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Week of May 6 – 13, 2016 • 28 Nissan – 5 Iyar, 5776
Vol. 9 • Issue 17
WESTERBORK, ABOUT AN HOUR’S
DRIVE NORTH-EAST OF AMSTERDAM,
WAS THE TRANSIT CAMP TO WHERE
ALL THE NETHERLANDS’ JEWS
WERE FIRST SENT BEFORE BEING
DEPORTED TO THE CAMPS IN
EASTERN EUROPE.
PAGE 2
PAGE 3
38
BIRCHAT KOHANIM AT THE KOTEL
38
BURNING CHOMETZ
IN BROOKLYN
IN THIS WEEK’S
ISSUE
Appearance Of Darkness
Roy Neuberger..................................8
A Helping Mitzvah From The Past
THE RACE FOR THE PRESIDENCY
Top campaign aides were aboard a
plane ready to head to Virginia to address
media Wednesday morning, but the plane
never got off the ground. Governor Kasich instead stayed in Ohio and made the
decision to suspend his 2016 campaign.
Donald Trump became the only Republican candidate and he will face the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.
Now, we have the insider and the outsider competing against each other. The
insider, Mrs. Clinton, will have an inner
circle of foreign policy advisers who
will stand out for not standing out. The
names she has on her side are a who’s
who of the last 20 years of national security policy, from Madeleine Albright,
the second term secretary of state of her
husband, President Bill Clinton, to Sen.
Tim Kaine, D-Va., the rising Democratic
star who is the top party member on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and
Tom Donilon, the first-term national security adviser of President Barack Obama
known for his closeness to Israel.
Donald Trump takes advice from
his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is an
Orthodox Jew and Jason Greenblatt, also
an Orthodox Lawyer from Teaneck, New
Jersey. The names are not as famous and
full of experience as the Democratic contender, but do bring a promise of favorability to Israel.
Hillary brings a promise of con-
tinuing policies of President Obama and
former President Clinton. Trump, on the
other hand has said that “In my opinion,
Barack Obama has been tremendously
disloyal to Israel, and yet my Jewish
friends go out and have fundraisers for
him all the time,” “Someday you people
will explain to me what you’re doing.”
Hillary Clinton is deja vous and Donald Trump is Jamais Vous, which is the
feeling or experience that a person knows
or recognizes a situation, but that it still
seems very unfamiliar or unknown. Even
though we don’t know what to expect
with Trump, we sense that the Israeli-Palestinian question mark will tilt toward
Israel.
Alan Magill......................................11
Five Beauty Mistakes You
Should Never Make
Racheli Fried....................................22
Cran-Nut Energy Truffles
Reyna Simnegar..............................23
Murder At Auschwitz
Benjamin Brafman.........................23
JNS NEWS.....................................30
Israel’s Temple Mount Approach Faces
Renewed Questions After Latest Tensions
Watching BDS like a Hawkeye: Iowa latest
state to stand against Israel boycotts
SEAN SAVAGE
JOSHUA SHARF
As both the holiest site in Judaism and home to a 1,400-yearold mosque, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount compound is a natural
flashpoint of Jewish-Muslim tension. But the conflict over the
holy site has been particularly heated over the past year, with
the latest incidents coming during the recent Passover holiday.
In late April, a group of Muslims were removed from the Tem
Iowa on April 27 became the latest U.S. state to pass legislation designed to undermine the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In a 38-9 vote with
three excused absences, the Iowa Senate passed one of the
strongest anti-BDS bills in the country. While all nine “no”
votes came from Democrats, that party controls the State
CONT. ON P4
,urb ,eksv
28 Nissan
ixhb j"f
Parashat Acharei Mot
7:38 P.M. FIVE TOWNS
7:40 P.M. STATEN ISLAND
7:39 P.M. BROOKLYN
7:40 P.M. TEANECK, NJ
7:37 P.M. MIAMI BEACH, FLA.
6:43 P.M. JERUSALEM
Do’s and Don’ts for Divorced Dads
IT’S NOT EASY BEING A SINGLE FATHER. SOME PRACTICAL
ADVICE ON HOW TO MAKE THE BEST OF THE SITUATION.
AVIGAIL ROSENBERG
In the ten years of Michael L.’s marriage, his wife had accused him drug peddling, refused to attend therapy, and
claimed that he was the one with psychological issues. When
the situation deteriorated to the point where she became
physically abusive, he walked out. Yet three years later, his
CONT. ON P3
CONT. ON P3
The Surprising Health Benefits of
Extreme Hot and Cold Temperatures
DR. JOSEPH MERCOLA
When it comes to improving your health, some of the
simplest strategies can have a tremendous impact. For
example, did you know that exposure to extreme temperatures can
serve as a catalyst to improve your
health?
CONT. ON P6
5/6/16
2
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5/6/16
SHARF
CONT. FROM P1
Senate with a 26-24 majority.
The prospective law would prohibit both investment and contracting by the so-called “Hawkeye
State” with companies participating in BDS, either against Israel or
“territories controlled by Israel.”
The bill also prohibits secondary
boycotts by extending its ban to
boycotters of those who do business in Israel or the “territories.”
“This bill ensures the State of Iowa
will not support those that parROSENBERG
CONT. FROM P1
ex-wife hasn’t let up, reporting
him as violent towards their children to the police, while he’s left
struggling to prove his innocence
and combat the poison she feeds
the kids about him.
Danny S.’s ex left him over religious reasons, yet he’s still a devoted dad to his three boys – when
he’s able to see them. More often
than not, his ex will cancel visitations at the last minute, upending
his weekend plans. When he tries
to complain, she sweetly turns the
tables, claiming the boys didn’t
ticipate in campaigns fueled by
intolerance and anti-Semitism—
like the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) movement. The
passing of this new law sends a
clear message against the bigotry
and discrimination of the BDS
movement,” said Peggy Shapiro,
central region director of the
pro-Israel education and advocacy
group StandWithUs. “We welcome the fact that Iowa is joining
Illinois, South Carolina, Florida,
Arizona, and almost 20 states
which have either passed or in-
troduced similar legislation which
rejects the boycott campaign.”
Shapiro credits numerous community organizations for providing grassroots support for the
Iowa bill, and particularly the
Israel Allies Foundation for its
leadership on the issue.
Speaking in favor of the bill, State
Senate floor manager Jeff Danielson (D-Black Hawk) noted that
BDS “is a movement that hopes
to economically destabilize Israel
and the Middle East,” and that no
Iowa assets should be involved in
want to see him anyway and he
doesn’t deserve to see them either.
Because the child support he pays
eats up most of his salary, he can’t
afford to take her to court over
every infraction, so he just counts
his blessings when visitations work
out. And when they don’t, he’s
helpless, angry, and afraid of her
wrath.
Ben W. is a dedicated single
father whose wife walked out on
him when their daughter was six
months old. He spent a year in
court gaining the rights to see her,
and now has regular visitation
and a loving relationship with his
five-year-old, despite her mother’s
attempts at interference. Self-employed, he devotes two afternoons
a week to his daughter’s care, as
well as every other weekend. Yet
his social life is curtailed and his
dating prospects minimal, since
his life is wrapped around a preschooler’s.
In today’s society, single moms
usually triumph – they’re often
the ones holding the cards when
a family dissolves. It’s not easy to
manage on the home front singlehandedly, but the resources are
CONT.ON P17
such an effort. The bill was also
sponsored by State Rep. Quentin Stanerson (R-District 95),
who also acted as its Senate floor
manager.
“There’s no scenario where we
reach peace in the Middle East
where Israel is economically unstable,” Danielson said.
Danielson remarked on his own
military service in the region with
the U.S. Navy, the time and treasure that the U.S. has spent trying
to maintain peaceful economic
relations in the Middle East, and
the high proportion of Iowans
who serve in the military and
have contributed to that effort.
The debate in the Iowa legislature
had followed patterns reminiscent of the BDS debate in other
states, with some opponents of
the bill claiming that it infringed
on free speech rights. Danielson
explained that the bill in no way
prevents private individuals from
investing or conducting business as they would normally do,
or from advocating for whatever
foreign policy they prefer.
When Danielson introduced the
bill to the Senate floor on March
3, he said that Iowa has a tradiCONT.ON P4
3
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SHARF
CONT. FROM P3
tion and an interest in supporting countries with rule of law,
democratic decision-making, and
positive economic exchanges—all
as pathways to peace. Israel, he
said, meets those criteria. At that
time, he also praised those who
opposed the bill for their commitment to universal human rights,
but disagreed with their rationale
that it is necessary to economically
penalize Israel in order to achieve
that goal.
State Sen. Herman Quirmbach
(D-Story), an opponent of the
bill, claimed that forcing divestment from index funds by state
university pension plans—whose
holdings are directed by the plans’
individual members but are held
by the universities—would create
an excessive administrative burden. Such broad indexes might, at
some point, include among their
holdings companies that participate in BDS. In other U.S. states
where such bills have passed or
where divestment policies have
been implemented, the measures
do not apply to index funds. Iowa
already has divestment policies
in place with respect to Iran and
4
Sudan.
Quirmbach, who is also an associate professor of economics at Iowa
State University, argued, “In all
the substantial discussion [of the
bill], I have yet to hear even one
member tell me how this would
move us even one inch closer to
peace in the Middle East.” Yet immediately before the final consideration of the anti-BDS bill, the
Iowa Senate unanimously passed
a resolution of support for Israel
that also called for negotiations
leading to a permanent IsraeliPalestinian peace settlement and
a Palestinian state. That resolution—sponsored by State Sen.
Robert Hogg (D-Linn) on April
18—was seen as a symbolic move
to balance the nature of the antiBDS legislation with a more dovish sentiment, making it easier for
some lawmakers to support it.
Quirmbach spoke in favor of the
Israeli-Palestinian peace resolution, arguing that even friends like
Israel need to hear tough criticism
from time to time.
The anti-BDS legislation now
heads to the desk of Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, who is expected to sign it.
JNS.org
718.698.9380
SAVAGE
CONT. FROM P1
ple Mount for chanting “Allahu
akbar” (“God is greater”) at nearly
1,000 Jewish and Christian visitors
who had ascended the site during
the Passover holiday. Prior to that
incident, 13 Jews were removed
from the Temple Mount for illegally praying at the site.
Following those incidents, Jordan’s
government warned of “serious
consequences” for Israel over what
it has described as “the invasion of
settler groups and Israeli occupying
forces in the Al-Aqsa mosque.”
“There’s absolutely no basis for
these claims,” Israeli officials countered. “Israel is behaving responsibly, and Jordan knows that.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that Israel will not change the Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian status quo—in
place now for nearly 25 years—of a
ban on Jewish prayer at the Temple
Mount, despite pressure from some
members of his own political party
and ministerial cabinet to do so.
“Israel will continue to enforce
its longstanding policy: Muslims
pray on the Temple Mount; nonMuslims visit the Temple Mount,”
Netanyahu has said.
Israeli officials have blamed their
Palestinian counterparts for using
the Temple Mount to incite a large
portion of the past year’s terrorist
attacks against Israeli Jews.
“We will not forsake our country
and we will keep every inch of our
land,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in September 2015. “Every drop of blood
spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every
shahid [martyr] will reach paradise,
and every injured person will be
rewarded by God…The Al-Aqsa
mosque is ours. The Church of the
Holy Sepulchre is ours as well. They
(Jews) have no right to desecrate
the mosque with their dirty feet, we
won’t allow them to do that.”
The unrest over the Temple Mount
has also been attributed to the
Jordanian Islamic Waqf, Hamas,
and the Islamic Movement in Israel.
Gangs of Muslim men and women
have harassed Jewish visitors at the
holy site.
“Peaceful Jewish visitors are systematically hounded by agents of
the Jordanian Waqf, and harassed
by the Muslim mercenaries who
are paid to torment them. This is
the daily routine of a Jewish visit to
CONT.ON P5
5/6/16
SAVAGE
CONT. FROM P4
the Temple Mount,” Rabbi Chaim
Richman—international director
of the Temple Institute, an organization whose stated mission is “to
restore Temple consciousness” and
reactivate the Temple era’s “‘forgotten’ commandments”—told JNS.
org.
These Islamist gangs, known as Murabitat, have been filmed shouting
“Allahu akbar” and trying to assault
Jews and Israeli police officers on
the Temple Mount.
“In any democratic society, such
inciting behavior would be considered a blatant violation of the most
basic civil rights, and an attack on
human dignity. The fact that this
takes place daily under the watchful and complicit eyes of the Israel
Police, as policy set by the Prime
Minister’s Office, is a scathing indictment of the total lack of Jewish
rights at our people’s holiest site,”
Richman said.
Last year, in a U.S.-brokered agreement between Jordan and Israel,
Jordan promised to install security
cameras at the Temple Mount in
order to ease tensions there. But
Jordan recently dropped those
plans over Palestinian objections.
“It would seem that the Muslims
realized that showing the world
what really happens on the Temple
Mount would be detrimental to
their cause, and thus they cancelled
their plan,” Richman said.
As the site of the two former Jewish
Temples, the Temple Mount has
long played a pivotal role in Jewish
affairs and worship. Yet after the
Second Temple was destroyed by
the Romans in the !1st Century CE,
the site passed through a succession
of foreign rulers, from the Muslim
Caliphs and Crusaders to more recently the Ottoman and British empires. During the control of the site
by the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate
in 691 CE, the Dome of the Rock
was constructed over the site of the
former Jewish Temple—igniting
much of today’s tension.
After failing to gain control of the
Old City of Jerusalem during the
1948 War of Independence, Israeli
forces captured the Old City and
the Temple Mount from Jordan
during the 1967 Six-Day War. Despite regaining Jewish sovereignty
over the Temple Mount for the first
time in nearly 2,000 years, Israeli
leaders decided to relinquish religious sovereignty over the holy site
to the Jordanian-run Islamic Waqf.
Under that arrangement, which
would become the “status quo,”
Jewish prayer was forbidden on the
Temple Mount and non-Muslim
access was restricted to certain days
and hours.
Jewish religious leaders in the haredi community have opposed Jewish
worship at the Temple Mount and
even visitation there, due to the
inability of modern Jews to purify
themselves properly before ascending the former site of the Holy of
Holies. But Israeli public opinion
is increasingly favoring increased
Jewish rights at the Temple Mount.
A poll released last year by the
Yesodot Center for Torah and
Democracy found that a majority of
Israelis favor greater prayer access
at the holy site. According to the
poll, 37 percent of Israelis believe
that their government should allow free access to adherents of all
religions who wish to pray on the
Temple Mount. Sixty-six percent of
respondents said the Israeli government should have sovereignty over
the site.
The push for greater Jewish access to the Temple Mount has also
made its way into Israel’s political
leadership. While Netanyahu has
remained firmly opposed to any
changes, cabinet members such as
Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) have
argued for increased Jewish prayer
access and even for rebuilding the
Temple.
“We’ve built many little, little
temples, but we need to build a real
temple on the Temple Mount,”
Ariel said last year.
“It is tempting to be seduced by
such rhetoric,” Prof. Yedidia Stern,
vice president of research at the
Israel Democracy Institute (IDI)
think tank, told JNS.org.
Such rhetoric “has fanned the
flames of the intensive attempts
to strengthen Jewish presence and
renew Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount in recent years, and has
swept up some 40 percent of Jews
in Israel, who believe that the status
quo on the Temple Mount should
be changed,” said Stern.
Along with Uri Ariel, other Jewish activists such as Temple Mount
rights promoter Rabbi Yehuda
Glick—who survived an assassination attempt by a Palestinian
terrorist in 2014—and the Temple
Institute’s Richman are challenging
the status quo.
“The so-called status quo is an illegal arrangement which makes a
mockery of the basic human, civil,
and religious rights of all non-
Muslims at the Temple Mount. In
a country that prides itself on its
exemplary record of equality for all
its citizens, the ‘status quo’ is a stain
on Israeli society, a disgrace that
should be uprooted,” Richman told
JNS.org.
The Temple Institute, which says it
has the long-term goal of “building
of the Holy Temple in our time,”
has already constructed “sacred
vessels” that would be used in the
future Third Temple, such as a pure
gold menorah, a golden incense
altar, and the golden Table of the
Showbread.
“The government of Israel should
defend and protect its citizens and
uphold Israeli law, which clearly
states that free and unrestricted access to all holy places be granted to
members of all religions. The Temple Mount is the only site which is
intrinsically holy to the Jewish people. The fact that Jews are prevented
from praying at their only holy site,
by the very government that should
be protecting and upholding their
rights, is inexcusable and unforgivable,” said Richman.
IDI’s Stern, meanwhile, said the
Temple Mount issue is more “complex” than anything else on the
public agenda in Israel. While he
believes that “considerable weight
must be given to the argument
that we must never surrender to
violence, and certainly not on the
most symbolic issue of all—control
of the Temple Mount,” Stern also
reasoned that “we cannot ignore the
realistic approach that considers the
limitations of national power and
seeks to exercise that power responsibly.”
According to an April 2016 poll
conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a
majority of Palestinians (52 percent) believe that Israel is planning
to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and
Dome of the Rock. Furthermore,
only 9 percent of Palestinians believe that Israel intends on maintaining the status quo at the Temple
Mount.
“If we do not think carefully and act
wisely with regard to the Temple
Mount, 1.6 billion Muslims, fueled
by religious fervor, are liable to
mobilize and become active participants in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict,” Stern said. “Arguments
based on principle, as important
as they may be, must be weighed
against the likely outcome of their
implementation.”
JNS.org
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Dr. Joseph Mercola
The Surprising Health Benefits of
Extreme Hot and Cold Temperatures
CONT. FROM P1
In a previous interview, biological
scientist Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D.
discussed the importance of mitochondrial function — a topic she
expands on in this interview. As
it turns out, exposure to extreme
temperatures, be it hot or cold,
actually improves mitochondrial
function.
Mitochondria are the energy
generators in your cells. While
you have about 35 trillion bacteria
and as many cells in our body,
you have about 500 to 1,000 times
more mitochondria. Estimates
suggest you may have anywhere
from 15 to 50 quadrillion mitochondria.
