Hatikvah - The Hope - The National Anthem of Israel - התקווה

      This is an amazing rendition of Hatikvah. Enjoy.

change

babies are so cute. every person in the world once was a baby. so innocent. so full of hope. when i look at someone with poor character i find it hard to believe that they were once a cute little baby .
when does it happen? when does the cute little baby turn into the bad seed?

changes. they boggle the mind..

status quo

life is really weird. for years things can be the same . nothing changes. ever. and then suddenly after many years of sameness it changes. poof! just like that. the change isn't always bad change , but its change. this is why one has to be flexible. things may seem like they will never change , but that do change . eventually. i guess this could count as a proof that one can actually be hopeful about achieving ones hopes, dreams and goals.

where's the middle road?

it is so easy for a new baal tshuvah to go the extreme route. the frummer the better. why try to coast and find a heter when one can just blindly follow the strictest view.(yes, i know that all new bts are not like this, but im just trying to make a point) .

in my parents era the accepted view was that women would get married and be stay at home moms while the men would go to work and make a living. these days if one chas v'shalom wants to be a stay at home mom it is quite frowned upon. there just is no middle of the road. whatever happened to doing what is best for ones self instead of abiding to a bunch rules made by who knows who. why does it always have to be the extreme view? why must everyone abide by only one view?

the worst is when certain hair types are in style. the blowout is always in style with curly haired jewish women, but in the outside world sometimes curly perms are in - shirley temple, the 1980's, and sometimes straight is in as in usually. the thing is one was born with a hair type and weather be damned, there isnt always anything one can do about it.

i think that religion is very extreme these days. the frum are moving further to the right and the non-frum are moving more to the left (if this is even possible). we should all be who we are, ultra- orthodox or ultra-reform, but i do think that there are plenty of us who are somewhere in the middle and the middle is okay too. people dont fit into pat categories. the idea is what direction one is headed, not how far the journey. are we all striving to do mitzvot at our own levels?

i never get how people are so all or nothing about judaism. if they dont do everything then why bother? NO ONE is perfect at anything . i guess it takes a certain extreme personality to take the all or nothing approach. then again, all or nothing is the easy way out. doing the best one can is much harder. it requires much more stamina. when one is a do the best one can type, one may have setbacks, but one owns what one does do. its all about where one is going. part of my day job is teaching. ive taught adults, ive taught children. the one thing ive learned is that there are many ways one can reach the same endpoint. everyone doesnt think the same way , one just has to find what works and go with that. one will eventually "get it" . we all have individual hashkafahs that we have to "go with" and this will help us get closer to hashem.

old young people

i have friends who like to kvetch that they are old. it bugs me because i dont think of myself as old. when my friends start kvetching about aches i keep thinking is it just them or am i in deep denial? (btw, my actual age is irrelevant for this topic, so dont even go there in your brain) part of my feeling of agelessness is due to the fact i do not have kids or even nieces or nephews. another reason i feel young is due to my upbringing. i grew up surounded by elders who felt young at heart no matter what their age. they may have looked aged but that was where it ended. i have a great uncle who started drawing in his late seventies. my grandmother was an associate travel agent who oraganized and led trips for senior citizens until she was eighty. i have been fortunate to have elders who always seemed up to date with life instead of living in the past.i try to emulate them. i think that this is what keeps me young. i try to be able to relate to young and old alike in an age appropriate manner.
i dont want to get old before my time. many of my peers have cried old at 35. to me this is so sad. why waste time feeling old? maximize life. feeling old never helps. it just makes one feel depressed. i really dont feel old . what good would feeling old do anyway? three years from now i will wish that i was as young as i am today. i want to feel the hope of youth as long as i can, if not always. when one stops striving one becomes old. when one stops having hope GAME OVER.

its about the journey....

failure is not striving for something and not achieving. failure is focusing on a specific goal and being disappointed when its unreachable. life is about the journey. its not about where you have or havent been.its about the route one is opting to take. this is so hard to internalize. logically this is a good thing . try to be the best one can be, but it doesnt matter if one accomplishes all ones dreams, just if one tries to . i feel better already....

unbearable thoughts

its been a week since the attacks in mumbai and i am still disturbed by it. how it happened to the people of india as well as those murdered in the chabad house. i am also in awe of those firefighters who rescued people from the hotel in the taj mahal, even when they were instructed not to by their superiors. at great risk to their own safety they rescued 3oo people. i am equally in awe of sandra samuel the nanny who saved the baby of the slain chabad rabbi and his wife. equally miraculous is how this baby lived through this at all.

in the new york's jewish week rabbi menachem mendel nemes , a yeshiva teacher in crown heights was quoted as telling his students that" if this group can cause that much destruction in the world, imagine if that size group got together to do good deeds." this my friends is the truth . this is what is wrong with the world. so many pool their energies for evil instead of channeling them toward good. what an incredible world we would live in if only good was channeled instead of evil.

