Despite the insistence of so many today that without the coercion of Leftists extremists, people just can't know how to behave well, we have so many examples of American men and women who behaved ethically - and even courageously - because of their relationship with God and their understanding of His Value System.

As far as non-Jewish Americans went, their understanding was flawed because they were also influenced by the gospels, which either propound false philosophies (like a divine trinity) or paraphrase values and ideas from the Torah and the Mishnah while acting like these were their own innovations.

But Americans did have access to the truth and many leaned away from a reliance on the gospel founder and more toward God on His Own, as should be.

Therefore, you have people like the following: 

Abigail Adams is one of the more famous women of American history due to her seemingly feminist attitude, although she would be aghast at today's feminism, with all its chauvinism and immorality.

Born in Massachusetts in 1744 to a prominent political family, Abigail ended up marrying John Adams.

John Adams was America's first vice-president (he served under George Washington) and America's second president. (One of their sons, John Quincy Adams, would become America's sixth president.)

Due to their copious correspondence and journaling, we know quite a lot about the two of them.

In one of her most famous letters to her husband and Congress, she wrote:

The above is what endeared her to American feminists, but as stated above, Abigail was a highly moral person who would never approve of today's feminist agenda.

On a trip to France, she attended a ballet and charmingly noted her appall at the immodesty of the dancers' costumes. On a trip to England, Abigail expressed her horror at the execution of petty criminals, especially the execution of child pickpockets.

But despite the fact that slavery was legal in America at that time, Abigail did not approve. In fact, she felt such strenuous opposition to the enslavement of black Americans that she blamed it for a cholera epidemic, suggesting that the epidemic was God's punishment for enslaving black people.

Moral people do not need radicals telling them what to think or feel. They writhe under injustice on their own.

Samuel Adams was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Yet when one of his wife's relatives presented him with a black slave girl as a wedding present, Samuel promptly gave her freedom, then brought her up in their home. It's true that she wasn't raised as a daughter; children of that time who weren't immediate family members often grew up as apprentices to the families that raised them. But surviving correspondence shows that she was a cherished part of the family nonetheless.

Again, Samuel and his family had every legal right to keep the girl enslaved, but it went against their value system and so they behaved above the law, not within the law.

Carol Ryrie Brink is most famous for her book Caddie Woodlawn, a fictional biography of the grandmother who raised her named Caddie Woodhouse.

But she also wrote a collection of true stories she gathered over the years in a book called Magical Melons, later renamed Caddie Woodlawn's Family. The stories take place in the USA between 1863-1866.

The following story was told to Carol by the preacher's son, who personally witnessed the miraculous ending, insisting every word was true.

An impoverished traveling preacher was once riding on his horse through the snow with another horse rider at his side. Up ahead, they spotted something lying in the snow. When they passed right near it, they saw it was a Native American man passed out drunk in the falling snow.

The other man advised the preacher to leave the unconscious man there, calling him a "devil." He felt that one less Native American in the world would be a good thing.

But the preacher solemnly disagreed. Quoting from the Bible, he explained something like how all humans are made in God's Divine Image and expressed other Biblical values, then encouraged his reluctant companion to help him hoist the unconscious man onto the preacher's horse. In this way, the preacher brought the man to his tribe. (I think he just headed for the camp of the nearest tribe, assuming the unconscious man was from there.)

He passed him into the hands of the surprised tribe members, then proceeded on his way home.

With almost no work, little food available, and no donations, the preacher's family fell into a bad state. Snow was all they had to sustain themselves. (The son telling this story mentioned that when he and his siblings got older, they became expert hunters to sustain their family. But that winter, he was still a little boy.)

The preacher's wife cried out in desperation. In response, the preacher decided the entire family should pray to God to relieve their starvation.

And so they did.

Just then, the door suddenly opened and the same Native American man the preacher had saved strode in carrying a freshly cut leg of deer. He thunked the enormous chunk of meat down on the table, said some words of gratitude and explanation, then went on his way.

This saved the preacher's family.

It bears pointing out that no one was screaming at the preacher "Native American lives matter!" And I seriously doubt the preacher used politically correct speech to refer to the local tribes. Probably he even called them "red." In fact, the preacher even faced pressure NOT to help the Native American passed out drunk in the snow.

Furthermore, traveling with such a weight on horseback and going out of his way in such cold weather when he himself wasn't well-fed must have been a serious inconvenience.

But he did it anyway.

As demonstrated in previous posts, many examples exist of people behaving with courage, dedication, and even self-sacrifice toward people of other races when the laws and society really did support (or at least allow) racism.

And they all did so out of religious conviction. Their unifying belief was that every human was made in the Image of God. And they were all familiar with Torah passages that emphasized compassion toward "the stranger," loving one's neighbor as oneself, and knowing that God's Mercy is upon all His Creations. They also feared God's Judgement for doing the wrong thing, especially indicated by Abigail Adam's response to a cholera epidemic.

(And yes, I realize that some people read the same Tanach and still remained racist and immoral. Cognitive dissonance can happen to anyone. But the people who really stood up against racism and even risked themselves did so out of convictions based on Torah values.)

If a society really wants to eradicate racism (or any other ills), they need to bring Hashem into the picture. Screaming, harassment, and twisting or obstructing the truth will never help.

Related Post:
Why No One Needs BLM; We Just Need God

When struggling through a day in which I experienced a lot of physical pain and also lots of minor yet very frustrating obstacles every which way I turned (and having just faced a huge disappointment the day before), I came across this from the Kav Hayashar, Chapter 31:

It's nothing new, really.

But coming from a tzaddik similar to Rav Yehudah Petiyah and all those who understand what's going on in other worlds in other dimensions with spirits and beings most of us cannot perceive, it means a lot when Rav Tzvi Hirsch says that accepting afflictions and suffering with love (i.e., saying "Thank You, Hashem!" or "This too is for the best!" or "Baruch Hashem!") really does cleanse us AND "arouse Hashem's mercy."

May we all succeed in repenting from love without needing afflictions.

Related Post:
Encouraging Words from the Kav Hayashar
The One Thing to Say in Times of Great Stress

In the middle of an agonizing situation, it's often excruciating to acknowledge (even in one's mind) that this is actually for the best, that there is some kind of unseen benefit to the agony that only Hashem knows.

Yet Kav Hayashar says we should do exactly that because this acknowledgment of Hashem's Justice and Goodness are exactly what atones for any past sins and transgressions.

Kav Hayashar, Chapter 8:

Related Post:
Encouraging Words from Kav Hayashar

I first heard of the Kav Hayashar during a famous shiur by Rabbi Wallerstein in which he retold a story (from Chapter 25) of a man whose miserliness caused demons to take his keys to his money boxes so that the man couldn't open the boxes to withdraw the money for tzedakah. Due to his great dedication to another mitzvah, the mitzvah of brit milah (which he performed free of charge no matter how difficult the journey), the demons gave him back his keys and he was able to be a generous fellow from then on.

(Rabbi Wallerstein explained this story in terms of addiction and it makes quite a lot of sense.)

The Kav Hayashar was written in 1705 by Rav Tzvi Hirsch Kaidanover and I think first published in Russia because the author mentions his mentor and teacher, Rav Yosef ben Rav Yehudah Yudel, who was av beis din and rosh yeshivah of Minsk, then later passed away in Dubna.

