Chickies!

When I was in WITS, preparations for Purim started officially right after Chanukah ended. Shabbos zemiros started to include the more "chazzanish" Shoshanas Yaakov, Mishenichnas Adar, and of course, everyone's favorite in Milwaukee, Chayav Inish.

Once Adar itself hit, the pranks and shtick would start. Seniors usually led the way, but every grade was doing stuff, while the Beis Medrash guys would be putting up hilarious signs and having an "election" for Purim Rav, replete with campaign stickers, ads, buttons, and the like. The pranks would sometimes lean into the extreme, and the most commonly used prop to add a little life to any good idea was to insert dummies. This was usually incredible - WITS is a huge old mansion on the shores of Lake Michigan (bought for $600,000 when it was worth ~$1.5m at the time) with a grand entrance hall, so there's a nice area to set up themes. When I was a freshman, the seniors set up a full-scale bar, complete with a drunk and a bartender. As a sophomore, the seniors built a jail cell, including a guy pleading with his hands stretched through the bars, a guy sleeping, and a guy throwing up into a toilet (which they'd inserted into the cell). Once in a while, the dummies would go a bit too far; the class that hung one out a front window to be Haman resulted in cops showing up, as people driving by thought they saw something a little less innocent.

Rosh Chodesh, though, was typically the beginning, and was a smaller prank. Taking the whole school's shoes and spelling out "100" in a construction area where $100 fines were assessed for going, spelling out Adar in the main hall... cute but nothing too special. This year, it appears that the seniors at WITS went all out on cuteness, buying up a bunch of baby chicks and then, during breakfast, letting them roam free. Later, they gathered them up* and brought them to the science lab, learned a little about how to take care of them (positioning lights to keep them warm, etc.), before sending them at the end of the day to the Wisconsin Aviary. Here's a video with a few pictures and a few seconds of video:

Enjoy! :)

* Whenever I think of animals roaming free during a prank I think of the classic prank letting pigs/cows/sheep numbered 1, 2, and 4 roam free through a school and watching the school gather them up.

Observing Depression

Via Chana, the latest edition of Stern College's paper, The Observer, is out. In addition to a well-done interview with our favorite smiling friend, Jameel of the Muqata, this issue's main thrust is depression, particularly as it pertains to the Orthodox community. I've just spent time reading through every one of the pieces on the subject, and credit is due to The Observer's staff for doing a fantastic job in covering as much on the subject as could be hoped for in such a publication and more.

From Chana's post:

Those of you who remember Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot's groundbreaking article entitled "Dimensions: A Young Man's Story of Torment: Surviving Depression," which was published in Jewish Action in 2001 will be thrilled to see he has followed it up with an interview he has given us at The Observer. The interview includes his thoughts on how depression is perceived by the Jewish community now that it's been 8 years since his original article, how he came to write that piece, and other thoughts and suggestions regarding depression.

As part of our powerhouse lineup on the series, we also have an interview with Dr. David Pelcovitz on depression. This offers a different point of view, because rather than discussing the issue from personal experience, Dr. Pelcovitz answers in his capacity of psychologist.

See the rest of our articles on depression and mental health in the Features section.

R' Helfgot's interview is interesting and extremely clear; Dr. Pelcovitz's is illuminating from the other end. The aforementioned Features section covers depression by giving an overview of depression in addition to discussing it as it pertains to YU and Stern, how it can affect shidduchim, and of course by discussing mental-health helpers and organizations. It is an interesting, informative, and important issue, and again - kudos to The Observer on a job very well done.

EZ Reads, 2/26/09

A little less out there today, but still some cute stuff and food for thought:

• Wolf asks if there's any personal integrity left out there. Honestly, there is; but at the same time, I'm consistently dismayed by how often even some good friends of ours shrug off personal responsibility, communal responsibility, honesty, low-level theft, etc. It's really troubling.
• The OU Job Board is offering free Quickbooks classes.
• This piece on Freakonomics is difficult to sum up - just read it, it's fascinating.
  
