ARE YOU READY TO HAVE CHILDREN? FIND OUT. TAKE THE TEST!!! LOL

ARE YOU READY TO HAVE CHILDREN?  FIND OUT. TAKE THE TEST!!!   LOL

Test 1: Preparation

Women: To prepare for pregnancy

Put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front.
Leave it there.
After 9 months, remove 5 percent of the beans.

Men: To prepare for children

Go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself
Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2: Knowledge

Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3: Nights

To discover how the nights will feel:

Walk around the living room from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 to 6 kilograms, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
At 10 p.m., put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
Get up at 11 p.m. and walk the bag around the living room until 1 a.m.
Set the alarm for 3 a.m.
As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2 a.m. and make a cup of tea.
Go to bed at 2:45 a.m.
Get up again at 3 a.m. when the alarm goes off.
Sing songs in the dark until 4 a.m.
Put the alarm on for 5 a.m. Get up when it goes off.
Make breakfast.
Keep this up for five years. LOOK CHEERFUL.

Test 4: Dressing Small Children

Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hang out.
Time allowed: 5 minutes.

Test 5: Cars

Forget the BMW. Buy a practical five-door wagon.
Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.
Take a box of chocolate cookies; mash them into the back seat.
Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Test 6: Going for a walk

Wait.
Go out the front door.
Come back in again.
Go out.
Come back in again.
Go out again.
Walk down the front path.
Walk back up it.
Walk down it again.
Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes
Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
Retrace your steps.
Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
Give up and go back into the house. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7: Conversations With children

Repeat everything you say at least five times.

Test 8: Grocery Shopping

Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child -- a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.
Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.
Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Test 9: Feeding a 1-year-old

Hollow out a melon.
Make a small hole in the side.
Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side.
Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an airplane.
Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.

Test 10: TV

Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.
Watch nothing else on television for at least five years.

Test 11: Mess

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:

Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains
Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?
Empty every drawer/cupboard/storage box in your house onto the floor and proceed with step 5.
Drag randomly items from one room to another room and leave them there.

Test 12: Long Trips With Toddlers

Make a recording of someone shouting "Mommy!" repeatedly. Important Notes: No more than a 4 second delay between each "Mommy." Include occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet.
Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next four years.
You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13: Conversations

Start talking to an adult of your choice.
Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mommy tape listed above.
You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14: Getting ready for work

Pick a day on which you have an important meeting.
Put on your finest work attire.
Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it
Stir
Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt
Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture
Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel
Do not change (you have no time).
Go directly to work
You are now ready to have children. ENJOY!!

Life Is 10%

By Toby Lieder                                                                                             August 31, 2015

It is all in the perception. It is through your own unique particular lenses that you, and only you, will see the world the way 'you' do. Nobody else is wearing 'your' glasses. Nobody else came to this age and stage in life where you are right now, with your life experiences. No two people are the same. Even twins have two completely different perceptions of the way the world looks like to them. 

Two people can walk into the same room, see the same people, experience the same environment of conversations, fun and laughter, yet come out with an absolute very different experience one from the other. 

What is it that differentiates us one from the other? That makes one experience joyful and exhilarating and the other, boring and lifeless? What is it that occurs in that same room the exact same setting, same people etc, yet one person is happy and one is sad.Could it be the atmosphere was both happy and sad at the same time?

What is going on here?

I feel the answer lies in ones perception, ones reference, in ones own mind that makes it or breaks it.

I believe that life is 10% what actually happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.

It has nothing really to do with 'the other'.

If we are wearing rose coloured glasses, then the world will look all rosy, right? If we put on a pair of black sunglasses the world would look all dark to us, right?

Its the 'same' world! the world didn't change its colours!

We changed. We put on these or those glasses.

Perception, is the way we see the world. The world, life, people, the schools, the shuls, the community, etc are all neutral. It just is what it is. We put on pink glasses, and it looks all rosey. 

Everything depends on our attitude, our 'way' we look at these things. 

The 'things' are just things. We are the ones that are in the control tower directing our thoughts and perceptions into the right/wrong flight path. We can choose to put on which-ever pair of glasses we want to!

Gevald! Why would we want to choose the black dark story when we can choose the happy rosey one? Next time someone says something negative about your shul or school or community or people or anything that matters, hand them a pair of rose coloured glasses and show them how easy it is to have a happy sweet peaceful way to view the world. 

Its all our choices at the end of the day.

It is all in your own hands.

Imperfect Picasso

i Am Here To Ask Forgiveness Yossi Jacobson On Abuse

Closing Shop on Shabbos. My Story with the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Serious Humor Audio

http://www.chabad.org/600031

The Power of Words

An Incredible Hashgocha Protis Story

The Other Side of the Tapestry                                                              Mrs. Hendrie   St. Paul Minn.



I sat in the hall waiting for the program to start. I felt alone in a room filled with hundreds of people. I had missed my ride to the country. Instead, I was here, in this hall full of chassidic Jews - a stranger in a strange land.

I grew up like any other middle-class American. We were Jewish - and somehow proud to be, but Judaism didn’t play a big role in my life. My mother grew up in Chicago in an observant home, and Chicago is where I lived as a very young girl. I was very close to my grandparents – especially my European grandfather, who was a warm and charismatic man, both a learned rabbi and a successful businessman. One of the most precious memories of my childhood is of Grandpa holding me on his lap while he told me stories of his own childhood – stories that seemed like fairy tales to me then.

He used to tell me about the time when his parents left Europe for America to build a better life for the family leaving him and his younger brother behind to study in the yeshiva, a traditional school of Torah-learning that didn’t exist in the America of the time. He was six years old and his little brother Max only five. The two little boys – practically babies - were left alone in the old country, in a shtetel by the name of Eisheshok. Not only did they study in the yeshiva, Grandpa told me; they slept there as well.