Anyway, here is an encouraging excerpt from Chapter 23 of Kav Hayashar:

Please notice that the Kav Hayashar doesn't say that you have to be a tremendous tzaddik or engage in special lofty kavanot in order to have your prayers answered. He emphasizes that it is prayer b'lev shalem - with a whole heart - that grants you the ability to benefit others.

And also, in contrast to the modern approach, he advises praying wholeheartedly for your errant loved ones BEFORE engaging in practical efforts, like rebuke.

May Hashem answer all our prayers l'tovah.

Sometimes, you read or hear something that is presented as a very big deal, but it initially leaves you cold or wondering what the big deal is.

In one of my favorite books, A Daughter of Two Mothers, the amputee tzadeikes Sheina Ruchel Fruchter recalls how inundated she was with all sorts of well-meaning advice.

Faced with bizarre and cruel challenges that others couldn't possibly know how to handle, the advice appeared insensitive and wearying.

Turning to a fellow tzadekeis and her personal mentor, Sheina Ruchel asked Rivka Klar for advice.

Rivka pointed out because all the advice was well-intended, Sheina Ruchel should focus on the intent and heart of the advice-giver and not on the advice itself.

Meaning, Sheina Ruchel should express gratitude to the advice-giver, then go ahead and do exactly as she saw best. And indeed, Sheina Ruchel offered profuse thanks to her multitude of advice-givers over the years, careful to avoid hurting their feelings even as her own feelings frayed.

"And that's the best advice I ever received!" Sheina Ruchel later declared to her daughter.

Initially, I wondered what the big deal was. Then I put myself in her shoes and realized that this happens all the time. Many of us have spoken before measuring the impact of our well-intentioned words, not realizing that what we meant to be soothing or helpful was actually bruising and wearying.

And I'd wager that all of us have been on the receiving end of unasked-for and unhelpful advice.

Culturally and emotionally speaking, many people prefer to set up a boundary.

It's common to argue with unwanted advice, to put the advice-giver in his or her place, to shoot a scathing rebuke at the advice-giver, to assert one's own understanding and knowledge over that of the advice-giver, to say, "Thank you, but I'm fine," or "Thank you, but we're already in consultation with a professional," or "Thank you, but I prefer to handle this on my own," or to just fume in resentful silence.

And some of the above are perfectly appropriate when the advice-giver really isn't well-intended or actually interferes where they shouldn't or has become unbearably overbearing.

But I think it takes a great deal of humility and ayin tovah (good eye) to do what Sheina Rochel did.

It couldn't have been easy because she really suffered and suffered for years.

Yet she not only fulfilled this advice, she even relished this advice as she saw that it helped her maintain peace with her well-intended neighbors and villagers.

And even if we don't have the humility or ayin tovah (good eye) of this tzadekeis, responding to difficult situations with gratitude can cultivate these good middot within us.

But it seems like there's a bigger lesson here.

And that lesson is to respond to people according to their intent and not according to our own defense mechanisms (which likely developed to help us in hard situations but isn't so helpful or even accurate as a knee-jerk reaction).

Sheina Ruchel profusely thanked her advice-givers for their good intentions -- and then she did exactly as she saw best.

We're not supposed to be like that nowadays.

In the name of honesty, we're supposed to be assertive and more upfront with our feelings.

But we can also direct our feelings. We can cultivate gratitude and ayin tovah even when our initial response is the opposite.

May Hashem help us use all our words and actions l'tovah.

For more about the Klar family & Sheina Ruchel's spiritual growth, please see:

• How the Worst Turned Out for the Best: A True Story
• Scaling that Steep Mountain

During an overlong stay in the USA, I ended up at the public library, desperate for some kosher reading to combat my mind-gnawing boredom.

I came across a book whose title and author I no longer remember, but the true story always stayed with me.

The author described her experience as an obese young woman who weighed over 300 pounds. Feeling unable to lose the weight, this young woman did not even have the conventionally pretty face and attractive hair some overweight women have.

Because of all this, she felt certain that love and marriage could never be an option for her. But being a naturally warm and nurturing person, she invested all her love and caring in the babies she was responsible for as a nurse in the maternity section of her local hospital.

She made peace with her life as she saw it, that she would never marry and have children of her own. Thus, she completely removed any thought of romance or love from her mind.

Though she could have put herself in the category of a have-not, she decided to become a giver instead.

(What's the difference? I suppose it's a matter of focus and direction...)

That same hospital also employed a young male pediatrician of average build and a warm engaging personality. For the sake of the babies, they ended up working together quite a lot and developed professional appreciation for the dedication and caring they saw in each other.

This flowed out into catching a cup of coffee together after work to discuss events that occurred during the day. Sometimes, he stopped by her house and they sat on her front porch together for a chat.

Grateful for a dedicated like-minded friend and co-worker, she enjoyed the friendship in a completely platonic manner.

One night as they sat chatting on her front porch, the doctor suddenly asked her to marry him.

Her heart stopped. "What?" she said, sure she couldn't have heard him right, yet also knowing that he wasn't cruel enough to joke like that.

He again asked her to marry him.

Wide-eyed, she turned to him in shock and said something like, "But I'm so obese! You're normal and you deserve a normal-sized woman! I'm just so obese."

And then he replied with something like, "That's because you need a body big enough to hold that huge heart you have."

They got married and ended up having a couple of kids of their own (even though I think that proved dangerous because of her girth). So they decided to adopt unwanted children, and ended up adopting over 30 children of all different races, many of whom had some form or Downs syndrome or other disabilities.

And at some point, she lost all that excess weight, but the book wasn't about that, so I don't know how she did it. She just mentioned it as a postscript at the end.

Anyway, the above encounter always stayed with me because it was a compelling example of how you don't need to go tearing after things or letting resentments and self-pity pile up in your head.

All she did was just decide to empty what she really wanted (marriage and children) from her mind and heart, and then just focus on being a really good person and giving love where it was needed in order to find meaning in her life.

And then Hashem brought her husband to her doorstep without any effort or angst on her part.

And together, they ended up being a force of good in the world.

An Introduction to Jew-Hatred
I think one of the first times I experienced anti-Jewish bigotry was around second grade. A pair known as “the Mulligan twins” discovered I was Jewish after I came back from a Jewish holiday after having missed school. (We’ll call them Violet and Vivian.)

Their eyes widened as they looked at each and mouthed, She’s JEWISH?

They looked back at me, one smirking and one smiling with incredulity.

“Uh, Myrtle…” said one. “You’re really Jewish?”

“Yes,” I said, increasingly perplexed as to why this was such a big deal.

They looked at each other again as if to say, “Oh…my…gosh…”

Then they looked back at me and one took a deep breath and said, “If you’re Jewish, then don’t you know you’re going to Hell?”

No, I’d no idea, actually!

They stared at me with smiles of anticipation, but I was flummoxed for an answer. I’d heard of Hell, of course. It was featured in cartoons, along with devils and pitchforks. And I knew it was meant for bad people.

But I didn’t know what that all had to do with being Jewish.

And knowing that being Jewish wasn’t bad (which is what Hell is for), I finally said, “No, I’m not going to Hell.”

They couldn’t believe I was denying my ultimate destination and gleefully insisted I was indeed going to Hell.

A couple of other classmates gathered around, but as far memory serves, they didn’t have anything meaningful to add toward either side of the debate.

In addition to being my first encounter with bigotry, it was also the first time I encountered Christian glee about those damned to Hell. No, of course not all Christians feel that way, but I certainly ran into that smirky glee several times throughout my life.