however... all is not lost. hatikvah-hope is in the essence of the jewish people. we must have hope that good will prevail over evil and that there will be total and complete shalom someday soon.... very soon...
as for those freaks of nature who say to the world "maybe now they will understand" when a terror attack happens to someone who isnt jewish "GET OVER YOURSELVES!!" its equally evil to revel in anyone suffering such a brutal attack. one should wish that peope learn compassion for terror victims in a peaceful manner, not by reveling in others misfortunes. i heard frummies say this after 9/11. to me they almost seemed happy. many jewish souls were lost during 9/11, yet they were happy to pontificate their mantra of "maybe now they will understand" . well folks, i surely dont understand. reveling in harm to others just "so they will understand" is childish and definitly not frum.

post elections

now that obama's pr superstars have achieved their goals, maybe they would like to be my advocates. they must have alot of time on their hands now. if only i had a pr team like that to help me find a husband....
anyhow... a girl can dream...

shana tovah

as usual the holidays are almost here and im still trying to figure out where summer has gone. i always look at rosh hashanah as new beginning because aside from being a new year my birthday is at the end of elul .

im all for new beginnings and hopefully this year will bring all of us closer to realizing our hopes and dreams as well as being filled with health, happiness and peace of mind.

if you are single today ....

if you are single today, do you truly believe you will ever get married?
i put up this poll today because i think many singles dont really think that they will ever get married. they are just so burnt out from the whole dating game that they fear it will never end.
i understand the sentiment, but i think that the attitude is counterproductive if its what one feels everyday. not just every so often. we all have our off days, but i think its best to think positively.
i believe i will get married at some point. if its at a time when i am still fertile. i dont know. i do however believe that i will get married. im not pollyanna either. its just that i truly believe that there is someone out there for me.
forget what the shadchanim and every rude busybody says. fat people get married. ugly people get married. rude people get married. mean people get married. rich people get married. poor people get married.
so why not me?
or you?

hakaras hatov

very recently tragedy has hit an acquaintance of mine who is single. as much as ive been kvetching about being single and everything else under the sun, i truly am thankful and happy to be alive. life can be so fragile. without life there is no hope. with life there is hope. even though one may not have yet achieved one's life's goals, if one has life , one has a chance to achieve ones goals.
life is full of surprises as well as much disappointment, but so long as there is hope... then its all good.

the three weeks

im really not looking forward to the three weeks. not that anyone in their right mind would be. although, i suppose it would be quite lofty to say that i was looking forward to uplifting myself spirtually during the three weeks. but im not that good.

the worst part of shivah assar betamuz is knowing that tisha bav is only three weeks away.

blah!!

the three weeks always have a foreboding aura. kind of like feeling spooked. the suffocating summer heat adds to the oppressive ambiance.

the three weeks always come right when im starting to enjoy the summer. as if to say, dont enjoy your summer so much. just like sefirah starts when spring is in the air. i guess its trying to say, enjoy life, but also remember life has a purpose and we must remember the worst of times to enhance appreciation of the good times.

knit (or crochet) for peace

there's a book ive glanced at several times at barnes and noble called knitting for peace. it lists charitable organizations one can knit for. its includes knitting for soldiers. its a cute book. being more of a crocheter than a knitter,i did not read the whole book. i think that the concept is more true than one might expect. but not for the reasons the book knitting for peace had intended. i often crochet on the train. you would not believe how many people of all ethnic backgrounds and economic backgrounds start talking to you. they ask you about what you are making. how long you have been crocheting.they share anecdotes about their own projects. i genuinely enjoy chatting with diverse sorts of individuals. i find it enriches my life. once i was on the train and this woman who i thought was from india started chatting with me about my crochet project and telling me how her mother used to crochet lace. at some point during the conversation she turned to her right and started speaking to her friend who was wearing a burka about my project. then continued speaking to me. more women than men approach me while im crocheting , but sometimes men are intrigued and start chatting about it. the cutest observers are little kids who become mesmorized by the repetitive motion of my crochet hook . it brings people together in a quiet way. a non-political way. people who might never have reason to interact. i enjoy crocheting for the social interactions it creates, just as much as for the craft itself. and through these seemingly mundane social yarns a more peaceful world can be created.

hatikvah???

life never is exactly what you expect. of course this adage is all one can expect. its always difficult having hopes and dreams that get dashed. its hard to accept life as it comes yet still strive and hope for a better life. its such a challenge to internalize thankfulness for what one does have while stinging from not achieving ones potential.

groundhog day moments

hopefully this year will be different and i wont perpetually be living another year of bill murray in groundhog day moments. i often feel like my life is always pressing the repeat button. id like for things to go a little differently and actually get to find love again this year