spontaneousm

In Memory of Rochie ע"ה

2009-08-02T23:04:00.003-04:00

Tonight, the 13th of Av, is the first Yahrzeit (anniversary) of my sister's passing. Rochie was one of the most beautiful people I have known, inside and out. Perhaps it is cliche to say that God takes the best, but I can't think of another way to put it. Rochie was a model Jew, person, wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, and for being a straight out Mentch. She had this special gift of being able to see past frivolity and self interest. She believed in doing the right thing plain and simple, whether or not it gave her more popularity or status did not even occur to her. She lived not for herself, but for her loved ones. Our lives now will never be complete without her love, her unforgettable smile, and a million moments, strengths and selfless gifts that we once took for granted, and now will never be.

On the morning following Shavuos last year, Rochie (who had no serious health issues prior) failed to wake up, possibly due to an aneurysm, causing her heart to go into cardiac arrest. On the way to hospital and in ER the paramedics struggled to keep her heart beating. Eventually they managed to "stabilize" her enough to move her to the CCU, where she remained in coma. The doctors said she needed a miracle, and hundreds of friends and strangers alike prayed for it. For seven weeks we Davened, cried, sang by her side. Hundreds of amazing people blogged and prayed, gathered and prayed, visited and prayed. Many took on resolutions to better themselves to merit her recovery; following in her example to excel in Ahavas Yisrael and to speak favorably of others. Even as she lay in her hospital bed, seemingly powerless, she managed to turn the world upside down. Even when we could no longer hear her reassuring voice, she continued to bring out the best in us, bring us together, helping us see the world through that special scope she had, that special gift.

On the 13th of Av, four days after her son's first birthday, 26 years and 7 months days after God blessed this earth with her presence, she was taken back to His holy abode. The void is overwhelming, her legacy beyond description.

Dozens of people sent in their stories of how Rochie had inconspicuously touched their lives. How she had reached out to them when others would not have thought of it. Rochie was the friend who gave you her all, the one who remembered your birthday, the one who could be there for you when else failed. No one knew she had made so had so many friends and admirers; she never made a deal of it. If she managed to affect the world so much in such a short lifetime, imagine if she was still here, imagine if she was able to continue raise her family and care for others. Without her, the world feels darker, lonelier.

Please do something that would make Rochie happy today. Call someone you've been meaning to call... Offer a smile to someone who can use it... Think twice before giving your opinion on others; Rochie's approach to constructive criticism was so uniquely sensitive; even when it came to shidduchim she couldn't bring herself to speak negatively about others, you had to read in between the lines...

Rochie, we know you are there, listening, as always, forever. Give us the strength, as always, to continue in your example, to reunite us again, with Moshiach. As you believed and waited, so will we… together.

אשת חיל מי ימצא....
בטח בה לב בעלה ושלל לא יחסר
גמלתהו טוב ולא רע כל ימי חייה

פיה פתחה בחכמה ותורת חסד על לשונה
צופיה הליכות ביתה
ולחם עצלות לא תאכל

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תהא נפשה צרורה בצרור החיים

2009-05-18T02:37:00.000-04:00

2009-05-18T02:35:00.000-04:00

2009-05-18T02:28:00.000-04:00

Spring, Euphoria

2009-04-30T20:25:00.005-04:00

Thank you dear friend
for sharing as much
on this most glorious of days
A poem, like the sun,
that reaches to our touch

Of all the countless gifts
G-d has bestowed
There is nothing quite like Spring
The world awakens!
Behold!

On a day like today
(still) having radio is a gift
albeit near antiquated,
for it lets your eyes, mind open,
'llows imagination to drift

(A Prairie Home Companion
is just the right muse
Be it with a cozy winter beverage,
a rain-soaked Autumn reflection
Happy days or blues)

As a child I'd lay
on a Spring afternoon
The bedsheets are crisp, the house glimmers,
aromas of Pesach, swiftly approaching;
Soon, soon!

Yet the clatter in the kitchen
seems miles away
My world is my clock radio, the azure blue sky
the voice of the Yankees;
It's opening day!

Through the crack in the window
I can almost smell the game,
as if through the air we share, the scent of Spring
I can almost see the sell-out crowd
shouting for Bernie! Tino! O'Niel!
Soon will come the crack
now comes the swing

R.I.P. Baseball

2009-04-26T21:01:00.005-04:00

Empty luxury seats at the opening series of the new Yankees Stadium

(Blogger's Note: Please excuse the overly bitter tone; it just came out this way and I lack the "hey-scheck" to change it)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gSn19IpdZn7FbgJXU4k5wAqyPhWAD97NQ7VG1

Serves you right, you stupid, stupid people. You built a stadium for millionaires. Forever your approach has been single-minded; revenue, revenue, revenue. Even when you make your B.S. statements about how you’ve made some of the seats more affordable then they were before, it’s all with one thing in mind; keep the little guy happy as well, after all... someone needs to sit in the upper deck.
It’s all very logical, less seats in higher demand equals more dough then the other way around. And of course if you’re paying $2,000 to watch an overpaid, overrated team you shouldn’t have to sit next to a guy who doesn’t quite fit in his seat, doesn’t quite know when to stop buying $8 beers, and doesn’t quite know how to keep his dirty mouth shut. Purely logical. So build them a stadium within a stadium, guarded by ushers who will make sure no one who can’t afford to, won’t even pass in front of you. After all, why pay $2000 for a view just to have it obscured. Purely logical.

