The Nation Lives - A Poem by Leon

Jerusalem Fri Aug 12th 2005

The Nation Lives.
I'm a Jew you are a Jew.
Because the Nation Lives.
Abraham died.
Moses and David all died.
I will die and so will you.
We are all parts
of a nation called the Jews.
Parts may come and parts may go.
Parts replace parts.
There are parts and parts and parts.
But the nation Lives.
Look how the parts have suffered.
In Jerusalem, Massada, Mainz,
Speir, Cologne and Auschwitz.
The suffering has become a part.
The people and their suffering
keep the Nation alive.
Defeat is individual like death.
But Victory is national like life.
When the Torah say "choose life not death"
it means join the nation don't live alone.
We join the nation by learning
about the history of the suffering
of individual parts of our nation,
in Egypt, Jerusalem, Babylon and Germany,
and passing this on to our children.
We pass it on and
The Nation Lives.

My collection of Quotes

I've come to the conclusion that the main purpose of writing or doing most things is to give others pleasure. So if I've given you some pleasure I have been rewarded for my efforts, which I confess are quite strenuous.

I don't think that wise sayings are meant to be practised, they're only indications of a person's opinions and guidelines to thoughts. They aren't dogmatic beliefs and a person can change his opinions about life and daily events. 

Some sayings appear to be wise, others are plainly nonsense, but these are things I have thought about or that I've heard tourists say while guiding tourists around the places which are holy for them.​

The Bible

Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. Isaiah 2:3

Pirke Avot (Jewish Book of Ethics)quotes

Everything is in the hands of God, excepting the fear of God. 

My friend's quotes Interpretation: (By my friend Sid Gordon) 

God doesn't make decisions for man (like being righteous or wicked) every person makes his or her own decisions in life. God allows this because He does not force anyone to be righteous and holy or to be wicked. Man is responsible for these decisions.

Sid Gordon Fri 13th Nov 09

"I didn't know that calvary and the tomb of Jesus were so close to each other" 

Tourist Bob Thur 3rd Dec 09 

Never give up on the internet. Keep at it untill you get it right.

Candy 

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Always be willing to let go of the life you had planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for you.

My Quotes:

Be patient with people, everybody, especially those close to you. People need time to come round to think about what they have said or done. 

People will criticise themselves much more fiercly and effectively than you can ever do, but you need patience untill they think about the things they've done or said. 

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Social order is maintained by the spread of myths which Plato calls "Noble LIes and maimonides calls "necessary and useful beliefs." 

Sun 15th Nov 09 

What is the light at the end of the dark path of Jewish HIstory which illuminates every step we take? it is the light of Torah. 

It's important to enjoy something beautiful each day. 

Tues 1st Dec 09

looking back at the light and shade of Jewish history we’re hopeful that whatever tragedies the future may bring, joyous events will follow.

Western (Wailing) Wall quotes 

Tues 17th Nov 09 

Jews pray at the wall for God not to destroy the world 

The wall is the closest we can come to the place where holiness used to come down to earth without standing on the place itself. 

Temple sacrifice quotes 

God used to send holiness down to earth when the priests used to sacrifice at the temple, now we aren't worthy to recieve the holiness because we're not holy, because we have defiled ourselves with war and blood and in any case there aren't anymore priests. 

Because of this we live in darkness and just as people sleep in the darkness and dream so the temple has become a dream

Leon's War quotes 

We’ll win the war when we stop fighting. 

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"you move to violence by blaming someone for nonsense. You move people to peace by not blaming anyone." 

Leon's interpretation quotes

Puccini’s opera Manon Lescaut is the tragedy of a woman who takes love from one man and money from another. 

Leon's quotes about Jesus 

Sat 14th Nov 09 

Jesus was not the saviour of the Jews neither was he their king or god.

Leon's Calvary Quotes

Calvary and the tomb of Jesus weren't close to each other. The closeness was artificially contrived by Constantine to facilitate pilgrimage . 

Winston Churchill 

Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."

Ed Morrissey

"Mass murderer in Norway gets 99.5 days in prison per victim" 

"scary but it would help if other nations make sure that this guy stays in Norway and never enters another country." 

beena sarwar 

If clerics can hold forth from pulpits, move crowds to be violent in religion's name, they should also be able to move crowds to be peaceful.

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More of My Quotes:

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worries take up too much thinking space in my brain and I am very worried about its capacity. 

Jews mourn at the Wailing because the destruction of the temple signified the imminent destruction of the world. 

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You don’t have to hate someone just because you disagree with him.

the Jews are the guardians of the temple and God will give them back that task. 

Moslems will agree to Jewish sovereignty of the Holy Land if they become Moslem.

Gambling is stealing honestly from people prepared to pay for the chance to steal honestly. 

God wants to destroy the world but desists because of devout Christians, Jews and Moslems.

Offering animal sacrifices Jews thought they were saving the world from destruction which God was preparing to carry out after Adam's sin.

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Israelis have lost patience with the Arabs and aren’t interested in fighting extended wars. Leon Gork

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Jewish idealism established the State of Israel to reach for the top of an ideal society

Hanlie Gordon

advice for folding bike enthusiasts CAREFULL THAT THE THING DONT FOLD UP WHILE YOU ARE TRAVELING! MOOI BLY.

Rabbi of Kotzk

horses follow the middle of the path humans always walk along the edge.

More of my very own quotes:

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why is it important to know that there is a god? won't i be just as happy not knowing that he exists as knowing?

levels of society are joined to each other, like mountain climbers struggling to reach the peak. Leon Gork

the Garden of Eden is the world we leave behind after we die, our lives are a once in a lifetime opportunity to make it more perfect Leon Gork

The Death of Sigmund Freud Mark Edmundson P.232

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to renounce the visible in the interest of the unseen is an enormously difficult task.” 

