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‘Who Spares His Rod Hates His Son’

A Personal Example

Chinuch – Childrearing – begins with birth. The first few years are the time to lay the groundwork for all future behavior.
One of the most complicated tasks facing parents is chinuch – proper child rearing. Considering that chinuch begins with a child’s birth and continues for close to, if not more than, two decades, it’s far from being quick and simple!
As parents, our task is to prepare our children for the future, giving them foundations that will last them their entire life. Accomplishing this is a continuous and formidable challenge facing parents on a daily basis.
Chinuch is often mentioned in the Torah, for example, “And you shall make [these statues] known to your sons and your son’s sons (Devarim/Deuteronomy 4),” “and you shall teach them diligently to your children (Ibid. 6:7).”
In the Talmud we find, “May Rabbi Yehoshua ben Gamla be remembered favorably, for if not for him, Torah might have been forgotten from the Jewish people… He established that the community must hire Torah teachers for the children in every province and every city.” (Masechet Bava Batra 21a). This was probably the first comprehensive, nationwide system of compulsory education in world history.
Beginnings
Chinuch begins with birth. The first few years are the time to lay the groundwork for all future behavior. Children are the most astute observers! They absorb everything they see and hear and then internalize these observations to create their personality. From their parents, they learn habits that will remain with them for their entire life.
For that reason, it is extremely important that even when a child is very young, parents must do their best to impart proper values and to behave ethically. Since parents are their children’s main role models, it becomes obvious that the children’s chinuch begins with the parents’ chinuch!
 
Children do not learn ethical and proper behavior through listening to lectures or discourses. They learn from observing their parents! When a parent behaves in an unethical or irresponsible manner, the impression deeply impacts their children’s souls, influencing their future behavior.
Clarify and Uproot!
It’s up to us to clarify what moral principles we want to instill in our children, and then perfect ourselves in them, so that we will become the type of role model we want them to imitate. This chinuch is based on the parents’ commitment to personal character development.
If we don’t want to see negative character traits in our children, we must first uproot them from ourselves. We need to learn to be careful in how we express ourselves, in both speech and deed. If we, as parents, are lax in certain behaviors, we certainly can’t criticize our children about them!
“He who spares the rod hates his child” (Mishlei 13:24). If we spare the rod of mussar – ethical exhortation – from ourselves, we are demonstrating a lack of concern for our children’s development.
When children hear words of rebuke from their parents while observing behavior deserving of that rebuke, they become confused by the hypocrisy. Hypocrisy destroys chinuch!  When faced with imitating what they’ve seen or what they’ve been told, children almost invariably choose to model the behavior that they’ve seen in the home, and then continue to educate their own children in the same way.
Modern democratic societies are concerned about the education of its citizens. But even more important than formal education is the chinuch that children receive at home.

גם סבסוד הוא מס!

מיתוס “נטל המס הנמוך בישראל” – איך גובים מאתנו מס “בלי שנרגיש”

לעיתים קרובות אנחנו נתקלים בטבלאות וגרפים כמו הטבלה שבהמשך. טבלאות מלומדות אלה מציגות שנטל המס בישראל נמוך יחסית “לעולם”. גם ועדת טרכטנברג שקמה בעקבות “המחאה החברתית” של 2011 הגיעה למסקנה שנטל המס בישראל נמוך דיו ולכן צריך לחדול מקיצוצי מיסים. “נטל המס הנמוך בישראל” הוא הבסיס לדרישת “החברתיים” להגדלת “ההוצאה האזרחית” כמקובל “במדינות אירופה הנאורות“.

איך לוקחים מאתנו יותר כסף אבל גם מקטינים את נטל המס? 

לכאורה דבר והיפוכו – מסתבר שזה בהחלט אפשרי ולרשות הממשלה עומדים מספר כלים כדי לבלבל אותנו עם נפנוף בדגל המטעה של  “נטל המס הנמוך בישראל”.  למעשה מדובר במצג שווא, המתעלם מהדרכים הרבות והסמויות שבהן הממשלה שולחת את ידה לכיסנו מבלי שנרגיש בכך. קיים מס הסמוי מן העין, שאיננו מופיע בתלוש המשכורת שלנו ואיננו חלק מהמע”מ שאנו משלמים בסופרמרקט או במוסך.

