September 30, 2013
Saving Iraq's Jewish Scrolls
What a beautiful job by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
In Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, our Special Forces looking for WMD instead discoverd thousands of ancient Jewish texts.
The texts dating from 1540 to 1970 taken from the Iraqi Jewish Community were sitting defiled in the basement of Saddam Hussein's Intelligence HQS molding and decomposing under 4 feet of water.
The U.S. military and NARA rescued these texts and have painstakingly restored and preserved them through freezing, categorizing, condition assessment, stabilization, mold remediation, mending pages, washing, binding, and more.
Pictures of the collection of texts from Iraq before and after preservation can be found here.
The collection includes:
- A Hebrew Bible from 1568
- A Babylonian Talmud from 1793
- A Zohar/Kabbalah from 1815
- A Haggadah from 1902
- 48 Torah scroll fragments
- And much more.
On October 11, NARA will unveil an exhibit in Washington, DC featuring 24 of the recovered items and the preservation effort.
Hopefully, the collection of Jewish religious texts will ultimately be returned to the Jewish community from which it came, so that it can be held dear and sacred once again, and used properly in religious worship and never again held hostage or profaned.
Thank you so much to both the Department of Defense and to the National Archives for saving and preserving these ancient, sacred Jewish religious texts.
You did a beautiful mitzvah! ;-)
June 28, 2013
Ten Commandments - Good News, Bad News
When Moses was coming down from Har Sinai, he said to the people of Israel, "I have good news and bad news."
"The good news is I kept him down to ten."
"The bad news is adultery stays!"
Aside from the joke, the editorial posited why there are so many Jewish comedians--from Jackie Mason to Joan Rivers, and from Jack Benny to Jerry Seinfeld?
But maybe it should've asked, why do all the Jewish Comedians names seem to start with a J.
Thinking this through a little more, I realized so many other Jewish comedians out there--Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Billy Crystal, Chelsea Handler, Gene Wilder, George Burns, Jack Black, Larry Fine (from the Three Stooges), Mel Brooks, Rodney Dangerfield, Seth Rogen, The Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, and so many more.
So what is it that makes the Jewish people so funny?
Ms. Wisse, the author postulates that maybe it has to do with the dichotomy of the Jewish people being historically chosen to receive the Torah and hopefully serve as good examples of G-d's law and morality while at the same time "being targeted by some of the world's most determined aggressors"--Oy vey! and this list is even longer than that of the comedians!
So as Ms. Wisse points out, the Jewish people are on one hand "exalted" by G-d, but attacked by the wicked among nations.
I guess that would give just about anybody a severe complex--where do I find this one in the DSM?
Up, down, rewarded, punished, chosen, reviled--can make anyone's head spin--maybe that is why we wear Kippot (head coverings)--I was always taught it was to remember that G-d is above us and always watching and guiding us, but maybe it's also to help us keep our heads on straight with all the mixed messages we get in the world.
People mistake what "chosen" means--they think maybe Jews think they're better than others, but this is a mischaracterization.
I learned in Yeshiva--that chosen means we have a great burden to bear in fulfilling G-d commandments--when we do it well, things are good, but when we fail, we learn the hard way.
It's good to be Jewish--and it would be even better, if Jews accepted themselves and each other.
None of us are perfect--some of us are more imperfect than others.
But we are still brothers and sisters.
There is a Torah, but even the most righteous among us, don't do everything right--is anyone free from sin?
I always believed that religion is our guidepost, but as we are taught "every person is a world unto themselves" and that there is room for all of us to serve Hashem.
We each have to find the spark within and fulfill Hashem's destiny that he has for each of us--we all have what we can give and we should do it with a pure heart. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Home Videos)
Ten Commandments - Good News, Bad News
March 10, 2013
Biblical Art
After paying, I noticed there was this beautiful wall hanging between the register and pickup counter...I started to take a closer look and there were these gorgeous scenes from the bible:
- Creation and the 7th Day of Rest
- Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
- Noah and The Ark, Cain and Abel, The Tower of Babel, and Abraham
- Joseph, Moses, The Exodus from Egypt, and The Ten Commandments
- The Promised Land of Israel, The Fall of Jericho, King David, The Temple, Hezekiah, and Jonah and The Whale
The detail, colors, and flow on this artwork was absolutely amazing.
It is called "A Celebration of Spirit" and I believe that the artist is Charles Fazzino.
The lithograph was tall and narrow, and I would love to see it as a whole wall mural...it is really beautiful and brought the bible so alive.
