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 Acharei - Kedoshim

Imagine this: You are at a shiur, the audience is silent, all intent on hearing what the speaker has to say. Then you start talking to a friend. A stranger calls out to you to be quiet.

Now there are a few different reactions to this. 1- You stop talking and brush off what the person said. 2- You continue talking, thinking what you have to say is more important. 3- You answer back to the stranger, that they shouldn’t tell you what to do.

In Most cases people would have reaction number 1. With a few people having reaction number 2. And rarely people would have reaction number 3.

Now Imagine this: A wife works hard in the kitchen cooking a supper for her husband. Then it comes supper time and the husband criticizes the way she cooked supper.

There are a few different reactions to this. 1- The wife will get upset and yell at her husband and say if he doesn’t like the way she made it, then he can make his own suppers. 2- She will take note of what he said and try next time to make it differently, but yet feel hurt that she didn’t meet his expectations. 3- She will accept what he says lovingly.

In most cases people will have reaction number 1. With a few people having reaction number 2. And rarely people would have reaction number 3.

By a stranger, we don’t get affected so much when they criticize us, since we don’t hold them in as much of a high regard. With a loved one, we care about what they have to say, and therefore it affects us more when we get criticized by them.

But yet in order to have the power to criticize someone, you have to be close to them. If someone else's child is misbehaving you won’t criticize them as much as you would your own child. Having someone you are close to correct you is easier than having a stranger do so. If your tag is showing, or you by mistake didn’t button all your buttons, having this pointed out by someone you are close to is easier and less embarrassing, then having a stranger point it out.

Something to Say:

You shall not hate your neighbor in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor (19:17).

The Arizal asks: What is the correlation between the concepts of not hating another and giving him reproof? Rebuke, he answers, can be presented properly onto towards one who is respected and loved by the observer. When one is sincerely concerned about another’s conduct, as a father is for his child, any criticism is certain to be constructive in nature and acceptable to the listener. The closer two people are to one another, the more intense the relationship is, and so the rebuke is certain to be more sincere and easier to absorb.

Parents love their children and therefore they feel their children’s pain. So when a parent has to punish their child, it’s like they’re punishing themselves too. They really don’t want to punish their child, but they have to, to teach the child a lesson. So the punishing is for the purpose of helping the child. If the child doesn’t learn from the punishment, then it is not the right method. A parent should not be punishing the child out of anger.

A Super New Year/ Happy Blogversary

Rosh Hashonah is just around the corner, and I have 2 topics I wanted to write about, and now Thanks to Mike In Midwood, I have a way of including both topics within the meme he has tagged me in. The topics: Rosh Hashonah and My Blogversary!

Here are the rules:

Rule number 1: Read the rules.
Rule number 2: Write one superpower you would like to have and what you would do with it.
Rule number 3: Write why you chose that super power over everything else.
Rule number 4: Tag and link 7 people, and write why you think they will have an interesting meme.
Rule number 5: fix your broken links.

I like this meme since when people tag you, they leave a reason of why they tagged you, so it better gives you an idea of what you should write about. I was tagged by MikeInMidwood, Jacob Da Jew, Jessica and Dude with a Hat.

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Jessica said the reason why she tagged me:

“I’m hoping that she’ll find a way to tie it into the upcoming holiday”

So that is what I shall do…

A super power I would like to have would be the ability to start fresh after I make a mistake, to press an undo button after I messed up and then to learn from my mistake and correct myself as though I had never done anything wrong.

With this super power, it would cause one to have a wonderful life, you would never get depressed or feel guilty, you would just undo what you have done and redo it the right way so that you feel happy and content with the way your life is turning out. There would be no arguments between people, no hard feelings. Usually when a person makes a mistake they regret it afterwards, so having this second chance will probably cause people to end up doing the right thing.

If you think about it, this is what Rosh Hashonah is about, we get a fresh new start, our slates are wiped clean, we get a second chance. Comes Yom Kippur, we admit what we did wrong, feel regret, and then take upon ourselves to not do it again, and then magic, our sins are forgiven and it as though we started new. We also ask people for forgiveness, which helps our relationships with others to be fixed, and it clears up miscommunications.

With Rosh Hashonah comes my blogversary for this blog, the English dates don’t match up since it goes according to the Hebrew calendar, but since it’s a Jewish blog, I thought it would be befitting to choose a Hebrew date. If you missed last years Rosh Hashonah post, here it is, it includes a video I had made.

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MikeInMidwood said the reason why he tagged me:

because she usually writes Meme's and seems to love them, and I think she'll enjoy this one. Also because there are many people who others don't link that she usually does.

