Lessons In Emunah

Berta had no inkling about the journey she and Michael were going to take... For a year following the wedding, Berta’s mother kept bringing non-kosher food into their apartment; she had difficulty accepting the young couple’s choice to learn more about Judaism.

In the end, though the young daughters had been crying while the verbal abuse was going on, they now saw how the effect a kind word and a smile could change everything.

And while I’m already in full-blown kvetchy mode, now may be as good a time as any to mention the mess!

Even though we know the score can even change once we are up there (through the mitzvos that our performed in our merit), what we must seriously keep in fresh in our mind is that our interactions have a lasting impact and a value for eternity.

It had just passed its test, when a friend offered us a newer car for a very reasonable price. It was a shame to just discard our old ‘friend’ but we also knew it wasn’t sellable.

The lovely lady in charge asked me to sing “Happy Birthday” over the telephone. I noted that that night, Rosh Chodesh Tammuz WAS actually my birthday. I sang and I was accepted.

There may not be another puzzle piece that meshes with mine, and if so, then that is what Hashem wants. Then again, there may be one that does. Who knows?

So we just turned a blind eye to the sorry state of our chairs and prayed that they would hold up in the meantime, and that no one would get hurt chas v'shalom.

Bentzy's heart was heavy as he thought of the implications of his tiny careless move… Hashem, he pleaded, help me figure this out!

Mynah birds are very good at adapting to new places and ousting the native bird populations. The crows and sparrows have all but disappeared since the mynah bird invasion of our neighborhood.

I look up from time to time, my eyes focused in the same direction. Six kilometers distant is the Kotel, where people are praying, putting a note between the stones.

Geula was not the same as it is now. There were so many shopkeepers that lived there. Some were religious, some not. But it was a community. We all were one. And Ruti and I would go everywhere together.

My mother always prayed they would get to their 50th anniversary. They were blessed to have celebrated their 60th anniversary, too. Their love was a perennial one, always there, year after year.

Instead of completing my online purchase within a few minutes once we arrived, I was dismayed to encounter any number of unfamiliar error messages, particularly the warning of potential credit card fraud.

Curiel has been researching his family tree for decades and has learned some astounding facts. There was a Rav Israel Ben Meir di Curiel, a Sage in Tzfat, who sat on the Beit Din in the 16th century along with Rav Yossef Caro. There were also 35 Jews named Curiel murdered in the Holocaust.

When Mrs. Rosner was done with her account of the saga, I told her, Mrs. Rosner, my food is really good. I want you to keep whatever you took and enjoy it in good health! Just remember to heat it up before Shabbos as everything tastes better when it’s warm!

My husband, Chaim, felt it was his obligation to create a Kiddush Hashem at every moment in his life. He felt strongly about dressing as a chareidi Jew wherever he went.

It was a wretched situation for my father, my mother and me – an only child – who had left my job to look after my mother; we had no idea where to turn, what to do.

He continued with his barrage of insults, which The Jewish Press surely would find unfit to print, and this was in front of the whole congregation. Thousands of men became silent, trying to understand what Reb Chaim did to deserve such treatment.

My childhood was filled with a tremendous amount of stress and abuse. By the time I was three years old, that stress had manifested in a physical illness, Crohn’s disease.

His oldest daughter, aka my granddaughter, had given the bright orange rubber bracelet to him several days earlier, and not wishing to insult her, he was still wearing it. It had been distributed by Hatzalah and their number was printed prominently on it.

While, it’s very sad that so many people have to wait so long for their bashert, predominantly, it isn’t their fault. We try to find reasons why people aren’t married and tell them if only they tried this segulah, that event, that matchmaker, this person… they would be married.

During the day, except for the number which had been branded onto his arm, similar to what used to be done to cattle, no one would know that the smiling, sweet, hard-working Moshe had such a nightmarish past.

Maybe the family had decided to obtain some other tefillin. He didn’t know. But he was sure that Hashem had guided his steps to just this spot to save his father’s tefillin which had obviously been discarded in error.

Avadim hayenu – we were slaves in Egypt. I looked around the table, wondering what our new Russian friends were thinking, if they were recalling their time as Jews in the modern slavery of the oppressive, antisemitic USSR.

The first Shabbat after we moved into our house, we decided to go to shul. This was not out of any religious fervor, more an acknowledgement of our new start, a new phase in our lives – and curiosity to see what the people were like.

Mommie assumed that within three days’ time, I would forget what I had experienced, but through a series of different occurrences, I did, in fact move to Crown Heights, as a young married woman, with my dear husband, as well as my long-awaited kinderlach who are indeed brachas from the Rebbe!

I knew the exact address was one of three buildings. I would just look for this unique family name on those three buildings’ entrances and I would find where to go. But just at that moment my mind froze, and I couldn’t think what that unique name was.

Eventually one of her daughters persuaded her to go to her doctor and after some tests he diagnosed early onset dementia. It was a tremendous shock to everyone, but the children realized that they would have to learn to help her and their father come to terms with this new reality.

Later at night I got a phone call from my younger sister that lives up north in Israel. She wanted to talk to me about an incident that happened between us, which she felt she had never really asked forgiveness for. I couldn't remember anything and it took me some time till I understood what she was talking about.