When your mitochondria are not
working properly, your body’s
ability to generate energy is impaired. The key is to get the old
ones out and to create new ones
— a process known as mitochondrial biogenesis. There are a number of strategies that can do that,
including:
Exposure to extreme hot and cold
temperatures
Exercise
Intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding
Certain supplements, such as
resveratrol
All of these strategies stimulate
the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator
1 alpha (PGC-1 alpha), which is
the primary driver for mitochondrial biogenesis. And when it
comes to maintaining biological
functioning and good health, the
more mitochondria you have the
better.
Mitochondrial Biogenesis Benefits
From Hormesis
According to Patrick, exposure
to extreme cold is likely the most
effective way to boost mitochondrial biogenesis, followed by
exposure to heat, and exercise.
All of the strategies listed above
place stress on your body, and
while stress is generally viewed as
a detriment to health, short bouts
of stress actually produce benefits
by way of hormesis.
Hormesis refers to a process of
exposing your body to a very short
burst of stress, be it exercise, heat,
cold, fasting, or antioxidants like
resveratrol.
Because it’s a short burst of stress,
your body reacts to this stress
by activating a variety of stress
response pathways that are hardwired and encoded in your genes.
As explained by Patrick:
“It turns them on because they’re
thinking, ‘I’ve got to prepare for
war. This is stress. I need to make
sure I fight this off.’ Not only does
it activate all these really good
pathways to fight off the stress
you’re dealing with immediately,
but it is preparing for future war.
[Your body] is basically thinking to itself, ‘I may encounter this
stress again. I have to activate all
these good pathways that can help
me deal with stress. That way, the
next time I encounter it, I’m ready
to fight it off.’
That’s really one of the main
reasons why short bursts of stress
are so good for you, because we
have so many amazing genes in
our body that are so powerful. The
problem is that as we age, they
don’t become activated as often.
We need to find ways to activate
them more ...”
Benefits of Heat Stress
Exercise is one form of heat stress,
as you’re elevating your core
temperature. Other ways of raising
your core temperature include
taking a hot bath, or using a steam
room or sauna. The heat stress
generated helps activate genes that
are important for optimizing heat
shock proteins (HSP) inside your
cells.
This is important, as these proteins
get damaged with time and need
to be renewed. Accumulation of
damaged HSP can lead to plaque
formation in your brain and/or
vascular system.
Heat stress helps prevent this adverse chain of events. HSP are also
involved in longevity, so it’s really
good to have a lot of HSP. They’re
also important for preventing your
skeletal muscle from atrophying,
because they prevent proteins
from being degraded.
“[A]nimal studies have shown
Moshe’s
CONT.ON P7
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6
1)
5)
8)
12)
13)
14)
15)
17)
18)
19)
21)
24)
25)
26)
31)
33)
34)
35)
38)
39)
40)
Common contraction
Island garland
Charity
Raise
Have title to
Rocker ___ Young
Emphasized
Monopoly, e.g.
Traitor
Matured
Get lost (2 wds.)
___ Ripken, Jr.
Sukkot mo.
Get even
Boutique
Fishing aid
Oaf
Cilantro
Haul
Bullring cheer
Crave
42)
46)
47)
48)
52)
53)
54)
55)
56)
57)
Corrosion layer
Feathery scarf
Bassoon’s relative
Georgia city
___ Macpherson
Age
Pinnacle
Psychic
Dusk, to a poet
Paper quantity
Down:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
Tax agcy.
Collection
Storyteller
Goody
Part of “L. A.“
Water container
Pointed out
Cherubic
Thin
Silent actor
11) Winter coaster
16) Recipe verb
20) Chum
21) Bartlett’s kin
22) Canyon effect
23) Nashville’s state
27) Baseball’s ___ Williams
28) Coalition
29) Sightseeing trip
30) Margin
32) Trailblazer
36) Heavyweight great
37) ____ McEntire of
country music
41) Radar’s kin
42) Foot digits
43) Competent
44) Part
45) Jack rabbit
49) Moving truck
50) Doctor’s org.
51) Dress edge
ANSWER TO THIS WEEK’S CROSSWORD ON PAGE 25
5/6/16
MERCOLA
CONT. FROM P6
that when mice are exposed to the
sauna they increase their protein
synthesis by 30 percent compared
to the mice that are not being
exposed to the sauna.
This was shown to be dependent
on the heat shock proteins, HSPs,
in the muscle. [T]he important
thing here is the actual heat stress.
You want to feel uncomfortable.
You want to feel hot. That’s when
you know that these good pathways are getting activated.
The other thing that happens in
terms of mitochondrial biogenesis
and the reason why it occurs when
you’re exposed to heat, is that heat
itself is a stressor on the body and
it creates reactive oxygen species
(ROS).
[ROS are also] generated when
you exercise; when you’re causing
your body to work more. These
ROS act as a signaling molecule to
make more mitochondria.
If you exercise and take a supplemental vitamin E or something
that can sort of soak up the ROS,
you can negate some of the positive benefits from exercise because
you are now not getting those
signaling molecules saying, ‘Hey,
we’ve got stress here. Let’s make
more mitochondria to deal with
the stress.’
It’s really important that you
actually have some of that stress.
That’s part of the mechanism by
which it increases mitochondrial
biogenesis.”
How Heat Stress Benefits Athletic
Performance
Heat stress can also help boost
endurance in athletes—a topic she
covers more in-depth in her Hypothermic Conditioning Report,
available for free download here.
In one study, athletes who spent
30 minutes in the sauna after their
workouts, two times a week for
three weeks, were able to increase
the time it took for them to run
until exhaustion by 32 percent,
compared to baseline. As noted
by Patrick in her report: “In other
words, hyperthermic conditioning through sauna use doesn’t just
make you better at dealing with
heat; it makes you better, period.”
But how exactly does heat boost
athletic endurance? First of all,
heat stress causes a number of adaptations that reduce the adverse
effects associated with elevated
body temperatures. This includes:
Reduced heart rate
Lower core body temperature
during exercise
Higher sweat rate and increased
thermoregulatory control
Increased plasma volume, which
optimizes blood flow to your
heart, muscles, skin, and other
tissues
Reduced rate of glycogen depletion due to improved blood flow
to skeletal muscle
In short, being heat acclimated
helps enhance endurance, and
there are three different mechanisms at work here:
By increasing plasma volume and
blood flow to your heart, it reduces cardiovascular strain and lowers your heart rate during exercise
By increasing blood flow to your
muscles, more nutrients such as
glucose and oxygen are delivered,
thereby reducing fatigue. According to Patrick, hyperthermic
conditioning can reduce muscle
glycogen use by as much as 50
percent.
By improving thermoregulatory
control and increasing sweat rate,
your core body heat can remain
lower even during high exertion.
Once you’re heat acclimated,
sweating occurs at a lower body
temperature than previously, and
you sweat longer
How Heat Stress Benefits Your
Brain
Heat also has very robust and
profound effects on your brain.
Your body responds to heat by
cooling itself down, and it does
that by increasing production of
dynorphin—the chemical opposite of endorphins. However,
dynorphin sensitizes your brain
to endorphins, which can have a
mood boosting effect. Dynorphin
is responsible for that dysphoric
feeling when you’re hot, when
you’re lying in the sun, or when
you’re exercising.
“I think what’s really important
for people to understand is everyone’s always trying to avoid
stress. They want to be comfortable. I think the reason for that is
people are aware of the fact that
chronic stress is bad. When you’re
constantly having a stressor, you
don’t have this positive hormetic
response to it ...
But the short burst of stress is
really good ... It has this feedback
mechanism where it increases
the expression of a receptor that
binds to endorphin, called the mu
opioid receptor. You make more
of these receptors. That way, the
next time you produce endorphin,
you’re more sensitive to it ... So
CONT.ON P10
7
5/6/16
Roy Neuberger
THE APPEARANCE
OF DARKNESS
In Biblical times at this season, we
were marching with Moshe Rabbeinu toward Har Sinai. It was a time
of tremendous anticipation. Did
Bnai Yisroel know what was coming? Could anyone have imagined
the stupendous events which were
about to occur at Har Sinai?
In the contemporary world, we are
also anticipating something huge,
but we don’t quite know what it
will be. We know the Geula is
close, but there is much fear in the
world. Europe is overrun by dangerous hordes, America is in disarray from a traumatizing election
campaign and the hatred of the entire world is directed toward Israel.
Last year, on Seder night, there
was a total lunar eclipse. Several
months later, on the first night of
Sukkos, there was another total lunar eclipse. Similarly, the previous
year there were total lunar eclipses
on the first night of Pesach and
Sukkos. This was unusual; total
lunar eclipses are infrequent. In
the ten years from 2004 through
2013, there were eight, and then,
in two successive years, there were
four, all occurring on the first day
of both Pesach and Sukkos. Additionally, last year, there was a total
solar eclipse on Rosh Chodesh
Nissan.
Chazal comment on eclipses.
“Whenever the luminaries (apparently referring to the moon and
stars) are stricken, it is a bad omen
for the Jewish People…. During
the time that the sun is stricken,
it is a bad omen for idolaters.
[When] the moon is stricken, it is
a bad omen for the Jewish People….” Why? “The Jews calculate
[the calendar] according to the
moon…. The idolaters [calculate]
according to the sun…” (Succah
29a)
During a lunar eclipse, the earth
stands directly between the sun and
the moon, casting its shadow over
the moon. During a solar eclipse,
the moon comes directly between
the earth and the sun, blocking the
view of the sun from the earth.
There is a significant distinction:
during a solar eclipse the sun is actually blocked, but during a lunar
eclipse the moon is not blocked; it
8
is simply in shadow. If you held
a giant flashlight during a lunar
eclipse, you could illuminate the
moon from the earth.
Why is an eclipse a “bad omen?”
Metaphorically, the sun can be
compared to the “master” of the
solar system and the planets and
their moons to servants. The fire,
the heat, the central power of the
solar system is the sun. All the
planets revolve around it and derive their very existence from its
presence. Without the sun at the
center, there would be no solar
system and no life on earth. This
is comparable to the spiritual
world, in which Hashem kaveyochal is at the “center.” All life
is derived from Him. An eclipse
implies that we are cut off from
Him; our connection with Hashem
has apparently been threatened,
G-d forbid. We seem to be cut off
from the “Light.”
But an eclipse is a purely physical
phenomenon. How can it affect
us? All that happens is that our
physical world is temporarily
darkened. Why should we be
frightened? If we have dvaykus
with Torah and mitzvos, then how
can physical darkness affect our
relationship with Hashem? Do we
not say every evening, “We will
rejoice with the words of Your
Torah … and about them we will
meditate day and night.…”
In fact, we see how, during thousands of years of the terrible
darkness of Golus, our Torah has
sustained us in the “four corners
of the world,” no matter how they
tried to crush us! To paraphrase
FDR, the only thing we have to
fear about an eclipse is fear itself,
fear of darkness. Fear is banished
when we are close to Hashem. As
King David says, “though I walk
in the valley overshadowed by
death, I will fear no evil.” (Tehillim 23)
The Gemora echoes this theme.
“[However], when the Jews do
the will of the Omnipresent, they
need not worry about all these
omens, as it is stated (Yirmiya
10:2), ‘Thus said Hashem: do not
learn from the way of the nations.
Do not be frightened by the signs
of the heavens, though the nations
are frightened by them,’ [implying
that] the idol worshippers shall be
frightened, [but] the Jews need not
be frightened.” (Succah 29a)
The distinction between lunar and
solar eclipses corroborates this.
During a solar eclipse, as we said
earlier, the sun is actually blocked;
the earth is cut off from its energy
source. But during a lunar eclipse,
the moon is not blocked. It is right
there where it always was; only a
shadow prevents us from seeing it.
The same is true of Golus! Hashem’s light has not disappeared; it
is being held in reserve for us. In
Golus, there is only the appearance of darkness. Hashem is hidden, but He is with us at all times.
We have to know that our connection with Him is through ruchnius,
not gashmius. That spiritual connection can never be severed, not
even in the darkest of times, not
even when chaos seems to flood
the world.
Next week, as we celebrate Rosh
Chodesh Iyar, the moon will
once more reappear in the sky,
filling us with hope. Each month
we say, “May it be Your will,
Hashem, my G-d and the G-d of
my forefathers, to fill the flaw of
the moon … May the light of the
moon be like the light of the sun
and like the light of seven days of
creation, as it was before it was
diminished… And may there be
fulfilled upon us the verse that is
written: They shall seek Hashem,
their G-d and David, their king.
Amen!” (Kiddush Levana)
May we soon see the Geulah
Shelemah, when the moon’s flaw
is forever removed and the world
is filled with the light of Torah!
Roy Neuberger’s latest book is
WORKING TOWARD MOSHIACH.
His book 2020 VISION is available in
ENGLISH, HEBREW, SPANISH, FRENCH,
RUSSIAN & GEORGIAN.
Roy is also the author of FROM
CENTRAL PARK TO SINAI: How I Found
My Jewish Soul, available in ENGLISH,
HEBREW, RUSSIAN & GEORGIAN, and
WORLDSTORM: Finding Meaning &
Direction Amidst Today’s World Crisis.
ROY AND HIS WIFE LEAH SPEAK
PUBLICLY ON TOPICS RELATED TO HIS
BOOKS AND ARTICLES.
Email: [email protected]. Website:
www.2020vision.co.il.
5/6/16
“THE SHMUZ”
Rabbi Ben Tzion Shafier
SYSTEMS OF HUMAN
PERFECTION
PARSHAS ACHAREI MOS
“And a man from the house of
Israel, and from the converts who
live with you, who shall consume
any blood, I shall place My face
against the soul of the one who
consumed blood, and I shall cut it
off from amongst your nation.”
Vayikrah” 17: 10
The Torah warns us many times
and with many different exhortations not to consume blood. The
Kli Yakar points out than in Devarim the Torah tells us not to eat
blood because “It will be good for
you and your children after you”.
He explains that: “Consuming
blood brings cruelty into the one
who eats it, and the nature of the
father is given over to his children
to be like him. Therefore, the
Torah warns us not to consume
blood so that we don’t acquire this
nature.”
It seems clear from the Kli Yakar
that consuming blood will cause a
change in the nature of the person
who consumes it. His sensitivities
and reactions will have changed,
and he will become a different
person. However, not only will
he become callous and pitiless,
these traits will become part of his
genetic transmission, so that any
child that he then has will have
this same predisposition towards
cruelty.
This concept seems difficult to
understand. Firstly, how does
consuming blood make a person
cruel? Secondly, how does that
change affect the very hereditary
transmission of a person so that
his children will be pitiless as
well?
To understand the answer to this,
we need to focus on the basic
make-up of man.
The Chovos Ha’Levovos (Sha’ar
Avodas Elokim 3) explains that
HASHEM created man out of
two very distinct parts – a nefesh
ha’Schili (intellectual soul) and a
nefesh Ha’Bahami (animal soul).
The “I” that thinks, feels, and
remembers is comprised of two
separate and competing parts,
each one with its own nature, tendencies, and needs. The nefesh
ha’Schili desires only that which
is good, right, and noble. It yearns
to help others, it hungers for
meaning and purpose, and more
than anything, it needs to be close
to HASHEM.
Then there is the other part of
man — the animal soul. It too has
desires and inclinations, and it too
hungers for things. One way to
better understand the animal soul
in man is to visit its parallel in the
wild kingdom.
have a cognitive, reasoning element. It doesn’t have an “I” that
is the master of the ship. But it
does have a vibrant essence that is
programmed to seek out its needs.
That part is the nefesh of the animal.
That nefesh is pure instinct,
drives, and passions, and is affected by both internal and external
triggers. In the spring, birds fly
north and engage in a fury of
nest-building and mating. The individual bird doesn’t purposefully
choose its mate. Two robins don’t
sit down and say to each other,
“It’s time for us to settle down
and raise a family.” The animal is
attracted by the sight, smell, and
sound of one of its species, and
then will hotly pursue it – often
CONT.ON P11
Understanding the Nefesh Ha’Bahami
HASHEM imprinted into the
essence of each animal all the instincts necessary for its survival
as well as for the continuation of
its species. The animal doesn’t
9
5/6/16
your body increases production
of norepinephrine in the brain,
which is involved in focus and
attention. It also improves mood
and alleviates pain, partly because
it lowers inflammation. You can
increase norepinephrine two-fold
just by getting into 40-degree
water for 20 seconds, or 57-degree
water for a few minutes.
MERCOLA
CONT. FROM P7
you actually can relieve anxiety,”
Patrick says.
The ROS generated when you’re
exposed to heat also benefits your
brain by increasing production of
growth factors, such as brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF),
which in turn promote the growth
of neurons. With age, neurons are
lost in many brain regions, and
sauna bathing can be an important strategy to slow down or
prevent brain aging.
Sauna Bathing Is Good for Your
Heart
Heat also has a profound effect
on your heart and cardiovascular
health. A Finnish study published
last year found that men who used
the sauna two to three times a
week had a 27 percent lower death
rate from heart disease and a 24
percent lower all-cause mortality
rate compared to those who only
used the sauna once a week.
Men who used it four to seven
times a week had a 50 percent
reduction in death from heart disease, and a 40 percent reduction
in all-cause mortality. So there’s
a clear dose-dependent response,
meaning the more frequently
10
you use the sauna, the greater the
beneficial effect. These heart and
cardiovascular benefits are related
to the fact that when you get hot:
Your heart rate increases, just as
during exercise
Your blood vessels dilate
The smooth muscle cells that line
your blood vessels relax
Temperature matters, of course.
In this study, they used the traditional hot, dry Finnish sauna. The
temperature averaged 79 degrees
Celsius (174 degrees Fahrenheit),
which is extremely hot by most
standards. The duration was
typically 20 minutes or longer.
Infrared saunas and steam rooms
operate at lower temperatures, so
the outcomes might not be identical were you to compare them.
Still, heat that isn’t as extreme will
provide similar benefits.
Benefits of Cryotherapy
As with heat, the rationale for exposing yourself to very cold temperatures also has to do with the
benefits associated with hormesis.
You may have heard that cold
temperatures can help you burn
more body fat, and mitochondrial
biogenesis is directly involved in
this process.
When you’re exposed to cold,
While best known as a neurotransmitter, norepinephrine also
acts as a hormone. One of its
functions is causing vasoconstriction, which helps your body
conserve heat. Norepinephrine
also acts as a signaling molecule to
make more mitochondria in your
fat tissue (your main energy reserves), and a byproduct of energy
production is heat.
This also helps prepare you for the
next time you’re exposed to cold.
