Have you ever found yourself eating chocolate chips in your pantry after a stressful day with the kids, or mindlessly snacking at work out of boredom? These are both typical scenarios of emotional or stress eating.

Eating for emotional reasons is completely normal, and every human being does it to some degree. Emotional attachment to food is woven into our experiences from birth. Think about a newborn baby who nurses (or bottle-feeds) from his mother. Besides the physical benefits of the food itself are the emotional benefits, like the skin-to-skin contact, which promotes bonding between mommy and baby. The newborn quickly associates feeding and sucking with comfort and a way to self-soothe.

Whether at a wedding or other simcha, celebrating Shabbos and holidays with family, or date night with your spouse, eating is a natural way of expressing emotion. These are all normal, healthy ways to use food to express emotion on these occasions.

Ever gotten the flu shot, then caught the flu? Know someone who refused to vaccinate her kids, fearing it causes autism? Heard accusations of doctors of over-prescribing to get pharmaceutical kick-backs? Are any of these concerns valid? How can you know whose advice to listen to when it comes to your family’s health?

 Recently, a friend sent me a link to an online Jewish publication that vilified the use of statin medications in lowering cholesterol, advocating replacing them with exercise and alternative treatments. The author told the story of a patient who became paralyzed after taking a statin, concluding that the medication caused the condition. He argued his point using misinformation, partial truths, conspiracy theories, and misunderstood physiology.

In making mental health referrals, we are often asked about the skills and therapeutic techniques that therapists will use. This article will hopefully give a basic overview of some of the effective characteristics and techniques that clinicians implement.

The field of psychotherapy requires a broad range of abilities, which will be outlined below. However, before we continue, we must mention that all of these abilities need to be further developed throughout a therapist’s career. There is no such thing as someone who is such a natural that no further self-development is needed.

Often we hear words or terms used and we have a vague idea of what they mean, but we don’t really have a full understanding of what they encompass. For this article I decided to uncover the meaning of the terms trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as PTSD. While I knew that they refer to mental health problems that affect people in different ways, I had very little understanding of how they applied to everyday life. I am lucky enough to have a son, Shlomo Schor, who is a psychotherapist specializing in treating people who suffer from traumatic experiences that lead to PTSD. He took the time to explain to me what trauma is, how it leads to PTSD, and how it can be treated.

With all the hectic activity going on in our lives, one thing is for sure: We have to eat every day, sometimes even three times a day (plus snacks)! Crazy talk, I know. But, with a house full of kids and time at a premium, one thing that makes things a little less hectic is getting my kids to help with dinner. Studies have shown that the more children help in the kitchen for a particular meal, the more they are likely to eat it. That’s certainly true in our house. My kids take pride in making their own food – and I get to show them they are responsible, helpful, and capable of mastering this basic life skill.

The meals my kids have cooked have come out very well – not to mention the quality relationship time and the learning opportunities that cooking together creates, things like how to handle fire and what do we do when things do not go as expected. In our house, we do a rotation: One child per week gets to decide the menu and make the food – with as much help from me as he or she would like. One of my kids picks beef and broccoli; another one regularly picks pasta, etc.) After they choose and make the food, they get to help serve it. With their participation, they feel the pride of ownership and enjoy the food.

When Rochelle Goldberg’s eighth grade Bais Yaakov students performed her musical drama, Journey’s End, in January, 2016, little did she realize that the play – the sixth original play she has written for the school – would hit a nerve.

“When I was thinking about ideas, I realized that no one had ever done a play with a Persian theme,” recalls Mrs. Goldberg. “I have always noticed that some of the Persian girls feel like second-class citizens – not quite fitting in. Some fit in so easily, but a significant group does not. Of course, that was my personal feeling; I took a chance and gambled with my gut feeling. It’s a shame that it hadn’t been done earlier. But it ended up being so much more than a play.”

The poignant play was performed again by Bais Yaakov’s eighth grade students a few weeks ago. Renamed Generations, it was directed by Mrs. Goldberg and production heads, Mrs. Sossie Ansbacher and Miss Gila Jacobovitz, as well as student production heads, Tova Rachel Paige and Rivkah Moinzadeh. The story featured the special connection between “Elinor,” a 16-year-old Persian student, played by first-generation American Shira Shifteh, and her great-grandmother, played by Shira Shapiro (who worked with the Persian girls to get the accent down!). The role of Elinor’s mother, Mrs. Delshad, was played by Shanit Gholian, also a first-generation American.