Imagine these two tiny boys only five and six years old, separated from their parents by the width of an ocean long before the days of telephones or airplanes, sleeping on the school benches wrapped in whatever scraps of clothing they had.

Grandpa always told me that the village they lived in was extremely poor, but since the yeshiva had no money to buy food for the kids, the community helped out by opening their homes and sharing what little they had. Often that little was almost nothing. He told me that many days all they had to eat were cucumbers. On Shabbat – the Sabbath – they would get a piece of challah, the traditional Sabbath bread, and a piece of herring in brine. Studying until late into the night, the little boys stood up over their texts up so that they wouldn’t fall asleep. All of this devotion and self-sacrifice was on behalf of one purpose: to ensure that the Torah learning, the laws and traditions of the Jewish people, would be passed down to the next generation in a pure and unbroken chain.

Despite the hardships he described, when my grandfather spoke of his life in the old world, somehow it seemed filled with magic and beauty to me. Although we moved to St. Paul when I was only nine years old, I still saw Grandpa several times a year until he passed away when I was nineteen. By that time I was in college, and living anything but a traditional Jewish life. But I never lost my sense of love and connection to Grandpa, and the world he so vividly described.

My grandfather’s parents worked hard, and by the time he was seventeen years old they were finally able to save enough to bring him and his brother to America. Sadly, when he saw his mother for the first time after all of those years, he didn’t even recognize her.

Nonetheless, the foresight and self-sacrifice of his parents saved his life. Some years later, the Nazis rolled into the village of Eisheshuk. By the time they left, not one Jew was left alive. The pictures of my grandfather’s lost village now cover the tower of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. They tell the story of a world that once was and is no more.

When I stayed overnight at my grandparent’s apartment, as I loved to do, I usually slept in his office. It was lined wall-to-wall with hundreds of Hebrew texts. I was always curious to know more about what was inside those mysterious books. Grandpa told me that his collection was just a tiny fraction of the body of Torah writings. I was fascinated by the thought that any body of wisdom could be so vast, but nobody ever explained what all those books were about, and I often wondered what they could have to say that couldn’t be said in many fewer words.

As a young child I had an unquestioning belief in G-d, as almost all children naturally do. But even so, and although I was so passionately attached to my grandfather, the basics of Jewish law – things like keeping kosher, the Sabbath and other mitzvot (commandments) seemed confusing and somewhat foreign to me.

As I said, my teenage years were typical for America at that time. I went to college, debated philosophies, dated, had fun with my friends. I never forgot that I was Jewish, but the older I became and the more I was exposed to, the more my skepticism grew. Eventually I came to define myself as an agnostic, open still to a more generic spirituality, but not particularly interested in anything Jewish. I had a hard time believing that if there was actually a G-d, He could be very interested in me or my life. And I wasn’t very interested in learning more about the Torah; a document that included a complex set of dos and don’ts that I saw as arcane, burdensome and irrelevant to our modern times. I was far more attracted to eastern spirituality, which seemed both delightfully mystical and conveniently undemanding. I became an East Asian studies major. I also studied Japanese Karate, and was excited by its discipline, its meditative and mystical qualities, its mastery of body and mind. And so, life went on.

In 1973 my beloved grandfather passed away, and my grandmother followed him two years later. At that point, whatever little bit of connection to our Jewish roots my family still maintained began to erode. I knew it was over the year I realized I didn’t know when Passover was – and that there was nobody in my family I could call and ask.

Then one day, out of the blue, my fifteen-year-old brother declared that he wanted to become observant. My reaction was… why??? Judaism is beautiful, sure, but for grandparents, not for you! It belongs in its place - in the past, in our history. Not in our real lives today.

My Journey Begins

But my brother’s Judaism, although he insisted on observing all of the laws, was about much more than simple dos and don’ts. As he began to study, he also began to introduce me to the wisdom that he found so compelling - the vast mystical world of Kabbalah. Although at first I listened just to be a supportive sister, I soon began to be intrigued by the things I heard. And the more I learned, the more intrigued I was. I found Kabbalah to be profound and fascinating – quite unlike anything I had seen or heard anywhere else. It seemed that Kabbalah was able to explain some of the big questions of life – those questions I always was told could not be answered. The more I learned, the more I felt pulled toward Kabbalah, and the more I felt that what I was learning was true – a deeper truth than any I had ever encountered before. I wanted to respond to that truth. So with equal parts of excitement and reluctance, I decided to try two of Judaism’s most central commandments - eating kosher food and observing the Sabbath. But it was a struggle. Even though I resonated more and more with the wisdom and deeper truth that I sensed within the words of Torah and Kabbalah, didn’t really feel ready for an observant life. It was simply too different, too demanding, too foreign to everything I had known before.

Living in Minnesota, hardly any of my friends were Jewish. Nothing about my lifestyle was Jewish. I felt acutely and painfully out of place, caught between two worlds. In addition, I simply felt that the kind of intimate, loving, trusting relationship with G-d that Kabbalah described was too good to be true. How could I be sure that there was a G-d at all, much less one who would notice or care about little me?

So when the opportunity came up to drive to the country that Friday night with some friends – something prohibited on the Sabbath – I was very tempted to go. But at the last minute I decided to give the Sabbath one last try. I said no.

So there I sat, that Saturday night, feeling that I had very little in common with the people – Chassidim – who filled the room, but still curious to get one final glimpse into their fascinating, mystical world.

The Rebbe’s Disciple

The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, who passed away in 1950, on the 10th of the Hebrew month of Shevat. The gathering that night was to commemorate 29th anniversary of his passing.


