Rabbi Kedar's blog

The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice-

In the late 1800s, Galveston rabbi Henry Cohen was puzzled by the word fronthall, which he had often heard in reference to a person of unusual courage. He investigated and found that the word described a Jewish Confederate soldier named Max Frankenthal. Enlisted as a drummer boy, Frankenthal fought in many battles, the most memorable being the one known as the Bloody Acute Angle.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

King Solomon said: "Remove anger from your heart and you take away evil from your flesh." Very frequently in Holy Scripture and in the maxims of the Talmudic sages we find an admonition against anger, for anger is a very bad quality into which man can easily fall and which then does him great injury spiritually and physically. The sages of the Talmud believe that in anger lies the root of numerous sins. Hence they said, "Be not in anger and you will not sin." And again they say: "He who becomes angry, if he is a sage his wisdom departs from him, and if he is a prophet his prophecy is taken away from him."

My friends, the momentous trials of the last century, and the unfolding events of this century, attest to the decisive role of the United States in advancing peace and defending freedom. Providence entrusted the United States to be the guardian of liberty. All peoples who cherish freedom owe a profound debt of gratitude to your great nation. Among the most grateful nations is my nation, the people of Israel, who have fought for their liberty and survival against impossible odds, in ancient and modern times alike.