Nu, asked a friend, you have written about some interesting topics. How about writing about happiness?

What makes a person happy varies from one person to another. There are volumes written about the topic, but it is interesting to look in our “own backyard,” so to speak. With that in mind, whom do you ask what makes them happy? Friends and mishpacha (family) – who else? If you ask the “man in the street,” his response might be “to have you stop asking questions!”

Since the idea of writing about happiness began early in the morning, I went to shul and asked Reb Arnold Shear, another early morning shul goer about happiness. Incidentally, Arnold and I attend the fabulous shiur presented by my son-in-law Shlomo Horwitz. (No ad intended.)

The Holy Land beckons us as a nation, and many people answer the call by making aliyah. In this series, I have profiled many Baltimore families and singles who have made aliyah. While it is typically thought of as a project for young adults, for some, the right aliyah choice is to wait until the Golden Years. Whether their motivation is to realize a long-deferred dream or simply to live near their children, these olim join the growing number of American retirees happily settled in Israel.
Older adults do not have to worry about things like jobs and children’s adjustment and schooling, but they may wonder whether they are welcome and if there are enough resources. In interviewing for this article, I found that this is not a problem. In addition to a plethora of social, learning, and chesed opportunities, there are government programs and benefits that satisfy senior needs. Medical care is a prime concern, and it is reassuring to know that every Israeli citizen is eligible for coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions.

My oldest son is in second grade at Talmudical Academy, and this year, I went on the Chemdas trip for the first time. Last year, I hadn’t even ever heard of Chemdas. At the beginning of the year, we got a Chemdas booklet filled with learning that is good to know, even if it is not taught directly in school. Each student needs to learn and/or memorize different information and then get tested on it. If they pass the tests, they get points. If they get 400 points, they get to go on the Chemdas trip.

Every Shabbos we worked on the Chemdas booklet. At first, it was super easy, but as the year went on, the information became harder, and it wasn’t quite as much fun to memorize completely new information, so we resorted to chocolate chips, cash, promises of candy, toys, and more. Not only did we get to 400, we got to 600 points! (This is worthy of some kind of special prize.)

A young relative of mine was only in second grade when she took her first “summer job” as a mother’s helper. The pay, of course, was negligible – enough for a little girl to buy herself some extra nosh or that coveted albeit unnecessary toy. So family members were surprised when, upon inquiry as to what her plans for the “big bucks” included, this little girl immediately responded, “I’ll save it to pay for seminary!”

Laughable, but revealing. In our frum community, paying tuition – from the youngest nursery school child to the nearly-grown beis midrash student or seminary girl and every age in between – plays an enormous role in many parents’ lives. Family budgets, lifestyles, and long-term choices often take shape largely around the consideration of children’s tuition costs. Just consider for a moment, though: What would life be like if that were to change? Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Yet for some communities, this far-off notion is indeed a reality – and one whose effects ripple through many aspects of community life.

I was born Alexander Radzinski in 1934 in Warsaw. Our family was well-to-do, and we lived in Praga, a suburb on the other side of the Vistula River. My father, Yitzchok, and mother, Gittel, and my little sister, Frieda (Zosha), and I lived a happy life. When I was five years old, in 1939, the war broke out.

My father owned a furniture factory, warehouse, and store. My family was traditional, and I remember going to shul on Shabbos. We spoke Polish at home, but my parents spoke Yiddish to each other and I picked up some of it. My mother was an educated woman and taught Polish subjects in Janush Korshak’s Jewish school in Warsaw.

For those following current events in the community, there was a recent “event” concerning 529 accounts. I suspect, however, that some of you are still a bit confused. Let’s explain it, starting from the beginning.

Once upon a time, college was not expensive. Colleges kept their costs down. Their buildings were old (so old that they had ivy growing all over them – hence, the term Ivy League), and I guess the professors did not earn that much. Over the years, the price tag has risen considerably. Colleges discovered that they are big business.

The government heard about the problem with rising college tuition, and they came up with a solution: Save! Yep – start saving money when junior is a baby, and then you will have money when he’s ready to depart for the dorm. (See Genesis 41 regarding similar advice given to Pharaoh.) That seems simple enough. People would just put money in the bank or a stock brokerage and save up. But the government felt that people needed an incentive to save. So, true to form, they used income taxes to create the incentive. They passed a law that goes like this: If you save for college, all the earnings in that account are tax free. Let’s explain: Say you save $2,000 a year for 10 years. You have therefore put in $20,000. Typically, this money is invested in mutual funds that invest in the stock market, which may pay dividends and also go up in value. The account might therefore have grown and now has $30,000 in it. This money can now be used for college. However, if you withdraw the money and do not use it for college, the earnings of $10,000 are taxable (although the original $20,000 remains “your money”).

“Ten Students Washed Away in Flash Flood in the Negev” read the news headline on April 27th. Videos showed the raging waters that had swept 10 innocent and unprepared explorers to their deaths. It was a painful reminder that the natural landscape with its awe-inspiring beauty can quickly turn cruel and destructive and that we humans have no control over the forces of nature.

 Watching videos of this tragedy brought me back to the early spring of 1974. I pictured myself sitting on a narrow ledge under a protective overhang at the bottom of Nahal Arugot. Just four inches below me, the waters were swirling over rocks and boulders, rushing towards the Dead Sea. Fifteen Israelis and I were caught in a sheettafon, a sudden flash flood. There was no way out; we sat glued to our perch, hoping that the floodwaters would not reach us.

An important component of estate planning is the Advanced Medical Directive, sometimes referred to as the Living Will. The importance of a carefully drafted, halachically-correct Advanced Medical Directive cannot be overstated.

First a little background. In 1990, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Cruzan v. Director Miss Dept. of Health, established the constitutional right to direct one’s own medical treatment. The Cruzan case was quickly picked up under the banner of protecting the “right to die,” defining the right to refuse medical treatment. It should be noted that while the banner of “right to die” was the most typical framework for discussion, the Supreme Court also established the “right to live.”

We spend our lives looking for the people who will change us forever. When we find them, we do whatever we can to keep them close. Some of these people are friends we meet in school, neighbors, or colleagues, people we are naturally surrounded by. However, some of these people come into our lives unexpectedly. I never really thought about how people came to be major players in my life. That changed during my senior year at Bais Yaakov.

As Bais Yaakov alumnae know, there are two options for general studies in 12th grade. Every senior has to complete mandatory classes, and then a student has the option to choose from courses offered by CCBC or fill her afternoon with a selection of electives. I chose electives. By the first day of school, most of my schedule was complete. However, even with a finished schedule, the first few days are spent fine-tuning schedules and figuring out every class. My problem was that I was accidentally scheduled for two of the same class and was left with a gap in my schedule.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Rimanov was an important chasidic leader in Poland known for his asceticism, his wisdom, and, parenthetically, his mystical support of Napoleon. He said, “I was never in need of anything until I already had it.”

Here’s an anecdote worth preserving in anyone’s album of memories. It has a similar message: I was driving through upstate New York to visit my children and grandchildren, when I pulled into a rustic gas station for a refill. I noticed a sign announcing free coffee at a department store five miles up the road. I went on my way and soon approached this store, upon which was spread an elephantine banner that read, “If we don’t have it, you probably don’t need it.”

The store was a one-of-a-kind type of place, large and rural and unlike the big box stores in the urban areas where we live. It was a charming place, fully vested in serving a well-defined countrified demographic. Nothing there attracted me as a purchase for my grandchildren, but I did take something away from that store – something much more valuable.