AM Inspiration

Trying to get inspired for the upcoming High Holy Days

My high school friend recently got engaged! Mazal Tov! and we all couldnt be happier! Her parents posted this on our community yahoo group and I just had share it. As we make preparations for our first child’s wedding, I am taking a moment to reflect, thank, and yes give some advice. Advice to parents who are trying to help their child find a soul mate and advice to others who are either professionally or otherwise trying to help singles lose their status. If you are not interested in any of the above, proceed now to the next posting. The Talmud compares one finding their zivug to the splitting of the sea. We are told that when the Jewish People went into the sea they didn’t cross over the sea but actually made a semi-circle coming out on the same side as they entered. That being the case, those who were on the exterior side of the semi-circle had a much longer path to travel than those on the interior side. There were definitely days when I thought that our child wou...

So ...its been a really long time..I had finals..and then "summer break" and now back to real life. So somewhere in that interim ( read: a long time ago) Artscroll contacted me about writing a book review..I was so honored I said yes! right away! But then school got in the way...but here it is...My first official BOOK REVIEW! My first thought when I received it..was man this book is thick..this is going to take forever! It is actually 561 pages. I figured I had a few Shabbatot worth of reading ahead of me. The exact opposite was true. I could not put it down... I was walking down the streets reading as I went. It was enthralling, exciting an inviting.  I'm not one to read biographies of Gedolim. I always say that I should..and I always think that it is important to and one day I will have a huge library filled to the rim with every Artscroll book ever published..all the biographies included and I would be inspired. But realistically it never really happened. ...

What does one say? What is there to say?  I feel compelled to write about it. It almost seems flippant if I don't.  On the other hand, how does once reduce such a horrific event to words? I was on the train yesterday, and all these people were going about their days..listening to music, playing candy crush, watching the latest episode of "Orange is the New Black" and I wanted to shout! DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!  HOW CAN YOU JUST GO ABOUT YOUR DAY!! but the truth is, I also had to just go about my day. I had to study I had to go to school. My life was basically the same as it usually is. Nothing really different. I couldn't afford the time to be down and depressed.  As callous as it sounds..there really wasn't much for me to do at that point and I had to do what i had to do, much to my dismay.  the other truth is that people are dying everyday. There are people of all walks of life dying from things as simple as the flu, to ...

its been a while..not sure if anyone reads anymore..but write i will if only for myself. its gotten to the point where people just look and me and they pity me. I am almost 26, not married with no prospects in sight and I have been told that people think im not serious, my resume is all wrong, i dress wrong, i dont meet enough people, hmm what other reasons can we come up with.. i dont meet enough shadchanim, my hair is too short, its too long, im too frum , im not frum enough, the boys are picky, i'm picky im too smart i intimidate im asking for too much my biological clock is ticking .... the list goes on and on and on bemoaning the many reasons of my single hood..yet the one factor that no one seems to look at is that this is the one thing in my life that i really have very little control over. I have told people over and over and over again. I refuse to pretend to be someone I am  not. No one wins in that situation. No one comes out on top. Yes, i may be m...

The semester is officially over for a paltry five days..so I finally have some time. Pesach is supposed to be a holiday celebrating freedom. We are commanded to feel as if we ourselves have left Mitzrayim. It is not a holiday commemorating a day that happened all those years ago. It is one celebrating the freedom that I, AM, is experiencing today in 2014. We sing Hallel and praise Hashem for His greatness and kindness, thanking Him for saving us from an exile that would have surely decimated us had we stayed a minute longer. But how many of us felt that freedom Seder night? Sitting around the table with the same people as last year, reading the same words, asking the same questions, most of us barely sitting up straight from exhaustion..please tell me..how many of us felt truly free? Spiritually free? Physically free? We are privileged to live in a time where we are physically free. We live in a time that is so politically correct, anti-semitism is not an obvious obstacle. ( just...

it is absolutely beautiful! the sun has come out and so should those funky shades! days like this, make you happy to be alive, make you want to feel the grass between your toes ( if you could actually find any grass in this city) makes you want to do everything outside. I actually don't mind studying if i can do it outside with the sun shining, loading up on the vitamin D! Chodesh Tov! Thank you to the Creator of the World for this wonderful present. Pesach is definitely in the air! I plan on enjoying this gorgeous day! Maybe even go to juggling at Bryant park..who knows what the day holds :)