Mechitza Pizza and Blah Black

Not sure if my kids coined the phrase, but it is vintage Monsey. The pizza store has a mechitza with separate seating.
housed in Shopper's Haven, known in our house as.....the Kosher Mall.

I think we have become more radical than parts of Brooklyn.

It is the chassidish influence , and the taliban is slowly creeping it's way into our lives here in Brooklyn North.

Teachers telling high school girls to think before buying their winter coats, so they aren't too flashy.
Meaning, make sure they are black, gray, navy, boring, dull, and like ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE ELSE.

Weren't there colors (from nature) in the Mishkan? Didn't the Kohain Godol's clothes have color in them?


I wish Jonathan Rosebloom or Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz would write a column about this.

But it isn't as inspiring or life threatening as their usual topics.

Or is it???

Let's make a real Kiddush for Hashem

I shouldn't admit I look at YWN, but I am a furtive lurker like many others.

The story of the man who got lost in Williamsburg because he had a "Lechayim or two" is sad.

Never mind the fact that this yentish website disseminates gossip and idiotic tidbits claiming to be news.
Never mind the fact that when a woman - usually a rebbitzin- dies they briefly mention her name, and then continue on with her husband's great lineage and yeshiva history.

Ha, Ha, Hee, Hee, he had a little too much to drink! He was Fraylich! OH!! AND he was doing a mitzvah! He was being mesamayach a chusun and kallah. It was for a L'chayim, mammash a mitzva!


If this "news" website wants to be helpful to the "oilam", they should say it like it is.

"A man in Williamsburg got lost last night after sousing himself in the middle of the week and acting like a goyish pig, drinking at a wedding like it was an Irish wake. He wandered the streets of Brooklyn, and wonderful volunteers who don't pass judgement (ahem...) spent the entire night searching for this selfish and out of control adult. "

I am sure his family are so proud of his behavior. A real Kiddush Hashem. (a kiddush? for Hashem? bring out the Grey Goose).

Of course it has to be McCain

I do not understand any person that is seriously considering voting for someone with no experience and known association with extreme liberal politicians and activists. I don't care about Obama sitting on a board with someone who forty years ago was an urban terrorist. I care about a President who clearly sympathizes with evil people who espouse destruction and annihilation of specific groups.

I don't usually vote for anyone based on their opinion or support of Israel. The fate of that country is in the hands of G-d, and He is the one who controls everything that happens. I cannot understand people who will vote for an American President based on Israel politics. The president we elect will effect us much closer to home - taxes, jobs, etc.

But in this case, Barak Obama's political stance is to me, not just about Israel, but about supporting democracy vs. accomodating terrorists and evil people. It is about being on the side of friends vs. being on the side of people who hate everything American and Western.

America just doesn't get it. You cannot befriend Iran and Syria. You cannot negotiate or peacefully come to any conclusion with them. They hate us and will not change their mindset or opinions. Ever.

I like to eat but I need Spiritual Nourishment, too.

I don't like to spend the month of Tishrei talking non stop about the cooking and the shopping. I'd like to spend it talking about Teshuva, about renewal, about spiritual growth. I'd like to share insights and thoughts of Gedolim and Meforshim, not recipes by Susie Fishbein. I'd like to spend the weeks after the kids go back to school talking about the new seforim I have read, not the new way to use shallots or the great find from Loehmann's.
But we have eat, we have to be clothed, the house needs to be in order.

So I go shopping and see the cashiers more than I see my parents. I replenish the kirbies and peppers and brown rice and sweet potatoes and diet drinks from Israel. I peruse my cookbooks and use up our yearly quota of red meat within three weeks of meals.

But I hurry through the isles at the grocery stores, and try not to chat about the contents of my shopping cart.

And I think- I am providing an environment for my family where Yomtov is special, it is exciting to prepare for, we do (or eat) special things, but the focus is not the food- it is growth, introspection, development of middos.
I hope my children take that away from the Yomtov table.