“Where’s my wife?”

“Can you help me paint my house?”

“I’m going to get arrested now.”

Here I am, at Shira Talent Camp, where such strange expressions float through the halls. The girls are flying high – on adrenaline, excitement, and nerves. What is this wondrous place?

STC is a middle-school performing arts camp, where close to 60 girls come together to put on a high-school level, professional performance. Girls as young as 10 memorize lines and have choir and dance solos, where each shines in front of her family, friends, and community.

“Al tashlicheinu l’ais ziknah – Do not cast us aside in our old age” (Selichos). Our Baltimore community is blessed with a number of assisted living as well as nursing home facilities to service the needs of our local elderly and infirm. In addition to attending to their medical requisites, these facilities also engage their residents in a myriad of activities to address spiritual and creative needs. Among these pursuits are the weekend recitations of Kiddush and Havdalah. Since 2007, a group of volunteers have, on a rotational basis, fulfilled these sacred functions at Aventura at the Park (formerly Weinberg Park).  Founded by Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld of Jewish Spiritual Literacy, the program is formally called Love Your Neighbor and boasts a volunteer staff of 9 participants, including yours truly.

 When my oldest aunt got engaged, I was over-the-moon excited – not just because I felt like I had a hand in it, having found out she was engaged exactly an hour after I had been fervently davening for her on a family trip to the Kosel, but because my Aunt Shira is simply the best aunt in the entire universe. She’s the kind of aunt who actually stops everything to babysit if my parents are in a bind and cleans the house while they’re away. She cooks up a storm for Yom Tov so none of her married siblings with kids have to work too hard. Her gooey delicious challah, delivered fresh every Friday from her oven, is the highlight of our week. She’s always been like this, Shira Leah. She is easy to please, the give-the-coat-off-her-back-for-someone-in-need kinda gal. Which is why, as the years went by and Shira remained single, we simply could not understand it. All her friends kept getting married, but Shira Leah seemed to be the only one still babysitting her nieces and nephews instead of driving her own kids’ carpools.

Congratulations! You have a child going to school for the first time! What a milestone! Welcome to the exciting world of preschool, where your child will, be”H, continue on his path of growing and learning in his new “home away from home.”

For some children (and parents), this is very thrilling. I overheard a little girl ask her mother in almost every aisle of Seven Mile Market, “Right, Mommy, I’m going to Bais Yaakov? Right, Mommy, that’s what they do? Right, Mommy, I’m going to need snacks?” etc., etc. It was precious (at least for me) to hear her enthusiasm. And that’s what we want to keep in mind and hold onto – that enthusiasm.

School is the place we go to learn, and students about to begin the new school year will soon be faced with the difficult task of learning – that is, trying to incorporate new information and concepts into their brains (their protests notwithstanding). In doing so, they will be engaging in both surface and deep learning.

People often ask me how I get ideas for my articles in the Where What When. One of the ways is from the books that are left on my porch to be donated to the Jewish Used Books Collection. A perk of this collection is that I get to peek at the books before others buy them. Recently, a book landed on my porch that aroused my interest.

It is called Frum Speak: The First Dictionary of Yeshivish by Chaim M. Weiser (1995). The book is a dictionary of words that are commonly used by many frum English speakers, although they are not part of the English language. Most of us recognize these words but would probably have trouble defining them. And, interestingly, the words can have different meanings depending on the context of the conversation, and they can be complimentary or derogatory depending on the speaker’s intention. Here are some words and their meanings from the book:

Dear Dr. Kidorf,

Our son is starting high school this fall in an out-of-town yeshiva. As I have been reading in the Where What When about the issue of teen drinking and how important it is to talk to your children about it, I am realizing that we never had “the conversation.” I’m pretty sure that the topic has not been presented by his school either. No one in our family is a drinker, and it just never came up. We do have several bottles of whisky, etc., stored on a shelf somewhere that we bring out for Purim and family simchas. In fact, we bought most of those bottles for this boy’s bris! This son is a normal kid and a good student, and I like to think that all our children are being brought up in a wholesome – some might say old-fashioned – environment. While we never felt the need to discuss drinking (or smoking, vaping, and other behaviors that teens might be exposed to), I’m wondering if we should. My friend told me that not giving kids information and direction is like letting your five-year-old cross Park Heights. Is such a discussion a one-size-fits-all imperative, or can each family decide according to their own situation? Should we initiate a conversation on this subject now, before our son gets to yeshiva, or wait until he brings it up? And finally, how should the discussion go?

Response:

in collaboration with the Bamberger Family

Baltimore and klal Yisrael recently lost an ish chesed, an ish emes, a humble and unassuming individual. It is a shame that the younger generation did not know Reb Osher Bamberger, who contributed so much to the Baltimore community – but always below the radar. Reb Osher was an architect who laid the groundwork for the growth of Torah in this community. He shied away from any kavod (honor) even as he expended great effort to build and maintain the infrastructure we still benefit from in this community. He was a rodef shalom (pursuer of peace) and a role model to many.

We lost a great rav and leader last month. Rabbi Pinchas Aaron Weberman, zt”l, passed away in Miami Beach on July 27^th. Rabbi Weberman came to Miami Beach in 1960, established Congregation Ohev Shalom, was the driving force and posek for the Miami Beach eruv and mikvah, founded the Orthodox Rabbinical Council, was active in local and national politics, and was police chaplain for the city of Miami Beach for over 50 years.

With Elul and slichos upon us, it is with trepidation that we begin to evaluate the events of the past year. It is always easier to analyze the actions of others then to focus on ourselves. Nevertheless, there is no question that outside influences can directly affect us and create anxiety. These days, simply reading a newspaper or listening to the news may make us wonder if we are living in a parallel universe. It seems that much of the world has gone mad and that the United States, which is now absent of coherent leadership, is rudderless and descending into moral chaos. One wonders if the voices of sanity and reason will be able to survive the morally corrupt “woke” who seem to be holding (the mostly silent) majority hostage.