Friday June 8th-Saturday June 9th

Select option below to be taken to Payment page:
$175 Per person with home hospitality
$135 Per person without home hospitality
$60 Per person for Friday night services and dinner
$60 Per person for Saturday services and lunch
$35 Per person for Seudah Shlisheet

Check in 6/8 at the Madison Jackson Building from 4:00-6:30pm
371 Madison Street
Snacks & Refreshing Drinks will be provided

Step Up For Israel: A 5-Week Film-Based Activism Workshop

Step Up For Israel is an international, grassroots Israel education campaign using award-winning films and practical activism to create broad awareness of the growing anti-Israel movement while motivating young adults to step up for Israel.

Five Wednesdays: June 6, 13, 20, 27, July 11
7pm Light Dinner
7:30 Film/Program

REGISTER HERE (links to jspace website)

Cost: $36 for series till Friday, June till 5pm, Tues. 6/5; $40 thereafter
FIRST 20 SPACES: $25
Per Evening: $10

WK1: Crossing the Line: The Intifada Comes to Campus
WK2: Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference
WK3: Israel and the West: Values and Myths
WK4: Creation of a State
WK5: Speak Up for Israel: Simple and Effective How To’s

Campaign Chairs: Professor Alan Dershowitz and former Ambassador Dore Gold

“The nursing home staff found Dad unconscious.  He’s at the hospital and they don’t know his status yet.”

My father has had arguably a poor quality of life for some time: at 81, he’s had severely bent posture and reduced mobility for many years, he’s blind, and has been bed-ridden for 10 months.  Though his nursing home is a well-run and attentive facility, he hates it.

Nonetheless, when I obtained Power of Attorney for him several years ago, he affirmed his desire that doctors prolong his life even after he’s unconscious.  Days prior to his being hospitalized, he affirmed the same.

It was jarring, then, while my father was still unconscious and dependent on a ventilator and feeding tube, to hear the following comments from a hospital nurse and two separate doctors:

“Your father’s health is failing and is likely to get worse. Perhaps we can clarify with the nursing home what he meant when he requested intervention?”

“What many families do is arrange to gather at a predetermined time; we will supply him with strong pain relief, remove the support to see if he’s able to function on his own, and if not, we won’t replace it.”

It’s easy to doubt one’s self.  As I looked at the tubes in his mouth and nose and the hospital gloves over his hands to prevent his moving them, I wondered, am I being cruel?  Jewish law says that we are obligated to prolong life, even life that likely won’t be healed, as long as it doesn’t entail significant pain – even life deemed “low quality.”  And he wanted to live.

Thank G-d, the staff provided excellent care.  He regained consciousness and is off the breathing tube.  His first words were not, “Don’t let me go through that again,” but, “I’m not going back to the nursing home.”

I can’t stand in the shoes of another whose preference is to end his/her life, but I pray I have the resolve of my father to live. Shabbat Shalom, Henry Harris

PS – Join us: This Monday: Free Books & Frozen Drinks This Wednesday: Mystical Sparks

Plus, check out the video recording of Monday night’s Weekly Torah-tainment class “The Omer: Empathize or Die”:

Check out the video recording of Monday night’s Jacobs’ Ladder class “Beastie Beliefs: Jews, Buddhists and Adam Yauch”:

Wissotzky Raises a Cup to The Jewish Mother
“Tribute to The Jewish Mother” video is just in time for Mother’s Day.

Wissotzky has released a “Tribute to the Jewish Mother” video on Youtube. The Israeli company hired Brooklyn-based marketing firm The PTex Group to create the campaign, and Shmuel Hoffman of Hoffman Productions produced the video. Hoffman chose Charlie Harary to play the father in the video, and Michal Weinstein to play the mother. Hoffman’s own son, and Weinstein’s kids play the children in the video.

Wissotzky Tea, which was founded in Moscow in 1849, is now headquartered in Tel Aviv, and is still run by the Wissotzky family. They reached out to the PTex Group, which has a history of marketing to the Jewish population in Brooklyn. PTex, in turn, reached out to Shmuel Hoffman, whose videos for the OU, Nefesh B’Nefesh, Aish, Chabad and others have made him one of the most well-known video producers in the Jewish world.

