On the list of iconic breakfast foods, pancakes and waffles have to be right near the top. Surpassed in popularity only by the cold crunch of cereal and milk, a stack of steaming hot pancakes or waffles, fresh off the griddle, can brighten a cold winter day like nothing else.

Maybe they’re a special treat in your house, reserved for weekends or holidays. Or perhaps the griddle or waffle iron is the most important appliance in your kitchen. Either way, we’re not the first society to have enjoyed this comfort food. In his book Feast: Why Humans Share Food, archaeologist Martin Jones suggests that pancakes were probably the earliest and most popular cereal food of prehistoric society. The earliest recorded references to pancakes are in fifth-century, BCE, Greek plays. The Greeks called their pancakes tagenias, from the word tagenon—frying pan. (Note the similarity to the Hebrew letagein, to fry!) Waffles are not quite as ancient as pancakes, but food scholars believe they have been around since the early Middle Ages, with the earliest known recipe from a 14th-century French manuscript.

This is an important book for children – as well as a great story. Bina’s Lobell’s Super-Secret Diary, a chapter-book by author Ruchama Feuerman, addresses an issue crossing all lines of secular schools and Jewish religious schools: bullying.

            Nine-year-old Bina attends a Jewish Montessori home-school with four other girls. A typical Torah-observant fourth-grader, she is a bit insecure, trying to work on her faults; asking why, if eating carrots can turn your skin orange, eating blueberries can’t turn your eyes blue; being careful about shmiras halashon; and pondering hair:

To the Shadchan:

My son, who is in yeshiva, just turned 21. Like me, he has seen the ads and articles in various publications about the shidduch crisis, including the idea that boys should get married at a younger age. (The assumption is that eliminating the age gap between boys and girls would help equalize the numbers of boys and girls in the “market.”)

He is not asking me to help him find a wife, so maybe he is not ready yet – although I get the feeling he is worried about it. I, too, am not sure he is ready to get married. But looking ahead, I am thinking about what to say if he does bring it up. Normally, I would encourage him to wait until he is older, but I am wondering whether these ads apply to him. How would I know if he is ready to get married? What kinds of qualities in him should I be looking for? How can he and I know when would be the right time to start searching?

I occasionally insert the topic of “what kind of girl are you looking for” into our conversations. Should I continue that, or should I avoid it, so as not to encourage him to pursue marriage at this time? Any guidance you can give me would be appreciated.

Before Baltimorean Sara Leah Kovacs read about the first Jewish Deafblind Shabbaton, which was held in 2010, she assumed you had to be totally deaf and totally blind, like Helen Keller, to participate. When she found out that it was open to people with varying degrees of dual hearing and vision loss, she eagerly signed up for the 2011 and 2013 Shabbatons. At those events, she led tefila (prayer) classes, and is now also the Deafblind delegate to the planning committee for this year’s Shabbaton, along with Deaf delegates David and Sheryl Michalowski.

Mrs. Kovacs will make the 17-mile trip to the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center, in Reisterstown, where the Shabbaton will be held this year, from June 12 to 14. Others come from farther away. Mordy Weis will travel 5,817 miles to attend the Shabbaton for a third time. “I gain from the Shabbaton by meeting different people with different backgrounds and different vision issues,” says Mr. Weis, who works for a fabric design company in Holon, Israel. “My favorite part is the ‘panel,’ which debates various issues. At the last Shabbaton, I was asked to help interpret in shul by tactile signing for a Deafblind male, because his female support service provider (SSP) could not accompany him in the men’s section.”

As the winter wanes and Purim draws near, my family begins to hear comments wherever we go:

“So what are the Raczkowskis dressing up like this year?” or “Can’t wait to see what the Raczkowskis come up with this Purim….” 

Most people have the one Yom Tov that they especially love or identify with. Mine has become Purim. To explain how this came to be, I have to take you back to the beginning. So make yourself comfortable and listen to the whole megillah.

Online shopping has become so pervasive that I wonder if actually entering a store to make a purchase will someday be called “offline shopping.” I must confess that, before I began researching this article, I had purchased nearly nothing online. But after finding out about the sites that will be mentioned below, two thoughts occurred to me: I may never have to leave my home again! And where can I find another source of income?

I clicked, mesmerized, through bargain after bargain and all kinds of “special deals.” Many items are offered at the same or lower prices than in the store, and can be obtained with much more ease. Electronics, kitchenware, clothing, toys, groceries – anything you can buy in the store and many things you cannot – are found find online, often with free shipping.

We all know the Purim story. Year after year, we encounter its familiar cast of characters: the foolish King Achashverosh, the wicked Queen Vashti, the villain Haman, and, of course, the heroes: the beautiful Queen Esther and Mordechai the Tzadik. But, as Rabbi Dovid Fohrman explains in his book, The Queen You Thought You Knew: Unmasking Esther’s Hidden Story, the story is not as simple as it seemed to us when we were children. In his eye-opening account, he explores many questions that are obvious once he points them out but that never occurred to us. We have heard the story so many times that we have become blind to the nuances that give depth to the story. I can’t rewrite the book in this review, but I will bring up some of the questions. If they intrigue you, you can follow up by reading from the source.

I have had the great pleasure and privilege to be one of the Simchas Esther Purim Shpielers in five of their last seven performances. Thanks to the tireless efforts of so many devoted women, along with a hefty dose of hashgacha pratis, we merited to hear more than 700 ladies laughing out loud last year as they “met the mechutanim.” With Hashem’s help, we’ve come a long way since the first play, performed in 2003 for approximately 250 women at Khal Ahavas Yisroel Tzemach Tzedek.

The other day, while driving carpool, I took a wrong turn. Annoyed with myself for having made a mistake, I sighed. This prompted one of the children behind me to ask what was wrong. Exasperated, I replied to her, “I made a wrong turn.” She quickly responded, “There’s no such thing as a wrong turn.” My amazement at her ability to see the situation in such a positive light quickly turned into bewilderment when she added, “Because the world is round.” Now, even if there were no oceans or dead ends along the way, I don’t think she was suggesting that I travel across town via Australia. Rather, it was more of an observation that you can always find another way to go, even if you choose the road less traveled. I started pondering this thought and realized that the only reason I got annoyed at myself to begin with was that I had created an expectation of which route I would take and then unwittingly took a different one. This made me realize that maybe I am “expectationally challenged.”

President Obama has stirred quite a hornet's nest of criticism with his claim that Christians are just as guilty of atrocities as ISIS. But it's not the first time he has done so--and he is not even the first president to have done so.

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, argued that ISIS and Al Qaeda are not the only religious extremists to use violence. "This is not unique to one group or one religion," he claimed. "There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith." For proof of this assertion, however, he had to go all the way back to the early Middle Ages: "[L]est we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," he declared.