The more times you’re exposed
to cold, the more mitochondria
you make in your fat cells and the
better you can withstand lower
temperatures. This is a topic Dr.
Patrick covers more in-depth in
her cold shock report, available
for free download here.
So yes, you do “get acclimated”
to colder temperatures with time.
Wim Hof, aka. “The Iceman,” is
a perfect example of this. He’s
exposed himself to cold on a daily
basis for decades. As a result, he’s
now able to withstand the cold
for much longer periods than one
might consider normal, because
his body can generate more heat.
As explained by Patrick, “The
more mitochondria you have in
your fat, the more fat you’re burning, the more heat you can make,
the longer you can stay in the
cold.”
The Hormesis of Cryotherapy
As mentioned, when you expose
yourself to heat, you make heat
shock protein. When exposing
yourself to cold, in addition to increasing norepinephrine you also
make cold shock protein, known
as the RNA-binding motif 3 or
RBM3, in your brain.
This is another intriguing example of hormesis. Interestingly,
when you’re exposed to cold, you
actually degrade synapses (the
connections between neurons),
but RBM3 completely regenerates them. This has been shown in
hibernating animals like bears and
squirrels.
“There’s this really great study that
was published not long ago that
showed when you take a mouse
genetically engineered to get Alz-
heimer’s disease and expose it to
cold, so that it’s increasing RBM3,
it delays the onset of Alzheimer’s.
Even though they were genetically
engineered to get Alzheimer’s
disease, they get it much, much
later,” Patrick says.
Studies have also been done on
human cells, showing that RBM3
does get activated when the brain
cells are exposed to cold, and that
the temperature change needed is
only about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
More research needs to be done,
but preliminary work such as this
suggests cryotherapy (cold treatment) could have a neuroprotective effect.
Caveat: Avoid Cryotherapy Directly Following Strength Training
There is one important caveat
worth mentioning. When you’re
doing strengthening exercises you
generate ROS that help increase
muscle mass. If you expose yourself to cold within the first hour
after strength training, you suppress that beneficial process, so
avoid doing cold immersion (such
as a really cold shower or ice bath)
immediately after strength training.
On the other hand, spending some
time in the sauna after exercise
may actually help increase muscle
mass. It’ll also help with detoxification, allowing you to sweat out
toxins that can wreak havoc on
mitochondrial function in general.
As explained by Patrick:
“This is what’s important to understand — Exercise is a stress on
the body. You’re making reactive
oxygen species. You’re generating
inflammation. But that’s a good
thing because it’s a short burst,
and you want it.
... There’s a one hour timeframe
from the time you stop exercising
[in which inflammation peaks].
That is the stressful period. But
then as soon as an hour hits, the
stress response kicks in and you
start to have a potent anti-inflammatory [response]. You start having an antioxidant response from
activating all these good genes that
stay activate for a long time.
What happens is that because
the cold also is causing an antiinflammatory response, it’s
important that you don’t get that
anti-inflammatory response too
soon, because you need some of
that exercise-induced inflammation. You want that inflammation
to happen to get the anti-inflammatory response. That’s important
for the strength training.
CONT.ON P11
5/6/16
MERCOLA
CONT. FROM P10
The inflammation you generate
during the strength training is
part of the mechanism for making more proteins in the skeletal
muscle. If you blunt that, then
you’re going to blunt the effects
of the strength training. The
question is then can you do it an
hour or two hours later? Studies
SHMUZ
CONT. FROM P9
becoming bonded for life. It is
driven by instinct in a preset pattern.
Those instincts and desires are
affected by various forces. A bird
from a different species will not
elicit the mating response, nor will
even the same bird in a different
time of the year. In the dead of
winter, these desires lay dormant.
The change in season brings them
forward to the extent that they take
over the existence of that bird.
They have been pre-programmed
to respond to stimuli that allow for
the success of the individual bird
and the species as a whole.
The answer to the Kli Yakar
This seems to be the answer to the
question. The Kli Yakir is teaching us that when the Torah forbids
us to eat blood, it is because consuming it would make a dramatic
change in our inner essence. We
would be ingesting part of the
nefesh of that animal, and it would
become part of our own Nefesh
Ha’Bahami. Our conscious reality
would change because part of who
we are is the animal soul, and we
would thereby acquire cruelty.
This change is so potent that if the
person who drank that blood were
to then have a child, that child
would also have cruelty as part of
his inner make-up.
Much like certain chemicals can
affect a man’s mood; the Torah
have shown, yes, you can do cold
exposure, cold water immersion
and actually get some performance enhancements even from
doing [that].”
Listen to Your Body
While sauna bathing and cold water immersion are generally safe, if
you have any sort of medical condition, discuss it with your doctor
beforehand, since both hot and
is teaching us that there are some
properties that have a permanent effect on the nature of man.
They change his Nefesh, and that
changes the way that he thinks
and feels.
Similarly, the mefarshim explain
to us that none of the kosher animals are predators. The nature
of a predatory animal is to hunt
down and kill. If a person were
to consume meat from such an
animal, some part of the Nefesh
of that animal would enter into
man’s soul and he would acquire
an aggressive, violent nature. The
Torah forbids it because it
This concept is very significant
as it helps us better understand
the Torah as the system of human
perfection. HASHEM is the Creator, and He wrote the Torah as
the guidebook for human growth.
Contained within it are all the
tools necessary to reach greatness.
Some of the tools are easily understood and some takes years to
fully comprehend, but the system
is there. By following the guidelines, restrictions, and commandments, a person guarantees that he
is headed in the right path – using
his stay on the planet to grow and
perfect himself.
For more on this topic please listen to
Halacha Boot Camp – Hilchos Kashrus –
Introduction, Parts 1 and 2
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cold put stress on your heart and
cardiovascular system. Also listen
to your body. Individual tolerance
for hot and cold temperatures
vary widely, and if you push it too
far you can do yourself harm.
Cryotherapy tends to be a bit riskier than sauna, which is typically
very beneficial for people with
cardiovascular-related diseases,
courtesy of the vasodilation and
increased blood flow. Cold causes
acute vasoconstriction, which can
be potentially dangerous if you
have a heart condition. A quick
cold shower would probably be
okay, but avoid ice baths or other
extreme cold water immersion
techniques.
“With that said, in general it’s really, really good to listen to your
body. You need to recover from
the stress; otherwise it’s not going
to be beneficial,’ Patrick says. ‘If
you’re exercising all day, every
day, you’re going to die. You can’t
constantly keep stressing your
body without a recovery period,
which is part of the reason why
sleep is so important for recovery,
you repair all this damage that you
generated throughout the day.
I tend to push things to the extreme. I’m getting better with that
now. But I have experienced, with
myself, when I’ve sat in an ice bath
for several minutes, I start to feel
light headed. I shouldn’t be feeling light headed. That’s enough. I
need to get out. The same with the
sauna. Feeling uncomfortable is
good.
You want to push a little bit
past that comfort and feel a little
uncomfortable. That’s important
for some of the hormetic benefits.
But you don’t want to faint. Also,
never drink alcohol in the sauna.”
Dr. Mercola is the founder of the
world’s most visited natural health
web site, Mercola.com
A HELPING MITZVAH FROM
THE PAST
ALAN MAGILL
The distance between lethargy
and purposeful activity can be
very short. Sometimes all it takes
is the right stimulation to go from
down and out to uplifted. And
that stimulation can come from
the here and now or it could come
from the past. Years ago when I
worked at a Jewish nursing home
as a recreation therapist, one of
my favorite activities was the Oneg
Shabbos program I lead on late
Friday mornings. I discussed the
sedra, encouraged answers to my
questions and we made brachas
over grape juice and Challah.
One of the most enthusiastic
and knowledgeable participants in
the program was a man of around
90 who I’ll call Shmuel.
When I would arrive in the
Day room where the Oneg Shabbos was held, typically around one
minute before the 11:30 a.m. starting time, Shmuel would usually be
sitting there on the first row, ready
to pore over the eternal truths of
the Torah. So one Friday morning
when I came into that Day room
and didn’t see him I was surprised
and concerned. A nurse told
me Shmuel was in his room and
wouldn’t come out. It was 11:30
a.m. and the program was supposed to start but I needed to see
what was going on with one of my
biggest participants. So I told the
CONT.ON P13
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5/6/16
How Free Will
Works - 2
Copyright © 2016 by Dovid Lieberman. This serialization is from Dr. Lieberman’s newest book, “How Free Will
Works,” which is available for just $9.99
at Jewish bookstores everywhere, at Amazon.com, and Feldheim.com.
We ended last week’s installment
with the statement that the tendency
to avoid the pain inherent in taking responsibility for our lives is the
primary basis of all mental illness and
is central to nearly every emotional
issue, including anxiety, depression,
and addiction. This is how it happens:
LIVE OR LET DIE
Within all of us exist three inner
forces that are often at odds with
one another: the soul, the ego, and
the body. In short, the soul seeks to
do what is right; the ego wants to
be right and see itself in the optimal
light; and the body just wants to
escape from it all.
Doing what is comfortable or
enjoyable is a body drive. Examples
of indulgences of this force are overeating or oversleeping—in effect,
doing something merely because of
how it feels. An ego drive can run the
gamut from making a joke at some-
one else’s
expense to
making a
lavish purchase that’s
beyond
our means.
When the
ego reigns,
we are not
drawn to
what is good, but to what makes us
look good.
Over time, these choices erode
our self-esteem because when we
succumb to immediate gratification
or live to protect and project an image, we become angry with ourselves
and ultimately feel empty inside.
(This means that a single egregious
act can infect our belief system and
the unwillingness to face the resultant guilt or shame may stain our
entire worldview.)
When we do not like who we
are, we punish ourselves with activities that are disguised as pleasurable:
excessive eating, alcohol or drug
abuse and meaningless diversions
and excursions. We long to love our-
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12
selves, but instead we lose ourselves.
Unable to invest in our own wellbeing, we substitute illusions for
love. These ethereal delights mask
our self-contempt, and since the
comfort sought is rewarded instead
by greater pain, we descend further
into despair.
As our behavior becomes increasingly reckless and irresponsible,
the ego swells to compensate for
feelings of guilt and shame. Our perspective narrows, and we see more
of the self and less of the world. This
makes us ever more sensitive and
unstable.
these defense mechanisms which are
detailed in the next installment.)
When a person loses his sanity—the ability to see, accept, and
respond to his world—it means that
he has lost all perspective.
The Talmud states that Adam
HaRishon (“Adam, the first man”)
could see from one end of the world
to the other. Before eating of the
Eitz HaDaas (“Tree of Knowledge”),
Adam had no yetzer hara (“ego”).
This entity was represented by the
serpent and was external to Adam.
So his perception was unfettered.
The yetzer hara entered only
when Adam ate of the tree and became alert to the difference between
good and evil, which shifted his
perspective. Man’s awareness was
reduced from the objective world of
“truth and falsehood” to the subjective view of “good and bad.” After
the sin, human beings would forever
see their world through the cloudy
lens of “I.”
Emotional instability is, fundamentally, a lack of moral clarity—the
degree to which the ego infects us.
To this extent, we are all somewhat
sick. At whatever point we have clarity that a given behavior is wrong,
bechirah (“free will”) emerges, and it
becomes a genuine choice. That is, to
choose good over evil. To the degree
that we fall short, we are all somewhat evil.
To be continued…
PERSPECTIVE = MENTAL
HEALTH
The clearer our perspective, the
more reality we allow in, and the
more objective and rational are our
attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors.
As the ego grows, the seedlings
of emotional instability take root
because any distortion of our true
self produces a misrepresentation of
the world; and if our grasp of reality
is flawed, then our adjustment to life
will suffer. (To the degree that we
cannot accept our imperfections and
limitations, we shift fault elsewhere.
In other words: If there is nothing
wrong with me then there must
be something wrong with you. In
order for us to remain unblemished,
we am forced to distort the world
around us. The ego has a variety of
Sudoku
Puzzle
Complete the grid so that every row, column and
3x3 box contains every digit from 1 to 9 inclusively.
2
5
8
7
1
8
6
7
5
3
7
2
8
1
8
9
2
7
1
5
4
5
6
9
3
4
6
4
7
ANSWER TO THIS WEEK’S SUDOKU ON PAGE 36
5/6/16
MAGILL
CONT. FROM P11
group there would be a short delay
and I made a beehive to talk with
Shmuel. When I knocked on his
door, I heard a low, sad voice say,
“I’m not coming.” I asked, “Can I
come in?”
“I’m still not coming,” he
answered. I took that as my invitation to enter and when I walked
in I saw a most incongruous sight.
There was Shmuel wearing a suit
and tie and shoes lying on his bed
with his hands behind his head
staring up at the ceiling. I said,
“What’s wrong, Shmuel? Everybody’s waiting for you.”
“They can wait all they want.
I’m not leaving this room.” I had a
dilemma. I had 40 people waiting
for me in the Day Room and had
Shmuel lying in bed like he wanted
to shut out the whole world. I
decided that the priority was in
listening to what made this man
so distressed. “What happened?” I
asked.
“The way my aide talked to me
today…like I wasn’t even human…
like I was a piece of meat. I’m
disgusted and I don’t want to do
anything.”
I knew I wanted to do something and that was to get him out
of this mindset. He seemed so
entrenched in his resistance that I
didn’t think that discussing what
happened between him and his
aide would help.
So I decided to change the subject. I said something like about
how much my job meant to me,
although I had some good days and
some bad days. I asked him, “What
kind of work did you do?” He
thought back around five decades
and said, “When I first came to
New York I worked collecting the
quarters from washing machines in
apartment buildings in Brooklyn.”
“I’m sure you had some good
days and some bad days. What was
the best day you ever had?”
He thought about it a few moments and then a small smile came
to his lips. “One day I remember,”
he began, and I saw him effortlessly going back five decades. “I
came to an apartment building and
went to the basement where the
washing machines were. I took the
quarters out and was about to leave
when I saw some money on the
ground. I picked it up and I saw
that it was two one hundred dollar
bills wrapped in a rubber band.”
In his telling of the story he went
from lethargic to more animated.
“I rushed out to find a pay phone
to call my boss and told him what I
had found and asked him if it was
okay for me to wait around there to
see if the person who lost it came
looking for it. He told me, ‘I don’t
care how long you wait there. You
still have to finish your route.’ I
went back to the apartment building and waited by the washing
machines. About ten minutes later
a woman came in crying, “I lost
the rent money! I lost the rent
money! My husband is going to be
so angry.’ I told her you, ‘You can
stop crying lady, here’s the money!” Now there was a big smile on
Shmuel’s face as he recounted, “Oh
did she hug me. She couldn’t stop
thanking me.”
The story was over. And in
its telling, Shmuel looked like a
dramatically different man than the
sad, defeated person I had encountered when I had walked in to his
room. With a sense of purpose he
got off his bed and said, “Let’s go
to the Oneg Shabbos!” He walked
out the door and headed to the Day
room with me gratefully following
him. I thought to myself, if Shmuel
would have kept the money, 50
years later whatever benefit he had
gained from it would have completely gone from his memory. But
by doing the good deed and waiting for that woman to come back
to return the much needed cash to
her, he had done a kindness that
not only boosted his spirits then,
BUT ALSO 50 YEARS LATER
when he needed it most.
Thank G-d for the mitzvahs
Hashem gives us. They are truly
and investment in our future
Alan Magill can be reached at
[email protected]. He is director of
recreation at Scharf’s Ateret Avot Senior
Home in Midwood, Brooklyn. Mr. Magill
offers customized writing, including
picture/poems for a variety of occasions.
He is a humorist who gives audience
interaction programs such as “Still
Laughing After 5776 Years.” He can
provide one on one recreation for the
elderly who live at home. The Shabbos
Pirkei Avos shiurim that he organizes
is scheduled to resume May 7 at 5:15
p.m. and run throughout the Summer
at Congregation Tomchei Torah, 1966
Ocean Avenue, between Avenues N and
O, Midwood, Brooklyn, with a variety of
speakers.
Mr. Magill is a playwright
and can customize a play for a specific
theme. A free staged reading by actors
and actresses of “Put Everything Back
Where You Found It!” and other short
plays by Mr. Magill is scheduled for Sunday, May 15 at 2:30 p.m., at the Kings
Highway Library, Lower Level Meeting
Room, 2115 Ocean Avenue, Midwood,
Brooklyn, 718/375-3037.
Rabbi Jonathan Gewirtz
“The Observant Jew
Learn to Excel
Rabbi Issamar Ginzberg, an
international marketing expert
who happens to be a religious,
Chasidish Jew, recently asked
a group of people: “Agree or
Disagree? “If somebody offers you an
amazing opportunity but you are
not sure you can do it, say yes –
then learn how to do it later!””
A number of people jumped
in with various opinions. Some
said absolutely, while others said
not to take on something you’re
not ready for. One person let
the cat out of the bag when he
revealed that the opportunity
quote came from Sir Richard
Branson, a British entrepreneur
and business magnate. Suddenly,
many people rethought their
positions, but not me.
You see, I’d experienced the
above quote on the receiving end
of someone saying yes before
they knew what they were doing.
I needed some short term help
with data entry and advertised
for someone who was proficient
in the spreadsheet program
Microsoft Excel.
In case you’re not sure,
proficient means having a level of
familiarity and ability to easily do
most required tasks in a certain
software or occupation. Because
Excel is a complex and powerful
tool, it’s not enough to have seen
it before, or even to have typed
into it. Trying to use Excel after
having received a spreadsheet
or list from someone else is like
trying to drive a Formula One
race car because you’ve ridden on
a city bus.
One respondent spoke with
confidence about how she had all
sorts of experience and was a fast
worker. Because I knew her son a
bit, and she sounded good, I hired
her. I offered an hourly wage,
dropped off the pages I wanted
CONT.ON P17
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5/6/16
REVIEWS | Daniel Keren
Miriam Peretz’s Story and
Israel’s Yom HaAtzmaut
By Daniel Keren
(“Miriam’s Song: The Story of
Miriam Peretz” by Smadar Shir,
398 pages softcover, Gefen Publishing House, 2016)
I am writing this review of
Smadar Shir’s powerful rendition
of Miriam’s Song on Isru Chag
and my thoughts automatically
go to the upcoming Yom HaAtzmaut, or Israeli Independence
Day that will be celebrated by our
brethren in Eretz Yisroel and by
Zionist supporters in the Diaspora next Thursday (May 12th).
