Observing "Overweight" as an Expensive Problem

I woke up Wednesday morning, having everything organized. My suitcase was packed, my carry on was filled with entertainment for the long flight, (U.S. History book)and my clothing for the day was neatly laying out. Of course, the day on the of the flight things are stressful. Plus, i need to take two tests that i was busy studying for the last minute. I came into school, took the tests, then i got into the car and pulled off my dikkie, shouting, "freedom" and i was on my way to Pesach vacation. My luggage was heavy, i knew that very well when i was schlepping it, but i was told i can carry 70 pounds, so i was safe and secure. After the long line to check in the luggage, i get my turn and the ugly numbers appear on the scale. The lady behind the desk says, "You are overweight by 12 kilos. It's 125 dollars." I forgot to mention before, that i hardly slept the night before, i was very hot in my sweatshirt, and i was at my end's wit. I broke down crying, (i wish that would have been enough to let me go through without trouble. Besides, no one likes to be told that they are overweight. :-)) I was shlepping a ton of Pesach food, that is impossible to purchase in the location of my destination. But $125? What a rip off! After trying talk sense into the manager, i am sent to the counter on the other side of the airport to pay. I also forgot to mention that i did not have more than $50 on me. But i am sad to say, that cashier and airport people disappoint me as being robots, and perhaps they are just doing their job. But what do you want from a teenage individual who has literally no money to pay? Telling her that the airline changed its policy from 70 pounds to 50 pounds is not very helpful! You are not going to make me throw out the heavy salt and potato starch! My family will starve on pesach! The lady behind the "overweight" counter told me that if i transfer the extra weight into another bag, then it will cost me only $50. (Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous than that? the 12 kilo stay the same, whether they are in the same bag or in another!) I stuffed in all my belongings from my carry on into my pocket book (which was overflowing, heavy and couldn't zip closed.)I plop myself on the dirty, airport floor, sweating looking like a mess, i dissect my huge L.L. Bean duffel bag and take out all the food that could fit inside my knapsack. My purse is around somewhere, my coat is laying somewhere else, there is pesach food all over the place. Bypassers look at me, some with pity, some with curiosity, some with weirdness and ridicule. But my tears streaming down my cheeks mixed with sweat give me the shavlled look, that state, that i DON"T care about public opinion! I gotta do what i gotta do, even with the hopless despair hovering over my head that the 12 kilo wont fit in my knapsack, and all my effort is for nothing. And into my knapsack i stuffed in raw meet, beef, kosher l'pesach cans and ketchups, mayonnaise and mustard. My knapsack becomes too heavy to carry, but i guess my hours at the gym wont allow my back and muscled to betray me. One has gotta bless G-D. Weather it is when He grants you comforting siblings, who patiently support and encourage you on the phone, or arrange a payment by credit card over the phone because they dont want you travelling penniless, or are nervous about your progress and mental state during a moment of crisis. G-D bless them! I was nervous, because the gates were threatening to close up soon, but thank G-D, i saved money, made it on time, and checked in my extremely heavy loads. (There was not enough space for heavy silver foil in the luggage, so i had to carry it with me everywhere, to the gates, to the bathroom, through security, through passport control and the plane. Lovely! Absolutely splendid! I think i won the record of most interesting passenger in JFK!) Long story short, i was finally calming down, my tears were drying up, my hysterics were subsiding and i was approaching the boarding pass check-in thing. As i am approaching, i see a mother, in a long shaytel, parting with her loved ones, holding on to her two little kids. She was on the verge of tears, the man saying "Good-Bye" to her, gave me a look, and said, "Great, here is a mother's helper." He said, referring to me. Didn't he see i was exhausted beyond belief? Didn't he notice my tear-stained cheeks? I guess not. It was a safe flight, and i brought the potato starch. So i guess, that's what counts. :-)

