I wanted to spotlight Neshama because her music speaks to the world. She is multicultural and I love her music, everything from Hebrew prayer songs to singing with an African American church choir. I actually met her years ago while I was in New York before I knew she was famous.

Neshama did concerts with her late father Shlomo Carlebach and their voices are like magic together.

See videos below:

Ancient Tibetan Thrul Khor Yoga Retreat

With Tempa Dukte Lama and Geshe Chhembel Gurung

July 30-31 at Olmo Ling Bon Center, 1101 Greenfield Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15217

Join us for a special weekend Workshop on the ancient Tibetan Yoga practice of Thrul Khor, the “wheel of miracles”, with Tempa Lama and Geshe Chhembel. Thrul Khor is the training of harmonizing our body, mind and energy. The harmonious state of our being is a manifestation of joy, peace and prosperity of our body, mind and energy. This state manifests when we clear obstacles, obscurations and blockages of our energy, as well as blockages of mental clarity and wisdom due to agitation, dullness and drowsiness. Thrul Khor utilizes gentle physical movement, breathing and visualization to clear our mind so that we can abide in natural clarity and insight. Through this yogic practice we can transform conditioning that causes disturbances and imbalances in the three humors of wind, bile and phlegm and thus maintain a healthy body.

Mental stability, gentle physical movement and proper circulation of the vital breath will be the focus of this yogic training.

Olmo Ling Monthly Youth Sangha Program – Summer Meeting July 2

The Olmo Ling Youth Sangha meets once a month (during the regular school year) on a Friday evening with activities for both younger (0-10) and older (11-17) children beginning at staggered times. From 6-7PM activities will be geared towards the younger children with the teens welcome to come as well to assist. From 7-8PM activities will become a little more advanced, but related to what has already been taking place with the younger children able to leave if necessary for earlier bedtimes. Parents and friends are always welcome and we specifically request that parents of children birth thru 5 years of age plan on staying. Children 6 and up may be dropped off if they desire more independence although families are always welcome to attend.

The Friday evening Youth Sangha is a mindful way to end the school week and begin the weekend. This Program is free and open to all, and newcomers are always warmly welcome. Gatherings include a snack, meditation, and an art activity such as calligraphy, music & literature or discussions and service projects. Tempa Lama will join some of the sessions to lead creative and mindful activities.

2016 Summer Program: Saturday July 2

We will meet from 6-8PM to print prayer flags. Youth Sangha coordinator Bonnie Weiss will guide the children in meditation, chanting and stories in addition to the block printing. We will also have a potluck for snacks, so please bring something small to share (NO NUTS PLEASE). Tempa Lama will be away traveling.

We will be selling the cloth prayer flags to raise funds for the young nuns at Redna Menling Monastery in India, as well as to help fund the Youth Sangha. We do have all five colors of paper and any family who wants to print a set of these to take home for indoor use will be welcome to do so. As always, if anyone can sew on a machine and is willing to take some sets home to complete by September when we resume regular meetings, your help would be greatly appreciated.
Please RSVP with the Youth Sangha coordinator Bonnie Weiss at Bonnie or 412-877-4049, to ensure adequate materials are available for class as well as to advise about any food allergies or special accommodations that might benefit your child.

Bon Ngondro Retreat with Tempa Lama at Alma Yoga Center

Saturday, July 16, 2016, 9:30am-5pm, Sunday, July 17, 10am-1pm

Alma Yoga, 67 Pennsylvania Avenue, Hancock, NY 13783-1037

During this special weekend, Tempa Lama will continue teaching the ancient Tibetan preliminary Bon practices known as “Ngondro”. He will begin with review of the 1st part, taught last year. If you didn’t participate in last year’s retreat, please feel free to participate this year.

Ngondro practice is very beneficial for our life. It helps us connect deeply with our spiritual teachers and cultivate and stabilize the heart and mind that wish to benefit all beings. Ngondro is a powerful practice for purifying our karmic tendencies and negativities, cleansing our body, speech and mind and preparing us to recognize our true nature.

