There were once three brothers who were travelling along a lonely, winding road at twilight... when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure... And Death spoke to them... and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him....
The oldest brother, who was a combatative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for is owner... So Death crossed to an elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the oldest brother.
Then the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from death. So Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead...
The youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers... so he asked for something that would enable him to go forth... without being followed by Death. So Death, most unwillingly, handed over his own Cloak of invisibility."
'Would it be OK if we came in?' asked Harry. 'There's something we'd like to ask you.'We find out later that Xenophilius was in fact in a huge dilemma.
'I ... I"m not sure that's advisable,' wispered Xenophilius. He swallowed and cast a quick look around the garden. 'Rather a shock ... my word ... I ... I'm afraid I don't really think I ought to -'
...
His good eye moved again to Harry's scar. He seemed simultaneously terrified and mesmerised... He kept swallowing, his eyes darting between the three of them. Harry had the impression that he was undergoing some painful internal struggle.
To the Editor:
If the flotilla activists truly wanted to bring peaceful supplies to Gaza, they would have accepted the Israeli military’s offer to relay all supplies to Gaza after checking them for weapons or explosives. But the flotilla activists did not accept the offer.
If the flotilla activists truly wanted to promote peace, they would have accepted the offer of the parents of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive, to pressure the Israeli government to let the flotilla through, in return for the flotilla activists pressuring Hamas to allow letters and food packages to be delivered to Gilad Shalit. But the flotilla activists did not accept this offer either.
And if the flotilla activists really wanted to stop the three-year-old Israeli blockade of Gaza, they would push Hamas to stop the rockets that caused the blockade to be imposed. Then Gazans could return to the freedom that they had immediately after the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, when many hoped peace was on the horizon.
When activists can truly work for peace, maybe peace will come.
Bruce Dov Krulwich
Beit Shemesh, Israel, June 1, 2010
New York (CNN) -- As the story goes, God spent six days creating the world and then rested on the seventh day. He told the Jewish people to always rest on the seventh day of each week, which was to become known as the Sabbath for them for eternity.
This was before Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerries and iPhones, of course. Adam and Eve didn't have friends who would get upset if texts weren't returned promptly, parents who wanted to know where their children were all the time or bosses who had complete access to their employees via work-issued devices. There is no excuse good enough to ignore the boss, even on a weekend.
But one group is trying to take back the Sabbath: Reboot -- a nonprofit organization aimed at reinventing the traditions and rituals of Judaism for today's secular Jews.
Composed of Internet entrepreneurs, creators of award-winning television shows, community organizers and nonprofit leaders, these "Rebooters" are people who typically have their cell phones glued to their palms. Several of them go so far as to say they have an addiction to their devices.
But this weekend they will be observing 24 hours of freedom from their devices: a National Day of Unplugging lasting from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-schwartz/disconnect-to-connect_b_506518.html
Here's a novel notion, grounded in science: Human beings aren't meant to operate like computers; continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time, running multiple programs at the same time.
Instead, we're designed to pulse - to move rhythmically between spending and renewing energy. But we don't.
For the next 24 hours, beginning at dusk tonight, a group called Reboot Inc. is inviting all of us to participate in a National Day of Unplugging. For one day, they're asking us to turn off our email, resist checking Facebook, and reconnect instead with our families, our friends and most of all, with ourselves.
You're connected right now, of course. How many windows do you have open on your computer? Or perhaps you're reading this on your iPhone? When was
the last time you checked email, updated your status on Facebook or watched a YouTube video?When was the last time you truly unplugged for more than two or three hours, not counting sleep?
We have too many ways to communicate with each other, too easily, about too little. The consequence is that we live in a world of utterly fractured attention.
The more hours we spend plugged in, without real renewal, the more we begin to default reflexively into behaviors that reduce our effectiveness and take a pernicious toll on others: impatience, frustration, anxiety and distraction.
Because so many of us are forever anticipating the next electronic communication - and responding with Pavlovian predictability - we're increasingly unable to invest our singularly absorbed attention or energy in any one person or activity.
