Some Reign Must Fall?

The purpose of this blog is to bring some clement weather to the Shabbat table....please print and share.

It is still possible to get that tax deduction for 2021 with a charitable donation to support our educational mission. Or shop at Amazon using http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog and our other projects by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to thousands of dollars - at no cost to you.

Quick trivia question for your table - What does 95-year-old Queen Elizabeth and the Pharaoh of Egypt (in the Passover story) have in common?

A: They're both called "Mummy". (Seriously - that's actually what her children call her.)

Here's how it happened (the Queen part, not the Mummy part):

On February 6, 1952, King Albert Frederick Arthur George (George VI) died in his sleep. He was only 56. (He had been a heavy smoker and suffered from lung cancer and related infirmities.)

On the Hebrew calendar, that was the 10th of Shevat, just about 70 years ago.

In addition to being the King of England, Scotland, Wales and beyond, he was the last Emperor of India.

At the moment of his last breath, his daughter Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II.

Elizabeth, heading Down Under, immediately returned to London to plan her coronation.

It's not every day that a person gets coronated, especially not as Head of the British Commonwealth, so naturally she wanted it to be well planned. 

The planning took more than a year and much of it was guided by tradition, going back to King Arthur I'm sure. 

But one of the hardest decisions to make was the date. Her Majesty gathered the most expert British meteorologists to determine the ideal date for the Coronation. They advised her that June 2 would offer the very best odds of fair weather: based on hundreds of years of records, they assured her that there her that a June 2 coronation was almost certain to be blessed with blue skies.

Ahh... the pageantry! The pomp and circumstance! The ornaments! The horses! And it was broadcast around the world on the new fangled television. 

The latter decision displeased Churchill. He told the House of Commons, "It would be unfitting that the whole ceremony, not only in its secular but also in its religious and spiritual aspects, should be presented as if it were a theatrical performance."

Alas, perhaps in his honor (or perhaps not) - it rained!

Now, you might say how unfortunate for her that it rained on her parade! That's not how these fairy-tale moments are supposed to go.

So here's a question for your table: In what way might that rainfall have been the very best thing that could have happened to Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor on her coronation day?


Shabbat Shalom


PS - Speaking of milestones, here are 10 ways to hear this week's 10th Episode of our weekly 7-minute Body&Soul podcast, "It's a Mitzvah to Eat ______" ... 

iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web.
 

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Baby With the Bath Water?

The purpose of this blog is for the Shabbat table to improve with age....please print and share...

This week's 7-minute podcast is below....you 

This is a sequel to last week's "What if you knew of the day of your death?"

Do you remember Bến Tre?

That's the Vietnamese village on the Mekong River nearly wiped out by American bombing in February, 1968, after which a USAF Major Chester Brown told AP reporter Peter Arnett: 

"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it."

(The people of Bến Tre seem to harbor neither appreciation for the favor nor malice as they don't even mention the event on their website.)

It sounds absurd, and maybe it is . . . . but sometimes it could be true, right?

Sometimes don't you have to destroy the old in order to build the new?

In order for a plant to sprout, doesn't a seed need to disintegrate?

In order for redemption to occur, doesn't bondage need to precede it?

How about people? Does the next generation need - even long for - the passing of the old?

Think of the poor Prince of Wales.

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty the youth of old age. - Victor Hugo
You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old. - George Burns
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. - Mark Twain
Youth is wasted on the young. - George Bernard Shaw
 

Question for your table:

True, most things fall apart; but does anything actually improve with age?

The Talmud notes two: wine and olive oil. 

Wine symbolizes wisdom and olive oil symbolizes the spirit.

Even if the elders tell you to destroy, and the youngsters tell you to build, you should destroy and not build, for the ‘destruction’ of older people is really building, and the ‘building’ of young people is really destruction. - Talmud

Yesterday someone young (or is he old?) told me that he isn't very motivated by long-term benefits of healthy daily living: "If it doesn't make me feel better right now, then I'm not too motivated to worry about it."

Is he praiseworthy for living in the moment? Or is he unwise for not planning for the future?


Shabbat Shalom



PS - This week's podcast is "Do You Guys Have Heaven?"
There are ten ways to hear it:

iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web.

PS - It's still possible to get that tax deduction for 2021 with a charitable donation to support our educational mission. And it's always possible to shop at Amazon with http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

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What if You Knew the Day of Your Death?

