Tikkun Olam

                                                                                  After those awful stories below I wanted to bring in the Shabbat on a positive, holy, spiritual note.  Shabbat is a beautiful mitzvah (commandment). It is actually the Fourth Commandment (emphasis mine): " Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Lord your G-d . On it you shall not do any manner of work -- you, your son, your daughter, your man-servant, your maid-servant, your cattle, and your stranger that...

I found some meaningful videos that I think express some of my thoughts and feelings about Jewishness, spirituality, and the importance of happiness--the latter of which is extremely relevant to my family at this difficult time for us.  We should watch this, and catch the beat!  ( and the achdut, too!)    My daughter has created a  RSD/CRPS Awareness page on Facebook, here.  Please LIKE it, and send it to all your friends.  Maybe, with more awareness leading to research, we can stop this debilitating disease. And now, on to the videos! On Being Jewish: Judaism: Connecting the Physical with the Divine: It's a Mitzvah to be HAPPY! *(hat tip to the Azooooolai family for the Ya'alili video--thanks, guys!)

(le-havdil*.) This is a sign of the times. Madonna has come to tour the Holy Land (again). The interesting thing is, that she, The Material Girl has, as have some other celebrities over the years, found a fascination with Kabbalah and things Jewish, while many Jews never had or even worse, have lost their connection to Judaism. Instead, they drift into the secular, spiritually purposeless lifestyle of our prevaling culture. As Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri --with whom I don't agree on everything he says, but do on this--stated on this latest visit by Madonna (oh, excuse me: by Esther ): “No one can study Torah unless he or she is converting to Judaism," he explained to Arutz-7's Hebrew news site. Madonna’s ostensible plunge into Kabbalah several years has been widely condemned by Torah scholars. Rabbi Batzri said Sunday, however, “There is no connection between what the singer learns and true Kabbalah. The foundations of Kabbalah are the Tree of Life…that no one can learn with...

The kitchen is a mess as another marathon three-day - Yom-Tov-sheni-shel-galuyot* bites the dust. I should be washing the fleishig* dishes and cleaning the kitchen. Instead, I'm blogging (smart choice). But the older I get, the less I can handle the three days (but I still love that matzah shmurah* ). . . It's amazing-when I was a child, I just loved it. It was a glimpse into another universe for me: three days of Avodat Hashem* , with davening* (which I've always loved), singing zmirot* of all kinds, a Seder which transported me into a spiritual realm. I waited for Eliyahu* to come in through our open door with baited breath. These days, it's all that, but all the while I am collapsed with aching legs and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. Can't do the physical side of this so easily any more. Started feeling a bit better on Shabbat (today), with 7 or so hours of sleep Friday night, to make up for four hours of sleep after the 2nd seder, and three hours ...