BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

My friend, Rabbi Schwartz gave a very interesting analogy to someone at my Torah study class. It was a beautiful analogy from the teachings of the Sages. To paraphrase: The student asks the teacher how do I know how close I am to God? The teacher said, "put you arm out in front of you with your palm open to your face. Can you see your hand?" The student said yes. The teacher said "Move it towards your face about 6". Can you see your hand?" The student said yes. The teacher said "Move it towards your face another 6". Can you see your hand?" The student said yes. The teacher said "Move it towards your face another 6". Can you see your hand?" At this point the student's hand was covering his face. "Rabbi," said the student, "I can no longer see anything." "And so it is with God," said the Rabbi, "when you think you can't see or feel Him? He's so close He's right on top of you....

"HAVE BLOGGERS BECOME SOCIAL MEDIA ABUSERS?" Excerpts from this terrific and insightful post from Monika at THE WRITER'S MANIFESTO (click here to get right to her fantastic blog!) : "Do You Join Social Media Sites for their Traffic Potential? Primarily social media is about connecting with others and not to self promote your content. I’m not saying your shouldn’t submit any of your posts ever to social media, but rather keep the self promotion to an absolute minimum. Wikipedia says: Social Media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into content publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers. So how come we seem to think that social media is primarily here to serve our needs to attract a boat load of traffic? ... what I have learned so far is encouraging me further to keep following this new found path. Social Media is about: * gi...

Racial Profiling is Nothing New America has gone through many shameful periods of racial profiling. Poles, Irish and Russians. Even the Puritans wouldn't go anywhere near the Quakers. Always an 'us vs. them' mentality. (By the way, do NOT try to equivalate these things with the profiling of Islamists. I don't know of any Poles or Irish who purposefully flew planes into buildings And I certainly don't know of ANY Jew who strapped explosives to their own child and sent them onto a crowded bus!) Hizzoner The Mensch has an interesting post in JPost on the karma bus and antisemitism (I won't comment on what he says about Carter other than 'regretable' is being polite: 'I don't want to talk with that dirty Jew' by Ed Koch In 1968, I was elected to Congress from the 17th Congressional District in Manhattan, known as the Silk Stocking District. My interests in Washington were diverse, ranging from mass transit to foreign affairs and human right...