Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Mazel Tov Pessy Wilhelm
Mazel Tov Pessy Wilhelm & Yakov Tatosky. May You build a Bais Neeman Byisrael!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Reb Shlomo Carlebach -The Last Seder In The Warsaw Ghetto
Another great email I got today, I thought the family would enjoy.
An audience with Rav Moshe
The following is an email I got today I decided to post it, in honor of Yom Hashoa.
An audience with Rav Moshe: When as a teenager the author met the reveredRabbi Moshe Feinstein, he got a lesson in the meaning of the Holocaust.
by Isaac Steven HerschkopfSpecial To The Jewish Week
I could not have been more than 4 or 5 when I asked her. It seemed to me, atthe time, to be an innocent, straightforward question: "Mommy, when do I getmy number?"
I was, of course, upset when she burst into tears and ran out of thekitchen, but I was also confused. This was Washington Heights in the 1950s.It was an enclave of survivors. Every adult I knew had a number. Even myteenage sister had one in blue ink tattooed on her forearm.
They were as ubiquitous on the benches of Riverside Drive as they were onthe footpaths of Fort Tryon Park. If you saw an adult with some sort of haton his head, he invariably also had a number on his arm. In the summer, when the community traveled en masse toCatskill bungalow colonies, or to Rockaway beaches, the numbers came too.I presumed it was a ceremonious part of becoming bar mitzvah, or perhapsgraduation from Breuer's or Soloveichik, our local yeshivas. No one appearedto be embarrassed by their number. ARG! I never saw anyone try to cover itup when they went swimming. It seemed to be a matter of fact part of life.When, as children, we would ask our parents why there was a "Mother's Day"and a "Father's Day," but no "Children's Day," the automatic response was"Every day is 'Children's Day'!" In Washington Heights, in the '50s, everyday was Yom HaShoah.
Ironically enough, at the same time, no day was Yom HaShoah. Thecommemoration, as it exists today, was not around then. Breuer's andSoloveichik consisted almost exclusively of children of survivors, yetneither school had any assembly, or recognition of any type, of the Shoah.The very word Shoah didn't exist. The word Holocaust did, but it was neverinvoked. When on rare occasion our parents would make reference to theevents that led them to leave Europe to come to America, they would label it"the War."They spoke nostalgically of life "before the War"; they never spoke of whathappened during "the War."
They spoke reverently of their parents andsiblings who were "lost in the War"; they never spoke of their spouses orchildren who perished. After all, they had new spouses and new children whodidn't need to be reminded that they were replacements.I was already bar mitzvah when I first realized that my parents had beenpreviously married and had prior children. Years later I was shocked todiscover that my sister with whom I was raised was not my father's daughter.When I finally came to understand that not every adult was a survivor, andpeople would ask me what survivors were really like, I never knew what toanswer. There was Mr. Silverberg, our seatmate in shul, as jovial as SantaClaus, who always had a good word for everyone. On the other hand, there wasMr. Grauer, our neighbor whose face was indelibly etched in a frown and wasalways threatening to hit his wife or his children. In retrospect, as apsychiatrist, I could understand both, but who truly defined what it meantto be a survivor? Did anyone, or anything?
I learned the answer from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.
This gadol hador, the greatest sage of his generation, was so renowned hewas referred to simply as "Rav Moshe." The closest I came to this legend wasat Yeshiva University High School, where my rebbe was his son-in-law, RabbiMoshe Tendler. Rabbi Tendler, and every other rabbi, would speak of RavMoshe in awe-stricken tones usually reserved for biblical forefathers.One summer I was spending a week with my aunt and uncle in upstateEllenville. Uncle David and Aunt Saba, survivors themselves, as the doctorand nurse in charge of the concentration camp infirmary, had managed to savethe lives of innumerable inmates, including my mother and sister. After "theWar" they had set up a medical practice in this small Catskill village,where, I discovered, to my amazement, they had one celebrity patient - RavMoshe.
