Motto of faith

“Look back and thank God. Look forward and trust God. Look around and serve God. Look within and find God.”

I don't know who wrote this but it's pretty good.

Dr. Rick Kirschner: Herd immunity a myth?

https://twitter.com/DrKND/status/1220410081709297667/photo/1

Another doctor speaks out

“As a doctor, until it happened to me, until I saw the regression, until I saw a normal 18-month-old toddler descend into autism, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible.” - Dr. Jon Poling, M.D. Neurologist (Georgia)

And even the government agreed with him:

"The government, actually the department of health and human services, conceded that my daughter's medical problems which are autism encaolophsy seizers are brought on by vaccinations."

Watch

A teen's final days with the flu

A teen's final days with the flu 

She was not vaccinated but let us note again that the flu vaccine is one of the least effective. In some years its effectiveness is as low as 19%.

Excerpt: "Seven people under the age of 18 died of the flu last week, bringing the total number to 39 since the flu season began at the end of September, according to the CDC."

The Joy of Tu b'Shvat by R' Tzvi Abraham

The Joy of Tu b'Shvat by R' Tzvi Abraham

Tu b’Shvat is the new year of the trees for ma’asros. Why should we celebrate the new year of the trees?  What’s the joy in it? What makes it a new year for us?

Fruit was Adam’s first food because it was the only food commensurate with his spiritual stature.  Fruits bear a certain similarity to man, for though they grow from the ground,  they are raised above the ground, much like man, who has a body formed from the dust of the earth, but a soul that lifts him above it.  And although fruits grow from the ground, they hang down from  their branches:  we look up to the heavens to pick them, sometimes we even have to ascend a ladder to get them down. Eating fruits allowed Adam to nourish his body without turning his focus to the earth. Consider this, in contrast to the serpent, who was punished with the curse of eating the dust:

יד  וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶל-הַנָּחָשׁ, כִּי עָשִׂיתָ זֹּאת, אָרוּר אַתָּה מִכָּל-הַבְּהֵמָה, וּמִכֹּל חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה;

 עַל-גְּחֹנְךָ תֵלֵךְ, וְעָפָר תֹּאכַל כָּל-יְמֵי חַיֶּיךָ.

14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent: 'Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from among all cattle, and from among all beasts of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

Tu b’Shvat begins the new year for taking ma’aser, which makes it  important, because we can’t ma’aser last year’s fruits by taking ma’aser from this  year’s fruits.   So, although our celebration of the day is centered in fruits, it is not fruits, but taking ma’aser from fruits in obedience to G-d’s Command that is the central theme of the day.

All the material pleasures of this world are symbolized in fruits.  The prohibition we recite in the Shma of following after the temptations of the eye reminds us of the visual appeal of the fruit that kicked off the history of sin.

ו  וַתֵּרֶא הָאִשָּׁה כִּי טוֹב הָעֵץ לְמַאֲכָל וְכִי תַאֲוָה-הוּא לָעֵינַיִם, וְנֶחְמָד הָעֵץ לְהַשְׂכִּיל, וַתִּקַּח מִפִּרְיוֹ, וַתֹּאכַל;

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat;

If it was just good eating, Chava would have restrained herself, but the fruit awakened a lust in her eye, which induced her to prefer the wisdom that would satisfy that lust (the wisdom of the world)  to the Wisdom of G-d.

It was fitting that Adam lived entirely on fruits, the  world’s greatest delight, for he drew his pleasure into his unwavering devotion to G-d and, in doing that, united Heaven and earth, which was his task in the Garden of G-d.  Eating grains or vegetables, he couldn’t do that. The pleasure of eating them can’t compare to the pleasure of eating fruit, because the taste of a fruit contains all the pleasures of the world. To eat anything but fruits would have been  a betrayal of his spiritual stature and  a repudiation of the task for which he had been created and placed in the Garden.

