Posted on: June 19th, 2014

It’s written, it says, with all the segulos for shalom bayis and you gave it as a gift to a chassan and kallah.

Posted on: June 12th, 2014

As I listed the litany of tragedies, as I perceived them, my mother responded by saying: “Who’s had a terrible life? I’ve had a wonderful life. I had your father for 40 years until he was taken from us. I had you and your brother. I lived to see grandchildren.”

Posted on: June 3rd, 2014

Our son-in-law e-mailed tickets for us to print out and bring along to allow us admittance. Simple enough.

Posted on: May 29th, 2014

“Daddy,” I exclaimed, “Is this how you daven?” Daddy’s response was a hearty laugh. I felt so proud of myself.

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Posted on: May 21st, 2014

There were two pokerfaced police officers standing at our door.

Posted on: May 14th, 2014

She always had a smile, and put her best foot forward – as hard as that might have been.

Posted on: May 8th, 2014

In fact, if the Mother of the Year Award featured a category for best worrier, I would be a major contender.

Posted on: May 1st, 2014

Put a coin in the Meir Baal Haness box every day and ask Reb Meir Baal Haness to find the lost kallah,” Ella told me.

Posted on: April 24th, 2014

In disbelief the doctors said it was not their doing but rather a true miracle that such a choleh could survive this illness.

Posted on: April 24th, 2014

I vowed that when I would grow up, I would speak Yiddish to my kinderlach and I would move to “a place called Crown Heights.”

Posted on: April 14th, 2014

Two husbands were there to instruct us in Texas hold ‘em – and we needed them.

Posted on: April 10th, 2014

As his bomber lost altitude with the ground rushing up, my father remembered his last thought: “How am I going to get out of this?

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Posted on: April 3rd, 2014

Even in the best of times, life is not free of calamity or crisis. But like the well-known Jewish expression goes: “It could be a lot worse.”

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Posted on: March 27th, 2014

Predictably, my husband agrees and is fine with either night. But after reminding him that he steadily delivers a shiur in his shul on Tuesday nights, he chooses Wednesday, offering a topic related to the Four Sons of Haggadah fame.

Posted on: March 20th, 2014

I insisted that one decoration, a dancing sevivon (dreidel) man, remain hanging in recognition of the chag. Some in my family questioned the appropriateness of this decision. Was it proper to have decorations hanging in what would soon become a house of shiva?

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Posted on: March 13th, 2014

So this is what she got herself into: serving chicken soup and getting bits of rent on random days. She couldn’t say it wasn’t worth it, as she was earning both a chesed and a little bit of cash.

Posted on: March 6th, 2014

He exhorted all of us to continue to reach out to one another each and every day because that is what our tafkid (life’s goal) should be. And because that is what Hashem requires of us.

Posted on: February 27th, 2014

It is my family’s minhag, for many generations, to light the candles 30 minutes before shekiah, as opposed to the commonly held custom of 20 minutes. So I told my husband that those 10 extra minutes should not be an issue.

Posted on: February 20th, 2014

I was pretty open [and naïve] about accepting dating suggestions. There was the Israeli that spoke little English with whom I could barely communicate, the brilliant scholar who I discovered was manic depressive, the frum hippie that was still more hippie than frum, and a slew of others – all interesting, but not for me.

Posted on: February 13th, 2014

Shimon’s early years were not easy ones. His mother struggled to support both of them. She never acquired the knowledge needed to help her son through school years filled with homework and tests.