The Lyons Of Judah

2011-03-22T05:18:00.000-07:00

Is Israel really an Apartheid State???

2008-07-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

Amazing Pro Israel Speech by a Lebanese Christian

I highly recommend listening to this speech, delivered at the
Heritage Foundation

2008-07-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

Happy 10th Birthday Chana

Here is the link to our daughtes 10th birthday party. It was held at our home in Kochav Yaakov. Enjoy!

2008-01-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Hope the party is fun...I feel bad that we are missing it!

Anyhow, here is a video we put together.
Noam, make sure that you play the entire thing until the end (until it stops...play past the credits..)

If Judy's internet connection is slow, download it to her computer first and then play it from her computer.

download it here...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1877634204345042902&hl=en

2006-10-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

Hi Shaya!!! This one's for you!
Just a few pics to get things started (again)..I will upload a few more recent ones of our life here in Israel in a bit.

2006-06-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

Calm before the storm...

As the date of our aliyah gets closer and after meeting with our shaliach aliyah a few more times, at least three things have now become crystal clear and obvious to me:

One is that the the Lyons children and parents have no idea what is about to hit them.
Two is that the Lyons children and parents have no idea what is about to hit them.
and of course the third thought, and this is very important so please pay attention, is that the Lyons children and parents really have no idea what is about to hit them.

But nevertheless, we leave our worrying to Hakadosh Boruch Hu (and my Mom). We are doing what we believe we need to do and should be doing. We need to live according to our beliefs and our actions should be dictated by them, end of story. Are we nervous? Yes. Are we scared? Yes. But we believe what we believe and going through life believing one way but behaving another, is just not an option. IY"H, the movers come tommorow.

2006-06-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

Below is the text to my good-bye E-mail to my coworkers at the Trustmark Insurance Company...

"...
To my dear friends and co-workers,

During our journey through life, we are presented with various choices, challenges and opportunities. For reasons known only to G-d, while challenges seem to exist almost daily, the opportunities in life seem to come few and far between. On top of this, opportunities are sometimes difficult to discern and quite often require some courage to go after them. There are times in life when we must go out and create opportunities for ourselves as well.

At this point in our life, my wife and I have decided that our family now stands at a small window of opportunity. Given the ages of our children, my current career path, our desire for personal (and spiritual) growth for ourselves and for our children, as well as a plethora of other emotions and feelings, we believe that our family is best positioned right now to go on 'Aliyah' and succeed at it. Aliyah is the Hebrew word which expresses ones picking up and moving to Israel. One of our goals in life was to allow our family the opportunity to dwell in Israel. Life is not a dress rehearsal so this is our window of opportunity for going after this dream and instead of ignoring it and letting it pass us by, we have made the decision to act upon it.

While it is easy for us to dream, it is much harder to turn these dreams into reality and, unfortunately, it is this process which requires sacrifice. Leaving my position at Trustmark definitely falls under this category. This company has taken good care of me over the past eight years and I am cognizant of being the recipient of such goodness. I hope that the work effort I put in was deserving of this care. I really want to thank each of you for making my time here meaningful and special. I also want to ask of your forgiveness for any unnecessary aggravation or stress I may have caused you over the years. I have a learned a lot form all of you and I am definitley going to miss you all.

It looks like June 23rd will be my last day at Trustmark and we will be leaving for Israel on July 5th. We are facing this next challenge in our life with optimism, excitement and of course, some nervousness. My e-mail address outside of work is abc@def.com . I hope you will keep in touch and if you ever make it over to the Holy Land, please stop by for a visit!

Wishing you all, the best of health and prosperity.

Shalom,

Mark Lyons.
..."