Others who’ve left Christianity for secularism or Judaism often commented that this self-righteous glee was one of the big turn-offs that chased them away from Christianity.

Anyway, I later asked my parents about the whole thing and my dad laughed, then explained that some Christians believed that, but they were really stupid. “We don’t even believe in Hell!” he declared.

I felt much relieved about that.

However, it is once again a sign of the Movement for Conservative (actually, pathetically progressive) Judaism’s massive failure to acknowledge and pass on core tenets of authentic Judaism. Life is definitely more permissive and guilt-free without negative consequences in the Next World, so bye-bye Gehinnom!

In other words, I don’t blame my dad for that blunder. He merely believed what he’d been taught by people he respected as “rabbis.”

(So many innocent victims of this Conservative-Progressive “Judaism.” Sigh.)

Rotten Ryan
In 4th grade, a boy in my class discovered I was Jewish and proceeded to mock me every time he saw me. Unfortunately, Ryan sat right behind me in math class and used the entire 45-minute period to whisper his anti-Jewish sentiments with great relish.

Shocked and feeling helpless, my heart raged so that I could barely see or hear.

I went to my main teacher (who was not my math teacher) to complain, but she just looked disgruntled and turned away from me with a sigh and said, “Well, I’ll talk to him…”

I don’t think she responded this way from bigotry, BTW. She was just the pits at handling bullying in general and I witnessed her handle other bullying in ways that made the bullying much worse.

To my surprise, my parents had little comfort or advice to offer me. I don’t blame them because they never learned to deal with Jew-hatred on their own or to resolve things in their own minds and hearts, so they honestly had nothing to offer me. Again, this is due to the Torah-twisting Jewish leadership that cannot offer anything real except for platitudes and circular discussions that lead nowhere (but temporarily make everyone feel superficially better).

At one point, my dad told me that he has firmly told Jew-haters: “You have your religion and I have mine” – and then walked away.

But I didn’t see how such a statement could shut up anybody. You’d have to be bigger and scarier than them in order for such a statement to work. Also, while I figured that my nemesis’s bigotry came from Christianity (nearly all my classmates were church-going even if their families weren’t so religious), I didn’t recall him saying anything religion-based. So I couldn't use my dad's "You have your religion..." because Ryan didn't seem to be come from a specifically religious angle (unlike the Mulligan twins). He just seemed to enjoy tormenting a Jew.

Furthermore, I couldn’t utter any kind of statement and then just walk away from him because we were seated right near each other.

My parents suggested I request that the teacher change our places.

But as a shy child, it had been hard enough for me to get up the guts to tattle to my first teacher in the first place. I just didn’t have it within me to try again with another teacher, especially since there was no sign that the first teacher had done anything about it, which meant that she either spoke to him in vain or just hadn’t bothered speaking to him at all.

There just didn't seem to be any solution at all, except to just suffer.

If you’re wondering why my parents didn’t just intervene, it’s a good question because usually, they were proactive parents who intervened quite readily. I think that because they did not know how to handle Jew-hatred when faced with it themselves and because it just seemed like a part of life you couldn’t prevent and therefore needed to adjust to, they weren’t able to do anything in this case.

You just run into Jew-haters sometimes and you can't do anything to change their minds, so why bother? Unless you can and want to take them to court about it, what can you do if someone hates you for being Jewish? Might as well learn to deal with it when you're young.

So I think that's where they were coming from. And anyway, outside of Torah, there's no framework for understanding or dealing with Jew-hatred inside yourself. Frum people don't always get the Torah understanding either, but at least it's there for them to access if they want it. Jews living outside a Torah framework don't have anything at all.

Without Torah Judaism and Chazal, there really is no framework for understanding Jew-hatred. It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of it because it’s also ultimately so frightening. With terrible atrocities committed against Jews throughout history, what keilim do secular Jews have to understand or deal with Jew-hatred? It just seems to rise up for little or no reason and attack with unparalleled savagery and expanse.

Anyway, I sat there seething in math class for I’m not sure how long. Weeks or months, something like that.

To this day, I can’t remember anything he said, just his sheer pleasure at grating on me.

And I can’t remember exactly how it stopped. I think that at one point, I just exploded and turned to him screaming at him to just shut up, probably in a fit of tears too.

And that stopped it in the classroom. Or maybe the teacher switched our places after my explosion?

But I still had to listen to his gleeful poison if I passed him in the hallway.

I just remember how his eyes were all lit up and his ear-to-ear grin as he jeered at me.

(Sorry, I know that's not a satisfying ending to the story, but I honestly can't remember what happened.)

Being Jewish Gets Scary
Then in fifth grade, I was walking around the baseball field at school with a “friend” whom we’ll call Harriet. I’m not sure why we were friends because she wasn’t a very nice person (and we ended up drifting away from each in junior high).

Anyway, a tough scrawny 6th-grader named Carrie was up to bat and suddenly, Harriet's face twisted into a sneer and started chanting, “Carrie can’t hit! Carrie can’t hit!”

I couldn’t believe Harriet was doing that. What for? It was so mean. And by association, it swept me into a confrontation I didn’t want.

Carrie swung around with the bat in hand and demanded, “Who said that?”

Then a tall, hefty 6th-grade boy said, “That Jewish girl there said it.”

I looked at him in shock. But he just smirked.

Now Carrie whipped around to face me and I found myself facing this angry older girl with a bat, along with other teammates standing there watching.

Speechless at this unfair and threatening scenario I unexpectedly found myself in, I turned my open-mouthed self to look at Harriet. She’d started it, and she obviously felt no fear about jeering for no reason at a bad-tempered 6th-grader holding a bat—why didn’t she at least say something in my defense if she is so bold and mouthy? Why doesn't she take responsibility for her behavior?

But she just looked petulant.

So I turned back to Carrie and said, “I didn’t say it—SHE did!” and pointed to Harriet.

Everyone smirked.

I felt like a toad. I knew it looked bad and it was disloyal to rat out a "friend" like that, but I felt like I had no other choice, being outnumbered by older and bigger kids and betrayed myself by this same “friend.”

Carrie looked from Harriet to me and said something nasty that I can’t remember. I got myself and Harriet out of there as fast as possible, then rounded on Harriet.

“Why did you say that?” I said. “Did Carrie do something to you?”

“No,” she said, obviously resentful that I was confronting her.

“Are you angry at her? Did something happen?”

“No,” said Harriet turning away with her nose in the air and shrugging.

“Do you know Carrie at all?”

“No,” Harriet sniffed.

“So why did you say that?” I said, my voice getting high-pitched. “Why did you do that?”

“I just felt like it,” said Harriet, her nose still in the air.

My jaw dropped. “You just felt like it? But you almost got us into serious trouble with the sixth-graders! And I was going to take the blame for it!”

Harriet wrinkled her nose and curled her upper lip. “I really don’t care,” she said. “Stop making such a big deal about it.”

Another aspect that really disconcerted me about the whole thing was how the smirky boy (Justin) knew I was Jewish? We didn’t know each other and I didn’t think he even knew my name or had ever noticed me. I felt like a walking target whose snipers hid in the shadows, but I wasn’t sure why it was like that.

I started reading everything I could about antisemitism. I read the little non-fiction and novels available on the topic, but received no guidance or comfort from anything I read.

I decided that when I grew up, I wouldn't be Jewish anymore.

It just wasn't worth the pain and the torment. Being Jewish was scary.

