Life and Debt in Ohio

Eating With People - Some Questions

2009-07-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

I just saw an interesting discussion about whether you can trust the kashrut of someone who has not kept other Torah commandments. Here are some interesting questions - I don't think there are any easy answers to these.

For the purpose of these questions, "eat in their house" means that you would be confident in going over to their home and eating whatever was served from their kitchen. This means you are confident that (1) they have knowledge of the laws of kashrut, (2) that they observe the laws of kashrut, and (3) that they are not going to purposely feed you something unkosher for nasty reasons.

Would you eat in the house of someone who:

1. Lives an Orthodox lifestyle, but is openly a criminal, such as embezzling money? (Referring to crimes that are not only against secular law but also halacha)

2. Is openly gay, but keeps a kosher home? (We actually know someone who this would apply to.)

3. Does not keep kosher at all, but puts in the effort to learn about what you would require in order to eat there? I have a cousin who bought me new dishes and cookware, and learned the basics of (non-meat) kosher food requirements, so that I could visit her.

4. Is a close friend of yours who used to be religious and became extremely anti-religious? This person would have the knowledge of how to prepare kosher food for you, but would you be able to trust that they wouldn't purposely serve you something not kosher?

5. Lives an Orthodox lifestyle but says nasty things about other groups of Jews non-stop during the meal?

6. Keeps chumras that serve to prevent them from eating at almost anyone else's house, and feels they are "on a higher level" than anyone who doesn't keep these chumras? (chumras=customs not required by Jewish law, that are more strict than the already-extensive laws that we do follow.)

7. Lives an Orthodox lifestyle but didn't have any formal halachic learning, follows most laws because "someone told them to", and therefore may not actually know the details of kashrut?

8. Lives an Orthodox lifestyle but is a bad cook? =-)

Evil HR Lady: Cheapity, Cheapity, Cheap

2009-02-28T17:00:00.000-08:00

Evil HR Lady (one of my favorite work-related blogs) had this fantastic post that I think most of us will relate to in this economy.

My company has gone insane with cutting tiny expenses and bugging us about every supply ad shipment. My boss had to talk them out of making a decision about one of our publications that would have saved a bit of money but really angered the advertisers, and therefore would actually cost money. In the meantime, they've held onto an accounting person who never returns phone calls from advertisers, sends out invoices for things that have already been paid, and is certainly costing money by angering our clients.

She said ‘Yes we can’ to inaugural proposal - TODAY Weddings - MSNBC.com

2009-01-22T17:48:00.000-08:00

This is so cute!

Part 2

2009-01-22T16:16:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately my mother-in-law was also the recipient of a lifetime of bad financial training. Actually, no financial training. She grew up on a kibbutz - the ind with the children's room and the socialist ideals. The kind that, per my understanding, was proven not to work because eventually they had to find a way to actually make a living.

She married very young, and from that point forward she fell into very stereotypical roles. She did all the cooking, serving, cleaning, sewing, etc. She never learned to drive. She once worked as a cook in a restaurant in Israel, and otherwise has never held a job. In the meantime, my father-in-law was responsible for anything financial. She really has no idea how much anything costs (other than groceries), how to budget, how to make purchasing decisions, etc.

I'm very concerned about how things are going to proceed. She is going to be living on a fixed social security income. My husband has already had to argue with her about a number of items that she has considered necessities that she just isn't going to be able to afford. (Daily newspaper, using a bank card when buying groceries instead of a budgeted amount of cash.) She unfortunately has to sell off a lot of their belongings, including items she really wants to keep.

I haven't had the warmest relationship with my mother-in-law, but love her and am very worried about how this is going to work going forward. I trust my husband to use good judgement, but still feel concerned about problems coming up from us being too involved with her finances and care.

Sad legacy

2009-01-21T14:42:00.000-08:00

My father-in-law passed away last month. Although I cared very much for him and feel he suffered unnecessarily at the end of his life, unfortunately he left a very sad legacy behind.

My FIL had a poor relationship with money. He started his own business many years ago, and according to my husband the nature of the business was that some years he'd make half-a-million dollars, and other years they'd be relying on a gemach. The problem was that my FIL didn't save anything from the good years. Not a penny. The minute he had money, he would spend it. And unfortunately, as my husband has been going through his belongings, it turns out that much of what he bought was garbage. Fake gold and silver (that he believed was real and spent a lot of money on.) He bought things he didn't need - he would get a new TV if he heard that one of his friends had gotten one, even though he didn't need it.

My FIL used things instead of words. He would buy expensive gifts instead of saying the words "I'm sorry." My nieces and nephews only have memories of him buying them things, not spending time with them during their visits. Several years ago he sent my children a shipping box full of candy. Another time he bought my kids a ton of presents that were actually all cheap (not well-made and broke right away), rather than finding out if there was one item that they might really like, just so that it would look like he had bought them so many gifts.

And, on top of this attitude, he just didn't have the income to live like this. He spent loads of money decorating his house the minute he moved in (new floors, cabinets, etc.) yet it is being foreclosed because he didn't pay the mortgage. My husband had to argue with his parents to cancel their newspaper subscription when they clearly couldn't afford it, yet he actually CANCELLED HIS LIFE INSURANCE POLICY and left my mother-in-law with nothing. (She will be living on a small social security check for the rest of her life.)

Yay Auntie A!

2008-10-05T09:24:00.001-07:00

Just want to thank my friend who took the children apple picking today, since I am sick and my husband has an injured foot. I don't know if she took any pictures, but if so I'll try to post some afterwards.

The real meaning of a kosher home

2008-10-05T09:08:00.000-07:00

One of the most kosher Shabbat meals I ever ate was at the home of my cousin whose family has not been observant in many generations. My cousin Claire and her husband live on an island off of an island off of Vancouver - it takes a mini-plane and a ferry to get there. We met over a genealogy website, and she invited me to come visit one summer when I was in college.

Although she has no connection to kashrut or Shabbat, she asked me extensive questions and made it a top priority to make sure everything was done right. She bought me an entire set of dishes and cooking items, and bought anything in their tiny general store that had a hechsher. We made a Shabbat meal, and sat up watching the candles and talking. Again, although she has no personal interest in observance, she made many positive comments and nothing negative, and this is her general approach to life as well. (For example, instead of using terms like "ultra-orthodox," she says "enthusiastic" which I feel conveys a really positive attitude.)

Now, let me tell you about one of the most traif Shabbat meal I attended. It was at the home of a rabbi who would later steal $3000 from my husband. This person was considered fairly high up in his yeshiva, and was the rav of the local shul. He spent the entire meal criticizing and ranting about all sorts of Jewish people, with a real hatred in his voice. He had complaints about women, including ranting at his teenage daughter about wanting to go to Israel after high school. He and his family did nothing the whole meal to make me feel welcome in their home, since I had never met them before, but instead just ignored me.

Fantastic website for the New Year

2008-09-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

Project Forgiveness - for people to send in videos or posts about forgiveness.

(Thanks to Orthonomics for the link)

Bad Advice

2008-09-23T09:50:00.001-07:00

There's a comment in Orthonomics's post today talking about how people give really bad financial advice to young couples, and write off any common-sense questions with answers like "everybody has credit card debt."

We went through this so many times when we were first married, and I truly feel that choosing to stay part of the frum world at that time and listen to that advice is the cause of 90% of the issues we are dealing with 7 years later. Then yesterday, we got a re-run (only this time we know better).

My father-in-law has been ill for quite some time and just had surgery. I get exactly enough vacation days to cover yomtov (actually, I am short a day and my boss and I work around it). My husband is the full-time parent at home plus works from home. We don't have relatives or anyone else here who can watch the kids long-term. And, we are in major debt and have no spending money. So, we have not flown out to see either set of parents since we moved here.

Last night a rabbi from my father-in-law's community (who we have no relationship with) called and yelled at my husband about not coming to see his father. He did not offer to pay for a ticket or come up with any other realistic solutions of how this could be arranged, he just said that my husband "had to". Then they had the following conversation:

DH: I don't have the money to pay for a ticket.
Rabbi: Don't you have anyone you could borrow from?
DH: We're already $60,000 in debt. I'm not borrowing more money.
Rabbi: Well I'm $150,000 in debt!

So in other words, because he makes poor financial decisions, everyone else should too. (Oddly enough, this is almost an exact statement from another rabbi who gave us the horrible advice 7 years ago. He went on and on about how much credit card debt he had, when we had come for advice on how to deal with our own debt problem - which was primarily caused by listening to his illogical advice in the first place.)

We are fortunate that my DH has come a long way in being able to see through poor advice and call it for what it is. I have to imagine the person meant well, somehow, but this was compeletly unacceptable.

(My sister-in-law didn't stand up for herself, and a few months ago she was "informed" by a different rabbi in the same community that he had bought her a ticket to visit the parents for a week. She has 7 children, and had to leave the teenagers in charge of the family. She also works, but this was not taken into consideration by the person who arranged it.)

The Simple Dollar � Why Many “Alternative Income” Ideas Aren’t Worth Your Time - And What You Might Do With It Instead

2008-09-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

The Simple Dollar � Why Many “Alternative Income” Ideas Aren’t Worth Your Time - And What You Might Do With It Instead

Random list (a few days late)

2008-09-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

My parents just left after spending the summer here, so I haven't been online this week. So here's the random list for last week, 3 embarrassing parenting moments. In reverse order, starting with the one this weekend:

1. We were at a school get-together this weekend, and since I am still having difficulty meeting people after 3 years, I hoped to talk to some of the parents. I was sitting at the table and a woman I recognized, who is very snobby, sat down with her kid A., who is in my son's class. Just then my son comes up and says, "Oh no!" in a really exasperated voice. I asked him to whisper to me what was wrong. Instead, he says in a normal voice "I was hoping to get a day without A. bothering me! She's so annoying!" Luckily this woman is probably so snobby that she wasn't fully paying attention to me or my kid, but she definitely heard him.

2. At a family fun day event last year, they set up one of those giant inflatable climbing things, where the kid has to go over things, under things, and then climb up and slide down. I do my best not to be like my mom with these kinds of things - she would never let us do anything with even the remotest bit of challenge or climbing involved. But my son is also not extremely athletic, so when I saw other parents going in with their kids, I decided to go with him in case he got stuck. We got to the part where you climb up, and I just couldn't do it! My son went ahead, the other kids behind us went ahead, and I just could not get up the wall. To make it worse, at some point I realized that my skirt was caught and if anyone was behind the slide they got a view. (And it could have been people from our school.) I finally had to yell for someone to let me out the emergency exit.

3. When my son was little, we used to do silly rhymes like baby-waby, mommy-wommy, etc. We went in for his preschool conference, and the teacher told us that he had given some odd answers when she asked him to name words that rhyme. He had said "dog-wog" and "cat-wat."

Not serious about poverty

2008-08-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've been noticing lately that Jonathan Rosenblum seems to be a rational voice on Cross-Currents, and has started getting very direct about some of the problems in the Charedi world.

So I was really interested in reading today's article, "Can we talk seriously about poverty?"

He gives an extensive discussion of why poverty is horrible, especially for Torah life: shalom bayis problems, bad shidduchim based on money, children associating poverty with Torah, more likelihood of falling for con men or even falling into criminal business dealings oneself....really fantastic points. He even says that it's very bad to get used to taking charity from others, and that it is unrealistic to continue expecting wealthy Jews in America to support Charedim in Israel.

Then I get to the end, to the part where it is supposed to say that it's time for everyone to get jobs, right? I mean, that's the whole point of saying that we need to get out of poverty and stop relying on others.

Shockingly, he doesn't even say one sentence about getting jobs! His conclusion is "What the solutions might be I do not know. But it is clear that we cannot afford to hide our heads in the sand and not address the issue."

Um...How does not getting jobs address the issue????

Random Wednesday - 8/27/08 (And Yes, I KNOW It's Thursday...)

2008-08-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

We missed doing this yesterday. Tying into my previous post, we're doing 3 memories relating to elections, world events, politics, etc. But my lst is specifically about elections:

1. Voting for legal marijuana for medical reasons, President Clinton, and against proposition 187 (California ballot)- voted absentee in my college dorm room.

2. Anyone ever hear the Capitol Steps? They did parody songs about politics. I particularly remember a skit they did about Gary Hart where they switched the first letters of words, so they called him a "gorny huy". My brother and I may not have understood a lot of what they were talking about but they were really funny!

3. The ridiculous election for California governor. We had a porn star, Gary Coleman, Larry Flynt, and about 100 other candidates on the ballot. And the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger won is also pretty crazy. (I'm not even talking about political views, just the idea that of all people he's the one who won.)

Here's DH's Random Wednesday.

Historic Events

2008-08-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

What is the earliest historic event you were aware of? I was thinking about this last night when I called in my 6-year-old to see Hillary nominate Obama. The minute I saw her getting ready to speak for New York, I knew it was going to be an important moment so I made him leave his TV show to come watch. The whole election is probably the first world event that he is aware of.

The earliest I remember is getting our Weekly Readers in 2nd grade with info about the 1984 candidates. They were very benign, talking about things like the candidates hobbies. (I bet I still have it around my parents' house somewhere...) Although I don't remember any other specific "events" from that election, I know I was aware that Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman running for vice president.

Updating links - Jewish blogs

2008-08-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

(I wrote this last week but never finished updating the links. In the spirit of “just jump right in where you are”, I’m going to put up this post even though it doesn’t exactly match what I have on the right side of the page.)

I'm starting to update the links on the side of this page. I haven't been to most of these in a while, and was sorry to see that the Kallah Magazine blog is gone (or appears to be). Anyone know what happened to that one? She had a lot of good insights about the frum world as well as some humor.

As I do this, I'll write a little about the links I've selected.

I'm seperating my links into a few categories, starting with blogs that (tend to) focus on the frum world. As I mentioned, I don't tend to read many of these blogs regularly anymore, and it looks like some of them are no longer regularly updated. (RenReb and Krum haven't posted in quite a while.) Ask Shifra has become more about her personal experiences, but I think of her as part of the "J-Blog" world so I am leaving her there.

I'm moving DovBear up and Rabbi Maryles down on the list order. One of the only blogs I still read regularly, DovBear always has some fascinating information, and he is always open to response and guest posting. My husband has been one of his guest posters on several occassions, and corresponds with him sometimes.