2006-05-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

Hello. My name is Moshe Lyons. I am in the process of making aliyah with my wife and children. My wife and I have made the decision to end the exile for the Lyons family. On paper, there is no pressing reason for us to do this. I have a great job at Trustmark Insurance Company in the Northern suburbs of Chicago. I have a terrific house in a great Jewish neighborhood. We are happy with our shul and we like the Rabbi. We live in close proximity to my Mom, my sister and her family, and we have a lot of good friends around. Our kids go to a good school where they are doing great, they are happy and have terrific friends. I have a sister in Florida which makes for fabulous winter and Pesach vacations! It is the American Dream!
So, why are we chucking this all away?
Well, for starters, you should know that at the time of this writing, we could go on living the way we are living. Investments, 401(k) managment, mortgage payments, tuition payments, budgeting, vacation time, priceline.com to find a great rate on a hotel room somewhere, road trips here and there, Saturday night pizza shop visits, credit card payments, refinancing, renting videos, parent-teacher conferences, driving tickets etc,etc,etc.. There is nothing stopping us. If I want to, right now!, I can say, all is good, I ain't going to touch it. Really, I am sameach b'Chelki right now. We are not running away from anything! I am not under any pressure to do this nor is anyone making us do this. We just have decided to stop living the American Dream and to start living the Jewish Dream!! So, you ask again, why!?!?
Here are just a couple of reasons that come to my mind right now,
Reason #1.
It is a mitzvah and I am a believer. Just like there is a mitzvah to shake a lulav and etrog on Succot. There is a mitzvah to live in Eretz Yisroel. And not all mitvot are easy! People in the Diaspora are misirat nefesh to have many children, to send them to day-schools, to feed them all. etc,..B"H the mitzvah of having children (And the responsibilities that come along with them) is hard! (IY"H, we should all be granted many, many offspring!) Nevertheless, many orthodox Jews (and I include myself amongst this group) have bitachon in Hashem that some how, some way we will find a way to clothe, feed and educate our children! And many of the orthodox Rabbonim will espouse this view...So it is in this same way that we need to try to preform ALL the mitzvot -without worry, and with complete faith in Hashem - that I move to Eretz Yisroel. I have no illusions. It is not going to be a cake walk. But we need to try and serve Hashem with no shortcuts. There are times in life that one justs need to step up to the plate, especially for G-d, His Torah, His children and His Land! At least I like to think that we are attempting to do this.
Reason #2.
We only have 'One Life To Live'! We need to maximize it! Who knows when my day of death will arrive (it should be in a long time) but I have no intentions of going to Shamayim and telling my Creator that I didn't at least try! While I can accept failure, I cannot accept failure in the attempt phase. One cannot fail to try.
Reason #3.
Last summer, my people were thrown out of their homes. The day of the beginning of the Gush Katif expulsion (August 15th 2005 I believe) I was driving to work listening to WGN radio in Chicago. I wanted to hear the news. But instead of the news I heard some guy making a fool out of himself singing 'Take Me Out to The Ball Game!'? for a good 10-15 minutes. How could it be that fellow Jews are being kicked out of their homes and we here in America are too interested in the Cubs and (the World Champion) Chicago WHITE SOX!!! to give a hoot? Is my childrens fate going to be attached to those who eat Peanuts and Cracker Jacks? Or are they going to make a contribution to the Jewish Nation in the land given to us by God? If G-d forbid,(Chas vSholom X1000) there is another disengament (Al tiftach peh l'Satan). Instead of eating pizza and watching it on TV before the next episode of 'Desperate Housewives' comes on, my family will be there!! We will be the ones consoling our bretheren and being torn away from our land. -And we will have the zchus of living on our land untill the very last possible minute of modern times! Please G-d don't let this happen!! I would much rather my family be on the land when Moshiach comes! Amen!
Reason #4.
I am Jewish. A Jew belongs in Israel. I find it amazing that every (most) gentile I tell the news of our aliyah to responds with a 3 letter word "WOW!!" A Jew responds with another 3 letter word "WHY!?!?" I hope that the Jews who ask us why, really mean, "WHY am I not doing the same?" But, If you do happen to be Jewish and you are still reading through my list of reasons, I would suggest you do a bit of a soul check, right about now! I need to give you a reason for aliyah?!? Listen to the voice inside of you that is telling you to go, for that is your neshomeh talking to you. Much better to listen to that divine spark telling you to go then to wait for the goyim to tell you to go. (Heard from Rebbetzin Bochko , Kochav Yaakov, Israel). Unfortunatley, I am willing to put money down that comments to this posting will be from JEWS who will make drashas and chakiras on my reasons and tell me why I am wrong.
Reason #5
I want my children to have the golden opportunity of being raised (ie. experience childhood) in Israel. I didn't have this for myself and I want my kids to have better. For 2,000 years my nation turned towards Zion and prayed for their return. It is open and available to us this minute! Don't tell me that the generation to whom it is finally available doesn't want it! People pray to hear the "sounds of children playing in the courtyards of Jerusalem". Take action to answer this prayer and bring your children - we are!

These are just some of my reasons. I have more, I am just to lazy to write them down. And the purpose of my blog is NOT to justify our reasons for aliyah. As a Jew, it should be obvious. The land and the Jews are precious to us. And saying this or typing about it are just not enough. We need to live life like we mean it. So, on July 5th 2006 (our date of aliyah) G-d willing, we plan to do just that. IY"H we will be successfull.

Moshe.