But then I thought, How can I give up something that is so much a part of me?

So I decided to be a Reform Jew and the most tepid Reform Jew possible, but then that didn't satisfy me either. A Reform Jew was still a Jew and still vulnerable to persecution. And anyway, I didn't like the little I'd tasted of the Reform movement. Even the assimilated teenage congregants made fun of how church-like their Reform temple was.

Anyway, I suffered here and there from Justin throughout high school and junior high. He became tall and muscular on the football team and I avoided him if I saw him.

But then I realized he had no influence. Most people thought he was kind of a jerk and he was looked down on for intentionally choosing one girl from each high school in our district to impregnate and then bragging about this “achievement.”

Was It the Hamentaschen?
In sixth grade, I passed by a Christian neighbor on my way home from school.

I didn't like her much because I knew that she took “spare the rod” literally and regularly used a wooden spatula, not only on her children but on the child of a working mother in her care whose mother couldn’t afford professional babysitting, so placed her child with this woman who agreed to do so out of Christian charity. (And as I said, the wooden spatula was part of this Christian charity.)

I knew about the wooden spatula because the 4th-grade daughter gleefully told me when it got broken over her older brother.

Anyway, she asked me about an unusual cookie I’d shared with her daughter. I didn’t know what she meant for a moment, then I realized she meant a hamentaschen.

Even though our families were friends and it was common for friends and classmates to share their goodies together, she was looking at me with a tight-lipped smile that made me feel like I’d done something wrong, but I didn’t know what.

So I tried to pleasantly explain to her what a hamentaschen was.

She just glared at me.

Gulping, I stammered into explaining that Purim celebrated the Scroll of Esther.

As her hostility bore into me, I thought maybe I wasn’t explaining things well. (I didn’t have another explanation for why she seemed to hate me so much all of the sudden.)

“Uh, see, there was this queen name Esther who, uh—”

“I know who Queen Esther is!” she snapped.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Um, it’s just that a lot of people don’t, so I didn’t realize…”

“It’s true that a lot of people don’t know,” she said. “But I do.”

And as much I mulled it over later, I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong to make her so upset with me.

The Satan Question
In 7th-grade, a long-haired scruffy boy wearing a heavy metal T-shirt good-naturedly said, “Oh, you’re Jewish? Hey, don’t you guys worship Satan?”

“Uh, no,” I said. “That’s definitely not us. That’s the, uh, Satanists. We only worship God. Just One God. Uh, no one else.”

When Being Right Feels All Wrong
Also in 7th grade, I got on the schoolbus one day to see a very shy black girl there. Many times, we shyly asked each other if we could sit next to each other and we always told each other yes. Her name was Valerie and I really liked her and we became good friends.

One day, Valerie’s school bag got stuck between the underside of the seat and the metal leg and the seat in front of us. She kept pulling on the bag while turning to apologize to the line of kids she was blocking from getting off the bus. Still sitting, I was bent over to see if I could dislodge the bag from that position. Valerie was obviously embarrassed.

Suddenly, the haughtier of the Mulligan twins (yes, them again!) called out, “Move it, you black [female dog]!”

Valerie shot up straight and looked at Violet Mulligan with narrowed eyes and lips set in a straight line.

Without even thinking, I heard myself saying, “Violet! How can you say that to Valerie? That’s RACIST! Anyway, it’s not her fault her bag got stuck!”

Valerie finally got her bag unstuck, but Violet found it hard to turn the other cheek when being publicly reprimanded by a future denizen of Hell.

She told everyone what I’d said and I found myself confronted throughout the week by students I didn’t know well who would just appear in front of my face smirking and declaring, “Violet’s not racist. You can’t say that about her.”

Sometimes, Violet accompanied them and helped them confront me.

I was rattled about these sudden confrontations. I didn’t understand what was going on.

Also, to me, it was clear that using the term “black [female dog]” was blatantly racist. What else could it be?

And as far as I understood, racists were often proud of being racists; they didn’t think that racism was wrong. So why was Violet denying her racism? And why was “black [female dog]” NOT considered racist?

It was so confusing.

When I tried to defend myself, I was accused of lying, of maligning Violet, who apparently never said such a thing—or if she did, she didn’t mean it in a racist manner.

But other people had been there and witnessed the whole thing. Where were they? Why did people automatically believe Violet? Why didn’t anyone want to find out what really happened?

Again, like with Ryan, they just enjoyed picking on someone.

I felt so miserable, persecuted, and helpless that I resolved never to stand up for anyone again. It just wasn’t worth it.

Fortunately, it died down in a week or two.

Valerie to the Rescue
Interestingly, several months later in Home Ec class, a tough blonde girl with a wolfish face and narrow blue eyes found out I was Jewish and declared: “What? But you guys killed Jesus!”

Everyone in the class turned to look at me.

(I don’t remember where the teacher was.)

It was scary because even if people aren’t particularly religious Christians, I still had this feeling that they could get riled up over this ludicrous issue of deicide.

Fortunately, I knew what to say because somewhere at Hebrew school or home, I’d been taught that it was the Romans who executed their founder and not us.”

So after I got over my initial shock (WHY did these incidents keep coming completely unexpected out of left field???), I stammered, “No. It wasn’t us. It was the Romans.”

Yeah, it was the Romans! Go find a Roman to pick on, Tina!

But she just took a step toward me and smirked, “MY pastor said it was the Jews who killed Jesus.”

Just then, Valerie came to the rescue.

“It was too the Romans who killed Jesus!” she spat at Tina.

Tina smile went crooked and her eyebrows arched as she looked from me to Valerie. I didn’t like unexpected attacks out of nowhere, but Tina clearly found them enjoyable.

“No,” said Tina. “My pastor said it was the Jews. You don’t know your bible.”

“Well, MY pastor said it was the Romans,” Valerie shot back. “So you don’t know YOUR bible!”

And at that point, I started to quietly back out of the room. I’m not proud of it because it’s neither brave nor loyal, but I’m just telling you honestly what happened even if it makes me look bad, not justifying it. Also, I sensed that nothing bad would happen to Valerie because she was a fellow church-goer—meaning, I felt myself in danger as a Jew, but not Valerie.

Anyway, she argued with more vehemence than Tina and clearly gained the upper hand.

I waited for Valerie outside the classroom and when she saw me, she said, “Hey, where did you go?”

Feeling like a toad, I mumbled some answer and Valerie started giving me mussar about how I don’t need to care about what such people say or think, and how I need to learn to stand up for myself and not be afraid of such pathetic people.

I didn’t mind so much because she was obviously coming from a place of caring and also
I felt she was mostly right. But what she didn’t understand was that she felt she just stood up to one girl, and I felt like I had the whole class against me.

Also, I just want to make it clear that Valerie wasn’t standing up for me because I’d stood up for her. She would’ve stood up against Jew-hatred whether I’d stood up for her or not. It was just her value system.

In fact, a lot of black Christians used to be very pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. It devastated me to learn later that some of the most prominent black Christian leaders are Jew-hating anti-Israel race baiters because all the black Christians I’d met were so sympathetic and appreciative of Jews.

But these are the types of leaders secular white Leftists want black people to follow, so that's who they promote in the media.

Nothing without God
If I’d had God, a solid relationship with God, and some kind of a framework with which to understand nisayon in general and Jew-hatred specifically, it would have helped me so much.

I could have been more courageous and not felt so weak and helpless within myself. Outside of self-confidence platitudes and innate personality traits (like innately bold, confident, or feisty people), you really can’t handle Jew-hatred without a Torah framework.

