Tikkun Olam

I just read my daughter's RSD Blog, and although I had spoken to her about the 4th of July barbeque right after it was held at her Tel-Aviv apartment, and knew what had ensued, I was very moved by what she wrote about it, and decided to post it in it's entirety here.  This is my daughter, in a wheelchair for a year with a so-far incurable nerve disease called RSD/CRPS (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome), whose life changed in an instant due to a relatively minor car accident from "normal," to disabled, at the age of twenty-three. Please visit her blog, My Personal Battle with RSD .  Here is her 4th of July post. Perfection, Bliss, and a `whole’ lot of Soul… This past 4 th of July, I bore witness to the most beautiful and pure thing anyone could ever possibly view.  Some people might say that that is a bit extreme of a statement. These people are right. It is incredibly extreme. But, it is true. Imagine seeing a s...

There is a very, very difficult mitzvah* in Judaism (plural: mitzvot ),that people should be happy.  In Hebrew, it's expressed by the phrase:  מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה , "mitzvah gedola li-hiyot b'simcha,"  meaning 'it's a great commandment to be in a state of happiness." That's it. The Jewish belief is that G-d has put us here for a reason; some say that we actually choose our parents before we are born: each individual has a purpose in life, which we have to discover in our life's journey.  Some of us have great insight, even as young people, and we have a sense of what our purpose is.  But for most people, that purpose is very hard to determine.  During our life's journey, good things happen, and bad things happen.  No matter what, we always have free will to decide how we will respond to those events, even if they are outside of our physical control. My daughter who has RSD/CRPS made a decision about two months ago.  She decided that, n...

Did a crazy thing just now (at 2:00 a.m.).  I signed up for NaBloPoMo again, for the month of January, 2011.  Why? Because I'm not thinking clearly.  But also because of the theme for this month, which is " Friends ."  Why? Because without our dear, dear friends, we could not have made this move from our townhome to this temporary apartment. I will write about this later, but for now, I just want to say to everyone who was there for us: Thank you so, so much, and may you merit mitzvot - שתזכו למצוות!!  We could NOT have done this without you (-and you know who you are!) Ok.  This takes care of my post for January 2.  Onward and upward. (But for now, good night!)

I have written previously about Haredi segregated buses , and the abuse that is sometimes perpetrated against women who inadvertently sit in the front of the bus, instead of the rear where they belong, according to the Haredi view of the halacha (Jewish law) of modesty.  Some Haredi men will go so far as to verbally and emotionally abuse a woman who has sat in the front of the bus, if she refuses to move to the back. Apparently some women are fighting back.  They have petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to ban gender-segregation on public buses.  Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz is supposed to issue the government's verdict.  Let's hope he uses his שכל , and shows by his decision that Israel values mitzvot bein adam le-havero more than the humra-of-the-week .

(btw, the latest Haveil Havalim is UP at The Israel Situation. Go. Read.) My friend Naomi is a physical therapist in Jerusalem. Some time ago she sent me the story of one of her patients, Odel, a 13-and-one-half year old girl with a terrible disease, who would be happy if she could just have a special chair, to help her live as normal a life as she is capable of . . . Naomi sent me a letter in Hebrew, which I translated (with some 'poetic license') below. Please, if you can, do a mitzvah* and help her to help her patient, by commenting on this post (leave me your email address and I will reply) and telling me of your willingness to help.You can also email me and/or Naomi, whose email is in the letter below. I left out other personal details 'to protect the innocent,' but if you are genuinely willing to help, I will give you some more details, as will Naomi--in our replies. I am also adding her original letter in Hebrew below, for my Israeli readers who pre...

