Nitzan essays

Rosh Hashana
Every culture has a special calendar and a holiday in which they celebrate the start of a new year. The Chinese have the lunar New Year festival and we Jews have Rosh Hashanah (in English- The head of the Year).

Because of its important Rosh Hashanah is full of Symbols and rituals for the New Year along side a great feast with the family. What symbols and rituals? You'll see.

The first and most important meaning of Rosh Hashanah in the Jewish faith is that the judgment of the soul starts at this day. That's why praying in this holiday is considered most important and that's why the Shofar come to use- we use the Shofar in order to remind our self the promise of God to Abraham and open the gates of heavens for our prays.

The second importance of Rosh Hashanah is presented in it's name- "The Start of the year". Because it the start of the year Jewish traditions created symbolic acts in the spirit of a "new happy year":

1.Apple in Honey- the most known symbol is the apple in honey that represents our hope for a "sweet" year.

2.Eating a fish head- this symbolic act comes with the prayer "Let us be the head and not the tail". In other words we ask to succeed in the New Year.

3.Pomegranate- The eating of the pomegranate symbolize our pray for a full and happy year.

Those are just some of the symbolic acts we do in Rosh Hashanah but if you want to summer the goal of all the symbolic acts and prays it will be: "Happy New Year!"

A weapon of war, a bringer of peace
E=mc2 is one of the most famous scientific formulas ever discovered. The formula, which was discovered by Einstein, was in the base of one of the most destructive weapons ever discovered: the Atom bomb.

Yet while so many consider it as a weapon of war and nothing else the Atom bomb actually made sure that a world war will never happen again. Just think to your self what would Stalin do in 1945- While the US is busy in the invasion to Japan's mainland, bringing with it a more devastating effect than Hiroshima and Nagasaki together, the Red army would stand ready to invade the rest of Europe without the threat of a nuclear reaction. That's why since 1945 there wasn't any large scale war. While war continued in a smaller scale throughout the world, the Atom bomb ensured that there will be no World War 3. Of curse, the Atom bomb hasn't became a stabilizing factor in the world without the destruction it brings- the modern day Atom bombs can wipe out areas as big as Manhattan in a single explosion and kill thousands more with the reductive radiation and materials they release. Another threat is Nuclear terrorism in which a terrorist group explode a nuclear device in the heart of a populated area.

To conclude, the Atom bomb is one of the classical examples for the saying "two sides of a coin"- on the one side the Atom bomb is the most destructive weapon man has created but on the other side it's the only weapon so far that brought some satiability to the world.

The lecture on the project
When Prime Minister Begin signed the peace agreement in 1979 he hoped to end the bitter conflict between Israel and Egypt and bring a new era of peace. While it did bring a new kind of relations between the two nations that can be called "cold war" there is no peace between Israel and Egypt. to support this statement I will give just a few examples that will clearly show the kind of relations we have with Egypt.

First, the military field- Egypt is surrounded by 3 countries: Sudan, which has a military with equipment from the Soviet Union and almost no military training, Libya, that has become a puppy of the West, and Israel, that Egypt has a peace agreement with it. Now, the common logic would predict that Egypt will invest money in its trembling Economy rather than upgrading it army but for some reason Egypt is spending billions of dollars in buying American military equipment like Apache helicopters and Abraham tanks. This process threat Israel technological supremacy and take its advantage in fighting against the Arab nations.

Second, the formal policy of Egypt and the statements of it leaders are directed to harm Israel. The Egyptian allows smugglings of firearms to the Gaza strip and President Mubarak has some nasty statements concerning Israel ( "Yum Kippur war- The happiest day of my life"). They also tried to interfere with the Israel-Palestinians relations by pushing Arafat to no accept the Israeli suggestions and used the first Lebanon war and the Intifada as excuses to get their ambassador out of Israel.

Finally, the Egyptian people, all the way from the common man to the heads of the intellectual elite, believe that Israel is an enemy state that must be destroyed. A survey from 2006 shows that over 98% of the Egyptian people view Israel as an enemy state. That is a clear prove of the hostility of the Egyptian people without connection to it government.

