Teens and Twenties

When I was fourteen years old I understood that I might never return to Moscow and live at home with my parents. While I had lived the bulk of my life in Moscow, at the start of high school I was going to assimilate into the American system of education and the world of American teenageism. I was excited.

Can you be happy for 100 days in a row?

I passionately believe that focusing on healthy habits for people of all sizes is so much more important than focusing on weight loss.

Unless you are one of the lucky few who were born with picture perfect hair immune to frizz and flyaway's, you have got a few curly hair problems - just like me.

Whenever I got praised for an achievement, I feel like I should say that half the praise goes to my parents. Although they can get on my nerves, I am really blessed with a mother and father who have molded and shaped me (by any means necessary) to become a successful human being.

Hashem gave the Jewish people the special privilege to keep kashrut. Kashrut is a decree that we just do because God commanded us to; we do not understand why we are doing it. When one keeps kashrut, he only eats pure, fit, and halachically permitted food. Even when one eats non-kosher food unintentionally, the non-kosher food becomes a part of a person and has harmful effects. Hashem is making us keep kashrut because He loves us; Hashem only wants the best for us and our health.

Turbulence. There is Turbulence Up here. In the air.

Every moment was a gift. I held each one, savoring.

When is a concert not just a concert? When it’s a Mishkon concert, of course! Unlike any regular concert, when a band comes to Mishkon the campers are the stars. At a regular concert, everyone sits in the dark on cushioned seats. Not in Mishkon!

I walked into the trap he set, And there a terrible fate I met.

I can feel the fear pulsing through my veins, blocking out everything around me. I walk down the long, unembellished hall, which is dimly lit with fiery torches at every bend. I can’t help but wonder if it was purposely built this way to terrorize me. As I slowly edge towards the doors, I keep telling myself it’s going to be fine…but what if it’s not? I can feel my stomach twisting as I turn the last corner and come to a complete stop.

“I have a room,” she said. “Saturday I will move in. My church is paying for it. I’m here today and tomorrow, hopefully that will give me enough to get an air mattress, and then I will never do this again.” I wished her luck, and I walked away, feeling moved by the interdependence all humans have on each other, and with a deeper understanding of just how much we get when we give.

If you look up the word "role model" in the dictionary you will find the following definition: "a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people.”

Growing up, I remember my father’s Rosh Hashana ritual. He read the story of Rabi Amnon of Mainz, who had his tongue, hands and legs cut off for refusing to convert to Christianity – for choosing to remain a Jews. I would run away from the table sobbing in terror. Even at the tender age of six, I knew that being Jewish made oneself a member of an endangered species.

In the hands of a child with talent, passion and persistence, an instrument can change a life.

Imagine, sitting through nine classes each day, not understanding the material being taught, and failing many subjects. This would be a terrible school experience.

I hear a beat, I know the sound I feel a skip, One that I’m used to I see a picture, But this one is new I cry of pain, Because I know this is real.

He strengthened his resolve Knew his life he would lose, But when the king uttered the words With great pride he refused.

Picture this; Mr. Smith is driving down on the Brooklyn Bridge, eager to get to work on time. At the corner of his eye, something flashes. He turns to look at an electric billboard. BOOM…CRASH…BANG… he’s been hit. That billboard took more than his attention - it took his life.

Shining faces and broad smiles surrounded me and I knew my own face had a silly grin plastered on it all evening.

He is anyone at all who just simply does not know how to ask, whether scared, uneducated, or yes, young. He represents the people who simply do not know enough yet to ask the serious questions of the chacham.

A small shoe a rusted silver bell a worn blanket a sign of the glory it once had The First Stage of Life

Never sacrifice the people who matter for anything of lesser importance...

When the train has departed the station, Fresh of food and of saturation, The journey ahead excites, With all the could bes and the might's,

They say there’s no bigger nightmare than starting to go out / You’re playing emotional mind games that involve another’s feelings, no doubt / Your hopes atop a roller coaster, but soon to be set in loops / Where you’ll have to make good conversation again, over your cream-of-broccoli soup.

This past Friday it was finally almost official. It was going to happen. Be’ezras Hashem.

The importance of death customs has been ingrained in me since birth. When I served as a shomeret for my grandmother, I was instructed not to eat, drink or perform a mitzvah in the same room. In the shock of death, it seemed rather inane to be told it would be considered mocking the dead. My grandmother was gone; she couldn’t do those things because she didn’t exist anymore, a fact that still makes me tear up.

One of my favorite movies to watch growing up was Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. On a whim, I decided to watch it this past weekend, taking a break from intensive LSAT studying. Julia Roberts plays a woman who works at her family's small-town hardware store. She has earned a notorious reputation for ditching her fiancée on her wedding day.

I am naive, but only in an optimistic sense, seeing the good in the world like only a 20-year old can.

Students in the Lubavitch Senior School in London were asked to recreate a historical event. Miriam Ives, age 15, wrote a letter to a newspaper in the guise of a soldier during the Crimean War.