• EoZ has a few good ol' Jewish jokes that will bring a smile to your face.
• Indexed notes how two people can see the same thing a bit differently. Cute.
• Freakonomics asks people to say who the smartest person they know is. Feel free to submit your own.
• A cute and interesting piece in the WSJ asking economists the best way to spend $8/week Obama's tax cuts will net.
  
• Gil posts about the problem religious diversity creates for a man of faith, then addresses why he does not think it's a problem. The discussion is at some points rather interesting as well.
  
• R' Aviner has an interesting explanation about why we pasken like Beis Hillel now, though we may follow Beis Shammai when Mashiach comes:

  We must understand that Beit Shammai discusses the world in the future in which our world will have a reality more appropriate to the stringent positions of Beit Shammai. Beit Hillel intended positions more compatible to our current world.

  I think that applied, this would be a good lesson to internalize in general regarding psak and our approach to chumros in specific. There needs to be an appropriate understanding of when we should be strict and when we need to live in this world.
  

Check it out.

3.55T

$3,550,000,000,000.

Just to put the spending called for so far by the Obama administration and Congress into perspective, that's over $10,000 for every single man, woman, and child in this country.

You might wonder why the government doesn't just give that money to every man, woman, and child in this country instead of wasting it on garbage; for a poor family with a couple of kids, that would be $40,000. Imagine how much debt would be paid off, how many foreclosures would be avoided, how many banks would feel a huge increase in capital, how much reinvestment would occur... it would be wonderful, right? You might wonder...

So do I.

(Yes, I know I'm oversimplifying. Point still stands.)

I'm Lost

...about what is so great about Lost. My first year in Stern, my roommate was OBSESSED and she bet me that if I watched the first three episodes, I'd be hooked. So I watched the first three episodes and decided not to get hooked. Besides, I didn't like the way it overdramatized EVERYTHING.

But, somehow, it is still a super popular show and a friend of mine just started a blog about it. For anyone who is into Lost, it looks like a great place to lose yourself. (Just laugh, won't you?)

Oh yeah - I have to plug it. Here.

Enjoy!

Let's Just Say

...that the Jewish Economics Survey were to be utilized for/turned into a workshop of sorts. What would you want to hear discussed? What would draw you to such an event, since "Budgeting - How Tuition Will Bankrupt You No Matter What" is not such an enticing title? What information are you curious about, and what would you want to learn?

Assume that the crowd would be primarily from a younger crowd, but that there will be plenty of others as well.

This is a reasonable possibility - please, suggest away!

EZ Reads, 2/25/09

The last 36 hours or so of reading were really good, reminding me what I enjoy about this whole blogging thing... so here are a few of the pieces I enjoyed:

• Taking off on yesterday's post by Bad4 on how dating broadens your mind, Bas~Melech compares dating to blogging in figuring out which broadens your mind best.
• YD laments a high school student's disgust over losing out lunchtime to a video about the Mercaz HaRav massacre.
• A fantastic piece by R' Yonasan Goldson on BeyondBT noting how large scale division leads to an increase in localized homogeneous groups. It's quite a fascinating analysis with a very good message.
• A beautiful and heart-warming post by NMF#7 about soldiers and babies.
• A Soldier's Mother has another beautiful post on how the Israeli army rewards its' soldiers' hard work with a thank you... and how the soldiers thank God.
• An interesting study concludes hand-motions help people learn math better. It mentions Italians, but I'd add Jews into that mix. On a separate note, I can't believe people get paid to research things I could show them in my living room.
• Honestly Frum is incensed that after years of not only decrying the internet, but rejecting ads that included web addresses, Hamodia started a website and then justified it by noting it's a necessity of our time. I'm less troubled by the website (which I think is a positive sign of their joining the 21st century) and more troubled that the same logic which was rejected until now is suddenly accepted when convenient.
  
• R' Gil Student at Hirhurim questions the idea of thanking the anti-religious for forcing religion to understand itself better, as per a recent WSJ piece.
• SoccerDad notes that Shai Agassi is talking to 19 companies in Israel to help push electric cars in the country from a nice idea to reality. Awesome.
• Freakonomics notes a site that lets you quantify Obama's SOTU address, like how he used "crisis" 11 times, while Hoover did 4 times during the Great Depression.
• Though it's certainly not a perfect comparison, Basketball-Reference calculates that if Lebron were to play at the pace Oscar Robertson did in 1962 he'd be averaging 41/10/10. Sick. (Hat Tip: David Linn)
  
• Win some Oh Nuts! stuff at ParshaBlog.
  