Whether your synagogue recites
half Hallel or doesn’t, I think
most Jews should have a great appreciation for the positive aspects
of the continued existence of the
State of Israel, regardless of what
we think of spiritual lapses of the
leadership.
I for one recently spent a
week in the Promised Land and I
know that if not for the existence
of a Jewish government in Eretz
Yisroel, I would not have gotten
to visit Kever Rochel (Rachel’s
Tomb,) in Beis Lechem or the
Machelpela (Tomb of the Patriarchs) in Hebron or the Kotel/
Kosel (Western Wall) in Ir Hakodesh, the Holy City of Yerushalayim. It was a most tense time
and I was extremely grateful for
the presence of the young men
serving in the IDF (Israeli Army)
who were putting their lives on
the line to protect my life and
that of the other frum and secular
Jews so we could pray and enjoy
the most holiest sites of Yahadut
(Judaism.)
Yom HaAtzmaut is always preceded by Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day for the
many Jews (and some non-Jews
such as Druize or Bedoins) who
have given their lives as soldiers,
MAZE
ANSWERS ON PAGE 36
14
border police, and police officers
to protect the inhabitants of Israel.
According to figures, some 23,320
lives were lost from 1860 when
Jews began rebuilding their homeland till April 19th of last year
(2015.) These include not only the
War of Independence, the Sinai
Campaign, the Six Day War, the
War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur
War, the First and Second Lebanon Wars, the Palestinian Intifidas, but also terrorist attacks.
23,320 is a number that
one can easily gloss over. That is
why Smadar Shir’s book about a
contemporary icon
is Israeli society – Mrs. Miriam
Peretz, a mother
who lost two sons
in combat when
serving with the
IDF is important to read. You
can extrapolate
from her powerful reflections the
thoughts of all the
other tens of thousands of Israeli
mothers, fathers,
siblings, wives and children [and
even grandchildren] whose lives
will never be the same again.
“Miriam’s Song” begins
with Mrs. Peretz’s recollections
of her first 10 years of life as the
oldest of five children to Ya’akov
and Ito Ohayon in the mellah or
Jewish ghetto of Casablanca, Morocco. The title of the first chapter
tells it all – “Morocco Isn’t Ours –
My Childhood in Morocco.”
Upon immigrating to the
State of Israel, Miriam’s family
was directed to an immigrant
camp in Beer Sheba which not
surprisingly was mostly Sephardim from North Africa. Her parents refused to adapt to the Israeli
dress code and her father to his
dying days continued to wear the
jalabiya covering his wide Turkish pants and pointed Moroccan
shoes.
The more affluent Ashkenazi immigrants had their own
more fancier immigrant camps.
And yet that did not deter Miriam
Ohayon from developing a hakarot hatov for all the good that
she found from living in Israel as
compared to what life had been
like in the mellah of Casablanca.
Most children of Sephardic (Arab countries) in Miriam’s
school were mainstreamed into
vocational programs after elementary school and initially Miss
Ohayon was also directed into
such a program. But hashgacha
pratit would have it that her vocational teacher, a Mr. Benson saw
some potential in the Moroccan
born girl and pushed her into an
academic slot that would eventually lead to her becoming a school
teacher.
Miriam’s story is well told
by Ms. Smadar Shir. In Chapter
Four, we learn how she met her
future husband Eliezer Peretz on
a city bus in Be’er Sheva when
she was a substitute teacher. Not
at all interested in Mr. Peretz she
brushed him off,
not knowing that
he had notice one
of her notebook’s
with a sticker
revealing her name
and the Degania
School where she
taught. With that
knowledge he was
able to call her as
the school and
plead with her to
give him a chance
by dating him. And
as they say the rest is
history.
Eliezer and Miriam Peretz
married and raised a family. And
everything was happily ever after
until their first son Uriel was
killed in action while serving in
the IDF. Israel has by then passed
a law saying that subsequent sons
in such special families need not
serve in dangerous combat missions. But when Uriel joined the
IDF he did not want a safe exemption. Years later when he too was
killed in action, Miriam Peretz
suffered more than twice the pain
of a mother who loses a child.
As she recalls “There’s
nothing worse than losing two
sons. Yet I, who experienced the
worst that could possibly happen,
am busy all day long in my search
for G-d’s kindnesses. One day, I
decided to do an exercise, I took a
piece of paper and drew to columns: (1) My complaints to G-d
and (2) G-d’s Gifts to Me.”
And the second column was longer
than her first list of complaints.
“Miriam’s Song” is an inspiration
that will give chizuk, strength to
many of us who might not see
the half-full cup that life offers us.
“Miriam’s Song” by Smadar Shir is
available in Jewish bookstores or
from the publisher by calling (516)
593-1234 or emailing orders@
gefenpublishing.com
5/6/16
FAMILY MATTERS
| Dr. Ari Korenblit
B
HANDWRITING MATTERS
See if you have The Write Stuff
This article explores the science of
Graphology, interpreting handwriting
to reveal the personality of the writer.
Essentially, it is the brain that is actually doing the writing. If one switches
hands, puts a twig between their toes
at the beach, places a pencil in their
mouth, or use any means to write, the
primary aspects of the writing remain
the very same. The slant of the lines
and the letters, the relative size of the
script, the formation of the letters,
the space between the letters and the
words, and hundreds of others indices
will not change! To the untrained eye
it might seem to be different, but -like a fingerprint -- it is still uniquely
attributable to the same writer. So
too. many will say their handwriting
or signature is different. However, the
many variables that constitute our
handwriting, varies very little.
Who would you hire for your
business to make it more successful? Who is a natural entrepreneur, will help you manage the
business, make it more efficient
and help it grow?
A
This writer is very intelligent
indicated by a high degree of
simplification – meaning no extra
strokes and sophistication in the
letter combinations. A wonderful
example of this is found at the 6th
line from the bottom in the words
“find the truth.” The simplifications also show creativity and
sophistication. The rather formal
margins show his need for selfprotection against the imposition
of others. This writing is self-contained and contracted indicating
feelings of being aloof and keeping
distant from others. The writing is
small and vertical in slant, fitting
in a compressed manner into the
proscribed space which means he
lives very much inside himself.
The wide spaces between words
and narrow letters confirm his
feelings of distance from others
He is extremely efficient, and
straight-forward in handling what
is necessary. He conserves his
energy well and delegates things
appropriately. There is a fair
amount of angularity in the writing signifying assertiveness and
drive. He is very bright and knows
how to make things happen.
However, he is not a glad-hander
or back-slapper, but very analytic
and competent. He has excellent
managerial skills and likely to be a
driving force in any business.
The writing appears to be written by a woman, but is actually
an effeminate male writing. The
writing is forward slanted, indicating drive, persistence and focus
on the future. Nevertheless, it is
too rounded with an absence of
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angles, attesting to a lack of durable drive, being too pliable and
missing the guts and gall to take a
chance. He also has a tremendous
need for approval, so consequentially, he will avoid unpopular
decisions not to forfeit his need
for approval. He can’t tolerate the
loneliness inherent in true leadership.
The writing is very conventional
and its speed is slow, making him
most unlikely to think out-of-thebox, with any modicum of crea-
tivity. The beginning strokes and
carefully drawn letters indicate
someone who is risk-averse and
rather timid. He is unlikely to be
a driving and motivating force in
business.
Dr. Ari Korenblit is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, a
graphologist/handwriting expert, a
forensic graphologist and a Supreme
Court-certified document examiner.
He lectures on and teaches handwriting analysis, and analyzes handwriting for self understanding, personnel
selection, shidduchim, forgeries, etc.
He can be contacted at 212-721-4608 or
[email protected].
Rabbi Aharon Ziegler
PARASHAT ACHAREI-MOT
5776 - 2016
After commanding us to
observe all of Gd’s decrees and
all of Gd’s laws (18:5) the pasuk
concludes with “ VACHAI
BAHEM”,”by which we should
live”. Our Chazal (Sages) derive
from the expression of , by which
we should live, that the Mitzvot
were given for the sake of life, not
death (Yoma 85b). Therefore, if
the performance of a Mitzvah may
endanger life-such as the need for
a patient to be rushed to a hospital
on Shabbat-the need to preserve
life supersedes the observance of
Shabbat.
The Torah is here expressing
a very special truth: our religion
revels in life. To be sure, there
are instances when one must
be ready to die for one’s faith,
but this is limited to three conspicuously severe crimes: murder,
sexual immorality and idolatry.
But under normal conditions, no
Jewish law overrides the preservation of human life. Even the most
famous test of Avraham Avinu,
the apparent Divine command
that Avraham sacrifice his son to
Him, concludes with Avraham
being forbidden to harm his son.
Rashi, even goes so far as to say
that Avraham misunderstood the
Divine command, that Gd never
meant that he should slaughter his
son, but rather dedicate him in life
and not in death.
What remains strange and
difficult to understand is that
immediately following the mandate to “live by Gd’s laws”, comes
a long list of prohibited sexual
relationships which fall under the
rule of “one must die rather than
transgress”. If living by Gd’s laws
is so important, why follow that
stricture with laws for which one
must be willing to die rather than
transgress? The Gemara in Tamid
(32a) states that Alexander the
Great who, besides being a great
warrior was also an astute philosopher, asked the Sages of the Negev
ten questions. One of them being,
“What should a man do to live?”
They said to him, “He should kill
himself”. He then asked, “What
should a man do to die?” They
responded, “He should try to stay
alive”.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin once
explained this Gemara by answering the second question first. If an
individual lives a life of only trying to keep on living, he is bound
to fail, and he will surely die in
the end-for no one lives forever.
No individual from the earliest
times of history ever got out of
this world alive. Thus, if a person
wishes to die, let him continue to
CONT.ON P16
15
5/6/16
Rabbi Naphtali Hoff
SEEING A
DIFFERENT REALITY
The mitzvah to count the days
of the sefirah period offers keen
insight into the way that we view our
purpose and role in this world. Rav
Samson Raphael Hirsch (Collected
Writings Volume I, Feldheim, p.
114) explains that the reason that we
count beginning with the offering of
the korban omer on the second day
of Pesach is to dismiss any notion
that our sense of fulfillment rests exclusively with our material successes
(as represented by the harvest of the
early barley crop).
When Israel has already reached
the point which for other peoples
represents the ultimate goal of nationalist endeavor, when it already
has freedom and independence, land
and soil, fruit and grain on its own
fields and meadows, at the stage
where others cease to strive further
and to count, there Israel first begins
to count, both days and weeks. And
it goes on counting up to the day
when it celebrates the bestowal of
(the Torah).
For other nations, a booming
harvest is alone a reason to rejoice.
Farmers invest much time and effort
into its success, and entire nations
rely on it for their collective sustenance. But the Torah, in instructing
us to count from the day of the
harvest, reminds us that it is just
the beginning, the means through
which we can begin to focus on our
loftier purpose, receiving the Torah.
This is the deeper connection
between sefirah and the period that
links Pesach Shavuos. Rav Hirsch
writes in Horeb (pp.84-90) that each
of the regalim represents a different aspect within the development
of the Jewish nation. On Pesach
our nation experienced its physical
birth; for the first time we began to
develop as an independent nation.
Shavuos, on the other hand, represents our nation’s spiritual birth.
Only with the acceptance of the
Torah could we recognize our true,
spiritual essence, fundamentally
separating ourselves from all other
nations.
The true fulfillment of Pesach
occurs through its Atzeres, Shavuos. It is then that we infuse deeper
meaning to our national identity,
well beyond the limitations of physicality and material bounty. But we
cannot simply “arrive” at this level
of sanctity. It takes continuous work
and effort, a step by step approach
that elevates us from the spiritual
dregs of Egypt to the loftiness of Sinai. That’s where the upward counting of Sefirah comes in.
In a sense, the Torah is advancing a paradigm shift, a new way of
thinking that goes beyond the conventional understanding of who we
are and what we are here to achieve.
Without a moral compass, it is easy
to get lost in the moment and celebrate successes defined in material
terms. Sefirah teaches us to remain
doggedly focused on a bigger prize, a
goal that is far more valuable than a
robust harvest or any other material
reward.
Shifts in paradigm do not only
occur in terms of global thought
processes or national attitudes. Such
changes reflect any modification
from one way of thinking to another in a manner that transcends the
current reality. To engage in such
a shift is to get past your limiting
beliefs and adjust your perspective
from who you think you are to who
you truly are, which is an individual
with incalculable potential.
Coaching is a process that helps
people see beyond their current way
thinking and discover new possibilities. It recognizes that people are
naturally creative, resourceful and
self-aware, and uses questioning
techniques and focused dialogue to
push limits and explore new possibilities. It asks probing questions
about what is really important (often
ZIEGLER
CONT. FROM P15
try to stay alive forever. He will
surely die because he will surely
fail. And regarding the first question, what should one do if he
wants to keep on living? Let him
find an idea, a cause, a purpose in
life, which is more significant than
his own life. Then, even if he dies
in pursuit of that goal, his life shall
have gained ultimate meaning,
and he himself will be linked to
eternity.
I know of many such people
and I’m sure you do too, whose
lives are linked to eternity because even after they have left
this world, the cause of their life
16
towards the goal of creating a personal and/or organizational vision
and mission statement) and seeks to
help people live lives that are filled
with passion and purpose.
Coaching offers people a thinking partner, someone with whom
to investigate and reveal underlying
patterns of operating. Oftentimes,
these patterns undermine your
ability to achieve the way that you
wish to.
Coaching should not be confused with therapy. Therapy focuses
on the past and how to remedy behaviors and thought processes. It is
an important process in supporting
people in developing a strong ego
structure in order to live in well-being in the present.
In contrast, coaching is transformational and forward thinking.
It focuses on future aspirations and
encourages practices that exercise,
strengthen and expand people’s
capacity to achieve their desired
results. We all have dreams, but too
many of us are afraid of pursuing
them for fear what lies in the great
unknown. Coaching attracts people who are willing to take a leap
into the unknown territory of their
future. It is far more powerful than
problem solving, which addresses
the symptom but not the root cause
of the symptom. Discovering the
root cause gives you choice where
presently there appears to be none.
May we merit utilizing the
Sefirah period properly, to focus
ourselves on our true purpose and
aspirations, a climb that will bring
us, be”H, to the loftiest levels of
sanctity, holiness and self-fulfillment.
Rabbi Naphtali Hoff is an executive
coach and president of Impactful Coaching and Consulting (ImpactfulCoaching.
com). He can be reached at 212.470.6139
or at [email protected].
goes on. Just to name a few causes
that come to mind: “Hatzalah”
, “Yad Sarah,” “ Chai Lifeline,”,
“Aleh”, “The Chicken Lady of
Jerusalem”, “Tomchei Shabbat,”
“Kav L’Noar”, Retired doctors and
dentists-offering free service to the
poor and destitute, etc, etc. There
is no end to the list.
When the Torah mandates
“VaChai Bahem”- It charges us
with living a life that has meaning
and purpose, of doing something
that will improve the life of others
and create a better world.
Shabbat Shalom from Yerushalayim,
Rabbi Aharon Ziegler
[[email protected]]
5/6/16
GEWIRTZ
CONT. FROM P13
entered into the spreadsheet, and
told her I would e-mail it later.
She questioned me intently about
her task, and pointed to some
numbers on the side of the page,
asking what they were for. I told
her to ignore them as they had
nothing to do with the current
project.
I e-mailed her the spreadsheet
but the next day she said she
couldn’t open the file. I sent it
again. Once again she couldn’t
open it. I copied the file onto a
flash drive and brought it over
myself. I plugged it into her laptop
and realized the problem – she
didn’t have Microsoft Office or
its sub-program Excel on her
computer!
She had lied to me about being
experienced with the program and
wasn’t even fazed by it. She said, “I
figured it’s like any job where you
say you can do it and you learn as
you go along.” I was stunned by
the dishonesty and was shocked
when she asked to be paid for
marking up the pages I’d left with
her and made notations on the
numbers I’d told her to ignore!
point I want to make: Those
who have used Excel are familiar
with formulas. These sometimes
confusing strings of numbers,
letters, and symbols guide the
software in performing powerful
tasks. If you looked at a printed
spreadsheet you might see a
number, but if you clicked on the
box in the software, you’d find a
complicated calculation taking
into account many variables
to provide that number on the
printed page.
We need to realize that there
is so much more to the Torah that
what we see or take at face value.
There is a complex structure
intertwined with all of creation
and each mitzvah or word of
Torah is connected to each other
mitzvah or word of Torah. Just
dressing or acting a certain way
is like erasing the formula and
typing in the number without
understanding why it was there.
ROSENBERG
You might be correct in this
very specific moment but in any
other scenario, you’re miles off
base and you’ve got an error.
In order to excel in life, it’s not
sufficient to just fill in the blanks.
We need to understand what’s
behind them, and strive to be
proficient in understanding what
the Boss wants from us.
plentiful, and divorced moms
often succeed in holding down a
job and raising the kids, even on
their own.
But what about the single dad? Cut
off from family life, cash-strapped,
and occasionally pushed around
by nasty exes, they may struggle to
find their footing in the aftermath
of divorce.
Can a single father maintain his
relationship with his kids, hold
onto his self-worth, and persevere
in the face of the many challenges
ahead? He can, but only if he
knows how to go about it.
Here are some do’s and don’ts for
the divorced dad:
Recognize your role. Don’t abandon your kids, even if they don’t
Jonathan Gewirtz is an
inspirational writer and speaker whose
work has appeared in publications
around the world. You can find him at
www.facebook.com/RabbiGewirtz and
follow him on Twitter @RabbiJGewirtz.
He also operates JewishSpeechWriter.
com, where you can order a custommade speech for your next special
occasion. Sign up for the Migdal Ohr,
his weekly PDF Dvar Torah in English.
E-mail [email protected]
and put Subscribe in the subject.
CONT. FROM P3
CONT.ON P25
I had mercy on her and paid
her because she was a widow
but I was very upset. I relayed to
Rabbi Issamar that this is why you
should not accept an opportunity
when you don’t know how to do it
-- with one exception.
If the boss tells you that you
can learn on the job and that it’s
you that he or she is interested
in; that he sees potential in you
and wants you as part of the
organization, then you are not
misleading anyone by going in
unprepared. That’s an opportunity
you should jump on, as Mr.
