After hearing about the tragic events last week, I read an article about how to talk to children about what had happened. One of the things it explained was how suicide is a final solution to a temporary problem. After reading the article I thought about how lucky I was that I didn’t need to speak to my kids about this. It also spoke about protecting the innocence of children. In my naivety, I thought they were too young, only 9 and 11. I would be saved from the hassle of needing to have a talk with them. Boy was I wrong. When they came home from school, they brought it up. However, the narrative was one that I did not want them to hear. It was full of falsehood and lies.

For days I have been waiting to see a mention about the Walder saga on YWN. The silence was deafening. When Tzvi Gluck’s article was published I thought finally this is being addressed. I was dan lkaf zechus that the delay was due to the fact that this was a sensitive topic and shocking revelation. I thought YWN must have needed some time to address this topic intelligently and properly. But then there was more silence. And even though when I searched enough I was able to find choshuva people from our circles who addressed it (Rabbi YY Jacobson among them) nothing appeared on YWN. The breaking point came when I read a letter posted from the mailbag about how important it is to use this horrific story as a teachable moment to reinforce the gravity of embarrassing someone.

If you are following at all what is going on in our communities and across the countries, you are, like myself, probably utterly perplexed. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, are sick in bed with fever; some are also experiencing vomiting and other odd symptoms, as well. Yet so many of them have tested for both Covid-19 and influenza, with those test results coming back negative. Now, I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but this has really piqued my interest, so much so that I reached out to a couple of doctors that I know for their take on the matter. All of them told me that, at least to some extent, whatever is going around is not being picked up by the regular tests that are being used.

There has been a lot of discussion in recent days over the severity and comparison of two aveiros  – bah al eishes ish and malbin p’nei chaveiro.  Many people, including most notably HaRav Gershon Edelstein shlita, have pointed out that one who embarrasses someone publicly loses their chelek in olam haba, whereas one who is bah al eishes ish does not, and that people should get their priorities straight, especially when discussing recent developments in the frum community. This has led to further debate and discussion within our community and a renewed interest in the concept of hamalbin p’nei chaveiro b’rabim ein lo chelek l’olam haba.

With the subject of teacher salaries at the forefront of the communal conversation, I am wondering if there is a basic flaw in our system that should be addressed. Specifically, I wonder why the majority of people opening our schools and running them are not bnei torah who are looking to be marbitz torah but are rather baalei batim. Think about it for a moment: the deans and administrators of schools ultimately have the last word in every decision that goes into chinuch. Do you want someone who is a lifelong ben torah to be making those decisions or a baalebus? Who is calling the shots in schools and who paskens the shaalos? I have a hard time believing that it’s the dean’s moreh derech – what does he know about running a school, right?

I am so sick and tired of the double standard we apply to our politicians, where if an elected official with an ‘R’ at the end of their name makes an antisemitic comment they get a pass, while those with a ‘D’ following their name who make insensitive comments are immediately cast as the devil incarnate. Indeed, I was guilty of this. Being a conservative, I for many years saw Republicans in a more positive light than Democrats. And while being biased towards lawmakers who share your perspectives makes sense, there has to be a point where you can admit that even the politicians you admire are sick. I voted for Donald Trump – both in 2016 and in 2020. But I must admit the reality: the man is an anti-Semite.

Yesterday, I went shopping for donuts. Today, I’m wondering how I’m going to pay my credit card bill next month. You see, I wanted to get donuts for a small family Chanukah party. How much could it cost already for a dozen – twenty bucks? Not a problem, I’m happy to spend that money in exchange for a smile. But as I prepared to leave, it was made very clear to me that the standard jelly and custard donuts I’ve been accustomed to for my entire life were no longer “chic.” “These days,” I was told, “you have to get the nicer donuts or else you’re a nerd.” Odd, but alright, nicer donuts it’ll be, I decided. I went to a local store and asked for a dozen of their upper-end donuts.

For years, our community has been debating on the best way to solve the shidduch crisis. At the heart of the issue is the belief that because of massive population growth, boys getting married at an older age and girls getting married at a younger age is causing a massive disparity in the number of shidduchim available to girls, thus leading to the shidduch crisis. But today, I saw some data dug up by an incredible Jewish reporter by the name of Shlomo Schorr, who is one of the best, if not the best, frum journalist on the scene today. The data he unearthed really speaks for itself, but let’s go through it. In a tweet, Shlomo noted that one figure that really stuck out to him is the ratio of boys being born to girls being born in Lakewood since 1990.

I was shocked and appalled at the recently conducted interview with the “chosson” of a frum Jewish girl who was exposed as non-Jewish and an inveterate liar. To be quite honest, the interview was so slanted and so sick that I am disgusted that YWN even posted the audio of it. Throughout the interview, Haliwa cast himself as a victim of circumstances. He grew up in Lebanon to Muslim parents, wanted to convert to Judaism but was having a hard time, and really wanted to be a nice, Jewish boy who could marry a Jewish girl. So, he says, of course he had to lie – what other option did he have? Sadly, some people are falling for his victimhood shtick.

Dear Editor, I write this appalled, ashamed, and frankly infuriated at what has become commonplace in frum communities in recent months. Ever since Covid-19 vaccines first became widely available in April, there has been vigorous debate, particularly among frum people, whether one should subject themselves to the shot. I fully understand the hesitation by many over the shot. Many are worried that the lack of long-term studies of the vaccine’s effects on the body could be hiding severe detrimental side effects. Others who have already recovered from a Covid-19 infection don’t want to get a vaccine for a virus that they have already been infected with and presumably have developed antibodies against.