My aunt mentioned casually that Rav Moshe had an appointment the next day.Would I like to meet him? Would I? It was like asking me, would I like tomeet God.I couldn't sleep that night. I agonized over what I should wear. Should Iapproach him? What should I say? Should I mention that his son-in-law was myrebbe? Should I speak to him in English, or my rudimentary Yiddish?I was seated in the waiting room, in the best clothing I had with me, anhour before his appointment. It seemed like an eternity, but eventually hearrived, accompanied by an assistant at each side. He didn't notice me.I was frozen. I had intended to rise deferentially when he entered, but Ididn't. I had prepared a few sentences that I had repeatedly memorized, butI sensed that my heart was beating too quickly for me to speak calmly.My aunt had heard the chime when he entered and came out of the office togreet him: "Rabbi Feinstein, did you meet my nephew Ikey? Can you believe ashaygitz [unobservant] like me has a yeshiva bochur [student] in thefamily?"
Rav Moshe finally looked at me. I was mortified. My aunt was addressing himirreverently. She was joking with him. She had called me Ikey, not Yitzchok,or even Isaac.Then it got even worse. She walked over to him. Surely she knew not to shakehis hand. She didn't. She kissed him affectionately on the cheek as she didmany of her favorite patients. She then told him my uncle would see him in aminute and returned to the office.Rav Moshe and his attendants turned and looked at me, I thought accusingly.I wanted to die. In a panic, I walked over to him and started to apologizeprofusely: "Rabbi Feinstein, I apologize. My aunt, she isn't frum[religious]. She doesn't understand..."
He immediately placed his fingers on my lips to stop me from talking. Hethen softly spoke two sentences in Yiddish that I will remember to my dyingday: "She has numbers on her arms. She is holier than me."
Rav Moshe had understood what I had not. Our holiest generation was definedby the numbers on their arms.
Dr. Isaac Steven Herschkopf is an attending psychiatrist at the NYU MedicalCenter and the author of "Hello Darkness, My Old Friend: Embracing Anger toHeal Your Life." This excerpt is from a forthcoming memoir.
An audience with Rav Moshe: When as a teenager the author met the reveredRabbi Moshe Feinstein, he got a lesson in the meaning of the Holocaust.
by Isaac Steven HerschkopfSpecial To The Jewish Week
I could not have been more than 4 or 5 when I asked her. It seemed to me, atthe time, to be an innocent, straightforward question: "Mommy, when do I getmy number?"
I was, of course, upset when she burst into tears and ran out of thekitchen, but I was also confused. This was Washington Heights in the 1950s.It was an enclave of survivors. Every adult I knew had a number. Even myteenage sister had one in blue ink tattooed on her forearm.
They were as ubiquitous on the benches of Riverside Drive as they were onthe footpaths of Fort Tryon Park. If you saw an adult with some sort of haton his head, he invariably also had a number on his arm. In the summer, when the community traveled en masse toCatskill bungalow colonies, or to Rockaway beaches, the numbers came too.I presumed it was a ceremonious part of becoming bar mitzvah, or perhapsgraduation from Breuer's or Soloveichik, our local yeshivas. No one appearedto be embarrassed by their number. ARG! I never saw anyone try to cover itup when they went swimming. It seemed to be a matter of fact part of life.When, as children, we would ask our parents why there was a "Mother's Day"and a "Father's Day," but no "Children's Day," the automatic response was"Every day is 'Children's Day'!" In Washington Heights, in the '50s, everyday was Yom HaShoah.
Ironically enough, at the same time, no day was Yom HaShoah. Thecommemoration, as it exists today, was not around then. Breuer's andSoloveichik consisted almost exclusively of children of survivors, yetneither school had any assembly, or recognition of any type, of the Shoah.The very word Shoah didn't exist. The word Holocaust did, but it was neverinvoked. When on rare occasion our parents would make reference to theevents that led them to leave Europe to come to America, they would label it"the War."They spoke nostalgically of life "before the War"; they never spoke of whathappened during "the War."
