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- Seven
Keys to Jewish Life
- 60 minute (video)
DVD - $19.95
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7 KEYS TO JEWISH LIFE covers:
* The Sabbath * What is Kosher
* Chanukka * The Shofar
* Mezuzah * Tfilin
* Tzedakah: The Jewish concept of charity.
What is a shofar, and why does the ram's horn have special
significance for Jews around the world? What is a mezuzah, and
why does it grace every Jewish doorway? "7 Keys to Jewish
Life" gives you the answers, while adding a new dimension
to the understanding of Jewish tradition.
This wonderful 1 hour film takes you to visit a scribe, a
leather worker, a family celebrating Shabbat and Chanukka, and
puts you in touch with Jewish history through unforgettable photographs
and paintings. Whenever prayers are recited, the text appears
on the screen in transliteration and in English.
"...fascinating... lucid...
clear and
comprehensible... well timed
and balanced."
Dara Michaels, Jewish Book News
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- Rich with biblical references and sources for each of
the seven pillars and clarified by the practice of real Jewish
families, "Seven Keys to Jewish Life" solves the riddle
of modern-day Jewish observance for the curious Jew and non-Jew
alike. All of the blessings and prayers recited for each ritual
are shown transliterated (with the Hebrew words in English letters)
and translated in English on the screen as they are recited.
Discover :
- 1. The Sabbath: Known as "Shabbat"
in Hebrew and "Shabbos" in Yiddish, the Jewish Sabbath
is observed every Friday evening from one hour before sundown
until Saturday evening one hour after sundown. It is a day filled
with prayer, Torah study, family, and peace that remembers the
Seventh Day of Creation, on which Jews are bidden to imitate
the Lord's own rest. It is an occasion for songs of freedom and
social justice praising the Holy One for removing the Hebrew
slaves from oppression in the Land of Egypt, and for abstaining
from the 39 categories of "m'lacha", labor, which He
describes in His Torah.
"Seven Keys to Jewish Life" invites you to spend a
Sabbath with a Jewish family and to participate in the most important
rituals this People has observed every week since the Exodus
from Egypt.
- 2. What is kosher ? The video takes you into
a Jewish kitchen to clearly explain which foods are kosher and
which are not, the biblical sources for "kashrut" (the
Jewish body of Law that regulates the diet), and the practical
observance thereof in modern times.
Did you know that every religious Jewish kitchen contains at
least two (and many up to 6!) full sets of dishes? Did you ever
notice any mysterious symbols on the packaging of popular foods
you purchase at the supermarket? These are the modern-day signs
that the Chosen People of God are still observing His "Mitzvot"
(Commandments) even into the 21st century!
- 3. Chanuka: The "Festival of Lights"
is an eight-day holiday that celebrates, as many know, a miracle
of oil that occurred in ancient Temple times. Crucial to an understanding
of the festivities, though, is the history of the military victory
of the Maccabees over the pagan Greek oppressors who had invaded
the Holy Land.
- An evening with a Jewish family elucidates the traditions,
laws, songs, blessings of the lights and thanksgiving for victory
and miracle... even which Jewish specialties are favorite Chanuka
foods!
- 4. The Shofar: "Seven Keys to Jewish Life"
takes you to a shofar-maker to see the step-by-step fashioning
of a simple ram's horn into a majestic biblical instrument (the
shofar) whose sound pleased the Lord and awakened the
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- souls of His People to righteousness. Discussion of its biblical
history and usage as well as its employment in rituals today
is pierced by the sights and sounds of the blowing of the shofar
in actual synagogue services.
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- 5. Mezzuzah: "...and write them (these,
My Commandments) upon the doorposts of your house and upon your
gates" (Deuteronomy 6:9). This is the biblical source for
those beautiful elongated boxes that grace every Jewish door-
way. Inside are hand-written parchments of Torah passages that
proclaim the Oneness and Majesty of God and this, His Commandment.
- "Seven Keys to Jewish Life" opens up the mezzuzah
case to reveal its precious contents, travels to a traditional
Jewish scribe to observe the writing thereof, and even stops
in at a Jewish house-warming party, where a crowd of friends
and family wait to enter until the blessing has been recited
and the first mezzuzah affixed to the doorpost of a new Jewish
home.
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- 6. Tefillin: "...Bind them as a sign upon
your arm and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes"
(Deuteronomy 6:8). This ritual, most often described as simply
bizarre by outsiders, is perhaps one of the most intriguing and
symbol-rich Commandments that Jewish men still observe every
morning at prayer. The little black boxes, called "phylacteries"
in English and "tefillin" in Hebrew, contain similar
parchments to those housed by the mezzuzah but are bound to the
arms and foreheads of Jewish men as opposed to the doorposts
of their homes.
- Open up these little black boxes, read their parchments,
witness their binding, watch step-by-step the long and tedious
labor that produces a single set of phylacteries, discover the
biblical source for the Commandment, and hear the same blessings
and prayers recited for centuries every time a Jewish man donned
his tefillin.
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- 7. Tzedakah: Often translated as "charity",
"tzedakah" actually comes from the Hebrew root that
means "righteousness" and "justice". The
Jewish concept of charity is two-fold: by observing the Commandment
to give, one comes closer to righteousness through performance
of His Law, while the giving itself contributes to the restoration
of social balance in a very unjust world.
- Most people feel that all that really matters is that one
gives. But the Rambam (Moshe Ben Maimon, the greatest medieval
Jewish rabbi and scholar) asserted that there are in fact Eight
Degrees of Tzedaka, and that some are indeed better than others.
"Seven Keys to Jewish Life" guides you up the Rambam's
ladder of righteousness and gives vivid examples from the Jewish
experience to illustrate how this Mitzvah (Commandment) has not
only been an individual concern for each and every Jew, but a
whole social organization and way of life for the entire Jewish
People ever since their inception.
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- NTSC HIGH QUALITY VIDEO (American broadcast System) Running
Time: 1 hour
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- Order
you copy today!
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