So that is what I shall do…

1. Ricki’s Mom – I wonder if she’ll tie it in to her daughter Ricki.
2. NMF #7 – I wonder if she’ll tie it in to Israel.
3. %Shocked% – Looking forward to some philosophical/psychological outlook on a super power.
4. Batya – Because she’s great with KCC and JPIX and HH, I figure she might want to give this a shot too.
5. LE7 – She’s a new blogger, so maybe this will cause her to post more, and get her some more traffic. I’m sure her post will be creative and entertaining.
6. Super Raizy – She’s already got it in her name. Looking forward to some “Mommy Super power”.
7. Lion Of Zion – Maybe he would tie it into Jr, whom I enjoy reading about.

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May this year bring only good things and happiness to all of us!

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.

Academic Cheating

What is considered cheating? Everybody has different standards. Some will say that writing papers for others isn’t cheating. Or getting test banks isn’t cheating. But one thing I think we can all agree on is that copying answers out right on a test in a classroom is cheating!

1. A few months ago, I was taking a final in a classroom with about 100 other people in it. Everyone had the same test, and there were no spaces between desks. In other words it was one crammed room with plenty of cheating opportunities available.

This final was on Robotics, one of my favorite classes. I had done well in that class the whole semester. My lab partner and I even won a race, our robot was able to go the fastest! We beat the guys, and it was really funny to see them being sore losers and making excuses of why we won.

So when it came to the final, my lab partner sat on one side of me, and this other girl I don’t know sat on the other side. The test began and I quickly filled out all the answers that I knew, and couldn’t wait to get all the information down and get home so that I can study for my next final.

But then the girls sitting next to me had a different plan in mind, they wanted to cheat off my paper. My worst vice I would say is that I can’t say NO! (I’ve had it before with babysitting jobs, where I couldn’t tell the mother that NO I can’t babysit by her. So the same thing happened here.) I couldn’t say no, and I let them cheat off my paper. Because one of the girls was my lab partner and I had become her friend, I felt like I couldn’t be mean to her and say no.

This is an example where every midah can be used for good and bad. How sometimes we have to be mean because it’s the right thing.

2. When I first started college, while I was in seminary at the same time, I came into a situation that involved cheating. I was taking a test and was stuck on a few examples. The guy sitting next to me felt bad that I didn’t know the answers, so he figured he would “help me out”. He told me the answers to the multiple choice questions. But I didn’t feel right to write the answers down. So I went up to the professor, and told him that I was stuck on those questions and asked him to explain me the question. He did, and then I was able to answer the questions. I still felt as though I had done something wrong, so the next day I went over to a Rabbi at the seminary and told him the situation and asked him if what I did was okay, and he said yes, and I then felt better.

3. There was this married women with 2 kids who shared a class with me. She told me how hard it was that she was married with kids in college, and that she didn’t have time to study. She told me that 10 years ago when she was in college she studied really hard. But now because she has other responsibilities, she doesn’t have time, so she cheats on her test. She said she actually feels justified, that she’s not doing anything wrong by cheating. That she just needs to graduate already.

The next day in my philosophy class, some topic like this came up, where my professor said that she will let her son make any decision he wants about career choice, but one thing is certain, that she won’t let her kid take a break after High School, that he must go straight to college, while she can pay for it. Since if he takes a break, he may never get back to it. So I told her about this women in my class, who took a break and now feels justified in cheating. She said that’s a horrible thing, and the women is cheating herself. I of course agree!

4. Recently I started taking driving lessons. I took 2 to be exact and it was really fun. I don’t know why I waited till now to start. In any case, I went to this “5 hour class” and at the end the guy says he’s going to ask us a question and that will determine if we will pass or fail the road test. He says, if I tell you that 1+1=6, then how much is 1+1? I said 2, because I remembered my tax professor giving us a similar scenario, where he said that if he calls a tail a leg, then how many legs does a dog have? He told us the correct answer is 4, because no matter what you want to call the tail, it’s still not a leg. So I was thinking of this same scenario. So then the guy says I’m going to fail my road test for that, because no matter what you think is right, you have to listen to the driving inspector, and do what they say. To me that sounded like cheating. I’m still in the mentality, that you can’t change the absolute truth.

Number 99 – Zecher L’Chorbon

For the past year or so I’ve come to think of my blog as a place where I can write whatever I wish. Where I can sit in front of my computer screen and let my thoughts fly through the keyboard with no fear as to what will happen once they were said. But I’ve realized it is not so, once I type something and it enters blog land it is open for the public to read and dispute. There is no such freedom of speech, each word said has consequences.

A little while ago, I got an e-mail from a lawyer asking me to remove a post of mine (on my other blog) since it can harm their client. So I right away removed it. (Although I did save a copy first). I then put up a poll asking you what your reaction would have been when faced with such a request.