The Heart Mantra for Healing and Transformation with Tempa Dukte Lama

A Humla Fund event to benefit the Humla medical clinics

Saturday, July 23, 2016, 9:30am-5:30pm

Sruti Berkshire Yoga Center, Great Barrington, MA

In this daylong workshop Tempa Dukte Lama will give the transmission and instruction for the contemplative Tibetan Bon practice of the Heart Mantra, Du Tri Su for healing and transformation. he Heart Mantra is the heart essence of the teaching of the Bon Buddha Tonpa Shenrab.

Public talk with Tempa Lama: The Authentic and Compassionate Self Revealed

Thursday July 28, 7pm.

Shaler North Hills Library, 1822 Mt Royal Blvd, Glenshaw, PA 15116.

Join us for a public talk with Tempa Lama in the Art and Inspiration series at Shaler North Hills Library, entitled “The Authentic and Compassionate Self Revealed”. The Art and Inspiration series is facilitated by artist William Rock as a forum for artists, poets, writers and musicians to discuss creativity and dialogue on the ways in which creativity and spirituality inform each other.

Suggested donation: $5.

To Learn More About Any Program, please visit:

www.OlmoLing.org

Tempa and the Olmo Ling Staff and Community Thank You

When doing a mitzvah it is essential to be happy. If we do not experience joy when we are serving Hashem our service will, G-d forbid, become a burden.

All the more so, when we are trying to help other Jews to fulfill their spiritual purpose do we have to do it in such a way that brings them joy. Joy endears the mitzvahs to them and this will bring them to do another mitzvah.

This is not referring to the joy of telling them jokes or giving them cookies. When we show them how a mitzvah opens the Gate to Heaven, that fulfilling a mitzvah produces a time of favor and since they listened to Hashem and did what He said, now He is going to listen to what they say and then showing them how to open their hearts by speaking intimately to Hashem all this brings a spiritual awareness and satisfaction, and this satisfaction brings a unique joy.

Mitzvahs are tools that we have been given that allow us to accomplish something unique in creation. In this entire, huge Universe only a tiny human being can choose to serve G-d.

www.thereisone.com

Including the Russian Far East, the population of Siberia numbers just above 40 million people. As a result of the 17th to 19th century Russian conquest of Siberia and the subsequent population movements during the Soviet era, the demographics of Siberia today is dominated by native speakers of Russian. There remain a considerable number of indigenous groups, between them accounting for below 10% of total Siberian population.

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_Siberia

History

Koryak men at the ceremony of starting the New Fire

In Kamchatka the Itelmens uprisings against Russian rule in 1706, 1731, and 1741, were crushed. During the first uprising the Itelmen were armed with only stone weapons, but in later uprisings they used gunpowder weapons. The Russian Cossacks faced tougher resistance from the Koryaks, who revolted with bows and guns from 1745 to 1756, and were even forced to give up in their attempts to wipe out the Chukchi in 1729, 1730-1, and 1744-7.[1] After the Russian defeat in 1729 at Chukchi hands, the Russian commander Major Pavlutskiy was responsible for the Russian war against the Chukchi and the mass slaughters and enslavement of Chukchi women and children in 1730-31, but his cruelty only made the Chukchis fight more fiercely.[2] A genocide of the Chukchis and Koraks was ordered by Empress Elizabeth in 1742 to totally expel them from their native lands and erase their culture through war. The command was that the natives be "totally extirpated" with Pavlutskiy leading again in this war from 1744-47 in which he led to the Cossacks "with the help of Almighty God and to the good fortune of Her Imperial Highness", to slaughter the Chukchi men and enslave their women and children as booty. However the Chukchi ended this campaign and forced them to give up by killing Pavlitskiy and decapitating him.[3]