I found out today that not only the shawarma is good at Max's... ;-)
Biblical Art
June 23, 2012
A Boy Whose Name Is Light
Recently, I inspired by an award-winning documentary that I watched on Netflix called Praying With Lior (2007).
The movie is about the development and spiritual maturation of a Jewish child with Down Syndrome to his Bar Mitzvah (and a few years past).
As a young child, Lior Liebling is comforted by his mother, who is a Rabbi, who teaches Lior to pray and sing to G-d.
She holds him and they share an amazing bond both maternal and spiritual that never leaves Lior.
Unfortunately, the mother has breast cancer and passes away when Lior is only 6.
Right before his bar mitzvah, Lior goes to his mother's gravesite and clings to it saying, "I miss you," and then breaks down in tears that I could feel or imagined rising up to the heavens itself.
Lior is deeply loved by his family--father (also a Rabbi), stepmother, and 3 siblings--who play, engage, teach him, and learn from him as well.
Lior means light in Hebrew, and Lior brings light to everyone he meets--inspiration to overcome challenge, deep love of G-d and community, and faith that his mother is watching over him.
Lior makes it to his bar-mitzvah--and becomes a proverbial Jewish man--he says the blessing, reads from the Torah, celebrates with his family and loved ones, and even gives a speech on the importance of Torah.
At the celebration, he goes over to another retarded girl, and says something about how she is special and that "I am going to marry you."
I watched this young man, Lior, pray with a rigor that I have not been able to do for some time, and I was inspired not by the words he said, nor the song he sang, or even the cheer he brought others, but rather I think I was moved by the simple sincerity and purity of his heart.
Lior didn't want anything, didn't have an agenda, wasn't trying to do anything to anybody, he was just a soul that reached out to others--loving them, hugging them, kissing them, and yes, praying with them--often actually leading the services.
One of Lior's classmates that was interviewed said that everyone has a test, and Lior's is an incredibly difficult one--but he is succeeding extraordinarily by not only surviving with his disability, but also showing others the way.
Thank you Lior for being such an amazing inspiration to us all--may you go from strength to strength and someday reunite with not only your heavenly father, but also your mother who awaits to sing and pray with you in great joy again.
A Boy Whose Name Is Light
May 4, 2012
Leadership Cloud or Flood Coming?
Here is a white paper by London-based Context Information Security (March 2011)
Context rented space from various cloud providers and tested their security.
Overall, it found that the cloud providers failed in 41% of the tests and that tests were prohibited in another 34% of the cases --leaving a pass rate of just 25%!
The major security issue was a failure to securely separate client nodes, resulting in the ability to "view data held on other service users' disk and to extract data including usernames and passwords, client data, and database contents."
The study found that "at least some of the unease felt about securing the Cloud is justified."
Context recommends that clients moving to the cloud should:
1) Encrypt--"Use encryption on hard disks and network traffic between nodes."
2) Firewall--"All networks that a node has access to...should be treated as hostile and should be protected by host-based firewalls."
2) Harden--"Default nodes provisioned by the Cloud providers should not be trusted as being secure; clients should security harden these nodes themselves."
I found another interesting post on "dirty disks" by Context (24 April 2012), which describes another cloud vulnerability that results in remnant client data being left behind, which then become vulnerable to others harvesting and exploiting this information.
In response to ongoing fears about the cloud, some are choosing to have separate air-gaped machines, even caged off, at their cloud providers facilities in order to physically separate their infrastructure and data--but if this is their way to currently secure the data, then is this really even cloud or maybe we should more accurately call it a faux cloud?
While Cloud Computing may hold tremendous cost-saving potential and efficiencies, we need to tread carefully, as the skies are not yet all clear from a security perspective with the cloud.
Clouds can lead the way--like for the Israelites traveling with G-d through the desert for 40 years or they can bring terrible destruction like when it rained for 40 days and nights in the Great Flood in the time of Noah.
The question for us is are we traveling on the cloud computing road to the promised land or is there a great destruction that awaits in a still immature and insecure cloud computing playing field?
(Source Photo: here with attribution to freefotouk)
Leadership Cloud or Flood Coming?
April 28, 2012
Governing the Internet Commons
It is a beautiful portrayal of the the founding and history of America.
One theme though that repeats again and again is that as a nation, we use the common resources and deplete them until near exhaustion.
The show portrays an America of lush forests with billions of trees that are chopped down for timber, herds of 30 million buffalo slaughtered for their hides, rollings plains of cotton for a thriving clothing industry that is over-planted, a huge whaling industry used for oil that is over-fished.
