This third article will cover the final preliminary step before you are actually ready to plant outdoors and launch your vegetable garden on its journey towards making the best vegetables you have ever tasted! This third step is the most critical one of them all; if it is not done correctly, then anything else you have done or will do is practically for naught. And, this step is the hardest one of them all – here is where we separate the proverbial men from the boys; okay, women from the girls, too! Ummm… no offense, boys and girls.

Sefiras Ha’omer is a time of counting days, but also naming days. Each day has a unique number, but our Rabbis have also endowed each day with a unique set of qualities. There are 49 days of counting from the second night of Pesach until Shavuos. A number of explanations are given for this: Bnai Yisrael needed to rise from the 49th level of defilement, and each day they could raise themselves up one additional level. Forty-nine is also seven-squared. The number seven in our tradition – as elaborated by the Maharal and many other Chachamim – represents this world

To the Shadchan:
Ihave been dating a girl for several weeks now, and things have been getting serious. I have been thinking about different nice ways to propose to her. A few days ago, a friend told me that he saw her father eating at a non-kosher restaurant. This information upset me greatly. I don’t want to marry into a family where I have to worry about kashrus. I want my in-laws to set a good example for my future children. I know that her father is a little bit on the modern side, but nothing like this! I tried

I happened to be humming the Yiddish song that begins, “Where shall I go? – Vee ahin zol Ich gain?” The lyrics lament our historical tsoress, fleeing from one country to another because of our religion. The solution to the question is presented at the conclusion of the tune: “Not to New York, not to Florida – but to Eretz Yisrael!” A nearby listener commented, “Yitzchak, you haven’t been in Israel for several years. Voss fahr ah Yid bist do – what kind of Jew are you? Are you planning to take a trip to Aretz?”

  I shrugged my

I write this aboard AirTran Flight #299, returning home from a very short but sweet visit to my snowbird sister and brother-in-law, in Boynton Beach, Florida. A twoday megadose of summer-in-February spent at their retirement community gave me a taste of retirement living as well as of Florida’s sunlight and vibrant color. Indeed, I saw people wearing fuchsia, sunny yellow, and teal in the middle of the winter. I snapped pictures of pink flamingos in the Wakodahatchee Wetlands, heard the screech of deep green parrots in the palms, and combed the inky blue Gulf Stream beach for exotic seashells. I