Branson said, and then throw
yourself into the learning of the
job so you can succeed.
We are now in the weeks of
Sefira when we count the days to
Shavuos and Kabbolas HaTorah.
These days are meant to be our
learning time, when we prepare
ourselves for success in this great
opportunity. HaShem, by taking
us out of Egypt, expressed an
interest in us and declared His full
faith in our potential and ability
to do the job. We’re being given
the chance not just to learn, but to
excel.
This brings me to one final
17
5/6/16
ALEC BORENSTEIN
Reclaim Your Energy After
Pesach!
Every year I have the same postPesach moment of dread. It’s the
time when I get undressed, turn
on the shower, and right before
I get into the shower, I face my
scale.
Before I step on it, I think: I ate
so bad this Pesach. I’m in such
trouble. OK, I have to be brave, I
have to face up to whatever it says.
Here goes.
And I take the leap. Or more like a
step. Onto the scale.
This year I only gained 4 pounds.
Phew. Other years I’m not so
lucky. My wife actually lost a
pound - how did that happen?!
We often use weight as a measure
for how we are doing, how we
are feeling healthwise. However,
what we should really be looking
at is energy. How are your energy
levels?
Do you go about the day excited
for life? Do you wake up with
a smile on your face knowing
that today is going to be a great
morning?
Or do you wake up tired, go to
work tired, work tired, go home
tired, and watch TV tired?
The quality of your life often
corresponds to the quality of your
energy. If you’re tired all the time
then you are living a tired life. If
you live life exuberant, on fire,
then you have an exuberant life.
You know this to be true. Think
about your best days. What were
your energy levels like on those
days? Think about the days where
everything went wrong. What
were your energy levels like on
those days?
One of the most important things
I have learned is that energy is a
psychology. Energy is a way of life.
Energy is a choice.
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18
I can hear many people say in
response: How can you tell me
that energy is a choice - my life
is truly exhausting? I have to
wake up early with my kids, get
them out the door, go to work,
get home, make dinner, get the
kids to bed, then maybe, just
maybe I have a little time to watch
television and head to bed. Do you
think I have any energy to talk
with my spouse? How can you tell
me it’s a choice? My life is truly
exhausting!
Yes, your life (and most people’s
lives) are exhausting. But if you
search below the surface you’ll
often find a belief frames your
psychology about your day.
A couple of months ago I went
away for a weekend to do some
personal work on myself. Right
before the weekend I was not in
the best place. I was fatter than I
should have been, I was constantly
tired, and I didn’t feel as though
I was on the right path. And so I
went to this weekend seminar to
help get me on the right track.
During the seminar we learned
(among other things) that we all
have beliefs that either help us
or hinder us as we go about this
life. These beliefs are so central to
who we are that we will almost do
anything to make sure our lives
correspond to our beliefs so that
we don’t feel out of balance.
For instance, if you have the
belief money is the root of all evil,
then you will most likely be poor
because your subconscious mind
will do everything in its power
to make sure your life matches
your beliefs. But if you have the
belief that money is power, that
money is a tool you can use to
help others, then you will be more
giving and will have a different
relationship with money.
This is the power of our beliefs.
They shape our destiny, and often
we did not even create them in
the first place. Our beliefs are the
lenses through which we see the
world, but if we are unconscious
about them then we will not have
the ability to change them.
What I uncovered that weekend
was that I had the unconscious
belief that life was exhausting.
I used to believe: Life is hard.
Life is exhausting. And because
I had that unconscious belief it
was producing the kind of life I
did not want. Once I decided to
change that belief I lost 15 pounds
quickly, I have more time for my
family and for my spouse, because
I have more energy for them. I
chose energy and my life has been
so much better since.
If you find yourself tired all the
time then you should ask yourself,
“What do I believe about life? Life
is (fill in the blank).” This belief,
especially as it relates to your
energy, has shaped and will shape
the rest of your life. If you believe
that life is exhausting, you’ll live
your life much differently than if
you believe that life is exhilarating.
Let’s get practical. If you find
yourself tired all the time, and you
want to reclaim your energy, then
do this:
First, uncover your hidden belief
about life, especially as it relates to
energy. Ask yourself, what is life
all about for me? Life is _______.
Second, ask yourself, what has
this belief cost you? Thinking that
life is exhausting has cost me a
fulfilling relationship with my
spouse, with my children, etc. Get
specific. Feel the pain this belief
has cost you.
Third, what new belief about life
do you want to have? How will
that make your life better? If you
truly lived this way, what would it
look like? Get specific. If you can
really associate to how amazing
you’ll feel when you are full of
energy, then you’ll start to get
yourself closer to where you want
to be.
Lastly, get grateful. The more you
focus on gratitude the happier
you’ll be and more energized you
will feel. What are three things
you are grateful for? What are
three moments you are grateful
for? What did you feel in those
moments? Step into them.
As we journey our way out of
the matzah, know that you don’t
have to live life in slow motion
anymore. You can change your
beliefs about your life. You
must change your beliefs about
your life, and choose energy.
Remember, the quality of your
life is determined by the quality of
your energy. Reclaim your energy.
Alec Borenstein, Esq., an estate
planning attorney, is a Teaneck
resident with offices in Springfield
and Brooklyn. His firm’s website is
bmcestateplanning.com. If you’d like a
free estate planning consultation in the
comfort of your own home or office,
please email alec@bmcestateplanning.
com.
5/6/16
JUST A THOUGHT | Aharon E. Wexler
On Shoah Education
This week Jews around
the world observed a day of
remembrance for the six million
Jews slaughtered in the Shoah.
We are a very peculiar
generation in terms of our
relationship with the Shoah. On
the one hand the Shoah weighs
heavily upon us and affects our
minds, thoughts and actions in
ways that psychoanalysts will
be studying for generations to
come. There is hardly a Jewish
newspaper printed in the world,
or even an Israeli daily that does
not mention the word Holocaust
in some form or fashion in
every single issue. We think of
the Shoah every time we renew
the family passports. When we
throw away perfectly good food
or sweep crumbs from under the
table, the thought of starvation
in the Shoah comes to mind. We
think of the Shoah whenever
we see a particular mustache
or hand gesture and fear one
when a politician uses certain
forms of rhetoric or speech. For
some of us, even the sound of
the German language brings the
Shoah to mind. The Holocaust is
so pervasive in our community
that many fear it has become the
new religion of Jews, adding to the
Law of Moses a ‘614th command’,
Remember!
Shoah? We may speak of the
S.S., but how many of us know
what the letters stand for or the
difference between them and the
brown uniformed Nazis? Even
the word ‘Nazi’, where does that
term come from? What does
it mean? What’s the difference
between Himmler, Goering, and
Hess? We may have mourned the
six million, but how many of us
have any real notion of how we
came up with the number? We
often talk about Hitler gassing
six millions Jews, but the reality
is that there were millions of
Jews were shot with bullets or
died of starvation and disease
and never saw the inside of a gas
chamber. Not only that, Hitler
himself not only never visited a
death camp, but he never actually
physically harmed a Jew in his
life! Ironically, the nameless camp
guard was personally responsible
for the death of tens of thousands
under his watch, while Hitler
himself kept a safe distance
and never got his hands dirty.
Everyone has heard of Auschwitz
and Treblinka, but did you know
that there was a death camp
called Belzec in which close to a
million of our people were killed?
I had not even heard of the camp
until I studied Holocaust Studies
as a graduate student. (Part of
the reason I had not heard of it
was that barely anyone actually
survived to speak of it. But still,
how is it possible that there was a
death camp that I had not heard
of till I was in my mid-twenties??)
Yet the answer to these
questions, while important, are
dwarfed by another question:
What does the refrain “Never
Again!” mean? Never again what?
Have you ever stopped to think
what “Never Again” is referring
CONT.ON P24
These examples though,
are actually signs of success. It
means that Shoah consciousness
has permeated even a Jewish
experience such as ours which
could not be more different from
the realities of Nazism. Our
schools have done their part.
Hollywood has done theirs. Those
movie moguls really hit it out of
the ball park in the amount of
good quality movies depicting the
destruction of European Jewry. It
has been said before that there is
no business like Shoah business
and Hollywood has definitely
supplied the merchandise.
Yet, there is the other hand.
While we are a generation that is
Shoah aware we are also Shoah
ignorant. How many of us even
know what the word Holocaust
means? What’s the difference
between that term and the word
19
5/6/16
STRATEGIES
| Rifka Schonfeld
Director of S.O.S. (Strategies For Optimum Success)
READERS:
AGES & STAGES
It’s a snowy day in February and Gitty is curled up on the couch with her
children, reading Dr. Seuss’s Oh The Places You’ll Go, “Congratulations!
Today is your day! You’re off to Great Places. You are off and away!” All of
Gitty’s children, even her third grader are huddled around the picture book.
In some ways, Gitty is just passing the time on this long, cold day. In other
ways, she is doing a lot more for herself and her children on that long, cold
day.
Beside the obvious enjoyable elements of reading with your children, there
are other benefits to reading:
•
Speech proficiency. Simply reading books with rhyme schemes (by
authors such as Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle) can help your child reinforce the
basic sounds that form language. This later helps children with pre-literacy
skills as they grow.
•
Elementary book skills. Children do not automatically know that
books are read from left to right or that you hold a book and turn the pages
as you go. As simple as that may seem, this early knowledge will help your
children once they start encountering books in school.
•
Strengthening the parent-child bond: With our lives constantly on
the move, you need some time to slow down and just quietly be together.
Snuggling up with a book lets your family do just that. Plus, instead of
seeing reading as a chore in the future, your child will view it as a nurturing
activity that brings the family together.
•
Academic excellence. Julie Temple Stan, the director of Early
Moments, a company devoted to childhood literacy, writes that “numerous
studies have shown that students who are exposed to reading before
preschool are more likely to do well in all facets of formal education. After
all, if a student struggles to put together words and sentences, how can he be
expected to grasp the math, science, and social concepts he’ll be presented
with when he begins elementary school?”
•
Superior concentration and discipline. With so many new cases
of ADHD reported each year, it is important to help children learn how
to sit still. When children begin reading from a young age, along with
comprehension comes more self-discipline, a longer attention span, and
better memory retention.
Reading Ages and Stages
As your children get older, you should never stop reading to them, but what
are some benchmarks that you should look out for in order to ensure that
your children are lifelong readers?
AGES 3-5:
How to Encourage Further Development
At this age, reading with your children is essential. You can also point out
text in your everyday routine – on the cereal box, on street signs, and in
the supermarket. You can also play word games with stamps or stickers,
writing out words yourself and then having your child copy them with
stamps or stickers.
Additionally, it is important to be aware of potential problems, as early
intervention is key to successful remediation. At this age, speech delays are
more easily detectable than reading delays, but if your child has trouble
identifying rhymes between two simple words or cannot distinguish
between random squiggles and letters, it is a good idea to get in touch with
your pediatrician.
AGES 6-7
How to Encourage Further Development
Get involved with your child’s reading at home by knowing what they are
doing in school. If your child was assigned to read a Cam Jansen mystery,
take fifteen minutes and read it before bed one evening. When reading
becomes a communal activity, it is more exciting and enjoyable. In addition,
if your child is reading a book (any book that is appropriate), you shouldn’t
pass negative judgment on it (even if it is a silly topic or below grade level).
Reading breeds more reading and that is the goal.
CONT.ON P35
If you are concerned about your child’s development in this areas,
you probably should only take further steps if your child has trouble
remembering new words, has difficulty putting different syllables together
CONT.ON P24
20
5/6/16
21
5/6/16
Homemade Granola
Un-Stuffed Cabbage Recipe
JAMIE GELLER
LEVANA
I love the simplicity of the recipe
for making your own granola and
the fact that almost any substitution works. Instead of raisins
use dried cherries, cranberries or
blueberries. Instead of almonds
try walnuts, pecans or peanuts. If
you have the palate of a pregnant
woman you can just add all of the
above.
Ingredients:
6 cup old fashioned rolled oats
2 cup whole roasted unsalted
almonds
1 cup pecan halves
1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
2/3 cup brown sugar
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup olive oil
1½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 cup raisins
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 275° F. Lightly
spray 2 sheet pans with cooking
spray.
In a large bowl combine oats,
almonds, pecans and coconut, toss
together. Spread evenly in a single
layer between 2 prepared sheet
pans.
In a second bowl combine brown
sugar, maple syrup, olive oil and
salt. Pour evenly over oat mixture.
Bake for 1 hour, tossing with a
spatula every 15 minutes for even
browning. Remove from oven, let
cool 15 minutes. Once cool mix in
raisins. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up
to 1 month.
Five Beauty Mistakes You Should
Never Make
RACHELI FRIED
Pesach is over and done
with, the dishes are packed away.
Another one in the books!
As I was reuniting with
the makeup that I set aside for
Pesach, it make me think about
some beauty/makeup mistakes
that I used to make and have
since learned not to anymore.
I figured I’d share them with
you so that you don’t learn them
the hard way.
1) I’m not sure where I read
this or who told me this would
be a good idea, but I used to
comb out my hair in the shower.
Figuring I had the conditioner
softening in my hair, I should
detangle it in the shower so I
wouldn’t have to work as hard
when I was out. Big mistake! The
warm water and steam inside
the shower temporarily opens
up your hair follicles and when
you brush it out, your hair more
easily falls out. Wait until after
you get out, the follicles close
22
up from the cooler air to detangle
those tresses. Your head will thank
me.
2) Speaking of your hair, have
you ever paid attention to how
they wash it in the salon? I used
to make the mistake of scrubbing
all of my hair on top of my head
but have since learned that this
is a mistake. In the salon, they
apply the shampoo to your scalp
and scrub it in circular motions
and then glide the suds down
Ingredients:
¼ cup olive oil
1 large onion, quartered
4 ribs celery, peeled
2 Granny Smith (green) apples,
unpeeled, quartered
1 large bunch dill, fronds and
stems
3 pounds lean ground beef or
turkey (ground lamb will work
perfectly too)
1 medium head white cabbage,
center cores discarded, sliced very
thin (food processor)
1 cup golden or dark raisins
1 1/2 cups short grain brown rice
6 cups canned crushed tomatoes
6 cups unsweetened cranberry or
pomegranate juice
¼ cup tomato paste
2 tablespoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons paprika
4–5 bay leaves, or 1 teaspoon
ground
Salt (go easy on the salt, as the
meat is salty) and pepper to taste
Instructions:
Heat the oil in a wide-bottom pot.
the length of the hair and gently
work it in to cleanse the strands.
When you create that rat’s nest of
scrubbing action on top of your
head, not only do you make a
knotty mess, but you also cause
breakage. Not cute.
3) This next mistake is one
I still sometimes make but not
intentionally. As a busy mom,
I oftentimes lose track of time
and get distracted easily. Once a
week (if I’m lucky), I like to treat
myself to a nice face mask (and
scare my kids in the process-I
usually resemble a green zombie:).
The directions call for leaving it
on for around 10-15 mins but
time and again I busy myself
with something else-like packing
lunches and before I know it, 45
minutes passed by. This usually
results in over drying my skin and
flaking when that is certainly not
the intention. Always follow the
directions on the back and rinse
or peel off the mask accordingly.
Nothing like that post mask glow!
4) This one is my favorite-I
see this all the time and I cringe.
Pumping mascara-how many
of you still do that? Yes I know
you think it helps you get more
product on the wand, but by
In a food processor, coarsely grind
the onion, celery, apples, and dill.
Add the ground mixture to the
pot, and sauté until translucent.
Add the meat and sauté a few
more minutes, stirring and breaking it up, until no longer pink.
Add all remaining ingredients and
bring to a boil. Reduce the flame
to medium low and cook covered
for 1½ hours, stirring occasionally
to avoid scorching, or a little longer, until the cabbage and the rice
are very tender and the liquid in
the pot is nice and thick. Transfer
to a platter and serve hot. Makes a
dozen ample servings.
doing this, you are causing air to
get inside the tube and drying up
the product much faster. Want
to get every last drop of product
out? Simply put your mascara
in a cup of hot water for a few
minutes and you’ll be amazed at
how effective this is. And finally,
5) Change out your makeup
sponges often. Sponges absorb.
That’s what they do, right? So
when you powder your face, you
are not only applying product
to your face, but the oil and dirt
from your face gets transferred
onto the sponge. Think about
a week’s worth of oil sitting on
that sponge and re-applying
that gunk back onto your face.
Not a good idea to say the
least. Unless you want clogged
pores-yuck! You can get a huge
pack of disposable sponges and
applicators from the Dollar
Store or if you have patience,
clean your sponges with a little
baby shampoo and water but do
this often for a more sanitary
makeup experience.
I’m sure for most of you,
these tips were obvious...but
for some of you-I hope this was
helpful and it saves you from
unnecessary beauty mistakes.
5/6/16
Cran-Nut Energy Truffles
My name is Yechiel Michoel Friedman.
I was murdered in Auschwitz and don’t
you ever forget me.
REYNA SIMNEGAR
heart or as desired.
Ingredients
1 cup walnut or almond pieces
1 cup silan date syrup
Pinch salt
½ cup sweetened dried cranberries
(craisins)
These easy raw vegan Cran-Nut
Energy Truffles will satisfy your
sweet tooth and give you an energy boost at the same time.
Optional: Place a whole cranberry
inside the truffle and reshape as a
Preparation
1. Place walnuts or almonds in a
food processor fitted with a metal
blade. Process until a paste forms.
Add date syrup and salt until well
mixed. Add cranberries and mix.
The dough will be crumbly and
moist but easy to mold into truffles about 1-1/2 inches in diameter.
TRUE HEALTH | YAEL TUSK
IS IT POSSIBLE TO TREAT STREP
WITHOUT ANTIBIOTICS?
A number of years ago, I wrote
an article for a magazine on the
subject of Chinese Medicine and
acupuncture. I mentioned that
Chinese Medicine can “treat conditions ranging from strep throat
to indigestion to insomnia”.
The following week, friends
a doctor wrote an irate letter in
response to my article. The physician felt that it was irresponsible
to suggest alternative treatments
for strep throat, mentioning the
potential danger of untreated
strep developing into rheumatic
fever. While it has been accepted
as a hard fact, many are unaware
that the connection between strep
throat and rheumatic fever is an
unproven theory.