15/18 of you said you would “look at their reasons and evaluate the situation”. Two of you said “excuse me it's my post, I put it there, it will remain there, freedom of speech!”

I didn’t mind taking down the post since I meant no harm in it to begin with. The only problem was, my blog went from 100 posts to 99 posts. The blog was supposed to close at 100 posts from one complete year of blog writing. I had already ended the blog with a final post, and I was debating if I should add a new post or not. I figured I would keep it at 99 and let it be a Zecher L’Chorbon.

Well now I’m at 99 posts again, so I figured it fits in that I should dedicate this 99th post to explain why I have 99 posts instead of 100 on my other blog. I’ve also decided to take this time to reflect on my writing, and to try not to write anything negative about anyone again. (It does get hard when I created a blog to vent a bit).

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Two last thoughts before I close:

1- On the topic of Zecher L’Chorbon. I remember learning in elementary school that we should leave over a little food on our plate so that it can be a Zecher. I’m proud to say that is one thing which I’ve been able to keep diligently.

2- When I think of Zecher L’Chorbon, I think of the next thing, which is building the Bais Hamikdash and Moshiach coming. Which reminds me of the first post of mine on this blog.

Up next: Post #100 – Blog Awards!

My Pesach Diary 2009

My innovative little brother continues to surprise me with his great inventions. For Purim he made a container on wheels to carry the shaloch manos and now for Pesach he made his own pillow out of cloth napkins, old pillow stuffing and staples.

   

On Pesach, I was helping out by changing the glasses on the lachter and to put in new candles. Now this is a un-girly thing to say, but a really cool thing happened while I was removing the old wicks from the glasses.

I had 3 glasses in my hand with a plastic knife in the other- Mistakes 1&2. I had used the knife to successfully take out a bunch of wicks and I had just those 3 left to take out. So I used the knife and tried to take out the wick of the top glass in my hand, but it wouldn’t come out. So I tried harder…then all of a sudden I hear a cracking sound, I didn’t know what it was from. So I continued trying to remove the wick using the knife. Then I realized the middle glass I was holding in my hand had cracked. I look at my hand and I see a really cool pretty and colorful shard of glass got stuck in my skin. It was the strangest thing, I pulled it out from my hand and it didn’t hurt one bit! Plus there was not a cut or a trace of blood coming out of my finger from where I removed it. But I remembered distinctly that the glass had been in my finger, so I’m not so sure how that was possible.

Chol Hamoed – Sunday:

We were going to go to Harford Connecticut, but we ended up going to Milford Connecticut instead.

First we went to The Maritime Aquarium, we watched a sea lion feeding where 1 of the sea lion’s had a Jewish Sounding name – Layala!

I saw a Watercolor painting which made me think of Leora, so I took a picture of it:

 

There were lots of kinds of fish there, thankfully it was all indoors, because the weather was chilly. There were a few fish that stuck out.

1. Lobster: Looking at that thing, I can’t imagine how people eat it, and I’m thankful it’s not on “our menu”.
   
    
2. Star Fish: There was a touch tank where you can touch some fish. One of them was the star fish, I didn’t touch it. But I remember maybe touching one when I was younger, so I enjoyed the memory of it.
   
3. Shark: So mean looking, makes me think of a Rasha!
   
4. Turtle: for a known to be slow creature, this turtle looked really impressive. This was the biggest turtle I’ve ever seen. It also had a fierce looking face.
    
5. Jelly Fish: now this was the best part! I loved looking at the jelly fish, I’ve always pictured one looking like the candy jelly fish, but that’s  not at all how it looks!
    
   
   I found the jelly fish to be so graceful I just had to take a video of it. I started the video and then some chassidish kids came over, I feared they would start talking and it would ruin the video and cause me to have to mute the sound. But an amazing thing then happened, I got the perfect sound effect!
   




6. Flounder: one of the types of fish that I actually like eating. I like hands on interactive exhibit’s so I was happy to try to solve this one. These flounder have got truly amazing camouflage.
   
    
7. Colorful Fish tank: This one is “Ma Rabu Maasecha Hashem”. I saw this tank of fish and at first glance I just loved it, amazing what color can do. 
    
    
   
8. Penguins: I don’t think I’ve ever seen Penguins swim before, I always imagined their in the snow only. (Happy Feet was a great movie!). 
   

We went to an IMAX about the grand canyon. When we got there the place was empty, so I took some pictures of the vast big empty room. I love the theater effect to it all.

There were a bunch of Chassidish people that did come in to watch, along with other frum Jews. We waited a little while, then the “movie” started. The first image on the screen was…you’ll never guess! 2 girl’s in bikini’s in the water. I watched the boys turn their head and look away, nobody could believe what was just on the screen.

