2013-bar-mitzvah-celebrations-is-in-your-hands!
Get Close to our … alex clare
‘Hummingbird’ is out now on iTunes (UK). The EP also includes a remix from Gentleman’s Dub Club along with the acoustic version. HQ.
Great work my new friend Alex Clare, i heard about u from a great rabbi friend in Golders Green, London. We have met, and keep coming to the holy land and we can inspire, please G-d! My man Alex Clare just changed his wikipedia.org/ status to ” Clare is a practicing Shomer Shabbat Jew, refusing to perform, travel or work on the Jewish Sabbath or religious Holidays. He lives in Golders Green, North London but often travels to Jerusalem when his work permits.” Now that’s Really Doing it! Wow and the new live pic shows he’s really lifting up the world with more acoustic pure vibes to:)
And Alex Clare is a great advert for Brutus Trimfit 
The biggest hit from the album, “Too Close”, peaked at number 4 on the UK Singles Chartand number 7 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The song is nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Single at the 2013 BRIT Awards.
Ari Lesser <- inspires us with his latest new vid, “The four holy cities” and he told me personally just yesterday that a new Purim vid is on the way so stay tuned, as more recordings and live shows are on the way, even one with the Moshav band!
Chassidic Masters and happy Tu-bshvat in song!
The Seven Species and Seven Attributes
Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Courtesy of MeaningfulLife.com
For the L-rd your G-d is bringing you to a good land: … A land of wheat, barley, grapes, figs and pomegranates; a land of oil-yielding olives and [date] honey
Deuteronomy 8:8
Our sages tell us that, originally, all trees bore fruit, as will also be the case in the Era of Moshiach. A fruitless tree is a symptom of an imperfect world, for the ultimate function of a tree is to produce fruit.
If “man is a tree of the field” (Deuteronomy 20:19) and fruit is the tree’s highest achievement, there are seven fruits that crown the human and botanical harvest. These are the seven fruits and grains singled out by the Torah as exemplars of the Holy Land’s fertility: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates.
The 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat is the day designated by the Jewish calendar as the New Year for Trees. On this day, we celebrate the trees of G-d’s world, and the tree within us, by partaking of these seven fruits, which typify the various components and modes of human life.
The Kabbalistic masters tell us that each and every one of us has not one, but two souls: an animal soul, which embodies our natural, self-oriented instincts; and a G-dly soul, embodying our transcendent drives–our desire to escape the I and relate to that which is greater than ourselves.
As its name implies, the animal soul constitutes that part of ourselves that is common to all living creatures: the instinct for self-preservation and self-perpetuation. But man is more than a sophisticated animal. There are qualities that are unique to us as human beings–the qualities deriving from our G-dly soul. The point at which we graduate beyond the self and its needs (How do I survive? How do I obtain food, shelter, money, power, knowledge, satisfaction?) to a supra-self perspective (Why am I here? What purpose do I serve?) is the point at which we cease to be just another animal in G-d’s world and begin to realize our uniqueness as human beings.
This is not to say that the animal self is to be rejected in favor of the divine-human self. These are our two souls, both of which are indispensable to a life of fulfillment and purpose. Even as we stimulate the divine in us to rise above the merely animal, we must also develop and refine our animal selves, learning to cultivate the constructive aspects of selfhood (e.g., self-confidence, courage, perseverance) while weeding out the selfish and the profane.
In the Torah, wheat is regarded as the mainstay of the human diet, while barley is mentioned as a typical animal food (cf, Psalms 104:15 and I Kings 5:8. See also Talmud, Sotah 14a). Thus, “wheat” represents the endeavor to nourish what is distinctly human in us, to feed the divine aspirations that are the essence of our humanity. “Barley” represents the endeavor to nourish and develop our animal soul–a task no less crucial to our mission in life than the cultivation of our G-dly soul.
Wheat and barley, the two grains among the Seven Kinds, represent the staples of our inner make-up. Following these come five fruits–appetizers and desserts on our spiritual menu–which add flavor and zest to our basic endeavor of developing our animal and G-dly souls.
The first of these is the grape, whose defining characteristic is joy. As the grapevine describes its product in Yotam’s Parable (Judges 9:13), “my wine, which makes joyous G-d and men.”
Joy is revelation. A person ignited by joy has the same basic traits he possesses in a non-joyous state–the same knowledge and intelligence, the same loves, hates, wants and desires. But in a state of joy, everything is more pronounced: the mind is keener, the loves deeper, the hates more vivid, the desires more aggressive. Emotions that ordinarily show only a faint intimation of their true extent now come out into the open. In the words of the Talmud, “When wine enters, the concealed emerges.”
A joyless life might be complete in every way, yet it is a shallow life: everything is there, but only the barest surface is showing. Both the G-dly and the animal souls contain vast reservoirs of insight and feeling that never see the light of day because there is nothing to stimulate them. The grape represents the element of joy in our lives–the joy that unleashes these potentials and adds depth, color and intensity to everything we do.
We might be doing something fully and completely; we might even be doing it joyously. But are we there? Are we involved?
Involvement means more than doing something right, more than giving it our all. It means that we care, that we are invested in the task. It means that we are affected by what we are doing, for the better or for the worse.
The fig, the fourth of the Seven Kinds, is also the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil–the fruit which Adam and Eve tasted, thereby committing the first sin of history. As Chassidic teaching explains, knowledge (daat) implies an intimate involvement with the thing known (as in the verse, “And Adam knew his wife”). Adam’s sin derived from his refusal to reconcile himself with the notion that there are certain things from which he must distance himself: he desired to intimately know every corner of G-d’s world, to become involved with every one of G-d’s creations. Even evil, even that which G-d had declared out of bounds to him.