Rabbi Maryles' blog was one of the first I started reading, and at that time I was thrilled to read someone with an outlook similar to my own. Unfortunately, his comments are pretty much hujacked by a small but vocal group of people and I don't feel that there is any purpose to joining in the discussion. Also, he tends to focus on what he perceives as the problems (most of which I agree) but I've come to disagree with his perspective on what the solutions are. He feels strongly that the future of yiddishkeit is only with the Charedim, and that therefore any solution has to start with them changing. Well, they're not going to change just because he wants them to, and in the meantime I feel the solution is more in becoming part of a strong Centrist community that makes the changes and doesn't worry about what the Charedim are doing. But I do continue to read his blog periodically, as he does discuss some current events that I am not aware of.

Wolfish Musings and Rabbi Student have both had some great stuff. The Wolf tends to be mor elight-hearted even when pointing out things that are negative. Rabbi Student's blog is more like articles, but some of his topics are very interesting. Of course, he is also important for becoming the publisher for Rabbi Slifkin (whose link I will need to look up and add here!)

Don't worry, I havne't forgotten about Orthonomics, it will get its own post tomorrow!

P.S. Right now I am just rearranging links that I already had listed - I will definitely be adding quite a bit over the next few weeks.

Random Wednesday - 8/20/08

2008-08-20T19:58:00.000-07:00

Hi, everyone! DH and I have decided to have some fun. We're going to present a weekly random list of three things on our respective blogs. Visit DH for this week's list. Some of our items will overlap. Thanks to Cool Yiddishe Mama for the inspiration.

Subject of week: Three random places I've visited.

1. On our cross-country trip, we stopped at mall in West Des Moines, Iowa, which is basically the Beverly Hills of Iowa. The mall was huge, fancy, and it felt like we were at the Beverly Center in LA, except for one thing: Every person in the ENTIRE mall was blond and white. The most colorful it got was us.

2. I spent Shabbat in Neve Yaakov, Israel, from where one may CLOSELY observe Jordan right out the bedroom window. Right before I left to catch the bus to get there, my friend said, "Oh, don't worry if they throw rocks at the bus on your way up!"

3. On the spur of the moment, I went on a road trip from Boston, MA to New Haven, CT to help a friend find an apartment. What makes this interesting is it was literally a random road trip. My friend approached me and said, "Wanna go to New Haven?" and I said, "Sure!" and we got in the car and went!

Daily Plans

2008-08-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here's what I would like to get done every day:
* Evening routine (eat dinner, shower, lay out clothes and lunch for next day)
* Tidy up the house, get a load of laundry ready for DH to do the next day, and declutter for 15 minutes
* Do at least one task with our paperwork on the desk
* Make some phone calls or send some e-mail messages
* Clear out some e-mail from my inbox because I have a backlog, and also read some of the daily comics that we get by e-mail
* Go through some of our photos to make online albums or send out pictures

Here's what really happens after work (especially in the summer when I dopn't get home until about 7:00):
* Spend time with the kids and eat dinner
* Tuck in son and take a shower (since both are upstairs)
* Kind of think about what I want to wear tomorrow
* Tidy up the bathroom and my bedroom (also upstairs)
* Think about how I want to clean up or send some e-mail
* Watch TV with DH until we're so tired that we head to bed

Happy birthday to Mommy and baby

2008-08-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

Well, he's not a baby anymore! My little boy is six - and going into first grade!

He loves that we have the same birthday. Of course, my little girl decided it was her birthday today too.

We got the class lists, and he's in a different class than his three best friends. So since he doesn't have anything positive to say about the kids who are in his class, we're skipping the birthday party. We're having a get-together with our best friends (whose daughter is one of the three kids he likes), and then maybe taking him and the other two kids somewhere at some point. (Can you tell we haven't put too much thought into this yet?)

Fun WIth The Kids

2008-08-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

We work special summer hours (if we want) at my job, where we add an hour during the week and get to leave at 1:00 on Friday. I am also in a salary position, so if I work overtime I don't get any extra pay. I was in charge of a major project in the spring and beginning of the summer, where I was staying very late every day.

A few weeks ago my boss offered me an entire Friday off as a thank you for my work on the project. So on Friday our family went to this great place called Memphis Kiddie Park. It's set up like a carnival, with a merry go round, various rides where the kids go around in a circle (in boats, planes, rocket ships, etc.), ferris wheel, and train ride for the whole family around the park. It's a little bit of a drive, but it's a great value because there is no admission fee. You just buy tickets for the rides, and if you don't use them they are still good the next time you come. (We actually had an entire book of tickets from last year, so we didn't have to pay anything this time.)

The kids had a fantastic time, although after we mistakenly let them have the oversized popsicles my daughter got really cranky. The park does something smart - they keep a notebook with the labels form all their ice cream desserts, so people who have kashrut or dietary concerns can review what's available.

Cookies and Ice Cream

2008-08-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

My husband ought those cookies with the chocolate dot in the middle. I ate these growing up, and it's too bad to see yet another product become poorly and cheaply made. They are smaller, the cookie part is dry, and there is almost no chocolate. My husband and I both remember how we used to eat around the outside, then bite off the cookie part on the bottom and then eat the chocolate. Now it's all just dry cookie.

On the other hand, we just discovered a fantastic ice cream flavor - Ben & Jerry's Cake Batter ice cream.

My Job - Part One

2008-08-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

As you may know, I started this blog while I was job-hunting in 2006-07. I started my current position in April of 2007. At the time, the positives of the job were:

1. Amazing and professional-acting boss.

2. Welcoming attitude (from my boss) about the weird schedule I would need for holidays and leaving early Fridays.

3. The possibility (stated by my boss) that she’d have me develop in the position over time.

4. The fact that someone was offering me a job with health insurance after I had been led on by my previous temp job for a year.

The negatives were:

1. The location – The quickest I can commute is about 35 minutes, and some days it has taken me an hour. The neighborhood is a bad one, we can’t take a walk at lunch, and the building itself is pretty gross.

2. At the time I was hired, my boss’s boss did not agree with her about developing my position. He forced her to take back the salary she had mentioned at the interview and offer $3K less. (One of the first things I knew about how amazing my boss was – she was honest with me about this when she made the job offer, and found an opportunity for me to make commissions on a small project to try to get back some of this amount.)

3. The job itself is primarily office assistant, AKA lowest person on the totem pole. Anything that no one else wants to do ends up being my responsibility. There had also been some people laid off very quickly in the past who did not have the chance to leave any sort of record about how we deal with certain issues or who our vendors are, so a lot of the things I was asked involved the extra step of figuring that out.

Back to Blogging

2008-08-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

Whenever I’d tried keeping a diary or daily calendar, I always get stuck as soon as I miss a few days. I keep thinking that I’ll go back and fill in the missing days, and end up getting more and more behind and then give up. It’s kind of been the same with this blog. I have a ton of saved items that I meant to blog about, just waiting for me to write some thoughts and put them up. Instead, as FlyLady says, I’ll just jump in where I am and get started again.

The topics I’d mostly like to focus on for this blog are the things that are going on in my life: workplace and job search issues, getting out of debt, children's school situations, and handling issues with our parents. I have shifted a lot of my blog reading from the “what’s wrong with the frum world” blogs to primarily business and personal finance. Although I may want to discuss a few issues from an Orthodox perspective (especially as relate to finances), there are several high-quality blogs that I have included on the side panel that really cover anything I would say myself. (Note: I do need to do a major update of my blogroll, as I believe some of these are no longer active and I have found quite a number of new blogs that I’d like to share with everyone.)

Thanks for reading - I will try to post several times a week.

Frugality

2008-02-28T08:40:00.000-08:00

Post from Career Encouragement blog

Besides thinking that SephardiLady will enjoy reading this, here were some good points from the post:

- Cheap isn't necessarily frugal. If you're paying a lot of money for mediocre service, and switch to something less expensive, great. But if you are getting a great product, you should think whether that's the item in your budget to spend less on or whether you should instead leave that alone and cut somewhere else.

- We want to be paid a fair wage for the work we do, and receive a raise over time. But when other people raise their prices, we get angry. Again, if you don't think you're getting a good value, then switch to a cheaper service. But if the person is doing an excellent job for you, they might deserve to be paid more just as you would want to be.

Love your fellow Jew

2008-02-17T07:44:00.000-08:00

It really bothers me when Jewish people don't feel a connection to other Jews, ad instead look for why they are different.

Aish put out this short movie, which makes the point that there are so few of us around, so we'd better just love each other instead of looking for division.

Appreciation Day

2008-02-10T17:52:00.001-08:00

Kelly from FLYLady sent out a challenge to show our appreciation to other:

Dear Friends,

When was the last time that you expressed your appreciation for
excellent service? Have you had an great experience with someone that
just went above and beyond for you? You may have said thank you and
really made sure that person knew that you appreciated them, but you
can take it to the next level.

I challenge all of you to write a note or call a supervisor of someone
that has given you great service and make sure they know what a great
job that person is doing. There is nothing better for a supervisor or
an employee to receive that kind of acknowledgment.

Take a few minutes today to share your appreciation of great service.
If it was three weeks ago or yesterday, doesn't matter, it is never
too late to tell someone thanks you. It could be the grocery store
clerk, the UPS person, your hair dresser, a department store clerk
etc. Anyone that has really made you feel that you were important
even if they had been at work for 12 hours and were so tired, they
still gave you incredible service. Thank you's, gestures of gratitude
and appreciation are few and far between these days - you will feel
great, the supervisor will feel great and most importantly the person
that helped you will know that they are truly appreciated and very
special. This is another way of Paying it Forward.

Have a great day!

Kelly

Cute

2008-02-09T19:45:00.001-08:00

I am trying to figure out how to put these on the side of the blog. In the meantime, I found these cute charts on lilypie.com:

Why People Don't Bother To Vote...

2008-02-08T11:18:00.000-08:00

People denied the vote in New Mexico - they were unprepared for people to actually exercise their right to vote, so there were not enough ballots or polling locations.

And this has nothing to do with a fixed election, since it was only the Democratic primary. (The Republican is held later, according to the article.) Although, their own governor was a candidate until recently, so maybe they figured everyone would vote for him?

This is the real reason people don't go to vote. Why should I take time away from work, or pay a baby-sitter, or whatever other inconvenience, only to stand in line forever and then find out that my vote may not even have been counted because of incompetence? I had a number of issues over the last few elections that were only resolved because my father is active in politics and so I knew what the correct procedures were - one time it was an issue regarding an absentee ballot, and the other time the people at the polling place were just completely incompetent. That was on top of super-long lines. And my husband didn't vote in 2000 because they forgot to send him an absentee ballot.

Nice Person and Honest in Business

2008-02-04T10:51:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to write about a great experience I had yesterday meeting a person who was both an honest businessman and super-nice. A frum couple opened a vitamin and health food store in our area, and since they recently added Sunday hours I decided to try my luck at finding a kosher vitamin that I would be able to swallow. (In my experience they've been pretty gross and too large so unfortunately I have not been taking a daily vitamin.)

EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE: The first thing I noticed is that it is a simple but well-put-together store. It doesn't look cluttered and doesn't present itself as a specifically frum establishment. When I walked in, the owner was providing in-depth assistance to a customer. He made a point of greeting me, and a few minutes later acknowlegding again that he would be with me momentarily, but also gave the other customer his full attention without rushing.

HONEST IN BUSINESS: He did not encourage the customer to buy things she didn't need, but suggested she speak to her doctor before buying other things. Then he said that he sometimes gets discounts from his supplies and will pass that on to his customers. He pulled out his records to confirm how much he had paid for the item, and then gave her a discount! I would imagine that this is the halachic standard for business, yet how many people would do this?

KNOWLEDGABLE ABOUT PRODUCTS: Then I received full attention to my vitamin search. He made four different suggestions, all of which showed excellent product knowledge. Did you know that if you get a capsule vitamin, you can break it open and mix the contents into pudding instead of swallowing it whole? He made sure to let me know what the price was for each option as well. And he carries free samples of a number of products.

NICE PERSON: After all this, we ended up schmoozing for about 20 minutes because he also moved his family from a warm-weather town to Cleveland around the same time we moved, and he knows our friends who moved out here with us. When another person came in that he knows, he introduced us.

Besides his naturally friendly personality, which is unique to everyone, none of this should be impossible for other store owners. A clean store, friendly face, and some knowledge about what you sell, plus not trying to cheat people.

Kindness Blog

2008-02-02T19:41:00.000-08:00

Kindness Happens

Really nice blog where various bloggers (including some familiar in the J-blog world) share stories of things they have personally experienced or witnesses.

I though this was a funny want ad (from our community newsletter)

2008-01-18T03:55:00.000-08:00

"Young couple seeking 2 bedroom apartment in Jerusalem , ideally, in a central neighborhood. If you know of any apartments for under $1000 with working electricity and water, not holes in the roof or the floor, and not next to major road construction or across the street from all-night dance clubs, or the Hamas youth center."

(Of course, the funniest part of this request is the price!)

A great comment from Rabbi Horowitz

2008-01-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

Hirhurim - Musings

Unethical business practices

2008-01-02T11:13:00.000-08:00

Much as I have tried to avoid it, I am now in a position to have sales goals for my projects at work. While I think it's important to have some minimum goal to provide guidance and to give the management an idea of what to expect, I have noticed that the management tends to decide on the goal without seeing if it's realistic. Then they get upset that the number wasn't met.

This article by the Jewish Ethicist shows how this approach can lead to bad business practices. I think it serves comapnies better to look for a variety of new projects (which is what my direct boss excels at), rather than keep hiking up the goals on existing projects to an unrealistic amount.

Cute article about meeting other Jews

2008-01-02T09:23:00.001-08:00

From Aish.com: The Bagel Theory

Bad approach

2007-12-30T17:18:00.000-08:00

From Rabbi Shmuely Boteach's book "The Private Adam" - discussing why even though in general it is important to avoid trying to get revenge on people or engage in fights, when we are dealing with actual evil it is a responsibility to say something. He describes how he has engaged in debates with people such as Larry Flynt and been criticized for doing so because it "gives them legitimacy". He disagrees with this perspective and feels that it is when you don't challenge the other views that you are giving them legitimacy. However, there's an appropriate way to go about it. He goes on to say:

It is becoming typical for religion to recuse itself from the great debates of the age. We're afraid of unpopularity, so we opt out of the debate completely. I believe that this is a tragic error - that we are contributing to our own irrelevance. Rather than engage with the great issues of the day and demonstrate to the young that a strong, logical, and compelling case can be made for the spiritual way of life, what believers now do instead is denounce the nonbelievers. "They're wrong because they're sinners." case closed....But there's one major problem with this tactic. It doesn't work. When people see that religion ducks the great debates of the modern age, preferring instead to engage in character assassination, the conclusion they draw is that religion is unable to make its case rationally. They see right through the moral condescension and interpret it as moral cowardice....Modern religion is denying one of its most important functions, which is to inject a moral counterpoint into the society at large.

