Tuesday, 12 January 2016
Dating. By Rabbi Manis Friedman
How to Date the Jewish Way: Don’t Marry a Man or a Woman. Marry a Husband or a Wife.
Are you looking for a man to marry?
I advise you not to.
You see, men don’t really make good husbands.
Men have opinions. And any man you marry will have his own set of wants and needs. He’ll have own plans. His own schtick. But you yourself already have your own opinions. Your own wants and needs. Your own schtick.
See the problem?
In other words, you’re asking for trouble. For a marriage to work, you need to find a husband. Not a man. And you need to be a wife. Not a woman. There is a profound difference.
Today, we’re inundated with unhealthy messages about relationships from the outside world. So much so that even the most pious of Jews can fall prey to foreign points of view. As a result, most of us wish to meet a man or a woman whom we like and then make this person our spouse. However, this is the product of assimilated thinking. It’s not Jewish.
The reason it doesn’t work is because you can’t take a “man” and turn him into a husband. Neither can you transform a “woman” into wife.
A marriage can only work when each partner is fully committed to the other. A man or a woman makes his or her own needs primary. ‘What’s in it for me?’ Therefore, since no two people can agree on everything, men and women clash. And when they don’t feel they are getting what each of them wanted, they separate.
But a husband or a wife makes the needs of his or her spouse primary. The focus is not on meeting selfish wants and needs. Rather, the goal of a husband and wife is to strengthen their bond through selfless acts of giving and devoted service to one another.
In the old days, people valued the duties and responsibilities that come with marriage. It was understood that a good marriage requires sacrifice. Today, this idea is far less intuitive for most people.
It’s time we regain our focus. You
Monday, 11 January 2016
Warm story......You Never Know
I'm sure you get those emails as well. Usually it's from some non-jewish religion student, asking if they can interview you for their course about Judaism's view about G-d-knows-what. In our busy schedules we often brush them off or ignore the emails all together.
Early on in our Shlichus, my wife and I decided that no matter how busy life gets we would take the time for those one-off encounters, random emails and facebook messages.
About 3 years ago, I got a call from a 7th grader. He explained that his teacher asked him to interview a religious leader about the traditions of marriage in their religion. Even though he was not Jewish he had chosen to explore Judaism's view on marriage and asked if he can come interview me.
We scheduled an appointment and a few days later he came to my office together with his nanny, who had driven him to see me. For an hour or so, he drilled me with the questions he had been given by his teacher, and some of his own as well. Quite a serious kid, so much so that this encounter stands out in my mind. The nanny said but 2 words - she just sat in the back of the room, minding her own business. They bid farewell and I thought nothing of this encounter.
Today, a frum-looking woman walked into the Chabad house during davening. She sat quietly in the last row. During kiddush she told some of the women that three years ago, she was a nanny for about 3 months. One day, she had brought a 12 year old boy to ask me questions for a school project. She sat quietly, listening to our conversation about Jewish marriage. At the time, she was living with a non-jew and as a result of that random encounter she left him and began her path back to Judaism.

Never forget the power of a random encounter, email or call. There is someone on the other end reaching out to you in their time of need, sometimes its Hashem reaching out to them and you are just the shliach!
A gut voch!
Yisroel barnath
That's who it happened to
Toby Lieder
Early on in our Shlichus, my wife and I decided that no matter how busy life gets we would take the time for those one-off encounters, random emails and facebook messages.
About 3 years ago, I got a call from a 7th grader. He explained that his teacher asked him to interview a religious leader about the traditions of marriage in their religion. Even though he was not Jewish he had chosen to explore Judaism's view on marriage and asked if he can come interview me.
We scheduled an appointment and a few days later he came to my office together with his nanny, who had driven him to see me. For an hour or so, he drilled me with the questions he had been given by his teacher, and some of his own as well. Quite a serious kid, so much so that this encounter stands out in my mind. The nanny said but 2 words - she just sat in the back of the room, minding her own business. They bid farewell and I thought nothing of this encounter.
Today, a frum-looking woman walked into the Chabad house during davening. She sat quietly in the last row. During kiddush she told some of the women that three years ago, she was a nanny for about 3 months. One day, she had brought a 12 year old boy to ask me questions for a school project. She sat quietly, listening to our conversation about Jewish marriage. At the time, she was living with a non-jew and as a result of that random encounter she left him and began her path back to Judaism.

Never forget the power of a random encounter, email or call. There is someone on the other end reaching out to you in their time of need, sometimes its Hashem reaching out to them and you are just the shliach!
A gut voch!
Yisroel barnath
That's who it happened to
Toby Lieder
Sunday, 10 January 2016
Thursday, 7 January 2016
I Want A Boy Who Is Learning!
I want a boy who is LEARNING....
Learning from his mistakes....
Learning from the mistakes of others....
Learning how to give without expecting anything in return....
Learning how to forgive others for their shortcomings....
Learning how to find true אמת in a world brimming with שקר....
Learning how to take no for an answer....
Learning how to accept the will of השם when life gets stormy....
Learning how to utilize the tools השם gave him to become a better עבד השם ....
Learning how to find good in the frustrating nuances that happen throughout his day....
Learning how to grow and become A BETTER HIM.
I want a boy who is WORKING....
Working towards a greater goal....
Working on his מדות a little bit more each day....