Enjoy!

The Bottom Line

When creating the Jewish Economics Survey, one of the difficulties was deciding which questions to ask. There are obviously countless areas of life where people spend their money, and it's both impossible and would have been very annoying to ask each and every one of them. Instead, the survey predominantly focuses on expenses that one might consider "bottom line": Mortgage or rent, insurance, car payments, utilities, food, clothing, tuition, household goods, and the like. In addition, it added in a few expenses that are very common, particularly in the Orthodox world, such as hair care, shul membership, and entertainment. Finally, it asked people to list "other expenses" on their own, and this has been very interesting and telling in seeing what some included and what others did not.

One of the major purposes of the survey is to demonstrate to people just what it really costs someone to live as an Orthodox Jew in different communities. Quite often, in trying to encourage people to spend less, we will show them where wasteful spending is and to learn to treat different items not as necessities but as luxuries. This is obviously extremely important, and a major part of the problems we face as a community stem from wasteful and extravagant spending. One need only read an Orthonomics post from yesterday discussing a family's asking for tzedakah to "make sure" that they are not embarrassed to not be able to give their daughter and new son-in-law the wedding they "need", complete with cufflinks, Judaica, and the like. This prompted an excellent essay by Ariella of Kallah Magazine decrying how the sense of entitlement people have has turned people from focusing not on cutting out non-essentials, but on how to find someone to pay for it - ignoring that that money could have had other, more positive uses.

Cutting from the top down only goes so far, though. Most people view themselves as responsible with their money, and will be quick to agree that the examples of waste that are cited are wasteful, and of course they wouldn't spend in those ways. But even so, most people still are slightly off in their own calculations of their monthly expenses, and particularly among young couples, there's a disconnect between their expectations as to what they'll need to cover their expenses over the next few months or a year and what they will actually need.

Often, the biggest impetus for people re-evaluating their priorities and sense of what is and is not essential is an awareness that they have to. The only way to have this awareness is to have some idea of what they're actually spending on just the basics, those primarily fixed costs that are gone before they even start on the rest. Once people are aware of just how much those numbers add up, they suddenly find on their own ways of reducing most of their other costs and expenses, or realize that they need to seriously increase their income level.

By establishing and demonstrating just what the baseline incomes people need to get by and cover the most basic expenses, and then showing just how much that line increases when they "move up" to bigger apartments or houses, or when you add in even the more common non-essentials, people will slowly start to have this awareness. One of the nicer aspects of the survey is that simply from taking the survey, which sticks just to basics, close to half the respondents have noted that it gave them a greater awareness of just how much they are spending. One of the plans is to eventually use the survey to demonstrate to the greater Jewish community just how much we're spending off the bat, so we can understand and refocus our communal structures and institutions to fit within what we can actually afford. Only by establishing a solid economic foundation do we have a chance at actually having that "growing, thriving Jewish community" we so often talk about as if it is actually true. In reality, we're struggling greatly and it is impacting our growth and hurting our future.

We need to establish and understand our Bottom Line, so we can build off of it.

Please, if you have not already, take the Jewish Economics Survey. If you have, please pass it along to family and friends. Thank you so much! And again, sites like Mint.com and Quicken Online are incredible [free!] tools (we and a number of friends use Mint and find it to be fantastic; another friend tells me he loves Quicken) that can help you get a better handle on your expenses and just how all your money comes and goes. Check them out.

Mom, Clevelander

(Bad4, Erachet, RaggedyMom, Moshe, the apple, et al - enjoy. :) )

I'd like to wish a hearty congratulations to my mother, who I realized has recently been able to supplant her status as someone from New York City by having spent more time living in Cleveland. This now classifies her as a Clevelander, rather than a New Yorker. (Perhaps not much of a step up, but a step up nevertheless! :) )

My brother, however... poor guy. He better move to Milwaukee if he hopes to have a chance at losing his New Yorker status. Pretty sad for a guy with a "now leaving New York" sign on his entrance way...

