3 Treats in 1: HH #406 Blogpost = Holy Happiness!!!

B'SD

18 Iyar, 5773

It's a special day as I celebrate

1) a lovely trip to Shilo last week, 

2) Pesakh Sheni/The Second Passover, 

3) the start-date anniversary of the Mon/מן aka 
 Manna from heaven 

that began to fall for the newly freed 
hungry Israelites 

trekking to the Promised Land from Egypt 

and 

4) the fun festivities of Lag B'Omer.

I'm sharing the fun with the Haveil Havalim blogpost group (I've done this before) and you.

About that Shilo trip: I belong to a Facebook group of women from all over Israel's map. Our skin colors, accents and life experiences are diverse but our friendships are united and strong. Every few months we share a get-together called a face-to-face (f2f in facebook language). This past Tuesday we shared lunch and spiritual insights in Shilo, site of the long-ago Tabernacle.

Here's a photo of me praying on the archaeological site, protected from wind and sun with a wide-brimmed hat and scarf to protect my skin and eyes.

Bracha Barbara Goldman provided the ladies with the text for a prayer: Baruch Ata Hashem Elokeinu melech Ha'Olam Meitziv G'vul Almana. In the Artscroll siddur it appears under "Blessings over phenomena and events", and says, "upon seeing a destroyed synagogue that has been restored to its previous grandeur", and literally translates "Who sets a limit for a widow". It is based on the gemarra Brachot 58/2, which uses as its source a verse in Mishlei 15:25. There is a shiur in Hebrew prepared by Rav Yair Hiller on the subject.

What would an HH blogpost be without
 Batya Medad's take on that 
Facebook Friends in Shilo visit, eh? 

You can contact the tourist authority for 
scheduling Shilo visits with tour guides 
(awesome experience for families & large groups) 
at http://telshilo.org.il/en/

I ate some matza and said a few pertinent prayers 
the next day on Pesakh Sheni. 
Ruti Mizrachi explains what it's about, 
that life can be a do-over in some respects, 
at Once Again, with Feeling!

I can't show you a picture of the Mon/מן aka Manna from heaven but I can let you know that I felt some excitement on Friday last week. It was the 16th of Iyar, the anniversary of when the all-nourishment no-waste food that tasted as one wished, began to fall. I recite the Biblical passage about it daily. It's a way of asking GOD for the blessing of having one's needs met with ease.

As for Lag B'Omer (today!), that's a fun, spiritual day filled with not 1 but 2 day's worth of...

• Bonfires supervised by safety-minded adults, 

 

Toy bows and arrows to remind us of the rainbow-filled sky that illustrated GOD's promise never to destroy the world with a flood again plus the human need to pray, 

A celebration of the END of a plague that decimated the numbers of Rabbi Akiva's students long ago, and...

FIRST haircuts for little boys whose parents preserve the chalaka custom. Check out this no-cost item for the occasion from http://theboldedge.com/free-upsheren-printables-gifts/

SERIOUS SAFETY ALERT for Lag B'Omer: Child Predators!

Need to know more? Jacob Richman shares Educational websites about Lag Ba'Omer. 

Ladies, make this MORE of a yom tov for yourselves with Rabanit Yemima's comments on Lag B'Omer!

It's been a time of holy happiness. Hat tip: GOD ;^ D

While we're thinking about arrows, here's my zinger of an OP-ED to kneseteers who promise to protect Israel, then endanger it. "Emor m'at v'asay harbay, MKs. Find your spines. Stick to the program GOD gave us. Got it?"

Batya Medad hits a bullseye with Those - Moving -- Red --- Lines.

YAY! Sharon Altshul reminds us to Keep Jerusalem Green and Accessible.

Moving on to other HH stuff, Brian Wallace shares his joy over the OU's 4th Annual Job and Relocation Fair. Batya Medad wants Jews to relocate to the only Jewish home HaShem (GOD) told us to live in, and asks How About Relocating to Israel?

Coming up on the Jewish Calendar: Yummy Shavuot. 

But uh-oh, Haveil Havalim founder Esser Agarot compares and contrasts admirable historical figure and convert to Judaism Rut (Ruth, for non-Hebrew-speakers) to MK Ruth Calderon, who clearly does not rate high on his gracious behavior of worldview scale (nor on the scale of several other critics).

And what would the world of Judaism be without more controversy? Esser Agorot opines about the Battle of All Time aka Torah and it's Doubtful "Democratic" Adherents.

Headline-making individuals and the rest of us can do some apropos introspection (please do) with Reformism is NOT Judaism.

While we're thinking of Torah and its decency/GOD-centric values (ahem, me-centric reformists), let's see what Batya Medad and Paula Stern have to say about...

