Lazer Beams

Preparing for Shavuot: The Barometer of Successful Torah Learning

Our sages teach that all of Torah centers around loving our fellow human as we love ourselves. Apparently, this is an odd concept: What do the laws of Kashrut, Shabbat, or tefillin have to do with brotherly love? The following video clip, filmed in the gorgeous Judean Hills between Gush Etzion and Hevron, provides the answer and gives us food for thought in preparation for Shavuot, the holiday that commemorates our people's receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai.

V'hi She'amda

V'hi She'amda is a Passover song whose words come from the Haggada. It conveys a very timely message for the Jewish people: He who stood by our forefathers stands by us to deliver us from the hands of our enemies.

Yonatan Razael wrote a beautiful melody for this song, which he sings here with Yaacov Shweikey. We hope you enjoy it. Moadim l'simcha - a joyous Passover!

Melitzer Matzas

Matzas must be baked within 18 minutes from the time water is added to the flour until the matzas are totally baked. The Melitzer Rebbe and his staff are some of the world's fastest bakers; their shmura matzas are kneaded and baked from start to finish in less than six minutes. Have a look here at the Komemyut Moshav bakery in the south of Israel:

Matzo Man

Important Pesach preparation notice: Sadness and depression are the two worst forms of spiritual chometz. Get them out of your house and out of your system fast! If you're feeling low, G-d forbid, go have a look at Matzo Man.

Avoiding Slavery

Image, left: Ramses beating a slave, stone engraving found in Abu Simbel temple in southern Egypt

The minute one loses one's personal sense of worth and a positive self image, he or she becomes a slave.

Lack of self-respect, self-deprecation, and ignorance of one's own marvelous qualities and heritage are tickets to the slave train. Shame or embarrassment about one's ethnic or religious background is tantamount to carrying around an iron shackle with a 50-lb. ball and chain.

These feelings of inferiority are an invitation to let society dictate how you should live your life. People who feel inferior are weak; it's easy to exploit a person with no backbone. Controlled and exploited people are the most miserable creatures on the face of the earth.

For a Jew, one of the most important Passover preparations is learning who we are and why we're celebrating. Modern society often discourages us from learning about our wonderful background, our G-d, and what emuna - the full and simple faith in Him - can do for us in every level of life, be it emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and even physical.

Emuna helps you feel good about yourself.  As soon as you begin feeling good about yourself, you become free. Every human has an inherent right to freedom; that's the universal message of the Passover holiday.

Children and Pesach Preparations

Many people are so stringent in their Passover preparations that they make their children the Pascal sacrifices. Scaring, shouting, or slapping a child out of anger is forbidden according to Torah. Preparing for Passover while terrorizing one's children is tantamount to baking shmura matza with stolen flour. The Gemara teaches us that a mitzva that is accomplished by way of a transgression is not only worthless, but it sorely invokes severe judgments from above. Preparing for Passover should be a joy, as we'll see and hear in today's 65-minute video lesson, taped live from the Chut Shel Chesed Yeshiva in Jerusalem, entitled A Happy Pesach.

Family Album

Maybe the reason kids nowadays don't respect their parents is because they're taught that their great grandparents were orangutans.

Passover eve is exactly a week away. Passover reminds us that we are descended from holy ancestors whom Hashem delivered from bondage in Egypt. The more we go back in time, the closer we get to our monumentally holy great grandparents. That's why we have so much regard for previous generations. Have a look:

Each Generation's Haman

Purim takes us from the dark threat of each generation's Haman to the bright light of Torah, as we'll see in the following clip:

The Price of a Miracle

We often take for granted the fact that we, the Jewish people, live on miracles. The Jewish people in Israel especially exist on a higher-than-nature plateau that defies any natural course of events. Only an idiot would attribute Israel's existence to military might and so forth. On a military level, as we evr-so-painfully see despite the recent Gaza war, Israel still has no technological/military answer to missile warfare, with missiles still falling in the south of Israel, from Ashkelon to Sderot and all points in between. The Hamas missiles are a tiny threat compared to the quantity and quality of the Hizbolla, Syrian, and Iranian missiles aimed at every square centimeter of our beloved Holy Land this very moment.

