Raising Questions

Full-Body Scanners Coming

WASHINGTON — The first of 150 full-body scanners planned for U.S. airports will be installed in Boston next week, officials said Tuesday.

The plan is to install three machines at Logan International Airport, according to a homeland security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made. In the next two weeks, officials plan to install another machine at Chicago's O'Hare International.

The rest of the 150 machines that were purchased with $25 million from President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus plan are expected to be installed in airports by the end of June, another homeland security official, spokeswoman Amy Kudwa, said.

This new assault comes in the wake of the domestic airline attack near Detroit, US in December 2009. Even though the experts conceded that such a scanner would not have made any difference in that case, and despite the many questions regarding intrusion of privacy, still the authorities are foisting these ludicrous machines upon the public.

I have an idea that there is more to this than "security" issues. Consider this. With the economy being what it is these days, what if a situation arose in which people wanted to travel outside the borders carrying large sums of cash (or other valuables). I actually did travel once with a large amount of cash hidden in a garter belt that I wore on my leg (and which I had made especially for the purpose). Couldn't get by with that now.

Can you think of any other possible scenarios? I think there just has to be more to it. And of course, I'm always mindful of Jews being forced to relocate and carry upon their persons the means to get from point A to point B, whether it be cash or jewels or whatever.

Understand the Gravity of Our Situation

If you are anything like me, you are slightly numb, both mentally and emotionally, to the threats that swirl around us. When has it ever been any other way? But every once in awhile it is good to open the eyes wide and take a really good look at what we mostly try to gloss over most of the time. Use the opportunity while viewing the video linked below, to allow yourself to feel what our ancestors felt during the crisis of Esther and Mordechai's time. Perhaps it will inspire us all to come out of our self-imposed protective shells long enough to try their solution. We can't keep up this zombie-walk forever.

NOTE: KOL KOREI: YOM TEFILLAH:
"This coming Wed., Feb. 24 at 12 noon, our great rabbis Elyashiv, Steinman, Wosner, Batzri, & Rebbitzen Kanievsky, and others have deemed it a day of tefilla. We are facing a very real threat, and "the battle plan is tefillah" and our "secret weapon is Ahavas Yisroel."

All over the world, people will pause at 12 noon to recite Tehillim 83, 130, 142, & Acheinu Kol Beis Yisroel. Please make a note of this and spread the word. We need to do this together!"

(You can disregard the dates pasted on the video by its maker.)



WE SHOULD BE DAVENING EVERY SINGLE DAY LIKE OUR LIVES DEPENDED UPON IT. AFTER ALL...DON'T THEY??

"Jews Don't Bow Down"

If you’d met me growing up in El Paso, Texas you wouldn’t have been able to tell I was Jewish. When I was six and my brother was 10, his gymnastics coach asked my parents if they would consider sending my brother to begin training to be an Olympic gymnast. My parents were in the middle of a divorce, and my brother’s future as an Olympic gymnast got buried under the mess of my parents’ lives. But I, unaware of this greater drama, did what all little brothers did. I followed my brother and joined gymnastics as well.

One day at gymnastics class, the instructor asked me to bow down for a gymnastics routine. I refused. “Aaron is something wrong?”

I wouldn’t budge.

“Please bow down like all the other boys and girls.”

Again I remained adamant in silence. The gym coach had hit upon the only thing I knew from reform temple that as a Jew I was not allowed to do.

Struggling inside I finally spoke up, “Jews don’t bow down!”

READ THE REST OF THIS FASCINATING ACCOUNT HERE!

Jewish Missionaries?

Have you ever been accosted by a missionary? Annoying aren't they? Ever console yourself with the thought that at least Jews don't missionize? Well, think again!

There are Jews who have bought into the idea that our mission to be a "light to the nations" requires us to go out and beat the bushes looking for "Jewish souls trapped in gentile bodies." Or does it mean we must bring the "gospel" of Noahidism to the nations? I'm not sure these guys have even made up their minds, but Rabbi Sholom Gold makes a brave and heroic attempt to set them straight, without much luck I'm afraid. (Starts at the midpoint of the program.)

View this clip taken from a Tuesday Night Live video.