At the time, the above experiences were so traumatic, but now I feel nothing when recalling them. I suppose that having a framework—a framework of Truth with its accompanying depth and complexity—in which to understand and deal with these things has helped immensely.

I Don't Belong There
I was pretty darn secular the first time I came to Eretz Yisrael. And after everything I'd experienced, I cannot tell you how healing it was to see so many Jews with fully automatic machine guns.

But pretty quickly, this initial joy at the vision of potential self-defense deepened into something more spiritual. I went to the Kotel for the first time and found both God and myself. I'd come Home.

And despite missiles, wars, terrorism, the occasional Yishmaelite passive-aggression when you deal with them day-to-day or in the hospitals and stuff, plus the big non-Jewish Russian influx and the anti-Torah Leftists, I feel at Home here more than I ever did in my physical birth place. And this is my family and worth trying to get along with. There is no point in dealing with the descendants of Esav, like Ryan, the Mulligan twins, Justin, and their copycats.

Inoculated Against Trinity
Despite having been surrounded by another religion, a religion that promotes itself enthusiastically and sometimes aggressively, despite having badly wanted a tree as a child and to decorate our home with colored lights, despite the enjoyment of singing carols with non-Jewish friends, there was never a snowball's chance in Death Valley that I would ever join that religion after all I suffered from them and even the other strange stuff I saw by them.

I mean, sure, we eventually got anti-missionary training at Hebrew school, but most of us didn't really need it because dealing with the types had already inured us to their influence.

And despite the heroes that have stepped forward from that religion (like Sister Marie of La Providence who protected Jewish children during the Shoah and did not withhold them afterward from returning to the Jewish people), they acted despite the gospels and not because of them. (Meaning, they acted according to their own heart's conscience and according to the values they imbibed from our Tanach, found in their bible.)

So I knew who I wasn't and never could be, baruch Hashem.

Evading Edom
Edomites are very smirky. Esav is very smirky.

Remember, he’s analogized to the totally treif pig who stretches forth is split hoof to show himself as perfectly kosher. But he hides his inner reality and his utter lack of cud-chewing. Smirk, smirk.

Fake Unity
As Chazal and David Hamelech’s Tehillim repeatedly remind us, bad people can only look unified.

Real unity escapes them.

In high school, the relationship between the Mulligan twins started cracking apart.

Eventually, they became each other’s enemies, with Vivian wanting a less religious life and Violet constantly reporting Vivian’s infractions to their parents.

You see this everywhere in every group of bad people.

For example, despite their fake demonstrations of support, the Obamas and the Clintons actually despise each other.

Communist leaders all over Eastern Europe and China constantly targeted each other and lived in fear of each other.

When the Nazis took over Germany, they went after the very group of dedicated supporters who’d helped them achieve victory: the Brownshirts, AKA the Storm Troopers or the SA, killing hundreds of them.

Hashem's Hand
What escaped me at the time was that Hashem was actively pushing me away from so many false ideas and making room for the truth to trickle into my heart.

My experiences with Jew-hatred, some of which were traumatic to me at the time, are peanuts compared to what Jews experienced in Europe prior to the end of WWII. And even compared to some of my Jewish contemporaries, my experiences were not nearly as bad as they could have been.

For example, a very nice vivacious Jewish girl I knew got grabbed by the neck by a neo-Nazi skinhead who then put a knife to her throat and in very foul language told her he wanted to kill her because she was a Jew.

So Hashem gave me experiences that were enough to firmly point me in the right direction, but not so bad that I'd be traumatized for life.

These and other experiences also taught me the big lie about American society, that you can rely on authorities for help and that the system works. It sometimes does, but often doesn't. Also, people like to perceive themselves as good decent caring people without actually caring about others.

In America, things look nice on the outside but you only need to dig down a few layers to get to all the rot.

And if you're defenseless, you only have Hashem to turn to because it's unlikely that anyone in Edom will care enough to help.

So baruch Hashem, yishtabach Shemo that the above happened. (There's actually more, but these are the sharpest experiences.)

It felt so bad and overwhelming and crushing at the time, but it was really all so good.

It was Hashem's Way of pulling me into His Embrace. (Sometimes, I guess He needs to yank rather than gently reel you in. So I guess I need to be yanked!)

Here's an amusing incident in the Violet Mulligan saga:

I always saved a seat next to me on the schoolbus for Valerie. And even though there were plenty of empty seats, Violet Mulligan used to stop by my seat and demand in a snooty way, "Can I sit here!"

After looking around to see whether she had no other place to sit (and there were plenty of empty spots), I'd politely explain that I'm saving a place for Valerie. Then she'd retort, "No, you're not! Now MOVE."

One rainy day, I got the idea to sit near the window and place my sopping umbrella on the aisle seat next to me, knowing that the seats indented easily (conducive to making puddles on the seats).

As expected, Violet planted herself in front of me and demanded, "Can I sit here!"

As usual, I politely said, "Well, I'm saving it for Valerie."

"No, you're not!" she huffed and knocked my umbrella to the floor with her schoolbag.

Then she plopped right down onto the rainwater puddled on the seat.

Squish!

Making sure I looked innocent, I watched her face out of the corner of my eye and quite enjoyed her facial transition from smirky triumph to shocked discomfort.

She squirmed a bit and glanced at me, while I quickly looked away as if I had no idea what was going on.

She swallowed and squirmed some more. "It's wet here," she commented with a frown.

"Mmm," I said in fake sympathy.

But she never tried to take Valerie's place again.

And see? I can be smirky and gleeful too.

But only when absolutely justified - and not because I've been brainwashed by ludicrous falsehoods propagated by deluded hate-mongers.

When I first immigrated to Eretz Yisrael in my early twenties, I found myself in Kiryat Arba on Shabbat with a friend of mine.

Our generous hosts had several children included a 16-year-old girl with a serious commitment to Torah and Eretz Yisrael.

(We'll call her Moriah.)

Excited about davening at  Ma'arat Hamachpela/Cave of the Patriarchs in Chevron/Hebron for Shabbat Shacharit, we 3 girls decided we'd join the armed Jewish men also going to Ma'arat Hamachpela for Shacharit as they did every Shabbat.

But we didn't catch them in time (can't remember why).

So now it became a security issue.

​But when the mother noticed our gloom over missing a special Shabbat Shacharit right next to Avraham Avinu and Sara Imeinu, she quietly remarked that there were soldiers along the entire way.

Moriah knew the way, having walked it several times.

Then Moriah announced we were going and that not only were there fully armed soldiers along the route, but also Hashem protects a shaliach mitzvah from harm.

​Seeing as every 4 amot in Eretz Yisrael is a mitzvah and that davening at the gravesite of tzaddikim is a praiseworthy act, then Hashem would look out for us.

We were on!

We headed out with Moriah in her long dishwater blonde ponytail and owlish glasses marching ahead of us with the resolve of generations of dedicated bnot Yisrael.

As illogical as it may sound, I felt very safe with Moriah. When one has solid emuna and bitachon, it provides much more protection than any weapon.

As we left the Kiryat Arba resedential neighborhood, we came upon a short tunnel of bricks. Moriah didn't say anything until we came out the other end and pointed to a dark plaque outside the exit of the short tunnel.

It was a memorial to a good Jew who'd been stabbed by a you-know-who (hint: not a Bahai nor a Baptist) lying in ambush at the very place we stood.