Then the film continued and it was about how the water in the Colorado river was draining out, and it showed them kayaking the river for the most of it. It was cool to see them going over the big waves and falling upside down. I’ve never seen the grand canyon before, and it was amazing to see that too. They also showed Las Vegas, another scene I’ve never seen before, and the colorful lights were truly pretty.

I love going to gift shops to look around and get a key chain or some other little thing with the name of the place on it. This time I got a charm that said the name of the aquarium, it was silver too.

While I was looking around I saw a pacifier that I thought it was really funny, it would have been perfect for one of the kids I used to babysit!

 

After the aquarium we went to the Hotel in Milford. It was a very basic hotel, not fancy. The elevator was a plain one,  no glass see through doors. There was no pool, not that I would have gone swimming. The gym only had 3 machines, a treadmill, a stationary bike, and my favorite step machine! I used the step machine for a bunch of minutes and it was really fun.

This was the first trip in a really long time that my whole family actually came! We originally got 3 rooms, and my parents were going to share a room with me and my little sister. But when we opened the room we saw there was no room for another 2 beds, so I went on my laptop, logged in and booked another room for me and my sister. (I didn’t use my own money though…it was only 10,000 points so my father used his points).

It was so much fun watching TV, every time I go to a hotel I find there are new shows that I didn’t know about. I watched the NIK channel for about 3 hours straight! There was Drake and Josh which I thought had amazing actors, wow, those kids show a lot of facial expressions and put all their Koach into it! Then there was iCarly, this one reminded me of Hannah Montana and I loved it!

There were a lot of commercials, but since I haven’t seen them before, it was fun to watch the first time! I saw this commercial for a hanging tomato planter and I thought it was really funny! I thought of Jacob Da Jew and Leora though, cause I know they plant, so perhaps they might find it useful? I also noticed that by all the commercials, everything cost 19.95, or x payments of 19.95!

Chol Hamoed – Monday:

We went to an arcade game place called Smilez. Now this was truly a fun filled day. We spent 20 dollars in tokens, getting 112 tokens to play all kinds of games. It brought back so many memories of fun games I remembered playing.

1. Bop the Alligator: I always loved playing this game, so I went to it right away and put in my token, ready to play the game. But then nothing happened, and I realized I lost my coin, that the game wasn’t working. I later realized if the light’s off then then the game won’t work! 
    
2. Catch the Light: This next game I played I remembered playing before, it was a guaranteed win, so I got a few tickets. 
   
   
   
   
3. Sky Bowling: (not sure what it’s called?), this game I’ve also played before, but I wasn’t any good at it, kept getting zeros! (The game had a longer ramp, I just cropped it for the sake of keeping the picture small looking).
   
   
   
4. Rock N’ Bowl: now this is all about luck and aiming, you have to aim your coin to go in the slot and hit the pin and you get that amount of tickets. My father tried and actually got 100 tickets that way! 
   

After we had fun playing our games we went to the machine to count our tickets and redeem our prizes!

 

Then my mother saw a game that she remembered playing and wanted to play it! So we went over to the game, my mother put in her token and nothing happened. It was one of those aiming the coin type of games, so I shook the aimer thing to see if it would go then, but it wouldn’t go. Then all of a sudden we hear noise and tickets start coming out of the machine one after another, as the aimer was shook, tickets kept spilling out. So we let a lot of tickets come out and then we counted the tickets and had over 500!

As I was feeding the tickets into the counter machine, I felt guilty, I wasn’t sure if it was okay what we just did, to get free tickets like that from a broken machine. What would you have done?

So then we got some more prizes, and everyone was happy!

Then we saw a Chassidish boy go over to the broken machine and he also realized that tickets were coming out for free, so he let it keep going too. Then his father came over and saw what happened, then when they redeemed their tickets for prizes, the father told the person behind the counter about the broken machine. But looks like she didn’t care, cause no one went over to put a sign on it, or fix it, so it kept giving tickets to whoever wanted. So then I felt less guilty, cause they knew it was broken.

When we were ready to leave I put my hand in my pocket and realized I had more coins left, so I quickly played another game and got some more tickets, but I was too lazy to go get a prize for it, so I saw a Chassidish girl and went over to her to give the tickets to. I said “You can have these” and handed her the tickets, she was stunned and her mouth was hanging open, looking at me, wondering why I just did that.

I ended up getting a bunch of prizes, my first was the blue teddy bear for 220 points and the “I love Mom” bear for 180 points- those were earned legitimately! Then I got a little picture frame in a purse shape for 270 points and a “You’re the best” bear for 180 points- those were through the “cheated tickets”. Then I got a deck of cards for 30 points that was legit.

 

Hope you had a great first day’s and enjoyed your Chol Hamoed too!