Setting rheumatic fever aside
for the moment, this doctor
believed that employing options
other than antibiotics leaves the
condition “untreated”. I beg to
differ. There are plenty of alternatives to antibiotics that work.
They are often much more effective than antibiotics.
People rarely come to my
clinic for an isolated incident of
strep throat. Usually they are
suffering from chronically recurring infection. Most of them have
taken antibiotics many times.
Some have even been prescribed a
continuous low dose of antibiotics
(see below about drug-resistant
Murdered at Auschwitz
bacteria).
And yet the infection keeps
returning! These children (or
adults) are often not catching
strep; the disease lies dormant in
their body. In chronic cases, the
bacteria “come back to life” and
strike again. Even the biggest fans
of modern medicine seek alternatives, when tonsillectomy (surgical
removal of the tonsils) becomes
the only remaining option...
While antibiotics may on
occasion be lifesaving, repeated
courses often become ineffective
or even harmful. Firstly, they create drug-resistant bacteria. What
used to be a theoretical concern
has now become a reality. The
CDC (Centers for Disease Control) is constantly reporting new
strains of super-bacteria that are
impervious to antibiotics. Aside
from strep throat, antibiotics are
over-prescribed for a myriad of
sometimes only potential conditions.
Antibiotics also kill the beneficial gut flora (good bacteria),
which is responsible for healthy
digestion. Probiotics can balance
out this effect somewhat. Live
yogurt can also be given at a dose
of 1 teaspoon 3 times a day during the course of antibiotics and
for three days after completion.
This amount of yogurt is all that
BENJAMIN BRAFMAN
I did not survive – I was
murdered at Auschwitz.
My name is Yechiel Michoel
Friedman. I was “murdered”
at Auschwitz. I did not die at
Auschwitz. I was “murdered” at
Auschwitz.
None of you know me. None
of the people in this room have
ever met me; not even my own
grandson, Ben Brafman, who
many of you know, has ever
met me. I have authorized my
grandson to speak for me, because
although I was murdered, I
was not silenced. You must be
reminded of my life and of my
murder – not my death – my
murder. The murder of my family
– of your family – of so many
families...
This is my story – a true story.
A sad, horrific story.
My story, like so many of
your stories, has a wonderful
beginning, a very terrible middle
and a tragic, horrible end that
Baruch Hashem was not really
the end, because although I and
part of my family were brutalized
and murdered, a part of my
family miraculously survived –
and because some did survive,
my grandson is here to speak for
me, to tell you “my” story, his
grandfather’s story, my life story
and my death story. The story
of a life that was brutally taken
from me, from my beautiful
wife, Malka, my beautiful, sweet
daughter, Sima, her young,
handsome husband, Yaakov and
their baby, my granddaughter,
my “first” granddaughter, Chaya
Sarah, my little Chaya Sarah,
who at two years old was ripped
screaming from her mother’s
arms and thrown into an oven at
Auschwitz as if she did not matter.
I speak to tell you that my
little Chayala did matter, we all
CONT.ON P31
CONT.ON P29
23
5/6/16
SCHONFELD
CONT. FROM P20
to form words, or avoid reading altogether. If you do notice one or more
of these issues, it might be beneficial to get your child evaluated for reading
delays.
AGES 8-10
How to Encourage Further Reading
Board games are great ways to encourage your blossoming reader. Games
like Boggle and Apples to Apples inherently require simple reading that can
help reinforce what your child is doing in school. It’s also great to keep a lot
WEXLER
CONT. FROM P19
to? What exactly is it that should
never happen again? Is it the
systematic wholesale murder of
the Jewish people that is being
referred to? So does that mean
that other atrocities and injustices
are okay? And if “Never Again”
means that no people, no matter
who they are should suffer, how
24
many of us are hypocrites for
chanting those words while doing
nothing for those people? You
must certainly be aware that there
are millions of people suffering
right now whose pain can be
alleviated if we were to just decide
that it is important enough to us.
How dare we sit in comfort while
others suffer!
Which brings us to another
of age appropriate reading material in the home. This way, when your child
is bored, you can always point to a book for entertainment.
Unless your child is avoiding reading, guessing at words rather than
attempting to sound them out, or does not seem to understand anything
he reads, there is probably not a reason for concern. In generally, children
develop reading skills at different speeds. If, however, your child is
struggling with reading and is acting out or withdrawing in class, it is a
good idea to evaluate his reading skill.
An acclaimed educator and education consultant, Mrs. Rifka Schonfeld
has served the Jewish community for close to thirty years. She founded and
directs the widely acclaimed educational program, SOS, servicing all grade
levels in secular as well as Hebrew studies. A kriah and reading specialist,
she has given dynamic workshops and has set up reading labs in many
schools. In addition, she offers evaluations G.E.D. preparation, social skills
training and shidduch coaching, focusing on building self-esteem and
self-awareness. She can be reached at 718-382-5437 or at rifkaschonfeld@
gmail.com. You can view the web at rifkaschonfeldsos.com. Register now
for an Social Thinking workshop by Michelle Garcia Winner on November
16,2016. Please call Mrs. Schonfeld at 718-382-5437 for more information.
question, what is the purpose
of Holocaust education? Is it
our goal just to memorialize the
dead; to make some macabre
monument for those who have
none? Is it to educate the young
about the failures of Exilic
existence? Is it to instill fear and
loathing in our children about
the ‘big bad goyim’ out to get us?
If so, how do we properly frame
our discussions of the Righteous
Gentiles who risked their lives
and property to save Jews? I’d like
to believe (though I can never
know for sure) that if I were a
single man, that I would risk my
life to save a family who needed
hiding. But I am equally sure as
well, that as a husband and father
responsible for my own children,
that when the time came I would
not risk my family’s life to save
another family. What does that
say about me? One might say that
this admission only means that
I’m human. But I am a human
who has been teaching Holocaust
studies for over a decade. If even
I, who confronts the questions
of the Holocaust on a daily
basis would not be willing to
risk the life of my family to save
another’s, than what again is the
purpose of Holocaust education?
Nevertheless, in a world of
complete and utter darkness and
moral bankruptcy, over 26,000
Gentiles made the choice to risk
their own lives to save the life
of a Jew. Scholars have studies
these people to try to understand
their motivations. They came
from all walks of life: illiterate
peasants, diplomats, captains of
industry, farmers, nuns, priests,
atheists, aristocracy, scoundrels,
and at least one Muslim. Most
started out as bystanders with
no intention of getting involved,
but when the opportunity to save
Jews presented itself, they had
to make a split second decision
to extend aid or to ignore the
plea. These men and women
chose to risk everything and
help the Jews. After extensive
studies and interviews, the only
common denominator between
these disparate populations of
Righteous Gentiles was their sense
of humanity. It was not socioeconomic standing, religion, or
level of education that influenced
their decision.
Which leads us to the answer
to our question: The point
of Holocaust Education is to
teach us to find the humanity
in ourselves and in others. It is
correct that the Jews have no
place in the world other than
Israel. It is true that we live in a
world of ‘Esav Sonei et Yaakov’.
It is right that we Jews have
only ourselves to rely on. But
those lessons belong to theology,
Zionism, and Jewish History. We
Jews have always been the vehicle
through which God teaches the
world. It is our fate and destiny as
being part of the Chosen People.
Perhaps we were singled out in
the Shoah for that very reason?
If Holocaust studies do not teach
us to see the face of God in every
single human being then we have
failed to give over the lesson of
the Shoah.
This article is being reprinted
from The Jerusalem Post
5/6/16
The
Body – Mind
Connection
Part II
DR. RACHAEL E.
SCHINDLER
In a previous article titled,
“The Mind/Body Connection”,
I wrote that being a diet and
exercise expert, as well as a
pilates master, I work with a wide
array of clients ranging from the
highly motivated - extremely
physically fit individual, to the
exact opposite type; namely the
unmotivated, sedentary individual
who absolutely HATES to
exercise. While many factors may
play a role in a person’s lifestyle
habits, i.e.: genetics, environment,
physical injuries, etc.., many
medical studies including my own
dissertation concluded that there
is a profound and undeniable
connection between the effect of
the mind (and/or spirit) on the
body. This mind-body (and bodymind?) connection may be the
CONT.ON P28
ROSENBERG
CONT. FROM P17
live with you anymore. All children crave regular contact with
their father, whether through
phone calls, e-mails, or texts.
Weekend visits are important, but
don’t limit your contact with your
kids to those visits. Let them know
you care. Trust me, they’ll thank
you for it.
Seek help when necessary. As a
group, women are often able to
acknowledge that they can’t do it
all and reach out for help, whether
from family, friends, or community. Not so men, who prefer to
put up a macho front and go it
alone. If you’re a single dad, you
may need help with meal planning, parenting advice, or laundry
knowhow. Pick up that phone and
call someone. Don’t try to do it all,
especially at the expense of your
kids’ comfort and safety.
Money isn’t a weapon. Don’t
withhold child support in order to
punish your ex. It’ll end up filtering down to the kids, who will
realize they can’t trust you. Retaliation is tempting, but it’s not the
goal: healthy kids are. Likewise,
don’t badmouth. Your kids may
hear a lot of negativity about you,
but if you take the high road and
refrain from returning the favor,
they’ll ultimately realize which
parent they can trust and which
they can’t.
Treats yes, free reign no. Kids need
structure and stability in order
to thrive, even if they’re in your
house only once a week. Create routines for them during the
times they’re with you: dinner,
bath time, and bedtime at predictable times will make your time
together much more manageable.
Spoil them a bit by buying special treats or renting a movie, but
don’t overdo it and return them
to their mom sugar high and sleep
deprived.
Make the minutes count. Take
the time to get to know your kids
when they’re with you. Ask them
about their day, find out about
their friends and activities, plan
outings and play games together.
Turn off your phone and focus on
them so they know you really care.
Don’t restart till you’re ready. It
may be tempting to turn your
back on your past relationship
and move right into the next one.
Don’t do it. Statistics show that
80% of divorced men remarry the
same type of woman they married
the first time, leading to a similarly unhappy marriage or a second
divorce. Before you start dating
again, process what went wrong in
your first marriage and own your
part of the story. Your future family will only gain.
Let go of the baggage. If you find
your dating always seems to end
at the same point, it’s a sign that
you’re stuck somewhere in the
process. Most of us find it hard to
be objective about our own role
in a failed relationship. If necessary, find a professional who can
help you let go of the baggage and
move on.
Don’t lose hope. Always look for
the light, no matter how bleak
your situation is. Use your time
alone to grow as a person, as a
father, and most of all as a future
partner. If you do the internal
work necessary, you’ll start off
your next relationship on firmer
ground, and you – and your kids –
will be better off.
Single dads may not find it easy,
but they can free themselves of
past heartache and rebuild their
lives, with a new partner or without. Hard as it may be, they’ll be
glad they did.
CROSSWORD ANSWER
FROM PAGE 6
2251 VICTORY BOULEVARD STATEN ISLAND
718.494.1492
25
5/6/16
26
5/6/16
27
5/6/16
Rabbi Eliyahu Kirsh
From Rashi & Ahavas Sholom of Kossov
Acharei-Bull and Ram, Korbonos
of Yom Kippur. Deeper Meanings
[From Yalkut Shimoni, Kli
Yakar and Ahavas Sholom of
Kossov]
Parshas Acharei opens with
the service of the Kohen Gadol
on Yom Kippur. Aharon was not
to go into the Kodesh kodashim,
holy of holies, at any time except
on Yom Kippur. And even then he
was to wear white linen garments
and not his usual vestments that
contained gold as well as other
luxurious materials. Moreover,
he was to bring all of the daily
offerings as well as the special
korbonos of Yom Kippur which
include a bull and a ram. The
bull and ram as well as the other
korbonos are understood by the
chachamim throughout the ages
as allusions to broader concepts.
The Yalkut Shimoni
quotes Chazal that the bull is a
hint to Avraham Avinu who ran
to the cattel to obtain meat for
his guests. The ram is a hint to
Yitzchak who was substituted at
the akeidah, binding with a ram.
The goats are a hint to Yaakov
Avinu who brought the two goats
to his father to receive his brachos.
This can be understood to mean
that the Aharon Hakohen needed
the merits of our illustrious
patriarchs to be worthy of
entering the kodesh kodashim.
The Kli Yakar brings
this Midrash as well and adds
that there are opinions that the
events mentioned above took
place on Yom Kippur. There
are various opinions as whether
these events took place on Yom
Kippur or Pesach. Interestingly,
Chazal explain the offerings by the
princes of the tribes at the time of
the dedication of the Mishkan in
a similar manner. [See Rashi on
Bamidbar chapter 7.]
The Ahavas Sholom of
Kossov explains the bull and
ram as hints to the traits needed
to enter the kodesh Kodashim.
Aharon is a hint to wisdom and
chesed. However, with these traits
alone, Aharon cannot enter the
Kodesh kodashim .The entrance
must be accompanied by the bull
for a chatas, sin offering and the
ram for an olah burnt offering.
The ram in this case is a hint to
love for Hashem as Cahzal tell
us in Zechaim7b that when a
chatas and olah are brought the
chatas comes first. This is because
atonement is required befor
bringing an olah a gift of love for
Hashem. The bull is the chatas
representing fear of Hashem and
the ram, in this case being an olah
represents love for Hashem.
Aharon needed these
two traits to do his service for
all of Klal Yisroel. We learn this
concept for our avodas Hahsem
as well. In order to grow in pour
relationship with Hashem we
need love and fear and not just
intellect or even chesed by itself.
In fact, we commonly find in
chassidus the analogy of love and
fear of Hashem being the wings
of the bird. While the wings are
not necessarily essential to the life
of the bird, nevertheless they are
essential for the flight which is
symbolic of our flight to become
close to Hashem.
SCHINDLER
quality of life by increasing
any one or more of these areas:
Academic performance, career
success, healthy socialization,
self-esteem, personal goals,
artistic expression, confidence,
and overall life enjoyment. Now,
the secret behind these peak
brain health benefits is incredibly
exciting and significant... but
surprisingly simple. The latest
research suggests the peak brain
health solution is a three-step
strategy: exercising the body,
challenging the mind, and getting
the right nutrition.
CONT. FROM P25
most important health insight
in the history of mankind. With
roots in traditional Chinese
medicine and Ayurvedic
medicine dating back thousands
of years, health-related mind/
body philosophies are now
making a comeback. Nowhere
is this resurgence more exciting
than in the one area of health
that is most critical to overall
quality of life, namely cognitive
function or “brain power”. For
not only can the mind affect the
body but in this series of articles,
we will explore how the body can
affect the brain in a profound
manner.
To date, this mind-body
medicine Renaissance coincides
with exciting new discoveries
about how our brains age and
how we may keep our brains
young, literally. Of all these brain
discoveries, the most significant
is neurogenesis (literally, birth
of neurons), or the process of
brain cell regeneration. First
identified in a landmark 1998
study, neurogenesis disproved
the century-old belief that
neurons only regenerated
during brain development. In
addition to its obvious potential
to boost cognitive performance,
neurogenesis opened an
intriguing new door to peak
cognitive longevity -adults as old
as 72 have been shown to make
brand new neurons!
So, with emerging brain
function advancements, people
from all walks of life and all age
groups can supercharge their
brainpower in the here-andnow, which may hold incredible
promise in terms of raising
28
Have I now piqued your
interest a little? So how does one
reach this brain-pinnacle? Well,
imagine you are standing before
a mountain. At the mountain’s
pinnacle is peak cognitive
function: astonishing clarity
of vision, crystal-clear mental
processing, razor-sharp memory,
positive mood, and the capacity
to absorb and retain new learning
and knowledge. To climb to the
top, you need to leverage the
following three cutting edge brain
discoveries:
Discovery 1: Exercise boosts
brainpower. In essence, ascending
the mountain in itself sharpens
cognitive function, because
emerging evidence suggests
that exercise helps optimize
brain function by promoting
cardiovascular health and
good circulation, which helps
deliver nourishing nutrients,
glucose, and oxygen to the brain.
Aerobic exercise also produces
neurotrophins, which promote
new synapses and make the neural
membranes suppler -this is critical
for building, rebuilding, and
protecting the brain’s neurons
CONT.ON 35
5/6/16
TUSK
CONT. FROM P23
is needed to introduce healthy
bacteria. Larger quantities of
yogurt can be unhealthy for many
children.
So why do illnesses become
chronic in some people?
Western medicine understands conditions like tonsillitis to
be the result of a bacterial or viral
infection. But if microorganisms
were the only factor involved,
there would be a far greater incidence of strep throat, being that
strep has been found living in the
tonsils of many well individuals!
So why do some people get sick
from the bacteria living in their
bodies, while others remain completely healthy in the presence of
the same micro-organisms?
The obvious answer is that it
depends a lot more on the state of
the body than the presence of microorganisms. For example, of the
very large number of people who
have been exposed to the Epstein
Barr Virus (as indicated by antibodies in the blood stream), only
a small percentage suffer from debilitating illness (Mononucleosis).
It is not the virus which causes
exhaustion, but exhaustion that
allows the virus to take hold.
Diet and emotions also influence the body’s internal environment and can play an important
role in illness. Poor eating habits,
especially junk food, can weaken a
person and may even feed infection.
Regarding emotions; frustration or anger can be contributing
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
HOLOCAUST WAS THE
MURDER OF SIX MILLION
JEWS
could hurt the
y over straining
sic?
The Holocaust is the
systematic mass murder of
European Jewry by the Nazis. The
term Holocaust literally means a
fire that causes total destruction
.Yehuda Bauer, one of the world’s
most eminent historians of the
Holocaust, differentiates between
the term genocide and Holocaust
by defining the term genocide
as partial murder .While there
have been numerous instances of
genocide, the total annihilation
of a people was never an officially
sanctioned purpose of a national
government as it was in Nazi
Germany. It is precisely this
which differentiates the Nazi
action against the Jews from other
genocidal attempts against a
people.
The Nazis wished to conquer
T.A.N.I.
TANI
the world and therefore threatened
the very existence of every single
Jew in the world. The principle
target of the Nazis was always the
Jews. Yes, it is true that as many
as 50 million human beings were
murdered by the Nazis and their
collaborators. The Nazis destroyed
the lives of Gypsies, homosexuals,
the mentally disabled, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, communists, socialists,
trade unionists and religious
opponents. But it was only the Jews
who were singled out for the Final
Solution.