Ironically, all this back and forth often leaves us feeling emptier and less connected. Tweeting and texting may keep us up to date, but they're a poor substitute for real connection.
It isn't only during the weekends that we need to unplug. Staying constantly connected takes a toll on our productivity and satisfaction at work, too. How much more could you get done if you turned off your email at certain times and stopped updating facebook and twitter so often?
Reboot's call to unplug for a day is plainly just a first step, but it's also a terrific opportunity to see how it feels to utterly eliminate the noise of technology from your life.
I am typing fast because at sundown (7:20 p.m.), I plan to join in the first National Day of Unplugging and turn my electronic devices off until sundown Saturday. The effort, reported in The New York Times and elsewhere, is the brainchild of Reboot, a nonprofit organization of Jewish professionals who want to adapt the concept of Sabbath traditions to the digital age.
Reboot home page: http://rebooters.net/
Other articles:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inthemission/detail?entry_id=59548
"Why couldn't Quirrell touch me?" [Harry asked].
[Dumbeldore answered] "Your mother died trying to save you. If there is one
thing Voldemort can't understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love
as powerful as your mother's leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible
sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is
gone, will give us some protection forever." (Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone, chapter 17)
"You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill
him. His mother died in the attempt to save him - and unwittingly provided
him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen ... I could not touch the
boy.
...
His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice ... this is
old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it ...."
(Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, chapter 33)
We are pleased to announce the 1st Annual Beit Shemesh
Authors’ Fair
In memory of Charles H. Bendheim
To be held on:
Thursday 10th December 2009
Starting at 7.30pm
Menorat Maor Shul
Nachal Hamaor, Ramat Beit Shemesh
This will be a wonderful opportunity to meet
with local authors and buy their works.
Come meet:
Arthur C. Clarke, a science fiction writer from the golden age of the 1950 and 60's formulated the following three laws:
1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Being a science fiction fan, that last one about technology and magic has followed me all through my life. The past few years have been full of magic. Can you imaging living at the time of Avraham. If you suffered from kidney disease, you would probably never know it, until one day, you fell ill and within a few days, died from blood poisoning. One thing about kidney disease is that it is degenerative. Past a certain point, kidneys do not heal. You don't get better.
Rav Elyashiv recently ruled that it is forbidden to pray for a deathly ill person to be healed. The problem is that are not supposed to pray for miracles. We can hope for miracles, but we have no right to beseach God to change the natural laws. We can pray that there is a mistaken diagnosis; that a cure will be found, or for the sick person to have a better quality of life. But, you cannot ask for a degenerative disease to suddenly go away.
How blessed are we to live in a time where doctors can identify kidney disease, and can retard the progress of the disease. This would have been magical only 100 years ago, not to mention how foreign the concept of a diagnosis would have been at the time of Noach or Avraham.
Can you imaging explaining to an Egyptian that this team of people all dressed up in masks and gloves were going to remove a piece of a living person (without killing them), and then they would put that piece into someone else; the end result being two healthy people. Is there anything more magical or mystical?
The fact that we understand something about medicine and science does not preclude God's existence. The Rambam might say that God has blessed our whole generation with knowledge that extends our lives and treats our illnesses. The timing is the miracle. It came at just the right time to save .... Modern medication is miraculous. Like prayer, I don't need to know how it works, only that somehow, it does. Perhaps it is a placebo effect, perhaps is does something chemical, but whatever the scientific explanation, it looks like magic to me.
I want to thank God and the people in this room for all the miraculous events that have impacted us these past few years. In this room, we have social workers who can help alleviate pain and suffering; engineers, scientists, and educated professionals who know and understand things that would be clearly miraculous if you could take that knowledge back to the time of the bible. Being able to gather this knowledge, even for a family event would have taken months of travel and severe hardship during the time of the gemara.
To you, my friends and family, I say, Y'asher Koach. May you continue to be strong, to spread your knowledge and to use it for God's purposes.
To Hillel, I say, learn from these people. Knowledge is power to change the world for you and for others. Collect this knowledge. Never forget how lucky you are to live in times such as these. Don't waste that opportunity by treating it all like someone else’s magic.