Questions for the Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Beit Shemesh who are throwing eggs, rocks and spitting

• Why would you move to a place called “House of Sun” if you expected people to be all covered up?
• There are plenty of perfectly nice Ultra Orthodox Jews. Have you considered wearing a different color hat from black so that you can be identified? Since your issue is with women, perhaps pink would be a great color.
• Isn’t Hebrew a sacred language? Then how is it appropriate for you to graffiti buildings?
• What happens if a woman sits in the back of the bus and is checking out your neck? How is that ok?
• Can’t you come up with another name to call the police than Nazis? It’s really distasteful.
• Wouldn’t you rather eat those eggs?  Israeli breakfasts are so good!
• Didn’t “sinat chinam” destroy Israel before? Are you also supplying Iran with nuclear weapons?
• How do you know that your wives are behaving modestly if you are outside harassing people?
• Don’t you have PR Consultants? Right now you are being compared to the Taliban. You need to work on your image.
• Why if you wanted to fight so much didn’t you just join the IDF?
• Aren’t you supposed to be studying?
  
  To learn more:  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4167668,00.html

Guided Meditation

This is not a great time of year for people with depression and anxiety. You are commanded to be happy and joyful, and instead it becomes a mirror into the fact that you are not.

Although I'm pretty happy right now, my mind races. At times, it is comparable to a the track during the Indianapolis 500. There were days and nights during my 20s, where my mind could have fueled NASCAR as well.

Often this racing serves me well. I am a creative thinker and can complete tasks rapidly.

Sometimes though, I end up exhausted and depleted.

For much of my life, I have employed various interventions to cleanse the pallet that is my brain.  I have found that the most helpful "medicine" if I am an acute situation is guided meditation.

This not to be confused with meditation. I cannot do regular breathe in breathe out meditation because for some reason it causes my already burning thoughts to turn into a forest fire.

But guided meditation seems to work for me. Occasionally a negative thought or two will invade the meditation, and so I do my best to get rid of it or them. If they won't go away, I will just complete more guided meditations until they do.

And they do.

Below I am listing guided meditations that I have completed. Now the disclaimer: I have no training in this sort of thing. This is not in place of a psychologist or psychiatrist. This also just might not work for you. Also, if you feel suicidal or that you are going to harm yourself or someone else call 911.

As for the people leading the meditations, I have no clue as to whether they are excellent practitioners or total quacks. I cannot endorse them or their beliefs in any way. I can just endorse the particular guided meditation that has helped me break the negative cycle of ruminative thinking.

Tip: Don't watch the video, just listen. Be seated or lie down in a dark room or at least close your eyes. Be comfortable.

1. http://bit.ly/t419Ll

2. http://bit.ly/vvNzG1

3. http://bit.ly/uyM2ni

4. http://bit.ly/v487n9

5. http://bit.ly/9mMzb6

If there are guided meditations that you recommend, please include them in the comments section. 

Top 10 Reasons Matisyahu Shaved his Beard

10.  He wants to be in Old Spice commercials for the Super Bowl.

9. Waxing hurts.

8. He had a bet with Mitt Romney that the Bears would win on Sunday.

7.  He got sick of being called a Rabbi.

6.  He had put on weight and people thought he was Santa Claus.

5. He just found out that you don’t need a beard to be religious.

4. The hair care products didn’t last long enough to cover the gray.

3. It was itchy.

2. He saw himself on this new Bravo show and thought it was time to rethink how he observes Judaism: 

1.  It's easier to eat a jelly doughnut without having to worry about it getting in your beard. 

Best of luck to you Matisyahu. I like your music with or without facial hair. I especially liked when you sang with the PS22 Chorus. I hope wherever your spiritual journey takes you, it takes you to the recording studio. 

The most drugs ever!

My latest post for OyChicago is on Dr. House, MD and drugs. Prescription Drugs. Check it out here:
http://www.oychicago.com/blog.aspx?id=20441&blogid=142 

Most important lesson to learn from Penn State

The Penn State saga has been terribly depressing on so many levels, and the world’s top writers have already sufficiently written columns condemning the football team’s leadership who at worst raped young boys and at best did the minimum to report it.

Investigations will occur, reports will be written, and fines will be levied and paid. Trials will take place and some of the victims destroyed by one man and those who aided and abetted his crimes may or may not speak, may or may not find closure in the justice system.

It is likely that this will trigger more reports of sexual abuse at other institutions where perpetrators weren’t stopped by those who “could have done more.”

