The Pragmatician

Remember, if you find a morsel of bread, cookie, no doubt it’s pure chamets thing during Pessach even if you worked like a maniac to rid your house of anything of the kind, no need to call Hatzohlah the firemen and an ambulance.
Just go to your local Rav and ask how to proceed.
I think you have to wrap it in, put it aside and burn it on Chol Hamoed (intermediary days), though I’m not sure as the last time this happened in a place I was, let’s just say blog weren’t around then.

A few years ago I found a non Kosher lePessach candy (not real chamets) in my coat and totally freaked out about it, panic and hysteria ensued, what to do??

As I said I’m not sure anymore what is suppose to be done exactly but I do recall it was pretty simple and it does NOT mean all he work was for nothing.

A few places and things one might forget:
1) Pockets of coats and overcoats, trousers...
2) Shaking out books (if like me you can’t sit and read unless you’re crunching something in your teeth).
3) The car trunk, if you’re gonna use it Pessach, you should remove cans of Coca Cola etc…
4) Children’s toy boxes
5) The storage box in Shul.
6) Schoolbags, suitcases, purses etc…
7) The computers’ keyboard could be full of crumbs.
8) Empty your vacuum cleaner.
9) Stuff hidden in the freezer
10) New toothbrushes and special toothpaste
11)Get rid of your garbages that may contain chamets items.

To my non Jewish fiends reading my blog, I realize this all sounds a little crazy and all I can say is that it actually is, but when you’re raised with this well it’s just another great Pessach!

It was on frumteens or perhaps on a blog and maybe it was on another web- forum, I’m not sure.
But it was a cry for help, one that resonated within me.
I could not be of much help but something was strangely familiar, very unpleasantly so.

It was a girl writing about one of her classmates who was showing signs of dropping off the derech (religious way) and getting a lot of attention from the teachers and even a visit by one of the town’s Rabbis
The girl who writes explains that classmates, herself included, felt jealous of all the attention and importance that girl was accorded; so envious in fact that they speculated whether they shouldn’t start acting adversely and rebelling themselves, not because that’s what they wanted but to receive an equal amount of attention.

Apparently she was not reprimanded when failing to deliver homework and the like for fear of driving her further away.
In other words she was rewarded for her “undesired behavior”.

I’m not a marketing guru, but I distinctly remember form the years I did study marketing that this is a big no-no.
Undesired behavior must either be punished or be ignored but certainly not rewarded.
I learned another valuable lesson during those studies, marketing laws were established based on patterns of behavior by adults and babies.
Not necessarily consumer attitudes, but also general subconscious reactions to various stimuli and choices.
Correspondingly the established marketing laws apply to general human behavior as well.
With this in mind I venture to conclude that it’s questionable whether giving so much attention to ‘problem’ kids is really the way to handle that problem.

I learned another marketing principal as well. The law of “customer retention”
“Invest twice as much in your current customers as you do to gain new ones”

Why is that intelligent 11 year olds who ask good questions are dismissed with a wave of the hand at best and are humiliated in front of the whole class by what is supposed to be a trained and patient Rebbi/Morah (teacher) by labeling them as heretic for asking, at worst?

I saw this word on a blog last week (which one was it? help me remember please) “inreach”.
Why is inreach so neglected?
It’s so obvious that many kids today want answers not dismissive reactions , they want to know their questions are valid even if a clear cut answer cannot always be provided.
How come I get asked in person and by email to donate to kiruv(outreach) organizations all the time but never to keep the kids safe before they get in trouble?
How come when I was a sick as a child not one of the many Rabbis in my school felt it would be a good idea to explain that G-D’s ways are not always understandable to us flawed humans, but that I must not feel it’s a punishment?

I have a few choice words for those responsible for the riots , but I wonder if it's possible they were told something that wasn't true, like for e.g. that the man was beaten for no reason at all?

I agree with
Rabbi Yakov Horowitz (on orhtomom’s blog)
And with
Harry Maryles

But I urge you to read I'm Haaretz, Ph.D’s view on this issue as well.

After that head to The Knish to unwind.