The Corona Bible
Corona Bible – Coronavirus and Faith in Troubled Times
To date, the end of March, 2020, the Coronavirus has neither a vaccine nor healing medicine. Very often, in a healthy person, the illness subsides like a bout of flu, while in other cases, it can prove fatal. All sorts of health measures must be taken, but, at the moment, humanity is relatively helpless to fight off the invisible and fast-spreading danger. Thus, for individuals and for mankind, a path to strength, and to overcoming worry, lies in forming a living connection with God.
The word “corona” is associated with the word “crown” and “kingship.” From a spiritual point of view, the Creator of All Things has sent the Coronavirus to the world to make us realize our vulnerability, and to draw our attention to Him. The Bible assures us that the Lord is patient, but, having sent the Plague of Coronavirus down to Earth, it seems that His patience is wearing thin. It seems that God wants us to recognize that He is the King. He wants us to separate ourselves from the vanities of life, from false gods, and transgression, and to adopt a moral way of living. Via a miniscule germ, shaped like a crown, God has filled hearts with panic and fright, wiped out private fortunes, destroyed economies and mighty businesses, and brought countries to their knees. Yet, the epidemic in the air is not a punishment, but rather a helpful guidepost, like a traffic sign, to stop our reckless driving, and to point us in the proper direction. Step number one is to forge a new, active, living connection to God.
Tevya in the Promised Land
"The Jews of Anatevka have three days to clear out of the area."
Thus begins Tevye's unforgettable journey to the Promised Land. Tzvi Fishman's stirring family saga of the continuing adventures of Sholom Aleichem's beloved character, Tevye the Milkman, immortalized in "Fiddler in the Roof," takes up where the original stories left off.
At a crossroads at the outskirts of their Anatevka village, Tevye and his daughters meet up with a troupe of Zionists headed for Palestine. Just then, as if the Almighty is pointing the way, the Anatevka mailman comes running with a letter from Tevye's long-lost daughter, Hodel. Her communist husband, Perchik, has been exiled from Russia, and they are living in the Holy Land on a non-religious kibbutz! Clinging to the Bible and the tradition he loves, Tevye has to defend his daughters, not only against the modern lifestyle of the Zionist pioneers, but against malaria-infested swamps, deadly plagues, swarms of locusts, Turkish prisons, and Arab marauders. With steadfast determination and faith, Tevye perseveres through trials and hardships in rebuilding the Jewish homeland. While trying to do his best as a father in marrying off his daughter's to suitable husbands, Tevye himself finds a new bride to take the place of his deeply-missed Golda. Finally, as World War One threatens to destroy the Jewish settlements in Palestine, Tevye joins the first Jewish fighting brigade since the days of Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva. In a daring secret mission, he helps the British rout the Turks.
Filled with laughter, heartbreak, and joy, "Tevye in the Promised Land" is the compelling saga of a people's rebirth, and a triumph of inspiration and faith.
Arise and Shine!
When Rabbi Kook arrives in Jerusalem in 1919, Tevye joins the fanfare at the railway depot to greet him. Rabbi Kook reminds the simple milkman from Anatevka that at this great time in Jewish history, as the Nation of Israel rises to rebirth in its ancient and eternal Homeland, a far greater destiny awaits him. Indeed, when the colony of Tel Hai and its heroic commander, Yosef Trumpeldor, fall under Arab siege, Perchik enlists Tevye to lead a daring rescue mission. When Arab riots break out in Jerusalem, Tevye joins Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s group of Jewish defenders, the Haganah, for which he is imprisoned in the infamous Acco Prison. Meanwhile, the ambitious David Ben Gurion is building a powerful worker’s union and seizing control of the Yishuv in Palestine. One Pesach Night, Tevye’s granddaughter, Hannie, brings a surprise guest to the Seder, a charismatic young man named Avraham Stern, future leader of the “Stern Gang.” Angered by their romance, and by Stern’s unwillingness to marry the innocent girl, Tevye sends his granddaughter off to live in America with her aunt Baylke, whose husband, Pedhotzer, has become the financial advisor of the notorious Jewish gangsters, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. Tevye’s grandson, Ben Zion, rejects the sacred traditions of Judaism and abandons Jerusalem to live in Tel Aviv with his communist father, Perchik, who has become Ben Gurion’s most ardent disciple. Little by little, the British renounce the Balfour Declaration and encourage the Arabs to declare war against further Jewish settlement. While Rabbi Kook battles for the rights of Jews to pray at the Kotel, the bloodthirsty Arab pogroms of 1929 lead to the widespread slaughter of Jews, including Tevye’s daughter, Hava. Grief-struck and exasperated by the official Jewish Agency policy of constraint and appeasement, Tevye decides to strike back singlehandedly, igniting the sparks of a future rebellion which is destined to burst into a towering flame, leading the Jews to Redemption and Independence in their Land. Volume 2 in the "Tevye in the Promised Land" series.
The Lion's Roar
THE LION’S ROAR The adventures of Tevye the Milkman continue in The Lion’s Roar, the third dramatic novel in the “Tevye in the Promised Land” Series. While Tevye’s granddaughter, Hannie, is finishing her college degree in New York, the love of her life, Avraham “Yair” Stern is purchasing weapons in Poland and training Jewish soldiers for a war against British forces in Palestine. When Perchik is murdered and three Revisionists falsely accused of the crime, brotherly strife in the Holy Land threatens the future of the entire Zionist endeavor. Perchik’s wife, and his son, Ben Zion, hide the identity of the true murderers, and the ugly, blood libel leads to the false conviction of Avraham Stavsky. Rabbi Kook’s campaign on behalf of the condemned man culminates in his triumphant acquittal. In a gallant bid of rapprochement with Ben Gurion, the efforts of Ze’ev Jabotinsky prove futile. In a more joyous development, Hannie’s tumultuous, on and off romance with the volatile Yair finally leads to the chuppah. But another Arab uprising leaves Jews slaughtered throughout the country. When Tevye’s attempt to assassinate the Grand Mufti fails, he is forced to flee to America, where he raises funds for the Irgun underground with the assistance of the notorious Jewish mobsters, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. In Jerusalem, under the command of David Raziel, Tevye’s son, Tzvi, carries out devastating, reprisal attacks against the Arabs. When the British hang the Betar youth, Shlomo Ben Yosef, Jabotinsky’s leadership is challenged by Avraham Stern and the young Menachem Begin. Returning to the Holy Land, Tevye captains a boatful of “illegal” ma’apilim immigrants to the shores of Palestine, where the British are waiting to foil the secret, nighttime landing. The eccentric British commander, Orde Charles Wingate, a Bible-toting Christian, joins with the Haganah to squash the three-year-old Arab Revolt by unapologetically wiping out marauder encampments and entire Arab villages. When the British severely curtail Jewish immigration to Palestine and outlaw the further sale of land to Jews, the Irgun retaliates with a series of deadly attacks against British targets. During a mission to blow up the Rex Cinema in Jerusalem, Tevye’s daughter is captured and brutally tortured. Willing to die for the cause of freedom, the young girl attempts a daring escape from the Bethlehem Prison for Women, in a symbolic act of defiance that rallies the awakening Nation to rise up in revolt against the British usurpers of the Jewish Homeland.
Eretz Yisrael
In his classic treatise, “Orot,” Rabbi Kook teaches that a proper understanding of Judaism can only be achieved after one first recognizes the significance of the Land of Israel to the Jewish People. To understand who we are as a nation, and to actualize our role as a light to the world, we first have to comprehend the special relationship between the Divinely-chosen People and the Divinely-chosen Land. Rabbi Kook writes: “It is impossible for a Jew to be devoted and faithful to his intellectual faculties and his imaginative powers when he is outside the Land of Israel, compared to the quality of their faithfulness in Land of Israel. Revelations of holiness, on whatever level, are clean in Land of Israel, while outside the Land of Israel, they are mixed with dross and impure husks.” Owing to the deep, esoteric insights and difficult Hebrew of “Orot,” the book has remained the cherished possession of Rabbi Kook’s students and the generation of Torah scholars who learned at the Rabbi Kook Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Now, in this illuminating commentary, Rabbi Kook’s writings on the Land of Israel are explained in a clear and concise manner that is sure to add a treasure of knowledge to your understanding of Judaism and the role of Am Yisrael in the world.
The Art of T'shuva
While psychologists and self-help books offer many theories about man’s existential dilemma and pain, Rabbi Kook reveals that the real cause of humanity’s suffering stems from man’s alienation from God. The solution, he teaches, is t’shuva. While t’shuva is normally translated as penitence or repentance, the root of the Hebrew word t’shuva means “return.” T’shuva is a return to the source, to one’s roots, to one’s deepest inner self. Rabbi Kook writes: “When one forgets the essence of one’s soul; when one distracts his mind from seeing the true nature of his inner life, everything becomes doubtful and confused. The principal t’shuva, which immediately lights up the darkness, is for a person to return to himself, to the root of his soul. Then he will immediately return to God, to the Soul of all souls. This is true for an individual, a nation, for all of mankind, and for the perfection of all existence… All depression stems from transgression, from being distant from God, and t’shuva comes to light up the soul and transform the depression into incredible joy.” THE ART OF T’SHUVA explains Rabbi Kook’s writings on t’shuva in a clear, concise, and illuminating step-by-step fashion. This encounter with Rabbi’s Kook’s vision is certain to lead readers to greater personal happiness, understanding, and spiritual growth.
DAYS OF MASHIACH
"Days of Mashiach" is a collection of original and off-beat stories about Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora. Written with a keen and humorous eye on the Jewish experience in our time, the stories center around the redemption of the Jewish People, the ingathering of the exiles, repentance, settlement of the Land of Israel, and Mashiach. Also published in France by a non-Jewish publisher, the book was heralded as, “a poignant literary masterpiece reminiscent of the writings of Voltaire, Checkov, Kafka, and Beckett.”
THE DISCMAN
AND THE GURU
The Discman and the Guru
Seventeen year old, Sam Singer, son of one of the wealthiest men in America, frustrated by his childhood of money and fame, leaves his home in Beverly Hills in search of God and the "TRUTH." His poignant and humerous-packed odyssey takes him to London, Paris, Rome, India, Mecca, and finally Jerusalem, where his insistence on praying on the Temple Mount nearly sets off an international war. "The Discman and the Guru" is fun reading for the entire family.
DAD
The novel, “Dad,” tells the touching, poignant, and humorous story of a loving husband with five hyperactive sons and another child on the way, who suddenly has to take care of his aging parents as well, while carefully placating his harried, stressed-out wife. It’s a wild, hectic balancing act that would drive anyone insane, and Joseph Friedman is no exception as he struggles to help his anxiety-ridden Dad deal with the Alzheimer’s Disease that has turned Mom into a totally different woman. “Dad” tells the story all people face as their parents reach the not so “Golden Years.” An unforgettable family novel by the author of “Tevye in the Promised Land.”
FALLEN ANGEL
Harry Walsh is a brilliant, cynical, whoring conman, the bestseller author of phony “spiritual” self-help books. In past reincarnations, he appeared again and again as some of world history’s most infamous and murderous characters, including Cain, Nimrod, Bilaam the Sorceror, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, Titus, Muhammad, and King Richard the Lionhearted, to mention just a few. Now, the Almighty has decided to give Harry one last chance to change his errant ways. But when an angel arrives in New York with the mission of convincing Harry to set his present licentious life in order and break free from his sordid past, the angel himself falls to the temptations of the fast life in America as he tours around the country with the ribald celebrity. This modern day fable if filled with humor and hilarious escapades as it traces the unlikely friendship that springs up between the angel and the soul-stained writer. Along the way, the reader is taken on a roller-coaster ride through world history, encountering, along with Harry, startling insights and deep, poignant truths which have the power to illuminate the spiritual darkness of our times and add the Divine light and connection that is missing from our lives.
