A BOOK TO LOVE

What is the importance of a book? A real book, with cardboard or paperback front cover and back cover, a bound book, a strong book with an even stronger binding, a book that is like a sturdy piece of wood, a book that cannot be destroyed, a book of all Hebrew print that cannot be messed with, a burial only for a book as valuable as this, a cemetery for books, never to destroy or discard a book, not to write in or underline its contents, to respect a book, it is like a wedding ring, more valuable than gold, more precious than silver.

To use your favorite book like a stuffed animal to take with you to sleep, to put the book next to your pillow, a book that will seep information into your brain at the command of God, God controlling how much info and what info goes into one's brain and heart. To even kiss a book, to caress and hug it. A book that can love you back feeling the love from you and so showing you the directions on how to love and who to love.

To be in love with a book. To love a book like you love God, as you love your parents, to never lose this book, never to let it out of your grasp, to be a book that is special, a book like The Tanach, the complete printing of everything you need. Never to give it up or give it away, never to lose it, never to leave it without being in the security of your attention.

Yes, I love books. You too can try to love a book. A book can be replaced with another book, a book is luckier than a loved one who is a person, a book has more than nine lives, more lives than a pet cat.

Love the Bible, The Tanach, love God. He will help you. Call upon Him and He will be with you instantly, in a book or as an Angel, He will bring you all you desire.

FROM A FAMILY OF TEACHERS

What do you know? Have you knowledge to share? From a family of teachers? Teaching your family something who can then pass on your knowledge to others who can learn from you?

Have you read books that are not available even at libraries? Books from a 72 volume set or more? With a photographic memory, a mind that does not stop memorizing. Wishfully thinking that others can also know what you know so they can pass down your know-how to others who could benefit from your thoughts. Can you be a guide to others in their actions, to let people know what and what not to do? To have read 613 Commandments so know the negative, what not to do, and the positive, what to do.

Being blessed to have a Professor, an English Professor in your lineage, and to have teachers who teach disabled children. Having taught English as a second language to Spanish speaking teenagers at a high school. To have had employment in The Literacy Volunteers of America, a group of tutors who teach people English who cannot read. To yourself be bi-lingual and to teach your family enunciation and vocabulary, comprehension, and reading speed.

Having the knowledge of Hebrew as one of your languages you speak? How wonderful! And to be it "Biblical" Hebrew? Knowing a language that is sung as a song, knowing tropes and melodies, singing the language instead of saying it. Being able to use it as a meditation, to sing yourself into a state of healthiness. Beautiful pursed lips of words like "ahavah" which means love, or "chesed" which means lovingkindness, or "binah" which means understanding. "Chochmah"  which means wisdom, or "gevurah" which means strength and discipline, "todah rabbah" which means great thanks. To take these holy Words and turn them into meditation mantras to become great, as great as God, as we speak and sing like God, for others to look up to us, to be a good example, with the use of suggestibility.

Can we as lowly humans become as Great as God? If you show God love and fear, you will become as is God, using Him as your Mentor, you having been created in the image of God, to learn Torah to know what God did and what He can do for you and others, what we can do if we follow in His footsteps.
 

GREET PEOPLE WITH A FRIENDLY COUNTENANCE

What does this mean: "Greet everyone with a friendly countenance" and is this something we all should do? In the Pirkei Avot, the holy Jewish book "Our Ancestors" it says this is something we all need to do. Can this change your world and everyone's world you greet? A simple smile as you pass someone by, a twinkle from your eye and into theirs, getting a twinkle back, a greetings of goodness with electricity going both ways.

Do you have all your teeth? Are your teeth white? Are they clean? Does a dentist clean them and give them a fluoride treatment once every six months? If so, then you have beautiful teeth, with no reason not to smile.

Are there people you like and who you want to greet happily, are there people you do not know and can also greet happily? It takes chutzpah which in Yiddish means "nerve" to be the friendliest person in the world. Do you dare to have the nerve to be friendly?

If you are female, it would look pretty strange to overdo greeting the male sex, instead to greet women, women you know or do not know, we are from a sisterhood, a Women To Women International Sisterhood. Women altogether who fight for the rights of all Women. If we smile at men the men use this as a reason to harass us, better to know your distance.

Better to merge with the feminine in one's environment so the men cannot say you provoked them into sexual harassment or to be stalked by your smile and verbal greeting to them and being so-called provocative with what clothes you wear or do not wear.

It would indeed be a lovely world if everyone in the world has the potential of being friendly and amiable with everyone they meet.

Know your constant companion is The Lord, and in this way, no matter who you are able to greet or not to greet, The Lord is there for you and will stay with you as long as you want Him.