The white-bearded Chassidic Rabbi at the dais was a disciple of a Rebbe – a great Chassidic Master - whose passing, some 28 years before, was being commemorated this night. The Rebbe was said to be a great tzadik – a righteous and holy man on the spiritual level of Moses himself. He was said to have the power to do miracles and the Divine insight to see into a person’s soul.

His successor, who was living in Brooklyn, was the spiritual leader of the global Chabad Chassidic movement and was said to have, if anything, even greater spiritual stature and powers than his predecessor.

The visiting Rabbi, whose home was in Chicago, was known as an unusually talented speaker, and the small Chassidic community of St. Paul, Minnesota had been trying to book him for ten years. His talk began.

Divine Providence: The Inside Story

“I’m truly happy to be here”, began the Rabbi in a deep, sonorous voice. “It’s Divine Providence that I am finally here with you tonight, ten years after your community first invited me to come.

“In fact,” he continued, “It’s no accident that we’re all here together on this particular night. The Rebbe often quoted the Baal Shem Tov, first of the Chassidic masters, concerning the principle of Divine Providence. He constantly emphasized that everything a person sees, he’s meant to see, and everything that he hears, he’s meant to hear. He taught that whenever something happens that makes a particularly strong impression on a person, that person needs to be aware that this experience was custom-created by G-d specifically for him, in order to give him direction and insight in fulfilling his Divine mission.”

‘So,” the Rabbi concluded, “The fact that I’m here tonight – together with all of you – is surely significant.”

“Divine Providence?” I mused to myself. “That’s an interesting concept. Could it be true? If so, it might be Divine Providence that I didn’t make it to the country and ended up here myself.”

The Rabbi continued speaking. He talked only of the Rebbe, telling stories of his life - stories that illuminated his greatness, his genius, his holiness, his kindness.

Then he began a story that caught my attention. In fact, it riveted me:

A Tzadik Leaves an Impression

“At the time of the holocaust,” he said, “we had a fund. We collected money to distribute to the desperate refugees left in Europe after the war.

“Among those who was there at the time was a man by the name of Mr. Samuel Broida. He was the owner of a kosher meat packaging company in Chicago. He was also the president of our fund.”

“Altogether we managed to collect $180,000; a great deal of money at that time. Mr. Broida was delegated to take the money to Europe, to help a group of refugees who had fled from Russia to a suburb of Paris. When he returned home, he told us that something had happened to him; something he would never forget.”

“This is what he told us.”

“’When I was in Paris,’ said Mr. Broida, ‘I wanted to understand more about how these people lived through the difficult years of the war. So I began to speak to them. I spoke to older people, to middle-aged people, to young couples. Then, at random, I approached a little boy of about eight years old. I told him that I would be returning to America and that I would like to give him something – something special, something that he wanted very much. I asked him what that something might be. It was his answer that I will never forget.’

“So we asked Mr. Broida”, continued the Rabbi, “just what this child had said that was so unforgettable.

“He answered: ‘You have to understand that these people had nothing - nothing at all. They were absolutely devastated by the war. I thought the poor little boy would ask me for shoes, clothes, food, candy, a suit, a hat… but I was wrong. He asked for none of those things. Instead, he said to me, ‘I want to have the merit to go to America and see the Lubavitcher Rebbe someday.’

‘I myself,’ continued Mr. Broida, ‘am not a follower of the Rebbe – not at all. I’ve heard stories of the Rebbe, of his miracles, of the power of his blessings, of his holiness and greatness. But I didn’t really believe them.’

‘However, this child’s parents and grandparents were followers of the Rebbe. They came to Paris from the Russian town of Lubavitch, where the Rebbe lived until some thirty years ago. They lived close to the Rebbe, close enough to see his human flaws.

Now this Rebbe lives in America. But his influence and reputation has not diminished at all. How is this possible? How is it possible for any human being to leave such a powerful impression that he is more real to them than their hunger, their devastation or their poverty? And this was a small child! He didn’t know I would ask him this question. His answer was completely spontaneous. How it is possible that a small child, a poor child, a hungry child, wants nothing in the world but to catch a glimpse of this holy man?’

‘If a Rebbe,” concluded Mr. Broida, ‘thirty years after leaving a place, leaves this kind of impression, then it has to be because he truly is the kind of human being that the world knows nothing of. The kind of human being that I myself assumed could not exist. The kind of human being that is head and shoulders greater than the rest of us. That is what I will never forget.’

Meeting the Rebbe

“After this,” the rabbi said, “Mr. Broida asked me if I would take him to New York to meet the Rebbe for himself. This was 1947, just a couple of years before the Rebbe’s passing. The Rebbe’s health by this time was frail. He had been imprisoned and severely tortured by the Russians who found his powerful religious leadership a great threat to the communist regime. He was able to see very few people each day and there was a long waiting list – but I managed to get Mr. Broida an appointment. And he told me afterwards that it was one of the most profound and incredible experiences of his life.”

“But then,” continued the rabbi, “Something even more amazing happened. A Rebbe, like any person who receives the confidence of others, never repeats a word of what happens in a private audience between him and any other person. If a lawyer or a doctor is bound by confidentiality, how much more so a Rebbe! Nevertheless, after Mr. Broida saw the Rebbe, the Rebbe called me into his office. And these were the Rebbe’s words.”

The Rebbe’s Promise

“‘Mr. Broida came in to me today,’ the Rebbe told me. ‘I asked him about his business, his community work. We talked. And when we were done talking, I asked him: ‘And what are your children doing?’ He burst into tears and told me that of his six children, none were observant anymore. I promised him,’ continued the Rebbe, “that he would have the joy of seeing his Judaism come alive again one day in his grandchildren.”