The Socialization argument

2007-12-30T12:21:00.000-08:00

No Thank You, We Don't Believe in Socialization - Homeschooling Information from the National Home Education Network

Very interesting health article

2007-12-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

7 Medical Myths Even Doctors Believe

Frustration with Christmas in the workplace

2007-12-19T10:40:00.000-08:00

From Brazen Careerist: Five Things People Say about Christmas that Drive Me Nuts

I actually did have people ask me if I was taking a day off for Chanukah. Of course, I had to use all my days off for all the other holidays this year...

Inconsistent argument

2007-12-18T09:48:00.000-08:00

I have great respect for Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein - although I never met him personally when we were in L.A., I understand him to be a moderate person who, among other things, continues to be a supporter of Rabbi Slifkin. He is one of the regular bloggers on Cross-Currents, and usually shares very interesting ideas.

His post yesterday dealt with the question of whether there are areas which, while not being "forbidden" or "heretical", are really not appropriate to Jewish life, and therefore someone who holds these ideas or engages in certan practices would be, in his words, "beyond the pale" of normative Orthodox Judaism.

I understand his point and don't completely disagree. There's certain things that just don't have a Jewish feel to them, although generally the people involved in those things don't expect or want to be considered part of the Orthodox community. The main problem with this idea is that it is obviously subjective - who is to decide what doesn't "feel" authentically Jewish?

As someone pointed out in the comments, the answer is always going to be that the Chareidi (whoever is the strictest in practice) will always be the ones to label who will be considered Orthodox. And the areas that they label as "not authentic" will continue to be based on the increasingly strict practices that they have decided to practice.

BUT - the Torah teaches that it is forbidden to deviate from halacha "to the right or to the left." That means that just as it is fair to say that there are modern innovations or lenient practices that are against the spirit of the Torah, the same applies to adding strictures. Rabbi Adlerstein's examples in this post are women taking on roles that are not forbidden but are not traditional - community leadership positions. But my counter-example is the role of women in the right-wing world, which are certainly not traditional, of being expected to leave their children with non-Jewish baby-sitters and become the primary breadwinners?

I wrote a very respectful comment to Rabbi Adlerstein asking for his explanation. Today I was thrilled to see that my comment to Rabbi Adlerstein made its way onto Dov Bear's blog!

If Rabbi Adlerstein responds to my question I will post it here.

Jewish Identity

2007-12-11T13:08:00.000-08:00

In Professor Jonathan Sarna's "American Judaism" course at Brandeis, we would often be asked to look at advertisements, bar mitzvah invitations, and other "artifacts" to see what we could learn about Jewish identity during that time period. One of the most interesting papers I ever wrote for college came out of being asked to write about a comedy routine by Lenny Bruce. The piece looked at things that one thinks of as Jewish or goyish - so rye bread is Jewish, white bread is goyish, etc. (There are links to this routine online but since some of it is a bit raunchy I'm not linking.) For my paper, I compared this routine to Adam Sandler's Chanukah song. (Side note: the "new" live version that they play on the radio was recorded at Brandeis while I was a student there!) I lost the paper when my computer crashed, so here's the basic idea (and yes, I turned this into a 3 page paper):

The earlier comedy routine is looking at Jewish identity through qualities. There are certain people, items, foods, ideas that are "Jewish." There's just something about them - and same for things that are "goyish."

Adam Sandler looks at Jewish identity as something you are born with. In fact, part of the fun of the song is being surprised to hear that someone is Jewish because you never would have guessed. There's also the idea of being proud that someone famous is Jewish, or glad that people in the news that you hate are not.

Something that has bothered me a lot recently is people who don't feel good about meeting someone Jewish. Here's what I mean: when I started my previous job, I was introduced to someone with a Jewish last name. I thought, "Cool, she's Jewish!" Or when you see an Orthodox family at Disneyland or on the same plane flight. Or you're watching TV and a character is Jewish. There's just a certain feeling you should get of "That's my fellow Jew." I think that innate feeling is an essential part of the mitzvah to love your fellow Jew.

What frustrates me is people who, upon seeing other Jews, immediately label why the person is different from them. And usually, along with this, they only feel positively if the person is in their "group." Otherwise they actually feel negatively toward the person without even knowing anything about them. And when it comes to celebrities, they are more interested in pointing out why they are horrible people than in feeling any connection to them at all as a Jewish person.

P.S. The latest post from Orthonomics looks at people labelling retirement as "goyish."

Chanukah

2007-12-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

The real history of Chanukah is something that I have been very interested in since I first read about these ideas last year.

Two nice articles from Aish.com

2007-12-10T09:33:00.000-08:00

Unsung Heroes

Glass of Gratitude

Success Story about Being Proactive

2007-12-04T13:36:00.000-08:00

I just read this inspiring post at Ask a Manager.

I think the message can apply to both job situations and life in general. If you feel you are being treated with disrespect, especially in a situation when you know you have given 110%, you need to speak up - and then if your concerns are dismissed (as was the case for this person), you need to proactively make changes.

Note that the boss was very unhappy when she quit, and tried to confuse her and talk her out of it, but without offering any solutions to her concerns. She took the right approach to ignore everything that was said instead of engaging in a fruitless conversation or giving in. She did all this is a respectful manner, with no yelling or storming out of the office - just calmly stating that things were going to change, and that if her boss and company were not participating in making that change happen, she would no longer be giving them her energy and effort - she would spend that energy and effort where it was appreciated and adequately compensated.

Story about class parties

2007-11-27T13:53:00.000-08:00

Since I am trying to post more, I thought I would share a "funny" story from my son's 3rd birthday in his classroom (this was two years ago).

You have to bring store-bought food. (I imagine that is the case at any frum school.) So, instead of bringing DH's excellent baking, we brought cupcakes from the kosher bakery. (Very expensive and not that great-tasting, by the way.) Well, the daughter of the family that owns the bakery is in my son's class - and she announced, "My daddy made these cupcakes!"

Birthday Parties

2007-11-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

Ever since my kindergarden class ran amok through my parents' house at my 5th birthday party, I was part of the majority of people at my school whose parties were at a location. Some I remember attending were ice skating, miniature golf, Chuck E. Cheese or other restaurant, or gymnastics. In my son's class, the popular locations are Little Gym and similar locations at which the entire center is a party place.

While I know these are enjoyable and (if one can afford them) it is a real treat for the kids, I have to say that I really prefer the low-key parties that most of our close friends here give for their kids. The parties generally include a craft, homemade games, free play, and cake and milk. Many of the parties are in the basement to decrease the mess to clean up. The party we went to yesterday included half an hour of playing in the family's backyard.

What I also love, and I don't know if this is widespread, is that generally the whole family is invited to these parties. This makes it less work for the hosting mom, and more community-oriented. It also sets up a situation where the kids are used to the idea that their parents are still part of their life, not just the chauffers.

One other thing that is different than when I was growing up - the kids generally do NOT open the gifts during the party. This eliminates comparing gifts and opportunity for nasty remarks. (Of course, the parents need to remind the birthday child to say thank you to each guest when they leave, instead of during gift opening time, and to send a specific thank you note afterwards.)

Cutting Costs - Food

2007-11-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay in continuing my posts (assuming anyone is still checking...)

Because kosher food tends to cost more, and food is such a big part of one's budget, it seems that this is the first logical place to re-examine costs. Again, this is following the idea presented by SephardiLady of looking for ways to save money wherever possible.

1. Expand your range of "acceptable" hechshers. Do your own research as to why there is or isn't an issue with hechshers you aren't familiar with. Don't just rely on your next door neighbor telling you "we don't eat that." There is a major hechsher in our area that is found on supermarket bread. If you don't use this hechsher, you are going to pay more for bread. And large numbers of people do not use it. We did our research through a respected rav and found out that the reasons are political, not halachic. The more hechshers you eat, the more you can utilize coupons and sales. We rely on Rabbi Eliezer Eidlitz of KosherQuest (who was one of my husband's rebbeim in high school, and according to my husband is "one of the frummest people I know.")

2. Not keeping chalav yisrael. It is more expensive, prevents you from using coupons/supermarket sales to buy the cheapest products, and is often wasted. See this week's Orthonomics post on the topic and the comments there. (One tells of a family who was spending $30 a week extra on chalav yisrael, while they were struggling to pay their necessary expenses.)

3. DH (Barak of Am Kshe Oref fame...) has posted previously about the question of whether we can change the standard of eating glatt kosher, which is a chumra, but at the moment there is no convenient kosher alternative. In the meantime, he also made phone calls and found a wholesaler from whom to get meat at more affordable prices. We got a group together to place the required size for the order. This is something one can arrange in most communities without too much effort and WITH very significant savings.

4. Compare prices between your local kosher store and other grocery sources - and buy the lowest prices. Don't buy from your local kosher shop because you feel you have to spend your parnassa giving the other person their parnassa. They are running a business - they need to compete with other businesses as far as selection, service, and pricing in order to attract customers. Also, if you happen to have a local kosher store that consistently provides food that spoils immediately and ends up in the garbage, don't keep spending your money on that food.

There is a lot of peer pressure to take on chumras for food - in other words, to limit ones choices of brands, and therefore not be able to buy things with coupons or on sale, and not be able to bargain shop. There is also pressure to buy from kosher merchants, even ones who don't feel the same need to provide quality products and polite service to those who are supporting their businesses. But peer pressure is not a reason to go into debt.

Defining the problem

2007-11-08T06:36:00.000-08:00

My friend SephardiLady put my post as a guest post on Orthonomics, and there ahs been a lot of great discussion. I intend to write more about the specifics that I have in mind for cutting costs of Orthodox life, but something has been a block to posting. I finally figured out what has been bothering me about the original discussion on Orthonomics, and why I am having trouble writing the follow up.

As I discussed previously, the original article that started the discussion was focused on (correctly) advising people who are successful financially to not waste their money trying to "keep up with the Cohens" to the point that some people go into debt while insisting on living extravagent lives. My problem with the tone of the article, however, was that this advice does not apply to people who are not already at a high point financially.

Then SephardiLady and others responded with more practical money-saving suggestions applicable to the average person. In theory, someone who is "ok" financially, and looked for ways to live frugally, would be able to put some money aside every month so that emergencies didn't turn into crises, and so that families could live comfortably. My original response to this is, fine but why not make similar frugal decisions in religious areas - save money on Shabbos expenses, clothing, kosher food, etc. But something was still bothering me about even this approach:

The more disposable income we have, the more I will be required to hand over to two institutions: private school and shul dues. The top amount of tuition is so high that no one who isn't in the very top in income can afford to pay full tuition for several children and still have anything left over to live. On top of these two amounts, there is a third problem - you must live somewhere within walking distance of a shul, and those are always the most expensive areas of any town, even a very cheap town like Cleveland.

People who make $50,000 a year do not normally send their children to private school, and do not normally live in the most expensive area of town. And those people can clip coupons and shop at Walmart and end up living a financially secure life. How does a frum family who makes $50,000 a year, sends multiple children to private school, and lives in a more expensive area of their town get by? They go into debt. And if they manage to save $3000 of disposable income, the school cuts their financial aid by $3000. And they better not even think about buying a home to raise their children in, because their financial aid will be cut even more because they are a homeowner.

There is really no way around the fact that private school is the biggest issue here. And believe me, I love my son's school. But there may very likely come a time when we just can't do it, and we are one of many who are in that situation.

I am rewriting a lot of this post as I write because I don't want to sound as negative as I feel....Yesterday my husband and I found our dream home. It's not just a house, it felt like home the minute we walked in. The previous owner loved the home and put so much work into it, and the decor is exactly us. It was huge, and beautiful, and I want to raise my children there. But we can't afford to buy it. The person is willing to rent for one year, but then will put it back on the market this summer. We had to decide if we realistically will have the money to buy in eight months. If we don't, I can't bring myself to move into our home and then have it taken away. And, realistically, we won't have that money available because if we did make that much, we would need to pay higher tuition to the school, and if we bought a house in this neighborhood we for sure would be asked to pay a higher amount. I am very sad about this. (The only sunshine in the situation is that my son didn't like the layout of the rooms, where he would be on a different floor than we would, and he's thrilled that we're not taking it.)

Dealing with Debt - introduction

2007-10-30T16:13:00.000-07:00

SephardiLady (author of the Orthonomics blog) is a dear friend of mine. Her blog is dedicated to addressing financial issues in the Orthodox community. She recently has been following the responses to this Yated article, in which a rabbi expressed some sympathy toward a community member who confided his struggles with debt, then proceeded to blame it on trying to live a fancy lifestyle. The letters that followed (those which she has posted with her comments) have been bringing up the reality that some people are struggling financially and not living an expensive lifestyle.

This is obviously a meaningful topic for me, and even more so after I read today's post. SephardiLady and the commentators offers an extensive list of cost-saving techniques for grocery shopping. Now, there's nothing wrong with saving a few dollars. (Unless you end up using more gas to get the savings...) And SL truly lives what she suggests - she is an expert at what she calls the "art" of coupon clipping and finding bargains. Again, this is not a bad thing. But I came away from the post feeling like the point had been lost, and that maybe there is really a lack of understanding of how serious the debt situation is for so many families.

So we have three groups with financial problems:

1. People who make enough to live normally or even well-off, but waste their money on showing off, having fancy clothes, gigantic parties, etc. This is the group that the original article was addressing. This is basically an attitude problem, and antithetical to truly being a religious person. (In any religion, I think.)

2. People who make just enough, and can end up with a better standard of living and more savings for the future by clipping coupons, bargain shopping, etc.

3. What seems to be hard for everyone to understand is that there's a third group of people for whom even saving $1000 a year on grocery costs would make no difference to the depth of their problem. This is the group pleading with the rabbis and the community to figure out how they can do all the things that they have been told are necessary to living a religious life and still have food on the table and shoes for their kids.

The overall focus of financial advice is to look at your monthly expenses and see what you can cut. And the suggestions are usually things like switching to a cheaper car insurance, using coupons, or maybe an extreme like giving up your cell phone. Now imagine the following (real) situations:

- No health insurance (My husband and I went without for over a year, and my kids still don't have. And I have a friend who went years without.) By the way, no health insurance means forgoing health care too.

- The same friend cut his gas bill - by letting his gas be shut off. So he has no stove to cook on.

- Wearing the same four outfits repeatedly to work because that's what I have. This is something that has kept a number of people from going to shul - they simply don't have even one decent outfit that they won't feel humiliated in. I'm not talking fancy, I'm talking about something that isn't torn.

- Paying only the bills that are threatening to shut off this month. Calling the company and asking what is the absolute minimum to prevent shut off. then not paying again until the next threat.

I truly hope that most people can't imagine getting to this point. I truly hope most people can solve their problems by shopping sales and similar measures. But for a growing number of people, the financial issues can't be solved with these measures.

What I'd like to discuss in the next few posts is another version of looking at your expenses. I want to look at those areas (mainly in Orthodox life) which are so accepted as "required" expenses that no one wants to consider whether they can be cut or eliminated. Yet these are the high-cost areas that would actually start resolving people's problems.

I came up with five categories to start the discussion: food, Shabbat/Yom Tov, clothing/headcovering (both men and women), simchas, and private school (AKA "the tuition crisis").

The Derech

2007-10-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday our family and a good friend went walking at the Arboretum. This is a huge nature center with a lot of hiking paths, called things like "Blueberry Walk." I was thinking that the set-up illustrated the issues with the concept of people "going off the derech." There are two things that people might mean when they say this:

1. There is some behavior that is negative by all accounts - using drugs, stealing, etc. In the Orthodox context, this would also include things like eating pork or purposely ignoring Shabbat. This is a genuine concern for a family and a community.

2. However, most people use the phrase to mean when someone stops following the specific way of their sub-section of the Orthodox community. In many yeshivish communities, it would be "off the derech" to stop wearing a black hat and start wearing a knitted kippah. And a lot of parents, rabbis, and schools make a huge deal about things like this. But what is the actual problem? Who cares if you want to hike on the Blueberry Path or the Butterfly Walk? And, in fact, it may actually be more appropriate to try to get different people to follow different directions. Just as hiking trails are more or less difficult, and therefore might be appropriate for different people's skill levels, people have different orientations of what works for them. Some people need a huge amount of structure, and a very formal religious life is exactly right for them. Other people need a creative aspect to their religious life in order to have feeling towards it. (When I was in Israel, there was a class where they would learn some Chassidic teachings and then sing and dance the concept, or make art projects about it. For me, this was weird. For the people who enjoyed it, they had a very spiritual experience.)

My husband also posted on this thought.

AND - right after I finished posting, I found Rabbi Gil Student's great post on a similar idea.

This is just so beautiful I had to post it

2007-10-23T10:36:00.001-07:00

Standing Before God

Mudville

2007-10-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

One of the things my husband and I never liked about Los Angeles was the lack of community feeling. Yes there are a hige number of synagogues, and each one is huge, but (or, rather, because of this) there was really no sense of being part of a community. Looking back, this reflects a lot about Los Angeles as a whole from my experience. There is little feeling of "this is my home town."

I grew up in a home where we were not so into sports. More importantly, my father held onto to supporting his homwtown team (Philadelphia), especially in baseball. And being in a city where you can get away with that, I grew up with absolutely no feeling towards the Dodgers as being "my team." Of course, since I wasn't from Philadelphia, my connection to the Phillies was also more for fun, a way to be close to my father, rather than genuinely caring. And it never really affected my life because I didn't run into people who were INTO the Dodgers in a major way. (We openly cheered for the Phillies at Dodgers Stadium, and the only thing that was ever said to us was when this ditzy woman said "You're cheering for the wrong team.")

My father liked to give dramatic readings of "Casey at the Bat." for those of you who are not familiar, it's basically about a minor league team in small-town America who are in the final game of the season, one run behind in the ninth inning. The whole poem describes the emotions as their star player comes up to bat with the bases loaded. The last line is, "There is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casy has struck out." This poem always bugged me. Not only because I had to sit through multiple dramatic readings, and not only because I generally don't like emotional descriptions in poems. I really thought it was stupid that their whole universe revolved around this sport. Who cares?

Then we moved to the Midwest.

Now, obviously, I don't think life should revolve around sports. And, in Cleveland, it doesn't as much as in other cities. However, when you live in a smaller city, you have a closer feeling toward your home team. You have a closer connection with your neighbors, and everyone is supporting the team, so you feel more of a community spirit. And, in practical terms, anything to help the economy is a big deal here. The best the city could come up with for a motto last year was the boring "Cleveland Plus", yet for the last two weeks there have been banners everywhere, people wearing Cleveland gear everywhere, and the radio playing "Cleveland Rocks" and "Mambo for the Tribe." Sports promote a city like nothing else.

I was just speaking about how it's good to try to understand what experiences have led people who have different views than yourself to hold those views. I definitely understand why there was no joy in Mudville.

Job Hunting and Dating

2007-09-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

During my job hunt process, I came up with a list of things that someone job-hunting can learn from dating, and things that people dating can learn from job-hunting. I just read this great post from Ask a Manager which talks about some of these things. Specifically, how there are similar things you should do on a date and an interview.

Yesterday Jacob wrote a comment, in part, discussing the idea of having preferences when dating. I think this is a big issue that comes up in both dating and job searching. I almost didn't apply to my current job because it certainly doesn't meet my preferences. Then even after I was offered the job, I almost didn't take it. Is it a perfect job? No, there are many things I don't like about it. But - in the quality areas of boss acting professional, boss having pleasant personality, no screamers in the office, and having flexibility to take a bit of time for my family's needs - it is great.

So as I said with regards to dating - it's normal to have preferences, and try to meet someone/find a job that meets those ideas. But one should not be closed off to looking into the possibility of finding a quality person/job that may not fit their "perfect" image, but which meets the real quality issues that are important. Send the resume and go on the interview - there's no commitment to take a job you don't want, but why be closed off to receiving the offer? If a firned who knows you well tells you that they really feel someone might be a possibility for you, give the person a call and go out once. You don't have to marry them, but why be closed off from possibly meeting the right person just because they don't have your preferred hair color or dress size?

(The same goes for making new friends - Cool Yiddeshe Momma and I know a woman who narrows down whether she is willing to be friends with someone based on very particular details about their background. Then she gets upset that her friends have other friends, who she is not interested in getting to know.)

Being Nice

2007-09-12T10:48:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to share a quick story that happened yesterday. I was in the hall and a man from another company asked if he could borrow a stamp. While he came into the office with me, he asked if I was Jewish and Orthodox. (He told me he had grown up in one of our heavily Orthodox neighborhoods.) He said, "I'm not just asking because of how you are dressed. It's your attitude." I thought it was a great example of how we are always making an impression, either positive or negative, with our actions. Obviously he had enough positive experiences with the Orthodox people he met to associate that with positive behavior. Let's all keep that in mind this year.

Puppy picture

2007-09-04T13:48:00.001-07:00

Isn't this cute!!!!

Safety with our kids

2007-09-04T10:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we had a scare that was thankfully brief - my almost-2-year-old climbed out of her stroller while we were at a community barbeque. We were involved in getting carnival prizes for my son and she had already run off when we noticed (it was probably only a few seconds that we turned away, but she's fast!)

Thank G-d we located her immediately, and we were on a campus that was not bordering a street. It was also an environment where I would generally feel the kids were safe. However, it was still very scary for a minute - and obviously would have been even more so if it was at the mall or a larger public place.

Just this morning I read this article which criticizes the less-concerned attitude that many people have when we get used to being in our enclosed neighborhoods. I know we had a possible kidnapping attempt in our own community last year - a little girl from my son's class was in the yard with her brothers and father. The father stepped around the side of the house for one minute and a car pulled up. Luckily the father ran right back and the car drove off, but the school let us all know to be careful. They also sent a warning to lock our doors (it is Midwest mentality not to be so careful about that) after several early morning break-ins.

Some of the comments on the article misunderstood the author's point and thought she was saying to never leave your kid with a baby-sitter. Obviously, if there is another trusted adult or program supervising, that is not a problem. But we need to make sure to check out the school or camp to make sure we trust the safety standards used. I know I feel very confident in our school, based on how many seemingly trivial things they have notified us about (like when my son got a tiny cut one time), and the fact that the principal frequently sends out public service announcements about safety issues. (And, of course, the fact that they are accredited by the state.) On the other hand, we have a teenage babysitter whom we love dearly but I would not send her to an activity alone with both of my kids at the same time, as I do not feel that is adequate supervision in a public place. In fact, even I try to avoid going somewhere alone with both of them!

Save the Assistants

2007-08-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post about some of the issues of being an office assistant, and just happened across this short piece. The website Save the Assistants sounds very interesting but I haven't had the chance to look at it yet.

For me, the most frustrating part of the job is being asked to do things which I have not been given the tools to do. Because of high turnover, no one here has any idea what vendors we use for certain things, what our lease information is for office equipment, etc. So "order more envelopes" is a huge project because I first have to somehow figure out what we did last time, then get authorized by our accounting department in our corporate office to place an order. And they have gotten behind on so many bills that we have had service cut off. Our fax/copier was broken and it took a week to get a payment to the repair people so that they would fix it - and in the meantime, everyone kept coming to me to find out why it was still not working. Or the other annoying task of being asked to make a phone call without being told all the info the person will need - so then I have to go back to the boss for more information and I end up sounding stupid.

Singles perspective part 2

2007-08-29T09:59:00.001-07:00

See my previous post for the article. I was about to write a long response to Selena, and realized that it was turning into a whole post....

I was also crying when I read this. I really hear her sadness and how bad some people make her feel. Many people do not think before they speak, and it is shocking how many really offensive things people can find to say. (And that doesn't even include things that most of us who are well-meaning say and do on a daily basis without meaning harm.)

Unfortuantely, those of us who would like to act in the way she suggests know the other side.

1. Unlike many people who talk about "the singles crisis," I am aware that not every person who is unmarried is looking to change that. And I am pretty sure that there are just a higher number of women than men who are concerned with getting married.

2. In addition, there are the people (again, I have heard it from more men than women) who believe they want to be married but aren't really interested in actually doing so. I know this because they choose who to date based only on appearance. My first attempt to actually try being a shadchan for a stranger was with a guy who seemed like a really quality person until he dropped the "she has to be skinny" thing into the conversation. Later on, he told me he had been having an e-mail correspondence with a lovely woman from our community who I am friendly with. Well, she is a full-figured person and I just knew he would never be interested in continuing. The weight thing, as has been discussed on so many other blogs, is the biggest issue but there are certainly other limits I have heard as well (no one divorced, no one over 30, woman can't be older than the man, and on and on....)

3. For every friend who feels as this author does, that she wants her married friends to make suggestions, there are just as many who would consider it offensive for me to make any attempt at assisting in their search. (Including women who go to random shadchanim, but don't want their personal friends to make suggestions.) I have a friend who goes to singles events, shadchanim, etc. But she got upset when a couple she met at our Shabbos table said that one of their best friends might be a good match for her, and wouldn't allow us to follow up on it for her.

What we all can do, though, is just try our best to not say or do things that will clearly be offensive. For example, the couple above could have spoken to me privately after meeting my friend instead of discussing it around the table. And as the author explains, this is not only about "singles" - this applies to everyone because we each have our own life situations.

Singles perspective

2007-08-29T07:44:00.001-07:00

I usually put off posting great articles that I've read until I have time to make some comments, which I never do. So I am posting this without my own comment for now. I though this article expressed so beautifully the perspective of people who are single, and there are a lot of thoughtful ideas in the comments section as well. I think the main point is that we all need to be sensitive to whatever life situation our friends and community members are in.

Parenting Article

2007-08-28T11:21:00.000-07:00

I just read this nice parenting article. Those of us who have now been moms for a while have learned that you can't be perfect, and just have to do the best you can.

Can You Believe This?

2007-08-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

My son's school has 2 classes per grade, and our school's policy is that you try to invite your whole class, or all of one gender. (I jokingly considered having my son invite all the girls only!) If you are only inviting a few kids, that's ok but you have to be discreet.

We have a slight advantage with a summer birthday, in that it is not likely that the kids will discuss among themselves who got invited. Even so, I decided to invite my son's new class as a chance to meet each other. (This includes kids he already knows, some he does not because they were in the other class last year, and a few new students.) We were thrilled to see that most of the mean boys from last year are now in the other class, so we happily did not invite them. There was one who Dovid liked, but I decided that if we invited him we'd have to invite another kid "Joey," who is a big behavior problem and has been quite rude to my son. We only chose 2 special friends from the other class, both girls and neither of them in any contact during the summer with the boys we didn't invite. (So, to summarize, we didn't single anyone out from the other class, but certainly were glad to be able to avoid certain people, including Joey.)

So the kids started arriving, and one mom came with three of the guests. Wait, I am looking closer at the three incoming kids....There were many kids who my son and I didn't know, so I thought maybe this one kid just LOOKS familiar.....no, I'm right - it's Joey! Yes, everyone, we had a 5-year-old party crasher! Someone actually sent their child to a party to which he was not invited, and without an RSVP.

To Joey's credit, he behaved most of the time, said hello to my son (which he often does not do in school), and brought a present. And my son was amazing - he QUIETLY said to me "Why is Joey here?" then acted perfectly nicely to him just like any other guest.

I have been over the situation and can only think of two good explanations. One is that the mom honestly believed that we would have invited her son and that we made a mistake. Fair enough, I guess, especially since apparently an invitation addressed to my son got lost in the mail a few weeks ago. But in that case, wouldn't she have called to RSVP?

Other explanation - the other mom was watching the kids for the morning and had to bring him. But again, no phone call or explanation at the door. And he brought a present, which means some thought went into this.

I'm just still waliking around like "Wow, we had a party crasher. Unbelievable..." I am not mad and certainly will not say anything to the mom, but you just have to wonder...

