Parshas Netzavim–Vayeilech

Something to say

Gather together the people – the men, the women, and the small children (31:12).

In this parshah we learn about the commandment of Hak’hel, for which the entire Jewish nation was required to assemble in the Beis Hamikdash to hear parts of Deuteronomy read by the king.

Rashi cites the Sages’ comment that the men came to study, the women to listen, and the children were there so that those who brought them would be rewarded. At first, this seems difficult to understand. Young children can be noisy and disruptive, and they would probably prevent their parents from being able to listen closely and concentrate. Along these lines Rabbi Nosson Adler asks why the parents had to go through the trouble of bring their little ones to Jerusalem. Would it have been better to leave them at home so that the parents could fulfill the mitzvah undisturbed? He answers that the reward for bringing the children to Hak’hel was greater than any loss or difficulty it entailed. When a child is placed in an atmosphere of holiness, it creates an everlasting impression in his young heart and brings him closer to God. The value of such an experience is incalculable.

Parshas Balak

Sometimes we think ignorance is bliss, that if we didn’t know better then we can’t be accountable for what we did wrong. But there is something called common sense, we have to use our intelligence to try to judge what’s right and wrong.

Something to say:

I have sinned for I did not know (22:34).

In this parshah, the evil prophet Balaam set out to curse the Jews. As the Torah relates, his she-donkey stopped in its tracks three times because an angel, unseen by Balaam, blocked its way. Finally, the angel did become visible to him, and Balaam cried out.

The Sh’lah asks: if Balaam really didn’t know that there was anything wrong with his plan, what was his sin? The answer is that a person is held responsible for that which he should know. God gives each person understanding, and Balaam was intelligent enough to understand that a donkey wouldn’t suddenly veer off the path or stop three times for no reason. Obviously, God was sending him a message.

We can be accountable for sins we have done, even if we haven’t learned about them. Since we should have known better. Or should have taken the time to learn about them, so as not to commit a sin.

Parshas Shelach

You ever notice how once you hear about something you start seeing it all over? Lots of times we see things without taking it in or noticing it, because it’s not on our mind. Once we hear about it, and it’s on our mind, then we pay more attention and see it more often.

Something to say:

You shall not go explore after your hearts and after your eyes (15:39).

Rashi explains: the eye sees, the heart desires, and the body commits the sin. The Toldos Ephraim points out that Rashi should have followed the sequence of the verse; the heart desires and the eye sees. However, he answers that what the heart does not desire, the eye does not see at all.

We see what we want to see. So someone who has good on their mind will see the good. Someone who thinks of evil will see the evil. So lets keep our hearts and mind on the good, and we will see good.

Parshas Naso

There’s something about Birchas Kohanim that makes it an emotional time. The memories of being a child and going under my father’s tallis. The Kohanim giving a Bracha to us that is so Kadosh, that we are not allowed to see it. The “Rebono Shel Olam” Tefillah”, the beautiful singing of the Kohanim while we say the Tefilah. Where I always wondered how come there are more examples of people being cured, than strengthening the good.

Something to say:

May God bless you and safeguard you (6:24).

This parsha contains the Priestly Blessing, with which God commanded the Kohanim of every generation to bless the Jewish people. It is interesting to note that despite the fact that this blessing was recited in the Temple and synagogue over the entire congregation, it is phrased entirely in the singular, rather than in the plural.

One explanation for this is that it is not always possible, or wise, to extend the same blessing to everyone uniformly. For the farmer, rain today may be an anxiously awaited blessing; for the long-distance traveler, it would be a hindrance. Wealth, a handsome appearance, or an extraordinary measure of some talent might be tremendous gifts and resources for one person; for another, each of these might be a burden could not handle. Only God, Designer of all creations and Endower of all gifts, knows precisely what blessing is appropriate for whom. He therefore tells the Kohanim to bless the people in the singular; each individual should receive the form of blessing that is most appropriate for him.

When I went with my family to Israel for my brothers bar mitzvah, we would talk about how we hoped it didn’t rain the day we would all be celebrating at the Kotel. My aunt who lives in Israel would say that she hoped it did rain and she would supply umbrellas for everyone. That Israel needs rain. Everyone has different needs, so we are blessed individually, rather than the same for everybody.

Eating In Public

Thanks to @MarkSoFla and @hsabomilner for reminding me of this one.

My 5 year old neighbor stops me

You wanted me to make it Assur, well according to some eating in the streets is Assur! One day I had left my house while eating an ices, and I planned on walking to the store and finishing the ices on the way, and then put the wrapper in a garbage can on the way. But then as I walked down my block… my 5 year old neighbor stops me and says “Jewish Side, what are you doing?” while looking at the ices I was eating. So then I said that I’m going to take a walk to the store. So then she tells me that I should finish my ices now. “Jewish Side, you shouldn’t eat in the streets”. So then she reads me face and says, “But you can do what you want, I’m not telling you what to do”.

When the kid told me not to eat in the street. I didn’t want to be “rebellious” and teach her something wrong from what she was taught. So I finished eating the ices there, and then continued on.

But I do remember in elementary school, they taught us not to eat in the streets. I know it may seem ridiculous to most of you, but it does make sense to an extent. For certain types of food, like ice cream etc. (you can use your imagination), it would be untznius to eat these things with people watching you. I actually found a quote of a Rabbi saying that people should take on certain tznius suggestions and this was one of them:

“Refrain from eating/drinking in public areas, especially where men are present.”

So there is actually something to it, the kid didn’t make it up, and my school didn’t make up. But yes, I do agree it is a chumra, and not a Halacha! But yet, there’s nothing wrong with not eating in the streets, so to me it’s a higher level. So I admire those that keep to it, and wouldn’t make fun of them.

My Attempt at Being a Teacher

Ilana-Davita came up with a great idea – The Mesorah Project. Where different bloggers can contribute their thoughts of what Mesorah means to them.

This week I participated and guest posted here. In the comments Leora asked if I ever thought about becoming a teacher. This got me thinking and it reminded me of a homework assignment I had to do for seminary. Where I had to prepare a lesson plan, as though I was a teacher. So I figured I’d share my attempt at being a teacher with you, and let you be the judge. (I got a 95 on the project, so it’s not that good). The topic had to be from Parshas Shoftim, so I chose Bribery.

---

Justice: פרק טז׳ פסוקים יז׳ לפרק יז׳ פסוק יג׳
Laws for Kings: כ׳-פרק יז׳ פסוקים יד׳
Cities of Refuge: פרק יח׳ פסוקים ו׳ לפרק יט׳ פסוק יג׳
Rules of War: 'כ -פרק כ׳ פסוקים א׳
The Laws of "Eglah Arufah.": פרק כא׳ פסוק א׳-ט׳

---

Morah: What is a bribe?

Student: To give money to someone so they’ll do you a favor.

Morah: So then what is the main purpose of a bribe?

Student: to get them to do what you want

Morah: Exactly, a bribe is used to influence people.

Morah: Let us read the posuk in:  פרשת שופטים פרק יט׳ פסוק טז׳‏ 

לא תטה משפט לא תכיר פנים ולא תקח שוחד כי השוחד יעור עיני חכמים ויסלף דברי חכמים

Morah: Let’s look into the Rashi, (student) _____ do you want to read?

Student: ok, which one?