  The purpose of this blog is to enter each Shabbat as if it were the last....please print and share...

(Have you heard this week's 6-minute podcast yet? See below….)
 

I feel like just leaving that title as your table-talk question of the week and ending right here.

But let's flush it out with a story.

I'm guessing that you never heard of Abraham de Moivre (1667-1754).

First, he was a Huguenot, who were allegedly descended from Spanish Jews. (See also this.)

Second, he was a ground-breaking mathematician who fled the religious persecutions of Louix XIV (the "Sun King") and befriended Isaac Newton among others. His legacy includes a seminal work on probability theory.

(He understood probability so well that earned a living consulting for London gamblers.)

So according to legend, as he grew older, he became lethargic and needed longer sleeping hours. He noted that he was sleeping an extra 15 minutes each night and estimated that when the sleep time reached 24 hours, he would die, which should occur on November 27, 1754 - and it did.

De Moivre wasn't the only one (Mark Twain and a few others have done so). 

Maybe that's the power of suggestion?

But it still is a good question for the table.

Would you want to know the date of your death in advance? (And if not the day, perhaps the hour?)
What would you do if you did?
Would it affect how you eat?
Would it affect how you sleep?
Would it affect how you work?
Would it affect how you play?
Would you do more stargazing?
Would you try to read only good news?


Shabbat Shalom


PS - This week's podcast is "How to Change a Habit"
There are ten ways to hear it:

iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web.

PS - When shopping at Amazon, please use http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

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How's Your Alignment?

Please print this post and turn the Friday night journey into an adventure....

Did you hear this week's 8-minute podcast? See below….
Sending condolences to Tova NessAiver and family on the loss of their mother/grandmother, and Happy Birthday shoutouts to Moriel and DJ.
 

Did you hear this week's 5-minute podcast? See below....

How's Your Alignment?

Try asking this question at your table:

Did you ever dream of traveling to the Moon or Mars or Saturn (or more likely Titan)? 

Tonight is a great night to dream that dream.

This evening, if you have clear sky, find the moon.

Down to the right (towards four o'clock) look for three bright stars - that's Jupiter, Saturn and Venus. 

If you have binoculars or a small telescope (and a tripod) check out Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings.

Questions for your table: 

Which of those planets is closest to us? Which is farthest? How close, how far?

[moon: 380,000 km, Venus 55,000,000 km, Jupiter 789,000,000 km, Saturn 1,500,000,000 km]

That means that seeing Saturn is seeing sunlight that traveled about three hours round-trip from the sun, bounced off the planet then came all the way back to your eyeballs. 

I know there are some people (including our daughter) who consider a three-hour drive to New Jersey for Shabbat no big deal, but for me personally, if anyone proposes a trip more than an hour or so I suddenly and unapologetically turn into a homebody. We know people who seem to make the New Jersey or New York trip every other weekend so maybe some people are just better cut out for it. But unless you're going to pacify the kids with a video how do you survive confined a steel box with your family for three or four hours?

I almost think a long flight would be easier - at least you can sleep. (Unless you're one of those people who can't sleep on airplanes, in which case you should click on the above image! And/or bring along the game I mentioned last week.)

Now what if your prodigal daughter disappeared for 10 or 20 years and then you found out she had secretly moved to the Moon? And that CEO of the Moon Elon Musk had made her Queen of the Moon? And then she sends you a dire warning that Global Warming and China and Russia and all that are going to get so bad, would you please join her on the Moon - "Please pack up everything, and move here ASAP?"?

Question for your table: Would you sell your house and go?


Hope you enjoy this week's 7-minute Torah Health & Fitness podcast (see below),

and Shabbat Shalom


Podcast details:

The Doctor's ViewDr. Grove tells us why taking care of your health NOW is so important, what's the number one habit to change, why it's so hard, and why you should never give up.

There are ten ways to hear it:

iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web.

PS - When shopping at Amazon, please use http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

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Outrageous Answers to Honest Questions

Please print this email and provoke some outrageous honesty at Friday night dinner table....
Did you hear this week's 5-minute podcast? See below….  

 

Did you hear this week's 5-minute podcast? See below....

Outrageous Answers to Honest Questions

I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that after years of yawners, we've finally found a new family game that EVERYONE enjoys, all ages and personality types.