To my dear SIL, here's your count:

• 3+ years NYC
• 1 year Indianapolis
• 9+ years Cleveland
• 8+ years Milwaukee
• <1>
• 11.5 years NYC again
  

Yeah. Definitely a New Yorker. Sad, really. I mean, he's coming up on 15 years of his life here. 15 years!! Oy.

A Little Boy Writes to God

(Received via my Dad)

A little boy wanted $100.00 very badly and prayed for weeks, but nothing happened.

Then he decided to write God a letter requesting the $100.00.

When the postal authorities received the letter to God, USA, they decided to send it to the President.

The president was so amused that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy a $5.00 bill.

The president thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy.

The little boy was delighted with the $5.00 bill and sat down to write a thank-you note to God, which read:

Dear God,

Thank you very much for sending the money. However, I noticed that for some reason you sent it through Washington, D.C., and those idiots deducted $95.00 in taxes.

Blind Melon

Holyman, I tell you man you gotta believe in what you see
Cause its you that corrupt us man and deep throat philosophy
I don't need your spells or the little games you try to pull on me
Come to think of it I don't need your religion

YD has a short but well-put post on chanoch l'na'ar al pi darko [educate each child according to his way] up at Adventures in Chinuch. A short excerpt:

Unfortunately, our school systems offer little variety in terms of Jewish education. The usual Gemara, Chumash, Navi, Halacha, Ivrit classes make up 99% of what our schools are teaching. Additionally, not enough is being done in the area of creativity to spark learning interest (although this is a good example of what a little hard work can do). This is not a simple subject to approach, due to the myriad of factors that are involved, but one that needs to be addressed. And if we don't, we are in danger of producing students who say, "Come to think of it, I don't need your religion."

I recall telling Jewish Atheist on more than one occasion after hearing some of his arguments and experiences that while we grew up similarly in many ways, had he simply had a better education he would undoubtedly be a happy, religious Jew today. While he might disagree with that assessment, or even more likely say that he "hopes not" because of what he thinks of Judaism and its teachings in the present, it is so often the case among the skeptical bloggers and others who have abandoned Judaism that they were presented with a one-size-fits-all education approach. Note that this is not a problem exclusive whatsoever to "Yeshivish" schools, but is sometimes just as true in Modern Orthodox institutions as well, as is clear from books, the skeptic blogs, and good old anecdotal information.

Once a person feels truly excluded from the Judaism they are being brought up in, they are as likely to abandon it quickly as they are to find another 'branch' that suits them better. While obviously having every school teach every viewpoint would be impractical and slightly ridiculous, it is important to balance whatever is being taught with an understanding that in many areas there are multiple viewpoints. The reason the one being taught is preferred within a hashkafa can be for various reasons - but that others do in fact disagree.

I've long felt that one of the best portions of my own education was a little, easily forgettable [somewhat] weekly program that WITS has for seniors called STAMP - Senior Torah And Mussar Perspectives. One objective of it was to present important subjects and somewhat controversial subjects within the Orthodox community in a framework that explained fairly both sides of these debates. The style was a short introduction explaining both sides by the Rebbe - including pros and cons, praises and criticisms - followed by a fully open question and answer session for 45 minutes, at which point it would end no matter what. By being able to learn about and discuss these subjects, we gained not only a greater understanding of them, but we were able to see why we were educated and taught a certain way and judge for ourselves whether that was appropriate for us and what would be appropriate for us and our families going forward.

I think there needs to be greater implementation of similar programs, though it is sadly difficult to find people who can fairly represent sides with which they do not agree. (I am still impressed that Rabbi Cheplowitz in WITS was able to do so so well at that time.) I also think such programs should not wait until one is a senior in high school, though certainly there are different levels of understanding and it should be suited to each age bracket. What we were presented with as seniors would certainly have been disastrous as freshmen.

Hopefully, at some point, such programs will no longer even be necessary.

