In my previous articles, I explained how Medicare Parts A and B pay for seniors’ hospital and medical care. Medicare offers generous coverage, but you must pay for a share of the costs as well. If you develop a condition that requires a lot of treatment, you can potentially be left with bills that total thousands of dollars over the course of the year. As an actuary, I have personally seen policies that have paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single year to cover a senior’s medical expenses. So what can you do to protect yourself from these potentially large costs? That is where Medicare Supplement comes in.

Because I have lived in Kiryat Arba, Israel, for 32 years, bored Shabbos guests often ask me, “Well then! Living near Hebron you must have seen a lot of violence in your day, isn’t that so?” After recovering from their use of the expression, “in your day,” I realize that they are right in a sense. I have seen violence. Here is the story of when that happened.

In 1988, at age 33, married with one child, I did 95 days in the Israeli military, away from home, learning to be an artillery soldier. Startled to discover that I could actually learn something that didn’t involve conjugating verbs or declining nouns, I chalked it up as a positive experience and moved on. A year later I was called up for a 17-day reserve duty, including all of Succot, to guard in a prison for Arab stone-throwers at Anatot, Jeremiah’s birthplace. Then, half-a-year later, I was called up for my first five days of artillery war games, in the Negev desert base of Shivta, somewhere south of Beersheva.

Trichotillomania sounds like a spider that you might meet in an Amazon rainforest. In reality, it is a mental health disorder that is characterized by the compulsive urge to pull out one’s hair. Trichotillomania is Greek for “hair pulling madness.” It is estimated that between one and three percent of the population suffers from this terribly embarrassing disorder at some point during their lives. If we take the conservative estimate of one percent, that would mean that three million people in the United States have this disorder!

Trichotillomania is often misunderstood, so let us examine two anecdotes that can shed light on this disorder.

Upon hanging up the phone, Rochel went into her living room and plopped herself down on a chair.

“What am I going to do?” she wailed.

“What’s the matter?” her unsuspecting but concerned husband asked.

“I just got off the phone with Sima, you know, my best friend from seminary. I haven’t seen her in 20 years, and she happens to be in town. She said she wants to stop by to see me tomorrow.”

“I’m not really understanding,” her husband replied, shaking his head in confusion.

To the Shadchan:

I am a 26-year-old, nice, normal guy, and I am having an issue with commitment. I think the problem is that I have a number of divorced friends, and that number seems to be growing. My parents are happily married, as are my two married sisters – at least I think they are – but this divorce thing scares me.

What typically happens is that I go out about 10 times, and I really like the girl. But then, as I am getting ready to move to the next step, I start to see the bad traits. These could be a high level of anxiety, temper, putting others down, or just plain selfishness. I don’t see these issues in the beginning.

Dear Mr. Weisbord,

My married children came for Pesach, and after being together for a week, I got a good look how they are bringing up their children. I saw them screaming at their kids, punishing unfairly, and just “losing their cool.”

Both mother and father work, which they feel is necessary in order to provide for the family. Their long hours most likely contributes to their impatience, as they are always busy, with very little time to just “hang out” with their children and develop a relationship. I don’t know the details of their finances, of course, nor do I want to. But I did notice the expensive new clothes they were wearing and their constant talk about what they’ve bought recently and what they’re going to buy.

When Mrs. Yael Zelinger came to speak to Bais Yaakov’s eighth-grade girls, last January, she surprised them with her “bag of tricks.” Although the girls’ teacher, Mrs. Rochelle Goldberg, has been teaching an annual unit on disabilities for 15 years, this is the first time she enlisted Mrs. Zelinger, an associate for Disability and Inclusion Services at the Macks Center for Jewish Education to give one of her tailor-made “B’More Inclusive” disability awareness “experiences” to the girls.

To kick off the month-long unit, the 70 students in the three parallel English classes read “Flowers for Algernon,” a short story about a mentally-challenged man, and The Miracle Worker, the story of Helen Keller. At the same time, they were paired up to research a disability or disease of their choice from an approved list. The girls spent about two-and-a-half weeks on research, including the biology of the disability and possible future cures. They then put it all together in a PowerPoint presentation, which they shared with their classmates.

It’s erev Pesach, 2016, and I’m a high school student. Since nursery, I have been taught that Pesach is all about freedom. But practically speaking, what does freedom mean to me? This year, with uncanny timing, Bais Yaakov’s Discovery Program launched a new challenge during the month of Nissan that really hit the nail on the head. The title of the program was M’avdus L’Cheirus – Genuine Freedom.

Mrs. Shifra Rabenstein, a noted Bais Yaakov teacher, kicked off the program with a penetrating idea: Time is the only thing you can’t live even a second without. Your life is an accumulation of minutes and seconds, so how you spend your time is really what makes up your life. And what is the primary villain that causes many of us to lose track of, misuse, or waste our time? Technology, of course.

Because I have written many articles in these pages about lowering one’s taxes, I am often asked this reasonable question: “I have only one job and an uncomplicated financial situation. Can’t I do my taxes myself using good old Turbo-Tax?”

Yes, you can, but even those with simple returns can save money by using a tax strategy called “bunching.” Imagine a single young woman who works as a nurse and earns $55,000 a year. She does not own a house and therefore cannot claim a deduction for a mortgage. Should she itemize her deductions or claim the “standard deduction”?

A little background: There are two kinds of tax deductions: “above the line” and “below the line.” This line has a name; it is called “adjusted gross income.” The deductions above the AGI are allowed so long as you paid them. The most common of these is putting money in pensions and IRAs.

As our community was hard at work preparing for the Passover holiday, seven local families within a single month were hit with a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness. In response, the Jewish Caring Network has launched a community-wide campaign called, K’ish Echad B’Lev Echad – like one man with one heart. In this campaign, which carries the haskama of Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer, the entire community – men, women, and children from every walk of life – can come together to help people affected by illness.

“It has been an overwhelmingly devastating period for the Jewish community,” noted Jewish Caring Network volunteer Rabbi Yisroel Roll, who is spearheading the effort. “This campaign will give everyone in the community an opportunity, and an entrée, to become involved with helping and supporting families who are facing an illness. We are offering many avenues to do this.”