It's called TBH: The Game of Honest Answers to Outrageous Questions

You take turns asking outrageous yes-or-no questions and then guessing how everyone else would answer.

Here's the kind of question the game uses so you can test it at the Shabbat table:

A spooky person gives you a crystal and tells you that you will have a good fortune as long as you keep the crystal. Ten minutes later, someone offers you a lot of money for it. Would you sell the crystal?

Less fortunate — this is the bad news of the week — are those who might be planning a trip to Israel. This week, for the second time in your lifetime (and mine), you and I cannot on a whim buy a ticket and travel to Israel.

Exceptions are made for student visas if you do not have an Israeli passport or visa, you may not travel to the Holy Land.

Exceptions are made for certain urgent events, such as a family wedding.

But mere tourism? No way. 

We're so sorry, you 7,000 licensed Israeli tour guides, and multiples of that of bus drivers and other service providers. Those 4,000,0000 tourists support a $2,000,000,000 slice of the economy.

The government in its wisdom created an "Exceptions Committee" who have granted permits for weddings (immediate family only), bar/bat mitzvahs and medical emergencies.

And.... the Miss Universe pageant in Eilat.

You're a lowly person who merely wants to walk four steps in the Holy Land? Door's closed.

You're a beauty pageant contestant? Door's open.

You're some other VIP? Door's open.

2 questions for your table:

Would you say that this decision occurring during Channukah is ironic?
Did the Exceptions Committee make the right decision?


Hope you enjoy this week's 5-minute podcast (see below),

and Happy Channukah,

and Shabbat Shalom


Podcast details:

Know Thyself: The Foundation of Weight LossWhether you're Jewish or Greek, most people would either like to lose weight or not gain weight - but it's really hard. Jewish wisdom offers two practical tools to lay the foundation of a healthy body weight.

There are ten ways to hear it:

iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web (if you use the latter, scroll down to see all the episodes).

PS - When shopping at Amazon, please use http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

Appreciated this Table Talk? Like it, tweet it, forward it....

Thanks-Jew-Giving

Please print this post and bring some hodu to the dinner table, whether today or tomorrow or anytime..
You know that we're down to days before Hannukah?  Hannuka gifts on Amazon.

Did you hear this week's 7-minute podcast, "The Spirituality of Sugar"...? Details below.

Question for your Thanksgiving table – do you remember how last year Columbus had become so controversial? How come nobody is talking about that today?

Tradition?

Well, the tradition of this email is to pull out, dust off and rejewvenate our annual Hodu message.

Here are a few questions to stump everyone at the table.

Try this one first: Why turkey?

Serious question: Why do Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving?

(Why does it seem like a religious duty, like matzah on Pesach.)

If anyone answers, "They ate turkey so we have to eat turkey," that would be incorrect.

In fact, they would be wrong on 2 counts.

First of all, would it really be so bad to have a Thanksgiving pizza? Or Thanksgiving hamburgers? Or a red beans and rice Thanksgiving? How about a Chinese Thanksgiving? Curry Thanksgiving, anyone? Do vegetarians do Thanksgiving? 

(I know I'm not the first to ask this question, but it seems far from resolved.)

Second, they probably didn't eat much turkey.

At that original Thanksgiving in 1621, they apparently ate mostly venison.

I know, shocking, right?

Let's go back in time.

Imagine you are on the boat with Columbus.

(Maybe you're even a Jewish refugee from the Spanish Inquisition.)

PS - If you'd like to know about the Jews who sailed with Columbus, send me an email.

Of course, you and your geographically-challenged buddies think you're in Asia.

It's a strange world! Strange people, fauna and flora.

And you see this funky chicken.

The Wampanoag Indians call it neyhom.

What do you, O Spanish sailor, call it?

Remember, it looks vaguely like a chicken and you think you're in India, so naturally you call it "Indian chicken."

Are you with me so far?

French explorers agree that it looks like a chicken and they call poulet d'Inde (Indian chicken), later shortened to dinde (pronounced "dand").

English settlers think it looks more like a Turkey pheasant than a chicken, so they call the bird turkey.

Jewish explorers side with the French and call it tarnegol hodu — "Hindu chicken" — later shortened to hodu.