E-Z Reads, 2/24/09

As is often the case, there are a number of interesting reads out there on this fine sunny February morning; in general, if you see something interesting, please don't hesitate to send it to me at serandez@gmail.com. Thanks!

• Bad4 says an advantage of dating is the opportunity to broaden your mind.
• Jameel has copied a beautiful piece on the parents of one of the students who were slaughtered in last year's Mercaz Harav massacre. Tonight is the yahrtzeit.
• Treppenwitz is troubled by the sticker he accepted that allows him to pass easily from his home to the rest of the country - why does he need it?
• Northern Light gives a little education on the definition of marriage.
• William Isaac - someone who has actually nationalized banks - explains why it's just such a horrible idea.
• A day after the NY Times asks a question [thanks SpEd] that has troubled many people for a while - is Google too big - Gmail crashed all across the world. (Personally, I've found it to have turned more and more glitchy lately.)
• Seforim blog has a very interesting piece by Daniel Lasker on a piece of Judaism that has yet to occur in my lifetime, but will be happening next month: Birchas HaChama.
• Daled Amos has fun news from the world of medicine - blogging is good for your brain.
  

Enjoy!

I Love My Niece

From SIL:

From the weekend

Whenever Shen (just turned 2) wants to do something she knows we won't allow, she says "Go sleep, Imma/Daddy."

Apparently, Shen did not appreciate the jelly belly flavors this Shabbos. Surveying her plateful of chewed and spit out jelly beans, she announced, "That's enough."

Shen was sucking her paci for comfort after a particularly upsetting incident. Suddenly, she took it out and gave it to me. "Here," she said, "I'm happy."

Hungry To Be Heard Eating Disorders Event

For all those of you who noticed that we covered the "Hungry To Be Heard" documentary on eating disorders and were interested in seeing the film...which is, in case you did not know, specifically geared to the Orthodox Jewish community and a project of the Youth Leadership Cabinet of the OU...

Tomorrow, February 24, Active Minds is hosting an event entitled "Celebrating the Survivors: Eating Disorders Explained." It is open to the public.

It will be at 9:00 PM at Furst 501. (Furst is located on the Wilf Campus at 500 West 185th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue.)

"Hungry To Be Heard" will be screened at the event, and we will also hear from Aliza Stareshefsky, who is featured in the documentary. Aliza will also be reading a poem by a male YU student who suffered from bulimia and who is also featured in the documentary. He will be present at the event, but will probably not speak.

Valmadonna Trust Library at Sotheby's

From Wikipedia:

The Valmadonna Trust Library is a collection of 13,000 books and manuscripts printed and handwritten in Hebrew or in Hebrew script, primarily collected by Jack V. Lunzer, a British industrial diamond merchant, born in Antwerp in 1924. It is named after Valmadonna, a small town near Alessandria in north-west Italy with longstanding connections to the Lunzer family. Despite containing few books from the Americas, reflecting Lunzer's personal interests, the collection encompasses works from throughout the world, particularly Italy, "the cradle of Hebrew printing", and covers over a millennium; many items in the collection are rare or unique, and many date back to the earliest Hebrew printings. According to Arthur Kiron, curator of Judaica collections at the University of Pennsylvania, "I don't know any other collection quite like it in private hands. It even rivals some of the great institutional collections in the world."

It was being shown at Sotheby's recently, and honestly, it looks really incredible and fascinating and I wish I'd gone to see it... hopefully it will be bought and put on display. Mississippi Fred/S. wrote about it at On The Main Line, posting a number of pictures he took, commenting as only an expert can; SJ has a wonderful post on the experience from a younger perspective. Read them both.

The NYTimes has a decent piece on it as well, and Gotham Girl wrote about it very nicely, and also links to the really cool exhibit catalog.

Strongarming Badly

Some may have seen pieces on this before, but Eliezer StrongBad sent this one over, and a couple parts of it are very interesting. Essentially, there are stones being thrown at Egged buses for complaining about unlicensed private buses running in place of Egged within the public transportation network that are "mehadrin". While this is bad enough, the arguments and methods being used in forming and maintaining these buses are absolutely mind-boggling: [emphasis added]

Rabbis consulted and agreed that the cost of running these bus lines will be shouldered by some 1,000 newly-wed yeshiva students, each of whom would donate $100. Thus far, half the necessary funds have been collected.

