I just reread a journal from around Pesach time, and I found something I had written after going to Kever Shmuel HaNavi. As I sat at the kever reading Parshas Chana, two images stood out to me, something like bookends to the story of Chana and her son. The first was the image of Chana at the beginning of the …
You know what I want? To open a new business. The Focused Dating Center. Our motto is “Date without distraction.” Here are the features of this most wondrous place. (If you beat me to it, I won’t sue you. Also, if you work in an office building, maybe you can look around for some space that can moonlight as the …
When was the last time you mailed a handwritten thank you card? This summer, I read a book called A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life, by John Kralik. At the beginning of 2008, the author’s life was in shambles; his law practice was on the fritz, he was going through a …
In high school, one of my friends once asked me, “How do people go through the nisayon of being single for years?” At that time I had a sister in shidduchim for a while and had wondered the same thing. And it occurred to me: no one goes through a nisayon for years. They go through it for days. …
This summer, I bought one of those detailed coloring books for adults but I abandoned it after a few days. Maybe some people find coloring in such intricate pictures to be relaxing, but not me! But recently one of my friends told me that I had to try coloring again — any kind of coloring. She told me to try …
Tonight I did a free writing class for Chanukah from Yocheved Rottenberg of Write Your Way Home. (I’m sure if you contact her through the site, she’d send it to you). The following is what I wrote for one of the exercises, a Captured Moment from a Chanukah gone by. I walk across the expansive dining room to the …
Rav Dessler writes in Michtav Me’Eliyahu that it’s natural for someone to start a Y”T on a high and then slowly lose enthusiasm over the course of the chag. (Think about the difference in the atmosphere on the first night as opposed to the last afternoon of a Y”T, if you can relate). Not so for a Jew who is …
As we know, no tefillah is ever wasted. After davening for a number of years for a yeshua that hasn’t yet come (in an obvious manner), I wrote a list of ways my tefillos and tears might have been put to use: To keep me healthy To keep me safe from danger To protect my family and all the people …
This is the work lunch that makes me happy to be at work 🙂 You know those build-your-own-salad bars at the bagel or pizza store? You can recreate the same experience at home by putting together your own tossed salad. Here are some components you can include: a base of romaine, mixed greens, etc. cherry tomatoes cucumbers red onion sliced …
Continuing on in Parshas Lech Lecha, the past week when we were learning, I got excited over a few things we read in Rashi. I just felt that they were things I had learned more than once before but never understood deeply and related to my own life. Hashem promises Avraham Avinu that he will have children, “[a]nd He took …