You forgot one thing though. You forgot how baseball was built, from the bottom up. The game was where the factory worker could leave his harsh world behind for a few hours of entertainment, excitement and a hope for victory. Where the kid who slaved all week hawking newspapers to buy a ticket for a buck twenty five came to dream. Why did he come? Because no matter how destitute the reality at home was, he could leave it behind at the majestic gates. Gazing upon the green field of his dreams, it was just him and his heroes. True, he wished he could afford a better seat, but it was still worth it. He may be too far away to see who was up to bat, but there was one thing he and the guy sitting in the box seat had in common, they both shared the same fence. Together they shared the joy, the sighs, the cheers, the tears, laughter, heartache. Together they prayed, hoped, swore, and knew that this year, this year would be different.

Baseball didn’t survive the depression because they raised the prices on the luxury boxes; it survived because everyone knew they were always welcome; at home. Where any kid could feel like a million bucks because he got The Mick’s autograph. (Today you can still get an autograph, if your parents are rich enough to buy The Mick so you can get close enough to the field) The field was a haven, an escape. But even baseball can’t escape greed. We loved the game so much, we allowed it to outgrow itself; greed feeding it like a drug. Like an artificially ballooned 70 home run hitter, the sport has spun out of control.

It's no wonder all across America baseball diamonds sit vacant, while the game prospers in third world countries. For a passionate player you need passionate fans who dream of becoming that player. And to attract those fans you need passionate players, not millionaires of whom you spend most of your time worrying about whether they will get injured or not.

R.I.P. baseball, I’ll miss you so much.

p.s. On a lighter note:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7VJjpeBnrs

Why Do We Eat?

2009-04-26T00:22:00.000-04:00

Cute, very well done

How Jews Eat from MyJewishLearning.com on Vimeo.

Nigun ShVY"T (AKA "Tatenyu") ~ Cello

2009-04-12T18:31:00.005-04:00

Chabad niggunim on the cello... why didn't anyone think of this before??

The irony of this video is outstanding. One the one hand, the haunting sound of the cello so perfectly captures the mood and character of the old-country niggun. Yet, the manner in which it has been recorded would have offended it's composers.

Perhaps it is symbolic of how the the Movement has evolved. Although we pride ourselves in practices that Chabad'a founders may have considered sacreligious, it is still nice to know that the more things change, certain thing stay the same; just like the eternal purity of a niggun.

What do you think?

Ach... So Simple...

2009-04-03T01:16:00.001-04:00

Signs of the Times

2009-04-03T01:00:00.000-04:00

The only music I pay for these days is in the subway, go figure

Metropolitan Diary: You Coulda Fooled Me

2009-04-03T00:57:00.001-04:00

Dear Diary:

My husband, Daniel, works on the 41st floor of an office building in Times Square, overlooking the Hudson River.

When US Airways Flight 1549 made an emergency landing in the water in January, Daniel and some of his colleagues gathered by his window. A co-worker walked by and asked, “What’s everyone looking at?”

“A plane just landed in the river,” Daniel answered.

“Oh, I saw that a few minutes ago,” said the co-worker, who had just moved to New York from California. “I thought it looked a bit weird, but then I told myself, ‘This is New York,’ and I just went back to work.”

-Rebecca Wolf

Metropolitan Diary: Uptown, Downtown

2009-04-03T00:52:00.000-04:00

DEAR DIARY:

Recently I was standing on the corner of Prince and Mercer Streets in SoHo, not far from where I work, enjoying the lunchtime ambience. A gentleman came up to me and asked me if we were in TriBeCa. “No, this is SoHo,” I responded. “TriBeCa is south and west of here,” pointing in that direction.

He thanked me and asked which way it would be to Greenwich Village. I pointed north and showed him where he could find the East and West Village neighborhoods. Lastly, he asked me which way he would have to go to find Chinatown. I pointed south and east of where we were standing. I was happy to be able to offer a little help to a visitor.

“I’m not from around here,” he explained. “I’m from the Upper East Side.”

-Steve Cytryn

Metropolitan Diary; Wow

2009-02-24T12:07:00.000-05:00

Dear Diary:

I’m standing on the northeast corner of 57th Street and Avenue of the Americas, waiting for the uptown No. 7 bus, when an agitated woman in a brown coat rushes up the street beside me, holding a small black purse open in her hands and calling, “Laura! Laura! Laura!”

She accosts every woman. “Are you Laura?” she asks them, the desperation in her voice increasing as she progresses, luckless, up the avenue.

At the corner of 58th, out of earshot but still within sight, a tall young woman in a black coat does a 180 in obvious response to the 15th call of “Laura!” Her hands fly up to her face in excitement, and then reach out to take the proffered purse. There is some animated conversation between them, culminating with brown coat holding up her hands in refusal of something offered by black coat.