Posters hung throughout the city called out to the haredi public on the issue: "The Egged Company systematically tramples the soul of the haredi public and destroys its holiness by coercing mixed licentious travel on a daily basis. Every rabbinical or entrepreneurial attempt at dialogue with them has been consistently rejected by them… The licentious travel of the Egged Company is enemy No. 1 to Judaism."

Menachem Konig, one of the Va'ad Mehadrin entrepreneurs, said to Ynet, "Everyone knows that the haredi community is very strict about separation (between men and women), and the only place where anti-religious coercion is commonplace is on buses. The crowdedness there doesn't exist in any other place – some 100 people in 27 square yards. Men and women are squished together like sardines."

Konig emphasized that he does not expect Egged to have a separation between the sexes on their buses, but simply to allow women who wish to sit separately to get on using the back door.

This is incredibly confusing. If there's no separate seating, why would you want the women to be able to get on through the back? Either Egged has to then have another hole puncher in back, or the woman has to come through the front anyway - and for what? For the woman to sit mixed? It seems disingenuous, and that the true intention is to slowly force separation even on non-mehadrin lines. If mehadrin lines were economically viable, Egged would probably have no problem creating them or the private buses would do just fine after getting licensing. That this has not happened suggests they are not particularly viable.

Next, there's the claim of "coercion". This is what is generally referred to as "insane" or "out of touch with reality". Nobody forces Charedim to use Egged, and it's laughable to suggest that not having mehadrin buses is somehow anti-religious coercion. Beyond that, the idea that Egged is the #1 threat to Judaism is incredible; that people can write such a thing shows just how out of touch with reality that segment of the population is.

Finally, and perhaps most troubling, is how the money for the alternative line is being raised. $100 (about 4oo NIS) is quite a burden to bear - and it's being dumped primarily on newly married couples? What is the logic for that? It smacks of desperation to find a new segment of society to help support yet another outrageous chumrah [stringency] that is a burden on the population.

Eliezer said his mother and grandmother made a point many others have made, contrasting Rabbonim of yesteryear to Rabbonim of today: Traditionally, our gedolim [religious leaders] would exert themselves to alleviate the burdens of the community - the common example being if a poor woman came with a shaila [Halachic question] about her chicken, he would bend over backwards to find a kulla [leniency] to mattir [allow] it. Now, these poor kollel families in israel are forced to pay almost double for mehadrin chickens in supermarkets, not to mention the fact that they require greater volume because they are now encouraged to have large families. It is almost like the bailout in how it subsidizes fiscal irresponsibility with tzedakah [charity].

To now add yet another $100 expense is quite hurtful - that is about 4 months' worth of bus travel within Jerusalem on all Egged lines, just to start a single line that does not sound as if it is running for free. It does not seem like those 1,000 couples are receiving anything for their "donation" to this cause. The money is being used to fund a line that if unsuccessful, will have been a waste; and if successful, it is doubtful that those 1,000 couples would be receiving a share. It's a fleecing of the Charedi public, and for what?

Chew On This

Over Shabbos, have fun considering the following:

• Baseball has gotten smarter than most other products in this country, at least in Cleveland; via WFNY, the Indians have priced games based on expected temperature, opponent, what souvenirs and promotions are going on, etc. Smart. Maybe they can teach government a few things...
• ...seeing as how government is blowing hundreds of billions on "loan modifications". (Also known as making responsible people pay for the unaffordable homes of irresponsible people.) This is especially troubling when 70% of foreclosures seem to be non-primary residences, and over 50% of modified loans fall back into default within 6 months. Brilliant.
  
• and finally, the Obama administration has decided that the US will take part in Durban II. Sound noble? It's not. It's a UN discussion on racism which pretty much focuses on Israel (and Israel alone) and its "apartheid" while debating whether to include a line about the Holocaust. Gross.
  

Have a wonderful Shabbos!