This did not give me a reassuring feeling.

I looked around to see if there were any terrorists hiding nearby, but fortunately, there didn't seem to be any.

"Do we need to come back this way?" I asked Moriah. "Is there another way where we don't need to go through this tunnel?"

Alas, there wasn't.

But then Moriah firmly reminded me that terrorism cannot and does not stop us. We strode on fearless in our faith and trust in God!

My admiration of Moriah increased even more.

Anyway, we soon came up on our first soldier. In fact, there was a soldier stationed every few yards within clear vision of each other.

Dressed in full combat gear—helmets, fully automatic rifles, bulletproof vests, etc.—they each stood in their position, there eyes carefully scanning all around them, including above them, as if wondering, Will something fall on my head?

They also looked a bit self-amused, like "I'm just standing here in the middle of a field of flattened grass like a sitting duck."

And what's really funny is that each time we approached each soldier, he did a double-take.

First, he tensed as he caught our movement from the corner of his eye, then he did a double-take when he saw 3 girls.

And each time, Moriah snapped up her palm in greeting and declared: "Shabbat Shalom!"

Each time she did this, the soldier looked even more surprised (but pleasantly so) and responded with amused disbelief, "Shabbat Shalom, girls!"

This happened repeatedly throughout the entire line of soldiers.

I found it all both amusing and heart-warming.

I really appreciated them being there and they really appreciated our spiritual gutsiness (although to be completely honest, I was being swept along by Moriah's lionhearted bitachon rather than my own).

​And after having survived the wishy-washy secular culture of the US, it was rejuvenating to be in the presence of such a young Jewish woman who possessed such serious commitment and resolve.

Also, the contrast was funny.

Apparently, the area was dangerous enough so that they needed full combat gear, but here we were striding along in our Shabbat dresses without even a small bottle of pepper spray.

And then...

​...we saw two scuzzy-looking guys standing right next to one of the soldiers. One guy held a big camera. The other scuzzbag sported shoulder-length sandy-colored gritty-looking hair and wore jeans and held a pen and pad in his hands.

They were obviously journalists for a secular newspaper.

"Hey, giiiiiirls," he said in this really sleazy way and introduced himself as being from one of the major Israeli newspapers (either Yediot Acharonot or Maariv; I always got them confused).

​"Can I ask yoooou a few questionnnns?" (Picture this being said in the greasiest way possible.)

My friend & I put on our polite pleasant American faces, thinking that being receptive to his questions and being nice would be a kiddush Hashem.

But just as we opened our mouths, Moriah stepped up to plate and stated, "NO. It's Shabbat and we don't do interviews! Writing and taking pictures is forbidden on Shabbat and we don't allow it!"

Okay, I admit I was shocked at the time.

This was a far cry from the nice compassionate approach to tinok sheh nishba, an attitude most baalei teshuvah cultivate and is also strongly encouraged in the frum community.

But Moriah knew a lot more than I about these types and had correctly identified him as a total snake, like the original Nachash in Gan Eden.

Or maybe just a weasel.

"Oh, c'mon, giiiirls," he sneered. "Just a couple of queeeestioooons..."

(I can't fully convey this in writing, but everything about his tone of voice, his body language, and his persona gave the impression of him being a total sleazebag who'd slithered out from under the most scum-fested rock possible.)

I sensed his attitude had to do with us being religious, and being associated with "settlers," but I couldn't prove it. Yet I got a very strong feeling that was the case.

In other words, he loathed us for the Divine values he saw in us.

"I said NO," Moriah said.

He bent his knees to squat and spread out his arms and said, "But why noooot, giiirls?"

Giving him a stern look, Moriah repeated, "Because it's Shabbat and we don't do interviews on Shabbat! Writing and taking pictures is forbidden on Shabbat and we don't allow it!"

The journalist said he would be doing the writing, not her. Moriah exhorted that it was forbidden for him too.

He smirked.

Then we turned to keep walking, but Moriah knew just how sneaky and disrespectful these guys are and to my surprise, she suddenly whipped around to face them and said, "PLEASE. I said no pictures on Shabbat! I insist that you respect our wishes!"

I was shocked to see the camera up in front of the photographer's face. The really scuzzy journalist spread his arms out again in obviously fake innocence.

"What's wroooong, giiiiirls?" he said.

Moriah gave them a hard glare and the camera went down while the journalist's arms slowly dropped to his sides.

We passed another soldier just then, who looked at us with twinkling eyes as he murmured, "Kol hakavod, girls!"

I glanced back at the scuzzbags. They were staring after us, the photographer looking bored and the journalist looking like he wasn't sure what just happened.

I felt so YUCK after that brief interaction, and I felt the YUCK in a way I haven't felt before or since.

And that was the end of our journalistic encounter.

I know I don't usually write with such negative descriptions of people, but I really can't emphasize enough the unusual & disconcerting feeling that we were facing 2 giant cockroaches.

The above experience imparted several lessons to me, baruch Hashem.

And one of them was an unsettling realization that the really sleazy guy wrote for a major national newspaper.

This granted him influence and likely meant that he wrote well.

​I wondered whether his overpowering sleaziness seeped through his writing or whether he came off as an intelligent and sincere articulate guy, as many successful journalists do?

It unnerved me to think that such a repellant person had the power to influence others and could command journalistic respect.

Years ago, upon reading the column of another journalist who (as usual) picked apart the charedi community, I realized that I had a friend who had family connections to the very street this journalist mentioned in the column.

(The column claimed there was a charedi rebbetzin living in a building storage room after having been forcibly divorced & rejected by her entire community, and forbidden to see her own children.)

​An actual rebbetzin, eh? Good golly!

My friend also had extensive professional experience in helping abused women and the mentally ill.

What a perfect shidduch!

I figured that not only could I get help for the persecuted homeless rebbetzin featured in the column, but it might also be a kiddush Hashem for the columnist to see that some charedim did care about injustices in our community enough to take action.

(You can also see that my eager young newly frum enthusiasm was out in full force at that time.)

Anyway, I called my friend and asked her if she'd heard about this situation. She had tons of cousins on this street and visited there often.

Yet my friend hadn't heard a thing about it.

"The woman living in the abandon bomb shelter of one of the buildings is supposed to be a big rebbetzin," I said.

"Mm-hmm," said my friend who'd already cottoned on to the truth, but figured she'd let me work it out on my own.

"Uh, you haven't heard of any big rebbetzin living in one of the buildings like that?" I probed.

"Nope," she said pleasantly.

I bit my bottom lip and frowned. That didn't make sense according to the column, which portrayed it as a major community scandal.

Yet if it was a major community scandal, why hadn't my friend even heard of it?

"You didn't see any abandoned lady down there when you went to visit your cousins?"

"Mmmm...nope."

Well, maybe my friend hadn't gone into THAT specific building.

Knowing that my friend was deeply involved with programs and counseling for women suffering abuse or mental illness, I asked her if the columnist could contact her.

My friend generously agreed and told me the exact number to reach her by—a number I knew well because I'd frequently called her at that very number.

Bursting with goody-goodyness, I emailed the columnist with the information.

I received a cooing email in reply, one that flattered me as being "one of the few who cared" and reassurance that the call would be made.

But then the columnist added other details of the situation (which were expressed in a huffy self-righteous style).

That's when I got my first "uh-oh" vibe.