Brown coat then hurries back down the avenue, hesitating at our bus stop only long enough to say: “That was Laura. She’s getting married in an hour. She had thousands of dollars in there to pay the caterer.”

With that, brown coat rushes off, no doubt in search of other good deeds to do.

Thomas Mowrey

Metropolitan Diary; I Heart NY

2009-02-24T12:03:00.001-05:00

Dear Diary:

My 4-year-old son, Micah, and I have the following morning routine:

We take the F train to Seventh Avenue. Micah gets his “morning paper” from the AM New York guy standing at the subway entrance and we walk to the bus stop. At the bus stop, Micah begs me to let him hold my MetroCard and I say no.

One day in January, I was tired, it was cold, we were late. I relented and gave Micah my MetroCard to hold. The bus came, and it was crowded. As we were getting on, I noticed Micah taking off his gloves, and no MetroCard. He had dropped it somewhere. We rode illicitly to school.

The next morning, same routine. We get up the stairs from the subway and Micah goes to get his morning paper. But this time, the AM New York guy stops him and says: “My man, I have been waiting for you all morning. I have something that you dropped yesterday,” and indeed pulls out of his wallet my MetroCard, which he found on the curb after the bus pulled away.

(Of course, then Micah asked to hold it again, because now Mommy has two.)

-Amy Sandgrund

Metropolitan Diary: Hmmmm

2009-02-24T11:55:00.003-05:00

Dear Diary:
At a memorial service for my mother, who died recently at 98, her granddaughter Leslie recalled a walk they took on the Upper West Side.
Passing a sign that said “Staples,” her grandmother asked, “How can they make a living selling such a small item?”
-Vicki Schott

Dear Diary:
Scene on the D train heading downtown during the holidays: vagabond in filthy, tattered clothes, wearing every germ known to man and orating forcefully from the Bible.
At 14th Street, a woman kissed him on the cheek, then exited the train.
-Gena Raps

Metropolitan Diary: A Shoe to the Face

2009-02-24T11:50:00.002-05:00

Dear Diary

While walking past a shoe store on Madison Avenue on a cold December morning, I decided to buy a pair of Clarks desert boots. They have not changed from their original design that I, along with millions of other college students from the 1960s, wore as we marched in protest of the war that raged in Southeast Asia.

Upon arriving home I noticed one significant difference. Instead of noting that the boots are made in England, the inside tongue now clearly reads “Made in Vietnam.”

-Bob Fisher

Metropolitan Diary; I Am G-d, Your Blackberry

2009-02-24T11:40:00.003-05:00

ON THE L.I.R.R.

Their fingers clack away on tiny keys,

fretting, as if counting rosaries,

heads bowed in homage to the deity

to whom all praise is due, the BlackBerry.

To iPods wired, into their brains infuse

music that eclipses any muse.

Time and space around them they invade

as phone talk scars my quiet, makes me trade

reading and thinking to hear of what they spent

or ate or who said what — my ears are bent!

No quiet stillness can they seem to hold;

to small machines their restless souls they’ve sold.

One might have the makings of a poet,

but plugged in thus, will probably never know it.

-Sheri Lindner

Lifesavers

2009-02-20T11:36:00.000-05:00

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Amazing work. Kol hakavod

lol

2009-02-11T19:38:00.001-05:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Homeless Skater Rapper/Preacher

2009-02-09T22:34:00.000-05:00

Metropolitan Diary; Rose Is Rose

2009-02-09T22:18:00.003-05:00

Dear Diary:

My mother was placing an order for a pizza delivery. When the clerk asked her name, she said, “Rosenfeld,” and started to spell it: “R-O- —”

The clerk stopped her and said: “You don’t need to spell it. I’m Birnbaum.”

-Amy Shaffer Crawley

*****

Dear Diary:

On my way home on Christmas Day from Pennsylvania Station via Amtrak, I left the station not by the usual exit, but by one in a little-used area.

A homeless man who appeared to be inebriated was reclining midway up the steps. As I passed him, he muttered: “Nice haircut. You didn’t get that in New Jersey.” Allie Tabak

wow

2009-02-04T23:19:00.002-05:00

Josh of the Week

2009-01-03T18:44:00.001-05:00

"It's just that I am the way I am.. 'thas nothing to do with who I am"

"Let us pray children, let us pray because you are all pure like snow, as clear running water..."

2009-01-02T12:56:00.003-05:00

You'd never believe the context of that quote...

Click here to see the video

Thank G-d For Research! (NPI;)

2008-12-30T22:41:00.005-05:00

Under a column called "Findings" in today's New York Times' science section a reporter confirms that two Psychologists "have reviewed eight decades of research and concluded that religious belief and piety promote self-control!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/science/30tier.html?scp=1&sq=self%20control&st=cse

He asks some interesting questions, such as: What came first? Observance or self discipline? What does prayer and meditation do to you brain? And why belief in G-d is imperative to self control. (i.e. Why the world must accept the first of the 7 Mitzvos in order to live by the rest of 'em)