For much of Jewish history children were sent away from home at very young ages, even before bar mitzvah, to learn in other cities. In Europe, before the war, traveling was difficult, and boys sometimes did not see their families for long periods of time. Today, in Baltimore, we are fortunate to have many choices of high schools, and families do not have to make that difficult choice.

One of the rebbeim I talked to for the purpose of this article explained, “There is a great advantage to having younger teenagers, during the turbulent period when they are maturing, close to their families. They can have the support and love of their mothers and the good example of their fathers. They can be raised by their parents rather than by their roommates! That way, the yeshiva is in partnership with the parents.” He continued, “Rav Shach felt it was very important that every city in Eretz Yisrael have a yeshiva for boys where they could live at home until they were at least 16.”

To help parents make the choice of where to send their eighth-grade sons next year, I contacted these schools to get some of the details.

For many years, Mr. Greenberg* wrote a Torah book every year, which he sent out to a specific mailing list. He built up a following of people who looked forward to getting the book each year and responded generously. The money was used to support a yeshiva. Mr. Greenberg was very proud of the money that he was able to raise, and said that his books brought in more money than any other donor to the yeshiva.

Finding a suitable shidduch is difficult for everyone. How much more difficult is it for people who have some kind of health problem?!

Miriam, a young woman who survived an ordeal with cancer, wanted to move on in life and start dating. “I had just finished treatment for an aggressive cancer,” she says, “and was considered cured. But since everything was still quite recent, finding a shidduch seemed very unlikely.” 

In the secular world, couples meet naturally at events, at work, or in school, and the two sides get to know each other before finding out about health problems (or they can see the problems with their own eyes). In the frum dating system, people tend to be names on a piece of paper with lists of references. It is thus very hard or nearly impossible for someone with a genetic, mental, or physical disability to be given a chance. If a prospective shidduch is just a name, why not choose to go out with a person who does not have a known problem?

“Once upon a time,” most women left their jobs once they had a child. But by the late 1980s, the milk-and-cookies mom of the 1950s and ’60s had been largely replaced by the working mom. The transition was not smooth, and the tension between the two groups played out in the media and in private life in what was called the “mommy wars.” Now, more than 30 years later, and with a majority of mothers in the workplace, the skirmishes have died down, but it is still one of those topics about which everyone has an opinion. Stay-at-home mothers criticize working mothers for neglecting their kids, while working mothers look down at stay-at-homes for being too indulgent and not contributing to their family’s income. Is there a right and a wrong? That is the question I will explore in this article. But one thing is certain: Whether a mother should work or stay at home is a dilemma that no family can avoid.

I heard a shiur recently by Rabbi Benzion Shafier about the potency of criticism. It is a topic that interests me, and it seems quite a propos to this season of spiritual accounting. Rebuke – or criticism – is a mitzva in the Torah. But how can one fulfill this mitzva without antagonizing people and ruining our relationship? Mishlei (Proverbs) says, “Rebuke not the scoffer, lest he hate you, and rebuke the wise man and he will love you.” Not only does the person being rebuked have to be wise enough to accept criticism but the rebuker also has to be wise enough to know how and when to deliver his rebuke!

Parenting is one of the most important jobs in the world, yet it requires no training, degrees, or education. Having a child automatically crowns you as a parent! But will you be – are you – a good parent or a bad parent? This is a question that bothers many parents. According to Rabbi Yisroel Miller, in his book Guardian of Eden, “Most people will cheerfully admit it if they happen to be incompetent at mathematics or athletics or gardening or automobile repair. Why then are so many people embarrassed to admit it, if they happen to be no good as parents? It has been suggested that it is because parents intuitively sense the truth – that children don’t learn what you preach, they learn what you are. Like it or not, our every action broadcasts to our children our attitudes towards honesty, kindliness, hard work, respect for others, and every mitzva in the Torah.”