whether you are President or presidential.

Thus, when we read this week’s Bible portion, Moses’ greatness stands in contrast to the world and leadership we know today. As God declares He is about to destroy the Jewish Nation because of the sin of the golden calf, Moses says if You destroy the Jews, then blot my name out of Your Book. He wasn’t seeking name recognition. He didn’t say, “Okay, make me famous and to heck with them Jews.” He didn’t need a label, fame, or pretentious baloney to prove he was a somebody. As a consequence, in this week’s reading, it is the first time since Moses’ birth that his name does not appear in the entire section. Yet who he was and what he stood for was more powerful than ever, right there in his humility. He was a leader from the inside out. As such he didn’t need spotlights shining on him; it turns out the light shone out from him.

I’m not launching a war against designers here or Obama. I’m just saying let’s try hard not to forget what it really is that makes a man. Let's stop polishing the apples and start nurturing the fruit inside.
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I Don’t Forgive You and Take a Hike by Aliza Davidovit

2010-02-21T07:27:00.000-08:00

This week on Facebook I asked my friends how America has been hurt or helped by the forgiving nature of its people. I’m not surprised to learn that my friends are merciful, compassionate and kind-hearted—I chose my friends well. So please friends forgive me for thinking that this country is too forgiving and such lenity is eating away at our souls.

There was a great line in the movie Hud with Paul Newman that hit me: “Little by little, the look of the country changes because of the men we admire.” But when these men plummet, they take us all with them, especially our starry-eyed kids who every day have one less person to look up to. Yes, “the country changes” when the mighty fail and fall.

When public figures such as Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford, James McGreevy, Gary Condit, Gary Hart, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Jim Bakker, and so many more, drop their pants in the wrong building, they are not only cheating on their spouses but on all those who trusted them to be attending business--not monkey business.

When Congressmen are indicted, when athletes get juiced, when Wall Street scams us, when spiritual leaders are caught with their hands in the till, when the media becomes propagandists, they are unraveling all we believe in and everything we are. So why do we find it so easy to forgive? One Facebook friend basically said, albeit using different words: He who has not sinned among us, let them cast the first stone. So, basically, are we supposed to cater to our weaknesses? We might murder one day too, so let’s forgive the murderers. We might rip someone off one day, so let’s forgive the CEO’s for all the people they’ve cheated out of their life savings. Instead of creating a world where we can look up and strive for greatness, we are preparing our safety nets in case we mess up.

I do not believe that our indulgent forgiveness is creating a better world. Sometimes the things we believe in demand tough love. If we make it so easy for everyone to go on the apology tour with a speech produced by a PR company and we forgive them, then we are contributing to our own demise, especially in this age of the information superhighway where misdeeds and apologies become YouTube moments.
Not only do Americans forgive wrongdoers, but it seems to reward them. Tiger Woods’ paramour, Rachel Uchitel, was hired as a special correspondent on NBC's Extra. Sadly, trained, skilled young journalists who work so hard to get a job, move to the back of the queue because engaging in a scandal and having sex with a famous person are the prerequisites to board the express train to success. Is that the advice you would give your daughter vying for a job? If you can forgive Extra for that, then you are giving silent consent.
If we want to prove ourselves as merciful, good people then let’s get a little tougher and less forgiving. Let's have some mercy for the things we value and not pretend it's raining when cheats spit on us with impunity. I say kick the bums out, fire them, take away their endorsements, teach them a good lesson that will make the next guy think ten times before he screws his mistress and his country and corrupts the soul of a nation. How many cheeks can we turn while they keep kicking us in the butt?
In this week’s biblical reading we learn how the Menorah in the temple had to be illuminated by the purest of oil, teaching us that that which is meant to bring light and direction to the world needs to be clean and untainted. Thus, for those who have set themselves as leaders and icons among us, we must demand nothing less. Let a new clarion call rise up throughout the land: “I don’t forgive you, and take a hike.”

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I LOVE YOU, Maybe Baby? by Aliza Davidovit

2010-02-14T07:40:00.001-08:00

Cupid’s bow has pierced our hearts. Storefront windows abound with heart-shaped mobiles and chocolates packaged in red velvet boxes. Long-stemmed roses overfill the buckets lining the street corner markets. Flower delivery men scurry across town, their faces hidden behind big bouquets. Finely dressed businessmen clutch their briefcases in one hand and swing small, pink Victoria’s Secret bags in the other.

As an ebullience of amity overtakes the ever-hectic Manhattan on Valentine’s Day, it appears that love is in the air. But when all the accessories are stripped away, I question, what is love? Do we know how to love? And what is the greatest love of all? Whether it is love of people, God, or country, what is the real proof that we love something? Can you be patriotic if you refuse to fight for your country? Are you a loving husband if you don’t believe in Valentine’s Day? Are you a person of faith if you never attend temple or church? Can you really love your country if you don’t vote?

Who is to say that how we love is wrong or right? Could it be that Democrats love this country more than Republicans profess to? Can you really love yourself if you don’t take care of yourself? If we follow God’s decree to love our neighbors as ourselves, but in fact we hate ourselves and treat our neighbors with equal odium, have we fulfilled our obligation? If we only love what we can’t get, do we really love anything we have? If we love only what’s lovable, is that love?

The group Foreigner came out with a song in the 1980s, I Want To Know What Love Is. I think they are not alone in this quest. With on-line dating growing by the minute and divorces keeping equal pace, people are continually in the search for love and yet seem to ruin it once they have it. Can it be that we just don’t know what love is?

Maybe we can learn something from this week’s Bible portion in which God gives exact measurements and details of how he wants the Jewish nation to build His sanctuary. God does not leave his love affair with a people to chance, He explains explicitly what He wants. The burden is now upon His people to prove their love.

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.” 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 or giving all you have, but rather doing what you don’t feel like doing and giving what you don’t have--be it, time, patience, understanding, and yes even materialistic things.

Maybe it’s time we rejected the romanticized Hollywood version of love where lovers ride of into the sunset to some pop song and live happily ever after. In this generation where everything is easy come and easy go, even love is a casualty and subject to the revolving door syndrome that plagues our ability to appreciate and work hard for anything.

I don’t profess to be the love guru, but I do know that the words “I love you” are a lot easier said than done.