Morah: לא תכיר פנים

Student: (reads the Rashi)

Morah: now let’s try to understand what the Rashi is saying. A judge can not show favoritism even at the time in court where they are each pleading their case. For example: to make one stand and one sit. Since one will notice that the judge is showing more respect to his opponent and he will therefore not bother to plead his case anymore.

Ok, who wants to read the next Rashi?

Student: (raises hand)

Morah: Please read Rashi כי השוחד יעור

Student: (reads the Rashi)

Morah: Who can try to explain what the Rashi is saying?

Student: That as soon as a judge accepts a bribe, no matter what, he will decide the judgment in the person’s favor.

Morah: Exactly.

Morah: Now that we have looked at bribery dealing with judges, let us try to see what else we can learn from this. Who else do you think the rules of bribery apply to?

Student: Rich people?

Morah: Yes, it could apply to rich people, but even more than that.

Student: Everyone

Morah: Yes! Each and every one of us could fall into the trap of bribery. Think about it, if you have two friends and one does you a favor and one doesn’t, who are you willing to help first?

Student: The one who did a favor for me.

Morah: Therefore, Bribery doesn’t only have to be money or anything too valuable, just a few pennies could be considered a bribe.

Morah: Now let us look at the words in the posuk more carefully. Who can think of why the Hebrew word שוחד is used for bribery. What שורש do you see in the word שוחד?

Student: אחד

Morah: That is correct. When a judge accepts a bribe from one of the people being judged, he becomes “one” with him and therefore can no longer judge without being biased. I will tell you another reason why the word שוחד is used with the lashon אחד. When a judge rules a case honestly he becomes a partner with Hashem in the creation of heaven and earth. Since the judge who accepts bribery cannot offer a just decision, Hashem now remains alone, without a partner.

Morah: Who could think of a question on this posuk?

Student: If a bribe is a bad thing, and if the judge accepted a bribe, why is he called a Tzadik?

Morah: Excellent question! I will bring a story to explain this concept.

A Din-Torah once took place before Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apta. While the Din-Torah was in progress, one of the parties felt that he was going to lose, so he asked permission to leave the room for a short while. In the hallway outside the Beit Din room, he noticed the Rabbi's coat and placed a sum of money in the pocket.

The Din-Torah resumed, and the Rabbi, who up until now was beginning to formulate a certain opinion, suddenly began to change his line of thought. The Rabbi, puzzled as to why his way of thinking was suddenly changing, told the two parties that he would like to call a recess and have more time to think over the matter.

Meanwhile, he prayed to Hashem to be blessed with the proper wisdom to see the truth. A few days later, as he was putting on his coat, he put his hand in his pocket and suddenly felt a bundle of money. The Rabbi exclaimed, "Now I understand what happened to me. A bribe is so powerful that even though it was given to me without my knowledge it had an effect on my thinking."

The Torah is telling us that even though the judge may indeed be a tzaddik and would not accept a bribe, a bribe given to him, even without his knowledge, may pervert his judgment.

---

---

Quiz

True or False

1. A bribe is only money ______
2. A judge can’t show favor by letting one stand and one sit, in a court room ______
3. If the judge doesn’t know he’s receiving a bribe then he will judge righteously_____
4. Bribery applies to everyone______
5. שוחד has the word אחד in it to teach us that the judge becomes alone, and no longer a partner with Hashem when he doesn’t judge the right way_____
6. Only bad people accept bribes_____

---

Goals: Students will be able to understand what a bribe is.
Sources: Chumash with Rashi, R’ Berel Wein, and Chabad for kids
Materials: hand out the quizzes
Board: Drawn above
Method of Evaluation: Quiz written above.
Students: Bais Yaakov girls

In Search of Pleasure

For everything in this world there is a kosher equivalent. There was a great Rabbi whose wife said she wanted milk and meat together. A normal reaction of a husband who hears that would be outrage, to think Chas V’ Shalom what happened to her? How could she think such a thing? But the Rabbi didn’t react that way, instead he went and asked for a cow’s udder. Now she was able to have milk and meat together in a kosher way.

Hashem wants us to have pleasure and enjoy from this world. There are several chazals that prove this.

1. A Nazir brings a Karbon Chatas because he sinned by not enjoying pleasure in this world, the wine.
   
2. If I were to ask you what the first commandment is, you would say it’s when Hashem tells Adam not to eat from the Eitz Hadas. But really that’s not the first commandment. If you look at the posuk it says Hashem commanded Adam to eat.
   
3. Hashem showed Adam and Chava the beautiful world.

If a person doesn’t partake in the pleasures of this world then they have no gratitude. If a person enjoys pleasures of this world then they will be a happier person and easy to get along with.

However, there is a flip side. The more we have pleasure the less we enjoy it. Think of your favorite food, the first time you eat it, it’s like heaven on earth. But if you were to have that food every day then you wouldn’t enjoy it as much. I believe that’s why Hashem gave us boundaries, that’s why there are the Halachos of Nidah, so that it stays a special thing.

Think of this scenario, you are in the freezing cold for 3 1/2 hours, where there is only 25 minutes of action, where you have people standing up in front of you when something happens thereby not allowing you to see anything, where you have to pay for food and there are inaccessible unsanitary bathrooms. It doesn’t sound like a pleasant experience.

Then picture this scenario, you are sitting on your living room couch in front of a Plasma screen TV with the football game on, where you are in the warmth of your own house, where you can see the whole game clearly, where you get any food you want, where the bathroom is available to you and clean. Now this sounds like a pleasant experience.

Now if you ask a person why they would rather go to a football game than watch the game in the living room, they will say they go for the experience of being part of a large group. During the football game the people will cheer to “J-E-T-S” or whichever team they are going for, this is to remind them that they are part of the group. They will also do the “wave” for the same reason.

If you open a cookbook and take a look at a recipe, you won’t see it saying to take a steak and cook it, rather you will see lists of ingredients that you combine to form a recipe.

→ At this time I would like to point out that A Mother In Israel started a relatively new blog, called Cooking Manager with great tips on cooking. Leora has a great collection of recipes as does Ilana Davita a great collection of recipes. 

Same with music, there are various notes, voices and instruments that are combined together to form a beautiful harmony.

When two people love each other, you have two bodies with one soul.

The essence of all these examples, is unity.

People who are patriotic for their country, do it because they want to feel the unity. Being a part of something gives us pleasure. I will take this time to point out that being a blogger is also an example of being part of a whole – the blogosphere, and it gives me great pleasure to be a part of such a great thing.

→ Mike In Midwood has a great creative post called Chaim Snyder which is a great example for two of the points made so far. The first being there is a Kosher version of everything, hence the post is about Chaim Snyder being the Kosher version of Harry Potter. The second being people like to be part of a large group, since lots of people have read/watched Harry Potter, other people want to also, because then they belong to the group of Harry Potter readers/watchers/fans.

The Torah starts with the letter Bais, it has two pointers, one points up to Hashem who created us. The second points down, to before the creation of people where there was oneness. With the creation of people there became Bais, “twoness”, where we feel a separation from the Aleph, Hashem. As a correction we try to seek pleasure with Hashem.

There is a pleasure we get from putting together a puzzle, where we are building something. All pleasure if used in the right way can lead us in the direction of unity with Hashem. The more we experience unity, we get closer to Hashem.

We all know the famous story, where a man came to Hillel and asked to him to explain to him the Torah on one foot. Hillel said “What is hateful to you, don’t to unto your friend, and the rest is commentary”. Now how can we explain this?