It's Rosh Chodesh Adar

The Book of Formation is the first Kabbalistic text attributed to Abraham and compiled in its final form by the Tannaic sage, Rabbi Akiva. It enumerates the 12 months of the year and explains that each corresponds to a Hebrew letter and a particular sense, or talent, which is controlled by a particular organ of the body. The month of Adar corresponds to the Hebrew letter ק (pronounced: kof), its talent is laughter, and the organ that controls this talent is the spleen. Because the Jewish reckoning of months begins with the month of Nisan, in the Jewish year, Adar is considered the twelfth and final month. This means that laughter is the last of all human traits implying a well-known verse from the chapter on the woman of valor: “She laughs, awaiting the final days.”1 After all the ups and downs of the entire year, we enter a month of healthy and cathartic laughter.

Indeed, laughter is the best medicine and it has the power to turn all of the pain, misery, and difficulty of the past year into goodness and joy. At the end of the year, we find ourselves still standing, thank God, and all of the fears that we harbored in our souls (lest so and so happen…) are transformed and sweetened by our laughter. This transformation is alluded to in one of God’s connotations: “the Fear of Isaac,”2 which literally means “fear [itself] will laugh!” This is the theme of Purim, the holiday that we celebrate in Adar. On Purim we celebrate how all the fears of Haman and his planned genocide of the Jewish people were overturned. The fear turned into laughter. This is why the motto of the month of Adar is “abound with joy.” When there is but a little amount of joy, it tends to remain concealed in the heart. But when there is an abundance of joy, it overflows and is expressed as booming laughter.


(You can read more here.) Chodesh Tov! And may we finally know true joy as we stand before the month of Nisan--the time of our redemption!!

Weather Still Making Headlines

AFGHANISTAN - At least 28 people died and hundreds were trapped through the night in freezing cold and darkness after avalanches closed a mountain highway tunnel in Afghanistan. ...Heavy snowfall and rain also caused floods in the south of the country. Six people have been killed and 10 were missing as a result of floods.

BULGARIA, ROMANIA - Blizzards and snowstorms lashed Romania and Bulgaria, trapping people in their vehicles and cutting power supplies, as a weekend avalanche death toll across Europe rose to 11.

U.S. - Thousands of flights were canceled, schools in New York closed and the U.S. Congress suspended work as a winter storm threatened to drop as much as 20 inches (50.8 centimeters) on parts of the East Coast Tuesday. The storm, the second for the Washington-Baltimore area in less than a week, was accompanied by cold and winds gusting from 35 to 55 mph (56 to 88 kph) in the Northeast. The winds were likely to be intense enough to rival those of a tropical storm. “The words UNPRECEDENTED and paralyzing would describe what is about to happen to the Philadelphia-Baltimore-DC corridor. It’s looking more likely that blizzard or near-blizzard conditions will hit New York City.” Winter storm warnings stretched from Illinois to Massachusetts.

AUSTRALIA - the drought affecting south-west WA since the 1970s is extreme. Now, scientists believe it could be THE WORST DROUGHT IN 750 YEARS,....

Strange Days Ahead

Unexpected things are going to happen when Mashiach and the Geulah come. We need to be prepared for all eventualities. For example, there is a pasuk in Zekharyah (9.6-7) that says: "...I will eliminate the pride of the Philistines (פלשתים) . I will remove his blood from his mouth and his abominations from between his teeth, and then he too will remain for our God. He will be like a master in Judah, and Ekron will be like the Jebusite."

Commentary says: "The Philistines (Palestinians?) will stop their bloodthirsty and idolatrous practices, and join the people of Israel in worshipping God. Then, even the Philistines will be like the leaders of Judah, and Ekron will be as Jewish as the former Jebusite city of Jerusalem."

The following two-part video may offer an explanation for why this will be so...

DANGER AHEAD!

This is the central message of a recent PublicEye e-zine article and you'd better believe it. Despite the fact that we come from opposite political and religious extremes, I wholeheartedly endorse Rachel Tabachnik's article "The New Christian Zionism and the Jews : A Love/Hate Relationship."

She covers everything and everybody and gets it all right in one looooong page. Seriously, it is well worth printing out and taking the time to read and digest this little treasure house of useful information on this subject.

Great job, Rachel!