Unfortunately, as we know, the story is not just historical, but goes on to modern-day times, with fisheries depleted, whole species of animals hunted to extinction, energy resources furiously pumped and mined to a foreseen depletion, city streets turned into slushy slums, and national forests carelessly burned down, and more.
The point is what is called the "Tragedy of the Commons"--where items held in trust for everyone is misused, overused, and ultimately destroyed. With private property, people are caretakers with the incentive to maintain or raise the value to profit later. However, with common property, people grab whatever they can now, in order to profit from it before someone else gets it first.
This phenomenon was first laid out in the Torah (Bible) with a law for a "Shabbath Year" called Shmita mandating that people let fields (i.e agriculture) lie fallow for a full year every 7 years and similarly, the law of Jubilee (i.e. Yovel), that slaves be freed and loans forgiven every 50 years. I think that the idea is to regulate our personal consumption habits and return what the historical
"commons" back to its normal state of freedom from exploitation.
This notion was echoed by ecologist Garrett Harden in the journal Science in 1968, where he described European herders overgrazing common land with their cows to maximize their short-term individual profits at the expense of longer-term term societal benefits. Harden suggested that regulation or privatization can help to solve the "Tragedy of the Commons."
In the 21st century, we see the modern equivalent of the commons with the Internet, which is an open, shared networking resource for our computing and telecommunications.Without protection, we have the Wild West equivalent with things like spam, malware, and attacks proliferating--clogging up the network and causing disruptions and destruction, and where some people use more than their fair share
Here are some examples of the Tragedy of the Internet:
- Symantec reports that even with spam decreasing with the shutdown of spam-hosting sites, in 2011, it is still 70% of all emails.
- McAfee reports that malware peaked as of the first half of 2010, with 10 million new pieces.
- Kaspersky reports that web-based attacks were up to 580 million in 2010--8 times the amount of the previous year.
- Verizon Wireless reports 3% of their users use 40% of their bandwidth.
If we value the Internet and want to continue using and enjoying it, then like with our other vital resources, we need to take care of it through effective governance and prudent resource management.
This means that we do the following:
1) Regulation--manage the appropriate use of the Internet through incentives and disincentives for people to behave civilly online. For example, if someone is abusing the system sending out millions or billions of spam messages, charge them for it!
2) Privatization--create ownership over the Internet. For example, do an Internet IPO and sell shares in it--so everyone can proverbially, own a piece of it and share financially in it's success (or failures).
3) Security Administration--enhance security of the Internet through public and private partnership with new tools, methods, and advanced skills sets. This is the equivalent of sending out the constable or sheriff to patrol the commons and ensure people are doing the right thing, and if not then depending on who the violating actor(s) are take appropriate law enforcement or military action.
Only by managing the Internet Commons, can we protect this vital resource for all to use, enjoy, and even profit by.
(Source Photo: here)
Governing the Internet Commons
April 13, 2012
Be Who You Are
She said that from all her studies and research, what she learned is that purpose and meaning in life comes from the connections we make and maintain.
But what gets in the way is shame and fear--shame that we are not good enough and fear that we cannot make real connections with others.To move beyond shame and fear, we need to feel worthy as human beings--true self acceptance--and say "I am enough."
However, she points out that as a society there is a lot of numbing going on (i.e. plenty of shame and fear) and that is why we are the most in debt, obese, addicted, and medicated society in history. I liked this presentation and thought about how hard we are on ourselves--we are never good enough.
- All our lives we pursue signs of advancement from that gold star in grade school to collections of degrees, awards, promotions, material goods, and even relationships.
- We constantly push ourselves further and faster on the treadmill of life--in part to learn, grow and be better, but also to try to achieve our sense of self-worth and -acceptance.
That sense of self-worth and confidence, Brown says, enables you to achieve three key things in life:
- Courage--This is the courage to be yourself and to tell others who you are with a whole heart (i.e. they don't hide in shame).
- Compassion--That is compassion for others, but also for yourself first--you accept yourself.
- Connection--Getting to solid relationships in life is a result of our own capacity to be authentic.
When you have that self-worth and confidence then you can embrace your vulnerabilities and make them beautiful, rather than numb yourself to constantly try to cover the disdain you feel for your frailties and weaknesses.
From my perspective, our growth and contributions to the world are good things--leave the world better than you found it!