One explanation:

There are 3 categories of a friend. 1- Hashem: Yedid Nefesh. 2- Fellow Jew. 3- Neshama- our closes friend. The Torah is all about those 3 types of friends.

Second explanation:

The purpose of the world is for a person to become similar to Hashem – Tzelem Elokim, so the Torah tells us how.

When you think to yourself “What do I want”, the I could mean different things. In the highest scenario, it would play out like this:

I = body and soul, friends and family, and all of the Jewish People.

This is where all the pleasures come together. The pleasure for yourself and others is the essence of Torah, unity, to bridge with others.

It says on “that day” Hashem will be one and His name will be one. Now why does it need to say both? Because now we read Hashem’s name differently from the way it is written. At “that time” Hashem’s name will be read the way it is written. The reason we read it differently now, is because we don’t see what we know, we don’t see Hashem clearly.

To recap, we are supposed to have pleasure in this world. We like to feel unity. This leads us to be closer with Hashem. Therefore, every time we do an action we should see if it will bring unity or not.

---

I have to say there is nothing like the real thing. R’ Becher was hilarious, try to get his CD/Tape or listen to it online once it comes out.

FYI: These shiurim are part of the Irgun Shiurai Torah program. If you look to your left you will see the schedule posted onto the sidebar, click the image to expand.

What it Means to be a Proud Jew

If you notice on my sidebar in the “About Me” section of this blog, I wrote “I am a proud Jew”. Now what does that mean? I went to a shiur by R’ Dishon a few weeks ago and he spoke about this topic.

Every single Jew that’s alive makes up a part of Hashem’s name Yud-Kay-Vav-Kay. Now when someone is niftar, there is a gap in the name, a part of the name is missing. So the niftar’s children say Kadish for him. Now what is Kadish? I would of imagined it would say something about death, and passing on. But it doesn’t mention death once. What is it all about? it’s all about Hashem. This is because, since there is a gap in Hashem’s name from the person who was niftar, by saying Kadish a person is saying there’s a Hashem, and that makes up for the gap that is missing, so that Hashem’s name can be complete again.

Since each person is part of Hashem’s name, each house has the Shchina in it, and each house is a Mishkan for Hashem. Now that is why it is important for the house to have kedusha in it, so that the Shchina can rest there, and you can receive brachos. It is the Wife’s job to make sure the house has kedusha in it.

Now, to combine 2 shiurim in one. R’ Veiner spoke about “Family Security”. Which was about the internet. He said if you have internet you should get filters and a reporting system. He would be available for anyone, if they have no one else to feel uncomfortable towards.

Since a house is a Mikdash Miat and a place for the Shchina, we don’t want to kick the Shchina out by having tumah in the house. Now Tumah doesn’t mean the internet, but rather what shockingly lots of men are using the internet for. Please be righteous, and use a filter and reporting system, if you can’t trust yourself. Here’s a list that R’ Veiner gave out.

The important thing to remember, is that even if you had made a mistake and done a bad thing before, don’t let the yetzer hora get you down by making you depressed that your a bad person. Hashem gave us Yom Kippur so that we can start over fresh, it’s an amazing thing. So we just have to improve ourselves, and move forward without looking back. We can be good and strive higher even if we have made mistakes in the past.

Stealing –> Kefira

Since this post was all about you, I won’t comment on the post, but I’ll say a little something here. Seems like money is the major issue here. Is that because the people who don’t work are usually the one’s with large families? What if the couple did have the money to support a large family, would people still have problems with it?

On to the next topic of stealing. Tuesday night I went to a shiur by R’ Pearl on the topic of what is keeping Moshiach. Previously I had also heard him speak on a Shabbos afternoon, on the topic of stealing.

He said that if someone steals then they are an apikores, because in essence they are saying Hashem can’t take care of their business. So they feel that have to steal in order to make money. (To me saying no to having children because of money, has the same ring to it, but we won’t go there).

One time a Satmar school got in trouble with the government. So the went over to the Satmar Rebbe to ask for help, to get them out of it. The Satmar Rebbe told them to “get out”, because they stole from the government. They told him that they didn’t keep a penny for themselves, that it was all for the Mosdos. The Satmar Rebbe then said “If you had to steal for the Mosdos, then shut down the Mosdos”. That you can’t use Treif money.

There are so many stories of righteous children who were taught not to steal, and when they were given a chance to “get in for free” they refused, saying it’s geneiva. We have to instill in our children this sensitivity of what stealing and cheating is. When going to an amusement park where they allow 4 year olds in for free, you can’t claim that your 6 year is 4 just because he’s smaller. That is stealing and cheating!

Next up: Academic Cheating

Interactive Post - "Your Say On Big Families”

“Big families” seems to be a popular topic around blogosphere. Over the past couple of weeks I have collected some tidbits here and there of what you bloggers/tweeters have to say about “big families”. This post is all about you, none of these quotes are from me. If you have something more to add, feel free to leave a comment and I will add it to the post. (If you would like your name added to your quote, you can let me know and I’ll do that for you as well.)

---

Negative

"laughing at chassidish women with 10 children following behind them and over stuffed strollers"

"That mother with 10 kids? All her kids are in *matching* clothes! Now what happens when kid #1 outgrows his/her outfit? Does food stamps cover this???!?"

"so far I only have 2, but apparently that means I'm already "mass producing" as one friend put it!"

"we had our first 3 in under 3 years - i was called a baby machine..."

"Men who are married, have 12 kids and don't work or do the army. They already get enough of my money through taxes."

"On the one hand, I think it's too intrusive for the Rabbi or whatever to outright forbid them from having children. On the other, it seems unfair that people get to act irresponsibly and then put responsible people in the awkward position of having to fund their lifestyle or be considered immoral and unfeeling brutes"

Positive

"Ah ok so my family isn't chassidish at all, my dad is a pediatrician and I am the oldest of 11 BH. (Oh yeah my uncle is a radiologist in Queens he also has 10 kids BH--- and they did not come from such a big family, my dad was 1/6) While I'm not a huge fan of big families I really hate when people with small families judge us. It's true that the ones on food stamps shouldn't have their kids matching in fancy boro park clothing because chances are if the father's a rebbi and the kids look like that, they're not paying yeshiva tuition but somehow have $ for 'important' things like this (which is why the yeshivas are all in such financial messes). It's a ton of work to have a big family so they should be admired not scorned- but on the other hand if it's clearly hard on the mother I just don't get the point of going on like that, it's not a mitzvah to suck the life out of your wife. Oh another thing, these people who like making fun of big families are often using birth control without a proper heter so they really have no place passing judgment. It's a sensitive issue because it's weird for people to discuss others' 'family planning' but this is our religion and bearing children holds a key role. We were just talking on Shabbos- my sister who's 11 wants to become a veterinarian and it's not so simple because R' Moshe Feinstein paskined that it's assur to neuter pets... so if by animals it's this way you could imagine what it's like with humans. A better alternative should be a trend away from sitting and learning, perhaps if we were more 'torah im derech eretz' oriented we'd be able to afford larger families without government assistance and without the mother killing herself trying to work and raise a family all at once. Again there's no way of circumventing this piryah v'rivyah thing, I'd like to hear a rebuttal from someone who thinks they can"

"I like that I have a gigantic family, and love the reactions I get when I tell people that I'm one of ten children."

