ABOUT WOMAN

The Last Moments

 Our family went to the Michigan State Fair. It all started out picture perfect. Our two older daughters went on the Ferris wheel with my wife, while I stayed with the baby carriage and attempted to obliterate a red star with an automatic BB machine gun. We watched a logging show and acrobats, we went on the merry-go-round, we drank an impossibly huge drum of orange soda, and we watched our kids drive "motorcycles" in circles until everyone was dizzy.

The best part was the petting zoo. I crouched down with my daughters and watched the delight on their faces. I explained to them how Daddy's sweaters were made of the sheep's hair, and then we "touched the sheep's sweater." The bonding I felt with my children at that moment was overwhelming, and I turned to my wife and said, "This is what life is all about!"

But after baking in the sun for a good few hours, the kids started getting cranky. There seemed to be a never ending stream of, "Can we buy some soda? Can we do this again?" Our wonderful day was quickly falling apart and I knew we had to head to the car. However, with about $20 worth of tickets left, we decided to enjoy a few more rides.

My oldest daughter and I boarded a small airplane which went up and down, and up and down. I didn't let it bother me when she said, "Take your hand off of me," even though she had asked me to put my arm around her to quell

The Naked Truth.

 I was getting out of my car a few weeks ago when I heard on the radio that celebrity photographer Spencer Tunick had beat a previous record. A few years ago he had captured 7,000 nudes on camera, and now he had beaten that record in Mexico City. Over 18,000 people came, took off their clothes, and stood around as he snapped away!

Why did this news strike me as not a cause for celebration and awe? After all, what is so wrong with the beauty of the human body? And why is Judaism so hung up on the idea of tzniyut (modesty) that demands we keep parts of our body covered? Didn't God give us our bodies, and if He gave us something beautiful, shouldn't we showcase it?

In the Garden

Generally, when we want to find the root of an idea, we look at the first time it is mentioned in the Torah. The first reference to clothing, or lack thereof, is in the Garden of Eden. Immediately after the creation of woman, the Torah states, "The two of them were naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25).

The proximity of the creation of humanity and this declaration indicates a strong correlation

WikiLeaks

 WikiLeaks has become a political game changer for the entire world.

Secrets, we now realize, are no longer possible even for those with diplomatic pouches, encrypted security measures and the most powerful safeguards for supposedly securing total privacy.

Thanks to WikiLeaks the whole world now knows the content of many of the most intimate conversations between heads of state as well as reports of ambassadors to their governments. Some of the material was so explosive that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent much of the past week preparing foreign leaders for the fallout — what the Guardian described as a “meltdown” of the U.S. diplomatic corps.

In addition to giving support to many of Israel's positions, especially regarding the threat of Iran, several revelations are deeply embarrassing. They provide off-the-cuff assessments by American diplomats of world leaders, critiques that were expected to be released only decades from now. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is compared to Hitler, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is called an “emperor with no clothes," Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is "driven by paranoia," according to the cables, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel earns high marks as a "Teflon" politician.

The explosive nature of what has now become public knowledge was perhaps best summed up by Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini who referred to the public release of the WikiLeaks information as the "Sept. 11 of world diplomacy."

Related Article: Stopping Lashon Hara
Does the truth really supersede every other value?

WikiLeaks

The Blessing of Failure.

 “What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?”

That was the tantalizing title of the lead story in the New York Times Sunday magazine a few weeks ago. The article makes us rethink an attitude that has become culturally accepted as unquestioned truth, and more profoundly, its conclusions encourage us to acknowledge the wisdom of Jewish tradition and the insights it asks us to emphasize in our observance of Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur is a day dedicated to acknowledging our failings.

Related Video: Yom Kippur: Everyone Falls

Over and over again we repeat the words, "I have sinned." We recognize that in many ways we "missed the mark," the literal translation of the Hebrew word for sin. We admit we weren't perfect. If we were to be graded by God for our actions during the past year, we confess that in some areas we deserve an F.

And yet whoever heard of a mark like that in our contemporary culture?

For decades now parents have been told by many ostensible experts that all they are permitted to do in rearing children is to praise them. Criticism is always destructive of self-esteem, and self-esteem is the highest value we must pass on to our progeny. Make them feel good about themselves; that way they will feel happy and self contented. Don't ever burden them with the verdict that they have failed to fulfill any objective. Don't ever crush their spirits by telling them they could've done better. Rewards, not criticism or punishments, are what children need to become responsible adults.

The teaching profession, too, was slowly drawn into this philosophy of "praise at all costs" without any reminders of failure. Grade inflation turned everyone into a scholar, because "he tried his best and he might feel bad if he didn't get an excellent mark." Valedictorians were eliminated in many schools because those who didn't earn the honor felt the loss of self-esteem,

Looking for Happiness in all the Wrong Places.

 This past spring one of Hollywood's most iconic figures passed away.

Elizabeth Taylor will always be remembered for her legendary beauty. Surely her claim to fame is not as a philosopher. Yet, some years ago, she responded to an event in her life with an insight that deserves to be remembered for its profound truth.

Remarkably enough, it is an idea that perhaps best captures the purpose of the holiday of Sukkot which follows immediately on the heels of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Thieves had broken into her safety deposit box. They stole a considerable amount of expensive jewelry. Reporters asked her after she learned of her loss: "Did you cry?" Her answer was simple: "I don't cry for things that won't cry for me!"
"I don't cry for things that won't cry for me!"

In Jewish tradition, there’s a saying that during our lifetimes we have three main friends — and when we die, they leave us in exactly the reverse order in which we treated them. No sooner does our soul leave our body, than all of our wealth flees with it as well. Families are more faithful. They walk with us after our passing to the cemetery, our final resting place. Then, they too leave us to go on with their lives. It is only our name, the good deeds we performed for others, and the influence we may have had upon them, that outlive us and offer us a share of immortality.

Strange then, isn’t it, that we spend most of our lives chasing after money, spending far less of our time than we should with our families, and spending so little of our efforts to accomplish those things by which we will be remembered!

Maybe we can even identify with the profound words of the contemporary author Emile Henry Gauvreay: “I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don’t want, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they dislike.”

Related Article: Sukkot and the Secret of Happiness

Sukkot is the one holiday in the year that according to the Torah is meant to teach us all about happiness. Its subtitle is "the season of our rejoicing." For farmers of old it was the time, as they completed