Do you have a craving to learn what you do not know? Looking for a teacher, looking to be taught about these things you do not know and then learning them. Wondering where to find your answers to your questions?
To then learn that you can find a teacher in anyone, in nature, from the animal kingdom, from books, from The Torah, from a search you do to enlighten yourself to achieve the greatest of heights. To learn of the magic of Jacob's Ladder and to slide on it like a kid's slide to go from up to down, and then back up again.
To be on a carousal horse holding onto a pole and going around and around, watching The Price Is Right and winning every time, winning in your own home as you enjoy your TV set. The game of Candy Land and Shoots and Ladders. The Old Bachelor Game, a choice in The Dating Game to date the bum or the handsome prince! To think it is the handsome prince who is who you have but finding out he is the frog, not a prince at all.
Learning that it is all about entering a house by the front door, unless the pot of gold on the rainbow is from the backdoor. Putting the gold in the back and giving it only to the poor. The poor who must humble himself to these rules and to enter a backdoor against his will. Sharing the gold in the pot and spending your pension long into your future life, a life without a worry of where to live, who will be your cook, when you will get your next meal.
To know something someone else does not. To take pride in this know-how and to be discrete on who to share it with, if anyone, and why.
To be the ice cream topping on a cone and to welcome lickers of the ice cream to taste the goodness you taste. To be a fountain of chocolate pouring over the ice cream, sprinkling whipped cream and ground nuts.
If it is a teacher who you seek, you are probably equipped to be that teacher, someone who others would benefit from, the one with the answers. It is because you are the one with the questions!
Keep asking, keep creating, work in the day and not the night. Pray, praise and thank God, and slide up and down Jacob's Ladder for sheer fun.
A life in an amusement park training the lions. To yourself be the lion who lays down with the lamb who you love.
One step at a time, one foot forward, one word from your mouth at a time, one sight to see at a time, one finger at a time that types, one shoe on and one shoe to put on after the other, buttoning one button at a time, swallowing one bite of food at a time, blinking your eyes one at a time or both as one in unison, thinking one thought at a time, seeing ONE God everywhere at a single time, begging Him with one prayer at a time, drinking fluid with one sip at a time. Looking at your wristwatch and seeing the time as a time that is singular and changes once at a time to another singular moment in time. Having wonderment, getting stimulation, hearing a favorite song, once upon a time.
Yes, it is once, once is the magic number because it contains no magic, it is everywhere, once upon a time, one foot one step one love at a time, One God providing ONENESS to all of us.
What is luck, lucky is yucky and yucky is mucky!
Being submerged in a pool of muddy waters. Not in control of goings on or of reasons or happenings.
Irresponsibility, saying you have nothing to do with the outcome of your circumstances. Luck being totally out of your's or anyone else's control. Knowing the Commandments of the Bible but saying it is "luck" that controls your behavior and whatever happens has nothing to do with your actions, words or deeds. Not in obedience to the Torah and so "bad luck" is blamed for everything.
There is good luck and there is bad luck.
Lucky in games: poker, rummy, dice, backgammon, Chinese checkers, American checkers, chess, Candy-land, The Old Bachelor, Clue, Mah Jong, Bingo. Games can be lucky, and we can enjoy these games and absolve ourselves of responsibility when we play. But knowing that a game is a game and a true life situation is a true life situation.
Good luck! But better yet, I will say a prayer for you so God protects you and guides you as He is within our control. If we do not transgress and break a Torah Commandment we do not have to depend on luck, instead getting the best-est of the best: the love and fear of the One True God, not to get "bad luck" as being blamed for a punishment.
The question of the day, is "Do You Pray?" What is prayer and how is it done and what not to do and what instead to do while you are praying?
Feel the power of God coming in through your forehead at the top near the scalp, feel God and talk to God from this location, feel Him spreading around your entire face and then to your cheeks and chin. Feel God in your body as your blood circulates, from the right leg up to the torso into your left leg and then around again.
Feel Him as if He is an old friend, part of you, like your mother or father's body becoming your body, asking God for strength, blood in your body blood not spilled on the floor, no tattoos, no blood eaten in meat, no unclean animals eaten as meat. Your own body being a sacrifice in itself to God as you do your work each day, whatever your work is, to ask, to beg Him, The God Almighty to guide you ethically in your work, and to guide you as you pray to Him.
What is prayer? Prayer is the Amidah, the Kaddish, The Modim, The Kiddush, The Meal Blessings Before and After you eat, the prayer for Peace, the Prayer for the State of Israel, the Adon Olam, the Ashrei, etc. Words singing in your mind and out your mouth, memorized words of prayer, to be in the know, what is "the Know" it is praying that comes with blessings, and of course, praying is talking to God Himself, as an Entity Who listens and Who cares about you.
Tell God you love Him, tell Him you care about Him as well as He cares for you.
What characteristics does God possess that you like that you want to imitate, to follow in His footsteps, to do as He does, to talk as He talks, to act as He acts.
There are numerous ways we can be like God, as we are made in the image of God, so yes, we look like God. Men look like God, because they are made in His image, and women alike look like God, because we too are made in His/Her image. (Using Him as a shortcut, but knowing God is genderless).
God's wondrous actions, splitting apart the Red Seas, sending down hail to destroy crops, locusts too, frogs, beasts, turning water into wine, Moses's staff, a simple wooden rod to bring about these miracles as he passes it over the land, the firstborn of the Egyptians to die. Moses's rescue from the waters of the Nile, to be saved from drowning in the reeds, an Egyptian princess herself being the savior. Her name was Batyah.