They spoke reverently of their parents andsiblings who were "lost in the War"; they never spoke of their spouses orchildren who perished. After all, they had new spouses and new children whodidn't need to be reminded that they were replacements.I was already bar mitzvah when I first realized that my parents had beenpreviously married and had prior children. Years later I was shocked todiscover that my sister with whom I was raised was not my father's daughter.When I finally came to understand that not every adult was a survivor, andpeople would ask me what survivors were really like, I never knew what toanswer. There was Mr. Silverberg, our seatmate in shul, as jovial as SantaClaus, who always had a good word for everyone. On the other hand, there wasMr. Grauer, our neighbor whose face was indelibly etched in a frown and wasalways threatening to hit his wife or his children. In retrospect, as apsychiatrist, I could understand both, but who truly defined what it meantto be a survivor? Did anyone, or anything?
I learned the answer from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.
This gadol hador, the greatest sage of his generation, was so renowned hewas referred to simply as "Rav Moshe." The closest I came to this legend wasat Yeshiva University High School, where my rebbe was his son-in-law, RabbiMoshe Tendler. Rabbi Tendler, and every other rabbi, would speak of RavMoshe in awe-stricken tones usually reserved for biblical forefathers.One summer I was spending a week with my aunt and uncle in upstateEllenville. Uncle David and Aunt Saba, survivors themselves, as the doctorand nurse in charge of the concentration camp infirmary, had managed to savethe lives of innumerable inmates, including my mother and sister. After "theWar" they had set up a medical practice in this small Catskill village,where, I discovered, to my amazement, they had one celebrity patient - RavMoshe.
My aunt mentioned casually that Rav Moshe had an appointment the next day.Would I like to meet him? Would I? It was like asking me, would I like tomeet God.I couldn't sleep that night. I agonized over what I should wear. Should Iapproach him? What should I say? Should I mention that his son-in-law was myrebbe? Should I speak to him in English, or my rudimentary Yiddish?I was seated in the waiting room, in the best clothing I had with me, anhour before his appointment. It seemed like an eternity, but eventually hearrived, accompanied by an assistant at each side. He didn't notice me.I was frozen. I had intended to rise deferentially when he entered, but Ididn't. I had prepared a few sentences that I had repeatedly memorized, butI sensed that my heart was beating too quickly for me to speak calmly.My aunt had heard the chime when he entered and came out of the office togreet him: "Rabbi Feinstein, did you meet my nephew Ikey? Can you believe ashaygitz [unobservant] like me has a yeshiva bochur [student] in thefamily?"
Rav Moshe finally looked at me. I was mortified. My aunt was addressing himirreverently. She was joking with him. She had called me Ikey, not Yitzchok,or even Isaac.Then it got even worse. She walked over to him. Surely she knew not to shakehis hand. She didn't. She kissed him affectionately on the cheek as she didmany of her favorite patients. She then told him my uncle would see him in aminute and returned to the office.Rav Moshe and his attendants turned and looked at me, I thought accusingly.I wanted to die. In a panic, I walked over to him and started to apologizeprofusely: "Rabbi Feinstein, I apologize. My aunt, she isn't frum[religious]. She doesn't understand..."
He immediately placed his fingers on my lips to stop me from talking. Hethen softly spoke two sentences in Yiddish that I will remember to my dyingday: "She has numbers on her arms. She is holier than me."
Rav Moshe had understood what I had not. Our holiest generation was definedby the numbers on their arms.
Dr. Isaac Steven Herschkopf is an attending psychiatrist at the NYU MedicalCenter and the author of "Hello Darkness, My Old Friend: Embracing Anger toHeal Your Life." This excerpt is from a forthcoming memoir.
Travel on a Budget
I found this post on the Regal Home Source blog I thought I might share it.