"A rabbi of mine was giving a lecture and told over the following anecdote. There was an irreligious Jewish woman who was very upset about the irresponsibility of her religious son-in-law who, at the time, was studying full-time, and had six kids and a wife with no way of supporting them. She wasn’t so upset about the fact that her daughter’s husband was studying full-time, but that there was no attempt at birth control. The young man complained to my rabbi that his mother-in-law was driving him crazy and was wondering if there was anything to be done to get her to stop complaining about the number of children he had. My rabbi told him to line up all six of his children for his mother-in-law next she came to visit, and ask her which one shouldn’t have been born. The man reported he never heard a word of complaint about his kids from her again."

Singing In The Rain

Today I went to an excellent shiur by R’ Wallerstein. I’ve always heard how great a speaker he was, but I’ve never heard him speak live till now. He spoke about the mishnah in Pireki Avos that says “Remember these 3 things and it will keep you from doing an Avaira: 1- Know where you came from, 2- Know where your going, 3- Know you will have to give a din v’cheshbon of what you have done in life.”

He said you can compare it to a GPS, that it has to know where your coming from and the destination address. Now this part I love, he said that a GPS is amazing because when you don’t follow it’s directions, and make a wrong turn or go down a wrong path, it doesn’t yell at you but rather it says “recalculating” it figures out a new way for you to get to the same destination.

He spoke about how important it is to give your children self esteem, that it says Hashem gave us a Chiba Yisaira. So why does it have to mention that in the Pirkei Avos, wouldn’t it be known? So the answer is, you have to speak about it. You have to tell your wife and spouse spouse and children that you love them. You shouldn’t say, “o, but it’s obvious, they know I love them”. Rather you should remind them how much you love them. That you shouldn’t say “o, but I buy my wife flowers every shabbos” Because there the flowers are for shabbos, rather you should buy her flowers during the week, to show they are for her. Also, when couples are having Shalom Bayis problems rather than listing the 5 things they don’t like about each other, they should write down the 5 things they do like about each other.

He said he doesn’t believe in rewarding bad behavior. There are teens who would do something bad and then all of a sudden everyone is nice to them and gives them prizes, money, and trips to Florida. But that sends the wrong message, it tells them if they want attention they should do something bad. And then they will never correct themselves because their having the good life while their bad. He says rather you should build your child’s self esteem, tell them how much you love them, as a prevention so they shouldn’t need to find themselves and get into trouble. 

He said instead of baking a fancy dessert for Shabbos, have your seven year old daughter bake a dunken heins cake, this way she will feel good about herself. I know I’m not 7 years old, but it’s really true, lately I started cooking, and then afterwards I would ask everyone how the food was and it felt so good to hear them say they liked it. (My mother was even a true husband, I used expired eggs by mistake, and she didn’t want the whole thing to go into the garbage, so she ate from it and said the food was good anyways).

He said Yiddishkeit is not about a competition. He said the problem is when everything is made into a competition. We are each born with a tzelem elokim, there isn’t just one winner. He doesn’t believe in marks for Hebrew subjects. He says that’s what causes the children to be turned off. That it’s ridiculous for them to get a Tefillah mark, that how could anyone possibly know what their thinking when they daven. And that’s what turns them off from wanting to go to minyan and davening.

Then when a child brings home a Chumash test with a 50 on it, the parent would yell at them, “how can you do this to me!”. Then once the parent starts off in a negative tone the child blocks out everything being heard, so even if you say a good thing afterwards, they won’t hear it. This is what knocks down their self esteam. So rather than yelling at them for getting a bad mark, look over their test, show them the answers they got right, and say “wow, this one was a hard one, harder than the one’s you got wrong”. This way their self esteam is built up and next time they will do even better.

Another thing he said which I thought was a great idea was about Brachos. He said before he gives a speech his wife gives him a bracha of Hatzlacha. Before his children have a test at school they each give a bracha to each other to do well. Now what’s so great about this? It connects everyone. This way a wife who usually knows nothing about her husbands daf yomi learning, becomes involved. Because she gave a bracha that her husband should do well in learning, when he comes home she will ask him “how did the learning go?”.

Also, the Shabbos table shouldn’t be a long drasha from the father. But rather each kid should say a little d’var torah. He told a bunch of stories. One of them was about this guy who was able to speak in public to lots of people, and people would question him how was he able to stand up in front of so many people. So he said that when he was younger, every kid in his family would put together a little skit Friday nights, and he would perform in front of his parents, and he thinks this helped him to not be afraid of speaking in front of large groups. So the parent has the ability to raise the kids self esteem so they won’t need to take public speaking classes.

He said he was asked to speak at “Judas Place” where they have at risk kids. He came and this 14 year old girl started cursing out G-d saying how much she hated G-d. So then he said how this kid having anger towards G-d was a great thing, because she recognized there was a G-d out there, so that was the first step. Once she acknowledged that, turning the anger into love was easy.

Then he said he bought himself a “kiruv car” a cool car with 479 horse power. He was driving to the country and needed oil put in. So he figured since it’s an expensive car it probably needs the expensive synthetic oil. So he started putting it in. Then this guy comes over to him and says “Do you know what your doing, did you read the manual? If you put in that oil the car is going to explode!”. He takes out the manual from the glove compartment and reads it, and sees that yes the car would have exploded that he needs to put in WD 150. So he got saved.

Now this is also a great mashul, Hashem created us and didn’t expect us to figure out how to survive on our own. But rather he gave us a manual- The Torah. Now just like you wouldn’t think you know better than GM, and would trust their manual. Same you shouldn’t think you know better than Hashem. He created us, so of course it would follow suit that we should learn the Torah and follow what it says.

Now getting back to the Mishnah, it says in the Torah that we are created from dust and to dust we will go again. So now this seems contradictory to the whole tzelem elokim thing. Wouldn’t this make someone depressed to think they are nothing? So the answer goes like this. We are created from (I forgot the Hebrew word) a man’s thing where one out of 2 million makes it, and that’s what we are made from. So we came into this world where we already went through a struggle, so it’s reminding us where we came from, we came from the one cell that made it.

So to when faced with an avaira we should remember how we made it before, where we came from, and that should stop us from doing the Avaira. Then also to remember where we are going to. A rotted seed that’s put into the earth looks like nothing will grow from it, but yet a plant comes from it. Same too, we have techias hameisim. So really it’s not that we are nothing, but rather it’s reminding us of our potential, and how great we are so we shouldn’t sin.

I went to the shiur with my father, so afterwards it was raining outside again while we walked home. So as we walked back we were talking about the shiur, how much we loved it, hence the title “Singing in the Rain” - Singing the joyous words of Torah we just heard. I tried to remember as much as I could. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I really love chinuch speeches, where people have a positive approach to dealing with kids.

A Message From Hashem

A friend of mine is having R’ Yosef Mizrachi speak for an event and would like to invite you all to come.

The topic will be “A Message From Hashem”. You can look at the picture below for more details.

I am thinking about going to this event. If any of you decide to go, let me know in the comments and then maybe I’ll show up and get a chance to meet you.

I know last time I didn’t end up going to the other event. But if my brother decides to go to this one, then I will go along too.

My Torah Filled Weekend

Shabbos I walked with my father and brother to R’ Landaus shul to hear R’ Fishel Shechter give a shiur on Pirkei Avos. I’ve always associated him with the “funny”/annoying voices he used when telling stories to children. But here I heard him speak to adults and thank goodness he used his normal speaking voice. Sunday, I got to see my first hachasos sefer Torah. Monday, I went to a shiur by R’ Veiner on the topic of Shvous.