To have children of your own or to adopt children, as to follow God's instructions as Batyah did, in this same way.
Sweetening bitter waters with wood, raising the dead, bringing children to the childless, a parental figure for the motherless and fatherless. To be a wife or husband to the divorced or widowed. Someone to love, someone to fear so not to be punished for transgressions because we do not transgress. But if we do, we have His forgiveness no matter what.
To be merciful, to love, to obey, to respect, to offer assistance, to feed the poor and the hungry, to offer compassion in someone's mourning processes, to heal the sick, to celebrate with newlyweds. Not just your fellow Jews, but all people, all Jews and non-Jews.
The reason being, to keep the peace. Need a Mentor, find your good example in the Words of God, look like He looks, talk as He talks, change the world as He changed/changes the world. To make the Earth a better place for all of us to live, together as ONE people all under ONE God, the same God for all of us.
What is it that you fear? Do you fear thunderstorms, lightening, flooding, falling, slipping on ice and snow, your funding to stop? Having no income, losing property, humiliation in a crowd, the death of your favorite relatives, the fuel you count on not being there anymore? Do you fear your location of your residence to change into the undesirable?
All these fears are fueled by a belief in God. To fear or not to fear, that is the question.
Can love overcome fear, and is this state of love something that we need and want. Fear of change, fear of the unknown becoming knowable. The sameness of everyday as a comforter, the same occupation, the same job, the same tasks, the same radio stations, the same TV programs.
Can this sameness chase away unwanted fears?
Let it happen, not to be a change blocker, feel the stimulation and appreciate it. Be thankful for a change, look forward to it. Swallow it deep down into your throat like iced tea on a hot summer day.
Thank God for everything He gives you, the new and the old, the struggles and the easiness, the wishes come true, the time to try again and then again.
Feel His graciousness and mercy, His loving-kindness, His truths, His justice.
God is good God is great, let us thank Him for everything.
Are you living around a delusion telling yourself that love is all you need to stay alive? That love is everything and we must only love a God, never to fear a God. Do you try to convince others like a Beatles rock and roll song, Love is all you need?
If you get colon cancer or brain cancer, I hope you do not rely on someone's love to cure you. There are medical cures that are real and if your illness is real, it will take more than love to cure you. No, you do not have to "love" your physician to get a cure, he actually would prefer not, him knowing if he is smart that love for someone, or for a God will not cure the illness. There are medicines that cure illness.
Do you think that love is where it is at and not fear? We as a government hope you will obey the Commandments of The Torah, the 613 Mitzvoth, or you will be arrested and put into prison. It is fear of God, fear of doing wrong, that keeps us on the straight and narrow. Gives us an ability to respect others and never to hurt anyone. It is the punishment from God backed by armies and defense corps that you must fear, or else. And yes, God is at the top of the army, He is our Leader.
Follow Him and fear Him, and stay safe and secure this way, love is not enough and actually can cause more problems than good.
Use restraint to love only God and your family and your friends and humanity as a whole, by obeying God's Laws, so all of them and you will be well. Boundaries must be respected and honored and not disobeyed.
Tonight and tomorrow is Tu' Ba'av, the 15th of Av, The Jewish Valentine's Day.
Warm yourself by a candle light and a good hot meal, and do not let your passions overrule your intellect. In order to love we need to respect, first, and love is from the heart, but our heart will not pump without a brain.
Are you a caregiver for an elderly parent? Does your lifeline revolve around the life of another? Whether it be a spouse, daughter, mother, father, etc.?
When you phone her/him, and they live alone and do not answer the phone, they are busy and cannot answer, do you dread the worse has come about, that they are not answering the phone because they cannot? Elderly people fall, and spouses come home late from the office, this does not mean she/he fell, or your spouse got into a car accident.
What can we do so we do not worry? How can we be at ease if our everyday routine is disturbed?
Who can we hang on to if she is not there??
Go into the One-some of it all, take your worry and ask God to help you with it. Walk easy, take it easy, relax, don't imagine the worst. Is there someone else you know where you can exchange smiles and a "How is your day?"
Give it a few minutes, wait and then phone again. Wait 15 or more minutes, whatever it takes for your loved one to answer their phone. Give it up to God to wait with you, to be there with you as you are waiting. Drink a cup of coffee or two, add cream and sweetener, to sweeten up your disposition and comfort you, a time to be helped, a time to know it is not the end, that he/she is still there for you and always will be, in life and in death.
What is Jewish "exile" and who exiles you and who are exiled and why?
As children or young adults, siblings who break the Torah Commandments, the 613 Mitzvoth, and become guilty of incest, breaking these rules, 15 incidents of types of incest that are forbidden, both parties, the son and/or daughter, must be excommunicated from the family. These are Jewish rules, as stated in the Torah. They must try to make it alone, a family of theirs so humiliated by their actions that no family assistance can be given to these guilty parties.
A City of Refuge is the only home for these guilty parties, to live as forgiven there by God Himself, to not have a fear to live. For no party to seek his life, a safe exile guarded and protected.
If there is a teacher involved with these excommunicated people, and the student becomes exiled as he is studying Torah, then the teacher must go into exile as well.
There are impurities that no one can forgive, humans are not strong enough, to instead be a person who has God to forgive him, and a safe place to live where not sought after to be punished by the vengeful.
God forgives all who beckon Him and forgiveness is complete, total, no matter what was your transgression. The exile becomes a safe place to live for both teacher and student. And God being present incredibly in this place of refuge with the exiled as He leads these forgiven people with the goal to heal them so they can perform deeds of loving-kindness with their lives and be able to overcome any evil inclination.