The Jews, according to Hitler
were maggots, a virus that had to
be eliminated. Hitler saw himself as
the German Messiah doing God’s
work by destroying the Jew. Let us
not forget that all people with three
or four Jewish grandparents were
factors to chronic tonsillitis. Tonsillitis is not commonly seen in
infants under two years old, but it
often appears between the ages of
two and three. Chinese Medicine
explains, that the reason for this
phenomenon is that at this age,
children experience a lot of frustration (think: terrible two’s); they
are struggling to communicate,
and attempting to accomplish a
lot of things but are often unsuccessful. At the age of six or seven,
there may be another upsurge
of tonsillitis, since this is an age
when a child becomes more emotionally self-aware.
While the approach of modern medicine is to vanquish the
pathogen, traditional medicine
looks first and foremost at the
body’s environment. While there
sentenced to death. Regarding the
Polish population, there were no
plans for total annihilation. Slavs
were looked upon as being inferior
Aryans; however Slovaks, Croats,
and Bulgarians were Slavs who
served as German allies, It was only
the Jew that Hitler and the Nazis
considered to be like the Devil
and therefore inhuman. In the
Jew Hitler saw the image of Satan.
According to Hitler it was only the
Jew who wished to dominate the
world, and it was the Jew Hitler
wanted to destroy.
Hitler and the Nazis created
a policy of selective mass murder
against the homosexuals, Gypsies,
Poles, Russians, prisoners of
war, Catholic priests, Jehovah’s
Witnesses’, the physically and
mentally disabled, dissidents and
others. But it was the Jew that
was seen as a virus, a bacillus
that had to be destroyed before it
infected the entire world. It was
the Jews who poisoned the mind
of mankind. The policy of making
the world Judenrein applied to
the entire world. The group Hitler
hated above all was the Jews. He
are herbs that can kill microorganisms, the main treatment goal
is to strengthen the body, so that
it is capable of eliminating the
pathogen and protecting itself
from future infection. To treat
and prevent illness, it is often not
enough just to kill the bad guys;
we must strengthen the good guy
too. In modern medicine, the
good guy is the pharmaceutical
drug, in traditional medicine the
good guy is you.
Yael Tusk, M.S.O.M. is a general
practitioner of Chinese Medicine in
Jerusalem. She has been treating both
adults and children for over a decade.
She is a medical researcher who takes
pride in debunking pseudo-science and
empowering people to take control of
their health. Feel free to contact her
at [email protected] to schedule a
phone consultation or to receive her
free newsletter. Look out for her upcoming myth-busting book on health.
made himself the supreme racist.
In his final hours, Hitler
continued to urge the destruction of
the Jew . Hitler had diverted trains
and soldiers to Concentration
camps when he desperately needed
them for the war effort. Germany
was destroyed due to this mad man
and at the end all he could think
about was murdering more Jews.
My fear is
that after the death of the final
Holocaust survivor and eventually
the death of the children of
Holocaust survivors, history will
be re-written and the Holocaust
will no longer be a Jewish issue but
rather a universal one. The number
will no longer be The 6 million Jews
but rather or 50 million casualties
of war. Many still persist in saying
there were six million Jews and
5 million non- Jews who were
exterminated by the Nazis. We
all should mourn and honor those
who fought and died, Jew and nonJew alike. However, let us never
forget and always remember that it
was the Jews who were the primary
target of Hitler and the Nazi
regime.
By: Leil Shishi & Emunah Publishing
turn the music down,
It’s too loud, it could hurt
the kid’s ears!
Do you want them
to hurt their ears by over
straining themselves in order
to hear the music?
29
5/6/16
JNS.ORG: FULL NEWS COVERAGE
U.K.’s Labour Party antiSemitism scandal widens
with 50 suspensions:
The scandal surrounding antiSemitism in the United Kingdom’s
Labour Party deepened with
additional suspensions of party
members for making anti-Semitic
posts on social media, only some
of which have been revealed
publicly thus far. According to
the Telegraph, Labour has secretly
suspended 50 of its members for
anti-Semitic and racist comments
over the past two months. Of
these, only about 20 suspensions
occurred within the last two weeks.
Among the most recent suspensions
on Monday, Nottingham City
Councilor Ilyas Aziz was found to
have promoted the anti-Semitic
blood libel by posting that Jews
should “stop drinking Gaza blood,”
while Blackburn with Darwen City
Councilor Salim Mulla re-posted a
message by previously suspended
Labour lawmaker MP Naz Shah
about the “relocation” of Israel
to the U.S. Mulla also alluded in
August of 2015 on Facebook that
Israel was to blame for the terror
attacks in Paris in November,
as well as the killing of Japanese
prisoners captured by the Islamic
State. “So we have France voting
to give Palestine statehood, and
all of a sudden they get attacked
by ISIS. Then we have Japan
giving Palestine $100M dollars to
reconstruct Gaza and suddenly
ISIS takes two Japanese hostages,”
he posted. Among several posts,
according to The Independent, Aziz
also wrote that “Jews and Muslims
lived together in the Middle East,
in peace pre 1948. Perhaps it would
have been wiser to create Israel in
America it’s big enough. They could
relocate even now.” In addition,
later on Monday Burnley Councilor
Shah Hussain was also suspended
for telling an Israeli soccer player
on Twitter that Israel was treating
Palestinians like Adolf Hitler treated
the Jews. The latest suspensions
follow last week’s suspensions of
Naz Shah for the revelation of how
she suggested in a 2014 Facebook
post that Israel should be relocated
to the U.S. as a solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as
Labour member and former London
mayor Ken Livingstone, who told
BBC Radio that Hitler initially
“was supporting Zionism before he
went mad and ended up killing 6
30
million Jews.” Since the suspensions
of Shah and Livingstone, Labour
Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has
launched an independent review of
anti-Semitism and racism within his
party. But Corbyn himself has come
under fire in the past for calling the
Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups
“friends,” and for his connections
to a Holocaust denier. The antiSemitism scandal comes just days
before an election for the mayor of
London on Thursday. The winner
will replace outgoing Mayor Boris
Johnson.
Hungary arrests 2 suspects
in connection with murder
of Israeli man:
The body of a missing 40-year-old
Israeli man was found in a forest in
southern Hungary on Sunday. Ofir
Gross, a Jerusalem native who was
studying biomedical engineering
in Germany, had not been heard
from after last making contact with
his family on April 21. Hungarian
police believe Gross was murdered,
and two local men were arrested in
connection with the case on Sunday.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday
confirmed the death of Gross.
According to his family, Gross was
visiting Hungary and had originally
been staying with a friend in the
southern town of Tiszakecske. He
disappeared while he was apparently
looking for somewhere to stay in the
eastern city of Debrecen.
Islamic State attack on
synagogue foiled in Tunisia:
A Tunisian newspaper has revealed
that the Islamic State plotted to
attack a synagogue in the country,
but the plan was foiled. The local Al
Chourouk newspaper reported on
Monday that the terror group meant
to target a synagogue in the coastal
town of El Marsa, east of Tunis,
but the Islamic State members who
planned the attack were arrested
before they were able to carry out
the attack. A man informed the
authorities that an Islamic State
cell was planning to murder the
synagogue’s caretaker and steal gold
the terrorists believed to be present
on its premises. He also reported
the men wanted to murder local
security officials and politicians, not
making clear whether these victims
were chosen for the ties with the
Jewish community, Israel Hayom
reported. There are about 1,000
Jews still living in Tunisia today.
Meanwhile about 7,000 Tunisians
have reportedly joined the Islamic
State in the past few years. In May
2015, the Israeli government warned
Israelis not to travel to Tunisia due
to a “high-level, concrete threat”
that Israelis might be targeted by
terrorists.
opposed to late 2015 and the start
of 2016.
Suspect arrested in Florida
synagogue bomb plot, FBI
says:
Israeli man wounded
in stabbing attack in
Jerusalem’s Old City:
A 60-year-old Jewish man was
moderately wounded in a stabbing
attack outside of the Lion’s
Gate entrance to the Old City of
Jerusalem on Monday night. Israeli
police said that the victim was
stabbed in the upper torso by the
terrorist, who then fled the scene.
“The man was treated on site by
Magen David Adom paramedics
and rushed to Shaare Zedek Medical
Center in light-to-moderate
condition,” said Israel Police
spokesman Micky Rosenfeld shortly
after the attack, the Jerusalem Post
reported. “The knife was found
at the scene and police units are
searching for the suspect,” he said.
Despite Monday’s attack, there
has been a significant decrease in
Palestinian stabbing, shooting, and
car-ramming attacks in Jerusalem
during the past few months, as
A man suspected of planning to
bomb a South Florida synagogue
has been arrested, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
announced Monday. Sources in
the bureau reported that a sting
operation was orchestrated to
thwart a terrorist attack at the
Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center
on Friday. WSVN, a Florida news
outlet, quoted law enforcement
sources as saying that FBI agents
posing as terrorists were able to
prevent the attack and apprehend
the suspect, who had converted to
Islam, they said. According to the
report, the suspect “wanted to take
CONT.ON P31
GAMER
DOVIE’S
How to solve a search and Find Puzzle
WORD
SEARCH
The words can be located in the diagram by reading forward, backward, up ,
down and diagonally. All words will be found in a straight line with no letters
being skipped. As you find each word, circle it in the diagram and cross it o
the word list. Letters may be used more than once and words will often overlap.
All the letters in the diagram may not be used.
ANGRY BIRDS
BIOSHOCK
BRAID
CENTIPEDE
DEFENDER
DIG DUG
DOOM
DRAW SOMETHING
FABLE
FRUIT NINJA
GALAXIAN
GEARS OF WAR
HALF-LIFE
HALO
MYST
PAC-MAN
PITFALL
PLANTS VS ZOMBIES
POKEMON
PONG
PORTAL
Q*BERT
RESIDENT EVIL
RIVER RAID
ROCKBAND
[THE] SIMS
STARCRAFT
TEMPEST
TETRIS
ANSWERS ON PAGE 36
5/6/16
JNS
CONT. FROM P30
some kind of explosive device and
chuck it over the wall. Friday was
the next-to-last day of Passover,
and the center was crowded with
people observing the holiday.” The
FBI stressed that the congregants
were not in any danger during the
sting operation or the arrest because
the suspect was apprehended before
having a chance to harm anyone.
Congregants and neighborhood
residents, however, were still
agitated by the news of the potential
attack. Resident Kim Tepper was
quoted as saying, “It’s a very scary
world, and you know what? I don’t
think that anybody is safe anywhere.
We always thought, living in this
area, that we could be targeted.”
School and an American team—
ended in a 2:2 draw, but the
defending American champion
won due to a technicality. FIRST
(For Inspiration and Recognition
of Science and Technology)
brings together more than 20,000
students from 24 countries for a
sports-like tournament in which
they pit their robots against one
another in completing set tasks.
The competition aims to turn
students into the next generation
of trailblazers, honing their
technological and engineering skills
while encouraging innovation and
leadership.
srael to reopen main
crossing point into Gaza
Strip for goods:
Hamas man allegedly
received $2,000 monthly
salary for operating terror
tunnel:
Suspected Hamas terrorist operative
Medhat Abu Sneima was indicted
in Beersheba on Sunday for crimes
including plans to attack Israeli
soldiers along the Gaza border.
Abu Sneima, 24, from Gaza, was
arrested last month. According
to the indictment, which lists 18
charges, he joined Hamas in 2007.
In 2014, he allegedly paid $7,000 to
become part owner of a smuggling
tunnel from Egypt to Gaza. As
such, he made $2,000 per month
for operating the tunnel, earning
a total of about $50,000—a huge
sum in Gaza—during the two
years the tunnel was active. The
indictment stated that when Abu
Sneima became part owner, the
tunnel was about 1,640 feet long,
but it was later doubled in length
and ran under both Egyptian and
Israeli territory. Abu Sneima and his
partners are suspected of smuggling
some 30 rifles, 10 trunks of
ammunition, and 35 pipes in order
to make 110-pound rockets through
the tunnel. From 2014 to early
2016, Abu Sneima and his partners
allegedly smuggled weapons to arms
dealers in Gaza.
IIsraeli team takes second
place in prestigious high
school robotics contest:
An Israeli high school team from
Binyamina, near Haifa, came in
second place at the prestigious
international FIRST Robotics
Competition in St. Louis, Mo.,
from April 27-30. The final
match—between the Orbit team
of students from Binyamina’s
Rothschild-Hashomron High
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on
Monday announced the reopening
of Israel’s Erez border crossing
into the Gaza Strip for trucks and
goods. “It is in our interests that
a significant amount of truckloads
of food continues to go to Gaza,”
a spokesman for Ya’alon said in a
statement, AFP reported. “It is our
interest that Gazans live in dignity.
Both from a humanitarian point
of view and because this is a way
to protect the peace, in addition
to existing security deterrents,” he
said. Despite the announcement,
Ya’alon did not give an immediate
timetable for the reopening of the
Erez crossing, saying that this “will
not happen tomorrow or the day
after.” Currently, the Kerem Shalom
crossing in southern Gaza in the
only crossing for goods between
Israel and Gaza, which is controlled
by the Palestinian terror group
Hamas. But according to Ya’alon,
the crossing is facing congestion
issues. “At least half of what
currently goes to Kerem Shalom”
will be redirected to Erez, Ya’alon
said. The Erez border crossing was
closed to the passage of goods in
2008 and currently only serves
pedestrians. Israel has maintained
tight control over Gaza’s air, sea,
and land crossings since Hamas
took control there in 2006, due to
the terror group’s use of materials
such as cement and metal to build
tunnels and rockets to attack Israel.
BRAFMAN
CONT. FROM P23
mattered.
Chaya Sarah was the only
grandchild I ever knew and I
loved her as only a grandfather
can love a grandchild and Nazi
killers murdered her, my Chayala
and 1.5 million other Jewish
children. They took our nachas –
our life and our joy and our hope.
They took our babies and turned
them into ashes.
Today, I speak to you as a
neshama, as a soul from heaven,
where I and millions of my
brothers and sisters sit in a special
place of honor reserved for us,
for those you call Kedoshim –
holy ones – whose lives were
taken only because we were
Jews, brutally taken less than 70
years ago, when a whole country
became dominated by savages,
while a civilized world stood by
and through its silence, said that
it was “okay to smash the head
of a two year old child and then,
while she was still alive, throw
her screaming in terror into a
burning oven, that it was okay
to gas and cremate – to murder
her parents and grandparents.”
A civilized, cultured nation did
this and a civilized world watched
it happening and did nothing to
stop our slaughter.
The world heard our screams
but did not care, the world
smelled our burning flesh but
turned away – the world heard
my Chayala screaming for her
mother and did nothing, because
Chayala was a Jewish child and at
that time – the systematic murder
of Jewish children – undertaken in
an efficient, organized manner by
monsters in government-issued
uniforms -was okay. Indeed, it
was encouraged, applauded. The
murderers were honored with
medals, applauded as heroes for
killing our children – for killing
my grandchild.
Smoke and Gas
How did this happen to us?
When did our world turn so bitter
and dark?
I remember our life before
Auschwitz, a good life, a quiet,
pious life, centered around my
family, my wife, Malka, our
daughters, Sima, Ruchele, Hencha,
Hinda, my sweet little boy, Meir,
CONT.ON P32
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31
5/6/16
BRAFMAN
CONT. FROM P31
Sima’s husband, Yaakov, and their
baby, my zeis little Chayala.
We lived in a small town in
Czechoslovakia, Kiviash, right
near the Hungarian border. I was
a learned man, a Hebrew teacher.
Our family was a good family. We
were poor, but respected. We were
honest, kind, sweet people who
lived among other respected, softspoken, wonderful families. We
had no enemies.
I never even raised my voice
in anger, never, until that day in
Auschwitz, when they murdered
my grandchild, then the world
heard me, but did not listen, when
they tried so hard to destroy my
family. I screamed so loud, I cried
so hard and long, but the murder
continued. The smoke and gas
roared and now I am still angry.
Now, I raise my voice again, not
to complain, but so that you will
remember – so that you can wake
up, because what happened to
my family can happen again, it is
happening again!
Today, less than 70 years later,
monsters are again threatening
and murdering Jewish families,
32
murdering our beautiful children
– just last month in Israel, in
Itamar, the Fogel family was
massacred and again, beautiful,
little, innocent children were
butchered because they were Jews.
Udi and Ruth Fogel murdered
because they were Jews! Their
children, Yoav, age 11, Elad, age
4 and Hadas, age 3 months –
slaughtered!! Their throats slit
while they slept in their own beds.
So I need to tell you about my
own murder. I need to relive for
you my horror, my terrible loss,
so that you will understand and
remember, so that you will feel
the Shoah – what the world refers
to as the Holocaust. It needs to
be real for those of you who were
not there. It is more than a word –
Shoah. You must know the terror,
not only to make you sad and
angry, but to make you vigilant.
If I upset you tonight, good!
If my frankness and the terrifying
description of brutal murder gives
you nightmares tonight – good. I
want you to be afraid and sad and
angry and bitter and aware – but I
also want you to be proud, because
the end of my own story, although
sad, was not the end.
Be comforted in the
knowledge that “they did not
win.” The Nazi murderers killed
me and millions of Jews like me,
but they did not win. They did not
murder my whole family, or your
whole family. The murderers and
their army of monsters did not
murder the Jewish people, they
did not end Klal Yisrael – they
made us stronger.
Alive Today
Jews are alive today. Israel
is strong today, my family, your
families, are here today, and we
must keep reminding the world
about our parents, grandparents,
great grandparents and the
children, who were gassed and
cremated.
My family is alive today to
help you understand the quality
of hate that can allow a country
to burn and gas and bludgeon
newborns, infants and toddlers;
to machine gun them and throw
them into mass graves or onto
trucks and then while still alive,
toss them into large ovens, or
used while conscious and awake
– for vicious, cruel medical
experiments.
So many children, small
Kinderlach screaming for their
Mommy and Tattie, for Bobbie
and Zayde – can you hear them?
Their screaming is so loud – I can
still hear my Chayala, 70 years
later. Can you hear them? Can
you hear your family members?
The families you never got to
meet or know. Can you hear their
screams?
When you are in bed waiting
to fall asleep, listen hard. If you
try, you will hear them in your
head and in your heart.