The Russians were also launching wars and slaughters against the Koraks in 1744 and 1753-4. After the Russians tried to force the natives to convert to Christianity, the different native peoples like the Koraks, Chukchis, Itelmens, and Yukagirs all united to drive the Russians out of their land in the 1740s, culminating in the assault on Nizhnekamchatsk fort in 1746.[4] Kamchatka today is European in demographics and culture with only 2.5% of it being native, around 10,000 from a previous number of 150,000, due to the mass slaughters by the Cossacks after its annexation in 1697 of the Itelmen and Koryaks throughout the first decades of Russian rule.[5] The genocide by the Russian Cossacks devastated the native peoples of Kamchatka and exterminated much of their population.[6][7] In addition to committing genocide the Cossacks also devastated the wildlife by slaughtering massive amounts of animals for fur.[8] 90% of the Kamchadals and half of the Vogules were killed from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries and the rapid genocide of the indigenous population led to entire ethnic groups being entirely wiped out, with around 12 exterminated groups which could be named by Nikolai Iadrintsev as of 1882. Much of the slaughter was brought on by the fur trade.[9]

In the 17th century, indigenous peoples of the Amur region were attacked by Russians who came to be known as "red-beards".[10] The Russian Cossacks were named luocha (羅剎), rakshasa, after demons found in Buddhist mythology, by the Amur natives because of their cruelty towards the Amur tribes people, who were subjects of the Qing dynasty during the Sino–Russian border conflicts.[11]

The Aleuts in the Aleutians were subjected to genocide and slavery by the Russians for the first 20 years of Russian rule, with the Aleut women and children captured by the Russians and Aleut men slaughtered.[12]

The regionalist oblastniki in the 19th century among the Russians in Siberia acknowledged that the natives were subjected to immense genocidal cruelty by the Russian colonization, and claimed that they would rectify the situation with their proposed regionalist polices.[13] The Russians used "slaughter, alcoholism and disease" to bring the natives under their control, who were soon left in misery, and much of the evidence of their extermination has itself been destroyed by the Russians, with only a few artifacts documenting their presence remaining in Russian museums and collections.[14]

In 1918-1921 there was a violent revolutionary upheaval in Siberia leading to the Russian conquest of Siberia as Russian Cossacks under Captain Grigori Semionov established themselves as warlords by crushing the indigenous peoples who resisted colonization.[15] The Russian colonization of Siberia and conquest of its indigenous peoples has been compared to European colonization in the United States and its natives, with similar negative impacts on the natives and the appropriation of their land.[16] The Slavic Russians outnumber all of the native peoples in Siberia and its cities except in the Republic of Tuva, with the Slavic Russians making up the majority in the Buriat Republic, Sakha Republic, and Altai Republics, outnumbering the Buriat, Sakha, and Altai natives. The Buriat make up only 25% of their own Republic, and the Sakha and Altai each are only one-third, and the Chukchi, Evenk, Khanti, Mansi, and Nenets are outnumbered by non-natives by 90% of the population. The natives were targeted by the Czars and Soviets policies to change their way of life and ethnic Russians were given the native's reindeer herds and wild game which were confiscated by the Czars and Soviets. The reindeer herds have been mismanaged to the point of extinction. In just the American state of Arizona, the Native American population outnumbers the total northern Siberian native population of 180,000.[17]

Why are Jewish men commanded to wear fringes on their garments?

www.thereisone.com

Main Rahoon Ya Na Rahoon

Hindi Song and

Theme from Bollywood Production

Played by Sangram Lama

Reference:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- AT the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the United States Army was pitifully small.

It consisted of 1,108 officers and 15,269 enlisted men. Of the thousand-odd officers, more than a third resigned their posts to join the Confederacy. To lead the millions of men who ultimately fought in the Civil War would take a lot of generals, and ultimately more than 1000 were appointed by the Union alone. Of these, at least seven were Jewish.