Bu when he ate a fruit which G-d had forbidden, he betrayed that task and repudiated it, because  forbidden fruit has no part in the delight of devotion to G-d.  Just as he had lifted the earth to Heaven before,  eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, he divided Heaven and earth, casting it from the threshold of Heaven, where he had sanctified it by his devotion to G-d, into the abyss of the serpent’s kingdom. Cain, his son would soon commit murder, and within a few generations, his children would be worshiping idols. He would be cast out of the Garden and condemned to till the soil.  So began the tragic history of man as we know him, struggling or succumbing to the evil which rules his heart by his preference of the wisdom of the world to the Wisdom of G-d.

The situation was corrected—momentarily—at Mt. Sinai, where, the midrash tells us, the Children of Israel ascended to the spiritual level of Adam before his sin.  That correction was quickly  undone by the sin of the golden calf, but not completely. For Adam was cast from the Garden into the desolation of tohu, and in our time, the desolation of tohu is relieved by the Light of Torah and the power to unite Heaven and earth restored by the gift of G-d’s Commandments.  Ma’aser is one of those commandments.  When we take ma’aser from fruits, we do teshuvah for Adam’s sin.  The fruit that Adam took for himself, in violation of G-d’s Command, we now give to G-d in obedience to His Command. The celebration of our ability to do that is the joy of Tu b’Shvat.  

Tu b’Shvat does teshuvah for Adam’s sin, the most comprehensive, fundamental and pernicious of all sins, for it put us in the thrall of our wandering eyes. The dignity and joy of the day is the opportunity to renounce that servitude and rededicate ourselves, as the act of taking ma’aser symbolizes, to lifting the earth to Heaven and living our lives with G-d.  May G-d note our efforts and reward them soon with the coming of the Moshiach and the revelation of His Kingdom!  

What then, is the best way to celebrate Tu b’Shvat?  With the fruits of Eretz Yisrael, because they have been ma’asered.  Even better, with fruits from which we take ma’aser on Tu b’Shvat, for the ma’aser we take on the New Year of the trees is a sign  of our determination to spend the entire year, from Tu b’Shvat to Tu b’Shvat  correcting the sin of Adam by shielding our eyes from the  temptation of forbidden fruits that turn the heart away from G-d and betray our task of restoring the world to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Avoid the flu naturally

https://www.healthnutnews.com/12-drugless-ways-to-avoid-getting-the-flu/ Exercise regularly.

Get enough restful sleep.

Find a practice — be it meditation, yoga, journaling, prayer, gardening or whatever works for you — to reduce stress.

Adopt a nutritional diet of real food and avoid processed or fast food, vegetable oils and refined sugar.

Optimize your levels of vitamin D.

Wash your hands often.

Cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze, ideally with the crook of your elbow.

Take a high-quality source of animal-based omega-3 fats found in krill oil.

Avoid close contact with those who are sick and, if you are sick, avoid close contact with those who are well.

Use natural immune boosters such as oil of oregano and garlic.

Avoid hospitals.

Take quercetin, a plant flavonol found naturally in some fruit, green tea, elder flower and onions. Its antiviral component inhibits several strains of influenza and other viruses.

Aluminium in brain tissue in autism

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder of unknown aetiology. It is suggested to involve both genetic susceptibility and environmental factors including in the latter environmental toxins. Human exposure to the environmental toxin aluminium has been linked, if tentatively, to autism spectrum disorder. Herein we have used transversely heated graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry to measure, for the first time, the aluminium content of brain tissue from donors with a diagnosis of autism. We have also used an aluminium-selective fluor to identify aluminium in brain tissue using fluorescence microscopy. The aluminium content of brain tissue in autism was consistently high.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29413113

Author information

1

The Birchall Centre, Lennard-Jones Laboratories, Keele University, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, United Kingdom.

2

Life Sciences, Keele University, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, United Kingdom.

3

Department of Clinical Neuropathology, Kings College Hospital, London, SE5 9RS, United Kingdom.