Ten Steps to becoming a MVP by Aliza Davidovit

2010-02-07T12:08:00.001-08:00

It’s interesting how in our practical lives we acknowledge how action breeds results. When a person wants to lose weight, he goes to the gym; he wants to get smart, he opens a book; he wants to a get a woman, he starts feeding her a load of baloney . Yet so many of these same people who know how to exert an effort to see change in their lives all become “rationalizers” who won’t get off the couch when it comes to God. The same people who are at the gym at 6 a.m., at work at 8 a.m., or on the golf course every Sunday have the nerve to say when it comes to practical religion, “I don’t like to be regimented.” I can’t begin to tell you how many times, as a former rabbi’s wife, that people have told me, “God knows I’m a good person in my heart,” and then they conveniently point to one errant priest or rabbi as an excuse why the entire religion is not for them. How fascinating that they’ve also seen fat people at the gym, yet they didn’t write off the health club as useless. It seems that the only thing not made in China these days is excuses. We manufacture them here at home in excess.

So to all the cardiac-faithful, meaning those who have God in their hearts but not in their schedules, let’s see if you can pass the good person test. How many of the Ten Commandments can you count on your ten fingers that you didn’t violate?

The first commandment in the Old Testament is the belief that God is the origin of all things: “I am the Lord your God.” It is from this starting point that any of the commandments have relevance. So with that in mind, let’s proceed.

II “You shall have no other gods….” Though you may not have a golden calf in your living room, it does not mean you are guilt free of idol worship. ANYTHING that comes between you and God is an idol, including your money, your fancy lifestyle, your fear, your own arrogance and your vanity. If on a holiday you’re on the golf course instead of church or temple, then your idols are those irons. Hhhmmm, not even gold; that sucks.

III “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.” If you drive a car in New York City or Los Angeles, I’d have a hard time believing that to the beat of your honking you’re not taking God’s name in vain. But just let’s say you pass this test, how many times have you made a promise to God and not kept it? Once that plane landed safely, your oath to save the orphans vanished somewhere between the passengers claps and the terminal. That too is calling upon God's name in vain. Would you call the CEO of your company every day and waste his time too? See you in the unemployment line.

IV “Remember the seventh day and keep it holy.” A lot of people will say that they serve God in their own way, when they have the time and not necessarily on the “Sabbath.” Just try that routine on your girlfriend and tell her you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day on June 3rd or tell your wife you’ll remember your anniversary when you get a chance. Good luck! Nice knowing you. (212) 555-1315. Oh, sorry that's the number for a divorce attorney. A relationship with God is the same as any other relationship. Abuse it and lose it.

V “Honor they mother and father.” Most people think this decree means not to be rude to your parents. It doesn’t stop there. This commandment doesn’t have a statute of limitations or expire when your parents pass on. Even after they die your behavior in this world reflects on them. If you behave immorally, are corrupt, or, conversely, are decent to others, your behavior honors or dishonors them.

VI “Thou shalt not murder.” Just as you were about to raise a finger and count this as one commandment you didn’t break, know that embarrassing a person, according to biblical exegetes, is tantamount to murder as it causes the blood to rush away from someone’s face. Breaking someone’s pride and dignity and crushing their spirit is also regarded as a form of murder.

VII “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The pope once said that even if you look at your own wife in a lustful manner, it is considered adultery. Since then, Clinton never looked at his own wife that way again. The statistics for adultery are very high. But let’s make one thing clear, your wife may be a witch, your marriage may be dead, you may be sleeping in different rooms, nonetheless if you drop your pants in the wrong place, it is still adultery.

VIII “Thou shalt not steal.” As a young girl I remember hearing a story about two people who walked out of an Eaton’s department store with a canoe. They stole it in plain sight. Sometimes what is very obvious goes unnoticed. So you may be surprised to learn that manipulating someone’s mind or heart is considered stealing. When a doctor makes you wait for an hour in his waiting room, he is stealing your time. Let Obama add that to healthcare reform.

IX “Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor.” Perhaps you would not lie under oath, but any form of lying against another person’s good name, even to aggrandize yourself or your business in an apparently harmless fashion, is wrong. You never know where those words will land and they may in effect lead someone to commit suicide.

X “Though shalt not covet.” Maybe you’re not lusting after your neighbor’s ass, but have you bought things you cannot afford, over-extended your self on a mortgage or debt? We do such things because we covet what others have. We have big eyes on the world and we want the same things as everyone else. Coveting may cause us to hurt others as well as ourselves. The Torah cautions us not to run after our eyes. Imagine if God forbid you were blind, how you would come to reassess which things are really valuable in life.

Dear friends, as you are set to watch and enjoy Superbowl Sunday be reminded that the MVP is not a cardiac player who is a good player in his heart. He goes the distance to make the difference and his ACTIONS, not his love of football, differentiate the winners from the losers.
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Image is Everything?!!! by Aliza Davidovit

2010-01-31T08:17:00.000-08:00

Many of us have an image we feel we have to upkeep in order to face the world. So maybe we wear a little too much makeup, buy a car we can’t afford, or show a brave face when we are crying inside. Images are only skin deep. For instance, the Titanic may have had an image of great elegance and imperviousness but the iceberg wasn’t too impressed and as a result 1500 people died. The Wizard of Oz, had the image of an all-powerful magician, but when the curtains were pulled, he was nothing more than a little man with a megaphone. Image is the bait that ensnares us, hypnotizes us, and lures us down the Yellow Brick Road-- often to find disappointment at its end. It is unfortunate that we try and put our best face forward at the expense of what is really going on behind it.
Even the TV we love to watch is all about improving life aesthetically and superficially. It is the trend these days in reality TV to renovate the externals of our existence, thus the barrage of makeover programs, such as What Not to Wear, Nip & Tuck, 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. I question why there are no shows that force people to be nicer. Why don’t they take some mean yutz and put him through the process of attending church, doing acts of kindness and in the end showing how his life has been changed for the better because of it.

We apathetic viewers allow media image makers to shape the mindset by which we evaluate people and events. A perfect example is President Obama, who came upon the national scene with a nice smile and a gift of gab. As a result, most of America was hypnotized by a manufactured image that promised to “fundamentally change” the country. We failed to insist that the media dig deeper and to uncover the depth and breadth of a man who would be president.

