Summer is winding down, and vacation season is coming to a close. Taking a cue from the classic first-day-of-school essay that teachers tell children to write, I will ask, what did your family do this summer and, more importantly, was it a vacation for you?

“The kids had a great time, but it wasn’t a vacation for me,” said Yehuda, a father of seven after a family trip. When asked what would be a vacation for him, he said, “A vacation for me includes my own bed, food that I like, and cool air-conditioning. Obviously, to Yehuda, a real vacation is spent in his bedroom!

Taking a cue from the favorite Rosh Hashanah song of both little kids and their teachers, I have put together some apple-and-honey recipes that will make a big hit with the family.

Elul is here, and the King is in the field. These days approaching Rosh Hashanah are designated for teshuva – a time when the universe is ripe for personal growth, when we concentrate on our middos and our Yiddishkeit. But how do we use the power of Elul to be our best selves? To make even one small change?

For more than 20 years, Rabbi Aryeh Nivin has focused on this work and guided thousands of others on how to do the Elul avoda, using Torah sources such as the Arizal, Derech Hashem, and the Slonimer Rebbe.

In our neighborhood, there is a small wooded area that is home to wild animals, such as deer, foxes, squirrels, and feigelach (birds). The birds include finches, cardinals, robins, and a Yiddish-speaking bird named Raizeleh. 

SURVIVAL

Yesterday we sat and pondered why

The way was so steep and so many died

Why must we suffer, we do implore     

But when we see the final Geulah, we will agonize no more.

Dedicated to the ones who didn’t survive,

and to my parents, who believed I could write

 This story is written in loving memory of my father, Werner Victor Cohen (Avigdor ben Avraham Hakohen), who passed away on June 11, 2021.

My father, Werner Victor Cohen, was born in Essen, Germany, on December 8, 1921. In addition to himself, my father’s family consisted of his parents, Albert and Hedwig Cohen, and his sister, Lore.

During the Kristallnacht attacks on Jews, on Nov. 9 and 10, 1939, my dad and his father, Albert, were taken from their home by the Nazis. His father was incarcerated at a city jail and released, but my Dad was taken to Dachau concentration camp. He was one of the youngest sent there. He spent several brutal weeks in the camp while Hitler (yemach shemo) used this opportunity to test whether there would be any international condemnation. There was deafening silence.

On January 17, 1991, a coalition of armed forces from 34 countries led by the United States started operation Desert Storm to liberate recently-conquered Kuwait from Iraq. Iraq began its retaliation the next day. Over a period of several weeks, 39 modified Scud B (Al Hussein) missiles were fired at Israel, with 14 exploding in highly-populated residential areas of Tel Aviv and Haifa. (The remainder of the Scuds were either duds, or landed in the wilderness, in the Mediterranean, or were intercepted by U.S. Patriot anti-missile missiles.) Two Israelis were directly killed by these Scuds, and 11 were seriously injured.

In 1993, a scientific paper written by Fetter, Lewis, and Gronlund, entitled “Why Were Scud Casualties So Low?” was published in the prestigious British scientific journal Nature.[1] An expanded and more detailed version of the paper appeared a few months later.[2] The low casualty rate had attracted professional scientific interest. The paper uses a standard mathematical formula to predict the number of casualties expected in a missile attack. The formula is an extrapolation from past missile attacks and takes into account three parameters that modify the extrapolation: a) the size of the warhead, b) the population density, and c) whether there was warning of the attack.

“Do not scorn any person….for you have no person without his hour.” (Avos 4:3) The Rambam interprets Ben Azzai’s dictum as follows: It is wrong to mistreat anyone who may be of lowly status because the time will certainly come when such person will rise to a position enabling him to seek revenge. This mishna does not imply that it would ever be otherwise acceptable to malign or mistreat another. It simply provides an additional reason to avoid such behavior, namely, that the perpetrator may well find himself one day at the mercy of his victim.

Hi, let me introduce myself: I am Eli W. Schlossberg and I’m kind of new in town. How can I say that, you ask, when I was born at Sinai Hospital in 1950? Well, I’m talking about the “new” town of Baltimore. Let me describe the Baltimore I knew, and then you will understand.

Sinai Hospital? No, not the one off Northern Parkway; in those days it was located on Ann and Monument Streets. My family davened at a Shearith Israel – no, not the one on Glen Avenue. It was located on McCulloh Street off North Avenue. We shopped at Wasserman and Lemberger – no, not the one on Reisterstown Road; it was on Whitlock Street and then on Park Heights, and it was indeed owned by Mr. Bernie Wasserman and Mr. Sol Lemberger.

The ever-increasing complexity of our medical system has made accessing quality health care very challenging. This reality has given birth to a new field called independent patient advocacy. Many people have heard of patient advocates but have only a vague idea of who they are and what they do. Patient advocates are usually nurses, sometimes doctors, and, occasionally, savvy individuals with no medical training but extensive personal experience with the medical world. Having a patient advocate by your side reduces the stress of a health crisis, at the very least, and can save your life at the most.

I am a patient advocate, and the following stories will give you an idea of what I do.