Adam’s fig was one of the most destructive forces in history. In its equally powerful constructive guise, the fig represents our capacity for a deep and intimate involvement in our every positive endeavor–an involvement which signifies that we are one with what we are doing.
“Your lips are like a thread of scarlet,” extols King Solomon in his celebration of the love between the Divine Groom and His bride Israel, “your mouth is comely; your temple is like a piece of pomegranate within your locks” (Song of Songs, 4:3). As interpreted by the Talmud, the allegory of the pomegranate expresses the truth that, “Even the empty ones amongst you are full of good deeds as a pomegranate [is full of seeds].”
The pomegranate is not just a model for something that contains many particulars. It also addresses the paradox of how an individual may be empty and, at the same time, be full of good deeds as a pomegranate.
The pomegranate is a highly compartmentalized fruit: each of its hundreds of seeds is wrapped in its own sac of pulp and is separated from its fellows by a tough membrane. In the same way, it is possible for a person to do good deeds–many good deeds–yet they remain isolated acts, with little or no effect on his nature and character. He may possess many virtues, but they do not become him; he may be full of good deeds, yet he remains morally and spiritually hollow.
If the fig represents our capacity for total involvement and identification with what we are doing, the pomegranate is the fig’s antithesis, representing our capacity to overreach ourselves and act in a way that surpasses our internal spiritual state. It is our capacity to do and achieve things that are utterly incompatible with who and what we are at the present moment.
The pomegranate is hypocrisy in its noblest form: the refusal to reconcile oneself to one’s spiritual and moral station as defined by the present state of one’s character; the insistence on acting better and more G-dly than we are.
For most of us, life is synonymous with struggle. We struggle to forge an identity under the heavy shadow of parental and peer influence; we struggle to find a partner in life, and then we struggle to preserve our marriage; we struggle to raise our children, and then struggle in our relationship with them as adults; we struggle to earn a living, and then struggle with our guilt over our good fortune; and underlying it all is the perpetual struggle between our animal and G-dly selves, between our self-oriented instincts and our aspiration to transcend the self and touch the Divine.
The olive in us is that part of ourselves that thrives on struggle, that revels in it, that would no more escape it than escape life itself. Just like an olive, say our sages, which yields its oil only when pressed, so, too, do we yield what is best in us only when pressed between the millstones of life and the counterforces of a divided self.
Perfection
As the fig is countered by the pomegranate, so, too, is the olive in us contrasted by our seventh fruit, the date, which represents our capacity for peace, tranquility and perfection. While it is true that we’re best when we’re pressed, it is equally true that there are potentials in our soul that well forth only when we are completely at peace with ourselves–only when we have achieved a balance and harmony among the diverse components of our souls.
Thus the Psalmist sings: “The tzaddik (perfectly righteous person) shall bloom as the date palm” (Psalms 92:13). The Zohar explains that there is a certain species of date palm that bears fruit only after seventy years. The human character is comprised of seven basic attributes, each consisting of ten subcategories; thus, the tzaddik’s blooming after seventy years is the fruit of absolute tranquillity–the product of a soul whose every aspect and nuance of character has been refined and brought into harmony with oneself, one’s fellow and one’s G-d.
While the olive and date describe two very different spiritual personalities, they both exist within every man. For even in the midst of our most ardent struggles, we can always find comfort and fortitude in the tranquil perfection that resides at the core of our souls. And even in our most tranquil moments, we can always find the challenge that will provoke us to yet greater achievement. Just like these great Jewish music acts making a difference!
ASHREINU
There’s loads more video’s of the show 
who has inspired me much these years, with Daf Yomi! (see below for a link & explanation). We are now 6 months from the 7th of Cheshvan, and we were going to pray for rain in Israel (Eretz Yisrael)! Every day the rain comes down for all the Jewish people in his merit with the Daf Yomi cycle, where the life giving rain is Torah, by learning the Talmud Bavli one page a day. This year will be the finishing of a 7 year cycle which i personally have tried to stay part of, and the date is Tu-Bav the coming new summer. The rain this year will bring out those special fruits that we all pray and yearn for ! We recommend this special book! about Yehuda Meir Shapiro (or Shapira), (March 3, 1887 – October 27, 1934). He was a prominent Hasidic rabbi and rosh yeshiva, also known as the Lubliner Rav. He is noted for his promotion of the Daf Yomi study program in 1923, and establishing the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva in 1930. Yehudah Meir Shapiro was born in the city of Suczawa, Austria, in the recent territory of Romania, in 1887. He was a descendant of Rabbi Pinchas Shapiro of Korets. After cheder, Rabbi Shapiro began to study with his grandfather, the Minchas Shai. Another of his early teachers was Rabbi Shulem Moshkovitz (popularly known as the Sitzutzer Rebbe. He was also a well known kabbalist). Shapiro began to get a reputation, and became known as the Illui of Shatz. From an early age, he was known as an outstanding leader and gifted speaker.
After his marriage Rav Meir sat and learned but his fame grew far and wide. Although only 19 years old, offers for Rabbinic positions started coming his way. He steadfastly refused until at the urging of his Rebbe, Rav Yisroel Friedman of Chortkov, at the tender age of 23, he finally relented and accepted the position of Rav of Galina, a town near Lemberg. Rav Meir was a lifelong Chosid of the Chortkover Rebbe, always humbling himself before him, to his dying day. It was said that Rav Meir’s awe for his Rebbe was the true model of Chassidus.
Approximately 20,000 people participated in the event. The opening ceremony took place on June 24–25, 1930. Apart from thousands of local Jews, around 10,000 people arrived from all over Poland and abroad. Rabbi Shapiro served as the yeshiva’s teacher and rosh yeshiva until his death.