But how can we demand more of others when in a large measure we evaluate ourselves superficially as well? At the end of most days we bash ourselves if we are overweight, if we didn’t make enough money, if we aren’t as successful as the other guy or gal. But how many of us take ourselves to task at the end of the day for not doing enough charitable deeds that day or being a kinder person? Few of us engage in a makeover that starts on the inside.

In this week’s Bible portion the Israelites gather at the foot of Mount Sinai to witness Moses descend with the Ten Utterances (Commandments). God does not pick a fancy building or the highest mountain to bring his laws into the world nor does he ask His people to adorn themselves with jewels and expensive garb, but rather he addresses them in the wilderness, where they have nothing and are nothing more than a wandering people. The Jews had humility after leaving Egypt—after all, what pride can a former slave have? As such they were prime candidates to receive the word of God. Pharaoh had pride and haughtiness and thus could not absorb God’s laws. He was impressed with his own image and all the makeovers that Egyptian idol makers and beauticians could conjure. But gilded armor does not a mensch make.

A rabbi once asked his young student where can God be found? The student proud to know the answer said, “God can be found everywhere.”
“Wrong,” his rabbi replied, “God can only be found in a humble heart, not one that is filled with ego, for two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time.”

Biblical scholars teach that it is relevant that the Ten Commandment were engraved in stone and not inked on parchment or gilded with gold letters. Something engraved shows humility because it is able to surrender a part of itself and allow something meaningful to be etched in its stead.

So my dear friends, when we look at our lives and contemplate “makeovers” and image boosters, close your eyes! Look inside yourself beyond the mirrors, choose substance over surface. When we reach the end of our days it is only our good deeds that will gain us entry into God’s kingdom, and at that heavenly gate, there is no bribing the doorman.

Walk the Talk by Aliza Davidovit

2010-01-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

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.
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Will Tomorrow Ever Come? by Aliza Davidovit

2009-12-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

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.”

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Tell Me Who Your Friends Are? by Aliza Davidovit

2009-12-20T10:20:00.000-08:00

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.

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The Lights of Faith by Aliza Davidovit

2009-12-13T08:08:00.000-08:00

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.

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Thou Shall Not Envy the Dude with a Hot Wife Or His Donkey by Aliza Davidovit

2009-12-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

We all seem to know some lucky “undeserving” idiots who seem to have it all in life--that obnoxious brother-in-law, your sister, the neighbor, or that guy on TV. And as we compare our own lot in life to theirs, it’s hard not to be jealous when our assets are in bubkes and theirs are in billions or when they are so “hot” and we are just not. How often has the little green-eyed demon, jealousy, whispered in our ear? “If I only had what they have I’d be happy.” Unfortunately, jealousy is often not an inspirational coach that motivates us to improve ourselves as much as it inspires us to ruin others.

Interestingly, the tenth commandment--“You shall not covet”--is the only one that deals with our thoughts and desires, not our actions. As such, it is a commandment that if broken can only be known by God, He who can read hearts and surely knows if you are lusting after your neighbor’s ass[ets]. But this commandment is deemed the most important of all because it is the root of all evil. If jealousy and coveting are nurtured, they will lead to a violation of ALL the other commandments. In the name of jealousy all the ills of the world were born in Eden.

When I was a young girl and would tell my mother I wish I had this girl’s dollhouse or that one’s bicycle, even though we were not religious my mother would always say in Yiddish, even though she is French, “zindik nisht,” which means “Do not sin.” And then she would add, “You never know what another person’s luck is!” (Somehow wisdom spoken in other languages seems to have more gravitas.)

As always mother knows best. She was right. Up until last week everyone envied Tiger Woods. He had a picture-perfect life. But we always forget that life is 3D, not a flat picture. Then there was the double-D beautiful Marilyn Monroe who was so envied, yet all her blessings ended when she died at the age of 36. James Dean, too, had everything to live for and then died at 24. The same is true of Lady Diana, Elvis Presley, JFK and JFK Jr. And while they lived, how many of them were truly happy and how many had sunk to the depths of despair?

Millions of people once wished they could have changed places with the above individuals when it seemed their lives were dreams come true? But time has shed a truer light on their stories--which have proven to be more nightmarish than dreamy. Did you ever wonder what those people would have given to be you?

Before you start envying someone else, have you really accessed everything that God gave to you and developed it and worked on it and turned it into greatness? Or do you lazily watch life go by and envy everyone who has the temerity to get off the couch and be all they can be.

Indeed, there is nothing wrong with healthy competition or having role models-- that’s what leads to excellence and innovation. But each man has his own lot in life. It is said that on a person’s Day of Judgment before one’s Heavenly Maker, we will not be asked why we weren’t as great as others were but rather why we weren’t AS GOOD AS WE CAN BE!

In this week’s Bible portion, we read about Joseph and his brothers’ jealousy. That jealousy led to a plot to kill him (until they decided to throw him into a pit instead). His brothers were so busy looking at Joseph and hating him that they forgot to look at themselves and their own immense worth. They were the future 12 tribes of a blessed nation, of God’s chosen people. Each was destined for greatness and named at birth prophetically for his own unique qualities that he would bestow on humanity. Each tribe was ascribed his own month hence the 12 months of the year; each had his own influence corresponding to the 12 astrological signs. But instead of putting their focus and energy on how high they could go and how important they were individually, they decided to “dig” a pit for their brother which, in the end, THEY fell into.

Friends, there are two ways to augment yourself in life: one is by digging a diminishing ditch for others, the second is by building a meaningful platform for yourself. If you choose the former you become a coward, if you chose the latter you can become a king. You cannot rise by bringing others to their knees, but rather by getting off your own.
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This blog is dedicated to:
Lev lalev girl's orphanage in Israel (help make their Chanukah special) AND to
The Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (help make their Christmas special)

Doesn't matter who you help, but please reach out and help someone during this holiday season of lights and candles and brighten somebody's life.

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Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who is the Biggest Turkey of All? by Aliza Davidovit

2009-11-29T08:12:00.000-08:00

I have often questioned if our mission in life is about becoming all we can be or about maintaining who we started out as? There is no better place than New York City to watch that experiment unfold. Wannabe actresses, singers, journalists, entrepreneurs, and others come from across the nation and across the world believing the city’s sparks of magic and opportunity will turn them into the next American Idol in their respective fields.