Birthday Party (part 1)

2007-08-20T10:50:00.001-07:00

When I was in kindergarten, my parents had the class over to the house for my birthday. Even though the party was in our yard, the kids made their way into the house and climbed all over things. I was hesitant about giving my son a party at home because of this experience, but a few weeks ago DH had a great idea for a low-key party – pancake breakfast (with the kids in their pajamas) and Sunday morning cartoons. With the addition of one game (tape-the-tail-on-the-donkey, requested by my son), we pulled this off quite successfully yesterday.

Actually, it was supposed to be next week. Last Friday, a few hours before Shabbos, we got a call from another mother in the class. Apparently she had already invited all the boys on the date we had picked. So we were calling people right before Shabbos to let them know that the date was changed. My whole family was in town for our birthdays (my son and I have the same birthday) so the house was quite full, but I liked that my parents got to see the kids that their grandson spends time with. We had a teenager take care of the baby, and my best friend was a huge help with serving the food and keeping the kids in line.

The cartoon thing was a huge hit – and the kids were even excited to watch something educational. The only chaos was during the game, when the kids crowded into the dining room to play the donkey game. They even threw out their own trash!

I really enjoyed the chance to give The Party before school opens, not only so the kids could meet but also so that I could meet the parents. There were two new kids who were very shy and their parents (who were really nice) stayed at the party.

There was only one “incident,” and it will be the topic of tomorrow’s post (although some of you have heard me talk about it already.) It is not something that was a huge problem, but raises a lot of birthday party etiquette issues.

Cool Map

2007-08-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

Here's the states I've been to:

create your own visited states map

Negative experiences

2007-07-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot written this week about the New York Times piece by a person who went to a prestigious Modern Orthodox school and has now intermarried. I haven’t read the original article, but apparently he is angry that his school and others have criticized him, and goes on to complain about numerous other items he has a problem with, all in the public forum of the New York Times.

I do not want to add anything to the discussion of his letter. However, I’d like to share a portion of the following anonymous comment posted on Aish.com. I almost feel like this needs no further comment and yet I have much to say on this topic so will add my own thoughts tomorrow.

I've Been There
I write this as a mitzvah observant Jew who was married
previously -twice- to non Jewish husbands....
There are a lot of people out there who do not find a place for
themselves in the Jewish world and do not feel a sense of
belonging. Whether it is an unhappy social experience in day
school or Hebrew school, or a feeling of rejection by other
Jews in one's life, or whether it is a failure to meet a Jewish
person of the opposite sex with whom one can really share his
heart, soul, and life, there are many people out here who
would like to be connected to the Jewish world
but have had more unhappy than happy experiences
in it….I personally felt like a reject in the Jewish world for
many years, something that gave me great emotional pain….
Since the time of my own teshuva, I have continued to struggle
with relationships with fellow Jews in the shuls, Jewish schools
and even with visits to Israel….
If I could make one suggestion, it is that when our children in
Jewish schools or camps act meanly to any of the other
children, we pay attention and stamp out the cruelty
immediately. No child should have to leave a Jewish school
because he or she can't make friends there. We have such a
better chance of raising committed Jews if our children grow up
with happy memories of associating with the other Jewish kids
at school and camp.

Communciation

2007-07-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned someone who criticized my husband in the comments in another blog. Actually, this person is known on several of the blogs I read for throwing around criticsm of people, making broad statements and then not responding to requests to clarify his point -- and because he states that he is representing the beliefs and interest of a certain group, he makes that whole group look bad too.

This morning I was reading this Dov Bear post, and actually found three comments of this person that were intelligent and expressed in a style appropriate for an exchange of ideas. I even agreed with one of his points which others disagreed with, which was that one should use a respectful term when speaking of a rabbi and not call them "dude." It was such a difference - and would have been more so if not for two things:

1. His other comments were the same nasty stuff as always.

2. Everyone else is so used to how obnoxious he is that they did not respond intelligently to his good points. He has been tuned out by the rest of the group. So the great discussions that could have come from his positive comments won't happen.

"One must communicate and be WILLING to be communicated with." This is a great observation by my friend Jacob. If your goal is to communicate an idea, then you should think about whether the way you say it is actually getting your point across. if you just yell and swear, people just see some idiot yelling and swearing. They are not going to hear your words or be interested in hearing your words. Plus, some people will start to wonder if the beliefs you are trying to communicate are related to your bad attitude. Then they may think negatively about your cause as well.

I also like the second part - you must be open to receiving communication from others. If someone says something you disagree with and you just say "You're a heretic! You're stupid!" then what has been communicated?

How People Lived in the Past

2007-07-25T09:43:00.001-07:00

My reason for choosing this topic today is a discussion on Dov Bear about Tisha B'Av. Specifically, my husband mentioned in the comments that he did not go to shul (which was for a specific reason) and someone chose to harshly criticize him. Without getting into this issue, it reminded me of my father telling me that people always worked on Tisha B'Av. There were too many holidays in the year (in the days before paid vacation and where loss of a day's income meant you didn't eat), and you went to work as normal on Tisha B'Av.

My father's parents were born in the "old country" and his experiences growing up were directly with the immigrant generation of his aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Most people my age have parents who are one generation removed from this, so I am fortunate to be able to ask him things that he has personal experience with regarding our family' history.

I recently came to the realization, confirmed by asking my dad, that he was raised Orthodox. I don't know why I never thought about it from that perspective before. My father grew up in a kosher home, family observed the holidays, and he attended cheder as a child.

However, he has told me about the reality for his family that I believe is representative of what a majority of people experienced. First, his father was (to his great sadness) unable to not work on Saturday. This is during the Depression - I know there are stories of people who were able to quit their job every Friday and find another on Sunday, but it is only because the majority of their Jewish brothers weren't doing so. If everyone had done this, not only would there not have been jobs available, but people would have stopped hiring Jews at all. I emphasize that it was not that my grandfather was trying to get out of observing - quite the opposite. There was just a reality at that time that is so beyond any of our understanding. (I can say this even more now after going through extreme financial difficulties - thank G-d we can't even begin to understand the financial difficulties of the Depression.)

In addition, children needed to work. If you are a parent, can you even imagine such a thing? By my father's time this was already less of a reality for many people, but for my grandfather in an immigrant family, that was life. My grandfather was one of the younger of 11 children. His older sisters, as teenagers, never went to high school but were sent to work. His older brother was sent through cheder and yeshiva - and it is this great-uncle's descendents who remained religious. (Some are involved on a high level with Torah.org, and another was honored at YU as a third-generation graduate.)

However, when it came to my grandfather and the other younger brother, the family needed them to work also. So he was not able to continue his formal education (neither secular nor religious - he did not even go to high school.)

Whenever I hear broad generalizations about people from the immigrant generation and beyond who became less observant or completely uninvolved, I feel that people don't have the awareness of what the reality was. One of the difficulties is that most people of that generation, due to their hard life both in Europe and America, did not ever talk about it. Even basic info like their grandparents names, let alone discussing what life was like. They wanted to forget. It is only now when people like myself are interested in genealogy and Jewish traditional life, that we are sad that we could not hear the stories these hard-working, G-d-fearing people would have been able to tell us.

Businesses being stupid

2007-07-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

Some of you may be familiar with the disaster of the Big Dig in Boston. Basically the whole city traffic has been chaos for years while they built tunnels that were supposed to relive the traffic chaos. Apparently there have been many issues about waste and so forth throughout this time, but then there was an actual tagedy - the finished tunnel collapesed and killed someone. How does a multi-million dollar tunnel just collapse? They used bad glue. Some of the workers questioned this, bu the higher-ups proceded. They even cancelled laboratory tests which would have shown the problem. Not only that, but the cost to use better glue would have been maybe a few thousand dollars, in a project that cost millions.

This is an attitude that is so often the cause of disaster in business. There is no attention to the small details that can actually affect the bottom line, and too much attention to picking on tiny amounts of money that can be "saved". And ignoring employees who are hands-on in the business and therefore may have suggestions on improving efficiency or who may be aware of potential problems.

And, of course, in this case it was the taxpayers money that was wasted.

Birthday parties

2007-07-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

Orthonomics writes about the lack of thank you notes being sent, especially for kids' birthday presents. Though I admit that I was too slow in writing our wedding and birthday thank you notes, that was my own issue and I definitely agree that they need to be written. My son has gotten some very cute notes from parties he has attended (though at this age they are written by the parents.)

However, I have an even more pressing concern - what about at least having the kid say thank you in person! It seems that most of the kids in my son's school are not opening their presents at the party. On one hand, it prevents jealousy over who gave what, avoids present overload (they can open one a day afterwards), and maybe there are other reasons. On the other hand, the kids don't get the pleasure of seeing their friend open the gift, and the kid does not end up saying thank you. And unfortunately at many of these parties, the birthday kid doesn't do anything to acknowledge the guests. I have my son say thank you on the way out to both the kid and mother, and often he gets a blank stare from the kid. Few other parents prompt their child to say thank you, and in one case my son walked in the door and the kid grabbed the present out of his hand without even saying hello. (This is one of the problem kids I have discussed in a previous post.)

These parties are generally pretty fancy, sometimes at a gym or ice cream store, the whole class (sometimes both classes) are invited, and my son brings home lots of expensive party favors. BUT there is little in the way of friendly and polite behavior. I much prefer the at-home parties with a few kids where my son knows he was specifically invited as a friend, and where the kid actually acts happy to see him.

Here's my question (for anyone reading): Son is invited to a party for one of the rude kids (since he invited the whole class). It's at a nice gym and I know he'll enjoy the activities and seeing his other friends from school. But the kid is definitely not his friend and will probably ignore him. I am probably going to let him go but I would be interested in how others would handle this.

Great story about Nefesh B'Nefesh

2007-07-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123026

The first Nefesh B'Nefesh flight of the summer arrived in Israel and this is a really moving photo-essay about the new arrivals. And, fifth from the bottom, is a family from our community! (The mom with a little boy and baby. Dina Kessler was a teacher at our school and the little boy in the picture was in Dovid's class last year. And the baby Nili was born one day before my daughter and was in the hospital nursery with her.)

2007-07-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

Selena tagged me for this interesting book meme. The instructions are a bit complicated: Bold the ones you’ve read. Mark in blue the ones you want to read. Cross out the ones that you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole (or use red coloring). Finally, italicize the ones you've never heard of. First I have to look up how to do text color - it has been way too long since I've worked with the HTML codes. (Note a few hours later: I just found out that if I switch screens in Blogger I can do this automatically...)

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) - Not 100% sure I read this...
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)

72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

OK, that was really long. I have a few comments about some of the books which I will save for another post. Cool Yiddishe Mama, I'm sure you realize that this is on to you now....

Cooking - Not Just for Women

2007-07-05T14:10:00.000-07:00

My mother doesn't like to cook. It's not that she cooks badly, but she doesn't get pleasure out of the process of cooking. So food preparation in my house was always just that - preparing the food. I was not raised with any feel for being in the kitchen. So although I can prepare basics like grilled cheese sandwiches and follow a basic recipe for cookies, I would have no idea how to go about cooking like a real Jewish mother.

Fortunately, my husband does. We have a family joke that when someone asked my brother whether his mother made a good brisket, he should have said, "No but my brother=in-law does." DH learned from his own mother, a kibbutznik who worked in a restaurant at one time. DH actually enjoys experimenting with recipes, and is really good at it. He usually can make meals and desserts better than most kosher restaurants. in fact, his successful entry into the world of making pies and pastries started when we paid a lot of money for a really awful chocolate mousse pie from a major kosher bakery. The next week, DH got on the internet to find a recipe, and the result was one of my favorite desserts.

So from the time we got married, DH has been the primary cook in the family. When we first got married and moved to a yeshiva community in New York, we would often be invited to meals at the homes of other newly married couples. Invariably this topic would come up and the wife would say (in a not-so-polite voice, usually), "Your husband cooks? Don't you want to cook?"

I really never understood the question. I have someone who enjoys cooking, and does it well, where I don't know much about it. So I could cook and make ok food, but why? Also, many of these women also went into marriage not knowing how to cook. I have heard that people just learn over time from older married women, but in the meantime their family has to eat the results. One of the skeptics actually served pink chicken. (She was very embarrassed and I felt badly for her, but the fact is that she didn't even check her cooking before serving it to her family and guests.) I believe that whoever is great at the cooking should do that job in the home. If the wife is an amazing cook, great! if it is both spouses, they can take turns or spend time in the kitchen together. (OK, this is where one would make a joke about getting something cooking...) Why should the gender of the cook matter?

DH and Rebel With A Cause have started a new blog, Why Don't More Jewish Men Cook?. DH will be sharing his thoughts on the subject and both will be contributing recipes.

Relating to religious figures

2007-06-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

Am Kshe Oref, in response to a post by Rabbi Maryles (link is in Am Kshe Oref's post), discusses the question of whether biographies of religious figures should portray them as perfect, or whether it should include what might be seen as "negative" information. He explains (which I agree) that if we see the figures as saints (a non-Jewish idea, by the way), we will feel that they were on an unattainable level, where if they dealt with challenges and made mistakes, we can relate to them and therefore strive to be like them.

I think another issue is what the definition of "negative information" is. I don't think the biographies neccesarily need to give actual negative charatcer traits. if the person used to be rude to people and changed for the better, maybe we could learn something from that but I could see leaving it out. However, why would it be negative to say that they had hobbies? That they enjoyed the study of history or math? And it is known that certain publications digitally alter photographs to make the people from previous generations fit a certain image that people have today. Obvously, if the person dressed that way or enjoyed those pursuits, he didn't feel anything was negative about it!

I don't remember the details, but there was a rabbi about a year ago who made a statement that high school rabbis shouldn't play sports with their students because the students will have less respect for them. (Again, I don't remember the exact details...) While there may be specific situations or communities where this would happen, I think the general consensus is that students enjoy the opportunity to see their teachers as human in an appropriate context. We have a good friend who is a successful middle school Judaic Studies teacher. His students and their parents have a lot of respect for him and he has done a lot for spreading a love for Judaism to kids who don't have a strong background. The way he accomplishes this is by being an authority figure in the classroom, but also approachable and "normal". He plays sports with the kids, makes jokes, talks to the kids about his interests...A student in his class can relate to him as a real person, while still having respect for him and, along with that, his Jewish values and practice.

