Ever wonder where the concept of having mini-servings of food before the main course originated from? It was actually those ancient Romans who first introduced the idea of a set order to meals. They also promulgated the idea of serving small portions of food at the beginning of a meal to stimulate the appetite and aid in digestion. According to The World of Jewish Cooking, by Gil Marks, Ashkenazic Jews later followed the Roman-German practice of serving a first course, called a forspice (Yiddish for “before food”) to start the meal.

Master herbalist, K.P. Singh, writing on Yogiproducts.com explains more about the health connection to appetizers: “Before sitting down to the main courses, start with an appetizer that gets the juices flowing. Small portions of pungent, bitter, and sour tastes especially stimulate digestive juices.”

To the Shachan:

I have been on a few dates with a boy who is nice but – at this point, anyway – nothing special. We get along very well, and the conversation flows nicely. Although his looks as well as everything else about him are average, I would be willing to keep dating him, as I feel he could grow on me over time. The only thing is that I just got a “yes” from another boy, who is a real “catch.” Everyone says he is a top boy with great middos. He is also personable, wealthy, and very good looking. He is the type of boy you wait a long time to get a date with. I’ve been single for a while and have been hoping for someone like him to come along. I feel I won’t be able to concentrate on the current boy as long as this new boy is in the picture. I am ready to say no to the boy I am dating, because the other one sounds much better. My sister says I am not that young, and dates don’t come as often as I would like. She is strongly urging me to give the current boy a chance and tell the second boy I am busy. We decided to write to you to see what I should do.

Mrs. Chava Temeral Ostreicher was already impressed with our community when I spoke to her, only five days after her move from Monsey, New York. She and her husband, a native of Williamsburg (in Brooklyn), are just one of the 21 pioneering chasidishe couples who will be living in town by Cheshvan, coming here to join Baltimore’s newest kollel: Khal Chassidim’s Kollel L’Horo’ah.

“I’m so amazed,” shared Mrs. Ostreicher, a mother of two, who was able to keep the school curriculum job she had in Monsey and work from home. “It’s such a nice community, and people here are so nice and so accepting. I love the way everyone lives for themselves, not because their neighbor or their friend does it. Everything they do is with purpose, not like some other places. You don’t feel peer pressure here. There are such special people. Everyone is so helpful, so kind, and so accepting. It is such a warm community and that’s what makes the adjustment much easier.”

news source: vos iz neias

Washington - Already a done deal in Congress, the Iran nuclear agreement gained more momentum Sunday as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee head, announcement their support.

Powell, secretary of state under President George W. Bush, called the agreement “a pretty good deal” that would reduce the threat of Iran gaining a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s nuclear program “has been thrown into a detour” making it less likely it can produce a nuclear weapon to be used against Israel or other countries, Powell said. “So that’s pretty good,” he told

(Mr. Korn, chairman of the Philadelphia Religious Zionists, is former executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent and the Miami Jewish Tribune.)

The newly-declassified emails of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton have unexpectedly revealed a key part of the Obama administration's strategy in dealing with Israel.
Among the Clinton emails released recently was a 2010 memo from the Obama administration's chief Middle East negotiator, Martin Indyk.
Friends of Israel have long harbored deep concerns about indications that Indyk was unfriendly to Israel. But this is one of the rare instances in which we can see, in Indyk's

news source: theyeshivaworld

Current events never occur in a vacuum. Most of us know this but never put in the actual effort that’s required to truly understand the historical context of events surrounding us. This is especially true of what we see unfolding before our eyes between, Iran, Europe and the Obama administration. We now see an Iran that is destabilizing the Middle East through the funding of terrorist proxy states, building a nuclear arsenal and we ask “Why?”. Context is needed. Historical context is essential to grasping the “why?”. So, I will attempt here to outline for you a very

Israeli Army officials reportedly are furious that New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has accused the IDF of massacring Arab civilians. But what else is new? After all, Friedman's entire career has been built on lying about Israel--including rewriting his own biography in order to smear the Jewish State.

In his August 12 column, Friedman wrote: "Israel plays, when it has to, by what I’ve called 'Hama rules' — war without mercy…it will not be deterred by the threat of civilian Arab casualties…" The Times of Israel notes that "While the term ['Hama Rules'] itself comes from Friedman’s book From Beirut to Jerusalem, in his new article he offered no history of the event or explanation for the comparison, apparently assuming the reader would understand the context."

The following four brief anecdotes (based on true stories) concern people who might be your friend, neighbor, or even family member. The condition being described in these anecdotes may seem somewhat benign, but when you think about it, you will realize that this disorder can cause a person to get stuck in life and miss out on much of what life has to offer.

Reuven’s Fear of People of Authority

Reuven gets extremely anxious when interacting with people of authority. When he was younger, he avoided interacting with his teachers as much as possible. As an adult, he tries to avoid interacting with his superiors at work. When problems arise at work, he tries to deal with them on his own, which does not always lead to a successful outcome. He knows that he would be more appreciated at work if he would interact with his superiors. He realizes that his anxiety is irrational, but he nevertheless feels helpless in overcoming his sense of fear.

Some of the most effective actions you can take for improving your marriage are rather simple, and if you commit to doing them on a regular basis, you will transform the mundane aspects of your relationship into opportunities to connect.There are four critical moments of transition in the day that can be utilized to build a strong and lasting relationship: when you wake up, when you leave the house for work, when you return home from work, and when you go to bed. While this does not exempt you from connecting throughout the day, by fixing these four set connection times, it’s as if we’re connecting the whole day.These transition times are crucial. When you wake up in the morning, you set the tone for the rest of the day. By beginning with emotional connection first thing in the morning, you start your day off on the right foot and set yourself up for more positive experiences with your spouse.

A young child singing himself to sleep at night to the letters of the alef bais is nachas to parents’ ears. A first- or second-grade child who is struggling to learn the letters and nekudos is a source of concern and worry. Why is it that some children find it more difficult to become fluent in kriah (Hebrew reading) than others?

Actually, the development of reading (and kriah) skills is a well-researched and understood topic. A simple understanding of the wondrous brain that Hashem created sheds tremendous light on the kriah process. Basically, beginning readers process written text with the frontal lobe of their brain. The frontal lobe is slow, analytical, and requires conscious effort. That is why beginning readers will often whisper what they are reading quietly to themselves before saying it out loud. As kriah skills are mastered, kriah processing moves to the occipital lobe in the rear of the brain. The occipital lobe processes written text instantly without conscious thought. This shift is what produces kriah fluency.