Indeed many come armed with great talent, but from the moment they unpack their bags a war of attrition is launched against their values, their upbringing, their religions, and their innocence. The road to success is rough and tough in a big city and for every beauty there is a younger, better looking beauty, for every talent there is a greater talent. Thus, often that trunk we packed at home with all our beliefs and belongings can burden our pace. So, ever so slowly, imperceptibly we lighten our load shedding that which shackles our rise to the top--kindness, integrity, morality, our small town mentalities and God. We begin to ask ourselves: How can I make it in the movies without sleeping with a producer? How can I make it by being mister nice guy? How can I make it if I observe the Sabbath? These doubts don’t happen overnight, and yet they do as night after night, in unguarded moments, Satan taunts us and teases us and lures us away from ourselves, breaking down one barrier at a time.

It is often during such times as Thanksgiving and other holidays when we return home to our familiar surroundings and look into those mirrors that watched us grow up, that we can see how much we have changed.

The big city is but a metaphor for our life’s journey. God sends us to this earth with our talents, our desires and our ambitions. He also sends us tests along the way which we can use to refine us or to redefine us. But when we return to our heavenly maker, will He recognize us? Will we resemble the innocent soul He set upon this earth? How many of us have had a New York “makeover” that has rendered us unrecognizable even to ourselves and to all that we used to be.

It is said that after Adam and Eve took a bite from their “big apple” God called out to them in the Garden of Eden and asked, “Where are you?” Certainly an All-knowing God knew where they were, but it was a question meant to instigate introspection. “Where are you in this world? What do you stand for? What do you fall for? He asks them where they are because once they sinned their souls became unrecognizable.

As a journalist who interviews the who’s who, I have a staple question I ask: “Was there a price to your success? The answer is always, “yes.” And many, depending on their age, say the price wasn’t worth it--usually the older, the wiser. It evokes a term that stuck with me from my torturous economics classes: the law of diminishing returns—at a certain point producing “more” actually decreases the value of returns.

In last week’s Bible portion read in synagogues, we learn that the same God who commanded Abraham to leave his place of birth tells the patriarch Jacob to do the complete opposite: “RETURN to the land of thy birth.” For Jacob, unlike Abraham, home would be the uncompromising backdrop that would reveal if and how he had changed.

When Jacob left home he possessed nothing but his will to serve God. His propensity was toward spirituality, not materialism. Yet he returns with great wealth, with wives and children and herds of animals. This accumulation of worldly things was so uncharacteristic of him that when his brother Esau, who had not seen him for 20 years, saw Jacob’s entourage, he asked, “Who are these to you?” It was not the same Jacob who had left home. Leave it to family to remind you.

It is thus only upon Jacob’s return to the land of his birth that he wrestled with an angel-- a symbol of evil born out of his new found materialism. Now that Jacob had a foot in both worlds, the material and the spiritual, each was struggling to dominate him. In his fight with the angel, Jacob’s spiritual strength won, but his leg was injured and he walked forevermore with a limp. The biblical lesson is clear: The attempt to live life with our feet planted in two worlds so far apart is a hard way to travel and often extracts a painful price.

So many of us walked away from the Thanksgiving table popping antacids not only because we overate but because some annoying family members made us nauseous, criticized us, told us we changed, got on our case, or simply bored us. But perhaps the better remedy is to take a brutal look in that old and honest mirror and question how many miles and morals away from home we have traveled and what is the full price have we paid?

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Are You a Turkey or a Dumb Blonde? by Aliza Davidovit

2009-11-22T15:57:00.000-08:00

Turns out that blondes may really not be able to walk and chew gum at the same time(although many do think they can drive, put on mascara, text and drink a latte concurrently). But it was just last week while I was on the treadmill listening to an audio book on my ipod when I literally forgot to walk for a moment and found myself nearly flying. Quantum physics is no easy subject to absorb even while sitting, but trying to take it in while trotting proved to be a painful experiment both to my ankle and to my pride. Literally so caught up in thought, I stopped walking. But as someone who goes through life packing my purse with life lessons and thinking that all things have a reason, I sought to find one here. “What could God be trying to tell me?” I asked my very practical mother, seeking guru-like profundity. But with her usual caustic wit she replied, “God is telling you that you have to keep on walking.”
Indeed, the answer was as simple and deep as that. In today’s very difficult times, so many of us are going through great personal hardships financially, psychologically, and emotionally. Many people find themselves without jobs or their beloved careers and are living on their last dime, getting increasingly depressed and demoralized. The “hope” and “change” many relied on has not panned out and from day to day, things seem to be getting worse. So many of us have just stopped!
The job search seems not to be worthwhile; getting dressed in the morning becomes a bigger chore; getting off the couch becomes evermore challenging, and hope, well hope, is just a taunting stretch of the imagination that only a skilled wannabe-president can evoke.
But are each and every one of you so “blonde” that while tuned into an ipod of despair you have become immobilized? Time spins by so fast that we cannot feel its passage, just as we cannot feel speed when we are in an airplane. But whether we perceive it or not, life is a treadmill and we have to keep walking no matter what--you cannot let it throw you off! Indeed, no hope will be found in the pockets of your bathrobe or in the cracks of your couch, at the bottom of your cognac or in idleness--Satan’s arms. Sitting around and waiting for things to change is the lazy accomplice of despair.
Which brings me to the subject of Thanksgiving.
Traditionally, Thanksgiving is a time of expressing our gratitude for all the blessings we have in our life. So, in effect, this holiday is badly named; it should really be called Thanks Taking, for we are the lucky recipients of God’s bounty and grace. And though this year many people will have “skinnier” turkeys because money is tight, perhaps this year can give us a true perspective of what the holiday may really be about.
Sages teach us that man is not measured by what he has in life, but rather by what he can give. Instead of fretting this holiday because we have less to be thankful for, be evermore grateful for all the things which you are able to GIVE. Can you play an instrument? Then volunteer at a seniors’ residence. Do have your sight? Then volunteer to help the blind. Do you have legs? Then commit yourself to help the handicapped. Do you have your health? Then visit the ill. In our giving not our taking we realize the depth of gratitude we owe our Maker. When we take stock of our personal inventories as human beings and acknowledge all that we have to “give,” we become more evolved than the ego-stuffed turkeys we so often resemble.
In the Bible segment studied in synagogue’s this week, we read about Jacob’s ladder upon which the angels were ascending and descending. Nowhere does it say the angels got tired or lazy, so they hung on a rung and chilled for awhile. In life you are either going up or going down; there is really no such thing as the status quo. And I’m not talking about the ladder to success that is rooted in BS and ascends to idolatry and sin. I’m talking about the ladder to God that the Bible tells us was rooted in the earth and ascended to Heaven teaching us that the path to God is planted in the mundane. We can elevate the nitty-gritty of life--our hardships, our pains, our trials--by facing it with dignity, decency, integrity and courage. Our duty is to keep climbing upward. Moses wandered the desert for 40 years, but you never heard him complain that his feet hurt. He never said I’m staying in my tent and watching Oprah today, I’ll deal with Pharaoh tomorrow.
Interestingly, the great patriarch Jacob’s name means heel (of the foot) in Hebrew. In terms of marketing a patriarch--the family head--certainly God could have done better. But Jacob’s name suited his God-given destiny. Jacob had to continually hit the pavement during his life. He was always running from one place to another in order to survive. In the end God changed Jacob’s stage name to reflect his next act in life: He named him Israel, who became the father of the twelve tribes and a blessed nation. The secret to his earned success is that he never ever got off the treadmill. Maybe he, too, had a mother who counseled him during the hardest of times, “Gods telling you that you HAVE TO keep on walking.”

