Transform Your Life With Mussar

If you are interested in working on your character traits check out the Riverton Mussar Program.

Riverton Mussar is going to launch it's year long mussar program October 3rd 2010.

Sign up now and you will receive:

• A *free* Cheshbon HaNefesh by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Satanov
• Weekly - emailings to start your middah practice for the week
• Access to the Connections part of the Riverton Mussar Website where you can listen to past and current podcasts on middot
• Exclusive Mussar oriented chat/blog capability with other Riverton Mussar members
• A journal for you to track your progress

The best way to emulate the ethical lifestyle that Mashiach spoke of is through Mussar. I encourage you to sign up and learn this jewish ethical practice that will truly transform your life, and encourage our messianic movement.

Visit rivertonmussar.org for more info!

Shakshuka in the Sukkah!

Shakshuka is one of my favorite Israeli dishes, which consists of eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce.
Shakshuka is a classic Israeli breakfast, but can be served as a main course any meal of the day!

Recipe from Saveur

Ingredients:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

5 Anaheim chile's or 3 jalapenos, stemmed,
seeded, and finely chopped

1 small yellow onion, chopped

8 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 tbsp. paprika

1 28-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes,
undrained

Kosher salt, to taste

8 eggs

1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

1 tbsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley

Warm pita, for serving

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a 12" skillet over medium-high heat. Add chiles and onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden brown, about 6 minutes. Add garlic, cumin, and paprika, and cook, stirring frequently, until garlic is soft, about 2 more minutes.

2. Put tomatoes and their liquid into a medium bowl and crush with your hands. Add crushed tomatoes and their liquid to skillet along with 1/2 cup water, reduce heat to medium, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened slightly, about 20 minutes. Season sauce with salt.

3. Crack eggs over sauce so that eggs are evenly distributed across sauce's surface. Cover skillet and cook until yolks are just set, about 5 minutes. Using a spoon, baste the whites of the eggs with tomato mixture, being careful not to disturb the yolk. Sprinkle shakshuka with feta and parsley and serve with pita, for dipping.

SERVES 4 – 6

Can I Care About the Earth and Still Eat My Lox, Bagels and Cream Cheese?

I just read a fantastic article about Eco-Kosher by Terry Gips. It's titled Eco-Kosher: Can I Care About the Earth and Still Eat My Lox, Bagels and Cream Cheese?"
Gips states, "Eco-kosher has become a way of fusing many of Judaism's central concerns and roots into a symbiosis. It has become an exciting movement in Judaism that is attracting a great deal of interest among both practicing and alienated Jews, with the former seeing the opportunities for deepening their spiritual and environmental commitment and the latter seeing a more contemporary and progressive Judaism."

Read the entire article  here

Eco-Kashrut: The Connection between Adam and Adamah

Eco-kashrut is a fairly new movement in Jewish eating that combines the spiritual principles of kashrut with the ethical challenges that we face in our modern world. Eco-Kashrut makes the connection between adam, the human, and adamah, the earth.

In the beginning of the Torah, Adam is placed in the Garden of Eden to work and to look after it (Gen. 2:15). There is a powerful midrash that picks up on this theme:

"At the time that Hashem created Adam, G-d showed him all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him: See my works! How beautiful and praiseworthy they are? And everything that I created, I created for you. Take care that you should not destroy my world, for if you spoil it there is no one to repair it after you." (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah, 7:19)

There are important questions that most kashrut authorities do not even consider before they put a kashrut certification on a product. Is a product kosher if it has been grown in poisonous pesticides? Is it kosher to drink coffee that came from a plantation where the workers are not paid a minimum wage and have harsh working conditions? Is it kosher to eat an egg which was laid by a battery chicken fed on growth hormones and antibiotics and not given the chance to go outside it's entire life? Is it kosher to wrap a product in a container that is not recyclable?

Rabbis are currently investigating the possibilities of bringing in an eco-hechsher (certification stamp) that would take into account not only the kashrut of ingredients, but the entire supply chain that created the product. In the meantime it is up to us all to do the work ourselves, and to make the right choices about the food and products that we buy.