“This project was perfect for me and what I believe in,” Hoffman stated. “Too often we take our wives and mothers and all they do for granted. Those who know me are familiar with my efforts and focus on my marriage and my family, and they know that my wife and I work together. She and I were thrilled when PTex asked us to make this video, because we think it’s about time that somebody did.”

A Tribute to the Jewish Mother, which saw over 100,000 views in the first week of its release, follows the Jewish mother throughout her day, in her many roles as mother, wife, hard worker, homemaker, “a spiritual force, and a revered role model.” The voice-over text goes on to read:

Yours is the only occupation on earth that can’t be retired from,
or taken leave from,
or delegated to anybody else.
Yet incredibly, you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Working with Shmuel is a dream,” Charlie Harary stated. “His professionalism is excellent. His eye for the right shot is amazing, and his attention to detail is superb. It was an honor to be a part of this project.”

For Editors:
Further information can be found at http://owl.li/axY5f, or email Margelit Hoffman at margelit.hoffman@gmail.com. You can watch and embed the video from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD-p59hzOC4

###

The main characters are always a family of cute animals whose names happen to be those of my kids.  The plot always involves them being agents in the triumph of good, with a certain amount of slapstick (cute animals biting bad guys, etc).  Stories can last 15 to 50 parts.

Needless to say, the plot and character development are not award-winning as I generally don’t know where the story is going until I’m literally sharing it.  But the kids love  them.   And, it’s helpful bedtime control (“hurry up to bed; the story’s starting!”)

Still, tale weaving can be draining.  Sometimes G-d’s story pipeline misses my brain altogether (“Tatty,” my eldest sons will say, “this is boring!”).  I think to myself, “Let ‘em hear a book instead.”

But then I’m reminded of how much they want the live wire.

Last night, as I related an important plot twist in the otter story, my seven-year old interrupted.

“That can’t be,” he said excitedly.  ”The otter kids split up last night.  They weren’t together.”

He was, of course, right.  He knew his otter story.

We  learn in this week’s portion the world-changing directive to love your neighbor as yourself.  The sages ask, What is the meaning of “as yourself”?   Are we to regard the needs of others as literally equal to our own?  Impossible.

Our sages explain:  In my own life I consider all my needs and give precedence to the most important; the verse is telling me to add my fellow’s needs in to the mix.  Two people want the same taxi.  Where are they going?  One to a sports bar to watch the Knicks; one to pick up his kid from daycare.  The sports fan realizes, if I had both tasks to fulfill, I would pick up the kid first.  Parent gets the taxi.

My kids crave live stories more than I crave the comfort of passive reading.  Long live the otters!

Shabbat Shalom,

Henry Harris

PS: Join me  Monday night at Aish, 7:15pm for Torah-tainment.

7:30pm Light Dinner
8pm The Afterlife & Reincarnation: Understanding Death & Beyond

REGISTER HERE for May 30th! ($10)

Cost: $10 by 5pm day of; $15 at door

For YJPs in their 20s/30s

The Challenge of Inspiration
Maintaining and Enhancing Awe, Love, and Joy in a World of Distraction
Featuring some of today’s most dynamic speakers and Jewish leaders

Friday, May 25-Monday, May 28
Cost: $45 until deadline Tuesday, 5/22
(includes hospitality, 3-day program, and all meals; partial stay optional)

For YJPs in their 20s/30s

Topics to include:

• Repairing Our Broken Tablets
• Point of Connection: Mitzvas as Means to Realness and Relationship
• The 10 Commandments as Principles for Actualized Relationships
• The Secret of Commitment to Unleash Inspiration
• Anti-Virus for Your Mind: How to Live in the World and Not Get Infected

Speakers include:

• Rabbi Yitz Greenman, Executive Director, Aish New York and Discovery Productions
• Harry Rothenberg, Managing Attorney, Allen Rothenberg Injury Law
• Rabbi Chaim Sampson, Director, Project Inspire
• Rabbis Jacobs, Harris, and Shiff

Plus, check out the video recording of Monday night’s Weekly Torah-tainment class “The Mandate to Love”:

Check out the video recording of Monday night’s Jacobs’ Ladder class “The Art of NOT Doing What You Most Want”: