What is a “Real Man”?

I was listening to KRLD radio and they had an interesting segment about women and guns. There has been a large increase in the number of women who are taking concealed weapons training classes. The person being interviewed was an ex-military gun instructor who made some very important points. He said that he felt, from what he's heard from many of the women he teaches, that the increase in those who are getting training and gun licenses is a reaction to the violence perpetrated against women today!

He added that women make better students, because they listen. They don't come to the training with poor habits and pre-conceived notions. More than that, he said that women do not come to the trainings as an "ego" thing. Women don't need to carry a gun to feel like "real women." They carry a gun to defend themselves against men. A male who needs to carry a gun as an ego power booster to feel like a "real man," is a danger to everyone. I'm not against people using guns to defend themselves or go hunting if that's what they wish -- but I am against people having guns if they are enraged, angry, irrational, violent people!

If "Perception" is "Reality," then everyone's perceptions are different. For instance, when we use the word, "God," that depends upon what the perception of the one using that word is. With seven billion people, that's seven billion perceptions, no two alike. Theologies are different, mythologies are different, and perceptions are different. Where can we find common ground? The answer is “Values.” 

The TOV Standard is a tool we can use to not only set boundaries and to identify “the common good.” It may be used to define what it means to be “A Real Man."

● A Real Man is one who listens and one who learns.

● A Real Man is one whose "ego" is not tied to violence, toughness and authoritarian power.

● A "Real Man" is one whose Thoughts, Words and Acts are focused on doing TOV.

The bottom line is that men and women who reveal the “image of the Creator” are those who hold Primary Core Values that Protect Life, Preserve Life, Make Life More Functional and Increase the Quality of Life.

Two lessons we learned from the story about the Garden in Eden are:

(1) Every person has the potential to reflect “the image of the Creator” through their actions – or reflect “the image of the serpent (a wild predatory animal) through their thoughts, words, and actions.

(2) The male and female in the garden were created to be co-creators and co-shepherding rulers (the model for power established in the first creation account is that of a shepherd). In order to be what they were created to be – they must act in harmony together according to the TOV Standard.

As Males learn to free themselves from the terrible insecurities placed upon them by their cultures and learn how to be co-creators and co-shepherding rulers with women, the world will begin to be transformed for the better. In the meantime, take cover! 

Do TOV Choose Life 

Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor

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Do You Have An Emergency Preparedness Plan?

62% of Americans are living from pay check to pay check. Many Americans do not have a plan in place in the event of disaster? The following poll from the Center for Health Information at Adelphi University provides a great overview for making your own personal emergency preparedness plan. Make a check list and start putting things in place now by clicking on --

http://chi.adelphi.edu/think-about-it/the-adelphi-university-center-for-health-innovation-poll/emergency-preparedness/

Our Future Depends on Our Ability to Create Value-Based Relationships & Communities

A primary part of the TOV Center’s mission is to assist people in the creation and maintenance of value-based relationships and communities. Beginning in the 1970s, and with the passage of each decade, fewer Americans are actively involved in face-to-face communities and loneliness is becoming an epidemic that has deadly consequences. Today, I want to share some quotes from three books I have recently read that are related to this topic.

The following quotes are from The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification by Raul Roberts © 2014, Bloomsbury, New York, NY:

(1) Indeed, social connectedness is actually more important than affluence: regular social activities such as volunteering, church attendance, entertaining friends, or joining a club provide us with the same boost to happiness as does a doubling of personal income. As Harvard’s Robert Putnam notes:

“The single most common finding from a half century’s research on the correlates of life satisfaction, not only in the United States but around the world, is that happiness is best predicted by the breadth and depth of one’s social connections.” (p. 132)

(2) Only then can the self-gain some relief from the short-term values of the marketplace and reconnect to values that are more essential, more permanent, and more human. As important, it is only as we step back that we realize that much of what we’re so frantically seeking in the consumer marketplace actually lies elsewhere. (p. 256)

(3) So much of what many of us hunger for today is connection – making deep, authentic, meaningful relationships with others; we’re still driven, as sociologist Robert Nisbet put it half a century ago, by “the quest for community.” We can’t fulfill that quest, by definition, in a consumer culture that prioritizes immediate, self-centered satisfaction. (p. 256)

The following quotes are from The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier, and Smarter) by Susan Pinker © 2014; Spiegel & Grau, New York, NY:

(1) The universal hunger to connect and belong explains much of human behavior from birth until death. Our very survival depends on it. (p. 8)

(2) Beginning from the first moments of life and at every age and stage, close contact with other people – and especially women – affects how we think, whom we trust, and where we invest our money. Our social ties influence our sense of satisfaction with life, our cognitive skills, and how resistant we are to infections and chronic disease.  (p. 9)

(3) If you’re surrounded by a tightly connected circle of friends who gather regularly to eat and share gossip, you’ll not only have fun but you’re also likely to live an average of fifteen years longer than a loner. (p. 10)

(4) Despite this powerful evidence, our habits are becoming more solitary. Since the late eighties, when social isolation was first earmarked as a risk for early death in a landmark study in Science, more and more people say that they feel isolated and lonely. (p. 10)

(5) Oxytocin and vasopressin, two neuropeptides that are secreted into the bloodstream when we form and maintain meaningful relationships, help damp down stress and heal wounds. (p. 63)

(6) Feeling lonely is as painful as being wildly hungry or thirsty. . . Like physical pain or hunger, loneliness effective says, “Hey, you! If you don’t find your people (or they don’t find you), you’re a goner.” (p. 63)

Jewish Law in Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the Beginning of Christian Public Ethics by Markus Bockmuehl; Baker Academic (November 1, 2003).

(1) In ancient civilizations, society and human moral agency were always imbedded in community. (p. 89)

(2) Late twentieth-century Europe and especially North America have witnessed the gradual corrosion of their public moral consensus; as a result, meaningful ethical discourse in society has become increasingly difficult. Where a shared foundation of morality cannot be assumed, how can one speak about right and wrong? (p. 145)

(3) There is a need to think about law legally and morally. (p. 146)

The bottom line is that our future is based on our ability to create face-to-face relationships with others and creating communities. Just as building a house begins with laying a strong foundation, we believe that relationships and communities must also be based on a solid foundation – TOV Values that place Life as the highest value and top priority.

Let me know what you think. Are you interested in value-based relationships and communities?

Shalom!

For links to information about the above books go to -- http://biblicalheritage.org/BHC%20Online%20Bookstore/tov_books.htm

New Year Actions Instead of Resolutions

Around this time of year, many people make "resolutions." Most of the time, however, they never carry through on those resolutions. What does the word "resolution" mean? Webster's defines resolution as -- "the act or process of reducing to simpler form, the act of analyzing, the act of answering: solving, the act of determining, to find an answer."

The first thing we learn about "resolution" is that it involves some type of action. But, the way we use the word "resolution," it is more like a promise instead of an action. Obviously, passive promises, are more times than not, are easily broken. Resolutions, therefore, for most people are things we they are “promising themselves to do” -- eating better, exercising, being more grateful, being more patient, better controlling their anger, etc.

But according to the above definition, a resolution is an act, a process, something we are already doing. Maybe people would be a lot better off if they followed the wisdom of the old Nike ad -- "Just Do It!"

When I work with clients I use Resolution/Solution Oriented Therapy, which is brief and tackles a current problem with some type of change in action or process. I don’t ask them to make resolutions. I help them take actions that will change things. But, I make it clear that real change does not happen overnight. It is a long process of reframing, retraining, and understanding that our missteps and mistakes are our best teachers.

During the past year, I've started to not over punish myself for my mistakes, but to learn and grow from them. You probably already know this, but it seems to me that worthwhile lessons often come with some type of pain. Maybe that's the way we'll remember them. 

A tool that I have found very useful is The TOV Standard; it is a universal guide that measures thing by how they affect life.

For something to be TOV it must protect life, preserve life, make life more functional and increase the quality of life – all lives, not just mine.

We do not live in a vacuum – our thoughts, words and actions affect other lives. The Creator described in the opening creation account of the Torah places life as His highest value and top priority. His goal for humans is Shalom – completeness, totality and wholeness. When we do acts of TOV, we make our lives, as well as those affected by our thoughts, words and actions more Shalom.

A recent FB post by Hamas said, "The Jews prize Life, and we prize Death." Obviously, they use a different standard than my Creator.

I don't make New Year Resolutions because I am already actively involved in creating the changes I'd like to see. The result of doing TOV motivates and uplifts me. It opens me up to all the amazing opportunities to create TOV for myself and others as well.

This year will be happier, healthier and more grateful for those who choose Life by creating TOV!

Shalom,

Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor