Lessons In Emunah

Why don't we just sell it? That way not only won't we have the expense of painting it, but we'll have extra cash as well.

My husband and I were honored to attend a Hachnassas Sefer Torah celebration this summer at our upstate summer home in Elm Shade Estates. We have had a summer home for many years. We were always privileged to have a special, devoted friend take care of all the things that needed attention there - from ensuring that the grass was cut to keeping the shul spotless for Shabbos.

“If you have children, you are a millionaire. And if all of your children have children, you are a billionaire.”

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

“My mother raised us to independence, all of us,” Rivka says, which certainly plays itself out in the fact that all three children have taken a different path.

At the age of 32, he discovered he was Jewish. Michael was born to a gentile, Greek father and a Belgian mother, whom he assumed was gentile as well. When Michael married his Catholic girlfriend, Susan, his mother still did not divulge her background.

Rosh Hashanah memories take us to our shuls, homes and families. They remind us of promises made about how we would change our lives and rearrange our priorities. There may also be memories of the delicacies we ate when we were children – the chicken soup, gefilte fish and great desserts. And one sound, the sound of the shofar blasting away with its shrill notes of tekiah, shevarim... and finally the long, very last sound – the tekiah gedolah.

On December 31, 2009, my father was diagnosed with cancer. Sadly, almost everyone will be touched by this horrible disease in one fashion or another. I have had many friends who have been affected by cancer, but they were younger and stronger than my dad, or Tatinke, who is 84.

I calculated on my fingers. She was now up to week 27. Yehuda hung up, but he sounded very upset. I wished I could help, but I had no idea what to do. So, I turned to my Tehillim.

Something beautiful happened last summer while I was visiting my daughter and her family in Toronto. I was shopping at Sears and did not realize that I had accidentally dropped my wallet on the floor. I only realized what had happened after returning home. It was upsetting when upon returning to the store to inquire, no one had turned it in. But I then had to return home to Montreal.

Off my friend and I went to search for the skirt. After trying the regular racks, we decided to search the clearance rack, which was completely disorganized.

The current situation with Syria reminds me of an episode that occurred in January 1991 in Toronto. I had taken my son for swimming lessons while my wife stayed in the car, anxiously listening to the news about Israel. Those were very tense times, with Iraq threatening to attack Israel with chemical weapons, God forbid.

This was the Sixties, and they shared the ideals of their adolescent children. Pro-civil liberties, anti-war – the epitome of unaffiliated, liberal Jews.

He sat in his prison cell sulking. I'll call him Steven. Time was playing tricks on him. It seemed like only yesterday, but at the same time like a lifetime ago, that he was married to a wonderful woman and had children who were the joy of his life. He had a high-powered job on Wall Street and luxuries that the average person couldn't imagine.

The five-year-old boy was in a church in Puerto Rico with his parents. As they and his grandparents were Catholics, that made him Catholic – as far as his young mind could figure.

Last Shabbos morning, I reached for my siddur and started to daven. When I opened up the first page and saw the Ma Tovu prayer, I unexpectedly started crying.

It was only later in the day, during afternoon carpool, that things abruptly spun out of control. Literally.

When the Nazis began their hunt of on October 1, Rosh Hashana night, most Jews were already hiding in fishing villages along the coast.

The rav found the exchange humorous and happily shared it with my husband, who subsequently told it over to me.

As I was sitting at the computer writing about my dream baby, I suddenly wondered, "Where is she? She is too quiet." So I turned around to see what she was doing. I had left her sitting behind me with toys to keep her busy, and she had been playing nicely. As she was no longer there I went to look for her, and found her happily sitting on the bathroom floor, surrounded by a pile of ripped tissues. Okay, back to my story. Now you might wonder who "they" are. It's those folks who come up to me and say that my baby's feet are cold without socks; her head is baking in the sun without a hat; she's too hot with that blanket over her. Oh, the joys of living in Israel, where we are all family.

We were reintroduced and Leah warmly welcomed me to ask what was in my heart. Her genuine warmth and sweet loving smile overwhelmed me.

In Eretz Yisrael, it is customary not to remain in a house without a mezuzah for even one day. This placed the rav in a quandary. What were they to do?

To the surprise of our protectzia-invested acquaintances, my family has thrived in our daled amos without that amenity, b’ezras Hashem.

Our poor daughter well remembers her highly-anticipated bat mitzvah trip with us to Israel, that unfortunately fell far short of her expectations.

Our most recent attempt at sending two greeting cards to our children in the USA proved to be a comedy of errors if ever there was one.