Sometimes I have items I want to post that don't really deserve to take up a whole blog entry.  I have decided to post them as add-ons.  That means, that you should should check my blogs frequently, as I will be adding on items to the present blog (last blog posted) and you may not want to miss these little gems.  I will also be making a 'Reader's Corner' where, if you have any pearls you'd like to send me, I can post them.  One reader, Dan from Herzelia, often sends me quite funny tid bits where he writes satires on today's news.  I will be posting them there as well.  Please participate and send me your own, and I can then post them if appropriate.

Now, for some fun. These are some things I thought up, and would love for you to send me your own.

Shortest Books Ever Written:  (Some, only Israelis will understand and laugh at. Sorry.)

Safe Sex - by Yasser Arafat
Minding My own Business - by Condeleeza Rice
Things I Like About The Jews - by Iranian Leader Mahmoud Ahmadinajad
Standing On My Own Two Feet - by P.A. Leader, Mahmood Abbas
How To Be A Model Prime Minister - by Ehud Olmert
Intelligent Strategies for Foreign Affairs - by Tzippi Livni
My Beauty Secrets - by Yuli Tamir
How To Stop Rocket Attacks - by Former Defense Minister, Amir Peretz
The Art of Knowing When to Go - by Shimon Peres
Why You Can Trust Me - by Bibi Netanyahu
Why BB Loves Me - by Moshe Feiglin
Learning From My Mistakes - by Ehud Barak
Without Daddy's Help - by George W. Bush
Things I Love About Israel - by Bar Rafaeli, co-authored by Avraham Burg
There's More to Blogging Than Sex and Aliyah - Tzvi Fishman (Just joking Tzvi)
Things I Don't Like About Myself - Tovia Singer                         
Things I Like About Tovia - Tamar Yonah (ha ha ha - We are really good friends folks, don't worry, it's all tongue in cheek)

Add your own 'shortest book' ideas.  Post them blow in the COMMENT section.

Reader's Corner:

News Items from Dan:

This will knock your socks off.  This last week we read in the Torah portion of Noah, the story of the Tower of Babel.  In it, we learn that mankind built this tower in order to reach the heavens, dethrone G-d, and take over.  Man wanted to rule their own destiny and did not want to have a G-d over them, telling them what to do and how to behave morally.
We, TODAY, are re-living the story of The Tower of Babel.

Those of you who have been following my radio show and older blog posts of mine know that there is an effort underway to do away with borders and nation states and create a one world central global government.  Some people call this the 'New World Order', but by whatever name you call it, it does not bode well for G-d fearing people and patriots of any country. 
Please view this 90 second video before reading below: Or click HERE to go to Youtube.

A major reason to form a One World Government is of course, power for those who will head it, and also for that eternal evil: greed for money. In today's global economy, people are running their own 'empires' and they cannot be bothered or hindered by all the separate rules and regulations of the many countries and cultures around the world that they deal with.
 
For an example, let us imagine that you own a sport shoe factory, and you find that if you move your factory from the USA to China, you can pay the workers 10 cents an hour instead of 6 dollars an hour.  And let's say that you also open a factory in Nigeria and the Philippines.  No longer are you so concerned about America, Americans, or whether they have jobs.  Now YOU are president, but you are president, or emperor, of your own empire. Your goal, for your empire, is to make money, expand, take over markets, and make even more money.  And if that means less jobs for your own fellow Americans, so be it.  It's not that you hate America, it's just that you believe yourself to be a 'visionary'.  You know that the time for the horse and carriage is gone.  It's time for the automobile. And so, what if blacksmiths and stable owners will lose their businesses.  PROGRESS is at hand, and, hey, one has to move on, and the world will just have to get with it!.  This same philosophy goes for today.  The time for separate nation states with their own laws, values and borders are gone.  It makes 'chaos' and chaos makes for bad business. 
 
Hypothetical case: If you are an oil man (isn't Bush an oil man?) you will want to be able to ship your oil from some mid-eastern country to the Mediterranean, and then over to the USA.  If you have to move your oil from Iraq, through Jordan, and then through Israel to the Mediterranean, you won't want to deal with or be bothered with the separate import/export laws of each country.  You won't want to have to deal with all the different politicians from these different countries and cultures. And you certainly won't want to bribe so many people to grease the wheels to make your investment move.  More middlemen, less profit. 

You also won't want to deal with the changing over of currencies from U.S. dollars to Iraqi dinars to Jordanian dinars, to Israeli shekels.  It's too costly and too chaotic.  Therefore, the thing that makes the most sense to big business people is to make these separate governments beholden to a more centralized and powerful one.
 
The most obvious agency or organization to take on this role is the United Nations.  Already, this international body has instituted global laws and treaties which nation states (after ratification by them) are expected and required to follow.  They have their own military and they are stationed all over the globe.
 
One of the ways that nation states are losing their sovereignty is through the World Trade Organization (WTO).  Trade is vital to run economies, and the WTO is one of the ways in which nation states are losing their sovereignty.  In order to trade, members of the WTO must cede their power and turn it over to the WTO who will be the final judge in all trade disputes between countries.  So, if the USA or Israel one day decide they want to stop or change their trade laws with another country, the other country can take them to the WTO court. They can sue them, and whatever the WTO decides, will be what the USA or Israel needs to comply with.  So much for sovereignty and deciding who you would like to trade with and under what conditions.  

I do hope that I am explaining this on a very easy basic level for everyone to understand, because since this one brief article, I cannot go into more detail.
 
Now, to understand how this is all manifesting itself, take a look at the trade blocks that exist today.  Europe has united under an umbrella government called the European Union. Most of these countries have lost their currencies, and have taken on the Euro.  They have lost their sovereignty on many additional levels as well. Being absorbed into this 'union' or trade block, countires who were once independent must now conform to the interests of the bigger body, the EU.
 
Regional governments are being formed all over the world today. If you were to put in a google search for the words free trade 2010 you will see the world is breaking up into different trade blocks under the WTO .

The United States looks like it will now be losing its sovereignty as well in a new block called the 'North American Union' not unlike the EU.  This is why I believe that U.S. President George W. Bush does not care a hoot about the illegal immigration into his country. He signed an agreement with Mexico and Canada in 2003 to meld together their trade and security and essentially erase the borders of these three nations.  
Please see this 4 min video before continuing to read below.

The unification of countries around the world could sound like a good thing.  Unity is good.  However, it depends what people are uniting under.  If it is under TRADE which = money, then it is a very negative thing, because, if the ultimate goal is to make money, then one can cheat, steal, rape companies, deal in the sex trade, drugs, mafia, whatever, as long as they make a profit, because that is the ultimate goal, power and money. 
 
Recently it was reported that Poland was reprimanded and will suffer consequences by the EU because they don't want their school-aged children to be exposed to homosexuality in their classrooms.  See: European Parliament Passes Resolution Vowing to Take 'Homophobic' Countries to Court: Slams Poland as "Hateful" for Failing to Allow Promotion of Homosexuality in Schools.

Do  you want your culture, value system and the education your child gets, to have to conform to an umbrella government which represents the interests of others, and will make you conform, ...or be punished?
 
IF countries were to unite under G-d and His morality, unification would be good.  But alas, the world is uniting under money making, and a one-world absolute power. They are building today, not a tower, but a one world government.  They want to overthrow G-d and take over their own destiny, deciding what is moral (yes, sexual perversity, promiscuity, free abortions at any month of gestation, recreational drugs, is absolutely accepted today). 

I guess we will have to wait for the Messiah to herald in a true unified world of goodness.
 
Oh, and the photos to blow your socks off?
 
This is a picture of the Tower of Babel.  And below that is a picture of the EU Parliament in Strasbourg.
 
 

EU Parliament in Strasbourg

Notice how in the EU poster, the people are made of bricks.  It is scary to think, that:

1)  There is no shame in their attempt to build another tower, and rub it in our faces and G-d's face.

2)  The people who built the original tower of Babel wouldn't care so much if a person fell off the building while carrying up bricks.  But if a BRICK fell, they would cry and bemoan the loss. What does that say about the way this entity thinks of it's own people????

3)  The message on the poster says "Many tongues - One Voice"  Is this a taunt at G-d that He may have 'babbled their language", but they are going to speak with one voice anyway?