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Lady Liberty and Her Prodigal Kids by Aliza Davidovit

2009-11-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

God is a pretty bad copy editor, I thought. One of the most colorful stories in the Bible is simply called “Generations.” Not at an attention grabber by any means.

I couldn’t help wonder why this pivotal chapter, in which Jacob coaxes Esau out of his birthright and takes his blessing too, had such a lackluster title.

It hit me only when I saw a magazine on the newsstand called WWII, which featured an article entitled “Vanishing Eyewitnesses.” The article questioned who would perpetuate all we fought and died for as America’s veterans pass on. Of the over 16 million American Veterans of WWII, fewer than 2.5 million remain alive. Over the next 10 years, 2 million of them will die.

So as the greatest generation and their heroic deeds fade away and a newer generation knows not what they stood for, it becomes ever so clear how a “birthright” is ever dependent upon the GENERATIONS.

As I’ve written before, we are so busy giving Generation Next everything we didn’t have growing up that we forget to give them what we did have. How many of your kids have ipods? How many have laptops? How many have too many applications on their iphones? Yet, how many know the name Tom Paine, Nathan Hale, John Adams? Perhaps they think these dudes are rap artists or reality TV show stars. How many of our kids know why we entered WWII and what was at stake? What is even more devastating than the gravestones of unnamed soldiers is that buried with them are the noble but forgotten causes for which they gave their lives.

If there is one thing I admire about Palestinians is that from the moment their kids are born they instill in them a sense of duty attached to their history and birthright (albeit a fabricated birthright and history). They do not instill in them a sense of entitlement as do we with our kids. They teach their children how to die for what they believe in, while we hardly teach ours how to live for it.

Entitlement is a very weak custodian in which to entrust everything we have, especially if it is not rooted in history, memory, appreciation and responsibility.

The biblical Esau represents our generation which is all too ready to sell its “birthright” for a quick fix--Esau sold his for a bowl of lentils! The sale of his birthright for such a pathetic price affirmed his regard solely for the present, with no regard for the legacy of Abraham. With his birthright came a responsibility to the future and a respect for the past. He had no time for such burdens. Esau, we are taught, lived only for the moment (as does the current generation). History is boring, responsibility is a pain, activism is a burden, the future is too far away: sexting, texting and the “now” is where it’s at man.

And it is in this historic vacuum that our newest generation is lost. They are the essential link to sustaining everything that we are and those links have to be continually fortified and nurtured. To whom will we entrust the great birthright called America, a new and apathetic generation of Esaus who care not and know not why they are here?

The Founding Fathers have bestowed a great birthright, a great land of liberty. But who will love it as they have, as we have? Their clarion call is beckoning you to the battlefield once again to refound this great country with your children by your side. It’s a heated decisive battle in which you cannot let one day can go by where you don’t send a letter to a congressman or a senator or make your voice heard. This is not someone else’s fight. You can’t be too tired to engage in active duty.

The first words we ever hear from Esau in the Bible are that he’s “exhausted”(Genesis 25:30). Biblical scholars teach that he was exhausted because he was so busy living for the pleasures of the moment that his energy was depleted in the service of himself. That is why Jacob coaxed his brother’s birthright away from him because he had zero regard for the past or the future and was not a responsible enough custodian for the destiny of a great nation or a birthright. Are we?

As we watch the American president once again bowing deep before foreign leaders, ask yourselves what has become of your birthright? Are you ready to hand it over and bow and bend in disgrace. Are you too tired to care? Does Generation Next care less than you?

This country is on the brink of irreversible change. You might wakeup one morning with Lady Liberty and say “Who is this strange woman in my bed?” She will not look anything like she did the beautiful star-spangled night before.

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"I'm too Miserable to be Happy" by Aliza Davidovit

2009-11-08T06:43:00.000-08:00

Some books are so “good” that once you put them down, you cannot pick them up again. For certain it’s human nature to put down things that we lose interest in. But what if that book is the story of your life? Will you put it down because it’s not a pleasant read?

In today’s difficult times, with the unemployment rate in the double digits and much of our securities vulnerable, it is easy to fall into despair and fear. In line with the “misery loves company motif,” we have joined in a communal depression. Our quick-fix society finds itself paralyzed in the face of challenges which seem to have no immediate exit strategies. Thus, ironically, a country that lost it’s international manufacturing edge still rates high in manufacturing excuses of why we cant be happy or forge forward in our lives even through very difficult times. “How can I be happy now that I lost my job?” “How can I be happy when the whole country is going to hell?” “How can I be happy my wife dumped me?” “How can I be happy when my best friend has everything and I can hardly afford the rent?”

We continually focus on what we are missing instead of what we have. The decisive question is, do you have gratitude or baditude? Because it is indeed your attitude, nothing else, that will be your happy indicator in life.