Because what the columnist now described sounded a lot like one of those schizophrenic ladies you sometimes see hanging out on the streets of the frum neighborhoods of Jerusalem—neighborhoods where these mentally ill stragglers enjoy more safety and more compassion than in other areas.

A a couple of days later, I got another email from the columnist stating that my friend couldn't be reached because the number connected to a fax.

That was my 2nd "uh-oh" vibe.

I'd been calling my friend at that exact number for years and never encountered a fax.

I frowned as I tried to work out what was going on.

So I called my friend and asked whether the columnist's claim had any validity.

"I never have a fax connected to this number," said my friend.

"Maybe it happened just one time?" I suggested, thinking maybe the columnist had tried to call at that one time.

"Nope. Never," said my friend.

My puzzlement grew.

I couldn't accept the fact that the columnist was outright lying, in direct contrast to the columnist's self-portrayal in every column as a crusader for fairness and truth.

I checked the number I'd emailed with the way it was written in my phonebook (even though I knew it from memory).

No difference.

Maybe the number changed via some glitch when it was emailed?

I created a new email and included the number within. Again.

The columnist continued to insist that the number connected to a fax, no matter how many attempts were made.

I wrote back explaining that couldn't be because there was no fax.

In reply, I received an email from the columnist expressing regret that our efforts simply weren't working and how could things progress if the phone number didn't even work and my professional activist friend could not be reached?

So this was the end. I was praised again for caring "so much."

​And that was that.

I came away with the feeling I'd been had, but I couldn't figure out exactly how.

(Another time, I read a statement by that same columnist that couldn't possibly be true by bare objective fact, I found it hard to believe that a person would outright lie in a public forum. Also, I could see how the person could weasel out from the lie with other lies there'd be no way for me to prove.)

Looking back, she acted like a gaslighter (a form of emotional abuse).

This one popped up in the list of Yeranen Yaakov's articles of interest:
Report: El Al Delayed Flight Blamed on Chareidi Passengers - Not True 

After all the flaming and self-bashing that went on online, it turned out that the original portrayal was not even true.

Is that the journalist's fault?

Less so in this case.

After all, the reporter got the original tidbit from directly an official source.

But real journalists are supposed double-check "facts" & other journalistic responsibilities.

The problem today is the pressure to crank things out, to report news as it's happening, and to stay relevant.

Combine this with the fact that as long as it supports a journalist personal point of view, then why bother double-checking?

(I don't know whether it did with these particular reporters, but many people are ready to believe anything about the frum community as long as it is negative.)

In addition to the encounters above, I've personally met reporters, editors, graphic designers, proofreaders, and others involved in Jewish media across the spectrum of the Jewish population and in working for either Hebrew or English publications.

(Note: There is often a slew of editors and proofreaders & copyeditors & graphic artists working behind the scenes, in addition the writer whose name appears on the article. Their names don't always appear even on the masthead.)

As far as the frum publications go, please rest assured that the majority of people involved with producing their magazine or newspaper are decent sincere people.

But not all of them.

And it only takes one or two people positioned in just the right (or wrong, as the case may be) place to produce topics, slants, and attitudes that are actually not Torah nor even well-intended.

If any person behind the article (and there are several people behind each article, not just the writer) is not a decent person, if they're narcissistic or unspiritual or mean-spirited or a religious fake, then that can influence the information you're imbibing.

Furthermore, everyone has issues and biases.

(I'm no exception either, BTW.)

​If any person involved in an article is stunted by a blind spot, then that will affect the slant and accuracy of the information being offered.

And you can't always know who has had the final say on any article you read.

For example, one editor working for a secular Jewish publication was just plain strange.

​Not a bad person, but definitely a strange person with little sense of self & not the kind of person you'd want deciding what you should read.

Also, when you read a frum publication that declares its allegiance to rabbinical supervision, do you think that means the entire publication is scrutinized by a group of rabbis?

It doesn't necessarily mean that. It could mean that, but it doesn't have to.

It could also mean that the publication only shows the rabbi articles it has questions about.

In some cases, the rabbi sees only the questionable parts of the article and not even the whole article.

Do you know what your publication means when it says it submits to a rabbinical va'ad?

Maybe it doesn't bother you either way, but if you do care, you might want to find out.

Writers
One writer interviewed a brilliant & caring yet eccentric person. Concerned that the interviewee not suffer an harm to reputation, the writer strove to portray the eccentric genius in the best light possible.

Later, the writer learned that people were saying, "Who was that journalist? She did a brilliant job with that article! I know that person and the writer actually made that person sound normal!"

"I feel like such a fake," the writer confided. "But what else could I do? I couldn't have that person's eccentricity exposed in writing forevermore to thousands of people."

Another writer fumed about how someone changed a word of the article to imbue it with the opposite meaning of what was intended:

"I even got a couple of angry letters about it—which were also published in Letters to the Editor!" said the writer.

​"But the thing is, I never said that! I don't even think it! I'm not sure exactly who changed it—though I have my suspicions. And I was told that if I responded, I needed to send my response through the staff first. I didn't bother because I didn't think they'd expose how they alter an article's meaning—not just grammar or typos, but the actual meaning—without consulting the writer."

Interviewees
Said one frustrated mother after an experience with a popular frum magazine:

​"My son and his wife were interviewed for an article and the magazine got so much wrong! We were so angry at the depiction. It was just a mess, all mixed-up. We all resolved never to allow ourselves to be interviewed ever again."

"My husband gets interviewed by all different kinds of publications," one woman said.

"And we just got used to them getting details wrong." She sighed.

​"They get his age wrong, sometimes they delete his sister and sometimes they add another sister, they get wrong the years he did different things. But it's small stuff so we just try to ignore it."

One frum writer wrote of her experience being interviewed by a journalist who initially seemed trustworthy, but then misrepresented her in the published article, including words in quotation marks—words she never said.

Readers

Said by the acquaintance of a woman interviewed by a frum publication:

"I can't believe what they wrote about this woman I know! They made this whole article about how a woman combines her music with family life and domestic responsibilities. But I know her and she doesn't combine her music with her domestic responsibilities! Think about it. If a woman spends the entire morning composing songs and playing instruments, then when does she have time for making dinner or cleaning or laundry? She doesn't! I know her. Yes, she greets her children very warmly when they come home from school, but then she sends them out to buy hamburgers for lunch.

"She does spend time with her children in the afternoons and she teaches them music, and that's really lovely. But then her husband comes home and gets them supper and puts them to bed so that she can immerse herself in her music again.

"It's not that I mind what she does. It's her life and her family really does seem happy. But she's not 'combining her domestic responsibilities with her music.' Her husband and oldest child do everything. She simply doesn't do most of her domestic responsibilities, like housework or meal-preparation. But the article made it sound like she does. And she really doesn't."

Said by a former neighbor regarding a frum publication:

"I came across an article I knew about a person known as a very unrefined person and a very abusive parent. Yet the article presented this person as baalas chesed who excelled in visiting and caring for the sick! I knew this person brought over meals for sick people in the community and would gossip about what she saw in the homes she'd visited. The ill women felt they couldn't stop her from talking and risk losing her services because they were weak and desperate for any help they could get. I guess she was like the Typhoid Mary of lashon hara.

"And the abuse of her child was very distressing. Once, she grabbed her 7-year-old by the face and yanked from both sides of the child's face at the same time—all because the child didn't want to taste a new food. I jumped to my feet and my hand jerked out as I cried out for her to stop. I'd never seen such a thing, even though I've witnessed parents hitting their kids in public. But attacking them like this, especially over something so trivial? Never.

