For 1,900 years, the Land of Israel sat desolate. As Mark Twain wrote in 1867, it was “a hopeless, dreary, and heartbroken land.” When the State of Israel was re-established in 1948, the Jewish People returned en mass for the first time since the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple 1,879 years earlier. Despite a massive invasion by seven Arab armies, the reborn Jewish State survived, nothing short of a modern miracle. Nineteen years later, in June 1967, Arab armies again mobilized to  destroy the Jewish State, and this time an even greater miracle occurred; with the help of Hashem, the IDF not only repelled the enemy but liberated Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Temple Mount. The biblical heartland where Jews walked, lived, worked, and worshipped in ancient times was once again under Jewish control.

Well, the unthinkable – though not the unexpected – happened. I have gained some weight.

The last time I started on a serious diet, in January 2013, I told myself that THIS IS IT! I will go through the dieting process one more time, and then maintain my weight, with possible small perturbations. And this is what happened for a while. I lost about 30 pounds on Medifast over the course of a year or so, and gained back only a few pounds, and this was my status until around May of this year. Then, all of a sudden, like a hurricane, I gained more weight, leaving me 15 pounds over the level at which I’d like to stabilize: a weight at which I felt good about myself, though still higher than my “ideal weight.”

When you are going into eleventh grade like I am, one of the first questions that people ask you is “What are your plans for after high school?” For a while now, I have been going back and forth between two medically-related professions: The first, a child life specialist, is a profession that specifically appealed to me because of the wonderful work they did for my sister during her many hospital stays. The other profession that I am interested in is nursing, which seems to be pretty popular in our community. Regardless, I wanted to experience what it would be like to work in a hospital setting, since that is crucial for both of these jobs.

The first time I had the pleasure of hearing international violinist Yonatan Grinberg play was at a fiery June performance at a most unusual parlor meeting/concert at the home of Frank and Danielle Sarah Storch. The concert was for the benefit of Aliyos Shlomo, an advanced kollel located in Yerushalayim, whose rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Dovid Lipson, also happens to be an accomplished pianist and accompanied the string ensemble.

Yonatan is a member of The Chamber Encounters. Together with his wife, cellist Andrea Grinberg, and violist Sarah Lowenstein, their performances – aside from the exquisite music – engage the audience to share, in a personal manner, the Grinbergs’ interpretation and connection to the music, through discussion, demonstration, and other media.

 I was going out for a few months with a girl whom I really liked. I was just biding my time and waiting to pop the question. To my great shock, I got a phone call from the shadchan, who told me that the girl did not want to continue dating. She did not tell me a specific reason but simply said that she feels I am not for her. She did not even have the courtesy to tell me herself but went through the shadchan!

I know I am not the first to be rejected, but that doesn’t help me feel better. At this point, about four months later, I just don’t have the energy to start all over again. I invested so much in the relationship, and told her things I had never told anyone before. I feel like I was punched in the stomach. The few times I’ve dated since this happened, I said no after the first date. I am afraid to go through this again. Any suggestions or ideas to help me get over this and move on?

Imagine this: Today is the first day of your new job. It’s a 15-minute commute. Although you hadn’t planned it this way, last night you ended up going out with some friends and didn’t get back until the wee hours. Then you didn’t hear the alarm in the morning and woke up 10 minutes before you were supposed to leave. As you rush around to get dressed, you realize that your good suit needs cleaning, so you hurriedly search the closet for another one, along with a shirt to go with it. Realizing there is no time to eat the hearty breakfast you had planned, you grab a nutrition bar on the way out the door and drive off. Too late, you realize you left your lunch in the fridge. Although you race through traffic, you arrive at work 10 minutes late and in a frazzle from the morning’s experience. You think, “What a way to start a new job!”With this beginning, what are the chances that you will feel prepared to do your best work that day, and – and if this becomes a pattern – all the other days on this job? (What are the chances that you will still have this job down the road?)

There’s a cute joke on the website, Harry Leichter’s Jewish Humor: “If Microsoft were Jewish, computer viruses could be cured with chicken soup.”What better way to introduce this iconic and venerated Jewish food, long hailed as the panacea for whatever ails us. It’s not clear who coined the term “Jewish penicillin” for chicken soup back in the last century, but the name has stuck. Many of us will be enjoying a steamy bowl of chicken soup, perhaps with kreplach or kneidlach, during the upcoming holidays. And of course, many enjoy this treat each and every Shabbos. It is satisfying and soul-warming – the quintessential Jewish comfort food. Moreover, it doesn’t take a million-dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health to prove that chicken soup is indeed healthy.

As the month of Elul rapidly approaches, we all begin a period of introspection. True, this month is specially designated for teshuva, but in essence, teshuva is an ongoing process, 365 days per year. I find that Hashem sends us opportunities all year long, through mundane daily occurrences, to examine our deeds. Below are just a few such reminders that I had this year.

The Dentist

There are certain things that need to be done yet always seem to get pushed off. One of them is dental appointments. There’s something about going to the dentist that scares away even the bravest non-procrastinators. Well, next week, the Matskin family is going to do it! We are going to our yearly (rather, our should-be-yearly) dental check-ups. 

One of the most precious dreams of girlhood is to be a mother and bring up a family together with a devoted husband. A girl may imagine welcoming her husband and son home after shul on Friday nights and staying at home on Shabbos mornings with her cute babies, while her husband and sons leave for shul together. But life does not always turn out as expected, and some women, although mothers, end up raising their children alone, either because of divorce or death. There are many problems and issues that have to be dealt with in this scenario, but one that is unique to religious families is the lack of a father to take the boys to shul for davening and learning.

An expectation in our society is that fathers and sons go to shul together and sit beside each other. A young boy going to shul alone and sitting by himself will feel awkward and different. And seeing all the other boys sitting with their fathers just accentuates his loss. This may be the case even when the father lives with his family but does not have the ability or desire to learn or daven with his son.

The latest liberal voice to oppose the Iran deal is Leon Wieseltier, the New Republic’s longtime literary editor, who now writes for The Atlantic. In coming out against the deal, Wieseltier joins the ranks of those whom President Obama accuses of making "common cause" with the mullahs of Iran.  “The Iranians never made a strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons,” Wieseltier told reporters this week. The Iranian nuclear threat will not disappear so long as the “criminal theocratic regime” rules Iran, he said. The deal will strengthen the ayatollahs rather than weaken them, Wiseltier noted, and "the longer this regime stays in power, the more dangerous the region is.”