Shabbos, R’ Fishel Shechter spoke about Pirkei Avos. I agreed with most of what he said. There was one topic though that I did not agree with him about. He made some good points about parents needing to spend more time with their children. He said families should have supper together during the week more often. He said parents should take some time to shmooze with their children. That on Shabbos parents shouldn’t lock themselves in their room for 7 hours and expect their children to keep themselves busy without getting into trouble. He said you have to give them some sort of structure, that children will get bored after a while. He also made a good point about how parents that are divorced will pay millions of dollars to gain visitation rights with their children, and here you have married couples who have their children right there and yet don’t spend any time with them.

There was one thing he spoke about though that I did not agree with, and that was about Internet. He said its very dangerous and all. But yet, I think that hiding things from children isn’t the answer. We live in a society where children can’t be sheltered from the parents. If a child doesn’t have something at home they will go elsewhere to find it. The key is to raise your child with the right values and morals. To instill in them what is right and wrong. To educate them on what is out there, and how we are different and special. If a parent gives their children the right tools, then having internet or not will not make a difference. There’s so many ways to get things done, that internet is not the only route, it is just a means, not an end.

Sunday, I went with my sister to see the hachnasos sefer torah. I always get such a good feeling when I hear Jewish music in the streets. It’s like this is mine, I belong to this. It was cool to see a pretty truck looking thing with a Torah on it and lights and all kinds of flashy things driving through the street with lots of men and children following it.

Monday, R’ Veiner first spoke about Tefillin, how there’s some problem going on. Me not being a man, didn’t pay much attention to it. Although I found it interesting to see all these women peeking down to see what he was talking about. Makes me think they are such tzadeikeses, and reminds me of my HS teachers. Every time I see a women at a shiur that has such a look and is all into learning Torah and all, it reminds me of my HS teachers. It’s interesting, cause no one in my neighborhood is like that, so its like entering two different worlds.

Anyways, he spoke about Shvous how it’s a yom din, that we have to evaluate where we have fallen short in Talmud Torah. He acknowledged that there were women there, and he said this is an obligation on women too. That Talmud Torah is the women’s key into getting into Olam Habbah. He said that through marriage a women has to motivate her husband to learn, but yet she shouldn’t be his mashgiach. But rather it’s important for the guy to have his own Rav, so that she can go to the Rav to push him to learn, so that there are no Shalom Bayis problems.

In theory this might sound good, but I don’t like the way it sounds. To me I think Husband and wife should have good communication to discuss everything with each other. If the wife feels like she has to get a 3rd party involved, then to me it sounds like the marriage doesn’t have a good foundation. But yet I understand the merit of having someone else being “the bad guy”, but yet if the husband knows that the wife tattled on him, then wouldn’t the husband get more upset at the wife? Plus I don’t think the wife should constantly have to push her husband to learn, it makes it into a business relationship. Rather I think if the husband understood the importance of learning then he should want to do it on his own, if he really wants to but yet is getting distracted, then maybe the wife can motivate him and talk nicely to him and get him to learn that way. But overall, I think the husband should want to learn on his own and the wife should just encourage him a bit, but not boss him around and decide how much he has to learn.

He said you should make a project to learn with others, and to start off with just 10 minutes, and that it will grow from there. He said a Rav can’t be on top of every one to learn, so this way if each person found another person to learn with then it would work out better.

Now, after reading all this it might make you think “what’s so important about Torah after all?” Well, here’s the answer, if someone is anchored in Torah then all their other Yetzer Horas fall away. Now it finally makes sense why so much emphasis is put on Limud Torah, because it allows us to be better Jews.

He said that the point isn’t to be learning 24/7, but rather to have that as your priority, of what you wish to be doing. So you see, people don’t have to learn in Kollel to keep the mitzvah of learning Torah. But rather you can work and make a parnassah. The main point is that you want to learn. So that if you have free time, you grab the opportunity to learn, that shows that everything you are doing is really for Torah.

Also, when I think of learning, I always think of men with their gemorahs. But really, that’s not what its all about. Any form of learning counts, whether that’s an artscroll gemorah, or listening to shiurim on an iPod.

Now learning Torah has side benefits too, so that if you are stuck in traffic, or delayed, instead of getting frantic that you are late. You sit there and listen to a shiur or learn something. You save yourself from anxiety, since now you just got an opportunity to learn, so the inconvenience became a convenience.

An important thing to remember is that bad learning experiences in Yeshiva or anywhere else should not turn a person off from learning, but rather they should move on and continue learning.

Here’s one topic I disagreed with. He said that a mall is pritzus so men shouldn’t go there. At first I thought that was radical, and there’s nothing wrong with going to a mall. My naaive way of thinking of it, is that Hashem created men and women who will have a zivug that is right for them, and that is the one they will be attracted to. So that if men see other women, that is not their wife then they should not be attracted by the other lady. That only their wife can attract them which is why they are married. I mean the husband picked that wife out of everybody, so that should mean that she’s the one for him, so that other ladies shouldn’t matter. So it shouldn’t matter if he sees other ladies who “in their haste in the morning forgot to get dressed”, it shouldn’t cause him any bad thoughts, he should be able to ignore it.

Perhaps I’m crazy, and my way of thinking doesn’t make sense. Maybe, it doesn’t work like that, and men do have temptations for other women that they aren’t married to. Well if that’s the way it works, then okay, I agree that men should avoid seening pritzusdik women and avoid going to the mall.

Seudas Hoda’ah

I decided to take a break from the Parsha posts, and am stopping with Parshas Tzav, and will continue the rest next year. First I would like to bring up Parshas Tzav again, I had talked about the topic of Hoda’ah- Thanks, now I’d like to talk about it some more.

Shema Yisrael:

In the times of the Beis HaMikdash, the seudas hoda'ah consisted of the Korbon Todah. Nowadays, we have no Korbon Todah; however, we still make a seudas hoda'ah when we experience a miracle of Hashem's chessed. During that seudah, we speak about the miracle; how The Almighty saved us from a dangerous situation. This implants within us the middah (character trait) of hakoras hatov (gratitude), and recognition of all the good things that Hashem does for us. You do not need to wait until a big miracle happens to express hakoras hatov to Hashem. You can thank Him every day for the constant miracles of keeping you alive, healthy, providing food, clothing, family, teachers, and hundreds of other chassodim. Thank Him always. "Thank You Hashem!"

I remember in elementary school when we were taught Borei Nefashos, the teacher taught it to us in a song that went like this: “Barach Ata Hashem…..Borei Nefashos…..Chai Haolamim, Thank You Hashem for the Delicious food”. Now every time I say Borei Nefashos I always add on the Thank you part, it comes so naturally, that I forget it’s not part of the Bracha. But since it’s in English, it’s the part I understand, so as I’m saying it, the words remind me of what the Bracha is about.

I’m not really sure how much I can blog about this topic, as it might be too personal. But suffice it to say this Shabbos I’m having my 8th Seudas Hoda’ah for that unlucky Wednesday in 2001. I never really think about it much, I remember it comes out April time, Rosh Chodesh Iyar. It’s the one time a year when I actually eat Shalosh Seudos. We used to donate some sefer to the shul at this time. I usually acknowledge the time of year but never really feel the Thankfulness of it.

