° In Jewish life, actions transmit more than words. Lighting Hanukkah candles; blotting out Haman’s name; cleaning out the hametz; tashlikh; fasting; dancing with the Torah. Yes, all of those things come with a story. And there’s so much more background and history and ideas and textual sources that go along with the story. But [...]
A brief animated overview of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the events leading up to it.
At 12h, today, 2023 April 19th, Warsaw remembered the heroes of the Ghetto who fought against the horrors of the Nazis 79 years ago.
Jesus knew that he got his life from Jehovah God and wanted to give it in His Hands, committing his spirit in the knowledge and trust that God would give him life again.
A fun medley about a small but nice get-together
Right now, we are in a time of seeking, and there is good reason to yearn for the Qadosh Barukh Hu, El ʿElyon, thirsting for Jehovah the living God, to find our way through the darkness. Those who have tasted the Bore and got that personal relationship with Him, have found that nothing else can satisfy their souls but Him.
In the north of Europe shelling brings a lot of darkness, but these days our brethren and sisters from Ukraine, with us are all united in the commemoration of another war won by the grace of the El' Elyon.
Going up to Simchat Torah, the Rejoicing of the Torah, remembering how everything we have is a gift from Hashem, Who has given His Word to guide us through our life.
We look at the observance of Three Weeks,(Hebrew Bein Hametzarim,- Between the Straits) which commemorates the days between the first breaching of the walls of Jerusalem in 586 bce by Babylonian troops under Nebuchadrezzar to the subsequent destruction of the First Temple of Jerusalem.
You don’t need a religion to do soul management, but having a sacred calendar certainly helps. Far from being an endless list of tasks, the Torah itself is a blueprint for management.Judaism, and especially Leviticus, wants us to build a civilization that prioritizes the parts of us that make us most human – our fragility, [...]
The Anti-Semitism Worldwide Report 2021 and the Anti-Defamation League report about anti-Semitism show the rise of hate against Jews.
With one foot in a world where there is no room for the Elohim and with the other foot where one is searching for the Kingdom of Peace offered by the Creator, one must dare to make the right decision in a world where individualism and consumerism are paramount.
After not being deliberately separated from everyone else, we may look forward to times that we shall be allowed again to gather, finding again some precious time to feel a unity to worship the Elohim.
After a time when isolation seemed to be the priority, we as human beings will now have to make the choice whether we want to bond with others in the community before the Most High.
During the long months when we could not meet in the shul and were assigned to celebrate all the Feasts of Hashem in our own little living room among house-mates, it became clear how important the meetings are for the community, to keep them alive but also to give them enough spiritual food to grow.
Now that the lockdown periods seem to be over, let us not be deterred by the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, but let that also be one of the reasons to come together now more than ever, for prayer and reflection, looking forward to a time when our people will enjoy an everlasting peace under Hashem’s blessings.
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We humans live with one foot firmly in the physical world, and yet we have an inexplicable urge to dip a toe in the spiritual world. However strong or tentative that impulse may be, we all have our moments when we long to transcend our physical being and soar. Where to? That’s the mystery.
Today I shared a moment with a woman whom I had only just met. It was time for her to take the last step in her conversion to Judaism, and I had the privilege of walking into the Gulf of Mexico with her while she prepared to submerge three times.
The Gulf is a beautiful place to use as a mikvah. It is living waters, mayim chayyim, as required of a mikvah, but instead of being surrounded by the walls of a building we were surrounded by sand and sky, white clouds and soft breezes. …
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One of the main reasons why Jeshuaists, of which there are also several of Ashkenazi or Germanic origin (from West and Central Europe plus some from Scandinavia), are allowed to marry someone of non-Ashkenazi Jewish descent or even non-Jewish descent is simply to ensure that there is no ‘inbreeding‘ and the family can be kept healthy.
Jeshuaists namely believe the Elohim has made us His people, but we have to protect ourselves that people also, by taking care that no genetic disease can come into existence by ourselves mixing with our own blood.
We do believe that from a genetic point of view, it’s good if a person reproduces with someone from a different group, and as such can create a stronger being than by weakening the group staying in the same family. Our kehillot or Jewish communities do not have enough people to make a healthy connection with others. Our ties (and genes) are too much connected, and therefore we should allow our kids to have relationships with non-Jews or non-Jeshuaists.
Neurologists are inherently interested in psychosis, not least because too much dopamine in the form of L-DOPA can trigger it. I’ve always found it remarkable that dopamine blocking agents (phenothiazines, and most antipsychotics) can attack psychotic thought itself. This is much more impressive to me than the ability of other drugs (alcohol, coffee, marijuana, cocaine) to affect mood.
So it’s always worthwhile to read another paper about the genetics of schizophrenia, a very hereditary disease. All the risk factors we’ve found by GWAS (Genome Wide Association Studies) account for at most of 1/3 of genetic risk in schizophrenia. For details please see https://luysii.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/tolstoy-rides-again-schizophrenia/.
So I was interested in another crack at finding more genetic causes of schizophrenia [ Neuron 109, 1465–1478, May 5, 2021 ]. As often happens, the most interesting thing in the paper was something totally tangential to my original interest in it.
Here it is — ”…
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In Corona time many people got time to think about which way to go with their faith. Now more people feel the need to go back to the shul after all the lockdowns.
On the domestic political side, neither the United States nor Russia are as stable or predictable as they were in the Cold War and Putin, in all his cocksureness, pushed his country into a conflict none foresaw.
Immanuel Verbondskind - עמנואל קאָווענאַנט קינד 