הנה דוגמה: הממשלה מחליטה להשתלב ב”מאבק” הבינלאומי להקטנת “התחממות כדור הארץ” ולהשקיע מיליארדים רבים במתקני הפקת חשמל מהשמש. למה הממשלה צריכה להשקיע? כי השטות הזאת לא כדאית כלכלית ושום יזם בעולם לא מוכן להשקיע ב”עסק” מכספו מבלי שהרווח יובטח על ידי המדינה.

כדי לסבסד את “המשקיעים באנרגיה חלופית”, המדינה הייתה צריכה להעלות את מס ההכנסה, לגבות יותר מיסים ולשלוח צ’ק בדואר “למשקיעים” – בדיוק כפי שנותנים מענקים לחברת אינטל להקמת מפעל בקריית גת מתוך תקציב המדינה.

אז מה אפשר לעשות כדי לסבסד את “המשקיעים באנרגיה חלופית” מבלי להטיל מיסים נוספים עלינו? מחייבים כל משפחה בישראל להעביר מידי שנה מאות שקלים ישירות ל”משקיעים” ולא דרך תקציב המדינה. איך? דרך חשבון החשמל. מאלצים את חברת חשמל לקנות את החשמל הסולארי מה”יזמים” במחיר גבוה במיוחד ולשם כך מיקרים מלאכותית את מחיר החשמל. נטל סבסוד האנרגיה הסולארית מוטל ישירות על צרכני החשמל. כך “נטל המס” נשאר נמוך אבל לנו זה עולה יותר!

המשך לקרוא…

מאתר קו ישר, כאן.

Har Har

Gosh, It’ll Be a Swell Nuclear War!

By

August 3, 2016

I usually don’t care one way or the other what mainstream news has to report. Usually, the news rolls like this: A war going on over here, look what these celebrities are doing over there, this previously unknown vegetable holds the key to proper nutrition, some politician kissed a puppy in the Poconos, a tornado destroyed an entire town in the Midwest, and, gosh, there might be a nuclear war. Wait, hold on, a nuclear war? This is new. See here.

Now, this NATO general says a nuclear war with Russia could start over the Baltics. My only question is: Why? If other Americans wish to sacrifice their lives over a region noted for the production of amber and sprats, then let them go live over in that region. I, however, have no desire to move residence into the upper atmosphere over who controls what in an area of the world that plainly does not concern the United States. That the United States government appears more than willing to commit murder/suicide using all of us and the Russian people is the action of a criminal regime, not any so-called “defender of freedom”. How am I “free” when I am held hostage by the United States government’s suicide pact?

Now, yes, this is all coming out because of the elections. This type of thing has borne fruit in past presidential elections from LBJ to Reagan. People always say, “What if the Russians do X-Y-Z?!?” How about this: We need to mind our own dang business for a change! I am thoroughly sick and tired of these monsters throwing around the threat of a nuclear war like it’s some MMA cage match they’re discussing and not the extermination of billions of human beings. These people are sick. No, seriously, these people are all insane and I don’t need to be a doctor to render that diagnosis. It’s as plain as day. These people have no conscience, no qualms about engaging in a war that would make World War Two and the Holocaust pale in terms of deaths and consequences. And for what?! To “show” the Russians we can’t be pushed around? They’re not pushing us around! To “show” them they can’t push other countries around? Gosh, as if the United States doesn’t do that itself. Look at the Middle East.

You know, I still remember the last Cold War. Here we are in another, thanks to the mixed bag of tin medal-bedecked, polyester uniformed despots and false-face celebrity politicians in the Pentagon and the White House. I remember when the Berlin Wall came down, something we never thought we’d live to see. Literally. I remember the promise of peace—at last. But, no, the government didn’t waste any time getting us into a war, did they? That’s what set into motion the entire Middle Eastern problem we have today, too. It all goes back to the Gulf War of 1990. Right, so now that hasn’t provided us with enough enemies, therefore, let’s dust off the Russians we haven’t played with for a while. Everyone is into the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s retro, we might as well have the Cold War back, too. Hooray! Where does a fella get the t-shirts? “My Government Wants To Destroy The Planet And All I’m Getting Is This Lousy T-Shirt”.

Continue reading…

From Lewrockwell.com, here.