I don't know where to begin first; there are so many ideas that I wanted to write about, starting with Haveil Havalim #192 being UP and also the Kosher Cooking Carnival ( KCC ) at Baila's , and including the importance of naming babies in general and my new grandson's name in particular, the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and as an adjunct, the horribly high price of kosher turkeys (don't know about you, but I sure can't afford $60 for a turkey), President Elect Obama's cabinet-building choices (will Hillary or will she not? Only her hairdresser ex-president-husband knows for sure), Barkat becoming mayor of Jerusalem (a right-winger after my own heart, though not religious), and a myriad of other topics all of which right now escape me. But I just have no time: I am working, albeit it at a temporary job (whose pay doesn't cover my bills), I am teaching Ivrit twice a week and rehearsing four times a week for a performance to be given at a Chabad Women...

I was trying to figure it out: I have all week, while I'm looking for work; why is it that I save it all up to post erev Shabbat, when I should be: 1) cleaning, 2) doing laundry, 3) cooking, and 4) baking -- Instead, I'm sitting at the computer, having this strong need to express that: 1) I sometimes feel as if the world is going to POT. There are wildfires in California, levees being breached in Missouri, flooded cities in Iowa, and heat waves on the East Coast. My new daughter in law, to whom I spoke earlier, is afraid to visit the U.S. because of all the Day After Tomorrow - type weather we are having (le-havdil. Have you seen that movie? In the light of the fact of global warming it might not be so far-fetched; G-d forbid. . . ) . 2) I'm upset about the political and military-security path Israel is taking. The so-called "cease-fire" has been declared, but of course (as we all knew it would) it has already been breached by mortars fired from Gaza , as writt...

Haven't posted for a long while; work and busyness and tiredness (tired-itude?) have precluded and prevented my posting. I thank my loyal readers (ok, it's really just that they have nothing better to do with their time...) for their patience. I have actually had people - friends and acquaintances - ask me when will be my next post; that they looked periodically, searching, and (-to their consternation, of course) gurnisht* - or as they say in the vernacular in our commercialized, cerealized America, "nuttin' honey!" Ok, so I'm finally posting. About Pesach Sheni . What is that, you say? (What you really mean is, 'isn't ONE Pesach enough already?!) Pesach Sheni is a special day one month after Pesach (on yud-daled Iyar, the 14th of Iyar) which was set aside for those people who, because of being tameh - impure - were not able to bring the Pesach korban , or sacrifice, on the night of the 14th of Nissan, the first night of Pesach (the 15th being the f...

It is very close to Shabbat; I will need to light candles in approximately 15 minutes, but I wanted to express to you, my reader(s), that I thank G-d every minute of every day (a figure of speech) for Shabbat Kodesh ; it is truly a taste of "The World to Come," or as we say in our zmirot, " mey'en olam habah ." I haven't yet fully 'recovered' from our trip to Israel & our son's wedding; it was quite a stressful, if happy, time. And after an awful week, my feeling sick and coughing and my starting a new work project, I am grateful for the respite of Shabbat. There is nothing like it: we are commanded (yup!) to lay our stressful work-week aside, and devote our attentions to spiritual matters, to 'resting from creation,' to emulating Ribono-shel-Olam (as much as we humans can), and remembering the Holy One and from whence we came...we study the Torah, read holy works and stories, express our love of Hashem in prayer and song. This Sha...

It is with mixed emotions that I begin preparing for our trip to Israel for our older son's wedding. Not that I am not happy to go: I am thrilled, incredulous, overwhelmed, grateful to Hashem. And flat broke. But, meshaneh makom, meshaneh mazal , right? Hey, does that apply to visits as well? Don't know; gotta ask a shailah . . . (actually I even applied online for a job in Rehovot. . . ) It's interesting, about in-laws. I hear such horror stories about very functional people marrying into dysfuncional families. I have very good friends whose son married a great girl with a dysfunctional mother. This girl, having met us just once for a short time at our friends' house, already invited us to stay with them while we're in Israel. Now, we're not talking about your average dysfunction, where you are mildly depressed, bicker with your better half, or have a syndrome, such as OCD or even agoraphobia. We're talking dysfunction, bigtime , where the mother of the bri...