Certainly there can be another extreme. My high school set up the teachers as "friends" and "cool." The few teachers any of us respected dressed nicer, were stricter, didn't share details of their personal life, and didn't gossip about other teachers. And of course, there is the overly negative approach in the entertainment news in which we hear the tiniest thing that any celebrity does wrong. But I don't think this extreme means that a respectfully written book can't share information that is of a non-negative nature, even if it shows that the person was a real person. Especially if it shows them as a real person.

Dream of Californication.....

2007-06-07T18:36:00.000-07:00

Today I heard a commericial for a local car dealer featuring Governator jokes that had nothing to do with the ad. This made me think about how everyone is obsessed with California, and I thought it would be a good topic to "just jump in" to blogging again. I started by looking up some songs that immediately come to mind that deal with this issue, and of course the first one I thought of is Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Now, I never understood all of the lyrics when listening to the song so I looked it up and was impressed with how they expressed this idealized idea that many people have about California (by which most people mean Hollywood, and by which most people really mean "the movie industry" because the actual city of Hollywood is really run-down now.) And many people within the L.A. culture end up trying to live up to the fantasy idea.

Here's all the lyrics. And here are some of the lyrics that I thought best illustrated the way that L.A. culture has become this ideal for people in other parts of the country and even the world. And how it't not based on reality. (And, of course, the term Californication - because this idealized lifestyle includes sex, partying with the stars, etc.)

Little girls from Sweden
Dream of silver screen quotations
And if you want these kind of dreams
It's Californication

It's the edge of the world
And all of western civilization
The sun may rise in the East
At least it settles in the final location
It's understood that Hollywood
sells Californication

Movies come out of L.A. so they present a certain culture as the norm, which someone watching a movie in Akron, Ohio thinks is based on reality.

And buy me a star on the boulevard

You can buy celebrity status, you don't have to actually have any talent. Need I specifically mention a certain person
who is famous for being famous and manages to get out of doing jail time because of that status. Everyone believes they can come to L.A. and be discovered. Never mind that almost no one is "discovered" - they were already related to a famous person or they were very wealthy and paid huge amounts to an agent to get them in something.

Space may be the final frontier
But it's made in a Hollywood basement

When you watch Star Wars, you know it's not real. The culture shown on TV and movies is just as fictional -- especially on "reality TV". The term reality just means that it is not professional actors but people think it reflects the culture. (This is a topic for another time...)

And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar
They're just another good vibration
And tidal waves couldn't save the world
From Californication

Never mind that there is absolutely no way you can adequately prepare for earthquakes and floods - and some of the most wealthy people purposely live on cliffs that cause their houses to fall down in mudslides every few years. It's L.A.! The weather! The movie stars! Wow!

Update on my Job Search

2007-02-22T08:30:00.000-08:00

This is just an update for those of you who are interested. Then what I plan to do is post about the good and bad experiences I have had with various interviews.

As some of you know, I returned to work last April after my husband's job did not work out. In addition to sending out resumes, I signed up with an employment agency for which I had worked in Los Angeles and always been placed with very professional companies. I only had one job interview with a non-recruiter, and then was placed by my agency at the position I am in now. I was led to believe by my manager that this was going to become a permanent position, and since I was being given more high-level work I decided to focus my energy on that and postponed my active job search. About three months ago I was given a different story, and told that they are not hiring for day shifts, and since I was not able to work nights/Saturdays, there was not going to be any permanent opportunity. In order to keep my resume intact and still have some income, I have remained as a temp while returning to the job of looking for a job. (So I am looking for a job, have a job, and have the job of mom and wife. And very little money to show for all of these "jobs"!)

Anyway, I have had a total of 4 interviews since I re-started the process. (In addition to one which turned out to be a recruiter.) I am currently waiting to hear back about two positions. One is my ideal job though not ideal salary, but they have been very remiss in following up on the position. While it is possible they have filled it already and never told me, my understanding from dealing with them is that most likely they just haven't made any progress towards hiring. The other job was a random position I applied for and very far away, but it would appear that I am seriously in the running for the job.

The interview process has allowed me to get insight into the good and bad way that companies handle things and I will post a few ideas over the next week. In the meantime, I am continuing to send out resumes and there are several positions which I would love to be interviewed for. (Although the one that looked great is really far away, but I am applying anyway.) I will keep everyone updated.

Misunderstandings

2007-02-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

I just had an interesting experience and since it was in the blog world I thought I would share it on my blog. (Especially since I am overdue for a post.)

Let me start by saying that I have been trying to avoid blogging about "the issues" as there are plety of excellent blogs on these topics which I read regularly. I also tend not to comment on these blogs because most of what I would say, usually gets said by others and I don't feel I have anything to add. Today I decided to comment on a post regarding seperate seating at weddings. As some of you know, DH and I had an "interesting" experience in this department when we got married. Basically, I was informed that certain people had to have seperate seating, including the boys and rabbis from my husband's yeshiva and my husband's family. (My SIL actually said, "If I have to sit with my husband I won't come.") We actually did a great job of getting everyone seated in a way that made them comfortable, even though it involved asking some couples who did not request it to sit seperately in order to fill the tables.

Then I found out afterwards that some of the boys who I went to the trouble of seating in this way had spent the morning before the wedding hitting on my single friends. Now, I would love to have introduced them to each other and had them socialize - but they and their yeshiva don't agree that this is appropriate. Great, I respect their view. But there was no reason for the seating to be the main issue - if you beleive that men and women shouldn't socialize in that setting, then don't. The external things like seating aren't going to help you if you don't behave the way that you believe you should behave.

Now, that said, Rabbi Harry Maryles is one of the blogs that most often says exactly what I beleive on these issues. He has a following of both people who strongly agree and those who strongly disagree, and unfortunately his comments section often turns into a personal battle between the same five posters from these two camps. Rabbi Maryles is great and has even been corresponding with my husband off-blog, but some of these disagree-ers can be pretty harsh. He posted today about the seating issue. So I basically wrote what I just said above, but I wrote in a way that I hoped would keep me from being bashed by the disagree-ers. Apparently I did too good a job of watching what I said. One of the people with whom I pretty much agree compeletly bashed my comment. Apparently I came off as Charedi ("ultra" Orthodox)! The fact is I agreed with a lot of what he said in his comment that was criticizing my comment - I just didn't agree that it applied to me! (For those of you who know me, I think you will find it interesting to see what he perceived my entire hashkafa to be from my two paragraph comment.)

But of course the reason he responded so harshly is because that is the tone of so many of the commenters and I think it is unfortunate. Mixed in with the bashing (from both sides) are always some amazingly insightful comments. Sometimes they are from a perspective which I do not share, but I am able to better understand how this other side sees things and that maybe they also have rational reasons for their views. Or, as in this case, we may even be in agreement if we can calm down long enough to hear what the other person is saying.

Creating Positive Change

2007-01-26T11:01:00.000-08:00

One of my best friends is visiting this week. I always enjoy speaking to her about "issues" because she is able to explore and articulate the different perspectives of a situation without judging those with whom she disagrees. I alwasy end up feeling better equipped to judge favorably after speaking to her. Last night we started by discussing the conference she attended at which Gil Student, Rabbi Blau, and others were discussing the sex abuse scandal. She is not "in the blogosphere" so I was already familiar with a lot of the details of what had happened, and of course got onto UOJ and that whole situation. And I started explaining to her that, while the naming names on that blog was definitely a big problem, the lack of action over many years to resolve the problem in any other way must have created such frustration that the person didn't know of any other way - and sure enough, it got the reults that no other more Torah-oriented steps had achieved. (That's my basic understanding of that whole situation - don't intend for this post to go in more depth down that road.) I feel strongly that when the frustration gets to be so much and no matter what you do you feel helpless, people can get to a mental point where they do things that are definitely wrong but which they really honestly don't see any other choice.

My friend's response was that this is a dangerous premise because it can be used to excuse any number of behaviors when people get angry. She suggests a two step process when a person is that frustrated about a situation. First, calm down in wahtever way you are able - whether it's indirectly related (go for a walk) or directly related (write a letter where you let it all out but don't send it). Then, once you are calm, develop a plan of action. If this is a personal situation, this can be practical steps that are actually going to be productive. If it's a community issue, think about whether you would be able to speak to someone who can actually influence the situation. (As SephardiLady did with her letter to Rabbi Horowitz.) If it's a world issue or there really is no direct way you can act, look to the bigger question of what you might be able to do - for example, just by being a kind person you can start a chain of people being kind to each other. I am a member of FLYLady.com, and members have been posting for weeks about "Pay It Forward" actions that have influenced their lives in positive ways.

I still feel that the frustration itself is a serious issue and I will post more about this next time. However, I also found myself feeling more sympathetic to people with whom I normally disagree, once my friend showed how they were also acting from a deep feeling of frustration on their own issues.

How can you help?

2006-11-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

Orthonomics had an excellent, sensitive post about how difficult it is for religious people who are in debt to deal with being uable to give generously to others. it is in our nature and so painful and frustrasting to have to turn down even simple requests to donate to the school or shul, let alone being able to give to others who are in worse situations than our own.

SephardiLady also asks, "What should the Orthodox community be doing, if anything, to help its members avoid falling into debt in the first place, or deeper into debt?"

1. Rabbis and others in the position to give advice should not encourage (or even pressure) young couples to engage in lifestyle choices that will put them in seriously poor financial straits. My husband's rabbi (at the time we were married) knew that my husband would follow his advice and basically required him to continue in yeshiva. I questioned him on several occasions to find out how he felt we would be able to make it financially. His response was that when he was in yeshiva they managed to do fine. Then he admitted that he didn't know how and I should ask his wife. His wife's answer? Their parents supported them! If you put yourself in a position where you are giving advice that you believe will be followed, take responsibility for it.

2. When offering job suggestions, offer real suggestions. A minimum wage or part-time job with no beenfits will not support a frum couple, let alone a family. Those who are in a position to have connections (especially business owners) should make a real effort to reach out to hire people in the frum community to real positions. Rabbis should be going to their successful congregants to tell them to make these efforts. There are several major businesses here whose owners are members of local shuls and do not make any effort to help those who are looking for jobs.

3. There is a need in the community at large for more access to free loans. Speaking anecdotely from my own and other people's experiences, it is currently a very negative experience to ask for these loans to help get out of debt, and is often denied. (One person who went for help ended up with the agency calling his anti-Orthodox parents who lied baout him and the agency chose to believe them and deny him help.) This is halacha.

4. Something everyone can do - be supportive. Genuinely supportive. If you might be able to help them make connections, do so. (Just telling them a name of "someone who might be hiring" will probably not help them at all unless you are willing to make a follow-up call to the hiring manager or be listed as a reference. Even better if you can forward the resume with a note yourself.) If not, maybe you have other expertise that you can help them with. Or you actually have the means to help them financially with a loan. Or with other things they need - we certainly would not have made it at all without the generous boxes of clothing that continue to show up at our door for the kids. If not, at least be a sensitive person.

The Plastics, Frum Style

2006-10-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

Last night we watched "Mean Girls." First of all, I highly recommend it -- it was hysterically funny and not at all like I thought it would be. The focus of the movie is about the Plastics, the girls who always dressed perfectly, were obsessed with their looks, and everyone hated and yet desperately wanted to be liked by them.

I strongly believe that people are the same basic personality as a religious person that they would have been (or were) as a non-religious person. Baalei Teshuvah who have a falling out with their parents about religion would have had a falling out with them about something else. Men who spend no time at home because they are learning would have been workaholics. Men who hang around yeshiva all day and night as an excuse to spend no time at home would have gone out to bars or golfing all the time. Someone who is obsessive about ritual halacha would have been a strict vegan. (Of course some people are both but that is a whole other story.) And so on...

Which brings us to.....Hot Chanies! See Ask Shifra's great series - start at this link and then see her other follow up post since then. She really expresses it so well!

And Out of Town also wrote about cliques based on appearance.

Might as well make this into a mini-blog roundup because today Rabbi Maryles (Emes VeEmunah) wrote yet another great post on the extremes of the tsnius police. (He had another post on this topic sometime in the last few weeks in which he reveals that there really are official Tsnius Police! I will try to find the link later.) I especially love how he structured this post.

Ask Shifra: Jewish Debt

2006-09-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

Ask Shifra has a great post about how many of us are struggling with debt and expenses. She has opened up her comments for people to share their own experiences and I think it will be a great forum for people to feel that others understand. I know one of the biggest frustrations (besides the actual debt of course) is seeing other people who seem to have no financial troubles. but this applies to anyone's problems - it always seems like no one else struggles as much as you do. I do always keep in mind several specific people I know who face terrible situations, but it is still difficult.

Speaking of financial difficulties, I am dealing with an unfortunate turn of events on the job front. I had been rpogressing on my temp job, doing very advanced work and even enjoying some of it. After many times of asking the boss for a status, she finally told me that they were only hiring for nights and weekends. Since I can't do it because of Shabbos, I can't take the position. (She did not say it like that, of course - she just showed me a chart of what the open hours were and I told her that I would not be available those hours.) So that's the end of any hope for being hired in this position. She was really nice about it - she said to keep checking the job board at the company, tell the agency that I had her permission to take a different assignment, and let her know whenever I needed time off for interviews. But I was really tired - and I mean literally tired - of the job search and was hoping that I could finally just have a real position with a decent salary and benefits. instead, I am still on temp pay (not enough to even come close to covering our monthly expenses), and we are all uninsured.

This topic was the original subject of my blog and I will try to keep posting again. I also have a ton of articles that I saved to write about, so I want to start pushing those out even if I don't add my own comments.

One more thing - for those of you reading this blog who have helped us, I want to tell you how much it means to us. (I mean both those of you who have helped us financially and those who have provided their kindness and support in listening to us.) And I really appreciate anyone who is reading this blog because, well, it just feels neat to have readers! And to the specific person who has contacted me by e-mail - I am thinking of you and wishing you the best, and hope maybe we could even meet in person this year.

I hope to get back to blogging again this week but in case I don't I want to wish everyone a Shana Tova, a wonderful year in which we will each acheive what we need.

Other People's Kids

2006-08-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

SpehardiLady has a very thought-provoking discussion about disciplining other people's kids. However, it was actually Out of Town's cute post about her son's first day of school that led me to write the following. (I'll add in the links to you guys later.)