The Civil War produced the most renowned generals in American history. No other war before or since then has even come close. Apart from Teddy Roosevelt - and he was only a colonel - do we remember even one general of the Spanish-American War? Besides Pershing and, perhaps, MacArthur, most Americans are hard-pressed to name another American general of WWI fame.

The Civil War, on the other hand, produced Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan, George Custer, George McClellan, and Ambrose Burnside, to name just a few well-known Union commanders.

The Jewish generals in the Union Army were not well-known and almost have been lost from the history books. The highest ranking Jewish officer in the Union Army was Hungarian-born Major General Frederick Knefler. He was commander of the 79th Indiana regiment. Knefler was promoted to brigadier general for his performance at the Battle of Chickamauga and then to major general during his service with Sherman on his march through Georgia.

Leopold Blumenberg was a lieutenant in the Prussian Army in 1848. Because of antisemitism he immigrated to the United States in 1854. An avowed abolitionist, he narrowly escaped lynching by a secessionist mob in Baltimore in early April 1861. With the start of the war, Blumenberg helped organize the Maryland Volunteer Regiment and fought with it in the Peninsular campaign.

He was severely wounded in the Battle of Antietam in 1862, and subsequently was appointed a brevet brigadier general. A brevet military appointment is a commission usually granted as an honor, carrying the rank of the new office but without an increase in pay or authority. Many officers were given brevet commissions during the Civil War.

There were actually two ways of being appointed a general during this period. The first was through politics, where men were appointed because of their political influence rather than their military ability. Most of these "generals" proved to be costly misfits for the Union forces. The second method of assuming a general's office was through winning their stars on the battlefield by superior performance. Fortunately, all the Jewish generals described here attained their high rank through the latter procedure.

One Jewish officer who only made it to general's rank posthumously was Lieutenant Colonel Leopold Newman of New York. He distinguished himself at the First Battle of Bull Run, which was a defeat for the Union. Newman was subsequently severely wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, and he died in a Washington hospital before President Abraham Lincoln could present him with a commission to brigadier general.

Perhaps the most notable of the Jewish generals was Edward S. Salomon of Illinois. Salomon emigrated from Germany to Chicago in 1854, where he became a law clerk and a minor functionary in the newly formed Republican Party. He was elected to the Chicago City Council at the age of 24, the youngest member of that body.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Salomon enlisted in the 25th Illinois Infantry as a second lieutenant and won quick promotions for battlefield bravery. At Gettysburg in 1863, he was colonel in command of the 82nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which had over 100 Jewish personnel. His unit fought at Cemetery Ridge and was one of the principal Union forces which successfully repulsed Pickett's charge. Salomon received a commendation for bravery and was breveted a brigadier general.

Salomon served with General Sherman in the Battle for Atlanta and was cited as "one of the most deserving officers." After the war he led his men in a six-hour victory parade in Washington D.C., a commanding general at the age of 29.

President Ulysses S. Grant recognized Salomon's administrative capabilities and, in 1869, appointed him as governor of the Territory of Washington, where he served with distinction for four years. After leaving his post, Salomon settled in San Francisco. He was the district attorney of San Francisco County and twice served in the California legislature, devoting most of his life to public service.

Brigadier General Alfred Mordechai graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1861, following in his father's footsteps. He joined the Army of Northeastern Virginia and received high commendations for his conduct at the Battle of Bull Run. He became the chief ordnance officer in several Union regiments and, in 1865, was appointed instructor of ordnance at West Point.

Among the other Jewish generals in the Union forces were Phineas Horowitz of Baltimore, who was appointed surgeon general of the Navy during the war, and General William Meyer of New York, who received a letter of thanks from President Lincoln for his efforts during the New York draft riots. There were no Jewish generals with the Confederate forces during the Civil War, but that's another tale.

Jewish historian, cultural maven, and JWR contributor Herb Geduld lives in Cleveland.

Photo credit:

Shaolin monks demonstrate fighting technique, staff versus guan dao or polearm weapon. Cancan Chu / Getty Images

Reference Here:

http://asianhistory.about.com/od/warsinasia/p/ShaolinMonksPro.htm

The Shaolin Monastery is the most famous temple in China, renown for its kung fu fighting monks. With amazing feats of strength, flexibility, and pain-endurance, the Shaolin monks have created a world-wide reputation as the ultimate Buddhist warriors.

Yet Buddhism is generally considered to be a peaceful religion, with emphasis on principles such as non-violence, vegetarianism and even self-sacrifice to avoid harming others. How, then, did the monks of Shaolin Temple become fighters?

The history of Shaolin begins about 1500 years ago, when a stranger arrived in China from lands to the west...

Origin of the Shaolin Temple:

Legend says that c. 480 A.D. a wandering Buddhist teacher came to China from India. He was called Buddhabhadra, also known as Batuo or Fotuo in Chinese.

According to later Chan (or in Japanese, Zen) Buddhist tradition, Batuo taught that Buddhism could best be transmitted from master to student, rather than through the study of Buddhist texts

In 496, the Northern Wei Emperor Xiaowen gave Batuo funds to establish a monastery at holy Mt. Shaoshi in the Song mountain range, 30 miles from the imperial capital of Luoyang. This temple was named Shaolin (Shao from Mt. Shaoshi, lin meaning "grove").

Early Shaolin History:

Another Buddhist teacher was Bodhidharma, who came from either India or Persia. He famously refused to teach Huike, a Chinese disciple; Huike cut off his own arm to prove his sincerity, and became the Bodhidharma's first student.

The Bodhidharma also reportedly spent 9 years in silent meditation in a cave above Shaolin. One legend says that he fell asleep after seven years, and cut off his own eyelids so that it could not happen again. The eyelids turned into the first tea bushes when they hit the soil.

In 534, Luoyang and the Wei Dynasty fell. Temples in the area were destroyed, possibly including Shaolin.

Shaolin in the Sui and Early Tang Eras:

Around 600 A.D., Emperor Wendi of the new Sui Dynasty awarded Shaolin a 1,400-acre estate, plus the right to grind grain with a water mill. The emperor was a committed Buddhist himself, but most of his court supported Confucianism instead.

The Sui reunified China, but lasted only 37 years. Soon, the country once more dissolved into the fiefs of competing warlords.

Shaolin Temple's fortunes rose with the ascension of the Tang Dynasty in 618, formed by a rebel official from the Sui court. Shaolin monks famously fought for Li Shimin against the warlord Wang Shichong. Li would go on to be the second Tang emperor.

Shaolin Temple in the Tang Era:

Despite their assistance to the early Tang rulers, Shaolin and China's other Buddhist temples faced numerous purges.

In 622, Shaolin was shut down and the monks forcibly returned to lay life. Just two years later, the temple was allowed to reopen due to the military service its monks had rendered to the throne. In 625, Li Shimin returned 560 acres to the monastery's estate.

Relations with the emperors were uneasy throughout the 8th century, but Chan Buddhism blossomed across China.

In 728, the monks erected a stele engraved with stories of their military aid to the throne, as a reminder to future emperors.

The Tang to Ming Transition:

In 841, the Tang Emperor Wuzong feared the power of the Buddhists, so he razed almost all of the temples in his empire and had the monks defrocked or even killed. Wuzong idolized his ancestor Li Shimin, however, so he spared Shaolin.

In 907, the Tang Dynasty fell, and the chaotic 5 Dynasties and 10 Kingdom periods ensued. The Song family eventually prevailed, ruling until 1279.

Few records of Shaolin's fate during this period survive. We know that in 1125, a shrine was built to the Bodhidharma, 1/2 mile from Shaolin.

The Song was followed by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, which ruled until 1368.

Shaolin's Golden Age:

As the Yuan Dynasty crumbled, Shaolin was destroyed once more during the 1351 Hongjin (Red Turban) rebellion. Legend states that a Bodhisattva, disguised as a kitchen worker, saved the temple; in fact it was burned to the ground.

Still, by the 1500s, the monks of Shaolin were famous for their staff-fighting skills. In 1511, 70 monks died fighting bandit armies. Between 1553 and 1555, the monks were mobilized to fight in at least four battles against Japanese pirates.

The next century saw the development of Shaolin's empty-hand fighting methods. However, the monks fought on the Ming side in the 1630s - and lost.

Shaolin in the Early Modern Era:

In 1641, rebel leader Li Zicheng destroyed the monastic army, sacked Shaolin and killed or drove away the monks. He went on to take Beijing in 1644, ending the Ming Dynasty, but was driven out in turn by the Manchus who founded the Qing Dynasty.

Shaolin Temple lay mostly deserted for decades. The last abbot, Yongyu, left without naming a successor in 1664.

Legend says that a group of Shaolin monks rescued the Kangxi Emperor from nomads in 1674. According to the story, envious officials then burned down the temple, killing most of the monks.

Gu Yanwu traveled to the remains of Shaolin in 1679 to record its history.

Shaolin in the Qing Era:

Shaolin slowly recovered from being sacked; in 1704, the Kangxi Emperor made a gift of his own calligraphy to signal the temple's return to imperial favor.

The monks had learned caution, however, and empty-hand fighting began to displace weapons training. It was best not to seem too threatening to the throne.

In 1735-6, the emperor Yongzheng and his son Qianlong decided to renovate Shaolin and cleanse its grounds of "fake monks" - martial artists who affected monks robes without being ordained.

The Qianlong Emperor even visited Shaolin in 1750, and wrote poetry about its beauty, but later banned monastic martial arts.

Shaolin in the Modern Era:

During the nineteenth century, the monks of Shaolin were accused of violating their monastic vows by eating meat, drinking alcohol and even hiring prostitutes. Many saw vegetarianism as impractical for warriors; this is probably why government officials sought to impose it upon Shaolin's fighting monks.

The temple's reputation received a serious blow during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, when Shaolin monks were implicated (probably incorrectly) in teaching the Boxers martial arts.

In 1912, China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing, fell due to its weak position compared with intrusive European powers. The country fell into chaos again, which ended only with the victory of the Communists under Mao Zedong in 1949.

Meanwhile, in 1928, the warlord Shi Yousan burned down 90% of the Shaolin Temple. Much of it would not be rebuilt for 60 to 80 years.

Shaolin under Communist Rule:

At first, Mao's government did not bother with what was left of Shaolin.

However, in accordance with Marxist doctrine, the new government was officially atheist. In 1966, the Cultural Revolution broke out, and Buddhist temples were one of the Red Guards' primary targets. The few remaining Shaolin monks were flogged through the streets and then jailed; Shaolin's texts, paintings, and other treasures stolen or destroyed.

This might have finally been the end of Shaolin, if not for the 1982 film Shaolin Shi or "Shaolin Temple," featuring the debut of Jet Li (Li Lianjie). The movie was based very loosely on the story of the monks' aid to Li Shimin, and became a huge smash hit in China.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, tourism exploded at Shaolin, reaching more than 1 million people per year by the end of the 1990s. Shaolin's monks are now among the best known on Earth; they put on martial arts displays in world capitals, and literally thousands of films have been made about their exploits.

Batuo's Legacy

It's hard to imagine what the first abbot of Shaolin would think if he could see the temple now. He might be surprised and even dismayed by the amount of bloodshed in the temple's history.

However, to survive the tumult that has characterized so many periods of Chinese history, the monks of Shaolin had to learn the skills of warriors. Despite a number of attempts to erase the temple, it survives and even thrives today, there at the base of the Songshan Range.