I started working in a daycare, recently, for a couple of hours a week, and it’s been a very enjoyable experience. Here’s what I’ve learned: 1) There is a serious shortage of spots for infants and toddlers. 2) Daycare can be a happy place for both children and employees. Putting those two factors together leads me to conclude that a job in a childcare is a great opportunity for those who are looking for work that is important, pleasant, and based on giving and kindness.

One of the requirements of the holiday of Sukkos is to be happy. Happiness is a feeling, and feelings are difficult to produce upon command, so we are given some suggestions of ways to make ourselves happy. The Rambam in the Mishna Torah says that one of the ways is to drink wine and eat meat. Of course, that doesn’t mean to be a glutton or a drunkard, but to eat meat and drink wine in moderation. Indeed, after coming home

People often ask me how I get ideas for my articles in the Where What When. One of the ways is from the books that are left on my porch to be donated to the Jewish Used Books Collection. A perk of this collection is that I get to peek at the books before others buy them. Recently, a book landed on my porch that aroused my interest.

It is called Frum Speak: The First Dictionary of Yeshivish by Chaim M. Weiser (1995). The book is a dictionary of words that are commonly used by many frum English speakers, although they are not part of the English language. Most of us recognize these words but would probably have trouble defining them. And, interestingly, the words can have different meanings depending on the context of the conversation, and they can be complimentary or derogatory depending on the speaker’s intention. Here are some words and their meanings from the book:

“Children are investments. Grandchildren are pure interest” goes an old saying. Everyone knows that the relationship between grandchildren and their grandparents is special. The question is why? What do grandparents actually do? How do their grandchildren feel about it? And is it always an idyllic relationship? 

Growing up, I did not know my grandparents well because they lived in England. Many of my classmates did not have grandparents living in the same city as themselves either. Some of them were children of Holocaust survivors, and their grandparents had been killed. Others were children of immigrants,

We all tend to feel at home and safe in our own neighborhoods. Even when we hear about crimes committed, we feel safe walking on our streets, going to our shuls, and letting our children play outside. After all, crimes happen, but they happen to others, not to us!

Last year, three days after Lag B’Omer, our illusion of safety was shattered. A crime happened in our neighborhood, on our streets, to a visitor in our community! Efraim Gordon, was murdered in front of the home of his aunt, Mrs. Reyder, right on Fords Lane, across the street from Etz Chaim. He was a visitor from Eretz Yisrael, a baal teshuva of two years, and was here for a wedding of a cousin. He was driving his cousin’s car and coming home from sheva brachos when he was murdered on the steps of the Reyders’ house.

How refreshing it is to jump into a pool in the hot weather.  How much nicer it is when you know how to swim and can really enjoy the water! 

In the classic book, Cheaper by the Dozen, Ernestine Gilbreth describes how her father insisted on throwing his young babies into the bathtub, sure that they would instinctively know how to swim because they had already been swimming for nine months. Ernestine’s mother was not so happy with this experiment, and I am not sure if this theory worked, but it was certainly amusing to read about. Despite Mr. Gilbreth’s theory, however, the best time to start teaching children is not when they are newborn but when they are four or five years old, according to Judy Mellman, a WSI-certified swimming teacher in Baltimore.