“I have often wondered since then,” concluded the Rabbi, “what happened to the Rebbe’s promise. Mr. Broida passed away years ago and I don’t know what happened to his family. But one thing I do know. The promise of a tzadik, of a Rebbe, is never made in vain.”

The speech was over. I sat in my seat with tears pouring down my face.

I knew what had happened to the Rebbe’s promise.

Mr. Broida was my grandfather.

There are No Accidents

The Rabbi, that night, began his talk with an explanation of Divine Providence. That was no accident. In fact, nothing ever is.

Though he was only in his fifties, this Rabbi unexpectedly passed a way a short few months after this story took place. If he had not been there at that time, if I had taken the Friday night ride to the country, if he had told a different story, if he had told this one and just not mentioned my grandfather’s name… I would be living an entirely different life. And you would not be reading these words today.

The Other Side of the Tapestry

Our lives are like the reverse side of a great tapestry. From the back, all we can see are the knots, the imperfections, some bumps, some smears of color. It all looks random and chaotic.

Only from the front side of the tapestry is it possible to see how it all fits together. From the front you can see that every stitch and every knot forms an integral part of a vast, magnificent picture.

In life, for the most part, we only see the back. We have to use our intuition, our knowledge, our wisdom, to try to fit the parts together, to guess at the picture that might be on the other side.

But on that night, I, the agnostic, was granted a rare privilege. I was given an open glimpse of the other side of the tapestry.

In that glimpse I saw many things. I saw the complex and awesome power of Divine Providence and the infinite care with which G-d weaves together the events of every person’s unique and personal life. I saw the awesome power of a true tzadik, his ability to see beyond time and beyond worlds, to reach into the reservoir of souls and empower a specific soul to fulfill its destiny, to make a promise and keep it.

And last but not least, I saw that G-d plants messages for us all, and those messages, if we let them, can change our lives. Sometimes they’re big and blatant, sometimes small and subtle. But they are always there if we want to see them.

When I stumbled over my destiny I wasn’t expecting it. In fact, it was the furthest thing from my mind. Sure, I was Jewish by heritage – but, as I said before, I wasn’t even sure that I believed in G-d. But when I ran headlong into an alternate plane of reality, I saw clearly that it was vaster, deeper and far more compelling than anything I had believed possible before.

Racing Toward Destiny

That was 1979. Since then, more than my own life has changed. During the years since then, the train of history has traveled many stops en route to its ultimate destination. And its speed is accelerating day by day.

We are living today in the times spoken of by sages and prophets, in a time of transition between the old order and the new. It is a time of crisis and of awesome possibility. The potential of these times is unprecedented – both for good and ill. It is our choice whether to remain small, confused, helpless and afraid – or, instead, to embrace the G-d-given power that each of us has been given to change ourselves – and our world for the good.

If we choose to turn our backs on our messages, we remain like wanderers in the dark, isolated, disempowered, confused. But if we choose instead to open our eyes, to see and hear those messages, to put the pieces of the puzzle together and see the picture as it actually is, it can make all the difference – not only for us personally, but for the world at large.

The Story Continues

Much more recently, I was privileged to receive another glimpse of the other side of the tapestry – another blatant message from beyond the wall.

One evening, in September of 2006, two of my daughters attended a special inspirational program in Chicago, where they were attending school.

The school typically holds several such programs throughout the year. For most of these they rent space in local synagogues big enough to hold both students and interested community members. On this occasion, however, space was hard to come by. None of the usual venues was available. Only at the last minute were the program’s organizers able to book space in a small synagogue in a not-very-good neighborhood, somewhere they had never been before.

For whatever reason, the organizers also had difficulty finding a speaker for the occasion. However, somebody recommended somebody, who wasn’t available but recommended somebody else, who recommended somebody else…. Finally arrangements were made with a young speaker from New York whom nobody from the school had ever heard of. She was asked to speak about something that would interest and inspire the girls, but the specific topic was left up to her.

As my daughters, fresh from New Jersey, sat in the synagogue hall, here’s what they heard. They heard a story that took place in 1979. They heard a story about a young woman from Minnesota with no ostensible relationship with G-d. A young woman whose life was changed forever because of a story that she happened to hear one cold winter’s evening in Minnesota, told by a rabbi from Chicago, a disciple of the Rebbe. It was a remarkable story of Divine Providence and a message from beyond.

My daughters, that night in Chicago, heard from the mouth of a stranger the story that changed the course of my own life – the story without which they would never have been born. What’s remarkable is that they heard this story from the unknown speaker who had been flown in from New York, recommended by who knows who, whose great-uncle happened to be the rabbi who told me the story –delivered the message from beyond - that transformed my life so many years before.

Like her great-uncle before her, this young woman had absolutely no idea that in choosing her story she was helping to turn the wheel of destiny. How could she know that my grandfather’s great-grandchildren were sitting in that very room? And how could she know that the very synagogue in which they were sitting, the only place they were able to find for their gathering, was founded by my grandfather fifty years before, and the very place where, three times each day for decades, he came to pray.

She did not know – and yet, when the time came for her to add her thread to the cosmic tapestry, add it she did.

The Power is in Your Hands

The Blueprint teaches us to view the entire world as hanging perfectly balanced between good and bad, deserving or undeserving. That means that your one act, no matter how small, can tip the scales. It can literally make all the difference in the world.

When you live in a state of separateness, as if your life’s challenges are random and without purpose, you will inevitably be at odds with, resistant to what life brings. This state of resistance stops the flow; creates a stagnancy that makes things extremely difficult to change.

