Meat has become one of the highest food costs on the grocery bill. Prices for chicken, beef, and deli have gone up in every store. Before filling your shopping cart with cutlets, roasts, and ready-to-eat sliced sandwich meat, it’s worth asking: Is all this meat really needed, or has it just become the go-to for most meals?

In many homes, meat is served at lunch and supper because that’s what people are used to cooking. Cutting back doesn’t mean meals become smaller or less filling. A few simple changes can lower the grocery bill without anyone noticing much of a difference.

Moshe’s poignant farewell to a generation poised on the brink of Eretz Yisrael – the parshiyos of Eikev and Ki Savo – confront us with two timeless warnings. They are not abstract theological debates but urgent prescriptions for the human heart, especially in times of abundance. Yet, in our community, these verses have too often been twisted into sources of guilt, division, and misunderstanding. One verse has been weaponized to demand perpetual happiness, as if the Torah were a self-help manual punishing honest sorrow. Another has been deployed to dismiss human effort, as if the chayalim (soldiers), engineers, and innovators who safeguard the Jewish nation were mere puppets on a divine string.

These misreadings are not harmless. They erode the very bitachon they claim to uphold, fostering either toxic positivity or fatalistic passivity. Worse, they divide us – frum from “less frum” – at a moment when Klal Yisrael needs unity more than ever. Let us return to the pshat, the plain meaning of the text, and rediscover the Torah’s elegant balance: profound, joyful gratitude to Hashem amidst the celebration of human achievement. Only then can we build a community that honors both the beis medrash and the beis hachayal – i.e., practical engagement with the world.

I started gaining weight in 2022. Two years later, I had gained over 70 pounds. Things did not look good health-wise if I continued on this path. I tried to lose weight but found it took a lot of effort to lose five or ten pounds, and then I would gain it right back, plus. I tried bars or shakes as meal replacements, the South Beach diet, the Mediterranean diet, the flat-belly diet, the 21-day diet, the keto diet, going low carb, going low fat, going vegetarian, eating limited dairy, etc. I tried skipping lunch and ended up eating cookies because I was hungry. Nothing worked long term.

In 2024, I davened for help with this issue and put myself on a tehillim list. One day, my internet wasn’t functioning, and I needed to work. This annoyance was a saving grace. I went to the library to work and met someone who told me about a support group. Some of the people in the group had lost 125 pounds or more. It was remote, but I started connecting with people who had fought my battle and won.

I found someone who explained what she did and asked me to try it for two weeks. I have never looked back. Fast forward almost two years later: I have lost over 60 pounds and kept it off. I look great and feel even better. I have energy to achieve tasks that would have been impossible before. The remote support group has been replaced by an in-person support group for Jewish women in Baltimore. I have made good friends and have learned so much about life and myself from these ladies.

When people think of home improvement, they usually picture a new kitchen, bathroom, or flooring. But one of the most impactful home improvements – especially in Maryland – is weatherization. It lowers energy bills, makes homes more comfortable, and in many cases costs the homeowner nothing at all.

I’ve helped many families apply for weatherization over the past few years, and the feedback is almost always the same: “I wish I had done this sooner.”

I usually apply for my clients for weatherization as an add-on without even telling them, and this year I got calls out of the blue thanking me very much for helping them with the weatherization – in some cases including new furnaces – because now their house is in better shape.

What Is Weatherization?

Weatherization focuses on making your home more energy efficient. The goal isn’t cosmetic; it’s comfort, safety, and lower utility bills. Depending on the home, this can include:

·         Insulation (attic, walls, crawlspace)

·         Air sealing and draft reduction

·         Duct sealing

·         Ventilation improvements

·         Energy-efficiency upgrades related to heating and cooling

Reviewed by Chaim Yehuda Meyer

 Once asked about how he became who he was, Rabbi Avigdor Miller responded that he learned Chovos Halevavos (Duties of the Heart) daily. This classic sefer was written in the early eleventh century by Rabbeinu Bachya Ibn Pakuda, a dayan in Sargossa, Spain, then under Muslim rule. It is one of the earliest mussar sefarim and is widely known as the bedrock of mussar. Indeed, Rabbi Chaim Soloveichik of Brisk called Chovos Halevavos the “Shulchan Aruch of Yiddishkeit,” and it was studied by such far-flung gedolim as Rabbi Yosef Karo,author of the Shulchan Aruch, the Vilna Gaon, and by all communities across the centuries.

Rabbeinu Bachya wrote in a sophisticated, philosophical style, in Arabic, to reach the masses. The sefer’s Hebrew translation mirrors this style, making it difficult to understand his main points. All this has changed with the recent publication of The Concise Chovos Halevavos: Timeless Wisdom in an Easy-to-Read Format, edited by Rabbi Ilan Siegel and Rebbetzins Devorah Eisenbach and Miriam Samsonowitz.

Let me take you back to the days of “yesteryear.” No, I am not a retired lone ranger on disability with an Indian sidekick but a twelve-year-old boy born in Baltimore on Lakewood Avenue. I am wearing a yarmulka with a belt in back (Ivy League style) or sometimes a blue felt “Yid lid” marked with the luchos and “TA,” my school.

Growing up, we also knew about other letters, such as “AA,” which meant Alcoholics Anonymous, and “AAA,” which stood for the American Automobile Association. Fast forward about 40 years, and today, these letters indicate battery size. What would we do without batteries, the crucial “energizers” that help run our society? Back in my youth, we were very resourceful and didn’t require or value batteries. In fact, we got along very nicely without them. Our energy came from within, and our games were child-created and directed – no carpools, no fatherly coaching – and just fun.

It was in one of my psychology classes back in college that I first learned about that dog – the one who was trained to salivate upon hearing a bell. It was amazing to hear how a dog, which naturally hungers for a piece of juicy meat, could replicate that exact craving after simply hearing a bell ring. This was a well-known story and one that became a common cliché. But to think it could actually apply to me was preposterous – or so I thought. Who knew that some 40 years later, I would turn into exactly that, minus the fur and the wagging tail, of course.

It’s been about nine years since I’ve owned a smartphone. Back then, it was an enticing gadget, and I reasoned that my children were grown and gone so I didn’t need to be concerned about their chinuch. I dove into this new world headfirst and soon became part of the crowd.

It is one thing to learn about history from books; it is another to hear about it from people who lived it. I visited Mrs. Klara Margaretten, a Baltimore senior, who shared her interesting life story.

Mrs. Margaretten is the mother of Judy Landman and Lazer Margaretten of Baltimore. Her husband was Yaakov Mordechai Margaretten, the younger brother of Moshe Magaretten, who used to be in the chicken business in Baltimore, and later ran the kitchen at Ner Yisrael. Klara’s husband was the youngest of 14 children, of whom only five brothers survived the Holocaust.

Read More:From Budapest to Baltimore: A Profile of Mrs. Klara Margaretten