However, the proving ourselves and amassing "things," while milestones in life, are not a measure of a person's true worth.
Sometimes it is fine to get over it all--accept yourself, be yourself, and stop worrying that your never good enough.
In the Torah (bible), when Moshe asked G-d his name--G-d replies in Exodus 3:14: "I am that I am."
To me, this is really the lesson here--if we but try to emulate G-d, then "we are what we are."
That is not defeat or giving up on bettering ourselves, but acceptance of who we are, where we came from, and where we want to go in our lives.
We don't have to beat ourselves up for being those things or for making good faith mistakes along the way.
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Be Who You Are
January 21, 2012
Finding Better Ways
Here are some examples that may resonate with a lot of you:
- Driving--We drive 1-4 hours a day and "are okay with that."
- Email--We boot up our computers, go to the Internet, log unto to our accounts, and send an email and think that "was so easy, fast, and convenient."
- Clothing--We get dressed in underwear, shirts, pants, belt, socks, shoes, tie, and wrap it all under a jacket and feel that it's "not way too many pieces."
- Bathrooms--We have bathrooms in our homes and have it close to where we eat and that "seems smart to us."
There were other examples making fun of us eating fruits and vegetables, keeping domesticated animals in our homes, and thinking that living to the age of 91 is old.
While we don't know exactly what the future will look like, when we look at our lives today "under the microscope"--things really do sort of appear comical.
I believe that we really do need to look at ourselves--what we do, and how we do it--with fresh eyes--and ask why do we do that? And are there alternatives? Is there a better way?
Too often we believe that the way things are--"is simply it"--when if we would just think how this would look to someone 100 years from now, perhaps we would be quicker to open our eyes to other options and innovations.
It reminds me of the story in the Torah (Numbers 22) where Balaam is sent to curse the Jewish people but ends up blessing them. In this story the donkey that he is riding on refuses to proceed, because it sees an angel in front of them. Balaam does not see the angel and beats the donkey thinking that was the right thing to do. G-d then miraculously gives the donkey the power of speech and the donkey complains about the harsh treatment from Balaam, and G-d opens Balaam's eyes to see the angel, at which point he understands that the donkey really saved his life.
This Biblical story is similar to our lives where we go along sort of blind to the realities right in front of us, and not only that but we keep pushing forward along the very same route not seeing the obstacles or other alternatives that may be better for us.
While we (generally) don't have donkeys talking back to us with feedback or the ability to see angels, I think by sensitizing ourselves more, we can open ourselves up to question the status quo and break the paradigms that we just take as givens.
So when we do get to the next 100 years out--it'll truly be a lot better than today and without the traffic! ;-)
Finding Better Ways
October 29, 2011
Visiting The Sins of The Fathers
Visiting The Sins of The Fathers
January 1, 2008
Zen and Enterprise Architecture
The Book of Zen, by Eric Chaline, states that “nothing we can see, hear, or touch in the world has any permanent existence. It will of necessity, pass away.” This is the concept of “emptiness.”
Emptiness means that “all forms or appearances in the universe” are constantly changing and transient. For example, a simple chair was once “a piece of wood from a tree.” And over time, the “wear and tear on the chair will change its appearance and structure: losing some of its wood and gaining deposits of dirt. In time, the chair will break, and the wood will decay, rot, and finally fall to dust.”
This is similar to how the Torah/Bible describes the lifecycle of mankind, “for dust thou art and unto dust shall thou return.” We are simply passing through this world.
Similarly, in the Jewish high holy day prayers of Yom Kippur, we recognize and contrast G-d’s kingship and everlasting permanence with the earthly transient world of mankind which is likened to “a broken shard, withering grass, a fading flower, a passing shade, a dissipating cloud, a blowing wind, flying dust, and a fleeting dream.” The point here is not to bemoan our mortality, but to rejoice in G-d’s eternalness.
Like in Judaism, Zen and other religions and belief systems, User-centric EA seeks to understand the “as-is” nature of things, in this case, the organization, and it seeks to reconcile the “emptiness” and transiency of the current state with the necessity for adaptation and metamorphosis to its future state. EA recognizes that the way things are today and not the way they will be tomorrow; all factors inside an organization as well as the external factors affecting the organization are constantly in a state of flux. Therefore, the state of the organization is temporary and the organization must adapt or die. EA seeks organizational change and transformation through the development of a new “to-be” state along with a transition plan to get there.
In that sense, EA is a form of enlightenment for the organization and its transformation to a new state of being.
Zen and Enterprise Architecture