Please see my new poem in The Times of Israel called “Mutual and Eternal Love.”
Like Abraham, we are tested to do “what is right and just,” and history is our witness.
For “we are dust and will return to dust,” but our souls will rise to heaven and be reunited with our everlasting, loving Father.
(Also, please remember to listen to the Jewish music video as you read the poetry.)
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Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “Monsters and Humans.”
Ultimately, the litmus test is whether there is a human in that being. If there is that spark of G-d, that soul, that inner conscience weighing right and wrong, that fear and love of G-d and his creations driving decision-making, then there is still hope for that person as well as for mankind.
However, if we are dealing with those who are sadistic animals in human form, then we must be as soldiers of Hashem, taking a firm stand and decisive action, because true evil does not remain dormant for long.
(Source Photo: Aneesh Ans; https://www.pexels.com/photo/painted-face-of-person-portrait-photo-1211966/)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “Death Con NEVER AGAIN.”
KanyeWest – I hope that you visit Auschwitz and think deeply about the hurtful, hateful anti-Semitic words that you said. Hopefully, you can change your rhetoric to feelings and words of love and brotherhood.
(Credit Photo: Adapted by Andy Blumenthal from public domain photo; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#/media/File:Kanye_West_at_the_2009_Tribeca_Film_Festival_(cropped).jpg
Please see my article in The Times of Israel called “The Art of Friendship.”
My hope and prayer is that this is just a small microcosm of friendship and peace that can spread in all communities, societies, nations, and lands, so that we are no longer black or white, Jew, Muslim, or Christian, or any other divisive label, but rather that we are all children of G-d, and plain and simple, friends.
(Credit Photos: Andy and Dossy Blumenthal)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “Surviving Marriage Meshugas.”
At the end of the day, like all things, marriage is partially what you make of it and how hard you work at it. Remember, bringing two people together, even two halves of the same whole, can be challenging and requires understanding and compromise.
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “The Irreligious Religious.”
If some “religious” people do the wrong thing, disrespect their fellow Jews, hate on them, curse them, defile their prayers, that doesn’t mean they are really religious. Rather to the contrary — they are the irreligious religious!
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “Never Truly Alone.”
Alone, in the quiet.
There is pain, suffering, and loss.
Anxiety and depression.
But wait, there is also faith.
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “Testing Our Faith.”
In short, I think it’s healthy for us as human beings to ask questions, even the most difficult questions of why. We need to make sense of our world and the context in which we live. Questions like: Why do good people at times experience horrible loss and suffering? Why do atheists and sinners often seem to excel and succeed (my wife says, perhaps they sold their soul to the devil!)?
While asking why to search for G-d and try to understand His ways is human, at the same time, we as mere mortal human beings can not ever fully know G-d’s ways or His plan for us. In short, Mendel, the Chabad rabbi, said today, don’t get fixated on the why. Instead focus on what you can do to make the world better. Actions speak louder than words.
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “Overcoming The Inquisitor.”
While anti-Semitism and persecution for being Jews is horrible and should never happen, in a sort of obscene and ironic way, it ends up making us stronger as Jews. In short, testing our faith, ends up solidifying our faith!
No one likes adversity, suffering, or persecution, and G-d only knows that we as Jews have known our deeply painful share. Yet whether from Egyptian slavery to the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and more, it’s our test as Jews to survive, and to learn and grow from it our faith in Hashem.
Yes, these things are far easier said than done, but when we face these terrible events, we must try with all our might to overcome them, heroically and faithfully.
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “Finding Our Religion.”
The contrast between me being Jewish and the environment that was as broad as the United Nations (actually only a few blocks away), helped me to find myself and to build my personal Jewish identity. So, I think that for those Jews that are afraid for their children to leave the confines of the home, their “shtetl” neighborhood, and the local yeshiva, because they are afraid of the “foreign” (goyish) influences, I think that while that may be right for some Jews possibly, it is definitely not right for all of us.
In a sense, the redemption of the Jewish people and exodus was so much greater a miracle by Moshe becoming this great Jewish leader from within the fires of the Egyptian paganism at the time. Moshe’s rejectionism of Egyptian power and culture used for evil to enslave and hurt others was a powerful choice of good over evil and a message to Pharaoh and his household that despite all his wealth, strength, and influence, that Pharaoh and Egypt would fall before the hand of the true, Almighty G-d of Israel. Similarly, I think the message for us is that the final redemption for us and the world will come initially from “galut” (outside of Israel) from the cauldron of “Edom” (the Roman Empire and Western civilization) and all the materialist and pleasurable freedoms and allures thereof.
(Credit Painting: Dossy Blumenthal)
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