I mean, we all send personal emails from our work computers what with the high speed internet where we work and all. But most of us learn quickly to delete sent messages and received messages twice -- once from the email and once from the deleted folder. Even then most of us suspect they are never deleted. But then, most of us don't head the CIA and thus know that in the wrong hands our personal email messages could put an entire nation or even the entire world at risk. Chances are the most damage my ema...
When my daughter asked for contributions of coats, sweaters or blankets to help those who lost everything to storm Sandy, I made one phone call and posted one item on Facebook. The contributions received have been, literally, overwhelming. Thanks to all of you for such amazing generosity. At least 8 boxes of blankets, coats and sweaters have already been shipped. Moments after I took this picture four more boxes arrived. We estimate that we will send twenty-five more boxes to the distribution car wash i...
This week's Torah portion is Chayei Sarah (Gen. 23:1-25:16), meaning "the life of Sarah", but it begins with the account of her death. Abraham goes to Hebron to bargain with Ephron ben Zohar to buy land to bury his wife. Then, he moves on to the living and goes about the business of finding a wife for his son, Isaac. Abraham sends Eliezer back to "his country", the place where Abraham's family dwells, and bids him find a wife for Isaac from among their women.Eliezer does Abraham's bidding, but seemingly ...
It was the worst of me. That's the way it is in a crisis and that's the way it is in a disaster. Both bring out the best of who we are and the worst of who we are. Sometimes the best and the worst come out at the same time. In the middle of or right after a crisis or a disaster are definitely not optimal times to start self improvement programs. The best example of this I can think of is from the movie 'Airplane' in which the character played by Lloyd Bridges keeps announcing, "I guess I chose the wrong ...
The east coast keeps getting hit hard by storms and the storm related trauma. The trauma begins during the storm and continues for long after the Red Cross has packed its bags and gone home. No one who sees a disaster is untouched by it - even those who never lost electricity, never had to evacuate, and never opened a refrigerator to discover spoiled food. No one who sees a disaster is untouched by it. And almost everyone experiences some degree of trauma either as individuals or as entire communities. M...
My father may or may not have been born on this date a hundred years ago. He died forty-two years ago at the age of fifty-eight and - were he still alive - would finally be old enough to be dead. I say this is perhaps is birth date because no one actually remembered the exact day of his birth. The clearest memory is that there was a bad storm on the day of his birth and counting days back to the storm they (his parents, perhaps, or perhaps his older sister) arrived at this date -- November 6. It's fittin...
Regardless of who you vote for, vote. It matters.
And sometimes we act like children. I'm not sure if that's all bad. At any rate, inspiration isn't free.
Facebook, it seems, has greater value to me than encouraging people to buy my books or satisfying my insatiable desire to know what my FB friends many of whom I have never met had for breakfast. Separated by almost three thousand miles, Facebook has helped me bridge the distance between California and New York/New Jersey. For example, a Facebook page called Normandy Beach which a couple of days ago had in its several years of existence acquired only a few friends/followers suddenly catapulted up to almos...
Sitting here in Southern California watching coverage of the East Coast storm family and friends seem even farther away than is the normal sense of distance. And now the power is out on much of the East Coast. I am reminded that land lines through telephone companies work in power failures. Cell phones have batteries that run out and phones through cable companies work only when the cable works.And here's a picture of the lobby of an apartment building in Jersey City where a family member now separated f...