People have the mistaken impression that we can sit back and do nothing while Hashem gives us miracles. That's wrong. The miracle of Purim was only after Esther said to Mordechai (Esther 4:16), "Go gather all the Jews... fast for me, don't eat or drink for 3 days and 3 nights; I and my handmaidens shall fast likewise." In other words, the entire Jewish people made complete teshuva and returned to Hashem.

The existential threat of this generation is just as bad as it was in the time of Haman. Achmedinejad and Assad's designs together with their proxies Hamas and Hisbolla, as well as global Islamofascist objectives, are no different than Haman's platform. Although we don't know what our own politicians stand for, since they promise one thing before elections and quickly change their minds after the elections for political expediency, our neighbors are not politically expedient. They have a clear political and military agenda that's based on the destruction of the Jewish people, just like Haman. The words "Israel" and Zionism" are only excuses for the desire to kill Jews.

Every Adar, Hashem renews the of the miracle of our survival. That's what the joy of Purim is all about. Yet, miracles have a price tag - they behoove us. When there's no teshuva to pay for the miracle, Hashem must take a public sacrifice from the greatest and purest tzaddikim of our generation. That explains the brutal murder of Erez Levanon during his personal prayer to Hashem exactly two years ago in Adar, and the barbaric massacre of the 8 Mercaz HaRav boys during their Torah study last year on Rosh Chodesh Adar.

Who needs more martyrs? Let's gather all the Jews and commit to genuine teshuva. If that's too hard, let's help spread emuna in the world. We can start by teaching the bedtime "Shma Yisrael" prayer to every Jewish child we know. Here is the The Shma Prayer in PDF with the original Hebrew, transliteration, and translation; send it to everyone you know. Our sages tell us that the mitzva of saying Shma Yisrael" alone is enough to save us from any and all calamity. Happy Purim week.

The Gift of Trees

This coming Sunday night and Monday is a very special day in the Jewish calendar: it's Tu B'Shvat, the New Year for trees.

Why do Jews celebrate the New Year for trees? Trees are exemplary in many ways. If your roots aren't deep like a cedar's, then you easily wither. When you're flexible like a date palm, you can survive strong winds, the rough times in life. Trees only do good - they give shade, fruit, prevent soil erosion, and shelter animals and birds. In survival school back in my regular army days, a carob tree was my home for three days up in the mountains of the Galilee. Not only did it provide me with shade, shelter, and a good hideout, it fed me as well. We humans should imitate trees.

In case you haven't noticed, I love trees. My major at the College of Agriculture at UM College Park was deciduous orchards. When I was a farmer, I planted thousands of trees in the foothills of the Shomron ridge and in the Golan, Negev, and Sharon Valley as well.

Now, dearest brothers and sisters, I have presents in advance for each of you in honor of Tu B'Shvat:

For women: The best face cream in the world - take a ripe avocado, peel the skin and take out the pit, mash it in a dish and add a squeeze of lemon juice (natural only, no substitutes). You now have the best facial treatment in the world. Let it sit for half an hour while you're reading your favorite book or listening to a relaxing CD, and wash it off. Your face will now be young, radiant, and replenished with an abundance of vitamin B6, which retards aging and keeps your skin soft and smooth.

For men: Need a super charge of energy before an important meeting, on the tennis court, or at the office? No time to eat? Put down the junk food! Take a dried date, open it up, remove the pit, and check it for worms. Insert a whole toasted almond, and close it like a sandwich. You now have a tasty snack with readily available high quality carbohydrates and protein to supercharge your system.

For Kids: The Brody's have a dynamite natural non-chocolate chocolate spread: Take a cup (180 cc)of organic whole-seed tehina (sesame paste), add a heaping tablespoon of organic carob powder and four tablespoons of honey. Mix all the ingredients together. You get a fantastic spread that's both super-healthy and tasty. Instead of other sweets, use this spread on bread like you would peanut butter or chocolate spread.

Enjoy!