The first step to inviting happiness into your life is realizing that not everything has to go your way. You don’t always have to own everything you desire, you don’t have to be the most beautiful, or thinnest, or wisest, or even be the happiest to be happy. In fact, it reminds me of an episode of the Twilight Zone: It was about a man who sinned all his life and when all his sinning came to an abrupt end upon death, an angel comes to escort him to a place that clearly gives semblance to heaven. His every desire is met at a moment’s notice. If he desires a beautiful woman, poof, there she is. If he desires to win at the casino, poof he hits the jackpot. When he desires the finest of caviar, poof, there it appears. Day after day, night after night, all his pleasures are satisfied. Eventually this afterlife of plenty and gluttony gets to him and he pleads with the angel who ushered him to this generous place, “Please I can’t take heaven anymore, get me out of here.” To which the angel responds, “Who, my dear sir, told you that this was heaven?”

This man was actually in hell. And where one would usually equate hell as a place of scarcity, that is not so! The only thing missing in hell is the ability to appreciate what we have. Are you guilty of making your own life here a hell here on earth? If you have a little or a lot, you have nothing if you don’t appreciate it.

Just because things don’t always go our way it is no reason to put down the book of our lives and basically stop writing it until things get better. We cannot walk away from ourselves and fall into depression and start gaining weight and drinking too much and cheating on our spouses as palliatives to our pains. Quit it with the contingency happy plan which dictates if only I had this or that then I’d be happy. Challenges are here to make us stronger, to fortify our faith and our efforts, not to weaken us or send us into despair, or keep us hiding in the dark, in our bathrobes, and courting our pain as if it was some great lover.

This week’s reading in the Old Testament speaks of the Patriarch Abrahams returning from Mount Moriah, where God had sent him to sacrifice his son Isaac. The trauma and suffering Abraham must have endured before God’s angel stayed his hand from striking his son is unimaginable. After passing this great test, Abraham goes home not to rejoice, but to find that his wife, the matriarch Sarah, had died. These were just two among the great travails and tests Abraham had to go through in his life. But biblical scholars teach us that this great father of many nations did not succumb to grief; his mourning was contained. The man did not fall apart but kept an optimistic eye on the future and proceeded to find his son Isaac a wife even though he had just lost his own. Abraham didn’t put down writing the narrative of his life but ensured that his story continued through his son and his seed. He refused to be a slave to grief but rather chose to be the taskmaster of hope.

We don’t need to learn from Abraham that life can be tough. But we can learn to keep on moving and to stop mourning over what was or what will never be again. If two things or thoughts cannot occupy the same place at the same time, then you must choose what you want to fill the vacuum of your life with—happiness or regrets, despair or hope, apathy or action, courage or fear. “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, Therefore choose life.”
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This week's blog is dedicated to the memory of the 13 killed at FT. Hood, patriots whose chances at happiness were mercilessly murdered.

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All About ME by Aliza Davidovit

2009-11-01T16:47:00.000-08:00

“ME,” “MYSELF,” and “I” are popular words in this age of narcissism. Where as once pagans killed people to worship gods, today we’ve killed God to worship people--OURSELVES. Consistently, upon the altar of self-deification, we have sacrificed the better part of us: compassion, morality, integrity, courage, charity and family, our history, the present and the future. And it is not the sweet odor of incense that hovers in the air as decency burns, but the stench of corruption, greed and mercilessness. As congressmen and senators serve special interests for self-aggrandizement and political survival, as Wall Street cooks the books while trusting investors risk losing all they have, as the news media panders to power instead of holding it accountable, the building blocks of our civilization are crumbling. Every day it becomes evermore easy to say, “Who cares about anyone else? I have to look out for myself.”

For many years the media and our culture have been nurturing and marketing to narcissism. Every advertisement we see today seduces us with promises of how to glorify the self to find happiness. Use this toothpaste you’ll have the nicest teeth; buy this car and you’ll get all the girls; use this mascara and bat your lashes to success; drink this Red Bull and you’ll have more energy to be a narcissist. But the problem is, it is ALL bull. I don’t remember seeing an ad that said, “If you want to be beautiful, don’t just use Revlon, but be a kinder more charitable person, it will show on your face.”

And today’s new generation is worse than we are. They are growing up with a sense of entitlement and are being nurtured in a cocoon of self-interest that takes nothing and no one else into account. Their apathy is the brazen garb they so fashionably wear.

It is little wonder then that things are falling apart if people think the world revolves around them instead of realizing that the whole world depends upon them.

In this week’s reading of the Old Testament, we read about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, societies where people cared only for themselves and were heartless and callous toward others. Their profound egotism and lust for easy gratification led, as it always will, to self-destruction. It is written that they were so corrupt that even the earth cried up to God to step in which is ironic because the earth is the most selfish of creations as it is surrounded by a gravitational field that pulls all things toward itself. Yet even the earth is not so selfish that it begrudges the flower and the tree to grow upward and the seedlings to sprout. In the final analysis, the earth gives much more than it takes. Do we?

In the center of the biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah stands the Patriarch Abraham, who asks God to spare the city if even fifty righteous people could be found. God said he would. Abraham slowly tweaks the number down to ten in case fifty could not be found. God consents. But we learn here not only about the failings of Sodom and Gomorrah, but also about Abraham’s, and Noah’s too. When God told Noah he was going to destroy humanity, Noah didn’t say a peep, he just built an Ark. When God told Abraham he would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham’s best was to suggest that God should spare the righteous. But, when God told Moses that he was going to wipe out Israel because of the sin of the Golden Calf, Moses said, “Please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” Moses does not separate his fate from those of his people. He didn’t build an “ark” for himself, but was ready to go down with the entire ship—his nation. That is why Moses is regarded as the greatest prophet in Jewish history. His ego was nowhere to be found.

As today’s crises escalate, we too cannot ask “Will it be okay for me?” The only question to ask is, “Will is be okay for US?” If you have checked off “no,” then it is imperative that right now, at this moment, you do something to make a difference. Fax your congressman, protest loudly, cry as loudly as did the earth so that God and everyone in between will hear you.