To greet Him first and to be sated.

THE BEST DENTIST IN THE WORLD

 

How about that! A dentist named Elizabeth! When she smiles she shows all her teeth like pearls, like precious gems, her demeanor as beautiful as her pure white teeth, she wears her nametag proudly on her chest, it says "Elizabeth". The Z sound is loud and clear, fighting as a name that fights tooth decay, her armor is all around her as a white colored smock, covered like a tallit, a prayer shawl of a woman who has had her Bat Mitzvah, she speaks the truth, she liked my teeth, to her they were teeth of a shark that became a porpoise, a porpoise being the most intelligent fish of all fish. Fish sticks for lunch, Kosher, not catfish, breaded, chewed with newly brushed dentist-cleaned teeth. In the Czech language teeth are said as "zuby". A Z on ones toothbrush that scrubs back and forth, up and down, mostly from up to down so not to stretch the gums pushing them away from the teeth.

How is it that I know this? A miracle being that I still have my wisdom teeth. My Mother and Father wanted me to keep my wisdom teeth, so no dentist has ever tried to deprive me of knowledge. My wisdom teeth I scrub first, they are the cleanest teeth in my mouth. All the way back, hard to reach, but I reach them anyway. The gums around these wisdom teeth were cut back by a dental surgeon when I was 12 years old. No food particles to get stuck in between my gums and my wisdom teeth because there are no gums.

Teeth cleaned by Elizabeth regularly, a mouth that is cleaned at least twice a day, brushed, Colgate, Crest, Aim, peppermint spearmint toothpastes, and picks of sharp plastic to use instead of stringy floss, no left food particles in between the teeth, not Eskimo having chewed whale blubber to grind them down.

Everyone should have a dentist as kind as Elizabeth, a chance to keep all your teeth, to not have fangs as incisors and a toothless grin. To have white not yellow or worse yet, green moldy teeth. To smile at anyone and to be sure of yourself as you are sure of the beauty of your white cleaned toothy smile.

JEWISH PRAYERS FOR THE SICK

"Refuah Shlemah?" in Hebrew means "How are you?" We ask of these tidings of our Temple member friends, especially around this time of the Jewish calendar year being so close to the High Holidays, the Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah, Kol Nidre, Yom Kippur, etc. "Will we see you at Shul?" Prayers go out to those who are too sick to attend Shul on the Holy Days.

Prayers being sung in and out of the Temple, emails of good will going out, the sick being remembered, the ill starting to heal, songs sung for their healing, petitions to God, personal petitions chanted for God to heal these sick friends. Prayers on all days of the week, not just on Holy Days, all days, Shabbats included. The Mi-She Barack Hebrew Blessings sung for good health for the sick.

To go out of your way, to cook up a pot of Kosher Chicken Noodle Soup or Matzo Ball Soup, to chop the veggies very minute, to use all Kosher utensils, pots and plates. To bless the food using Hebrew eating blessings before one eats. After eating, to sing a blessing to thank God for the sustenance, and for your friend who cooked the food for you.

Time to heal, healing on the Holy Days, living, taking the time to appreciate life, to choose life over death, to keep in touch with your doctor, to heal and to spread healing tidings everywhere, to come together, both the sick and the well, as one, all under ONE God.

THE CALMNESS OF SOUNDS OF SILENCE

Not to hear a sound, not to even hear a cricket as a nighttime fiddler on the roof, no sounds from thunderstorms, silently asleep all night, kids next door not playing bouncing basketball late into the night, neighborhood watched, neighborhood respectability, dogs penned, little or no barking, a treat for a dog to encourage his silence, beware although to know why he barks when. A stranger in the night, not strange to your watchful dog. Unwelcomed strangers running away, "Beware of Dog" sign on your backyard gate door. Silence everywhere except the barking of your police-trained German Shepherd. Reason for the barking checked, then asleep again.

In a meadow, just birdies singing, grasshoppers jumping, bumble bees pollenating flowers, trees swaying with leaves blowing in an up and down nod as if bowing to God Himself, all in unison like a marching band, music whistling in the wind, changing a wild wind into a soft breeze, music that we can hear with our imagination, an opera, a symphony, sweet calling voices from a bubbling brook, deer, venison, coyotes, sipping clean clear brook water, bouncing gaily in gaiety on forest preserve pathways.

Silence when you hear it, not to listen to noise, to pay attention when there is no noise, for God to bring these wonderful sounds of silence to you, to fill your ears, your ears like cornucopias overflowing with soothing-ness, but quietly, without even a sound.

To befriend the quiet grasshopper, to pick a meadow flower. To be in tune with the music when there is none. The beauty of only you, your grasshopper, a flower and me.