When my son and Out of Town's were babies, they were best friends. Well, they really had no choice in the matter, because we're friends and had them play together. And last year, I spent the first half hour (at least) every day in my son's classroom. So even though I didn't pick his friends, I knew all the kids very well. I could discuss them with him and guide him towards the kids I liked. There was one boy, the most mild-mannered child in school, who my son decided he hated. (In a 3-year-old, "I hate him" sort of way, of course.) I spent months trying to encourage him to reconsider and in the end they actually became friends, though now they are in different grades.

This year, however, I might not be able to be as much of a presence in his social life because of work. And because of him being older and more able to choose his own friends. And I am really scared about some of the kids in his class, and how they could either hurt my son or influence him. There are two boys who were not in his class last year yet he knew them from the playground and told me they were mean. I met them on the first day of school - they are best friends with each other, and they are definitely mean. There's also a little girl who told an explicit potty-humor joke at the lunch table and was making a point of not listening to the teacher.

I had horrible experiences going to small private schools for long periods of time with the same kids. (7 years of elementary school and then six years at another school.) There were not enough of each type of kid to allow healthy friendships. Instead. life revolved around the "popular" group and their decisions about the social structure. I saw a lot of perfectly nice people become scary between entering 7th grade and high school graduation. I reconnected with a former friend recently who had been part of my small group of friends in high school until he decided to become "popular." He spent two years passing us in the halls without a word, chose to remain in he regular classes instead of honors courses that he qualified for, got invovled with drinking and drugs, and I can only imagine what his dating life was like. Then a whole group of them went to the same college and arranged to live in the same dorm. Now, he has gone back to being a normal guy and told me that he really regrets that whole time period in his life, that he really dislikes the type of people he wanted so much to be with, and is now trying to get his life back together. Another very close friend had her life basically destroyed by horrible ahrrassment and sexual pressure during high school. She's also very smart and talented, but also got involved with drugs, excessive "dating" (you know what I mean by this), and presenting herself in a trashy manner with her choice of clothing and lifestyle. As soon as she got out of that environment and into a large university, she was able to succeed academically and socially. She is now a professional who dresses very classy, enjoys talking about literature and her many artistic interests, and just got married to a very traditional guy.

I could really go on with more examples but my point is that I really worry about leaving my sweet little boy around these kids all day. Some of the kids in his class are great kids and at the moment those are his friends. But there are only 15 kids in the class, so he is really going to have to socialize with all of them. Even the potty-humor girl.

Worrying About Other People's Opinions

2006-08-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

SephardiLady had a great post today about people butting into each other's business. She was specifically talking about people seeing you having a difficult parenting moment, and choosing to make it worse by adding unsolicited criticism instead of either minding their own business or offering to help. But the bigger point is that there will always be people ready to hand out judgement and criticism of everything you are doing. You have to live your life by doing what is right for you and your family, maybe asking the advice of close trusted friends, but not overly worrying about "what will everyone think".

When we moved to our community, we were familiar with one school which we understood was excellent. The friend who showed me around told me that she wanted me to check out the other school also, which is a Religious Zionist program. Based on our research of both programs, we chose the second one and are very happy. It never meant that we thought any less of the other school, just that we selected one that was right for us.

I heard about several people I am acquainted with whose children are in the other school and have a lot of complaints. But it would never be "acceptable" for them to switch schools. Then I found out that a person whose child has very serious issues is switching to our school because he is not getting the help he needs in his current situation. Unfortunately, the father had to add the remark that "some people won't speak to me anymore because we go to the other school."

First of all, I find that really sad. And also, I wish that this father wasn't so overly concerned with what other people think of him. It seems like this comes up in so many of the "issues" - school selection, shidduchim, choosing what community to live in or whether to learn full time or not. People need to take responsibility for making life decisions and not keep doing things that are making them miserable just because "everybody" will think negatively of them. (Plus they might be surprised at how many people applaud their decision if they make it confidently.)

We're Not the Only Ones...

2006-08-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

Church fires teacher for being woman - Yahoo! News

Just thought this was a very interesting tie-in to many of the issues being discussed in the J-Blog world lately about gender issues.

Where People Get Some of Their Weird Ideas

2006-07-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

Instead of a whole explanation of everything that's been going on lately, I will just jump right in with a real post!

I was very fortunate to have attended a serious learning program after I [became religious? became Orthodox? This is a topic for another post but anyway...] I truly believe that I wouldn't have genuinely been mitzvah-observant had I not taken detailed classes on halacha and Tanach. I would have had no framework for knowing the halacha. So I do understand why there are so many BT people who really don't know anything and just ask a rav questions on every single thing without understanding the process behind the answers, and then they do things that are weird.

One big example is, how do you learn the laws of Shabbos without taking classes? A lot of people seem to pick up pieces of information by spending time in the homes of frum people and doing "watch and learn." Which is certainly a component of learning what to do. But the problem is when you don't understand what you are seeing. And I am not just singling out BTs for that issue - people raised in a frum home don't know what parts of their home rituals are halacha, community custom, family custom, etc. unless they have formal halacha instruction as well.

Anyway, I chose to write about this topic because I recently had an experience that illustrated this situation. My husband was raised by BTs who had NO formal halacha instruction. They certainly have their own understanding of a number of things, many of which my husband does differently because of his learning, though there are things that he also has changed more recently as he learned differently. (I am trying to say this in a repsectful way and asked DH's permission to say this.) Anyway, there are a few things that come up that I see DH do/not do on Shabbos that are different than my understanding of the halacha. I almost never bring it up because they are minor things. (I am focusing on hilchos Shabbos only because this is the area that we studied in depth - when it is in other areas, such as holiday observance, I will assume that I am the one who is incorrect because he certainly has way more learning from sources in those areas.)

So after five years of marriage (!), I fianlly asked him what was the deal with putting towels over the pots on the stove erev Shabbos. And he said, "It's to keep them warm." I really thought all this time that it was some halachic thing for him. And I happened to know that it wasn't really halacha. But it gave me a reminder of how other people without that knowledge would approach things they see at people's houses - especially if they either didn't get a chance to ask or the person they asked also didn't know and gave them an incorrect answer. They might go through life believeing, for example, that you had to cover your pots with the kitchen towels, and may even either make up extra chumras about it (like what thickness of towel) or make actual halachic errors -- like not realizing that you actually can't do the covering after Shabbos starts.

Sadly, we personally know a really nice couple who are this type. They take everything that one particular rabbi says literally - even when they admit that it makes no sense to them. The wife does not have any formal learning as far as I know, and the husband is in the "learn Gemara all the time" mode that this rabbi subscribes to, rather than a broader base of halacha and Tanach. Their rabbi has chumras about kashrut so they stopped eating certain KOSHER things. (This rabbi handed out a list of acceptable hechshers and crossed off KSA). Their rabbi told them something about baby care on Shabbos that we believe they totally misunderstood and is now making their life difficult. The husband repeats ideas that he clearly does not understand -- it's like "here's word-for-word what the rabbi said in shul" rather than "I heard a great idea from the rav that I really liked and I want to explain it."

I have a related funny story on the topic of Learning to Daven from "Rabbi Art Scroll" but I will save that for tomorrow.

Buffett to give away billions to charity - Yahoo! News

2006-06-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

Buffett to give away billions to charity - Yahoo! News

Wow.

Trivia question - Jewish communities

2006-06-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

I am trying to post every day - we'll see how long that lasts! =-)

One of my interests, especially since we first did our research before moving, is hearing about Jewish communities where you wouldn't expect them. In a recent article about cities that are growing, I was surprised by one of the cities named and looked up whether there was a Jewish community there. I found a great article about the Chabad family who moved there in 2005, starting the first Chabad in that state. The article said that there are only five states left now with no Chabad.

Can you guess which five states do not have a Chabad, and what the sixth one was?
(It's not a trick question - it's really just the places with almost no Jews.)

P.S. About Our Rabbi

2006-06-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

My husband came home tonight with a great encounter with Rabbi B (from previous post). He came up to my husband and said, "I have something to show you." He pulled out a piece of paper which was a to do list, and one of the items was to call my husband. Then he asked how he was doing and how his parents were doing, and apologized again for not having the chance to call them. He explained specifically the things with which he has been involved (including 4 upcoming weddings that he will be officiating.)

Can't help but compare to our former rabbi who would always say "I was just going to call you" if my husband called him. Only he wasn't just about to call. It was said in a very insincere way, like the kind of thing you say to make conversation. Other times he would promise to call - he even put it in his palm pilot once - and of course no call came. Then eventually my husband would call him and, what a surprise, "I was going to call you."

Anyone can be sincere. Even if Rabbi B wasn't so attentive that he actually followed up with people, I am sure he would sincerely say "I am sorry I have not been in touch," rather than putting on an act.

I really try to focus on people who are doing the right thing rather than go off on what could be endless stories of people doing the wrong thing, but the comparison just had to be made,

Thanks to everyone who is reading and/or commenting. Especially those of you whom I don't know in person.

How a rabbi should act

2006-06-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

I still have way too many thoughts of things I want to post, but this will tie in to both my previous post and my comment on a very thought-provoking post by Shifra. I wanted to start profiling people who act the way we should, so I want to start with the rabbi at our shul.

I first met Rabbi B when he appeared at our doorstep with te welcome basket from the shul. Yes, our community does welcome baskets, and Rabbi B delivers them personally. And not just to "prospective members" -- he was very concerned about getting one to our friends who live in a different neighborhood and wouldn't possibly be joining the shul. He also brought a welcome basket to my husband's parents when he found out they moved here.

But making "first contact" is just the beginning of Rabbi B's attention to his congregants. We have frequently received phone calls from him "just to say hello and see how you're doing." He apologized profusely to my husband when he was not able to be at our daughter's naming at the early minyan. He apologized again for not calling my husband's parents more often - and they have never been to his shul. He then followed up by actually calling them. When he noticed my husband seemed upset about something, he inquired about it and made time to meet with us to basically be a sympathetic listener. He offered a few possible solutions but didn't attempt to solve the unsolvable by giving standard advice like "just have emunah and bitachon."

Rabbi B doesn't only do things to be nice, though. When there are halachic issues in the community, he will address it directly rather than do what will make him popular. One incident that stands out is when he lectured the congregation for allowing teenagers to hang out on the streets on Friday night. He specifically said that it is the parents' fault and it needs to stop. He didn't worry that his wealthy members would take away their funding or fire him -- it is a problem and he spoke out because that's his job. On another occasion, my husband asked him a question regarding an issue that is political in this community -- the status of a particular hechsher (kosher certification). He directly admitted that it was simply a political issue, and told us the truth about the status. We were newcomers, and he could absolutely have just told us "don't use it," but instead gave us all the facts.

Rabbi B is a big contrast to a number of other congregational rabbis who unfortunately do not act in this way. There were a number of rabbis across the "spectrum" who hesitate to rebuke their community because they are afraid of losing the donations. There are too many times that someone feels that their rabbi doesn't care who they are because they are not a big donor. Certainly it is difficult for a rabbi in a large congregation to keep up with all his congregants. But when someone approaches them, do they make the time to talk or brush the person off? Do they allow a more "important" person to interrupt your conversation with them, or do they make sure to give you their full attention? Do they take the time to at least learn the names of the members? (We have a friend who was called ten different names by the rabbi - "I've been Dave, Steve, Leonard, Richard, Ronald, Frederick and Franklin" - and his name is not even close to any of these.)

Making people feel that you genuinely care about them, while also caring enough about their neshamas to rebuke when necessary - instead of just criticizing the behavior of other communities' members....That is how a rabbi should behave, and we greatly appreciate Rabbi B.

Thinking about chesed

2006-06-19T15:26:00.000-07:00

I hope some of you are still reading - it has been quite a while since I blogged. Partly this was because of feeling a bit ill and having several out-of-town visitors including a brief visit from my parents. But mostly it was an old problem that has kept me from ever regularly keeping a journal - having way too many topics I want to write about and not just sitting down to write! (At the moment I have about six articles/posts that I want to comment on saved as drafts.) So I am just going to start with the following:

Renegade Rebbetzin had a post that expressed so well a topic I have talked about before and one which led my husband and I to move across the country a year ago. What does it mean to really help people?

Cool Yiddishe Mama wrote about her friend (whom I know) who is struggling to get help with finding a job and having a place to live and food in the meantime. I have another friend, "Jacob", who has also struggled with extreme financial difficulties for quite some time. A small number of friends have repeatedly helped him out, but he could not seem to find support and help from the community at large. What do these two people have in common? They are both gerrim, not long-standing members of a specific shul community, and have the kind of financial problems that people don't connect to their fellow Jew sitting next to them in shul. Poverty is something that happens to people in Israel or some widowed mother with ten children (chas v'shalom), not to the guy who I see in shul but have never introduced myself to. The rabbis who were involved in the conversions basically abandoned them after a few months. Jacob practicallly begged his rabbi to help him meet people at shul. The rabbi e-mailed about five guys to ask them to invite him to meals. He got one or two invitations, then nothing - even the rabbi only invited him once, and when they got seperated during kiddush he went home for lunch without his invited guest! As Jacob cannot afford to move to the more expensive area near the shuls, he was walking over 2 miles to get to shul. With no invitations, he then turned around and walked back home. Then he was seriously injured and could not attend shul for a long time, and no one noticed.

I could go on -- I could write ten posts about how I was treated as a newcomer when I married my husband and went to NY for him to continue in yeshiva, how we were treated when we tried to get $3000 in pay that was owed to my husband from a rabbi at the yeshiva, how we lived in a building owned by the rabbi of the shul across the street and with a frum manager but neither treated us as fellow frum Jews -- but instead I will try to cntinue tomorrow with examples of things that DO represent how Jews should treat each other and help each other. (There are at least three of my readers that will find their actions in my post!)

Orthodox Apprentice

2006-05-25T03:45:00.000-07:00

I just found the blog Orthodox Apprentice which has great background information about the Jewish finalist Lee Bienstock. It also has an interview with Lenny, who it turns out is a lot less anti-religious than the producers made him out to be.

Some interesting points:

- One of the tasks was during Sukkos and Lee did not take the day off but the comments suggest that maybe he didn't "work" on the task in his usual way. (There is an interesting debate in the comments about whether this is a chilul Hashem, or even a kiddush Hashem.)