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for all to go well, he needed to have a close friend to confide in and a spirited enemy to oppose.

My Quote:

why is it important to know that there is a god? won't i be just as happy not knowing that he exists as knowing? 

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The animal is capable of achieving pure joy because it can't think. I am capable of achieving it because I can think.

My tours in Jerusalem and Israel are the closest one can come in Israel to the situation in Hyde Park, where everyone can speak his mind freely.

About Me

My lifestory.

My meditation.
Make the best of life.

My lifestory.

I considered myself lucky from the day I was born, well from as early as I can remember thinking, which must have been about the day I was born in Krugersdorp.

I lay, tightly wrapped in lovely white, starched sheets in a cot facing a wall covered in plaster with a pleasant light green coloured, wavy hair comb design, whose lines my eyes traced eagerly in the hope of finding their beginning or their end. I found neither and came to the conclusion that good things are circular; a good painting never ends, neither a good song or a good feeling. Bad things had beginnings and ends.

Today I can only guess that someone had placed me, lying on my right side, facing the wall, without any possibility of turning around because they thought it healthy, but to this day my right leg is weaker than my left leg because of the numbness it suffered then.

I loved learning so I eagerly awaited my first school day because someone had lied to me that school is a place to learn things. From the moment I found out the truth, that school is just a place to regurgitate what your teachers told you I began to suffer. But I knew that suffering, like all bad things came to an end, so 12 years of suffering past over me.

My suffering was the result of a radical discrepancy between what I was supposed to learn at school and what I learned on my own; one didn't get good grades from learning things not taught in school.

I became a teacher to rectify this situation for the next generation but I gave it up after 10 years and settled in Israel where I became a tour guide.

I have lived in Jerusalem, at exactly the place I'd always dreamed of living, namely, Mt.Scopus, overlooking the mountains of Moab and I've managed to see my 4 sons grow up. This also is a never ending process.

I have a wonderful wife and I'm madly in love with her, a granddaughter by the name of Tamar, who is just like me, a grandson by the name of Ophir, another by the name of Alon and now the latest addition is Eitan.

I love my work and even after 35 years of guiding I still feel as if I'm always going out on my very first tour.

My meditation

I believe that there are many people who follow my philosophy of life, some do it conciously, like myself but some people do it automatically and are happy without ever knowing why, they just accept it as the natural way of life.

People like myself who have to conciously learn this philosophy have to work at it all their lives and even then they don't achieve complete happiness. That is a very  idealistic situation.

It's helped me feel better but the moment I stop and try to live without it I go back into depression. It's like a tablet that one takes almost every minute of the day.

I have printed my meditation on my business card. I don't suggest that it'll help everybody or that it'll help quickly or permanently but it changed my life.

It goes like this:

"Whatever befalls me will not disturb my mental joy because being unhappy I will not accomplish what I want and my virtue will diminish."

I think that only if a person really wants to heal his sadness this will help him but if he doesn't really want to heal his sadness it won't help.

I also recommend reading a book by the Dalai Lama called "Healing anger". I found it very difficult to read and understand but after reading it about 3 times it helped me, even though I didn't completely understand it.

Complete understanding like complete happiness is a goal to strive for all our lives and very few people achieve it but it is possible and it is worthile trying to achieve it.

Make the best of life

Everything in life is so sudden and so surprising, we simply don't know what's going to happen next.

We just have to accept and respect and adjust to living in the new situation.

Let's all try to enjoy those close to us, to be kind to them and give them encouragement in everything they di,

Let's enjoy our kids and our family for a good long life

 

My hero Adam

We often use the word "hero" to describe a person who performs actions that are admired and appreciated by society.

Psychologists and philosophers have had many debates on what constitutes a hero. Usually, they consider three factors: 1) the deed performed. 2) the motivation for its performance, and 3) the reward.

But really, what makes a person a hero is none of these because, in most cases, it's not what the hero has done that makes him a hero; neither is it what has motivated him and often, it's not the reward.

In fact, what makes a person a hero is what he has sacrificed to do the thing for which he is admired.

Most heroes have sacrificed something important to them on their way to becoming heroes; some have sacrificed wealth, others family, nourishment, pleasure, etc., but the greatest sacrifice is considered to be life.

But one thing is for sure: a person cannot sacrifice something he doesn't have. He can sacrifice life because he has life.

Therefore, although some heroes have sacrificed their lives, only one hero in all of history could have sacrificed something much more important than life: everlasting life—immortality—eternity.

Adam made that sacrifice. He was the only one who ever had immortality, and he sacrificed it.

Greater still, he sacrificed immortality for all mankind. His sacrifice of immortality brought death into the world. The most significant problem facing mankind.

Without Adam's sacrifice of immortality, we would have been immortal, but we wouldn't have come into existence.

Instead of admiring Adam for the sacrifice he made to bestow life on us, however, we malign him as the originator of sin, the one who robbed man of eternal life, forgetting that, in fact, he besowed life on man.

Religion has been insisting on this sin and exists as a way to regain immortality, which is deception.

Nevertheless, religion's entire function since then has been to regain immortality. It harps on this "blessed" task and even takes on the job of judging people to damnation if they don't follow religious ideas.

In our avid search for ways of atoning for Adam's "sin," we don't take the trouble to examine the heroic act he performed and how it actually brought us into life and taught us the importance of love of one another. Most of all, the account of Adam and Eve is a lesson that teaches us to make tremendous efforts to love our spouses, especially for the husband to love his wife.

When it comes to loving a woman, the husband must be as prepared as Adam was to sacrifice immortality. Through this love, human beings are brought into the world.

Adam is not only the first man but also the first hero because he brought marital love into the world and sacrificed eternity to do it.


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