Working on strengthening his relationships with his rebbeim....
Working on improving his relationships with his family and friends....
Working on deepening his connection to הקב"ה daily....
Working on giving life all he's got....
Working on thanking השם for all the little things in life....
Working on finding השגחת השם in everything that happens to him throughout his day....
Working to overcome his natural negative tendencies....
Working on bringing משיח a little bit closer every day....
Working on growing and becoming A BETTER HIM.
THIS is the person I want to marry.
Just learning? Only working?! Forget that idea! I want BOTH.
Wednesday, 6 January 2016
Technology Is Killing Our Kids!
Prescott, Ariz.
In the far corner of the desolate looking yard outside Mountain Oak Charter School, a boy of 9 or 10 is digging a hole. A few other children are standing nearby, periodically checking his progress and taking a turn with the shovel.
Mountain Oak is a charter school that offers an education inspired by Waldorf, a progressive model that encourages exploration of the natural world and rejects the use of technology in the classroom and even in the home. When I ask later in the afternoon about the ditch digging, eighth-grade teacher Jeffrey Holmes smiles. “Oh, they’re playing Minecraft,” he says, referring to the popular online game. Last year “they had a whole system of ditches and they were bartering with rocks too.”
In addition to eschewing technology, the schools tend to delay formal reading instruction—say, until the age of 7—and testing, and to reserve kindergarten entirely for imaginative play, especially with blocks and natural materials such as leaves and other things found outdoors. Students at all levels receive extensive instruction in music and art. They also do physical exercises in the classroom to break up their lessons.
But this model is no longer limited to private education. In recent years Waldorf-inspired charter schools have begun popping up—there are almost 50—especially in the West. Mountain Oak is one of the older ones, launched in 1999. It serves about 150 students in grades pre-K through 8, about half of whom receive a free or reduced-price lunch.
Mountain Oak students perform at the state average on tests, but the school has been given an A grade by Arizona’s state education department because of the academic improvement its students experience compared with their peers with similar backgrounds at public schools. Unlike parents at the private Waldorf schools, though, many Mountain Oak parents must be persuaded by teachers that the elimination of tablets, smartphones and even television at home is an important part of this success.
Sunshine Reilly, who lives on a farm near Mountain Oak and has a son in sixth grade there, recalls putting him in front of the television for hours a day when he was a toddler while she did chores. It wasn’t until he started kindergarten that she understood that the screen time was hurting his ability to entertain himself, to enjoy books and even to like playing outside.
Teachers at Mountain Oak say they can walk into a classroom and immediately tell who has been using devices at home. “We see it in their behavioral problems, their ability to reason, their cognitive skills, even their ability to communicate with other people,” one teacher tells me.
Jennifer McMillan, who teaches kindergarten, says she has to “have the conversation in a gentle way.” Many of these parents simply don’t understand the effects that staring at a screen can have on children’s behavior and their ability to learn.
Why would they? Most schools that cater to low-income children are trying to get them more technology, not less. Los Angeles spent $1.3 billion in 2013 to put an iPad in the hands of every child in the district. Schools show parents these shiny new toys as evidence that they are giving their children a leg up, helping to bridge the so-called digital divide.
While there’s evidence to suggest that poor children are slightly less likely to have access to laptops and tablets, those without are a pretty small slice of the population. According to a Pew report this year, “Fully 87% of American teens ages 13 to 17 have or have access to a desktop or laptop computer.”
For families earning less than $50,000 a year that number is 80%. As for a racial divide, Pew found that African-American teenagers are more likely to own a smartphone than any other group of teens in America.
What no one tells low-income families is this: The real digital divide is between parents who realize the harmful effects of technology on their children and try to limit them, and those who don’t. It’s the difference between parents buying wooden blocks this Christmas and those racking up more credit-card debt to buy a Leap Pad.
Research backs this up: In December the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, published a studyshowing that electronic toys hinder verbal development. An article in the journal Mind, Brain and Education found that traditional toys “sparked higher quality conversations.”
The teachers at Mountain Oak say they have the toughest time trying to reduce media use among children in single-parent households. Typically these mothers tend to be younger and less educated, and it is very tempting after a long day at work to come home and turn on a screen to keep a child occupied. The teachers keep prodding anyway.
Felicia Fishback, who is recently divorced, has never liked videogames, but once she started sending her four children to Mountain Oak, she realized that these were making her oldest son’s behavior worse and hindering his academic performance. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and was gaining weight from a lack of physical activity.
Now her children are not allowed any screen time during the week and a little on weekends. “Mountain Oak,” she says, “has made me a better parent.”
Ms. Riley is the author of “Got Religion: How Churches, Mosques and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back” (Templeton Press, 2014).
This Is Love
The elderly man in his eighties, hurried to his doctor appointment at 8am. He wanted to finish quickly because he must be somewhere by nine. The doctor asked what the next appointment was. He proudly said that at 9am every morning he is at the hospital to eat breakfast with his wife. The doctor asked in what condition his wife was in. The man said that his wife had Alzheimers disease, and for the past 5 years she hasn't known who he is. The doctor was surprised and asked the man why he continues to go faithfully if she has no idea who he is....the old man replied, " because I still know who she is. "
<3 this my friends, is real love..... <3
★¨`*•♫.•Pass it on!! Give someone else a reason to smile. ♫ ..•* ★
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