But when you connect to the fundamental truth of this world – that you, and all of the events of your life, are part of the gigantic, ever-unfolding tapestry, you and your life become one. Your mind will be clear, your heart open and serene, and the choices you make will be the made with wisdom, purpose and power. And because your awareness and your choices are in harmony with your larger purpose, doors will open before you that you could not even see before.

It’s not only that this will change your own life for the better, although it certainly will. But because each of our actions are a part of the whole, the cosmic tapestry, as we move together toward our common destiny, each bit of goodness and G-dliness you bring into your own life will help to bring us all safely home.

*Since the Torah forbids the erasing of G-d’s name, it’s customary to avoid writing it out in full.

Incredible Act Of Kindness

“This is a story that will touch your heart. I am a company leader stationed up north. This occurred on Tisha B’Av and I went with two fellow soldiers to break our fast in Rosh Pina. You can imagine how utterly hungry we were after working all day long. We ate our food and asked for the check. To our surprise a sweet American couple next to us had already paid for it. Needless to say we were blown away to see that there are fellow Jews 6,000 miles away who have such a deep connection and care for us as soldiers. The owner of the restaurant was deep in shock by this act and gave them dessert on the house.”

The Ohhhh And The Ahhhhh Business Before Pleasure!

A Holocaust Story

Subject: Holocaust Story

How My Parents Met

Rabbi Yosef Wallis, director of Arachim of Israel, talks to Project Witness about his father, Judah Wallis, who was born and raised in Pavenitz, Poland:

“While he was in Dachau, a Jew who was being taken to his death suddenly flung a small bag at my father, Judah Wallis. He caught it, thinking it might contain a piece of bread. Upon opening it, however, he was disturbed to discover a pair of tefillin. Judah was very frightened because he knew that were he to be caught carrying tefillin, he would be put to death instantly. So he hid the tefillin under his shirt and headed for his bunkhouse. 

“In the morning, just before the appel [roll call], while still in his bunkhouse, he put on the tefillin. Unexpectedly, a German officer appeared. He ordered him to remove the tefillin, noted the number on Judah’s arm, and ordered him to go straight to the appel. 

“At the appel, in front of thousands of silent Jews, the officer called out Judah’s number and he had no choice but to step forward. The German officer waved the tefillin in the air and said, ‘Dog! I sentence you to death by public hanging for wearing these.’ 

“Judah was placed on a stool and a noose was placed around his neck. Before he was hanged, the officer said in a mocking tone, ‘Dog, what is your last wish?’ 

“’To wear my tefillin one last time,’ Judah replied. 

“The officer was dumbfounded. He handed Judah the tefillin. As Judah put them on, he recited the verse that is said while the tefillin are being wound around the fingers: ‘Ve’eirastich li le’olam, ve’eirastich li b’tzedek uvemishpat, ub’chessed, uv’rachamim, ve’eirastich li b’emunah, v’yodaat es Hashem—I will betroth you to me forever and I will betroth you to me with righteousness and with justice and with kindness and with mercy and I will betroth you to me with fidelity, and you shall know Hashem.’ 

“It is hard for us to picture this Jew with a noose around his neck, wearing tefillin on his head and arm — but that was the scene that the entire camp was forced to watch, as they awaited the impending hanging of the Jew who had dared to break the rule against wearing tefillin. Even women from the adjoining camp were lined up at the barbed wire fence that separated them from the men’s camp, forced to watch this horrible sight. 

“As Judah turned to watch the silent crowd, he saw tears in many people’s eyes. Even at that moment, as he was about to be hanged, he was shocked. Jews were crying! How was it possible that they still had tears left to shed? And for a stranger? Where were those tears coming from? Impulsively, in Yiddish, he called out, ‘Yidden, don’t cry. With tefillin on, I am the victor. Don’t you understand, I am the winner!’ 

“The German officer understood the Yiddish and was infuriated. He said to Judah, ‘You dog, you think you are the winner? Hanging is too good for you. You are going to get another kind of death.’ 

“Judah, my father, was taken from the stool and the noose was removed from his neck. He was forced into a squatting position and two huge rocks were placed under his arms. Then he was told that he would be receiving 25 lashes to his head — the head on which he had dared to position his tefillin. The officer told him that if he dropped even one of the rocks, he would be shot immediately. In fact, because this was such an extremely painful form of death, the officer advised him, ‘Drop the rocks now. You will never survive the 25 lashes to the head. Nobody ever does.’ 

“Judah’s response was, ‘No, I won’t give you the pleasure.’ 

“At the 25th lash, Judah lost consciousness and was left for dead. He was about to be dragged to a pile of corpses , after which he would have been burned in a ditch, when another Jew saw him, shoved him to the side, and covered his head with a rag, so people didn’t realize he was alive. Eventually, after he recovered consciousness fully, he crawled to the nearest bunkhouse that was on raised piles, and hid under it until he was strong enough to come out under his own power. Two months later he was liberated. 

“During the hanging and beating episode, a 17-year-old girl had been watching the events from the women’s side of the fence. After liberation, she made her way to the men’s camp and found Judah. She walked over to him and said, ‘I’ve lost everyone. I don’t want to be alone any more. I saw what you did that day when the officer wanted to hang you. Will you marry me?’” 

The rest is history. Rabbi Yosef Wallis’ parents (for this couple became his parents) walked over to the Klausenberger Rebbe and requested that he perform the marriage ceremony. The Klausenberger Rebbe, whose kiddush Hashem is legendary, wrote out a kesubah by hand from memory and married the couple. Rabbi Wallis has that handwritten kesubah in his possession to this day

"Ghost Parade" Joe Rinaudo at the American Photoplayer

The Top 10 Ways to Make Your Child Feel Loved

Posted by JewishMom on Aug 28, 2012 in Inspiration, Jewish Moms, Motherhood | 0 comments

Over the course of 16 years, parenting expert Erin Kurt worked as a teacher for thousands of children in 5 different countries. And every country where she taught, she asked her young students to write down the answer to a question that fascinated her:

“What does your mother do that makes you feel the most happy and loved?”

Here are the 10 most popular answers she received from those thousands of children:

1. Sing me a song and tuck me in before I go to bed. Tell me a story about when you were a child.

2. Hug and kiss me and talk with me all on my own.

3. Spend alone-time with just me. Without any other siblings around.

4. Feed me healthy food so I will grow up big and strong.

5. Over supper discuss fun things we could do over the weekend

6. In the evening talk with me about life: school, friends, sports, etc.

7. Allow me to play outside a lot.

8. Sit close to me and put your arm around me when we watch a favorite video together.

9. Use discipline with me. That makes me know you love me.

10. Write notes for me and hide them in my lunch for school.

What really blew me away about this list is that none of these yearned-for parental expressions of love costs a cent or even requires leaving our homes…

What our kids want most, it turns out, is not expensive trips and vacations and toys.

Deep down, what our kids yearn for the most is US. Our attention, our love, right here, within these 4 walls.

LOL Children!

BIRTH

ORDER OF CHILDREN
1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.  
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.
_____________________________________________________
Preparing for the Birth:
1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don't bother because you remember that last time, breathing didn't do a thing.
3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month..
______________________________________________________
The Layette:
1st baby: You pre-wash newborn's clothes, color-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau.
2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.
3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?
_____________________________________________________
Worries:
1st baby: At the first sign of distress--a whimper, a frown--you pick up the baby
2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.
3rd baby: You teach your three-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.
______________________________________________________
Pacifier:
1st baby: If the pacifier falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.
2nd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby's bottle.
3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in..
___________________________________________________
Diapering:
1st baby: You change your baby's diapers every hour, whether they need it or not.
2nd baby: You change their diaper every two to three hours, if needed.
3rd baby: You try to change their diaper before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.
_______________________________________________________
Activities
1st baby:  You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, Baby Zoo, Baby Movies and Baby Story Hour.
2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.
3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaners.
______________________________________________________
Going Out:
1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.
2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.
3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.
______________________________________________________
At Home: 
1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children
______________________________________________________
Swallowing Coins (a favorite):
1st child: When first child swallows a coin, you rush the child to the hospital and demand x-rays
2nd child: When second child swallows a coin, you carefully watch for the coin to pass.
3rd child: When third child swallows a coin you deduct it from his allowance!
______________________________________________________
Pass this on to everyone you know who has children .. . .. or everyone who KNOWS someone who has had children. ...
(The older the mother, the funnier this is!)
GRANDCHILDREN: God's reward for allowing your children to live

No Legs! What A Story!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByFUzo9KwryWWkRwUEw4bmZNaVk/view?sle=true&pli=1

On A Scale Of 1-10

Good Video Inspirational

https://www.facebook.com/jewishmedia/videos/10154127752700410/

Yankel My Husband, By The Rebbe

http://youtu.be/NVJuthjKPVU

Rabbi Twerski Composed This Song (Hoshia Es Amecha)

http://youtu.be/HxAgAtSdUCQ

Power Of Prayer

https://m.youtube.com/watch?sns=fb&v=BrUaPFoTPtw

From The Rebbes Talks

LOL

To All My 9 Daughters!

Cute poster

Toby lieder. Traffic Lights. Chaos or Freedom

The Black Spot; All About Focus

The Black Spot

THE BLACK SPOT

One day a professor entered the classroom and asked his students to prepare for a surprise test. They waited anxiously at their desks for the test to begin. The professor handed out the question paper, with the text facing down as usual. Once he handed them all out, he asked his students to turn the page and begin. To everyone’s surprise, there were no questions….just a black dot in the center of the page. The professor seeing the expression on everyone’s face, told them the following:

“I want you to write what you see there.”
The students confused, got started on the inexplicable task.
At the end of the class, the professor took all the answer papers and started reading each one of them aloud in front of all the students. All of them with no exceptions, described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the middle of the sheet, etc. etc. etc. After all had been read, the classroom silent, the professor began to explain:
“I am not going to grade on you this, I just wanted to give you something to think about. No one wrote about the white part of the paper. Everyone focused on the black dot – and the same happens in our lives. We have a white paper to observe and enjoy, but we always focus on the dark spots. Our life is a gift given to us by Hashem, with love and care, and we always have reasons to celebrate – nature renewing itself everyday, our friends around us, the job that provides our livelihood, the miracles we see everyday…….
However we insist on focusing only on the dark spots – the health issues that bother us, the lack of money, the complicated relationship with a family member, the disappointment with a friend etc
The dark spots are very small compared to everything we have in our lives, but they are the ones that pollute our minds.
Take your eyes away from the black spots in your life. Enjoy each one of your blessings, each moment that life gives you.
Be happy and live a life positively!

The Gift Of An Ordinary Day

Benny Friedman, Levi Niasoff - LIVE CONCERT - Besheim Hashem

My Journey Back. Elliot Lasky

http://m.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/2627353/app/jewishtv/jewish/My-Journey-from-the-Fast-Life-Back-to-My-Jewish-Roots.htm

Unbelievable Rebbe Video Never Seen

https://www.facebook.com/100000471269080/videos/1235347933157570/

How To Criticise And Be Future Oriented

Rosh Hashana: What's Love Got to Do With It?