Last month, Relief Resources of Baltimore sponsored One Crucial Night to Raise Mental Health Awareness. Before the program started, Zahava List, with a smile that could light up a room, stood behind a table in BJSZ’s foyer, displaying brochures for Chazkeinu and a sample gift for women with postpartum depression. She’s the president and cofounder of this two-and-a-half-year-old peer group of Jewish women. Chazkeinu’s aim is to provide empathetic support and positive connections to Jewish women coping with mental illness and to help dispel the stigma of mental illness. Zahava knows firsthand about that stigma. That’s why she readily shares

Security is in the news today. Jewish institutions are beefing up their security in the wake of Pittsburgh. And several recent anti-Semitic street attacks in New York and elsewhere have made it clear that Jewish individuals, too, need to be more aware of the danger of becoming a victim of assault, whether the motive is hatred or robbery.

Anti-Semitism is nothing new, of course. It has existed since the Exodus from Egypt 3,331 years ago. But we, the Jewish people, have also celebrated the miracle of our survival throughout history as the cherished nation of am Yisrael, a survival that is the biggest proof of G-d’s love for us. We have shown a remarkable ability to confront the most impossible of challenges. Our past is riddled with wondrous feats of heroism: Dovid vs. Golias, the Maccabees vs. the Greeks, and Bar Kochva vs. the Romans. Today, too, we as a people stand strong.

Last month I wrote about how to create an intellectually-stimulating home to help our children, especially those who are superior students, grow in their curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking. This month, I’d like to shift my focus to ask how we can enrich all our children’s learning experiences, no matter what their ability and level of knowledge. After all, no matter how much a class is tracked, there will always be those who are more advanced and those who need more support. I’d therefore like to explore how we can keep all children engaged and growing when we are actively teaching them.

In the typical classroom, children who understand the material the first time it is taught are often asked to sit quietly; do extra, monotonous, worksheets; or become a second teacher to other students. Is there anything we can do to help these students reach their potential? Even if only for the sake of self-preservation, it may be in our best interest to make sure the advanced students receive enrichment because kids who are bored can often become mischievous, defiant, apathetic, or resentful.

As a child, I often accompanied my mom when she went food shopping. There was no kosher supermarket, and chain stores did not have a largeAs  selection of kosher products, so my mom frequented stores like Liebes, Jack’s grocery, Wasserman and Lemberger butcher, and Friedman’s Fish and Produce. I loved going with my mom and buying my favorite culinary delicacies. Jack’s grocery was located in the Pimlico area near the race track. Surrounding it were other shops, like Frank’s shoe store, Lipnick’s Hardware, Liberty TV, Froehlich’s Schubert Music, Brafman’s Rembrandt Art and Frames and, later, the Hobby Shop, Max Jacob’s Upholstery, Bernard Shear Optical, Pep Boys. Himmelfarb’s and Luskins appliance were a few blocks away. There was no Reisterstown Road Mall yet, so Pimlico served as a main shopping area for those in the Upper Park Heights corridor.

Memories tend to fade as time goes on. Chazal tell us that the remembrance of one who has passed away diminishes after 12 months. Even great people who become legends fade into historical personalities of yesteryear, and memories of them are only as strong as their tangible contributions, such as writings and institutions. There are a rare few whose remembrance becomes stronger with the passage of time, whose legend becomes larger than life. 

HaRav Zvi Dov Slanger, zt”l, whose first yahrzeit will be on the 21st of Shvat, is in this latter category. He left behind a magnificent Yeshiva that he custom-tailored to his unique vision. Yet there is an additional aspect of his legacy that will only be felt in the years to come. HaRav Slanger was a one-of-a-kind mechanech (educator), a master at cultivating bona fide bnei Torah, and his pupils will be among the greatest of tomorrow.

A few months ago, I wrote an article about how families are coping with the burden of tuition for their children’s Torah education. Next, I wrote about dealing with phone calls from school about misbehaving children. In this third in the series on school-related topics, I will explore the perspective of parents who are part of the Orthodox Jewish community but are educating their children in schools outside the community.

In a sense, this phenomenon is a sign of the success of the Jewish day school movement. In previous generations it was very common for children to attend public schools or non-Jewish private schools. My mother, who grew up in a small town outside London, attended non-Jewish schools, beginning with elementary school and going all the way through teachers training college. In fact, she and her brother were the only Jewish students among hundreds of non-Jews. She grew up in a very religious home and was taught to read Hebrew by her grandmother but had very little Jewish book learning. She always felt a little ashamed when she could not help us with our Chumash homework. My father told me that in his non-Jewish school, also in England, the Jewish students were excused from singing Christmas carols and instead were allowed to decorate the Christmas tree!