Commentator Glenn Beck from Fox News is correct in principle. It took 56 great men to found this country, and now he’s looking for another few good men to re-found it before it’s too late. Unfortunately, God won’t speak to us to validate how many are needed. What if we can’t find 56 good men, just as Abraham couldn’t find 50 righteous men? Let us say we can only find 40, or 30 or 10. Or just let’s say it takes more than 56 men and women to save this great land. Will you, my friends, be among them? Or has our narcissism already turned us into pillars of salt as we watch everything we love and lived for destroyed from sea to shining sea?
By Aliza Davidovit

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The Measure of a Man by Aliza Davidovit

2009-10-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

Who are you? Do you know? Are you the fancy car you drive? Are you the wealth you amassed? Are you the title on your business card? Are you the designer clothes you wear? The answers may seem simple, but they are not. If one by one all your status symbols are taken away, when do you stop being you? “I can’t live without my Blackberry,” “I can’t live without my laptop,” “I can’t live without my I-Pod,” “I can’t live without my plasma TV,” are all sentences we’ve heard from those we know. Or, get into a conversation with a stranger and within five seconds they ask you what you do for a living. We have all become so impressed by external trappings that we come to mistake those things for who we really are. By our affiliations, titles and possessions, we convince ourselves of our own greatness.

But buried under all these materialistic decorations, titles and idol worship, do we really know who we are without them? Perhaps not! Statistics show that when the economic collapse hit in 2008 therapists couches, as well as the National Suicide Hotline, were busier than ever. The housing crisis hit, the Nasdaq plummeted; Maddoff scammed people out of billions, and landmark financial institutions disappeared or crashed. And so, at the end of 2008, without their jobs and materialistic securities which had come to define them for so long, many found themselves facing an identity crisis. The time had come to ask the hard question, “Who am I?”

In this week’s Biblical reading, God tells the Patriarch Abraham “Lech Lecha” which translates as “Go to yourself.” The Almighty then gives him directions on how to get there: “Go FROM your country, your birthplace and your father’s home.” God’s roadmap to “self” seems odd. Aren’t the familiar backdrops such as country, birthplace, and home the very things that make up a person’s sense of self? Many of us in our own lives return to the place we grew up in order to get in touch with who we used to be. But God is telling Abraham the complete opposite here. If you want to “go to yourself” and to know who you really are, then you need to unbury yourself from all the fake things you’ve allowed to define you. Make no mistake, Abraham’s journey was not one to find God--he was already aware of God’s omnipresence. Abraham had to go find HIMSELF through the trials and tribulations of his journey on foreign terrain. He had to discover whether the pressures he encountered along the way would crush or corrupt him, or fortify him and show the measure of his moral mettle.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Yes, the economic crisis may have taken away much of what we have, but don’t ever think for one instance that it took away who you are. In the final analysis, we are not what we “collect” in this lifetime but rather what we give away. Our good deeds, our kindness, our charity, our compassion, our integrity, are still the greatest currency we have, and they are “market proof.”

A few days ago I asked my 2000 friends on Facebook if there is anything beneficial about what is currently going on in this country. My personal answer is, “In a way, yes!” For the first time in a very long time we are forced “to go to ourselves’ and rediscover what we stand for, who we are, and what we care about. In the age of plenty we were so busy giving Generation Next what we didn’t have growing up that we forgot to give them what we DID have: decency, appreciation, respect, a work ethic, patriotism and all the things that make a people and nation great, not on the surface but at the core.

Don’t forget, the greatest people in history left us not golden treasures but pearls of wisdom and a legacy of love. Moses, Mother Theresa, Jesus, and Gandhi bequeathed humanity much more than bank accounts. The patriarch Abraham ended up being a very rich man, yet the trust fund for his descendants has long expired but not his moral compass or the light and compassion he introduced to the world. As Abraham went on his journey “unto himself,” he realized it wasn’t about him at all but rather about all the others we encounter along the way. In giving instead of taking, you discover the true meaning of what is valuable and come to evaluate your own worth in much more meaningful terms.

My dear friends, I am not knocking ambition in life, but one’s title and net worth are not the true measure of a man. You have so much more to offer. If times are rough, do not be embarrassed or feel diminished. DO not be ashamed of your status in life, but rather, as Horace Mann once said, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
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This week's blog is dedicated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the global leader of the fight against breast cancer.

Sponsored by Wordsmithy Editing Services

Size Doesn’t Matter—or does it? by Aliza Davidovit

2009-10-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

By Aliza Davidovit

A brilliant young scholar was once asked how he had become so smart being that he was so young. He replied that everything he knew he had studied in five minutes.

“How could that be?” he was asked. To which the young scholar answered, “Every time I had five minutes, I studied.”

In today’s world when we hear numbers such as 6.791 billion marking the world population or $1.4 trillion marking the 2009 US deficit or billions of years old marking the world’s age, it becomes evermore difficult for us to appreciate the small things such as our own worth, the value of money, or the preciousness of time. We live in a world of such exaggerations that the small and the simple seem to have lost their place. We are the super-sized generation where bigger is deemed better and small is irrelevant.

Go into any book store today and you will be assaulted by titles that invite you to be the best wife, the best cook, the best salesman, the best terrorist (okay, that one I made up). But the fact is I have never seen a self-help book that simply offers you how to be a tiny fraction better today than yesterday and a bit better tomorrow. Yet, sweeping and lasting change comes not in bold strokes but in tiny, honest incremental steps. As such, most of these books that offer "the world" but can't even deliver a moment end up in the cemetery of useless reading which decorates our book shelves.

We learn this week in the story of Noah that God did not destroy the world because of rampant and brazen sins such as killing or stealing, crimes which the legal systems of the time could deal with. According to biblical teachings, the world was destroyed because the people were guilty of chomos (not to be mistaken for chummus or Hamas). Chomos means “taking” something of an insignificant amount which can not 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 are diminished both in appearance and quantity--and the owner really has no one to blame for the theft. From grape to grape justice was not served. That is when God stepped in--when people corrupted fair dealing within the parameters of the law and only God could mete out true justice.

We have only to look at the present-day housing debacle as a perfect example. People were given mortgages “legally,” but the manipulative maneuvers within the law to give unviable candidates mortgages has led to a Noahic flood of foreclosures totaling 937,840 properties in the third quarter alone. One out of every 136 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing in that period. Percentage point by percentage point we allowed the flood waters to gather by our feet until we lost complete control and became submerged in catastrophe.

We must change our mindsets from thinking big time to thinking small time and guarding each and every precious moment, taking on the little battles before they become too big to handle. The adage that “a stitch in time saves nine,’ may very well be the pithy wisdom from which the tapestry of our lives can be weaved or unraveled.