What's interesting for us is that the Hebrew word HODU also just happens to mean "give thanks" (in the imperative mood for all the grammarphiles out there).

So back to our main question for your table: What food should you eat on Hodu Day?

(Hodu, of course.)

Now try asking somebody Jewish at the table this stumper:

You're Jewish, right? Can you explain what "Jewish" means?

Forget the religious or cultural meaning; we want to know the etymology of "Jewish".

It means something like, "a state of being thankful". 

Ergo, if you're living up to the name "Jewish" then you are....

....living in a state of being thankful.

Let that sink in before asking the next question: How often?

(Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day?)

That could be a lot of hodu to stuff yourself with.

Final question for the table: How do you do hodu?

Happy Hodu-Day and

Which may be the same as saying...

Shabbat Shalom

PS - the links above are mostly very cool, check them out!


Podcast details: there are ten ways to hear it (it's only 7 minutes this week; please send me your feedback):

iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web.

PS - When shopping at Amazon, please use http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

Appreciated this Table Talk? Like it, tweet it, forward it....


  

Sir Nick-a-Lot

 

Please print this post and create some heroism at Friday night dinner table....
Are you counting the days to Hannukah?  Hannuka gifts on Amazon.

Did you hear this week's 8-minute podcast, "2 Health Tips...that may save your life"...? Details below.

Last week's tribute to a Jewish hero challenged your table to consider the definition of a moral compass.

This week another latter-day Jewish hero steps up to the plate.

Sir Nicholas Winton organized the rescue of 669 children destined for Nazi concentration camps. 

(He died in 2015 at age 106.)

And he kept his story secret for fifty years. Not even his wife knew about it, until she discovered an album in their attic with the names and photos of the children he rescued.

He didn't seek any attention, but he was gracious enough to allow his story to be told. Watch this.

Here's the gist of his heroism:

It was not a straightforward matter: the British bureaucracy was complacent and slow, believing there was no urgency as war was deemed unlikely, and the government demanded bonds of £50 – no small sum in those days – to sponsor the children. The arrangements were, nevertheless, better than those of countries such as the US and Australia, to whom Winton appealed in vain. “If America had only agreed to take them too, I could have saved at least 2,000 more,” he said.

Frustrated by the slowness of the British authorities, Winton made newspaper appeals and personally organised the children’s placements, with no time for checking suitability or haggling over who should go where. As the situation in Czechoslovakia grew more desperate following the German occupation of the entire country in March 1939, he took to forging the Home Office entry permits. That summer eight rail transports were conducted. A ninth Kindertransport, which was due to leave on 1 September 1939 with 250 more children, was cancelled by the Germans, and most of those who would have been on board were subsequently transported to concentration camps. Nevertheless, Winton and his colleagues had saved at least 664 children: 561 of them Jewish, 52 Unitarians, 34 Catholics and 17 others.

Here's a detailed story about how he pulled it off.

Britain's Chief Rabbi Mirvis said:

"He lived to see thousands of descendants of those whose lives he saved who were proud to call themselves members of his family, and who were inspired by his example to undertake outstanding charitable, humanitarian and educational initiatives. I knew him to be a gentleman of unfailing old-world courtesy, with a warm heart and a ready self-deprecating wit."

Question for your table: What's greater - his rescue of the 669 children, or his humility?


Enjoy the podcast and Shabbat Shalom


Podcast details: there are ten ways to hear it:

iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web (if you use the latter, scroll down to see all the episodes).

PS - When shopping at Amazon, please use http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

Appreciated this Table Talk? Like it, tweet it, forward it....


  

Humane Society?

Please print this blog and help it achieve its purpose - to keep business open at the Friday night dinner table...

Are you counting the days to Hannukah? Hannuka gifts on Amazon.

Happy birthday shout-out to Amy in West Hartford!

Did you hear this week's 8-minute podcast, "Your Dream Car"...? Details below.

After three weeks of space tales, here's something more down to earth for your Shabbat table.

We were saddened to learn this week of the death of Aaron Feuerstein at age 95.

Does the name ring a bell?

Imagine you're the 3rd-generation owner of a successful textile factory that employs 3,000 Americans.

One night, a boiler explodes, engulfing the factory in flames and burning it to the ground.

Is it time to move operations overseas where labor is much cheaper? Is it time to retire (let's imagine you're 70-years-old). 