Observing the Role of a Fake Dikkie

One of the 1000's rules of my school, is that we have to wear collars. (I have a theory about collars i will talk about later.) It is annoying, because you are not always in the mood to wear uncomfortable, button-down shirts. Someone brilliant invented something called a "dikkie" for those of you who don't know what it is, it's a collar, (just a collar without the shirt part) the dikkie hidden under a shirt, and only the collar sticks out. So that is what i have been doing all year before i left for school each morning. I would put on a regular, non button-down shirt, and just stick in a dikkie, so while the tznius police thought i was wearing a whole button down shirt underneath, i was only wearing a tiny piece of fabric with a collar. But this morning, i happened to be extremely stressed out with studying for an A.P. exam, and putting on a dikkie slipped my mind. (in my school you never want to suffer the strict penalties of breaking the dress code). The secretary in the school told me, "The school won't be happy with..." She pointed to the neck. Then i suddenly realized i had a collarless neck, oy vey! I was in a panick! I walked into class, "Who has a dikkie, or a scarf i can borrow?" By the way scarfs aren't a safe bet, but safer than wearing no collar at all. No one had one for me, and i really did not want my tznius to affect my GPA. Then G-D directed my head towards the sink, where there was a stack of white (very papery) paper towels. I took one, ripped it a little and made the corners prop out of my shirt. So instead of wearing a button down shirt, i normally wear dikkies, but today instead of that, i wore a paper towel on my neck. I shockingly did not get caught, go paper towels!!! Now, my theory about collars and Bais Yakov. When you are an innocent pedestrian walking in a park, would you rather see a collarless dog, or one with a collar. Pshita! A dog with a collar, because it's not wild, or free, it has an owner, authority, guidance. That is the symbol of the collar. I couldn't help, but make the comparison with bais yakov girls, and the chiyuv medeoraysa to wear collars. We have authorities, we have guidance, we are not chas v shalom, wild! I am not criticizing anything, i just happen to despise collared shirts. :-)

Observing Murder!

What can i write about when it comes to murder? Today a man entered a Jewish school in Toulose and fired 15 gunshots. He killed a Rabbi, and the Rabbi's two sons. A six year old and a three year old. A 10 year old girl was killed too, and a 17 year old was severely injured? Why? What did these innocent human beings ever do to deserve such a fate? This same question is asked over and over, during so many repetitive events. Last year when the Fogel family was butchered in Itamar, i was shocked to see that almost no one outside the Jewish Community was informed of the event. And the NY Times had the nerve, to publish an article somehow blaming the Jews for being in settlements. Ridiculous! These disasters keep striking us! Why? What for? When will this stop!?!

Observing Mussar Sickness

I am generally a happy, girl who doesn't usually sweat the small stuff. But today i was sitting in class and instead of learning the sefer, it's pshat and meforshim, we were spoon fed two pesukim, heard a beautiful Rav Hirsch and spent the rest of the class just discussing the matter and how it applies to life. Now, if this was a class we had once in a blue moon i would not be complaining. But this class we have several times a week. I feel like the teacher is trying to give us a spiritual uplifting class, but i feel spiritually downlifting. I listened in, commented my opinion, and doodled in a special notebook (i set aside for doodling. i think the best way to create an art portfolio is during classes you are not busy taking notes.) The next class, our next teacher walks in, smiling but reserved. she has that face of the person who is planning to blow you away in a second with all her inspirational stories. I might like her as a person, but as a student i cannot say i am learning anything. We are learning the parsha. But for some reason we are discussing the importance of what we wear. Perhaps that was tied to the parsha of truma, but i cannot recollect clearly. By now, i was tired of doodling, i leaned back in my seat and stared at the teacher. my back was tight, i was uncomfortable, i felt bored and angry that i was not learning anything. I was starting to feel really angry, that our school does not value academics. I started feeling that my brain is taken as a joke, while my nefesh is there to be inspired. But what got me really infuriated was that when the teacher told her story about this person, and how that led to the next, and before you know, you have created blah..blah...blah... I looked around and was disappointingly surprised to find my classmates staring at the teacher awed and inspired. How could they fall for this? I immediately started feeling so angry, that i got up and walked to the bathroom. I sat down on the floor and tried to reconcile what was bothering me so much. This is not me. Why am i having a fit over a few nice fluffy classes? I did 50 jumping jacks and felt a little better. But only a little. I was angry at the fact that i was not being pushed to learn or question, i was angry at the fact that so many of my questions are answered by ignorance floating in verbiage. After class i expressed my feelings to a friend, she said, "Just space out," Why? Why should i space out? I just learned how to conquer my issue with focusing in class, was i supposed to go back to day dreaming? Though i do feel better now, i don't know how to treat the rest of my fluffy Mondays till the rest of the school year.