The smallest units we have control of in our lives are moments of time. Yet for so many years, we have sat as grouch potatoes screaming at the TV about the wrongs in the world and our government, watching them get worse and worse. Maybe some threw a sock at Wolf Blitzer. But our harrumphing changed the world how? What lesson did we teach Generation Next by doing nothing? We let so many precious irretrievable moments slip away.

It appears that TV advertisers seem to best understand how valuable time is as they pay millions for a 30 second time slot because they believe that those few seconds can make a difference and affect consumer behavior. And they do!

Each one of us can make a difference in this world too if we want to. Perhaps not everyone can do big great things, but each of us can do small things in a great way. We must be responsible custodians for the seconds and minutes upon which history and the future pivot. Make your moments count for something. Life is essentially one protracted goodbye, from the day we are born we begin to say goodbye to our youth, to friends, to loved ones, to our health, and then to life itself. But our actions and deeds are eternal. Even if you can only make a tiny dent, it may be the sipping cup for nascent potential and the fountain of inspiration for others who can change the world.

Little things don’t mean a lot, my dear friends, they mean everything. Plug the small leaks quickly and learn from the inhabitants of Noah’s ark that the world’s failings are not someone else’s problem. For the good or the bad, we are all in the same boat.
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This week's blog is dedicated to Table to Table Israel which was founded in 2003 to rescue excess, nutritious food that would otherwise be destroyed and redirect it to people in need.

Did God Have a Home Depot Card? by Aliza Davidovit

2009-10-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

by Aliza Davidovit

How fascinating it would be to look through God’s tool belt to see what he used to create the world: a hammer? a screwdriver? a measuring tape? But it turns out that God didn’t have a Home Depot card or a power drill, but rather created this world with the most powerful tool of all, WORDS. “And God SAID ‘let there be light,’ and there was light (Genesis 1:3).” And each consecutive creation He called into existence through words.

The snake too used words—and convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and basically smooth-talked mankind right out of Eden.

So from the very beginning, we see that words have the power to create and to destroy. We therefore have a tremendous responsibility right on the tips of our tongues.

In Judaism, talking bad about people, is regarded as a very serious sin which can ruin lives. It’s rationalized that if you steal someone’s watch (or goat) you can always pay him back but such is not possible for stealing one’s reputation. A Talmudic tale tells it best.

There was a man who regretted gossiping his whole life and went to his rabbi to see how to correct his sin. The rabbi advised him to take a bag of feathers to the top of a mountain and to throw them to the wind. The man did as he was told and then returned to the rabbi with a big smile. Upon greeting the man, the rabbi advised him that in order to fix all the damage he had done with his tongue he now had to go back and recollect all the feathers. “That’s impossible,” the man cried. “The feathers have blown in all directions and can never be collected.” The rabbi turned to him and said, “So, too, with your words.”

Thus half of our duty is to guard our tongues. But,the other half is to do the complete opposite. Talk as much as you can to get the truth out. We live in a world today where the snake has raised its poisonous head once more and is again spewing lies. And we, the children of Adam and Eve, cannot let the lies stick and must fight back word for word.

Thus, when we see wrong doings in our government or confront the likes of Ahmadinejad or rogue leaders and terrorists, know that our silence acts as the cement for their evil house of lies. If only the Israelis better resisted the WORD “occupied territories” maybe the reality on the ground would be different today. But their Palestinian opponents fought harder and won the word war.

We have only to look back to Hitler to see how powerful words really are. Hitler did not begin his war against the Jews by sending them to gas chambers. He began it with hateful talk, and then those words grew legs and the storm troopers went marching on.

We must bite back at every sound bite. The next time someone seduces us with slogans such as “change we need,” we better seek the definition of “change” so that we are the ones who choose the vocabulary which shapes our lives.

With blogs, diggs, twitter, texts, Facebook, and IM’s, we are evermore empowered, thus evermore duty bound to get the truth out there, not by gossiping, besmirching, and slandering, but by informing, educating, and illuminating--and passing the right words along.

God and Partners, Ltd. by Aliza Davidovit

2009-09-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

God and Partners, Ltd.

“I hope this new year brings me better luck”; “I hope this new year brings me peace”; “I hope this new year brings me the love of my life,” are all hopes I’ve heard from many close to me as the Jewish New Year is coming upon us. But as JKF once said: “It’s not what the new year can do for you, it’s what you can do for the new year.” Okay, he didn’t say that exactly but you get my point.

To begin with, in Judaism, the year is not referred to as a “new” year but rather the “head” of the year. It’s for a good reason. Just as the head of a person gives directives to the rest of the body, so does the energy, prayer, meditation, and repentance we infuse on the holidays give direction to the year ahead. It is like a time release capsule, and how we fill it will determine what is diffused throughout the rest of the year. That is why we are cautioned against sleeping too much on Rosh Hashana, because we don’t want to sleep away the entire year to come. That is why we eat sweet things as well, so that the year ahead will not be embittered but rather pleasing and savory. That’s why we pray, so that we will be granted mercy and blessings. But the better luck we seek for the New Year will not materialize if we allow our feet to lead the way instead of our HEADS. The Hebrew word for leg is “regel,” which is related to the Hebrew word ragil meaning “like usual.” If we conduct our lives “like usual,” by way of habit, letting our feet lead our heads instead of the other way around, then we can never effectuate the change we want to see.

Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result. Indeed, praying to God and His participation is definitely necessary for any success we are to have. But long before corporate law came along to create legal partnerships, God made us partners in the creation of our own destinies. God named man “Adam,” which means “earth,” for a good reason. Each is replete with potential but needs to be cultivated to bring forth the fruit of their seed. Man is a participant in his own creation. In Genesis it is written that God said, “Let us make man.” Who’s the “us”? Did God need a partner? The answer is yes, and we are that partner. There are some of the more arrogant breed who try and dismiss God completely and say God helps those who help themselves believing their efforts alone bring success—but they, too, are wrong. With all the self-help in the world, if God does not bless your efforts, they will be for naught. Through repentance, prayer and charity we can earn God’s favor and find that He isn’t a silent partner after all.

So as you enter Rosh Hashana, I pray that you enter it with your head first, with clear decisive goals as to how you can change and be better and do better. It’s your future—BE THERE!

I dedicate this week’s blog to the Levlalev Orphanage in Israel. http://www.levlalev.com/index.htm