HOME & FAMILY

Torah values are eternal -- especially where they concern chinuch, and passing fads and trends will eventually fall flat in comparison with the guidelines received at Sinai.

Two Mothers and Two Daughters
by Menucha Beckerman

They were sitting outside her classroom, waiting for their turn to speak to the teacher. After the initial desultory remarks, as the time passed, the exchange of views became quite animated.

Personal Beauty
by Rosally Saltsman

We all have a favorite mitzva for which we go the extra mile, for which we are willing to sacrifice more time, ingenuity, energy and money to beautify. In the way that each of us has a certain role in perfecting this world, we each have a mitzva-area we are meant to beautify and perfect.

Girls' School
by Bruchie Laufer

"Hello, Yehudis. Quick! Arye is coming home in another half hour. Could you tell me how to cook hard boiled eggs?"

Frummy was frantic. She was married exactly one week and this was the first time she'd have to prepare breakfast on her own. She didn't want her husband to think she was inept in the kitchen.

The Mezuza
a story by H. Regev

"And You did not give [the Torah] to the nations of the earth..."

The three figures ran lightly from the lobby of the hotel to the parking lot outside, protected by black umbrellas which collapsed backwards as soon as the gusts of wind hit them. Their hats, beards and coats were suddenly exposed to the pouring rain.

BOOK REVIEW
The Eternal Thread
by Edith Hindy Krohn
Published by Targum Press, 175 pages
Reviewed by Sheindel Weinbach

To make a long story short -- that's what's wrong with this book.

Each of the stories in this book could have made a book on its own fascinating merits and just as one has sunk one's `eye-teeth' into the story and its characters, it's already finished.

Teaching Love of Torah to Children
by Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein

Part VI

We end our series on focusing on Torah talk with a few final ideas and then lead into a similar article purely on talking, also very suited to Mattan Torah.

Poet's Corner
Ode to Archeology
by Ziporah Zien

DIG this poem! A change of pace...

Evolution is fantasy, not a proven fact!
Profess this thought today, the world will soon abandon tact.
Anything the Jew believes, they'll jump to tear to shreds,
While scavenging in dung heaps their intelligence is shed.

That Darwin's dreams have long since been disproven they ignore,
And bloated academes still search for signs of dinosaur.
Conceited man will brainstorm on a whim to take the lead,
Desire to lead the vanguard turns impulse into a creed.

The common man is glad to be excused for disbelief,
He's happy to enjoy life to the hilt, for it is brief.
So long as there's a will, they'll find an element to pay,
What doesn't merit funding will default and melt away.

And so, the nouveau riche, the nouveau chic and nouveau smart,
Will merge to ascertain the prehistoric state-of-art.
They poke their noses in the graves and garbage to reveal
That ancient cultures were concerned with less than public weal.

The earth was formed by Grace to thus conceal the undeserving,
The Ancients were less fond of truth than pickling and preserving,
Their poor remains were buried to conceal the rotten parts,
As all flesh will decay when its true life, the soul, departs.

Why do they search for truth of G-d's existence in a grave?
They hope to find Him hiding with clay idols in a cave?
And proof of non-existence by this method won't be found,
By scattering ancient bones in disarray above the ground...

Yechezkel once a vale of bones revivified, perceived,
That vale is now a cellar vault somewhere in Tel Aviv.
The dead they would exhume: the living gladly bury,
The world is truly upside down. Of fellow men be wary!

Perhaps when all lost cultures from their slumber are exhumed,
The details will confirm the Truth which Jews have long assumed:
That Torah is the oldest guard of truth can't be denied,
That's why it comes alive for FREE (not dead or mummified).