But then this year I was thinking about it, and I realized I have a lot to be thankful for. Sometimes I feel as though my life is too easy, that it becomes hard for me to do the right thing all the time. I sometimes wish bad things would happen to me, so that I wouldn’t be so “spoiled” and would become a better person. I hear about people suffering and it makes me feel inadequate, as though how can I be living the way I am, when they are suffering so.

Then this time of year comes, as a reminder, that my life wasn’t so smooth, I did have my bumps. I realize I have the opportunity to be thankful for it, so that I had my hardship early on and was able to learn and change from it.

Hashem has done a miracle for me and saved my life, when I think of that it gives me an incentive and motivation to make myself a better person. I wish I can constantly remember this, but I realize it takes more than this gratitude towards Hashem, to make myself constantly a better person. It takes an extra level of love and dedication to Hashem and His mitzvos, to make me constantly aware of my reason for being here and to act upon it.

I find that a very hard task, it’s hard to imagine this great Hashem when He’s not a physical being that we can see, but rather all spiritual. One of my High School teachers used to tell us that we have to think to ourselves every day “Hashem loves me”. It became ingrained in me, that when good things Happen, no matter how little, it’s from Hashem. So if I was typing out a comment and lost my connection, refreshed and found my comment was still there, I would say “Hashem loves me”. It feels good to realize it’s from Hashem.

The next step is to love Hashem back, I made my picture to say “I love Hashem” as a reminder to myself to work on the Midah of Ahavas Hashem, which is the best possible way of doing the Mitzvos.

Sefiras Haomer

There are 7 sefiros which are the seven midos that Hashem uses, the more we develop them the more similar we become to Hashem, and then we have proper receptors for the Torah.

1- Chesed 2- Gevurah 3- teferes 4- netzach 5- hod 6- yesod 7- Malchos

Chesed- outpouring of goodness

1. Hashem takes care of us, our hearts beat, we breath.
2. we should look out for other people, be an active doer, see how you can help others, what do they need.
3. Avraham was proactive in Chesed, he built his tent with 3 doors so people can find him from all over.

Gevurah- strength, an inner strength to control myself

1. When we deserve punishment Hashem gives us a chance to improve, Hashem wants to do for you, but he holds himself back so that you can learn to make bechira choices and develop your self.
2. we should hold ourselves back and don't respond in an inappropriate way to people pushing our buttons.
3. Yitzchak by the Akeda restrained himself so that he won't stop the knife.

Teferes- glory, beauty, Emes, Harmony, well balanced.

1. Hashem has chesed and gevurah, balance, knowing when to give and when to restrain.
2. We have to have a balance within our personality when to do and when to hold back. Emes- everything is correct, being true to ourselves. Having integrity and consistency- being the same wherever we our.
3. Yaakov, when he lived with Yitzchak he was a tzadik then when he lived with lavon he didn't compromise his principals. He didn't have an easy life, in all the situations he though of what is the Emes thing to do.

Netzach- eternity/win

1. Hashem doesn't just decide what is good now, but rather long term, what is good for me as a person.
2. When we make choices in our day we should see if it will get us to our goal. Don't give up cause long term we will see its good for us.
   (Ex: we clean the house for a pleasant environment. While cleaning the floor, a kid comes home all muddy, you are about to get angry and scream- that becomes an unpleasant environment. You loose the Netzach, you have to think for the purpose- Pleasantness. See how much diff will it make long term.)
   a) learn about the complexity of the human body- so not stuck in the moment
   b) meditate about own past history- brought to where you are now
   c) meditate about yourself standing with everyone in your community then broaden the picture more to all people of Bnei Ysiroel then broaden it to everyone in the world, then imagine all the galaxies -- This gives us a broader picture.
3. Moshe gave us the torah with instructions on how to put eternal meaning into every moment of life.

Hod- glory, thankfulness, admit. When we are thankful we feel the glory in the object.

1. Notice the small goodness others or Hashem are doing in my life- feeling thankful, Hakaras Hatov- recognizing the good.
2. necessity- when we have something we don't feel the joy but when there's a lack we feel the pain. Luxury- when we don't have something we have no pain, but when we get it then there's joy. The more stuff we claim are luxuries then the more joy we will have in our life.
   a) Say thanks to people for the small things they do.
   b) when we say brachos think about all the work that went into each piece of cake.
   c) When hashgacha pratis happens say a perek of tehillim
   d) when see a beautiful scenery it should be a motivation and acknowledge Hashem.
   e) keep a journal of the HP in your life
3. Aharon saw the goodness in others so then there was peace.

Yesod- basic foundation.

1. a)eating, sleeping- physical- vivid, real immediate, don't last, only there at the moment. b) aesthetic pleasure - beautiful music, paintings, scenery, doesn't change who I am as a person unless we use the motivation to change ourselves. c) connection- relationship with others or Hashem. (a baby needs this deepest level, needs touch) this is Yesod of who we are, we seek a connection with Hashem.
2. make sure the connection between males and females is spiritual. Men- Shmiras Ainayim. Woman- how much are we calling outside attention to ourselves, have a consideration for others, we don't want to create a temptation that he doesn't want. have a sense of self from the inside.
3. Yosef had the biggest temptation, he was interested, it was so difficult to control himself, but he held himself back, he used the image of his father, someone he respected so much, and then asked himself how would he feel in front of him if he acted this way. We should think of a role model and how we would feel in front of his person if we acted this way.

Malchos - kingship

1. focus on making Hashem my king in every moment of the day, feel His presence in everything I do.
2. Hashem is pouring a shefa of life experiences we go thru, we should take these life experiences and filter them thru the torah, how would the torah want us to deal with it. If not the torah then the eyes of a Rabbi. Whatever is being poured down the goal is to crown hashem with it, elevate it to make hashem my king thru this life Experience
3. Dovid had life challenges, he teaches Benei Yisroel to do Yeshuva thru that, he composed tehilim, how to make Hashem Melech in every life experience.

The next day is shevuous when we are ready to receive the torah, which tells us how to connect with Hashem in every life experience.

Pesach – Seder, Prep, Haggadah & Halacha

This year Pesach, I’m going miss Bedikas Chametz for the first time. I have class Tuesday night, a quiz and Homework do at that time as well, so I must go to class. My father reassures me that Bedikas Chametz is a man mitzvah because it’s a mitzvah that’s related to time. But yet, I’ve always enjoyed Bedikas Chametz, I was always the one to hide the 10 pieces of bread, make a list of where they are and watch my father look for it. It would be so much fun in the dark room where no one can talk, going around with a candle and picking up any little chametz we found and collecting the 10 pieces of bread. So I will be missing the experience this year, but hopefully the rest of Pesach will be memorable!

My favorite parts of Pesach are: 1- the Karpas- potato in salt water. 2- Leaning on a pillow, eating comfortably. 3- Lady fingers, or are they now called Fingers? 4- My grandmother’s sponge cake!

Pesach in the Blogosphere:
Note: They are separated in categories, with more than one post from quite a few bloggers.

To start off with, if you haven’t seen the Facebook Hagaddah yet, check it out!

There's also a Pesach website with lots of links including Pesach recipes.

Seder

• Lakewood Falling Down has some really interesting Pesach minhagim. One of them is to sing a Mr. Potato Head song. It happened to be my little sister asked me to draw a picture for her to color in, so I went to Coloring Book and was scrolling through the images waiting for her to tell me which one to pick. Guess what she picked? Mr. Potato head! So I tried to copy the picture there, it was no way a good imitation but I’ll put it up anyways.
  