While this calamity will teach lessons to the current leadership of athletic programs, schools, religious institutions and the military, what needs to be addressed is how to teach young people to not be bystanders when they witness wrongdoings.   

We have to teach them why it is important, why it is their duty, to speak out when it is so much easier to stay silent.

What we need is for every able bodied man, woman and child to stand up against abuse from sexual to bullying. High school and college students need to know you aren’t formidable because you can catch a football or make a basket. You aren’t cool because you can down eight beers without puking.

What defines you is that you can take the keys away from a friend who is about to drink and drive; you can report a friend who is bragging about what you know are euphemisms for date rape; and you can confront someone or call the authorities on someone who is bulling.

And of course, if someone’s life is in danger or a child is going to be injured, you cannot take the easy way out and say it’s someone else’s problem.

Facing History and Ourselves has numerous lesson plans and teacher trainings on these topics. However, using the Penn State story, or what happened to Lauren Spierer or resources on bullying, and clarifying the what should be universal value that it is not OK to be a bystander to injustice under any circumstances, is a lesson that can be taught by anyone, anywhere. 

Will you teach it, or let someone else bother with it? 

The struggle that is Yom Kippur

So few liberal Jews actually go to synagogue throughout the year, why do so many go on Yom Kippur? Is it because they really are worried that lightning will strike them if they don’t go, or is it for another reason?

I ask the question as much to others as I do to myself.

While I’m more active in the Jewish Community than most, my presence in synagogue is sporadic, and I struggle to focus on any kind of spirituality. Yom Kippur is a little bit easier because the fasting, I find, mellows my hyperactive soul (although sometimes it can have the reverse effect where all I think about is food).

But it’s also an easier holiday to connect to because of the Al Chet prayer which lists all of the sins, most of which I have committed this year to some degree or another. So standing before God and admitting those sins, asking for forgiveness, I can relate to and get on board with. I am culpable for wrongdoings which I am never held accountable for. This is the day when I am.

 There is one part of the service that is very hard for me to grapple with: On Rosh HaShanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, how many will leave this world and how many will be born into it, who will live and who will die... But penitence, prayer and good deeds can annul the severity of the decree.

The idea that there is a sort of futuristic census book in Heaven doesn’t bother me. But the idea that we have some control over whether or not it happens to us or our loved ones is hard to fathom especially when each year we know someone who dies or some terrible illness or tragedy befalls a wonderful person who lives a life of, if not prayer, then definitely good deeds. Death, tragedy, illness, is any of it preventable? Do we cause it?

 Many people know what happened to the Berry family. The wreck killed both parents and severely injured the couple's two sons, Aaron, 8, and Peter, 9, who were paralyzed from the waist down. Their daughter, Willa, 6, broke an arm and leg. (Houston Chronicle) 

In the article, the Rabbi of their synagogue David Rosen, senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Yeshurun explained: "A terrible tragedy like that is not an act of God, but the tragic act of the one who crossed the line of the highway and crashed into their car," the rabbi said. "We hold that God created a world that is bound together by certain physical laws. Those laws enable us to live and function. Gravity. Physics. And ultimately these laws enable us to have a certain predictability." We know if we drop something it will fall, even if it's a brick from a high rise that then falls on someone and kills them, Rosen said. "Those are accidents and not events that were planned by God," he said. "We don't believe God singled out the Berrys any more than he singled out a poor child to be born with a birth defect. God doesn't cause bad things to happen, but God is the strength within us to endure what happens and causes others to embrace us and love us."

 I keep reading that and liking the interpretation, but it doesn't total explain what we say, “penitence, prayer and good deeds can annul the severity of the decree.”

I guess one who goes to synagogue every year has to focus on the word “can” and not “will.”

We also must shift the focus to the fact that we control so little of what can happen to us, but we do control so much of what does happen. Much of our destiny is in our hands, and we repent for the sins that ruin our full potential to live as good human beings.

I’ve had this quote in my office from Rabbi Wolpe of the Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, …”Shall we foster disharmony or peace? Banality of beauty? Will the changes we contemplate for the New Year contribute to the worthiness and holiness of our lives? That is our task; may it prove to be our destiny.”

My goal for this year is to make changes that “contribute to the worthiness and holiness” of my own life and the lives of others around me.

No matter how hard it is.

Have a meaningful Yom Kippur.

Here is a short film review I wrote for the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema on The Matchmaker.