Observing "Unorthodox"

I just read a really awesome book, called "Unorthodox," by Deborah Feldman. It was a gripping, insightful, intriguing novel. It describes how a woman rids herself of the shackles of satmar hasidism. I wont tell you the details of the story, but i like the fact that the auhor is able to find her niche, despite her resentment at her childhood hasidic world. Even though today she is a liberated, free thinking American woman, she still has a very strong Jewish identity. A woman in her position and experience, i admire her for still staying connected to her Jewish routes, in her own way. Take a look:

Observing "Ask the Rabbi a Question"

At ninth grade shabbatons, the typical questions asked are about mashiach, olam haba, tchiyas hamesim, and things of that sort. Things we "earthly" people dont really know much about due to lack of experience. In tenth garde, girls generally ask about matters concerning shomer negiah. As a member of a large elevnth garde, when we were seated on Friday night for the "Ask the Rabbi a session", i decided to bombard the Rabbi with the question that has been bothering me for months. Unfortunately, i am still dissatisfied. I raised my hand for a while, and finally after the Rabbi finished answering questions about our tachlis in life, i got the chance to speak, i asked, "How could the Torah, confine women to the halakha, which can potentially make her an agunah?" I am not asking why there is suffering in the world, i want to know, why the Torah gives (usually) the man the authority to imprison his wife? The answer he gave to my understanding, dealt with the importance of having a strong marriage, and obviously, one can see how badly the secular court marriages work. (I also despise answers that in attempt to explain the rationalism of Judaism, digress, by explaining failures of the "secualrs." But that's besides my point. I was walking around dissatisfied, and heated up, passionately because the Rabbi did not answer the question. My principal also tried answering, by going off talking about the potential issue of mamzerim,. But he also failed to answer the question. Do you have any ideas?

Observing "HP"

Growing up in a Yeshiva education, i was always told the most amazing stories of hashgacha pratis. At first they are cute, interesting, sometimes even funny. But by eleventh grade, these stories smell like forced inspiration. Ironically, in our English class we were discussing the concept of hashgacha pratis and we had to right a few paragraphs relating to the concept. I wasn't in the mood to investigate my life for personal, hashgacha pratis stories, so i was glad when G-D enlightened me with something interesting... Throughout history we see a pattern of the natural outcome vs. the reality. Events are there to destroy us, but instead we flourish. One of these examples takes place almost twenty years after the birth of the State of Israel. At this time, Israel is an inexperienced newborn state. Yet, before the people can take a deep breath, they are threatened with a war from all borders, the 1967 War. Terror, horror, and dread strikes the country. The newly arrived Israelis are boarding up their windows against the threatening bombs from Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. The Israeli authorities are expecting a second Holocaust, a final end to the Jews! However, the outcome of reality is shockingly different. Shortly before the 1967 War is about to end, the BBC channel on the radio announces that the U.N. Is about to declare ceasefire. However, Mosheh Dayan, Menachem Begin, Levi Eshkol and other Israeli Government officials will not let the best opportunity of all time fall to the ruthless hands of fate. Amid the distant sounds of bombs and gunshots, these leaders, who are expecting death, decide on a plan that would capture the Kotel. The Jewish exhausted “sweat-stained paratroopers” walk towards their unexpected reward, the Western Wall. While they thank and praise G-D for the gift, the sun rays are reflecting on the Kotel, making the holy place look golden. And the soldiers break out in singing, “yerushlayim shel zahav,” “Jerusalem of Gold.” All the Jews want is to survive, but instead they get what they never expect, the holiest place on earth!