This is the question for your table: What would you do?

If your name is Aaron Feuerstein, you would continue to pay your 3,000 employees after the factory burned down in 1995.

In December 1995, shortly after Malden Mills invested millions of dollars into new equipment and research into creating Polarfleece out of recycled materials. A fire destroyed the factory complex and left all of the employees out of work. At the age of 70, Aaron Feuerstein could have easily pocketing insurance money, closed up shop and retire. He also could have followed the trend of other large corporations and relocated overseas. Instead, Feuerstein decided to rebuild the factory right where it had stood and kept the jobless employees paid at full salary during the downtime (at a cost of $1.5 million per week). He also pledged to keep their family’s benefits for at least 3 months.

Feuerstein - the Mensch of Malden Mills - said that his moral compass came from studying the Talmud.

(By the way, when he reopened the factory a year later, he enjoyed 95% customer and employee retention and business increased 40%. However, the debt incurred by these events forced him eventually to sell the business.)

“I think it was a wise business decision, but that isn’t why I did it. I did it because it was the right thing to do." - Feuerstein

Question for your table: What's a moral compass?


Enjoy the podcast and Shabbat Shalom

PS - Here's a moving tribute to Feuerstein.

Podcast details: there are ten ways to hear it:
iTunes/iPhone … YidPod … Spotify … Google Podcasts … Pocketcasts … Stitcher … Podbean … Amazon Podcasts … RSS … or just on the web (if you use the latter, scroll down to see all the episodes).

PS - When shopping at Amazon, please use http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

Appreciated this Table Talk? Like it, tweet it, forward it....{VR_SOCIAL_SHARING}

Zero-G Whiz...

The purpose of this blog is to defy gravity at the Friday night dinner table. Please print and share...
This week's podcast info below.
Are you counting the days to Hannukah?  Hannuka gifts on Amazon.

Believe me, it's not like I'm looking for these space stories.

They are just, well, falling into my proverbial lap.

First we had the meteorite landing on a grandmother's pillow in the middle of the night and then the city-destroying asteroids coming too-close-for-comfort (and they're still coming).

So maybe you're wondering if you'd be better off out there in space than on this fragile blue spaceship we call Earth?

Maybe you've fantasized about going to Mars one day? Or beyond?

Well, we unfortunately learned this week that in addition to weakened muscles and bones — I mean severely weakened — a newly discovered side effect of zero gravity is apparently brain damage.

Um.... no thanks.

(Unless of course the Chinese figure out how to make artificial gravity.)

In the meantime, ask everyone at the table if they know....

• Among the many things that the Earth's atmosphere does for you, we all know it stops small meteors from hitting us (they burn up and become shooting stars) - but how many every day??? [about a million]

• You've probably heard the idea that the tropical rain forests (especially the Amazon) are like massive barely-understood pharmacies with countless plants that may contain cures to many diseases - but what percentage of the rainforest species have been studied? [less than 1%]

• Some of the species in the Amazon occur in tiny areas of just a few acres; so if you destroy even a few acres, you may be wiping out entire species...what's the current rate of destruction? [1.5 acres per second, 137 species per day]

• The tires on our cars contain a mixture of rubber, plastic, and other materials; so that wearing down tire tread means shedding microplastics into the environment; when it rains, guess where those tiny bits of plastic go? Guess what percentage of the tires is plastic? [40%]

These are just some random Earth-appreciation thoughts.

So here's two questions for your table: 

When is the last time that you learned or experienced something about Planet Earth that made you say, "Wow!"?

Imagine you traveled to another planet and discovered intelligent creatures there and you managed to learn their language. They would be of course very interested in learning about the Earth. What would you tell them? 

Shabbat Shalom


PS - Regarding the new podcast:

There are eight ways to hear it:

iTunes podcasts ... Spotify podcasts ... Google podcasts ... Sticher podcasts ...
 Podbean podcasts ... Amazon music podcasts ... Pocketcasts ... Yidpod

This week's 8-minute episode is called "Betselem or Beheima?"


PS - When shopping at Amazon, please use http://smile.amazon.com and support this blog by choosing Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your designated charity. Amazon will donate 0.5% of your purchases - it doesn't sound like much, but if everyone reading this did so, that would translate to hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

Appreciated this Table Talk? Like it, tweet it, forward it....