When I was in college, we were required to read the literary classic 1984, by George Orwell. If you are not familiar with Orwell’s stunning work, here’s a summary: A country called Oceania is governed by the all-controlling Party, which has brainwashed the population into unthinking obedience to its leader, Big Brother. The Party has created a propagandistic language known as Newspeak, which is designed to limit free thought while promoting Party doctrine. The Party maintains control through the Thought Police and is continuously snooping on its citizens. People who dare to think differently are carefully monitored and eventually arrested on bogus charges, and then sent to special “rehabilitation” facilities, until they submit to corrected thought. 

When Sara (Gerstenfeld) Strobel, founder of the girls’ performance program Ratzon, was growing up, large groups of unaffiliated Jews often experienced Shabbos for the first time at the Gerstenfeld home. Sara describes her musically talented family to be “an under the radar family of creative and giving parents.” She adds, “Growing up in my parents’ home showed me that there is something in everyone I can appreciate and that created a larger openness in me to all kinds of people.” It was this home that inspired Sara to identify community needs and attend to them, leading to her latest endeavor, Elevate, a new organization for women.

What does one do when the lights and heat go out on one of the darkest and coldest days of the year – and on erev Shabbos, no less! The responses of community members to the blackout of Shabbos Chanukah, 5783, showed ingenuity and resilience. Here are their stories:

The week of Parshas Vayechi, Dor Yeshorim launched an advertising campaign to promote its new hearing loss panel. As “coincidence” would have it, the bar mitzva of our son, who was born with significant hearing loss in both ears, took place on Parshas Vayechi two years ago. In his pshetl (speech), the first half of which is available on YouTube under the title “Vayechi Bar Mitzva Speech – Deafness,” he notes, based on Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz’s Sichos Mussar, how Chushim’s deafness worked to his advantage, and he was the person who killed Eisav, because he didn’t get sucked into the back-and-forth legal argument that the brothers engaged in with Eisav and was therefore able to perceive the situation more clearly.

My husband and I found some dining room chairs at a lovely consignment store. We were looking to replace our own dining room chairs, which we had found several years ago in a similar shop. We spotted these “new” chairs after debating long and hard about another set of chairs we had discovered in another display close by. Those other chairs were in mint condition but unfortunately had a hefty price to go along with them. It was while we were debating whether to buy them that we stumbled across this other set. These chairs were more in keeping with my husband’s and my taste, and the price was less than a third of the other ones. It was almost a no-brainer, and before we knew it, they were sitting in our dining room.

For most people, a home construction project is a major undertaking. It’s not something you do often, it’s expensive, and the average person does not know much about it. I thought it might be helpful and interesting to hear from the experts about mistakes that homeowners often make so that readers can avoid those issues when planning their own projects. Nobody knows as much about home improvements as the contractors, the people who spend their days doing this work. Here is what they have to say:

?In 1974, Harry Chapin recorded a poignant and meaningful song entitled, “Cat’s in the Cradle.” The song speaks of a boy who longs for attention from his father throughout his childhood, but “there were planes to catch and bills to pay,” and dad repeatedly says, “we’ll get together another day.” The years fly by, dad ages and longs to have time with his son. But, by then, his son is grown and has “planes to catch and bills to pay.”

After reading a recent article on FoxBusiness.com, entitled, “Nearly 70% of Americans Struggling to Pay Grocery Bills, Survey Finds,” I decided to conduct my own poll in our community, regarding life after food boxes. Now that this era has come to an end, I wondered how local families were managing – what they were eating, what their average weekly food bill totaled, and if they had any money-saving food shopping tips for those with dwindling stockpiled food box groceries.

“My fridge and freezer are emptier,” Malka Friedman* responded. “We are eating the basics and no longer eating all the new and different foods that came in the box. We have a lot less to share with others. I keep an eye out for discounts when possible. Every little bit helps. We are doing what we can to get what everyone would like to eat – which is not always easy with picky eaters – but we are managing, b”H.”

The trip was surreal. I had traveled to Budapest before, but this trip was different. I had visited my grandmother (as well as the rest of my mother’s family who still lived there) many times during her lifetime. I had also been back several years ago to “invite” my father, z”l, to the chasana of his grandson (his namesake). With my father and maternal grandmother, as well as many other relatives buried in Hungary, I was going this time for kever avos. The trip turned out to be more meaningful than ever. In truth, every trip to Budapest – walking the land of my Avos – is its own incredible experience. What made this one even more so was not the what-once-was factor but the what-there-is-now! In order to appreciate this fact, permit me to share some family history with you.

The call came in at 2:05 a.m. The 911 operator who took the call was a veteran of many years. He intoned with a mixture of compassion and authority, “Do you have an emergency?” But the caller couldn’t talk. Over the phone line came choking sobs. To the operator it sounded a bit like gasps for air. Or was it shock and panic that the operator was hearing? The sobbing, gasps, and attempts to talk in a hushed tone continued, leaving the operator baffled.

Clearly there was an emergency.  But despite years of training, it was impossible for him to tell what type of emergency it was. Was it a person in the throes of a physical or mental crisis? the operator wondered. Or was this a mass casualty event, and the caller was the lone survivor, suffering from shock and pleading for help?

Identifying the caller’s location through EMS tracking, the operator responded in the only way he felt he could. He called for a city-wide multi-disciplinary response.