Please watch this 30 sec video in which U.S. President George Bush describes a New World Order under the United Nations.

Mankind is once again unabashedly trying to overthrow G-d.  And they are not even trying to hide it.

One thing about aging. If you work on yourself, you become more refined like fine wine.  Ok, the cogs and wheels might get rusty and make some noise, but the living and learning never stops, and for this I am grateful.  And as each year passes, I find myself trusting more and more in G-d.  It is a liberating feeling.
 

We find ourselves now in the shmita year. This is the year where we, in Israel, make the land sit fallow, not working the earth, and giving it, its 7 year rest.
 
Vegetables that comply with the shmita laws are hard to find in the market place this year.  My Shabbat and holiday dishes call for fresh cauliflower, fresh dill, pumpkin, Zucchini, etc. etc.
 
This last Shabbat, after all the vegetables from before Rosh Hashana ran out, I didn't have all the ingredients I wanted, to make the dishes my family and guests love.  Instead of getting upset, throwing a dish, stomping on my kitchen floor and crying, I just said out loud,  "Well, baruch Hashem (Blessed be The Name [G-d]) we have what we need.  The carrots and frozen cauliflower will do.  It may not be as I wanted it to be, but it is enough to prepare the dish for Shabbat."

Ok, so I won't have fresh parsley or red onions.  I'll make due with dried parsley and white onions.
 
And now I want to get to the point of this blog piece....

We, who were brought up with Western values, watching the rich and the famous on TV, and living in a consumer based society,  were always taught to want 'more'.  A bigger house, a newer car, a newer, younger and prettier wife?  ... and all that.  The problem is, that there is no end to 'wants' and desires.  "I want this, I want that",   it never ends.  There is always something else we will want.  When we consider the flip side of the coin however, - what we NEED, ...well, there is a limit to THAT.  A cap can be put on what the 'needs' of a human being are.  G-d knows what we NEED - as a nation and as individuals.  And thank G-d, He provides us in this world with just that.  We humans may not divide the wealth of the earth up so well, so that all can eat and be housed, but the supplies are in stock on this planet, and G-d provides for us. 
 
So, when is enough, enough?  Should we always strive for more, to fulfill more of our desires? Should we choose to stay on this never ending treadmill, running and running for more and more? Or should we ask G-d to give us 'enough' to fulfill His will? Should we not recognize and be grateful, for what we have been blessed with, and after receiving 'enough',  look to help others with the overflow of bounty?
 

"And God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: 'Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them, when you enter the land which I am giving to you, the land shall be at rest - a Shabbat unto the Lord. For six years you shall plant your field and for six years your shall prune your vineyard and you shall harvest its produce. But the seventh year shall be a Shabbat of rest for the land - a Shabbat for the Lord ...' (25:1-4)"

The Shmitta year teaches us just this, that we are to STOP all agriculture and take off a full year from tilling the ground and working the Land.  What faith this takes!  Unheard of, for a nation to stop agriculture for a full year! We must be crazy.  And yet, this is exactly what G-d expects of us.  And by us complying, shows utter faith in G-d. 

We know that He will provide us with ENOUGH food for this next year,  and more. 

And we learn the important Torah lesson, that we should hope for 'enough', and throw out the Western treadmills which scream "more, more, more, more".

-And he's taking the kids.  No amount of begging helped.  I am alone in the house, and the quiet is...  well, actually, I hear giggling and my husband's low voice telling stories, through my upstairs bedroom window which is right next to and above the Sukkah that we built for the Sukkot holiday.  If I look out my bedroom window, through the palm branch roof of the sukkah, I can see slits of light from inside there shining through. I wonder what G-d thinks as he looks from above and sees His people sleeping in sukkot all over the Land of Israel.  It must be a very beautiful site. 

Our sukkah. Notice the green grass and our back yard's rock wall with a small water fall in the back.  Old torn couches were brought in agaisnt the temporary wooden wall of the sukkah. My kids placed their mattresses on the grass inside our sukkah, and the table and plastic chairs will be pushed towards the other wall to make room for a few more sleeping bags.

This is the time of year that Jewish families go out to the sukkah to 'dwell'.  Many men and children sleep there as well, and sometimes us mothers do too.  My kids were ecstatic when I slept out there with them last year.  Our sukkah at night turns into a 'wall to wall' sleep hall, with mattresses and old torn couches we use outside, on the grass.  The kids think of it as an adventure.  My husband is just a little less enthusiastic than the kids.  He feels more spiritual sleeping under the stars. 

Leaving the comforts of the home and baring the mosquitos and damp mornings is a small price to pay, to feel like a real Jew, connecting to the Land, the Torah and your nation.   Me?  I confess, I like having a mosquitoless sleep and having a nearby bathroom.  Maybe I will sleep in the Sukkah this year again though, but how could I ruin the father-kid bond?  heh heh --grin--   

Talking about leaving the boundaries of the 'norm', this last week on my show, I interviewed Rav Eliezer Sachs.  Rav Sachs has been working with an autistic young man named Binyamin Goldin.  Binyamin communicates, as I stated in my last blog post, through 'facilitated communication' (FC).  Binyamin seems to have some sort of ability to understand or see what is happening in the spiritual world and thus through FC is able to tell people in the physical world important messages.

Here are some interesting points to ponder of what Binyamin and others who are autistic are saying:

"Our world is really about to change."

"The war (of Gog and Magog) will soon begin, and we must prepare in Teshuva, (repentance). Work on every weak spot, return, do Teshuva.

Photo of Binyamin Goldin

Question: Is it possible to shorten the period of the harsh days?
Answer: No, it will soon begin. It will not be difficult for you if you are holding on to The Holy One Blessed Be He, don't be afraid of anything.
Tzaddikim (the Righteous) are not going to suffer.

Question: The white Russian bear is waking up, should we awaken Russian Jews to run away from there?
Answer:  ...To awaken them is not a simple matter. There is something funny there; there are messengers that went there and enjoy being there, making money. But not everyone, God forbid.   ...They are not so interested that everyone should return now. But truth is, we need to awaken them, but not in our way.

Question: What about American Jews?
Answer: The American Jews are so trapped, glued to materialism. To remove them from there is almost mission impossible. Whomever does not get out, at the end will understand that they need to get out. Oy to them, their fate will be with their nation.

....'the banks will be bankrupt (fall), money will not be worth anything...
 
Big wars...
The land (Israel) will not be destroyed... but complete countries will disappear from history, including their residents....
If, by this Rosh HaShana, Tishrei 5768, those will not do Teshuva (repentance) Oy to all...

This is the Day of Judgement, for the whole world, just as it is every year. But this year, we will reach the biggest changes, since our exit out of Egypt... Those that will not do sincere authentic Teshuva will disappear...
To hear this show, click HERE.

And so, on this holiday of Sukkot when we dwell in our sukkot, exposed to the elements, cold, heat and even missile attacks, may we let go of our materialism and appreciate the simpler life.  May we move from our multi-bedroom houses to the warm and loving 4 walls of the Sukkah.  May we give up the lavishness of the Exile, and trade it for the blessings and beauty of Eretz Yisrael (The Land of Israel).  
It is still, as it is every day, the awesome time for tshuva (repentance).  May we all merit it.

***  I've added and will be adding some photos of your sukkot.  See below...

Old City of Jerusalem, The Sukkah of Gutman Locks.  See his website: www.ThereIsOne.com

John and Gloria sitting in their Sukkah today, in Australia.

Ephraim's Sukkuzzi (double duties as a Mikvuzzi, too). 

Daniel D.'s backyard sukkah, from the USA.

A. Rogers - A new immigrant to Israel.  Maale Adumim.

The very talented artisit, Dr. Zvi Fenton, and his paintings on his sukkah wall, Jerusalem.

Jerusalem City Council Woman, Mina Fenton, in her sukkah with guests.  Ehud Olmert is in the center (red shirt) and was the mayor of Jerusaelm at that time.

"My Sukkah with my children gracefully posing.  All are invited!" Moshe Meir, San Carlos, California

H & E Bergstein sukkah outside their apartment, in Jerusalem.

Sukkah of Shlomo and Susie Benzquen on the front porch of their villa, Kochav Yaakov, Israel

Readers, send your photos in!  I will post them. :-)