Rabbi’s Musings & Amusings

When I was in Eretz Yisrael a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to see my wonderful cousin, Reb Izak Cohn. As we both share a love of s’farim, whenever we meet, our discussion invariably turns to the newest s’farim we purchased.

When our twins were born over five years ago, I was informed that my rebbe, Rabbi Berel Wein, happened to be in Monsey. It was a great z’chus that he was willing to serve as sandek for Gavriel Yehuda, the older twin.

These days, you can order almost anything and have it delivered to your door, in a relatively short amount of time.

Unfortunately, emotions don’t work that way. A person can’t just snap his fingers and feel differently. If anyone could, and knew how to teach that to others, he would become rich very quickly.

Our family enjoys eating cherry tomatoes, particularly “Nature-Sweet cherub heavenly salad tomatoes.” Ironically, I have other close family members with whom I grew up who harbor a severe dislike for tomatoes and won’t eat salad that has any tomatoes in it. But the Staums who live on Landau Lane go through a few packages of the little red guys each week.

It’s always a special z’chus to travel to Eretz Yisrael. The last time I had been there was five years ago, when I went with our oldest son, Shalom, in honor of his bar mitzvah.

One night just before Tu BiSh’vat, our five-year-old son Gavriel asked for an apple. My wife cut up the apple into pieces for him to eat, but he insisted that sh