The Talmud says that to save one life is to save the entire world. The act involved in preserving life can be great or small, but the ultimate dedication is the giving one one’s self, even flesh and blood to aid another. It requires tremendous courage and sacrifice to undergo surgery to donate a kidney for a person one has never met, and yet Rabbi Mendy Mathless, Chabad shliach in Albany, New York, donated a kidney to an Israeli man, Yisrael Konstantini, even though neither had met. Yisroel Konstantini of Netanya had been battling severe kidney problems for years, but … Continue reading →

The Jewish world watched and waited as Laizer Galperin (Chaim Eliezer Lipman Ben Devorah Leah), a child who had endured a horrible disaster yet was miraculously still alive, was taken from his home in Kiryat Malachi to Cincinnati Ohio to undergo intensive treatment. The hospital staff in Israel admitted that they had never seen a child with such deep burns over 80% of his body conscious and breathing, and yet they were saddened by the knowledge that Laizer would have to endure a year of intensive care overseas, in indescribable pain. The then five year old Laizer barely escaped the … Continue reading →

While there is a large Jewish population of Miami, far-flung areas of Florida like Green Cove might more readily stock bacon than gefilte fish on store shelves; when people there use the term “Bible Belt,” they aren’t talking about the Tanach. “One thing Jews outside of Jacksonville have in common,” write Zalman Levin and Shmery Labkowski in their Roving Rabbis blog, “is that they are sure they are the only Jews around.” Roving Rabbis is a collection of blogs from 250 Chabad rabbinical students around the world who spend their summer vacation locating Jews in outlying areas from Ireland to … Continue reading →

Learn to read Hebrew in 20 hours or less. Does that sound too good to be true? Not for students at Chabad of Los Angeles’ Jewish Learning Academy which introduces the love of the Hebrew alphabet to Jews of all ages and backgrounds. The CAP IT program (which stands for Concept and Personality Integration) was developed by Rabbi Eyal and Tzippy Rav-Noy and incorporates the mind, heart and instinct in the process of learning the Hebrew alphabet. However, the students aren’t necessarily aware of the mystical underpinnings of the pedagogical method as they excitedly reach for toys demonstrating the sound … Continue reading →

The world looks pretty crazy from any vantage point. With riots in Greece,a nearly 1,000 drop in the Dow yesterday (it rose a bit toward the end of the day), a terror scare in Times Square, every day seems unrecognizable from the day before. And yet, we are finding more efficient ways of connecting and our lives, at least in a physical sense are made easier with every new development in technology. Concerning technology, it really is the best and the worst. While it can dramatically make our lives easier it can royally mess things up. The drop in the … Continue reading →

When I’m not blogging, chasing after my kids or trying to locate someone’s lost second shoe, I write news recaps for SeekingAlpha.com. (I bet people who Google my name think they’ve reached two different Miriam Metzingers, one who writes financial news and the other who writes about Jewish families. But no, we are one and the same person). My work includes writing summaries of Jim Cramer’s Mad Money program on CNBC. I can’t believe I’ve already been doing this for four years, and it has been educational and entertaining, as I finally think I’ve gotten some idea of the method … Continue reading →

Two women who shared similar suffering from the past united to promote Torah for the present and the future. Although they could not rejoice together at the hachnosas sefer Torah in Katzrin, Shifra Morozov and Marta de Lange were united as soul sisters, even though one could not be present. Marta de Lange and her fiance Baruch van Gelder, lived in Holland on the eve of World War II. When the Germans invaded Holland, both the De Lange and Van Gelder families were taken to concentration camps where most of the family members were killed, including Baruch. Marta managed to … Continue reading →

My husband is friends with a man who is 60 going on 16. He’s always out where the teenagers hang out in the middle of Jerusalem, Ben Yehuda. Late at night, young people go there to hang out, but some show signs of falling into a lifestyle that can be risky and become a prison. Yakov understand what internal and external prisons are like. He could probably make his own map. He spend 35 years dealing drugs until he inexplicably (he can’t even really account for it. Sounds like pure Divine Providence) turned his life around. He grew up in … Continue reading →

Everybody has been talking about tefillin lately. I mean everybody. I never thought tefillin would hit the headlines. These black boxes which contain small scrolls of Torah verses, the boxes with straps Jewish men tie onto their heads and their hands during morning prayer, were thought to be devices that could be used for a bombing on a flight from New York to Kentucky. They caused such a stir, the plane was landed en route at Pittsburg. Well, I have to admit, for someone who has never seen tefillin before, the sight of someone tying on unusual boxes on his … Continue reading →

When Aryeh Sufrin emerged from the smoke-filled mangled subway car and managed to put aside his shock, he wondered what had happened. News soon reached the survivors that four suicide bombers were responsible for the murder of 52 commuters on the London Underground on that dark July day in 2005. Rabbi Sufrin told CS Monitor following the attack, “The carriage the bombers were in was just one in front of me. What if the guy had seen me when he was getting on? Would he have chosen my carriage? Would he have stood next to me?” Determined to redouble his … Continue reading →