Rebbetzin's Viewpoint

Special Note: I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt appreciation to the many people who have written to express their good wishes for hatzlacha upon the publication of my new book, "The Committed Marriage." These letters are very meaningful to me and have given me much chizuk. Please forgive me if I cannot respond to each letter individually, but during the coming months I am scheduled to speak throughout the United States and I look forward to greeting you and personally signing your copy of my book.

As Jews and Americans, we have a special obligation to show our gratitude to Hashem. This obligation takes on special significance this year. Baruch Hashem, we have been witness to yeshuos Hashem - the salvation of G-d. While we could have expected terrible calamities to befall our brethren in Eretz Yisrael as the war was raging in Iraq, HaShem protected them.

Dear Friends: Before responding to your specific concerns, I would like to make some disclaimers: 1) Please bear in mind that whatever reasons I advance in response to your questions will not be definitive. 2) My column is not a forum for halachic discussion - that is in the purview of our rabbis.

I was recently invited to speak to our Jewish brethren in Australia. Prior to my arrival in Sydney, I received a phone call from a local resident asking if I could find a few minutes during my stay to visit her elderly, ailing father. She went on to explain that as a young man, her father had been in a slave labor camp in Szeged, the city of my birth in Hungary, where myfather, Rabbi Avraham HaLevi Jungreis, zt'l, was the Chief Orthodox Rabbi. Prior to our deportation to the concentration camps, the Hungarians conscripted all the Jewish young men for slave labor, and our city, Szeged, was one of the major gathering places in which they were assembled prior to being shipped out.

Special Note: In last week's column I shared with you the first part of a letter from an American gentile who lives in Munich, Germany, describing the covert and overt anti-Semitism that continues to plague that country, and for that matter, the world. The letter once again reinforces the old truth, we remain "one lamb among 70 wolves" and those wolves stand ready to pounce upon us and devour us. We dare not forget that we have only One Friend, and that is Avinu She'Bashamayim, our Heavenly Father.

Special Note: A Kollel young man, while recuperating from illness read my book, The Committed Life, and with great chesed and hakoras hatov, took the time to write an in-depth letter (which will appear in two parts) to explain his views on the book and how it impacted on his life. I am pleased to share with you his analysis and insights. He is right on the mark! I wish him a refuah shleima and mazal and bracha and thank him for the chizuk that he imparted.

Dear Rebbetzin Jungreis:Last year, I read your book, "The Committed Life," and ever since, nothing has been quite the same for me.

Special Note: In last week's column I wrote about the very painful situation in Israel, but as the tragedy keeps escalating, I once again feel impelled to share some thoughts.

So many images keep crowding my mind. Images that do not allow me to rest or feel at peace.

Special Note: Several weeks ago, I published a letter from a young kollel wife who wrote of the conflict that she was experiencing in trying to be an akeres habayis - wife and mother, and at the same time a breadwinner for her family.

Special Note: I am interrupting the sequence of my columns regarding Kollel wives to comment on the events that have unfolded during the past few days.

Special Note: A few weeks ago, I published two letters - one from a Kollel wife, the second from a young woman who was aspiring to become one.

In last week's column, I published a letter from a young family who had started life as secular Jews and later became ba'alei tshuva.

Dear Rebbetzin Jungreis: My husband and I are the proud parents of six children, bli ayn hara. We are Yeshivishe people and live on a modest, tight budget.