Listen and you will also hear
12-year-old Tamar Fogel who,
returning to her home in Itamar,
after an Oneg Shabbat Friday
night, only a few weeks ago, found
her parents murdered, her three
month old baby sister, Hadas,
with her throat slit. Can you hear
Tamar screaming? All of us, all
the way up here in Heaven heard
her screams; you should be able to
hear her just across the ocean, her
screams for her family, for every
Jew whose child – whose life has
been viciously taken just because
they were Jewish.
he difficulty in speaking
CONT.ON P34
5/6/16
33
5/6/16
BRAFMAN
CONT. FROM P32
about such horror and about
so much grief is that it is so
hard. It is almost impossible for
the mind to process so much
terrible information, it is almost
impossible to make someone
understand something so bad,
it is hard to even imagine so
much murder and torture and
starvation, but you must.
did nothing wrong and we also
know that a civilized world did
this to us, that a civilized world
abandoned us.
We are afraid to die, of the
brutal, choking, burning death
that is upon us, but we are so
I will help you. I am going to
be graphic and brutal, because it
is the only way to make you get it,
for you to really understand what
it means when we say Holocaust –
or Shoah – or talk about 6 million
kedoshim.
I am standing in the gas
chamber naked with hundreds of
innocent Jews. My wife, Malka,
whose terrified eyes were already
dead, is next door holding our
daughter, Sima. Sima’s husband,
Yaakov, is with me. We have
already watched our Chayala
cremated. We are already dead –
the gas will just kill us again.
We know we are not in a
shower. We know we are in a gas
chamber. We know we are going
to die and we all know that we
34
much more afraid that nobody
will ever know that we lived, that
nobody will ever know that we
were a good family; that we had
beautiful, good children and that
we had a beautiful grandchild. I
was so afraid that nobody would
ever know; that nobody in my
family or in anyone else’s family
would survive; that the “final
solution” was really going to be
final. Let me tell you something....
You think you know about
prayer – you think you know
about faith because you are
religious or because you pray
every day?
Let me tell you about real
prayer, about real belief – in my
gas chamber, as gas filled our
lungs, as flames burned off our
skin, we screamed “Ani
Maamin,” we believe in
you Hashem.
With our dying
breath we screamed,
“Shema Yisrael Hashem
Elokenu Hashem
Echad” – my last words
screamed through gas
filled lungs, as I died,
so afraid that my entire
family had been, or soon
would be, murdered.
What wrenching sadness,
what anger rose in my heart
and raged through my mind
– I pleaded to Hashem, not to
be spared, but for nekama, for
revenge! How, when, who would
ever make this right, or get even
for us, who would be alive to say
Kaddish for us – to light a candle
on our Yahrzeit – no graves,
no headstones – no one alive to
mourn our death – to even know
of our life.
Well, I am not here tonight in
person. Yechiel Michoel Friedman
was murdered at Auschwitz, but
we were not all murdered that
day, or the next day and some
of my children, some of your
children did survive and today,
our children, our grandchildren,
our great-grandchildren and
now even our great-greatgrandchildren are alive. We live
in the United States and all over
the world as proud Jews, and
we have the Land of Israel – do
you hear that, Nazi murderers?
We have Israel, a nation built by
survivors. We have a Jewish army
and a Jewish state. Our people
are strong. We have powerful,
eloquent voices demanding to be
heard.
My daughters, Hencha
and Hinda, who were tortured
for years, did not die and my
daughter, Ruchele, who at
age 15 escaped to America,
married Shlomo Brafman,
who also escaped – they did
not die and their children and
my grandchildren and greatgrandchildren are growing up as
Shomer Shabbos Jews and tonight,
my grandson is speaking for me
CONT.ON P39
5/6/16
SCHINDLER
CONT. FROM P28
(literally).
Discovery 2: The brain is
a “use it or lose it” organ, and
mental workouts support peak
mental functionality. As you seek
secure footing and handholds and
otherwise strategize your best path
to the mountain’s peak, you’re
sharpening cognitive function
-because actively exercising
the brain elevates cognitive
performance. In other words,
new learning builds new synapses
on top of old synapses, which
helps reinforce older synapses so
they stay active. Challenging the
brain with puzzles, reading, and
other mental workouts appears
to stimulate neural development.
So, even as we age, an active brain
stays sharp; a passive brain grows
dull.
Discovery 3: Specific quantities
of certain nutrients supercharge
mental performance and help
prevent cognitive decline. Could
you ascend to the mountain’s
pinnacle without shoes or
equipment? Probably not... that’s
where special brain-nutrients
come in. Neuro-nutrients are the
climbing shoes, cables, grapples,
protective clothing and energizing
sustenance that enable you to
climb to the highest peak of
mental performance by helping
the brain make new neurons,
better enable nerve transmission,
boost blood flow to the brain and
bring more nutrients there in the
process to supercharge the brain
so that it can fire on all cylinders.
So what are these miracle
nutrients, you ask? I’ll tell you.
Better yet, I’ll explain. When a
baby is born, its brain already
holds around 100 billion neurons,
which means that over the
course of a regular nine-month
pregnancy, the fetus is developing
new brain cells at a rate of 250,000
per minute. How does the fetal
brain develop new cells so rapidly?
This impressive phase of human
development depends on building
blocks for new brain cells, and
research overwhelmingly shows
that these neuronutrient building
blocks are omega-3 fatty acids
-especially DHA. A mother’s
intake of essential fatty acids is
a critical component fetal brain
development, which explains why
high concentrations of DHA are
found in mother’s milk. In one
DHA study, women at 18 weeks
of pregnancy were given cod liver
oil (containing 1,183 mg of DHA)
or placebo oil until three months
after delivery. All infants in the
study were breast-fed until at least
three months of age. Children
whose mothers received the cod
liver oil scored significantly higher
on intelligence tests at four years
of age than those whose mothers
took the placebo. Another study
of 135 babies found that the
highest intelligence scores were
among those whose mothers
had consumed more than two
helpings of fish per week; for
each additional weekly serving
of fish, the babies’ intelligence
scores increased by 4 points, or
an average of almost 7%. This
improvement was attributed to the
brain-nourishing Omega-3 fatty
acids found in fish. Once a baby is
born, external stimulation triggers
waves of brain development, with
statistically significant peaks in
brain growth rates at age 7, 11 to
12, and 15 years. The good news
is these “mental growth spurts”
yield staggering results in terms
of cognitive function. The bad
news is that by the time we hit our
twenties, our cognitive decline
begins!
fall into foggy thinking and
impaired memory. Aging makes
matters worse, as neurons,
neurotransmitters, and blood
flow to the brain all decrease
over time. Dull thinking and
faulty memory are no laughing
matter. These symptoms are early
warning signs of far more serious
cognitive impairment conditions
like dementia and Alzheimer’s
disease. (Dementia is progressive
cognitive decline with symptoms
like disorientation, personality
change, inattentiveness, and poor
reasoning ability. Alzheimer’s
disease is an irreversible mental
decline caused by the gradual
malfunction, degeneration, and
ultimate deactivation of brain.
Despite these heartbreaking
conditions and their rising risk
factors, it’s critical to stay positive
and recognize a powerful truth:
losing your mental edge is not
a normal part of aging, and
cognitive decline is not inevitable.
In fact, modern research asserts
that aerobic exercise, mental
challenges, and proper amounts
of specific nutrients may help
stave off many forms of cognitive
decline, so that you can get to
and actually enjoy those “golden
years”.
Though old age is the biggest
contributor to dementia, high
blood pressure, high cholesterol,
excessive drinking and especially
poor dietary choices such as
fatty, sugary, salty foods coupled
with lack of physical activity and
passive mental states escalate
the gravity of the problem. An
unhealthy lifestyle really makes
a mental difference! In part II of
this series I will show you how to
put your brain on a proper diet
that will boost your power and
vitality! So stay tuned (literally)!
Rachael E. Schindler, PhD. is
a psychologist, founder of
”TheFiveTownsDiet” meals home
delivery(www.litenlow.com/
dietdelivery/), Smart N’ Lite takeout
meals at Season’s of Lawrence, noted
lecturer and author, certified pediatric
and adult nutrition counselor, certified
personal trainer and celebrated group
fitness instructor and Pilates master for
over 20 years, practicing in Cedarhurst,
Lawrence and Manhattan. A veritable
“one-stop-source”, Dr. Schindler
specializes in fitness, food, stomach
problems, hormonal and behavioral
issues for both children and adults.
She can be reached to order, for an
appointment, or for comments at
[email protected], or (917) 690 – 5097.
In our 20’s you exclaim!
Declining! Why do our brains
decline so early in our lives?
While genetics are partly to
blame, many experts believe
that environmental factors are
increasingly responsible for
inhibiting brain activity. Some
of the more popular risk factors
include: Smoking – which
reduces brainpower by depleting
macronutrients which we all
need! Also our lifestyles are more
sedentary than ever. This physical
and mental passivity (think
parking yourself in front of the
TV for hours on end) contributes
to brain decline! Here’s a big
risk factor, chronic stress! Not
to mention environmental
toxins like pesticides, mercury
and other heavy metals which
are deadly to brain cells. Also
don’t forget that hypertension,
stroke, high cholesterol, diabetes,
overconsumption of alcohol
and chronic abuse of synthetic
drugs like cough suppressants
and antidepressants are all linked
to what I call the “brain bust”.
So in essence, bombarded with
mind-numbing environmental
elements and starved of
critical nutrition, the brain can
35
5/6/16
THE MAHARAL TZINTZ AND THE RECOGNIZED SEGULAH
THAT HAS BEEN PROVEN THROUGHOUT THE YEARS!
UPON THE YAHRZEIT OF THE HOLY PLOTZKER GAON, THE MAHARAL TZINTZ ZT”L, 3 IYAR
The news was greeted joyfully
throughout the Torah world: The
two volume enhanced edition of
“Ayeles Ahuvim” on Maseches
Kesubos is ready to be printed!
What is the Rav’s Promise?
It happened during the
final minutes before the Rav’s
departure from this world, on the
3rd of Iyar, 5593 (1833). When the
Plotzker Gaon was about to depart
for the Olom Ha’Emes, he asked
for a wooden board and a quill,
and with his last bit of strength,
wrote the words that amounted to
his last will and testament: “I will
come to the defense of whoever
shall exert himself to print my
sefarim, if he has some merit.”
Then the Rav commented: “A
merchant does not display a sign
in his establishment unless he has
goods to sell!”
On his matzeivoh in Warsaw,
are engraved the simple but
awesome words of the Rav’s will,
his promise and legacy to future
generations.
A rare opportunity
In honor of the gaon’s Yoma
d’helula on the third of Iyar, the
Machon Maharal Tzintz is now
preparing to publish the gaon’s
well-known sefer, the first of
the many sefarim he authored,
the Ayeles Ahuvim vol 3-4 on
Maseches Kesubos.
A donation of only $720
will sponsor 30 sets, $450
will sponsor 18 sets, and $250
will sponsor 10 sets. These
prices cover both printing and
distribution. In an effort to enable
more people to take advantage of
this unique Segulah, the Machon
has established a convenient
monthly payment plan option,
whereby a small donation of $36
per month will suffice to allow for
sponsorship in this project.
These sefarim will be
distributed to Battei Medrash,
Kollelim and Yeshivos. You
can designate which of these
you want the sefarim you are
sponsoring to be sent to.
On the occasion of the gaon’s
hilula, a group of selected bnei
Torah will travel to his tziyun
and offer their heartfelt tefilos
there and specifically mention
the names of all the contributors,
and be me’orer rachamim on their
behalf.
To sponsor the sefarim, or for more
information, please contact the
Machon at 718-259-2395. You can
sponsor 30 sets for $720, 18 sets for
$450, 10 sets for $250 or 36$ monthly.
Your kvitel may be faxed to 718-2564489 or emailed to [email protected]
36
Sudoku Puzzle
ANSWERS
TO THIS
WEEK’S
PUZZLES!
Complete the grid so that every row, column and
3x3 box contains every digit from 1 to 9 inclusively.
2
9
5
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1
8
2
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5
9
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3
5
1
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7
3
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9
1
7
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2
9
1
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9
1
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5/6/16
Torah Connection
PESACH PREPARATIONS
IN YERUSHALAYIM
NY BAR MITZVAH BOY UNVEILS FIRSTEVER MOBILE TECH LAB FOR ISRAELI
KIDS AT CEREMONY IN JERUSALEM
NOAH HELFSTEIN DONATES $76,000 FOR THE FIRST-EVER
MAKER BUS THROUGH UJA-FEDERATION OF NEW YORK’S
‘GIVE A MITZVAH-DO A MITZVAH’ PROGRAM
37
5/6/16
Birchat
Kohanim at
THe Kotel
BURNING CHOMETZ IN BROOKLYN
RABBI JAKE’S MUSIC ENLIVENS CHAZAQ
CHILDREN’S CHOL HAMOED CONCERT
FIDF SUPPORTERS FROM THE US AND
ISRAEL DEPARTING TO POLANDS
On May 5, 2016, 50 Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) supporters from
across the U.S. will embark on an unprecedented mission to Poland and Israel with
Holocaust survivors, G.I. liberators, and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers.
38
5/6/16
BRAFMAN
CONT. FROM P34
in a shul with 1,000 proud, strong
Jews who came to remember all of
us tonight.
So I do not have my life, but
I have my revenge. In fact, my
little boy, Meir, who they tried so
hard to murder, he lived too. At
age 16, he weighed 45 lbs. when
found alive in a pile of corpses at
Auschwitz.
When liberated, he went to
Israel, to Israel, where for 50
years he was a soldier in Tzahal
– Israel’s army. A Jewish hero,
he fought for 50 years in Israel’s
army. My son, my Kaddish, he did
not die in Auschwitz either. How
proud I was to watch as he put on
the uniform of an Israeli soldier
to fight for our country, a Jewish
community.
They Will Not Win
I am very sad and very angry
and bitter that I did not get to
enjoy the world of nachas that was
mine, a world of nachas and pride
and Yddishkeit that I had a right
to live through and enjoy.
The Nazis hurt me beyond
words, but they did not win.
Ladies and gentlemen, they
only win if you forget – or now, if
you allow the world to deny. They
only win if we do not cry real tears
when we hear about the slaughter
of the Fogel family in Itamar.
They only win if you cannot
hear my Chayala screaming or feel
the terror of Tamar Fogel, or her
grandparents who must now face
a quality of grief so savage that it
is hard for you to grasp.
Trust me – I know
about the murder of a child
and a grandchild and how
that impacts on everything
else. How everything else is
forever shrouded in death and
overwhelming sadness. The Fogel
family will never recover but they
cannot be forgotten.
Here we are in a beautiful
shul, with so many Jews. Good
Jews. Strong, proud people
who have not forgotten us, me,
my family, your families – the
parents, grandparents, uncles,
aunts, cousins, the children, the
grandchildren – the babies who
were murdered and gassed and
buried alive.
It is okay to cry for what we
lost, for what was taken from you,
for the lives lost, the nachas of
family we were deprived of.
Cry for us. We cry for you
too, for what you lost, for the
family you never met, for the
millions of good, sweet Jews who
did not live – for the students
who never finished their studies,
for the scientists and artists and
musicians and teachers and
Rebbes who never got the chance
to excel, to perform, to teach, to
cure, to live.
It’s okay to cry for the children
who never got to play, or sing,
or laugh, who were put to death
with such violence, with so much
hatred that I cannot describe it in
words as for certain levels of grief,
there are no words. It is so bad
that it cannot even be imagined
by any decent human being,
impossible to process rationally.
But you must, because today,
people are already questioning
whether the Holocaust really
happened. World leaders and
scholars are already denying the
Holocaust; they are challenging
even the integrity of a handful of
survivors, the eyewitnesses who
are still alive, those who saw the
horror with their own eyes. Even
these heroic survivors are being
doubted and am so afraid that
in coming years, vicious, antiSemitic revisionists will tamper
with history and the truth and we
cannot – you cannot allow that to
happen ever – never...
I had a granddaughter, a
charming, beautiful little baby girl
named Chaya Sarah and she was
murdered in front of my eyes and
although her neshama, her soul,
is in heaven with me, her memory
must be emblazoned in your
hearts forever.
If our memory is really to be
for a blessing, for our neshamos
to really have the aliyah you ask
for, an aliyah we have earned and
paid so dearly for, then you must
remember.
You must make certain that
your children and their children
understand what happened to
their family, to your family, to all
of our families, or it will happen
again.
You think it cannot happen
again? Why? Because you have
good lives – you live in civilized
times? We had a good life – we
lived in civilized times. We were
happy and complacent, but we
were not vigilant and we walked
right into a Holocaust.
Our neighbors, an entire
nation of ordinary men and
women of intelligence and
breeding and culture turned into
monstrous, murderous animals
who withdrew from humanity and
imposed a level of brutality on us
that cannot now be described and
could not then, ever have been
predicted – but that is exactly
what happened.
with clarity and force, so that
hopefully some people in this
room will never doubt the Shoah
and you will take it upon yourself
to confront anyone who dares to
deny it and make them hear my
story – your story, the sad but
true stories of our families, whom
we too often refer to as the “6
Million,” but rarely if ever refer
use their names.
It was even worse than the
worst true story that any survivor
can report, because the brain is
not capable of capturing so much
grief without exploding, so even
those who survived, who saw it
all, cannot fully capture the full
horrific ordeal, the vicious detail.
We have names. Our lives
were taken, but they cannot take
our names.
Only a victim like me, only
someone who did not survive,
can tell you the whole, bad, ugly,
demented, terrible truth about our
murder, of 6 million murders.
That, my friends, is why I
chose to speak to you through my
grandson from my seat in heaven
and although Hashem does not
permit me to tell you “why” these
terrible things happened, I am
commanded to discuss “what”
happened.
To tell you “what” happened
My name is Yechiel Mechoel
Friedman. I was murdered at
Auschwitz with my wife, Malka
and my daughter, Sima, her
husband, Yaakov Weiss and my
granddaughter, Chaya Sarah.
Can you see them? I see them
and I also see Tamar Fogel and the
bodies of her family being carried
through Itamar for burial; not 70
years ago – last month. People
with names and lives taken in the
dark – only because they were
Jews.
My name is Yechiel Michoel
Friedman. I was murdered in
Auschwitz. Don’t you ever forget me.
Aish.org
39
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May 6, 2016 - The Jewish Connection >> Home

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