- As I mentioned above, Lenny actually liked Lee from the beginjning and claims in the interview that he never had a problem with his taking off time for the holiday, but rather was saying that it is not looked at positively in the working world. He also went to shul for part of Yom Kippur and fasted even as he worked on the task.

- Tarek is quoted with praise for Lee's faithfulness to his beliefs and says that he was surprised that Lee didn't take off for Sukkos.

I haven't finsihed reading the whole site but want to do so before the show tomorrow. Go Lee!

Hurting Other With Words (Part 1)

2006-05-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

Cool Yiddishe Mama writes about one of my "favorite" topics, people who worry so much about tiny details of tsnius, kashrut, etc. but hurt others with their words and actions on a regular basis.

I am not really in favor of the Lesson A Day program -- not because I don't think people should learn the laws of Lashon HaRa, but because I think many people honestly believe that any issue of interpersonal behavior not covered in that one sefer is therefore not a violation of halacha. In fact, the Chofetz Chaim's teaching on proper behavior extend to all aspects of how to treat others. (He even wrote other sefarim!) There are some excellent books that cover a broader scope of the halacha, including anything by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin (especially "Power of Words") and "Journey to Virtue" by Rabbi Avrohom Ehrman. (I love giving this book as a gift, and currently don't own a copy because I gave mine away.)

But then there's the bigger problem that has entered so many of "the issues" -- why does something have to be codified in order to be the correct way to act? Shouldn't it be obvious that Hashem needs us to be Not Mean? Maybe even, NICE? Why should I even have to write a post about "frum" people being rude and thinking it's ok because the exact thing that they said isn't mentioned in Shmiras HaLashon?

Like the person who was double-parked and had a bumper sticker saying "I don't speak Lashon HaRa" (or something like that), and screamed and cursed at another frum person who asked them to move their car, and claimed that "Nothing I just said is Lashon HaRa."

Or a rabbi with whom we were previously involved who had smicha from Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim, emphasized learning the Lesson A Day in his shul, showed the Chofetz Chaim Heritage videos on Tisha B'Av....and yet constantly spoke negatively about former congregants and people he saw as "not frum" (which was basically anyone who did not wear a black hat). My husband was very close with this person and was told these negative things in many conversations. We're talking extremely nasty remarks. Then my husband "parted ways" with this rabbi and -- what a shock -- became the TOPIC of the nasty remarks.

I guess I am a J-Blog now.

Lag BaOmer Mini-Meme

2006-05-18T04:00:00.001-07:00

I was wondering when we would start these! I was tagged by Out of Town and Orthonomics.

It is so hard for me not to listen to music in the car during sefira, so I was really excited to turn on the radio on the way to work. But -- it was ALL talk. Six stations, no music. I'm sure eventually they played something but nothing memorable. The first song that I like that I remember hearing (on the ride home, of course), was "Beautiful" by James Blunt.

I tag Every Artist is a Cannibal. He's a good friend with a great music blog.

Jewish at work - the update

2006-05-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

Unlike several friends who have jumped into blogging with insightful posts every day, I am having a hard time actually sitting down to write. But I wanted to give an update on my accidental experiment into not dealing with religion at work.

Even before I was Torah-observant, I always had a deep sense of my Jewish identity and was often in a position to emphasize it. I always wrote about Jewish topics for history class, and kept a very basic standard of kashrut that led me to openly not eat certain things at school or social events. I stopped eating red meat when I went to a ranch camp where they killed the cows on-site, and continued this new stringency until I got to the kosher cafeteria in college and hated the dairy meals.

Since I was already observant when I entered the working world, I found that I had to bring up early Fridays immediately. So I was pretty open in general about kashrut, holidays, even davening.

In Ohio, Shabbos in the summer doesn't start until after 8:00, and the earliest it starts in the winter is around 4:30. Pesach is over, Shavuos only uses one weekday, and then the only holiday we need off the rest of this year is Yom Kippur. So there was absolutely no reason why I had to bring up early Fridays, and therefore I started the job without anyone knowing my religious business. And I found, quite by accident, that I kind of enjoyed this! I am not actively hiding anything - and certainly not violating any halacha - but I am not putting my beliefs out there or making an issue of kashrut.

I will continue this tomorrow hopefully as there have been some interesting results.

Temp frustrations

2006-05-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

So I was going to post more about the Jewish aspect at work but I am currently very frustrated about the way the temps are being treated. The manager, who is supposed to be my boss, is a sweet and intelligent person who I would love to work closely with - but she is rarely around. Instead, we have a "supervisor" who is the stereotypical mean boss. She is always screaming about something, talks in a harsh manner even in her normal speech, and picks on every little thing. Yesterday she came into the room that i share with another temp, and proceeded to list five things that we were doing wrong. None of these were related to our actual work - I don't think she even knows what we are doing for the boss. She just wants us to LOOK busy. Ironically, within an hour of her tirade, I was in a meeting with the boss being asked my opinion on how to proceed with some changes she is planning, and was assigned a special project for her. So there is no issue with my work habits, but I dread next week when my boss will be out and the supervisor will completely be in charge of us.

I will definitely get back to the Jewish-at-work topic soon. In the meantime, I have started listing some of the J-Blogs that I read and generally agree with. (There are a few not listed that I read regularly because I disagree and enjoy the comments and discussions.) The tuition discussion, because it is close to home, has been particularly interesting. Living Out of Town has a lot of great suggestions, and SephardiLady (Orthonomics) of course has both interesting ideas and detaied links to everyone else talking about the topic.

I want to welcome my friend Cool Yiddishe Mama to the J-Blog world!

Jewish at work...a new perspective

2006-05-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog, I was pretty sure it was not going to become just a Jewish Blog. I read a lot of these and find that most of what I believe has been said very well by others, or can be added as a comment to other blogs.

But when I started my long-term temp job two weeks ago, I inadvertently started an experiment of sorts that I would like to share on this blog. In previous jobs, my religious issues had to come up before I was even hired, as I needed to ask for early Fridays off. And of course, with the emphasis of food in the workplace, I usually was discussing my dietary restrictions with everyone.

So it was a different experience looking for a job in Ohio in the spring, when Shabbos doesn't start until after 8:00 and when, after Shavuos, I won't even need any holidays off this year except Yom Kippur. So I was actually able to interview and accept temporary positions without ever having to talk about religion. (Obviously if I was offered a permanent position I would bring up the distant issue of Fridays, but as you all know from earlier posts, no such offer has happened yet...)

So I will post a bit this week about my new experience of not being indentifiably Orthodox at work. It has been strange, and certainly something I could change anytime by being more open -- but I am enjoying having some aspect of my life private, especially as many of my coworkers are openly Christian and I am not really looking to get into religious conversations with them. And I will probably also blog about "the issues" a bit more soon.

So I know how to fish, now what?

2006-04-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows the "wise" saying, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." it suddenly struck me how inaccurate this really is. It is great to have job training. However, so many well-qualified people are unemployed for long periods of time. And so many other less-qualified people are successful. In fact, there is a more accurate saying, "It's not what you know, it's whom you know."

So going with the original saying, I think the person in question should provide the right fishing equipment to the man, teach him how to fish (although he may already know how), and then provide him an entry into the fishing field by offering him a fishing spot where he will definitely succeed in catching something. (And not just telling him suggested places, but actually brining him there and making sure that the others already there make room for him.) And lend him interest-free some money to live off of while he builds his fishing business.

Here are things people have done for us that are not helpful with regards to jobs: tell me to look at a website, tell me about some vague position they've heard about third-hand and suggest that I cold-call the person who they think might know something about it, tell me about a position that pays minimum wage and/or is 10 hours a week.

Here's what actually helped: lending us a significant sum of money so that we could actually make a dent in our debt, personally delivering my resume to the HR department at the company they work for, serving as a reference, calling to see how we're doing and if we need anything, speaking to potential investors on my husband's behalf regarding a business he would like to start.

Money and power

2006-04-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I wanted to be a teacher or a profession that helps people. My father discouraged this because they don't make a lot of money. (This is a topic for a whole other post...)

Later, I had the idea to make a lot of money in the corporate world as a way to take money from them and use it towards tzedakah -- as an alternate way of helping people.

We just saw the "Lexmas" episode of Smallville which, in my opinion, dealt with a big question: Why does it end up that people who make a lot of money and have power are almost always "bad guys"? Why are there so few people like Bono, who puts his fame and fortune to use as a way to help the world?

In the show, Lex chooses between giving up his family's money but having his wife die because she can't get the best medical care, or being a disgusting person who destroys other people in order to get as much power as possible. As a viewer, I felt Lex had a third option -- he could continue to make money but bring ethics into the picture and be a good person. But reality shows that his view plays out most of the time.

(Of course, the other problem is that people without money can't get even their basic medical or nutritional needs...)

Blog quizzes

2006-03-31T10:45:00.000-08:00

These are always fun!

You Are Kermit

Hi, ho! Lovable and friendly, you get along well with everyone you know.
You're a big thinker, and sometimes you over think life's problems.
Don't worry - everyone know's it's not easy being green.
Just remember, time's fun when you're having flies!

The Muppet Personality Test

You Are Olive Green

You are the most real of all the green shades. You're always true to yourself.
For you, authenticity and honesty are very important... both in others and yourself.
You are grounded and secure. It takes a lot to shake you.
People see you as dependable, probably the most dependable person they know.

What Color Green Are You?

Tired of the Search

2006-03-28T13:42:00.000-08:00

I have been sending out resumes for a few weeks. I am frustrated knowing that most likely I will never get a call from any of my submissions, and it will take some random connection from networking that will finally get me a position. I know I can do these jobs, and do them well. There are some that I read about that I actually feel great about the possibility. Unfortunately, so many of the posts are from agencies and the jobs don't really exist anymore. I am signed up with three agencies, which means I took the typing & Microsoft Office tests, filled out extensive paperwork, and had meetings with the associates -- and so far the only result was being sent out on one interview for a long-term position.

I had an amazing interview at a community organization where we know someone who works there. Our friend brought my resume to HR and they invited me to interview even though there are no open positions. I met with the nice HR person for over an hour -- she said a lot of great things about my experience and that I would be a good possiblity for the possible future jobs opening up. But obviously this doesn't mean anything if there are no open positions right now.

The resume and cover letter game is also annoying. I have seen job descriptions a page long on some of the internet sites, but I am supposed to keep my experience/education/skills/contact info to no more than a page. There is no way to completely describe the many facets of my last job in four bullet points, though I continue to revise and rewrite.

I will continue later this week after I see if I get any more responses to my latest resume submissions.

Thanks to everyone for your support.

Got a few interviews

2006-03-20T13:11:00.000-08:00

I have been a bit frustrated with the slow start to the job search process. Although there is a specific position that I would like, I don't have the "keyword" experience to get picked for interviews when I am one of many applying. And since I need to work, I may have to take a position that is not what I really want to do. I finally have a few interviews, though one is for a job I really don't see myself doing and the other is "in case something opens up in the future."

The most promising, though, is actually not from applying for a job but from a friend passing the resume to a business contact, who passed it to a specific person at another employment agency. So I do have to go through all the ridiculous agency tests again, but the person I spoke to actually has direct hire positions in mind for me.

If I am not employed by the end of the week, I may also try a job fair although I feel very awkward about approaching the recruiters.

So I am feeling less worried about being unemployed, but just frustrated that most likely I will not be progressing in a direction that I want to and instead will be doing the same thing yet again. But at least G-d willing we'll have health insurance and be able to pay our bills.

A friendly community

2006-03-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

It's hard to meet people here in the winter because everyone stays inside, but today was the beginning of spring weather and we had a great Shabbos afternoon very similar to when we first moved here. Everyone walks around visiting each other, people sit out on their lawn, and you meet a lot of new faces. In the 10 minute walk to my in-laws, we ran into friends we hadn't seen in months, who introduced me to a woman walking by that I had spoken to on the phone but never met. Then my son ran ahead and started talking to another little boy, and we ended up schmoozing with the parents for a while.

The best experience like this happened our third day here. We got to Cleveland on Friday and Shavuos was on Sunday night. So on Sunday we were buying food and met someone in the store. She told me that every year her friend gave an open ice cream social on Shavuos, and told me to just show up. I am normally really shy about doing something like that but I thought it couldn't hurt so I went over and there were a ton of people standing around outside. One of them immediately introduced herself, then stuck with me throughout the next hour introducing me to various people. A few weeks later, she arranged a meal with several other couples with kids my son's age so we could make those connections.

To me, this is the true meaning of a community and I love it.

School office issues

2006-03-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

One of the top undervalued professions is the administrative assistant. This person is the first contact for your clients, the one who makes sure things get done on time, and often in charge of financial matters as well. But as usual, they want a highly skilled person for as little money as possible. (Sometimes they don't even want a highly skilled person because they are afraid they will get a better job, so they purposely hire a mediocre person.) During my job hunt, I most often see positions looking for someone with extensive computer skills, often a 20 line list of tasks and responsibilities, and requesting someone with 5+ years of experience -- but the salary listed is $20K. Or they want someone to do a full time job in part time hours so they can avoid paying benefits. (This was my experience at my previous job -- I had to work very hard to convince my boss's boss that the head of a school needs an assistant for more than 15-20 hours a week.)

Anyway, I got a demonstration of this point today when I attempted for th third time to deal with a billing error at my son's school. (They cashed a check but never entered it intot he computer so I am still getting billed.) I had been unable to get a person on the phone, and received no response to my letter, so I went in with the actual check. The front-desk person was helpful, directing me to the billing office and explaining to the person there what the problem was. He essentially said that it wasn't his job and I needed to talk to "Jane." Problem: Jane isn't in the office today (and I got the idea from the ensuing conversation that she has been out a lot lately and falling behind in work.) Helpful office person starts SCREAMING at unhelpful person, right in front a parent (me). Person ignores us and gets on a phone call. Helpful person made a copy of the check and wrote a note for Jane to call me, then continued screaming at unhelpful guy.

But if I approached them about hiring me, assuming they admitted that they were understaffed, I am sure they would offer an insulting salary. And I know that when I bring the situation to the business manager's attention, which I intend to do, he won't care or take any action.

Rule #1 of customer service

2006-03-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

DON'T SMOKE IN THE STORE!

My husband went to get meat and the guy behind the counter (who would be handling the food) was puffing away.

Needless to say, we had to spend extra to get the meat somewhere else!