BTs take it slow

NO SHORTCUTS  “Lest the people reconsider when they see war and return to Egypt. And Hashem led the people around by way of the desert” (13:17-18)  Egypt was the source of heresy and immorality, and the exodus from Egypt involved abandoning the tumah of Egypt in preparation for matan Torah. In every generation anyone who repents undertakes his own private yetzias mitzrayim from the tumah of his previous deeds.  When someone wants to become a baal teshuva he may reconsider when he sees war, the battle which has to fight against the evil inclination, he may then change his mind about changing his lifestyle and revert to his private “Egyptian” way of life. That is why Hashem led the people around by way of the desert. One cannot take a shortcut all in one go. Teshuva has to be undertaken gradually. If one takes the roundabout route, one will not be frightened by seeing the distance that still has to be covered. On the other hand, although this is the general rule, each individual should assess his own level, and if he feels capable of accepting the yoke of Torah completely in one go, he should do so, based on the guidance of gedolei Torah.

Based on droshos by Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlita, raavad of Yerushalayim. To receive these weekly divrei Torah email benipray@netvision.net.il. 

Should we be sad when goyim suffer or die?

QUESTION: Should we be sad when goyim suffer or die?

ANSWER: When goyim suffer, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is sad. Ma'sei Yudei tovim bayam, Hashem is sad. What should we do? We should say Hashem is sad, that's enough. Don't spend any money on it, because there are plenty of poor Jews that need your money. Now, when an ambulance passes by, you should always say a tefilla. If it's chalila a Jew inside, say Hakadosh Baruch Hu should send him a refuah shleima.      Now, if an Italian would hear me say this, and he asks, why don't you say this prayer for Italians too? So I say, do you pray if an Italian passes by in an ambulance? Do you pray for an Italian? You don't pray for your fellow Italian, so why should I pray for Italians? Therefore, you are mechuyov to pray for your fellow Jews. If you hear an ambulance, don't ignore it! It's making a wailing sound, it's crying out for help – maybe it's a Jew? Therefore pray that he should have a refuah shleima, if it's a Yisroel.      Hakadosh Baruch Hu is different. Hakadosh Baruch Hu has kavayochol tzar when a person has any tzar at all; ma'sei Yudei tovim bayam. A Moment with Rabbi Avigdor Miller Zt"l #510

Big Pharma Plays Hide-the-Ball With Data by BEN WOLFORD

https://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/21/medical-science-has-data-problem-284066.html

Excerpts

On the morning of March 2, 2005, a 14-year-old Japanese girl woke up scared. At first she thought someone was outside the house watching her, but then she decided the stranger must be inside. She wandered restlessly and, despite the cold weather, threw open all the windows. Later, over a meal, she declared, "The salad is poisoned." Two days later, she said she wanted to kill herself.

That Japanese girl, whose case was detailed in an FDA report, did not kill herself. But at least 70 people have died, many of them by suicide, after Tamiflu-induced episodes. The deaths were almost surreal: A 14-year-old who took Tamiflu jumped off a balcony, and a 17-year-old on the drug ran in front of a truck. Scientists documented other cases of "psychopathic events," including a South Korean girl who temporarily developed bipolar disorder and an 8-year-old Japanese boy who wouldn't answer to his name and began to growl.

...

But evidence released earlier this year by Cochrane Collaboration, a London-based nonprofit, shows that a significant amount of negative data from the drug's clinical trials were hidden from the public.


...

The most infamous case of publication bias is a 1980 study in which heart attack patients were split into two groups: One group received a drug called lorcainide, while the other group received a placebo. Researchers wanted to find out whether lorcainide cures dangerous abnormal heart rhythms, which it does. But during the study, nine of the lorcainide patients died, compared with just one of the placebo patients. Lorcainide's maker stopped production soon after for unrelated commercial reasons, and consequently the researchers never published their report. They believed the deaths to be "an effect of chance."

But physicians continued prescribing drugs similar to lorcainide. Finally, in 1993, the researchers apologized for withholding the study, which they said could have "provided an early warning of trouble ahead." But the damage was done: Throughout the '80s, an estimated 20,000 to 75,000 people died in the U.S. each year from the inappropriate prescription of antiarrhythmic drugs, according to a 2003 editorial by Kay Dickersin and Drummond Rennie in The Journal of the American Medical Association.