Lazer Beams

It Don't Come Easy

Nothing in my life was ever easy. In athletics, everybody on the team had more talent than I did. In the army, all my buddies were stronger and faster than I was. In Rabbinical Yeshiva, I was always the last one in the class to understand a concept. Sounds like a curse, doesn't it, as if Hashem was giving me a raw deal, Heaven-forbid...

It was the biggest blessing. If fueled my desire and made me work harder. The desire and the willingness to sweat are what makes the tortoises of the world surpass the hares.

Due to the nature of the unit where I was privileged to serve in the IDF, our training was gruelling, long and forever challenging, both mentally and physically. In one instance, during a night-time run with full backpack on rough terrain, my legs and lungs were about to give out. Anyone who wouldn't complete this run would be kicked out of the unit. I had no more physical strength. The game was about to be over for me. Suddenly, one of my favorite songs from way back when popped into my head: it was Ringo Starr singing, "It Don't Come Easy". I kicked into gear with a second wind and a surge of strength, playing that song over and over in my head until I finished the run. This is the song that became my personal theme song during all my years of army service. And thanks to you, Ringo:

The problem with the internet and Ipod generation is that they expect instant gratification, a great life with no effort. Sorry, youngin's, things don't work that way. If you want to succeed big time, you have to take The First Step.

The Book of Life

Our beloved teacher and spiritual guide Rabbi Shalom Arush writes that desire is the root of Creation and the purpose of the entire Torah. Desire is the path, the instrument and the power with which to attain everything in life. Desire is the entire character of a person and of his or her service here in this world. And practically speaking, one's desire is the very character of his or her life! A person without desire is dead, and a person with desire is alive. Rabbi Shalom relates, "I once went to a yeshiva to deliver a talk. I saw that although the students were learning and praying, they were gloomy and rigid, almost dead. I asked them, “Is this a yeshiva or a cemetery!?” If a person’s Torah learning doesn’t inspire him to constantly kindle his desire to get close to Hashem, then the very essence of that learning is lacking...

Continue reading Rabbi Shalom Arush's The Torah of Life in this week's new issue of Breslev Israel web magazine.

Also featured this week:

Rabbi Nissan Dovid Kivak - It's Not the Intermediaries

Rabbi Lazer Brody - The Kidnapped Baby

Dr. Zev Ballen - The Emuna Pause

Racheli Reckles - A Misused Torah

David Ben Horin - Dissent from Decadence

Dennis Rosen - Real Gratitude

Tziporah Barabi - The Fruit in the Mirror

Enjoy, and have a Happy 8th Day of Chanuka and a wonderful new month of Teveth!

Hashem Loves Me

Do you know why people are weak in their love for others? They don't love themselves.

Do you know why people are weak in their love for themselves? They don't believe that Hashem loves them.

If you feel down for some reason, watch the following 3-minute clip. It will pick you up. My Chanukah gift to you today is a 3-word saying that you must tell yourself as soon as you sense the slightest bit of sadness or depression: Hashem Loves Me. It's true, and it kills the evil inclination. Enjoy.

You can obtain the full-length Hashem Loves Me CD and many more Rav Arush/Brody titles at the Breslev Israel Online Store. These are vitamins for the soul that we all need. Happy Chanukah and a wonderful new month of Teveth!

Rabbi Lazer's Chanukah Message: Mattatyahu's Courage

Image above: the holy gravesite of Mattatyahu son of Yochanan, the High Priest (Cohen HaGadol), father and spiritual leader of the Maccabees

Happy Chanuka!

Mattatyahu Cohen HaGadol, whom we remember every time we say the "Al HaNissim" prayer during Chanuka, is buried in a cave in a forest, about a kilometer north of Highway 443 near Mevo Modiin, which Hashem enabled me to visit yesterday.

Mattatyahu and his sons fought a double war - not only against the Syrian Greeks, but against the 95% of the Jewish people who had become assimilated Hellenists. But because of his steadfast, unwavering and uncompromising commitment to Hashem, to his emuna, to the Torah and to his homeland, he was able to overcome all obstacles and instill the fire of emuna and total dedication in the hearts of his brave sons and daughter.

Where did he get his strength and courage from?

Nothing gives a person strength like clarification of the truth. A person who knows the truth and who lives according to the truth is as fierce as a lion. He is not willing to live a lie; so, if you take the truth away from him, he'll no longer regard his life as worth living. That's why our ancestors in every generation all the way back to our forefather Abraham were willing to sacrifice their last breath and heartbeat for our faith in Hashem and our Torah.

Mattatyahu and his sons Yehuda, Elazar, Shimon, Yochanan and Yonatan knew the truth. For a servant of Hashem, life is worthless without Torah, emuna, and holiness. The Hellenists fooled themselves while trying to dilute the truth and appease the Syrian Greeks, but the latter wanted to destroy it altogether and to substitute it with a life of pursuing bodily amenities.

Did Hashem send our souls down to this lowly earth just for another piece of steak, another fling with the opposite sex, or another NBA game? Those who waste their lives in the pursuit of material appetites are neither happy nor fulfilled. What's worse, they haven't devoted a single minute to clarifying the truth.

21" biceps won't give you courage. Truth and emuna will.

If the Prime Minister of Israel would clarify the truth, no foreign pressure in the world would sway him a single millimeter. If a teenager would clarify the truth, then he'd say no to the stupid things that his peers are doing. If a woman knew the truth, she wouldn't care if her neighbors called her "nebby" or "yachna" for dressing the way Hashem wants her to dress. If a man would be honest with himself, he'd realize how contemptible it would be to sacrifice one's entire family for a few moments of illicit thrills.

Mattatyahu and his sons were masters at truth clarification. They weren't willing to live for two minutes without the truth. That's where they derived the courage to fight a virtually impossible war. And that's why they won.

While we're basking in the holy light of the Chanuka candles, let's ponder the real meaning of this beautiful festival that commemorates the miracle of the few prevailing over many, the pure prevailing over the impure, and the light prevailing over darkness. Let's remember the dedication and commitment of Mattatyahu and his sons. Let's strengthen ourselves and carry their torch of Torah and truth, no matter what the odds. We can do it. All we need is emuna. Blessings for a wonderful Shabbat Chanuka!

Yosef Zev Braver: Al Hanissim

Here's a new single especially for Chanukah from our cherished friend Yosef Zev Braver, who made aliya not long ago from Brooklyn. Enjoy, and have a wonderful Shabbat Chanukah!

Israel's Chanuka Message to the World: We're not Budging

It's ever so appropriate that the UN and the European Union show their true colors by denying our ancient rights to Jerusalem, Shilo and Hevron. Nothing's new under the sun, as King Solomon teaches us in Ecclesiastes. I won't answer them - Shimon Maccabee the son of Mattatyahu Cohen Hagadol Chashmonai (whose gravesite I visited earlier today) and brother of Yehuda  Maccabee gave a most appropriate answer some 22oo years ago:

“We have not taken foreign territory or any alien property, but have occupied our ancestral heritage, for some time unjustly wrested from us by our enemies; now that we have a favorable opportunity, we are merely recovering our ancestral heritage” (Maccabees 1, 15:33-34).

We weathered the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazis and the Communists. We're still here and they've all disappeared. It seems that the oppressors of today want to join them. They'll never learn. Meanwhile, we're not budging.

Peace or Ceasefire?

No, we're not talking about Israel and the Arabs; we're talking about what's going on at home, behind closed doors.

There's a big difference between a marriage that maintains ceasefire status and between a marriage of true peace in the home. Let's hear the advice of our esteemed and beloved Rabbi Shalom Arush shlit'a:

Light of Moshiach and How to Play Dreydel

The famed tzaddik and Kabbalist, Rebbe Zvi Elimelech of Dinov, author of the B'nai Yissachar, calls the light of Chanuka Or Haganuz and Or pnai Moshiach, or the "hidden Divine lights" and "the lights of Moshiach's countenance. These concepts cannot be understood by logic, explains the Melitzer Rebbe, only by pure and simple faith.

The Melitzer Rebbe speaks quite a bit about Moshiach during Chanuka. He also has a very special dreydel - pure silver - with the letters nun - gimel - hey - shin on it, one letter per side. I asked the Rebbe why he uses a dreydel with a shin and not with a pey, as most people in Israel do. The Rebbe hinted that there are tremendous inner secrets in these four letters, and particularly that the numerical value of nun (50), gimel (3), hey (5), and shin (300) equal 358, the exact numeric value of Moshiach (mem - 50, shin - 300, yud - 10, chet - 8 = 358). My dreydel, pictured on the left, is an exact copy of the Rebbe's. The Rebbe also added something very cryptic when he told me that each spin of the dreydel brings Moshiach closer.

Don't underestimate the fantastic quality time of playing dreydel with your children. In the Brody household, we play for almonds, for cashews, or for coins. The action is better than Vegas, and it's kosher too! Here's how to play dreydel in classic Chassidic Yiddish tradition:

First, make a cental kitty, starting with about 20 coins or almonds. Let each player have at least 10 of his own units to play with.

Second, give the dreydel the best spin you can. Champion spinners have prestige status...

Third, once the dreydel lands, here's what you do:

Nun: first letter of "nem" in Yiddish (take) - take one coin or nut from the central kitty

Gimel: first letter of "gib" in Yiddish (give) - put one coin or nut in the central kitty

Shin: first letter of "shik" in Yiddish (send) - send every other player one coin or nut from your own pot

Hey: first letter of "halb" in Yiddish (half) - you win half the central pot

Your children and grandchildren won't forget the quality dreydel time you spend with them for the rest of their lives. When the dreydel game is over, serve the Chanukah delicacies...

May the light of Chanuka illuminate our lives, and may we all benefit to see the Menora kindled in the Beit HaMikdash this coming Chanuka, amen.

Take that First Step

You haven't tried the 4-minute routine yet? OK, I'll give you something easier to do, just so long as you take the first step. But before I show you a super-simple exercise that will make you feel great, let me tell you a parable:

A group of friends once made a trip together. On the way to their destination, they saw someone standing with a backpack on a desert crossroads. Seven days later, on their way home, they encountered the same person with the backpack standing on the same desert crossroads in the hot sun. The group of friends asked the backpacker, "Why are you standing here?"

"I want to go to Jerusalem," responded the backpacker. "I'm waiting for a ride."

"How long have you been waiting?" they asked.

"More than a week," he answered.

They laughed. "Jerusalem's only a two-day walk from here. If you'd have started walking, you could have been there and back four times already!"

Many of us want to change, yet we expect it to happen automatically, with no effort on our part. Life doesn't work that way. An old Hebrew expression says, "Even a journey of a thousand kilometers begins with a first step."

For years, you've been dreaming of getting in shape, losing weight or both. Take the first step! Walk for a few minutes or begin doing a simple and relaxing exercise like this. You'll love it and you'll feel so much better. And before you know it, you'll be well on the way to achieving your goal - if not all of it, then at least a good chunk of it.

Don't be afraid - go ahead and take that first step up your personal mountain. Step by step, you'll get to the top.

The 4-Minute Kettlebell Office Routine

Turn your office into a gym and turn a small part of your coffee break into a health-revolutionizing regime that will only take 4 minutes a day of your precious time. Keep one kettlebell in your office - that's all you need to get started down the road to great health and conditioning. 

This 4-minute, nonstop, no-rest kettlebell routine will have a dramatic effect on your health and mood. With only one moderate-sized kettlebell, you'll not only burn about 50 calories during this workout, but you'll double your metabolic calorie burn for the next hour, which will be an after-burn of another 90 calories, give or take. And, this brief routine is enough to give a shot of endorphin, the post-exercise "feel good" hormone.

Here's the routine:

30 seconds - kettlebell slingshot clockwise

30 seconds - kettlebell slingshot counter-clockwise

60 seconds - 1-hand alternating kettlebell swing

30 seconds - kettlebell goblet squat

30 seconds - kettlebell clean - right hand

30 seconds - kettlebell clean - left hand

15 seconds - kettlebell halo - clockwise

15 seconds - kettlebell halo - counter-clockwise

Total = 4 minutes

Suggested kettlebell  weight (less for beginners):

moderate, men = 18% of your body weight

moderate, women = 10% of your body weight

vigorous, men = 25% of your body weight

vigorous, women = 14% of your body weight

In other words, if you're a man that weighs 167 pounds (76 kg), you'll pick a 30-lb (14kg) kettlebell for a moderate workout; a woman who weighs 124 pounds (56 kg) will choose a 12-pound (6 kg) kettlebell.

If you change nothing else in your lifestyle, but you do the above routine every day, you'll lose between 1-2 pounds a month; not only that, but you'll feel much better. These 4 minutes a day will save you hours in doctor's offices as well. Worth it? Go for it!