• Hadassah’s son writes a touching guest post about his Dream Seder.
• G6’s family makes strawberry fluff for Pesach, she posts adorable pictures of her daughter when she was younger. She also shares some other Pesach rituals of Chocolate matzos and making animal noises by Chad Gadiah.
• Frum College Girl writes about macaroons being the classic Pesach nosh.
• Super Raizy shares an article of the all too common Pesach Seder.

Pesach Prep

• Something Different shares pictures of cool stuff she found while cleaning her drawer for Pesach. The “seat saver” being my favorite. She also writes about cleaning the most chamitzdik places, the keyboard.
  
• Leora shares some great Pesach recipes. I was planning on trying out the sponge cake one, but then I found out it was Gebracks.
• Ilana Davita also shares a few links to Pesach recipes.
• G6 shares a Pesach recipe of Mushroom-Onion-Farfel-Kugel, for the gebraks eaters.
• Rafi shows a Pesach ad he found encouraging Kashering your computer for Pesach.
• Elisheva posts pictures of her before and after Pesach computer cleaning.
• Michelle talks about Pesach prices and wonders why it has taken so long for some to take some action on Price regulation
• Lion of Zion talks about banning Pesach car washes to save money. He posts an index to all his Pesach posts.
• Mike In Midwood shares with us Pesach craziness, a schedule from the Mishpacha on how to prepare for Pesach each day. He also wonders why all the publicity is on the women, what about the men he asks? He also talks about how Pesach is a time that leads to finding out if people are OCD.
• NMF#7 talks about spring cleaning, and how we clean more than we have to, and why we do that.
• RickisMom talks about our attitude towards Pesach Prep, she encourages us to not see it as a burden, and be happy for the children’s sake. What she says reminds me of a video I had seen, it’s funny but sad.
  
  
  
  
  
• Leora tells us how Pesach is fun! With spilling water over the countertops, making matza brei, and having a bag of Makkot to play with. She also shares with us the Froggy Song. She shares with us a video on how to Kasher the Kitchen in 2 minutes.
  
  
  
  
  
• Hadassah shares an important message with us, to remember what Pesach is about, leaving slavery, and not to enslave ourselves with extra work.
• JacobDaJew talks about crazy things people do for Pesach and asks for your stories.
• Lakewood Falling Down shares a story from his childhood of all that went into converting from chometz to kosher L’pesach.
• J.C.A.P talks about a different kind of Pesach preparation, about Pesach being a time to let ourselves free, to free the grudges we have on people, and to forgive them.

Haggadah

• Leora tells us about a product called “My first Haggadah” for Tots.
• Ilana Davita shares some information about Pesach and tells us about her favorite Haggadah, and asks you which is your favorite.
• Jewish in the Suburbs tells over the Pesach story in a diary form.
• Hadassah posts the Ma Nishtana in lots of different languages. I love hearing the kids say it in different languages!
• Shorty notices that women aren’t mentioned in the Haggadah and shares some links to where women are mentioned.

Halachos

• Ilana Davita asks you how you understand “nifsal me’achilat kelev - not even fit to feed a dog” in regards to Pesach. She also asks what you think of Maccos Bechoros. She also writes about First born Sons and the obligations on them.
• Rafi’s daughter came home from school with homework to write some Pesach Chumras, and he shares a few he came up with.
• Shorty asks for advice on how to handle her Pesach Dilemma.
• G6 tells how Pesach is tough for everyone including her fish how not feeding it chometz over Pesach, almost killed the gold fish.

Parshas Vayikra

Midah means measurement. Someone with Middos has the right amount of measurements for each characteristic. There is no such thing as a bad characteristic. Each one can be good when used at the right time, in the right way, in the right amount. I remember in 12th grade my teacher taught us why it’s important to have pride to be a good Jew, it stuck with me through all this time.

Something to Say:

From the cattle or from the flock shall you bring the offering (1:2)

The Sages tell us that the cattle, referring to bulls and cows, symbolize haughtiness, whereas the flock, referring to sheep and goats, symbolize humility. The verse mentions both to signify that these two character traits, both arrogance and humility, must be utilized in the service of God. In this context, haughtiness is not meant in a negative or destructive sense, but rather a sense of pride that is necessary to fulfill our duties. The Zohar refers to this as azus dikedushah, arrogance of holiness, the strength of character we must exercise when someone wishes to turn us away from our obligations to God.

I know some of you feel that Jews can seem haughty sometimes, or act arrogant, but you see here, really it’s needed as a survival tactic. There’s nothing wrong with being haughty in of itself, its only when it’s used for negative that it is bad.

How Was Your Purim?

I ended up fasting the whole Taanis Esther on Monday. I decided to make Hamentashen this year, for the first time, thanks to Tembow. Then I just needed a recipe, Leora shared a recipe of hers she had from the year before. So I made Hamentashen with chocolate chips in it, and I had decided to try out the white ones too.

So Monday I was making the Hamentashen, then before I put the white chocolate chips in I wanted to first taste it to see if it tastes good. So without thinking I put one in my mouth. Then five minutes later I realized my mistake, that I was supposed to be fasting. Then I remembered learning once that even if you break it by mistake you can still continue fasting, so I did that.

Below are some pictures from the Hametashen making. The first picture on the left is the raw dough in circles with the chocolate chips in them. The next picture is all of them in triangle shapes. My little brother helped me out once again with that. The third picture is of one raw hamentashen. The last picture is the final product of a baked hamentashen.

View Full Album

Monday I had classes throughout the day, and I had to figure out how I would catch a Megillah reading. My father had printed out for me different shul schedules with their Megillah reading times. The latest time given was 9:30, and I wasn’t sure if I would make it to that one since I got out of class at 9:15. So my parents were kind enough to pick me up from school right after class and drive me right to Megillah and I got there at 9:30 on the dot. But then of course things don’t start on time. So 9:45 it started and I came home at 10:30, that was a long day.

Then it came to Purim day, after Megillah reading I came back home and had to study for my test on Wednesday night. Now I didn’t want to miss out on the Purim fun, so I brought down my laptop, books and notes to the living room, so that I can study there and still see what’s going on. I studied for 5 hours straight!

While I was in my house I got a delivery, not a shaloch manos delivery but a UPS delivery! My first pair of crocs came. I know I’m late with it, but I decided to finally see what its all about, and it is pretty comfortable, and it’s a cool type.

Meanwhile my little brother is very creative and made an invention to help him carry the shaloch manos to deliver to neighbors. He put wheels on the bottom of a bucket, I don’t know how he did it!

Now with Shaloch manos, my favorite were the ones with real food in it. One person gave a hot dog, I had that for lunch. Then another person gave a Deli Sandwhich I had that for a late night supper. I do like candy too, but not many people sent that, and because I was a big girl I didn’t do the food fight.

Now what did I see? I saw a bunch of creative costumes. Funnily enough the first costume I saw was that of Fruity Pebble guy/Fred Flinstone. He was wearing no shirt or pants underneath his costume, and I imagine he was freezing. It’s funny that I saw this costume, cause only a few days before that Gruven Reuven shared a cartoon of that guy which I called “Fruity Pebble guy” and that caused three people to respond saying it made them feel old to see me calling him that. Trip N’ Mommy then explained to me why that made them feel old and EliPongo then shared with me a wiki page about The Flinstones.

