Dei'ah veDibur - Information & Insight
  

A Window into the Chareidi World

11 Sivan 5763 - June 11, 2003 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family


MISCELLANEOUS
Eitzes

From one avid reader, a social worker:

A tip to help children become accustomed to chewing and eating solids, which is also recommended for brain- damaged children with this problem:

Tuck the food -- preferably chunky but soft food rather than mashed -- into the child's cheek. The tongue is better able to handle food from the side of the mouth.

And a series of tips adapted from BAYIT NE'EMAN:

* Suffering from cooking odors in the house (as from cabbage etc.) -- and you don't want to add baking soda which tends to destroy the vitamins?

In a small pot, boil up some sugar, water and cinnamon, and the house will smell scrumptious. This can be poured over yeast cake or other cakes as a glaze. Or into some tea.

For odors in the refrigerator -- and this worked for a fridge that had not been in use for a while -- wet a wad or pad of cotton, sprinkle generously with vanilla, and leave inside. Indefinitely.

* Put a small plastic spoon in your containers of: coffee, sugar, soup mix, salt, cocoa. Makes life easier and more foolproof.

* End-of-the-year schoolbags can be washed in the machine! Add some fabric softener for last rinse. Also, wash those winter jackets now, if you haven't yet!

* Stains on your iron? Put some steel wool on a piece of material and iron away those stains.

* Do you also get annoyed by the cling-wrap plastic that clings to itself! Try putting the roll in the freezer.

* The unsliced yellow cheese you bought for pizza has become hard. Designate a potato peeler for dairy, put on a few drops of oil and shave off the hard cheese.

* Add some vinegar to the final rinse of a dark wash. Good for the colors / good for the machine! Also good to add vinegar to electric kettles, boil up (ratio one- to-five water) and discard. Once a week/month.

* Your kitchen sink drain is malodorous? Pour a few teaspoons baking soda, add half a cup of vinegar. Let bubble up a few minutes, then rinse down.

* Store up on distilled water for your iron for the coming year. Collect the water that drains from air conditioners into bottles. It is pure.

* After you've cleaned your bathroom/kitchen tiles, smear with floor wax to repel future dirt and water stains.

And a poem, for good measure, also a tip

Watch Your Step! or What's the Rush?

by A. Reader

(You know where you want to go. You see how far it is and register the amount of time it will take to arrive. However, have you taken all of the factors into account? Remember: your head won't get there if your feet get stuck!)

While navigating alleyways and narrow ancient streets,

Beware of jutting stones and cracking pavement 'neath your feet.

The public works department has no need for being neat.

They rumple up the smoothest paths and don't admit defeat.

They'll come, create a parking space and cut the walk in two.

There's no more space for buggies or the hopscotch children drew.

The poles which held the street signs have been sawed off at the base.

Except one inch which causes us to slow our harried pace.

Why should uneven asphalt lumps escape the naked eye?

You might just stub your toe on every bump while passing by!

So that's why folk are always wending slowly down the block!

You thought they needed time to think? They're just afraid to walk!

I'd hate to tell how many times I've nearly fallen flat!

But which of us, consistently, with lightning speed reacts?

And thus, I have decided to restrain my speeding gait.

I'll have to set out early if I don't like coming late.

Acquaintances have told me, "It's not safe to run so fast.

Let how you tread reflect the years accrued and pounds amassed."

A striding gesture coupled with a swift and stronger flow,

Displays a sense of arrogance wherever we may go.

Besides a ritardando might just lend a sense of calm,

A bearing of nobility would do more good than harm.

So let's outwit the obstacles which lie in wait to trip.

Let's have no bruise, no twisted joint, scraped knee or fractured hip!

Most elders slow their footsteps in an unfamiliar place,

The sage advice? Let's not rush in! Let's age with studied grace!

And finally, another miscellaneous piece

The Egg Man Cometh

by S.W.

He's a short, very nondescript man, at whom one would not even give a second glance, were it not for the huge pile of cardboard egg trays he carries with him, tied up with a string, almost his own height. (In Israel, eggs are sold in trays of thirty eggs, six rows by five rows.)

Israel has passed a law this year requiring a 25 agora deposit on disposable cans and bottles. Even in a depressed economy, few people take advantage of the offer to actually return these for the refund. As for the cardboard egg trays, they are not even marketable! But our egg man -- and he doesn't even sell eggs, only collects the cardboard -- has found a unique outlet for them.

Apparently, if there are enough of them, they have their price, and this man has made it worth his while to scour all of Jerusalem's chareidi neighborhoods, where his `clients' save them up for him to pick up.

Then, loaded down with 50-100, you'll see him traveling the buses with his chest-high, bulky but not heavy bundle, and you'll wonder. Until the time comes when you need a loan desperately, and you've covered all the conventional gemachim which lend out money in dollar denominations, to be paid back starting the next month.

Mr. Goral has accumulated 160,000 shekel through the resale of those egg cartons at 20 agorot per tray. (Any math whizzes?) And this money is available in chunks of 2,500 shekel -- no matter whether the dollar is high or low -- to be paid back beginning the FOLLOWING year! After you've recovered from the wedding/bar mitzva or whatever.

The amazing ingenuity that can spawn new chessed. And the blessed determination of those simple folk who make you stand in awe and admiration.

Mi k'amcho Yisroel!

An honorable mention is also deserving to three or four people who have decided to cash in on the disposables. People won't go to the bother of getting them refunded for the 5 cents worth. But if the money is going to help support some yeshiva or other worthy cause, they will go out of their way to bring their bottles to drop- off stations, as they do.

I, personally, can say the same regarding the clothing centers with which I am involved. People will definitely go out of their way to bring even their shmattes, thinking that the recycle man will devour everything and it is a shame to throw it away. They will travel miles and pay carfare, even cabfare, to get rid of their rags and hope these will have some value, commercial or otherwise, for someone. And so we accept the bad with the good, and there is plenty of the latter for distribution to an ever growing appreciative public.

 

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