Summertime is coming and while the kids are itching to get out of school for those glorious few weeks, their parents’ relaxing daydreams of changing seasons and warm weather are starting to turn into feelings of doom and gloom. Everyone is feeling the pinch of tighter budgets and smaller amounts of extra money; so many families are scrapping summer vacation plans and are starting to prepare their offspring for the long summer of nothing to do. Maybe you can’t take that trip to Europe this year, or that cruise to Hawaii, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a fun away from home, and you won’t have to sell your house to afford it. Here are two destinations you can plan that won’t break the bank.Washington, DC – The District of Columbia isn’t for everyone, but for those families with kids that love to learn and experience history, this is one of the best and inexpensive destinations there is. Hotels in the area (and in safe locations) can be found for below $100 a night and nearly all of the most popular sites are free and open to the public. You can spend a day getting lost in the Smithsonian, and kids are very impressed with the sheer size of the monuments and buildings around the city.State Parks – When I was a kid, my family went on a lot of camping trips. We would ‘rough it’ in the site closest to the bathhouse and would make sure there was an outlet so we could plug in our radio or television set. Camp site rentals are very cheap, and you can get tents on sale from most national retail chains. You can even rent equipment from stores like REI if you have one in your area. A word of caution: the most popular parks (like the ones next to the ocean) fill up very fast, so you should plan now to get a good space.If you have other places you like to go, feel free to comment!
Summertime is coming and while the kids are itching to get out of school for those glorious few weeks, their parents’ relaxing daydreams of changing seasons and warm weather are starting to turn into feelings of doom and gloom. Everyone is feeling the pinch of tighter budgets and smaller amounts of extra money; so many families are scrapping summer vacation plans and are starting to prepare their offspring for the long summer of nothing to do. Maybe you can’t take that trip to Europe this year, or that cruise to Hawaii, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a fun away from home, and you won’t have to sell your house to afford it. Here are two destinations you can plan that won’t break the bank.Washington, DC – The District of Columbia isn’t for everyone, but for those families with kids that love to learn and experience history, this is one of the best and inexpensive destinations there is. Hotels in the area (and in safe locations) can be found for below $100 a night and nearly all of the most popular sites are free and open to the public. You can spend a day getting lost in the Smithsonian, and kids are very impressed with the sheer size of the monuments and buildings around the city.State Parks – When I was a kid, my family went on a lot of camping trips. We would ‘rough it’ in the site closest to the bathhouse and would make sure there was an outlet so we could plug in our radio or television set. Camp site rentals are very cheap, and you can get tents on sale from most national retail chains. You can even rent equipment from stores like REI if you have one in your area. A word of caution: the most popular parks (like the ones next to the ocean) fill up very fast, so you should plan now to get a good space.If you have other places you like to go, feel free to comment!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
MAZEL TOV!!!!!
I passed another test in my EMT course. Five down and Two more to go before the state exam.
Motzai Shabbos
We had A beatiful Shabbos at home by ourselves without company, except for Yakov Ostroy in the after noon. He is eal cute. check him out at http://ostroyfamily.blogspot.com/.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Can You Name Anyone In This Picture?
This picture was taken first day Chol Hamoed in the Palisades Mall.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Beatiful Yahrtzeit Seudah
Zaydie`s Yahrtzeit Seudah was held at Uncle Shulem`s house in Lakewood with a live phone hook up to Montreal, Brooklyn, and Detroit. In Brooklyn a delicious meal was served and was attended by Uncle Suchie & Shea, the Hirsch`s from Passaic, a well as the Chopp`s. In Montreal we had Uncle Ari, and Detroit we had Uncle Tuli and gang. Moshe Hirsch Jr. from Lakewood learned the first Daf of Arvei Psechaim.
It was a beautiful event may we share in only Simchas from now on.
It was a beautiful event may we share in only Simchas from now on.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Zaydie`s Yahrtzeit Seudah
Zaydies Yahrtzeit Seudah will take place tonight after Bidikas Chometz at the Axelrod home.
If anyone has any pictures of Zaydie, please email me so we can post it.
If anyone has any pictures of Zaydie, please email me so we can post it.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Our Third Anniversary (Engagment)
It`s been three years since we got engaged but since i could not dig up an engagement picture i used one from our Vort.
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