 Sorry, Not all Mothers are the Same 

and 

 What Did YOU Do the Night Before, respectively. 

sigh-h-h...

Let's get back to the feel-good stuff, by visiting Meira Josephy's Mitzvot Unplugged!

I have to sign off, now. 

I'm heading to southern Israel with friends delivering United with Israel's above-ground bomb shelters for kindergartens in Netivot (did the Boston Marathon Massacre clue you in to the capricious, unpredictable and evil nature of islamic violence, yet? NONE of it is Israel's fault. Islam is about dominance). We'll enjoy

• A farm tour/presentation at Moshav Tifrach by Torah scholar/Talmid Chocham/Farmer Reb Shmuel Rappaport (Rav Moshe Feinstein's great-grandson)
• A Lag B'Omer picnic 
• Planting Fruit Trees (hands on) at Moshav Tifrach's orchard

I'm doing it all despite an enduring (and decreasing) disability most people never detect. I use necessary coping skills and a nurtured sense of optimism.

Want to know how that's possible?

EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge with the E-book or print edition today. Put a brighter light on your disability or medical life.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.

You can fill your life with fun despite setbacks.

 

Here's How to Make Legitimate Donations to Boston Marathon Survivors

B'SD

12 Iyar, 5773

Scammers are taking advantage of Boston Marathon Massacre survivors and donors hoping to help them. In order to end that crime, please click on How to Make Safe Donations to Help Boston Bombing Victims.

I've already packaged donated copies of 

for the 
Boston Athletic Association 

which organizes the annual marathon.
A Boston-bound friend will mail them for me
when she arrives in the USA next week.

So many prayers are with the survivors. May GOD bless us all with the sweetest, most healing answers possible.

Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter look at your otherwise frightening medical or mental health future: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge.

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism. 

Feel free to cry as needed. It's a form of prayer.


 

Why Did it Happen? That's Not a Crooked Letter or Question.

B'SD

11 Iyar, 5773

One of the  issues explored in 

addresses is the question "Why?" As in "WHY, WHY, WHY,

did this happen to (me, her, him, them, us. Fill in the blank as you wish)."

I have no doubt that thousands of people are asking that about the Boston Marathon Massacre. I shudder to realize how callous the pat, trite responses that "We can never know 'Why,' or 'Why is a crooked letter (and hence a forbidden question)'" will seem to sad people trying to recover from the shock and misery.

In the hope of easing some pain and suffering, Here's an excerpt from the EMPOWER Yourself book. It is followed by a thought I've added today, for the next edition:

Are you weaker for not knowing the reason 

for your suffering? Not necessarily. Learning 

to deal with unknowns is part of your growth. 

It leads to the next psychological step, and 

it's a good one!

You have the medical crisis and you don’t 

know why. That leaves you with a great 

big "WHAT?" What are you going to do about your medical crisis or that of your loved one?

Back in Chapter Two, I asked you to list the positive actions, ideas, and emotions you and/or your loved one can pursue in order

to cope with the medical crisis at hand. 

You can revisit that chapter as often as you wish, and keep adding answers. You can 

also eliminate responses that no longer 

make sense to you.

Remember: The alternative to coping with a given problem is worse. It’s called not coping 

in all the unpleasant ways possible.

Do you know what you're doing? You're being proactive. You are taking charge instead of lying around behaving in Victim Mode.

Here’s a thought for readers with another take on the “Why?” questions they have. 

Sometimes the question "Why?" means "How can I focus on what I need to spiritually accomplish?" or "What have I left undone/

What needs to be achieved emotionally, physically or otherwise?" 

It is not necessarily a question of anger or doubt, or an accusation that GOD owes us 

better than what we're getting. 

"Why?" can be a most pro-active word that leads us into a moral inventory (a “fearless” moral inventory for the more honest stock-assessors among us). 

From there we can work on reasonable solutions and increasingly better perspectives that help us to heal.

Share your feedback with me. I'll be delighted to share signed and verified reader reactions to this blogpost in the next edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

A medical and/or emotional and spiritual crisis - you'd cry too, if it happened to you. If it did, use your tissues and handkerchiefs with my blessings borne of experience. GOD gives you Permission to Weep. And you can say that to any critics after explaining that "It's MY Crisis! And I'll Cry if I Need To." You'll find the license to cry in the preface of the book.

 
Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter look at tomorrow. Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism. 

Face your questions with courage. Let it grow over time.


 

Sending Sympathy to Bostonians and Marathon Runners

B'SD

6 Iyar, 5773

I go to sleep by 8:00 PM-ish as a rule. I usually waken about 4:00 AM. 

This morning I learned of the Boston Marathon Bombing, and sadly realized that part of the wider world is living as we Israelis do: Victimized by psychopaths dedicated to indiscriminate destruction.

As decent people worldwide pray for an end to the horror - forever - I ask that you reach out to friends, to family and to mental health professionals if you need relief from emotional stress. 

This is not a challenge to go alone. 

A medical and emotional crisis - you're crying too, if it happened to you - even on the inside if it doesn't show on the outside. 

If you're remembering past trauma now, reach out for help quickly. 

Use your tissues and handkerchiefs with my blessings borne of experience. GOD gives you Permission to Weep. And you can say that to any critics after explaining that "It's MY Crisis! And I'll Cry if I Need To."

Need information about someone's welfare? 

Call 617-635-4500

Can you tell police anything 

about who might have

committed the crime?

Call 1-800-494-TIPS

or 1-800-CALL-FBI

 
Buy the E-book or print edition for a clearer look at your mental health needs and how to meet them, too: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical (and Mental Health) Challenge. 

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism. 

Face fear with friends and family who love you. Get compassionate mental health assistance if you need it.

As the book indicates, work only with therapists who show complete respect for your well-being.

 

Celebrating 65 Years of Dynamic Life!

B'SD

4 Iyar, 5773

Tonight, a mournful siren will sound across Israel, heralding Memorial Day for soldiers and civilians murdered by enemies of the Jewish state.

Monday's air will fill with weeping as many tears are cried at cemeteries across the land. The tears will belong to people who escaped Hitler's Holocaust, then built new lives, and to other immigrants who've made their way back to the Holy Land. So many "civilizations" have forced Jews from the ancestral home given to us by The Creator.

My energies will soon be focused of celebrating Tuesday's Israel Day of Independence, when modern Israel was declared a state. The name of the newspaper shown below has its own interesting story that once again validates the Jewish history of Israel.

I'm also preparing for a next-week trip to Shilo, site of the ancient Tabernacle (before the construction of the Temples destroyed by Jew-haters). Here are remnants of a 2nd Temple era synagogue (the photos were taken by avid Shilo Musings blogger Batya Medad).

Give yourself an education by booking a visit there via the Shilo HaKeduma (Ancient Shilo) Tourism Authority 

The excitement of sitting upon, stroking and seeing the very structures that long-ago Jews used (read your Bible!) tends to make my heart race as my eyes cry streams of tears.

Exciting is not quite the word for it. Awesome, humbling and privileged are some of the moods and sensations that go through the very cells of my being whenever I'm there.

I'll be joining friends who've long planned our pending get-together. We'll be lunching at a popular spot (call the number on the awning and you can, too!) though I need to bring some organic yummies along for my healing purposes.

Spiritual and physical healing are part of the Ancient Tabernacle and Shilo's GOD-given gifts to humanity.

Israelis innovate many healing therapies. Read the 65 Ways Israel's Saving the Planet!

Can't reach Israel so fast ? Here's a compromise: Buy the E-book or print edition today to EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism. 

Reflect on life with a sense of appreciative wonder.


 

Breaking CPI and Other Chain(s) without Politics

B'SD

WARNING: Why Chained CPI Rattles the Elderly (and anyone soon to be).

Over time, I warned you that Obama's approach to medical care was problematic. Robbing social security accounts with this proposed Chained CPI plan is not in anyone's best interests. The risk is too big. If the plan fails, and even if it doesn't, your hard-earned money can disappear.

As the article above mentions, "The Obama administration’s proposal to change the basis for Social Security raises to 'chained CPI' is all about saving money by slowing the growth rate of benefits."

There's a saying from an old TV show, 

"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

Click on AARP's automatic Protest to POTUS program or go to the AARP site (www.aarp.org) to study it before you send a message to the White House.

If Chained CPI becomes law, I will shudder with you.

If you want to prepare yourself to cope with ever-worsening healthcare prospects in the USA, or to lower your medical costs anywhere in the world, you need to read

The Global Resources section of the book is filled with information on organizations around the world willing to pay part or all of your specific medical costs: Medical appliances, medication, medical care, medical transportation and more.

You don't need to be chained to politicians enslaving you to poverty, poor choices and despair.

Buy the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism. 

Free yourself from poor planning and politicians risking your future.


 

How to Talk Back to Your Arrogant Doctors - EFFECTIVELY

B'SD

1 Iyar, 5773

Whew, it's a new Jewish month and I ended the previous one with some impact. I'm back from yesterday's exciting and insight-packed encounter with those vision rehabilitation medical students. Class was directed by my personal eye doctor, whose innovative and pro-patient assistance over the last few years helped me to attain self-sufficiency when I'd faced a future of despair and physical decline.

I've been reflecting on how much laughter the professor, students and I shared. The students were shocked, mystified and amused by my medical case (they were looking at, or listening to verbal accounts of, my medical records) then scared to respond to the professor's questions about it all (my case made medical history. It baffles bigtime experts let alone students).

They tested my sight, flipped out at what I can do, fell silent at what I struggle to do, and realized "Yeah, those prayers must help her somehow. And the vegetarian diet sure seems to help. Nobody who eats meat ever recovered sight after such a medical experience."

I told jokes, played games with the eye exams (one of the pluses of my limited vision is that I can detect things that people with normal vision do not), explained personal decisions about choosing life and forced courage over death and despair.

We talked about our private lives a bit, they looked at copies of the EMPOWER Yourself book and invited me back every two weeks of the remaining semester. 

The BEST part was that my craniosacral therapist Chana Bracha aka Andrea Garden Kornfeld who succeed at opening a formerly paralyzed eyelid drove me to the appointment (she wrote the Introduction to the 2nd edition of the book). The staff was impressed with her and she is now booked to speak at the college!

There was an interesting interlude when my eye doctor informed those college students of an arrogant eye surgeon who'd once demanded that I permit her to blind me in one eye to end my double vision (I wrote of the encounter in the EMPOWER Yourself book), and that I declined the hopelessness she'd prescribed and proposed that there might be ways to restore my sight.

I jumped into the conversation and explained that the long-ago surgeon shook her head "NO" to my optimism. She recommended psychiatric intervention to convince me of the "need" to sign an agreement for the permanently blinding surgery. I shouldered my purse and responded with a LOUD slamming of her office door as I announced "I will not permit you to maim me. I see the future and it looks ever-better" or something like that as I walked off into my ever-more-visible future. 

Yesterday's college students were speechless after hearing the story.

I then gently explained to them that the average patient lacks the stamina or quick-witted poise to resist bad medical attitudes. Part of my effort in interacting with the medical school's student body is dedicated to teaching future doctors to listen better, to think broadly rather than in limiting points of view, and to dedicate their medical work to helping the person before them - not merely to deal with tension by arrogantly or abruptly dismissing medical problems with harmful procedures and processes.

The students flipped through copies of 

and asked why I'd written it.

"To help people who need to know how to deal with drawbacks in the medical world," I replied. 

"Not everybody can vastly re-engineer their personalities to become so assertive, nor do they know the wonderful resources I've been exposed to as a former Health Information Management professional (I used to supervise medical records rooms, legal requests for information, prepare statistics, communicate with medical innovators and more). The book whispers over the reader's shoulder and helps them to face their medical and mental health problems with dignity and solutions."

I left some teary-eyed people in that eye exam theater. We plan to meet again, several times over.

I hope you'll respond to the scenario I've described. Your comments are welcome! 

A medical crisis - you'd cry too, if it happened to you. Use your tissues and handkerchiefs with my blessings borne of experience. GOD gives you Permission to Weep (the license to do is in the book!). And you can say that to any critics after explaining that "It's MY Crisis! And I'll Cry if I Need To."

 

Buy the E-book or print edition to EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism. 

Face frightening people with the right response!


 

Heads Up, College Students!

B'SD

28 Nisan, 5773 

I've been offline to protect my PC from hackers. I'm sorry to be limiting my communication with you. I hope that things will be back to normal after April 10th.

Life does have its fun, rewarding side, though. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to meet with vision clinic college students. 

They're interested in testing my eyes plus hearing about the natural healing techniques that restored my sight. They'll be examining my eyes with machines you've probably never heard of, marveling at the physical evidence that shows how I could have been left blind forever.

I might have some interesting comments 

to share with you after the adventure.

If any students planning to attend that class tomorrow are reading this blogpost, keep your heads up, ears and mind open. I have surprises in store for you.

 
Buy the E-book or print edition today for a brighter tomorrow: Click on the words EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism. 

Look forward to making life fun, despite the setbacks.

 

Cybersecurity and You

B'SD

26 Nisan, 5773

Here's an update to the cyber-threat I posted the other day: Facebook Virus Hits Israel Days Before Planned Attack.

The day originally "planned" for cyberwar on Israel's Jews was Holocaust Remembrance Day, a national institution. We know that Holocaust deniers and their ilk wish us dead. Their denials coincide with threats and malicious efforts to harm Jews worldwide, not only in Israel.

Israel is a world leader in medical innovations that benefit the world. International notables of many faiths and skin colors are part of the team.

I'm doing what I can to heal 

broken hearts and bodies 

with

I advertise the EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge print and E- book on two different Facebook pages.

I hope you'll buy a copy to help someone who needs it. And to keep me going. People I've never met and never harmed are trying to put me out of business.

 
Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.

Don't let the bad guys win by hurting you or someone you respect. In any manner.

(and be careful when you're online)