Those few facts are just drops in the ocean of facts that show Egypt's government and people view about Israel and the peace agreement. More Information is showed in my project and specifies the reasons why Egypt is a threat to Israel's national security.

Listening barrires and solutions
Listening is considered the easiest task a person can do. Unfortunately for those people, they confuse between "listening" and "hearing" and because of that they also aren't aware to the problems they have in listening and because of that they don't seek solutions for those problems.

First, we need to separate between "hearing" and "listening". "Hearing" is defined as "perceiving a sound with the ear" (definition from the Oxford dictionary) while "listening" is defined as "make an effort to hear something" (also from there). The two definitions show that hearing is not a conscious act while listening is. That's why most people hear and don't really focus in order to listen.

Now that we defined listening as a conscious act, we need to see what problems we have in doing it. There are five main problems:

1.	Shift Response- When a person can't listen to another he will try to shift the subject of the conversation to a one that concern him and make him the speaker rather than the listener. The most common way of changing the subject is interrupting.

2.	 Glazing over- when you're not giving your attention to the speaker you might start to "daydream". This is glazing over.

3.	Pseudo listening- ever got an "um-mm" or "really" from a person while speaking to him? This is probably a sign to pseudo listening. Pseudo listening is when you pretended to listen while your not really focusing on the massage the person tries to say.

4.	"Ambushing"- sometimes a lecture can fall on a trivial mistake by the speaker. This listening, that originate from a negative attitude toward the speaker or his message, is focused on finding unimportant mistakes and with them stop the speaker.

5.	Content only response- A person usually transfer a message with emotions that effect how you

need to interpret the message. But when you only deal with literal content and disregarded the emotional content in which it come you are a "Content only response". Those are the five common problems people have when they try to listen. But now that we discovered the problems, how do we solve them?

There are a few tactics that might help you become a better listener:

1.	Always give attention to the speaker body language and feelings. When you disregard the emotional state of the speaker it will be harder to you to understand the message.

2.	Be in the attitude to listen. Because listening is a conscience act your attitude toward doing it will effect how well you do it.

3.	Focus your mind on the listening and don't think about other things. If you think about other things you'll probably miss some of the message.

So, let summer what we've learned in one sentence: listening is a conscience act. From acknowledging this fact you can think of your own solutions to focus yourself on the listening and there by making you a better listener.

Three Wishes
"If I had three wishes" is everyone's wish. This article's purpose is to show what I would wish for if I had three wishes. Before we start I must made it clear that you can't wish for more wishes. I need to clear that out in order that the length of this text will be of an article and not of an academic work.

The first wish will be 1 billion dollars (although the current currency is low). I know what you are thinking: "very creative wish" but let's admit it: fortune can give you every thing you want like good health, a vacation in Paris and a personal island. You might say that money doesn't buy love but with the new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence soon you will be able to buy all the love you want!

The second wish will be eternal youth. Why? Because the average life span of a human being (80) isn't long enough to every thing I want to do. My plans include studying psychology, chemistry, law, human anatomy and many more. I also want to visit every culture site on the plant and spent a century in Florence and Jerusalem. So you can understand why I want eternal youth.

The last wish will be dedicated for humanity: I will wish that people will start thinking logically rather than emotionally. A lot of conflicts and hate between people originate in the lack of people to think logically. This wish will give them the tools to solve problems logically and hopefully bring peace to the world.

In conclusion, my wishes will be used for a better and eternal life for me and for humanity (but especially for me, 'cause I got only one and I need to take care of it).

My Life
My name is Nitzan David Foucks and I'm 17 years old from Netania. I have to siblings, a brother and a sister which are smaller than me. I'm certainly in my last year at high school and hopefully I will continue to the Technion. But let's not jump to my future plans before I speak about my past.

