TOV To the Left of Me; TOV to the Right of Me; There’s TOV All Over!!!

Tonight starts the Jewish High Holy Days with Rosh Ha'Shanah (literally, the Head of the year). Many people mistakenly think this is the New Year on the Hebrew calendar. Actually the Jewish new year or first month happens in the spring. The Hebrew month of Nisan, begins the Hebrew/Jewish calendar. People will greet you with Happy New Year, but this is the seventh month. Maybe this time period had some agricultural or fiscal importance in ancient times.

The Hebrew greeting, L'Shanah TOVah, To a Good Year, a TOV year! Remember, TOV also means, “Words, Thoughts and Actions that Preserve Life, Protect Life, Make Life More Functional and Increases the Quality of Life.” But the TOV doesn't stop there!

Next week is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. We fast and pray and reflect on our past actions. We ask for forgiveness for transgressions against the Creator. Repairing all other relationships is OUR Responsibility, whether we are the one whom has been hurt, or we were the one doing the hurting.

The Tradition says that on Rosh Ha'Shanah all of our deeds were written down and on Yom Kippur, our fate is sealed for the year to come. (Difficult, since Judaism also says we have free will and free choice!) The greeting on Yom Kippur is, G'Mar Chatimah TOVah -- literally, May your (fate) be sealed for/with TOV (Life).

I’m just getting started – TOV is everywhere in Judaism!!!

● A Jewish Festival is called a Yom TOV, literally “A TOV Day!”

● When Shabbat ends we wish others a Shavuah TOV, “A TOV week.”

● There's Boker TOV, “A TOV morning – and -- A TOV afternoon; A TOV evening.

● A Shem TOV, A TOV(good) Name.

● Tam TOV, A TOV Taste.

● Ish TOV, A TOV man.

● Ishah TOVah, A TOV woman.

● Anashim TOVim, TOV People

OK,OK, I'll STOP!!! And the point is -- TOV encompasses everything having to do with all the Facets of Light and Life, for each of us and for all of creation.

Make learning about TOV and all the opportunities for creating TOV a commitment this coming year. It opens up the world of our humanity and lets us examine our MEMES (the thoughts in our minds), connects us with other people helping to make our little corner of the world better, safer, stronger and more peaceful.

I wish for all of us a “Year of TOV” – a year of acknowledging all the TOV in our lives.

L'Shanah TOVah

Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor

Some Things You Should Know About Human Power

Are local police departments important rivets in our society?

Social institutions in America have been under heavy attack over the past five decades, specifically political, economic and religious institutions. Social institutions are like rivets that hold a society together.

Remove the rivets from the pieces of metal in the above picture and all of the pieces come apart. Over the past fifty years America has been losing a lot of “rivets” and those loses are changing our nation. Many changes have been for the better, but some have dangerous structural implications. Some of the recent institutions to come under fire are local police departments. This could result in a number of unintended consequences that could have dangerous structural implications.

The June 2015 issue of Scientific American (pp. 52-53) contains an article – Ethology: The Networked Animal by Lee Alan Dugatkin and Matthew Hasenjager – that may offer a hint of what those structural implications may be.

Pig-Tailed Macaques (macaca nemestrina) create multiple networks, such as ones composed of playmates or grooming partners. Networks differ in size, and a monkey might have different favorite partners in different networks. A particular macaque may also play a stronger role in one network than in another. But the various networks share a common feature: they operate under the watchful eye of a few authority figures that keep the peace. These macaque “police,” some of the group’s highest-ranking males, spend time and energy breaking up fights between other individuals in their social networks.

The loss of a low-ranking group member did little to the social networks. But as might be expected, the absence of police led to increased aggression and decreased reconciliation after fights in the population. Less predictably, without the police present, the play and grooming networks also underwent complex restructuring.

With police gone, for instance, group members played with and groomed fewer partners; that is, the “degree” of their play and grooming networks decreased. And the “reach” of the remaining monkeys—the number of friends of the friends of an individual—went down in those networks. At the same time, the cohesion of the entire society weakened; the population underwent a kind of balkanization, dividing into smaller, more homogeneous groups that rarely interacted with outsiders. These observations led Flack and her colleagues to hypothesize that the presence of police allowed for a healthier and denser network, where members had more and friendlier contacts with larger numbers of their fellows.

The authors point out that these studies could help us understand human social networks too.

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Grandparents

It's Time to Bring People Together

The Days of Transformation

This piece is a shout out to my friend Jim Myers and his Real Yeshua Blog. The Hebrew month of Elul comes before the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Traditionally it is a time of inner reflection which we call in Hebrew Heshbone Ha Nefesh, literally, “an accounting of the soul.” Friday, August 14th was the start of this sacred season.

As Jim points out, an important component of this time is repairing and reconciling broken relationships. There are three basic relationships involved:

(1) The one we have with ourselves.

(2) The one we have with our Highest Power or Highest Love.

(3) The ones we have with the rest of creation.

Unfortunately for us, we are responsible for repairing and reconciling all three.

But what about Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, fasting, prayer, forgiveness? Yom Kippur covers only transgressions against the Creator, which can include evil we do to ourselves and to others. But, our personal relationships belong to us.

How do we accomplish this vital task? There is an ancient formula we call in Hebrew, TESHUVAH, literally, to TURN ONSELF AROUND. Remember, WE are doing the Turning, not GOD! This idea was taught in the Torah and by Jewish Teachers and Rabbis, which included Yeshua (aka “Jesus”). In Matthew 5:23-24 he teaches,

"Therefore, if you bring your QORBAN to the ALTAR, and THERE, you REMEMBER that your "brother" has something AGAINST you, leave your QORBAN there, before the altar, and FIRST be RECONCILED with your brother", and THEN come and offer your QORBAN.” 

The Temple's sacrificial rituals were part of Jewish life at that time. QORBAN is usually translated as, "Sacrifice" or "Offering." In 21st century America, both words are understood to be an act in which the one presenting the QORBAN, "loses" or "gives up something." During Yeshua’s time, and before, the word QORBAN means "TO DRAW NEAR YAHWEH." The closest thing we have to that today is PRAYER- an act to bring us closer to THE PRESENCE.

It is through our repairing of relationships that we grow spiritually as adults. We were never created to be PERFECT! When we make mistakes and hurt ourselves and others, the ancient formula of TESHUVAH is the spiritual glue.

How does one do TESHUVAH? Cease doing the negative behavior, experience genuine remorse for the wrong committed and ask for forgiveness (forgiveness is not condoning, forgiveness is for "US" so we can move forward), make restitution and repair where possible for the damage done, and DO ACTS OF TOV! -- Protect Life, Preserve Life, Make Life More Functional and/or Increase the Quality of Life.

Want to "DRAW NEAR" the GREAT SPIRIT, THE HIGHEST LOVE -- the spirit of others? Don't talk about it, DO IT! Concrete acts of Kindness, Righteousness, Justice and TOV are all ways that lead to SHALOM -- Wholeness and Peace.

Please let us know if you think this is a valuable and important message. If you do, please go to the TOV Center Facebook Page and “Like It” -- click here. Share this with others too!

Shalom,

Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor

One Small Word Makes a Big Difference