September 4, 2009
Bombing Suspect Ahmad Vahidi overwhelmingly chosen to be Iran’s defense minister [VIDEO]
From BBCNews.com.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chose Ahmad Vahidi, wanted by Argentina over the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre, as his new defence minister.
Mr Vahidi was strongly supported by Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, with 227 MPs backing him out of 286, Iranian Speaker Ali Larijani said.
Read the full story at BBCNews.com.
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National Cholesterol Education Month
The CDC says that September is National Cholesterol Education Month, and who am I to argue? So here is a dollop of education about cholesterol.
- High cholesterol is a major risk factor for strokes and heart attacks. Other risk factors include
- smoking,
- age,
- high blood pressure,
- diabetes and
- having a first-degree relative who had a heart attack in middle age or younger.
- High cholesterol doesn’t feel like anything. The only way to know if your cholesterol is high is to have it checked.
- High cholesterol can be safely and effectively lowered with dietary changes, exercise and medications.
- Lowering high cholesterol with a family of cholesterol medicines called statins has been proven to prevent strokes and heart attacks.
So if you haven’t had your cholesterol checked in years, or if you know your cholesterol is high and you’ve been desperately ignoring it, get back to your doctor and get her advice.
Learn more:
” target=”_blank”>Rational Rationing, generated lots of email responses and led to very stimulating discussions.
This month The Atlantic published a terrific article on the problems of our current healthcare system written by media and technology executive David Goldhill. (Thanks to Timo K. for pointing me to it.) It’s a very well researched and very personal analysis of what’s wrong and how to fix it. I urge you to read it. National Cholesterol Education Month Read More »
The Highest and the Lowest –By Rabbi Hyim Shafner
The Rambam writes in the Laws of Tishuvah (return) about this season before the holidays that, “All people should see themselves as half guilty and half meritorious, if they do one sin now they tip themselves and the entire world with them to the side of guilt and cause destruction, if they do one mitzvah they will tip themselves and the whole world with them to the side of merit and will cause for themselves and the world return and saving…Because of this the Jewish people are accustomed during this time of year to give much charity, and increase their kind deeds and mitzvoth. (3:4)” I have always felt that this expressed a beautiful tension within Judaism. On one side this notion puts a great deal of pressure on each individual, on the other hand each individual is infinitely significant.
In contrast around this time of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we may be inclined to see ourselves as sinful and lowly, as nothing. As we say on Yom Kippur in the viduy (confession), “Dirt am I while alive, certainly in death…” My favorite High Holiday piut (liturgical poem), which is said on Yom Kippur at the musaf service speaks I think to this dilemma and conflict.
“Vi’avitah Tihilah” -“You Desire Praise”
“Your awe is upon the angels, who are mighty and exalted, who dwell in beautiful heights.
And You desire praise from those stained with sin, passing shadows who dwell below — and that is Your praise.”
The human is both, a combination of Godly spirit and dirt (Genesis 2:7); the highest and the lowest. In infinite irony, what God-the-Highest truly desires is the praise of the lowest — humans; and not from our Divine image identity but from our sinful, fleeting, creaturely selves. Precisely on Yom Kippur, the day on which we are most prone to feeling like sullied failures, do we have the most potential, precisely from our lowness, to meaningfully praise the Highest.
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Rabbis and Guns – a Rosh Hashanah Safety Video
Don’t you dare fall asleep during these rabbis’ sermons…
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Go ahead, make my High Holy Day
From NYPost.com:
It’s high noon for the high holidays.
Fearing jihadists will attack synagogues during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a group of badass rabbis has developed a program to turn your average shul-goer into a lean, mean fighting machine.
The group, which calls itself the International Security Coalition of Clergy, was founded by Rabbi Gary Moscowitz, who boasts a black belt in karate, teaches martial arts and was an NYPD cop for nine years.
Read the full story at NYPost.com.
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Chavez tells Israelis: Disobey ‘genocidal’ government
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told the Israeli people not to support their government, which he described as genocidal on Friday, the second day of his trip to Syria.
Chavez is on an 11-day trip to Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Belarus, Russia and Spain in what he is describing as a bid to build a multipolar world and decrease U.S. influence in the region.
Read the full story at HAARETZ.com.
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Jews Should Oppose Universal Health Care
In part of an ongoing debate on health care reform, JewishJournal.com is hosting this dialogue on the pros and cons of universal health care.
Related: Why we must support universal health care
From BeliefNet.com:
In the always lively Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Rabbi Elliot Dorff writes in a cover essay that “support for universal health care is an imperative in Jewish law.” Is it now? On health care reform, Rabbi Dorff has his classical sources all lined up—most having to do with obligations on the community to rescue its needy, the captive, and those otherwise endangered. The communal court system can compel a person to give charity in support of the poor. Proper medical services are a necessity in a Jewish community. And so on. Whether through socialized medicine or government health insurance, something must be done: the fact of there being 40 million uninsured Americans is “intolerable.”
Do you notice how many times the words “community” or “communal” appear in the foregoing paragraph? Rabbi Dorff is chairman of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative (i.e., liberal) Judaism. He knows that Jewish laws of the kind he cites are specifically communal laws. They were never envisioned as applying en masse to a non-Jewish country of 300 million people. Liberal Jewish analysts often lose sight of this simple fact. So too in the abortion debate where, simply put, Jewish law for Jews is more liberal on abortion than Jewish law for Gentiles. We are more protective of the unborn non-Jewish life. In Torah, there are separate legal tracks—the Mosaic and the Noachide, for Jewish and Gentile communities respectively. Yet liberal Jews invariably cite Jewish abortion law, not the Gentile one which makes abortion a death penalty offense. They forget that we live in a non-Jewish country.
Read the full story at BeliefNet.com.
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