News

Gov. Kathy Hochul presented her budget proposal for FY 2023. In her proposal, she pledges $2 billion in additional funding for pandemic relief, which she indicated should go to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) or other rent aid programs such as the Landlord Rental Assistance Program (LRAP). The governor's numbers align with what housing advocacy groups like the Community Housing Improvement Program have been calling for in additional funding over the several few weeks. While the governor indicated the funds should be merged into the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), the funding, and overall budget, will need to be negotiated with the State Legislature. Housing groups like the Community Housing Improvement Program will be mounting a strong public relations campaign and lobbying effort to fight for this funding to be allocated to renters and their housing providers.

Recap: Shoshana confronts Aviva and asks her why she’s ignoring her. Aviva says she can’t be friends as long as Shoshana is friends with Penina because of Penina’s sister. Shoshana is surprised and hurt and thinks Aviva is judgmental. When she gets home, she discovers her mother had to go on a business trip. She doesn’t want to stay alone so she asks Penina to come sleep over. During the sleepover, someone comes to the door and keeps knocking.

What was it about Yisro?

Was he especially

Wise or clever?

What gets a man immortalized

In history forever?

To be in the Holy Torah

Written by G-d Himself

Eclipses any kind of fame,

Heritage, or wealth.

Egypt had gods wall to wall;

As high priest,

Yisro served them all.

A man of prestige and import,

A respected advisor

In Pharaoh’s court.

A fateful meeting

Changed all that,

In which Pharaoh

And his top ministers sat.

Pharaoh had murder

On his mind,

Though his nation’s greatness

Came about

Through the Hebrews he maligned;

It was Joseph who had brought

Egypt supremacy.

Could he drown Joseph’s people

Without culpability?

Genocide seemed workable,

They were now

Just lowly slaves,

It had been more than

Two hundred years,

No one was coming to their aid.

Yisro spoke up,

It wouldn’t fly,

He gave level-headed reasons why:

Though their G-d may seem

To be absent now,

Things are still different

With the Hebrews somehow;

All those up till now

Who’ve attempted their fall

Found themselves

Behind the eight ball.

Yisro seeing Pharaoh’s face

Recalled a proverb learned in youth:

Have one foot in the stirrup

When you’re telling the truth.

He lit out for Midian,

At least he had tried,

Went from high priest

To lowly shepherd,

A great empire left behind.

Bil’am being quite the persuader

Got Pharaoh behind him,

Extermination of Hebrews

The new agenda in Mitzrayim.

Yisro sifted through the evidence

Between the chaff and pure;

He saw mind sets that would pass

And those that would endure.

Saw Hashem’s perfect justice

For him, that turned the tide,

After living all the lies,

He had found the other side.

It is every man’s wish

To leave a legacy,

To forever be a part

Of history.

Yisro accomplished that

In a way not many could,

For he discerned and extolled

HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s

Great good,

The truth that had made Yisro run

From fame and glory

Brought him true greatness

As a part of the real story.

By Sharon Marcus

“She’s so advanced! I can’t believe she’s walking already!”

“I’m telling you - he’s got such a sense of humor! What a kibitzer!”

I believe that most women, before they get married, have already identified a number of items that, when “corrected,” will greatly improve their husband. The average kallah walks down the aisle with a ten-point home-improvement policy, the focus of which is that fellow standing under the canopy—her husband-to-be. Look, he’s a great guy, but... First off, those shoes have got to go. And those ties, forget about them... Then there’s this coming late business…

The books that came into my hands during my two-year stay at Ohr Somayach in Yerushalayim are regularly pulled off the shelves of my cerebral library. One, entitled The Grave Concern, was lent to me by Rabbi Meir Schuster zt”l, the soft-spoken, relentless man who pointed countless lost Jewish wayfarers back to the true path of their Jewish self-discovery. The word grave is used as an adjective, describing the dire situation of America’s Jewish landscape, which was being torn asunder by assimilation, and was illustrated by the cover, which featured an hourglass showing letters of the aleph-beis disintegrating into the sands of time. The book is a litany of personal chronicles of a journalist who tracked the stories of people he knew who had gotten lost in the shuffle of exile and had traded in their Yiddishkeit for the baubles of beckoning riches, leaving them unmindful of their precious legacy while they reveled in vacuous and valueless achievements that faded to black with the last closing of their disillusioned eyes.