How A Son From Lakewood, Returns

A Boy Tells A Story That Happened To Him

I  had my own experiences in life. Growing up in a small jewish  Orthodox town Lakewood NJ. I was raised by loving and caring parents that always wanted the best for me and were constantly involved in helping others. Unfortunately just like any other teenager I had thought that I was capable of making my own decisions and that I knew what was best for me. I also didnt like taking direction from my parents and over time things escalated to the point that I ended up leaving home at a very young age when I was only 15. I ended up getting involved with drugs and alcohol. In the beginning life was fun and full of partying. All my emotional pain had disappeared. I had always wanted to be accepted by the cool kids and now I had finally felt accepted. Slowly my addiction had progressed and my drug use had started to become fun with a little bit of problems such as not being able to hold a job, relationships weren't lasting very long, people stop trusting me etc. It kept progressing untill it had become mostly problems with a little bit of fun. I had kept letting down the people from the community that had kept trying to help me by offering me a place to live, setting me up with work, and by being there for me emotionally. I had hurt the ones that were close to me since they were the only ones still around. After I had gone to my first rehab when I was 17 only for me to relapse as soon as I had gotten out had made people wonder if I really wanted to help myself. At that point my life had become only problems. I eventually ended up homeless and lived in youth centers as well as on the streets for 3 years. I was torn I couldn't believe were my life has ended up. I was a fun smart joyful kid that had lots of friends growing up and now I was pan handling for change so I can get something to eat with the only things that I had owned were the clothes that were on my back. After reaching out to some people in the community I had convinced them that I was ready and willing to help myself and I ended up going back to rehab when I was 20. This time after halfway through the program I had left knowing that I was completely on my own. I ended up becoming homeless on the streets of LA until I had collected enough money through panhandling and collecting cans that I was able to purchase a flight back to my hometown. I kept getting a few months sober and then relapsing. I've lost many close friends to this disease but that wasn't enough. After being homeless for so long all I wanted was a place to call home so I managed to get an apartment and lived there for 5 years. At 25 I had realised that if I had ever wanted a chance to create a family of my own as well as to live a normal life I would have to make a complete 180 and leave that way of life for good. It was do or die. As expected I had a difficult time getting people to believe that this time I was serious about getting sober. After a month of reaching out I had finally got myself into another rehab in LA. By the grace of God I have managed to stay sober ever since. I ended up meeting someone by the name of Asher Gottesman who is very involved with helping teenagers struggling with addiction. He has taken me under his wings and has provided me with anything I could have asked for and beyond. He has loved me until I was able to love myself and without him I don't know were I would be today. I ended up doing 5 months of treatment and 7 months of sober living and with a lot of hard work I have developed into a productive member of society. Today I have a life well beyond what I had ever imagined when I first made that decision to get sober. I feel it is only right for me to give over what has been given to me. I spend my time giving back to anyone that wants a part of what was so graciously given to me so that hopefully I can provide even it's only a little bit of hope, faith and courage. I am here to tell you that it is possible and that if you want to succeed you will succeed. I have started 2 non profit organisations called Locate the missing and Families Reunited that helps locate runaway teens and provides relief and counseling to there families. They have been very successful with over 60 full time staff that have been responsible in locating over 200 missing people across the world. When I had first heard about the Aleph institute and that there was an opportunity available for me to be able to help other people that are dealing with the very same struggles that i have dealt with I jumped on the opportunity since I can only keep what I have by giving it away. I am especially passionate towards helping anyone that I feel I can relate to on a personal level based  of my experiences.

Marriage - A model for our relationship with Hashem

My Relationship with the Rebbe Video - Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau

You Can Say That Again!

You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old

A friend is someone who reaches for you hand 

but touches your heart

Wherever you are, its your friends who make your world

Its not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years

To have joy you must share it

Winners make things happen, loser’s lets things happen

Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without being discouraged

Nothing is a total loss.

It can always be served as a bad example

Anyone can admit they were wrong. 

The true test is to admit it to someone else

If you ever had a difficult task, 

give it to a lazy person, they’ll find an easier way to do it.

There must be more to life than sitting and wondering if there is more to life

Money cant by happiness, but it lets you be miserable in comfort

It’s nice to be important, 

but its more important to be nice

You cannot make a discovery, 

if you are afraid to make a mistake

No one cares how much you know,

until they know how much you care

A balanced diet is cookie in each hand

Don’t tell Hashem how big your problems are, 

tell your problems how big Hashem is

Hashem created you with two ears and one mouth;

to listen twice as much as you speak

Failure is success, if you learn from it

Happiness is a journey, not a destination

Leave everything a little better than you found it

Until you can see good within a person, 

You are incapable of helping him

You can’t discover new oceans until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore

If you’re like everyone else, 

what do we need you for?

When everyone is coming your way, 

You are in the wrong lane

When something goes out of control, don’t go with it

No man was ever honored for what he received;

man is honored for what he gives

Anger is one letter shorter than danger

There is an instant tea, and instant coffee, 

but theres no instant success

Life is like a bicycle. 

When your ridings are easy, you’re going downhill

Stick up for what’s right, even if you’ll stick out

Focus less on why, and more on what and how

Live as you will die tomorrow; learn as you will live forever

Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% of how we react

Don’t worry about the world coming to an end;

It’s already tomorrow in Australia

Put on a coat and you will be warm. 

Light a fire, and make others warm too

Instead  of  thinking  what  you  need,  think of what you’re needed for

You can never do a kindness too soon, 

for you never know how soon will be too late

You can never see eye - to - eye to a person 

you look down upon

When you point a finger at someone, 

three fingers point back at you

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression

The only problem of being punctual 

is nobody is there to appreciate it

Courage means to stand up and speak. 