"Yet she wasn't at all embarrassed. With obvious self-righteousness, she even snapped at me that she used to do much worse and that this is an improvement over how she used to be. For the child's sake, I tried to remain calm and soothe the mother by praising the mother for her self-improvement. But she was angry that I intervened at all. She stuck her nose in the air and left the table, refusing to look at me as if I was the loathsome person in this situation.

"And then I have to read this article on how she's such a selfless nurse to the ill. I don't blame the publication because the editors have no way of knowing, but how could the writer not know the truth? After all, if I remember correctly, he's from her community—and her behavior is no secret."

With frum publications, you at least have the reassurance of knowing that most of the people are decent, sincere, and (at least externally) committed to Torah Law.

But what of the secular or non-Jewish publications?

Some are well-meaning and some are truth-seekers who still believe in honest-to-gosh investigative journalism. But others are agenda-driven, biased, and uphold false beliefs and terrible values.

Finally, it's important to realize that people can be gifted and skilled without being good. We see this all the time. If someone is a superb writer, they'll be able to present themselves and their topics in a compelling, appealing manner even if their personality and value system stink.

Case in point: There's a popular non-Jewish writer whose books are always well-received.

When this writer writes about himself, he comes off as so sympathetic and appealing.

But taking a step back and looking at the topics he writes about in his novels and how he writes about them, plus the things he says in his non-fiction—like how he's treated close family members like garbage—it's possible to realize that the guy is a self-centered macabre escapist who cares little how his writing affects others (and there are people who've committed horrific crimes claiming to have been inspired by his novels).

​He claims to care about others (in a Leftist way) and like most immoral people he donates money to a couple of pet causes (likely for feel-good or feel-superior reasons).

​But tachlis?

His writings and attitude shows that not only does he feel no desire to make the world a better place; he even makes it a worse place and that's fine with him. Yet he comes off as appealing and sympathetic.

So...who's behind the byline? What's the agenda or the bias?

You don't really know.

And this goes for online articles and blogs too.

You don't really know unless you do know.

While the desire for "kosher" and interesting reading is very understandable, a good idea is to ask yourself how you feel after reading an article or publication or blog (including this blog).

For example, after I read a certain frum publication, I felt hopeless and bleak.

I realized that many of the articles actually consisted of despair and unrealistic advice based on secular psychology and presented in a guilt-tripping way while trying to sound encouraging.

Some frum writers or publications uphold a very secular hashkafah in certain areas without even realizing it. Others violate halacha without realizing it.

(Again, this includes online publications and blogs.)

It doesn't mean that an entire publication should be avoided (although it could mean that).

Maybe only read certain authors or certain topics in a particular publication?

Or only read certain topics covered by that author?

Also, publications pay attention to sales and letters to the editor, but if it's online, then pageviews and sales count for more.

Even if they get a lot of angry letters about an issue, if the sales (or pageviews and visits) go up, then the publication considers that "a hot-button issue" and not necessarily one to be avoided.

But letters do matter to them & influence their decisions. So it's good to write to them.

Note: If you choose to write a letter to the editor, the following is recommended:

• Keep it as brief as possible.
• Don't rant; be coherent.
• Multiple exclamations points of outrage (!!!!!!) do not make you look serious or mature.
• Ditto with self-righteous statements of outrage ("Shame on you!!!!")—they get that statement ALL the time.
• Identify what you'd like to see in the future.
• Describe what you did like (if anything) about the article or issue.
• You might want to clarify the halachot of rebuke & lashon hara before writing a letter to the editor to make sure your letter doesn't violate halachah.

(And don't think I haven't violated any of the above ever...learn from my mistakes! ;)

But whatever you decide, it's helpful to do a self-check:

• How do I feel after reading this?
• Why do I feel this way?

Better to double-check "facts," do your own research, and include in your daily reading (even if it's only a couple of lines a day) books by truly good and wise rabbis and rebbetzins to keep your soul infused with real daat and wisdom.

When talking to Hashem a couple of weeks ago, I was trying to reconcile my dislikes about my home. Certain things were really bothering me and had been bothering me for years.

But then He reminded me that He didn't even have a home.

His House had been destroyed.

And while I don't like how shabby or cracked my home has gotten, and I don't like a lot of my furniture (a lot of it I had little or no choice in because of circumstances beyond my control, so it's not my taste or what I find comfortable to live with, AND much of it is no longer in good condition), and I'm feeling frustrated and helpless about certain aspects of it, He pointed out that I don't have confused people led by harridans who hate me and even deny my existence, yet who label themselves the representatives of my home, and charge into my home, shoving aside the people who really love me while chanting offensive slogans and imposing a bad influence on my family by encouraging them to do things they shouldn't.

He pointed out that I don't have pigeons nesting in my walls and casting their droppings on the heads of my children.

He noted that I have more than one wall standing - unlike His House.

Foxes and other small animals do not scurry across my floors. (Well, not usually anyway.)

And He also pointed out that I don't have Yismaelite urchins treating the holiest part of my home and the most sanctified place on Earth like an abandoned soccer field, nor do I have a mosque in the most important part of my house (with all the noise and crowds that entails).

After mulling this over, I said, "You're right, Hashem. You win. I have no right to complain about my home's flaws when Your House is in ruins. Furthermore, if You don't have a House, then how is it at all fair that I have one? And even more Kind and Selfless of You, Ruler of the Universe, is that You've granted my home electricity and indoor plumbing. You're spoiling me with an entire apartment and modern amenities while You make do with just one Wall."

May Hashem's House be speedily rebuilt in our days.

Here's wishing everyone an easy Tisha B'Av fast.

May Mashiach come now in a sweet way and may we never experience anymore sorrow.

One evening, I went to put my 3-year-old to bed, but when I called him, he refused to answer.

After looking in a couple of rooms, I found him lying on a bunch of clean linens in the bottom drawer opened from his older siblings' trundle bed. (He'd been playing with his older siblings and after they'd dropped off to sleep, he decide he wanted to sleep in this drawer in the room with them, rather than going to his bed in another bedroom.)

I looked at him and he looked right back at me. Then he said, "I'm not here."

Restraining a laugh, I said, "Yes, you are here. I'm looking right at you."

Still looking me right in the eye, he arched his little eyebrows, shook his little head, and repeated, "No. I'm not here."

Recalling Rav Arush's observation that children mirror their parents qualities and behaviors (sometimes in an extremely magnified way and sometimes in a much more subtle way), I realized that my son was doing exactly what I tend to do to Hashem.

And I'm guessing I'm not the only one, either...

We know that Hashem is thoroughly Omnipotent and not only sees everything we do, He even knows our true motives because He sees exactly what's in our hearts and minds.

Yet despite our intellectual knowledge of this, we still do things we know He doesn't approve of.

It's exactly as silly as looking a parent in the eye while insisting, "I'm not here."

Except that when we do it as thinking adults, it's not nearly as cute or innocent as when a 3-year-old does it to his mother.

And although Hashem loves us even more than we love any of our children of any age, it's not cute or funny when we deny our culpability regarding prohibitions that are really important.

"Dum-de-dum-de-dum...I'm not really doing anything so bad, God...You can't really see me...I'm not really here doing what it looks like I'm doing...dum-de-dum-de-dum..."

But you are here. And He's looking right at you.

May we all succeed in maintaining a loving awareness of Hashem at all times.