Although it might not seem like it, my family origins are mainly from Brazil. I have only one grandparent that came from Poland but that enough to make people confused that I'm a Russian. This grandparent is also one of the first residents of Netania, when it was still just a little town back then in 1935. a few years after that (56 to be precise) I came to the world on February the 4, 1991. I was born in Hillel Yaffe hospital in Hadera and was welcomed by Saddam Hussein's missile attacks on Israel during my first few weeks.

Earthquake Prediction
Earthquake is one of the most destructive forces in nature. Cities wiped, people killed and entire regions are becoming wastelands. But the most destructive feature of the earthquake is that it can't be seen or heard until the moment it strike, and that is already too late. Fortunately, Humanity has worked on ways to predict those earthquakes in other ways.

First, we need to have a short look about what exactly is an earthquake: the surface of the world is made out of tablets, which each of them move independently. The tablets are fricting against each other all the time, causing multiple earthquakes all the time. The ones that are destructive are caused when the power of the friction rise and shock waves are send through the ground. The shock waves are the earthquake.

Because earthquake are waves, we can measure them by measuring the movement through the ground. The main device that do this is the Seismometer- This device, which was it basic idea was already used in the 14 century in Chine, is measuring the movement of the earth. If the movement is higher than usual it means an earthquake is building up. Although this device is commonly use as the main device to measure earthquakes it can't only point out for the possibility of one and give people just a few minutes before the earth shakes.

This problem led people to find new ways in order to predict earthquakes. One of them is using animals behavior. The animals earthquake theory is based on the idea that animals can sense when an earthquake is coming. This idea is mainly based on some historic records, starting from ancient Greece, but lack the scientific base. Researchers are yet to show any scientific proof that show a connection between animals behavior and incoming earthquake, although the significant research work in Japan and China.

In conclusion, we have yet to find the way to predict earthquake and give as time to run. The only solution today to save our life is to make shore that our home will not fall when the earth start to shake.

English exam and Driving test
What do a driving test and an English Bagrut exam have in common? What they have in common is your will to succeed on these tests and the principles on how to do that.

A Driving test and an English Bagrut exam are two tests which you want to at least past and more preferably to succeed in them. The differences between them are of course clear to everyone: You need to use more body systems like reflexes in a driving test than on the Bagrut exam. But what we're interested in are the common things they share: They demand you to concentrate, think and know the rules how to do them.

The 3 factors we mentioned are affected by many different things: Your stress level can affect your focus and your thinking, as well as your attitude and feelings. In order to succeed on those tests you need to make sure not to lest your fear and stress take over you.

The bottom line is that you need 3 things in order to get a driver license and a good grade in the English Bagrut exam.

The worst condition my room was in
"What was the worst condition your room was" is probably the hardest question an average teenager can face. Fortunately for me, my room once was in a status no one was really sure if people sleep in that room.

This awkward situation begins in May, 2007. May is the start of Bagrut exams, and I didn't have the time to clean my room or even think about it. Most of the day I spent learning in school or in the living room, there by leaving my room to cover under dust and spider webs. Well, I guess the spiders were quite efficient in making sure no other bugs would live in my room, but on the other hand the sleep with 60 spiders weren't quite relaxing. So, the room became dirtier and dirtier until finally I had no other option than to clean it. The efforts began on the morning on the 9 of June and ended in the evening of that day.

In conclusion, the worst condition my room was when he was used as a home for the local spider population and as a collector of dust.

Future
If I find a cure for cancer I will give it free to everyone.

If I don't succeed in the chemistry test I will have to work harder.

If I go to the Technion I will be the happiest man on the planet.

If I don't enter the Technion I willn't be the sadest man on the planet.

If I get everything I want then I will find some more stuff.

Present
If I were you I would keep on reading.

If I got spam I would ban you.

If I owned a dog I would play with it.

If I read a book I would talk about it.

If I saw a shark I would buy the shark gun.

Past
If I had taken the other road I would not have been in a car accident.

If I had an apple with me I would not be so hungry.

If I had not taken 5 points English I wouldn't do this right now.

If I had not ran all across school I would have the energy to read the Math test.

If I had the hunger for more cake I would not throw the cake from the window.