Courage also means to sit down and be quiet

True friends are the ones who know everything about you 

And love you anyway

Growing older is mandatory, growing up is optional

When in doubt, use high vocabulary

For one minute of anger, 

you loose 60 seconds of joy

If you fail to plan, plan to fail

Stand up for what you believe in, 

but more importantly, 

believe in what you stand up for.

Laugh until it hurts, cry until it gets better

If something is blocking your way, jump over it

Its not what  you have in life, its what you are

Don’t worry about making an impression,

work on making a difference

Acting good is a giant step closer to being good

Of all things I’ve ever lost, I miss my mind the most

To the world you may be one person,

but to one person you may be the world

One thing we all know about the speed of light,

it gets here way too early in the morning

What most of need, is to need less

I complained I had no shoes,

until I saw the man without no feet

Right when I was getting used to yesterday,

along came today

If you shoot for 100, you may get an 80,

but if you shoot for an 80, you certainly wont get a 100

Stand up for something or you’ll fall for everything

They say that money talks, but mine just knows how to say good bye

You can’t climb a ladder with your hands in your pocket

Life would be much simpler if we were born at age 80 

and gradually approach 16

Junk is something you kept for years and throw out three weeks before you need it

Honesty has one great advantage;

You never have to remember anything

The ladder of life is full of splinters, 

but they always seem to hurt when sliding down.

Everyone brings happiness. 

Some by entering, others by leaving

Don’t let your parents down, they brought you up.

Common sense is the least common of all senses

Insanity is hereditary; you earn it from your children

My mind is like a video machine. When it goes blank, it’s a good idea to turn off the sound

Many people walk in and out of our lives. But true friends will leave footprints in our heart.

Experience is the best teacher, 

and considering the price, it should be.

Friends listen to what you say, 

but best friends listen to what you don’t say.

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary

Thinking is the hardest work there is 

which is probably why so few engage in it.

Everyone must row in the oars that he has

Poor eyes limit your sight.

Poor vision limits your deeds

A rich man is nothing but a 

poor man with money

You can’t cry over spilled milk unless you milked the cow yourself

Most of the things worth doing in the world 

have been declared impossible before they were done

If excellence is possible, than good is not enough

If not for the last minute, 

nothing would ever get done

Everything will be ok in the end. 

If it’s not ok, its not the end.

When I stand before Hashem at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a singlebit of talent left and could say

“I used everything you gave me”.

Emuna is not a belief. Belief is passive. Emuna is active

Instead of trying to live the life you like, try liking the life you live.

Kind words are short and easy to say, but their echos last forever

If you want something done, do it yourself

The best way to get rid of an enemy is to make a friend of him

I ahev a photogenic memory, its just not developed

I don’t suffer from insanity. I’m enjoying every minute of it.

Friends are relatives you chose for yourself

School work wont kill you, but why take the chance?

Before you go to bed, give all your thoughts to G-d, he’ll be up all night anyway.

Everyone should admit thief faults. I’d admit mine if I had any.

Doing nothing is very hard to do.you never know when youre finished

If two wrongs don’t make a right, try three

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

People who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them

Your  mistakes in the past are the keys to your success in the future

The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, others willing to let them.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind

Life is like a bowl of cherries, school is the pits

The brain is a wonderful thing that works from the moment you wake up till the moment youre called on in class

If Hashem brought you to it, He’ll bring you through it.

Knowledge is knowing you can not know.

Every action has a reaction

He has a plan, you just don’t know about it

Silence is a true friend that never betrays you

A man who committed a mistake and didn’t correct it, it’s as if he committed two mistakes

It doesn’t matter how slow you go, as long as you never stop

Light travels faster than sound. That’s why some people appear bright justuntill you speak to them.

Be the change you want to see in the world

A wise man speaks because he has something to say, a fool speaks because he has to say something

The trouble with trouble is: it always starts out fun

Put your brain in gear before you put your mouth in motion

The reward for something well done is to have it done

Don’t burn your bridges after you’ve just used them. Take the material and help others build theirs

Id rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not

Wisdom is knowing what to do, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it

No matter what happens, someone will find a way to take it too seriously

If you give all you’ve got, youll get all you’ve given

How come my road to success is always under construction

You spend the first two years of your childs life teching them to walk and talk and the next 16 teaching them to sit down and be quiet

Before you criticize someone, walk a  mile in his shoes. Tha t way when you criticize them, youre a mile away and you have their shoes

Friends are Gds way of apologizing for your family

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. Its about learning to dance in the rain

Luck never gives, it only lends

I have seen the future and its like the present, only longer

Sometimes you’re the windshield sometimes you’re the bug.

If you feel like you’re under control, you’re just not going fast enough.

The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude towards the problem

Of the thirty six ways of avoiding disaster, running away is always the best

Wish for what you want, work for what you need

The more you praise and celebrate your life the more there is in life to celebrate

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older

Champions aren’t made in the gym. Champions are made from something the have deep inside them- a desire, a dream, a vision.

Life is like a box of chocolates..you never know what youre going to get

Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile

If you have nothing to say, don’t say it

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter

Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?

Take a lesson from the weather. It never pays attention to criticism.

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others: it is the only means.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.

Sometimes the questions are complicated abd the answers are simple

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you  take your eyes off the goal.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if theer is a light from within.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment

A bird doesn’t sing because is has an answer, it sings because it has a song

Keep away from people that belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Whether you think you can or whether you think you cannot, you’re right.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

Twenty years form now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did do.  So throw off you bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance

Whatever the mind can conceive and perceive, the mind can achieve

Its important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle