This post is in honor of all the victims and survivors in Israel.
In situations like terrorist attacks, that you have no control over, the answer is to control what you can control: Your own life and destiny. The great mystic, the Baal Shem Tov teaches that you are like a mirror — everything you witness is a reflection of what you need to refine in your own world. When you witness violence, look carefully at the discord you experience (and perhaps perpetuate) in your own life. When you build a secure life, home, and family, you are building a secure world.
“Harmony in our personal lives brings harmony into the world.” – Rabbi Simon Jacobson
Concrete Suggestions for Bringing Peace Into Your Sphere of Influence
1. Stand for something: Do you know what your ideology is? What you stand for? Define your values, and build a life around them.
2. Educate others: Instead of complaining about ignorance in your world, shine light from your own corner. A small light dispels a lot of darkness. Leading by example is one of the most effective ways to demand a higher standard from your family and community.
3. Connect to something eternal:Â Lasting security comes not from external forces like governments and police, but from your connection to a power greater than yourself. It bolsters your sense of personal agency by giving you a solid spiritual foundation to stand on.
4. Engage with others:Â Reach out to people with different backgrounds than your own, and have a discussion about values and faith. Invite diverse guests to your home.
5. Stop judgmentalism:Â Review whether your faith and value system helps you to inspire others or to criticize others.
Every action you take has a ripple effect on the universe. Your acts of integrity, kindness, and generosity in your personal world have a transcendent power that anyone can imagine.
Go deeper into this subject: Balance | What Can We Do About the Recent Massacres? Lessons from Chanukah | The Plot Thickens: Jacob & Esau: Two Nation  | Massacre in San Bernardino | The Importance of Home & Family | The Antidote to Rage: Inner Security
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What kind of advice is this you give?!??
Jihadists mean to homicide others… all others.
Especially succulent are jews, but christians, buddhists, hindhus, jains, atheists, all have a place on the sacrificial plate of homicidism.
What kind of nonsense do you preach in the name of the Torah and of Hashem??
Do you remember mumbai, India. The rabbi and his wife? They had their genital cut off as a sacrifice to the god of homicidism of all others- allah. She, the lovely eight months pregnant wife had her fetus cut out of her, then she was slaughtered
he the rabbi husband had his gonads cut off then he was killed.
Don’t you realize what the difference between good and evil is… or do you simply mean to preach fine sounding platitudes, until it is your wife, and child who are butchered??
Is that what it will take before a reasonable response to the homicidism of Jihad takes place??
The homicidists name meant ‘Soldier of Allah’
You’d think that before inviting him as an immigrant, that the meaning of the name might ring some bells.
Likewise, all you’re doing her is spouting platitudes about harmony, truth, but not real justice.
Not real justice that says, evil should be stopped.
No…not all muslims are Jihadists. No…. people shouldn’t make fun of or treat muslims differently in our daily lives.
Yes… all mosques should be evaluated for homicidal teachings, as four reputable studies over the last 15 yrs have concluded 80% of all mosques do teach Jihad teachings.
I don’t think you actually know the gravity of the problem, the depth of the swamp that is already here in the US, nor what the actual problems are.
It is not about having and calling for mitzva’s and jewish unity and wholesome jewish lives that will solve the problem of ‘Jihad’
It is understanding what ‘Jihad’ actually is, means, what it refers too and to understand that tolerance of the utterly intolerant will lead to the end of the tolerant.
When it’s your babies, is that when you’ll wake up??
How truly sad.