Thanksgiving Day is an interesting phenomenon. I just love the traditional Thanksgiving dinner: Roast turkey with stuffing, a sweet potato or winter squash souffle-type side dish (sometimes with yams, sometimes with marshamallow fluff mixed in), cranberry sauce (sometimes cranberry-orange), and then those fantastic desserts which we rarely have during the rest of the year, such as pumpkin pie, and a special tradition in our house thanks to my-husband-the-chef, french chocolate silk pie, and pecan pie as well. Years ago we also used to make apple pie, in addition to the three aforementioned ones. It's no wonder we gained a little spare tire over the years. . . In their great wisdom, the powers that be of the time, the early Pilgrims, set aside a holiday after their first harvest in 1621, which was " ...an autumn celebration of food, feasting, and praising G-d." In 1789, President George Washington issued a " National Thanksgiving Proclamation " assigning the ...

I can't sleep. As it is, I finally went to bed at 2:30 a.m. But for some reason, my adrenaline was pumping - and my legs and feet were aching from being abused all day (I stood on them) - so that combination effected a wide-awake- Lady-Light-in-the-dark. I mean, think about it: since this past Sunday, I have made guest lists, planned menus, prepared and cooked (together with my husband for some of it: he actually is the 'main chef' in the household, as cooking has always been his avocation) 36 holishkes , a whole brisket with vegetables, trays of honeyed chicken quarters, baked ten challot (in addition to the four I baked last week which I had already frozen), food-shopped and prepped vegetables for chicken soup and fruit soup (my husband made those, thank the Lord), helped fill a water bed, did loads of laundry, folded & put 'em away, set up Tzipi's room for guests staying over the three-day Yom-Tov ( she's the one in the IDF. Her room is temporarily...fo...

We had a very meaningful Rosh Hashana night; I always love our custom of the "yehi ratzon" seder with it's different foods, symbolizing the various blessings we want G-d to grant us: a retreating and ending of our enemies, our being fruitful and multiplying, our merits increasing, etc. In short, we do more than the average Ashkenazi Jew with his 'apples and honey,' does. Maybe you could call us " AshkeSefardim !" But this Rosh Hashana was a little different than in past years; this is the first year I wasn't able to, for physical reasons, walk the mile-and-a-quarter to shul the first day: I can't remember any other Rosh Hashana where I didn't go to shul. At first, I was devastated. How would I be infused with kavanah without the congregation to enhance the feeling of teshuvah (you've heard of "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" ?)? How would I hear the blasts of the shofar and be awed into 'awakening' to...

Terrible calamities seem to be befalling the frum community lately. A good friend of my son in Israel was severely injured in a van accident on the East Coast - please say tehilllim for Yehoshua Meshulam ben Sarah Leah . I also heard about two Israeli Haredi boys on a hike collapsing and dying from the heat and dehydration, which is terrible and shouldn't have happened. And then, I read two articles about the accidents. I could not believe what I read: it seems that their Rabbanim in the Yeshivot have outlawed hiking (and renting cars), because both of these activities are dangerous to your health (c lick on the title link to read one article. ) Correct me if I'm wrong, but something seems amiss here: the Rabbeim did what ? They added a new Yeshiva course in life skills? In how to survive in a hot desert climate? Did they institute a driver's education and safety course in the Yeshiva? Apparently not. Instead, in their great wisdom and with great common sense, they for...

MominIsrael has put up a meme about tzniyut ('tziyus' for you solid-core Ashkenazim), or 'modesty' as it's translated to in English. I had the honor of being one of the tag-ees, and I will answer the questions here. These are my feelings based on what I have learned from Torah and Halacha, and from what I have observed over the years. Here were her questions: 1) For married women, do you dress by the same standards as you did when you got married? Also for married women, do you and your husband conflict about this issue? I actually dress by stricter standards than when I first married; I little by little became more observant, from initially being 'conservadox'--walking to shul, but using electricity on Shabbat (!), to returning to my Chassidic roots and becoming fully Orthodox, albeit still 'modern' by certain standards. My husband is not concerned about this issue. He is more laid back and nonchalant about these things. For example: once, just ...