The next costume I saw was a guy with an Obama mask, he said it cost 35 dollars! He said really funny lines. He handed out 1 dollar bills saying “This is coming out of your tax money”. He said other funny lines which I don’t remember.

Then there was a van outside of people delivering shaloch manos, and this minnie mouse character comes out of the passenger side and my mother goes over to take a picture of it. We don’t know who it is, so then a neighbor asks minnie mouse to take off the mask so that she can get a picture of the face too. Then surprise, the minnie mouse head comes off and there’s a GUY there! So my mother then recoils and says “ewww” and starts laughing. We were all expecting a girl in there and it was a shock to see a guy in a minnie mouse costume. It did not look right!

The next costume I liked was someone dressed up as "Uncle Moishy”. I thought that was the perfect costume for a young father who has little kids and friends with little kids.

Another cool costume I saw was a girl wearing an iPod costume. It was two boards sandwiching her. It made me start thinking of all kinds of other tech gadget costumes that can be made.

After I finished studying I took an hour nap then ate a quick meal by myself and then headed off to class. As I was waiting outside the classroom, a guy in my class comes over and sits down next to me on the floor and we start talking. Then he takes out a Hamentashen and starts eating it, I didn’t even notice he was eating a Hamentashen till after he said something. Now this is a guy who has long hair, no yarmulka, and doesn’t seem Jewish at all. I’m still not sure if he’s Jewish or not.

But then this other girl in the class comes with a shaloch manos in her hand so I asked her if someone at college gave it to her, and she said that she got it in the morning at work and just didn’t have time to bring it home yet. So then this guy says this thing that surprised me and made me think that maybe he actually is Jewish. He asked how you would know if the Hamentashen is Kosher if it came in a sandwich bag with no label on it. He said people could give it to each other and then pass it on, so it doesn’t even come from the person who gave it to you. So then I wondered, does that mean he got that hamentashen in Shaloch Manos? If he’s worried about Kashrus, does that mean he’s Jewish?

Purim in the Blogosphere:

• A Blob of Something Different: Ah Freilichin Purim and Some Random Observations On Purim
• Bas Melach: Purim Fever---Cured
• Dov Bear: Why I like Purim Less
• Frum College Girl: Purim 2009
• Frum Female: Purim Recap
• Geulah Perspectives: Why Drink? and Purim Gelt
• Guess Whose Coming to Dinner: Purim Wrapup The Early Edition and Joey’s Grammen 2009
• Ha’adam B’Olamo: Random Megillah Thoughts
• Here in HP: Hamentashen Recipes, Purim Word Find and Purim Presents
• In My Humble Jewish Opinion: Purim 2009
• In My Life: Purim
• Insanity Now Serenity Later: Gangsta
• In The Pink: Purim Insanity and Purim
• Israel Chronicles: Motzei Purim Recap
• Jacob Da Jew: Jacob Is “The Dude” for Purim
• Lion Of Zion: Purim Post Index
• Material Maidel: Goodbye MM
• Me-Ander: There is no Mitzvah to make noise during the Megillah and Purim Disguise 
• Metaphorically Speaking: Thoughts on Purim…
• Mike In Midwood: Purim is one Hectic Night
• Not Just Typical: Modern Orthodox- Purim Buzz Kills? ,Drunken Purim Post and Purim: Haman's story
• On Winds Of Change: m'muchan 
• Our Shiputzim: “Orange” you glad we made Hamentashen and Heblish Purim Edition
• Roadside Rambles: Why was this Purim different than all the other Purims?
• RP Blog: Irate readers Purple with Rage
• Shorty’s Adventures: Our first Purim together
• Sporadic Intelligence: I’ll Drink To That
• Super Raizy: It’s Time for Purim
• The Sabra: Cute things Kids say
• The Talmudist: Purim 2009

I have to admit I barely read any of these yet. But I’ll start with these Purim posts and then work my way to reading more once again.

I am so Happy I created this Jewish Side blog so I can take part in the Purim spirit on blogosphere!

Hope you all had a great Happy Purim!

Jewish Song Sunday #16

Miami Boys Choir: Bamarom

When I first heard this song I decided it was my favorite song. I liked how it was fast and had high parts to it. I also liked it cause it had two of my favorite child hood singers in it. This is from a video I remember watching as a child back in the days when we had a VCR. Later on I found out that I was related to Nochum Stark, and sort of related to Ari Goldwag which made me like their singing even more. Recently I found a blog by Ari Goldwag called Geulah Perspectives. He also has his own site with podcasts of D’vrei Torah that are spiritually oriented.

HP Tuesday #4

It’s been a really long time since I wrote one of these. I had a Hashgacha Pratis story to share and a bunch of stuff to tell, so I figured I would combine it in one. For starters if you had noticed I hadn’t posted for over a week, it wasn’t because I had nothing to say, but rather because I had technical difficulties.

Thursday morning, February 18th, I turned on my laptop and realized that the wire for the charger was ripped and sparks were coming out so it was history. Then my battery died after not being able to be charged, so I was stuck. I thought a store nearby for sure had to have it. I checked online at staples, PC Richards, Radio Shack and any store in Brooklyn. But they didn’t seem to have it. I called HP-Hewlett Packard customer service, and they said it would cost 55 dollars to replace the adapter.

I checked online, found a adapter at Amazon for 25 dollars, and thought great this is a good price. Figured it would take maybe 3 or 4 days and I should get it by Monday the 22nd. Although I was upset at first, cause I wanted it right away, and didn’t want to resort to buying it online and waiting for it to come by shipping. The shipping information said that it would come between February 25th and March 2nd.

I waited and waited, hoping and hoping for it come, and it just never showed up. Meanwhile, I had school work to do that involved accessing documents on my computer. I didn’t have access to my computer, and this made me realize how good those remote desktop things are, to access your computer on another computer. So now I think I’ll set one up.

In any case, I had to access the documents, and the Hashgacha Pratis is that the night before my external hard drive had arrived and I decided to sync my school documents on to it. So lucky me had access to them!

So for over a week I’ve been using the school computer and my older brothers computer. Then finally Shabbos my adapter came. So Sunday after the whole experience I was able to have my computer and blog about it and catch up on some stuff. Motzei shabbos I even backdated some posts to make up for the ones I wasn’t able to write before.

Now there’s more to this, another HP factor. The Tuesday the 16th I had been thinking how much I like my robotics class I’m taking, that its so much fun, and I felt so good at it. Getting a 100 on my test boosted my ego some more. I felt really good about myself. I was thinking to myself, why is it that I like programming so much. Then I realized maybe it has to do with the control factor. That I get to design a program with code and tell the robot what to do, and it does exactly what I do. That gives you a strong sense of power and control, that you can actually have an impact and change what things do.

Then Thursday Morning my computer dies on me. So what was this showing. It was Hashem’s way of showing that I’m not in control, rather He’s in control. At the time when I felt so high and good, Hashem had to remind me whose really boss. So I no longer had my computer, I realized I had less control, I couldn’t do the things I wanted, because I had to use others computers and it was an inconvenience.

So now I appreciate having my own computer again, Hashem was kind to make a way for me to have access to the stuff I needed so I didn’t loose out. Plus I learned an important message that Hashem is the one in control. Though I can pursue this field if I want, and maybe I would get to use it for good, in ways that Hashem would want.