Transparency Run Amok

FOX has an interesting story on their website discussing websites that have taken transparency disclosures and used them to essentially reveal private information, in ways that could end up being potentially harmful. For example, California recently passed the controversial Proposition 8, banning gay marriage in the state; there is now a site that mashes information about donations people made supporting Prop 8 with Google Maps to show who, living where, donated how much.

In Tennessee, meanwhile, there are sites showing every person who has a license to carry a concealed weapon, which has a pair of dangers - either harassment of those who choose to carry by anti-gun activists, or an easy mapping of people or areas where people typically do not have protection in their home by thieves, rapists, or the like.

Transparency exists to prevent people from wielding too much discretionary power, to avoid abuses, to make sure things are done properly. What is ironic is that it is now being used by people to do the exact opposite: To threaten, to intimidate, to scare people away from doing things or supporting issues they find important.

The answer is going to end up being laws which restrict the mining of private data or increased abuses by those who wield information such as the ones listed above improperly. It reminds me of this excellent piece (which I'll hopefully discuss more another time) noting how modern law makes us not free, but powerless. As rights trump responsibility, law has been forced to take an increasingly active (and irreversible) role in life - and this is not a tribute to our system, but a blow to our freedom and any reasonable way of life.

This Is Awesome

This sums up the mood of a good chunk of America. Rick Santelli of CNBC goes on a nice rant on the Chicago trading floor... awesome.

Honor. Service. Priorities. Wisdom.

...or, This is Community Service.

My involvement in organizational work, or community service... I got involved because I felt strongly about the purpose of the organization. ~ Dan Friedenreich, aka Grandpa

This past Sunday, my brother and I attended a small luncheon honoring our grandfather, Daniel Friedenreich. My grandparents are in the process of packing up all their belongings to move to a senior residence in Philadelphia, near our aunt and uncle, something my mother and aunt have been pushing rightfully for a while. My grandfather's shul - the Bell Park Jewish Center - threw the luncheon, meant to honor his 57 years of dedicated service to the synagogue he founded after World War II ended, including 40 years as President (the last 20 years consecutively as the shul has slowly died out or moved away). In addition, though they had already honored him at the last board meeting, President Warren Hecht and his wife and Mrs. Zalisky of the Queens Jewish Community Council (QJCC) came as well to honor him again for his service - he's a founder, a past President, and at 87 years old, still a current board member there. New York State Senator Frank Padavan actually pushed back his swearing-in to attend, which was really nice; a few others, including [NYS Assemblymember] Mark and [NYC Council Member] David Weprin, sent their wishes, plaques, or representatives as they had conflicts.

My grandfather's quote above is rather simple and straightforward - which is exactly how it should be. One of the easy lessons growing up in my family was that of ethics. Both sets of grandparents were pillars of integrity in their communities, known for going well above and beyond what was expected of them in a modest and quiet manner, avoiding unnecessary controversy and standing up when necessary. Even this Sunday, at the end of the luncheon, my grandmother asked me if I'd be able to help out with the synagogue's bookkeeping and the like after they moved, as my grandfather had been keeping the books for them for many years. I didn't understand why she was being so secretive about it, and while noting I only worked as an auditor and may not be able to help, I'd be happy to take a look, she explained why she was being so quiet:

Grandma: I don't think it would be ethical for me to suggest they ask for your help while we're still here and Grandpa is President, as Grandpa is firmly against nepotism.
Ezzie: [smiling] Me too.
Grandma: After we move, though, I'm going to suggest that they ask for your help - I think they're really going to need it.

I found this fascinating. All too often nowadays, people don't even blink at the idea of having family take paying jobs on behalf of the same company or organization as other family members. Here, my grandparents didn't want to suggest from a position of "power" that their synagogue - which they would no longer even be a part of - even ask for the free assistance of their family, as it might pressure the shul to do so instead of looking at other options.

While there are certainly "hockers" who have a great impact, my grandfather was never such a person. He is not a forceful person, nor is he the type who creates or uses 'connections' to get places or to get things done. He just does things the right way - building, creating, sustaining.

"I got involved because I felt strongly about the purpose of the organization."

We should all try to find the purposes we're interested in and approach those projects in "the right way". It would go a long way to building the better future for our grandchildren, much as our grandparents did for us.