HOME & FAMILY

After six weeks of Adar, we're still in that special turnabout-looking glass mode which offers a different kind of clarity.

Back in Time
by Anni Rephun Fruchter

All is washed in golden sunlight. A breath of balmy air floats through the branches of the silver birch trees on the lawn of the Adelson-Rikanati private park in Ramot Gimmel. The almond trees, recovered from the winter winds, have taken heart and spread their branches in a mist of snowflake petals, belatedly, after Tu Bishvat. Now could be an afternoon that happened long ago and far away, as though time had slipped backwards.

Stranger than Fiction
by Bayla Gimmel

My editor recently asked me if I write fiction. I have always been a firm believer in the old adage that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

COMMUNICATION
Notes on Talking with Small Children
by Elisheva Leah Nadler

Name-using, smiling, eye-contact, whispering and other elementary ideas so easy to implement.

Ayelet Hashachar

This is a true Purim story -- Dateline New York -- and I don't know who sent it in (last year) -- Ad-dlo-yada.

Spasmophilia

This is an `It doesn't hurt to try' article about a most common but undiagnosed condition that expresses itself in various ways. Yated does not take any responsibility for this article but certainly urges you to read it and see if the simple advice offered at the end can't help whatever may ail you.

As we said: It doesn't hurt to try.

Your Medical Questions Answered!
by Joseph B. Leibman, MD

Dementia. This devastating disease begins with memory loss, and quickly progresses to inability to work, understand, and things like getting lost while going home or being confused about one's surroundings. Often, long-term memory is preserved for a while, that is, the social graces, pleasantness, and memories of childhood may be retained. Then sets in an inability to care for oneself, an inability to talk and to control bodily functions.

Build A Positive Self-Image
by Dr. Reuven Bruner, Ph.D.

Psychologists have established the relationship between how we think and how we feel and act. Who we think we are is an especially important aspect of the experiencing-thinking- feeling-behaving cycle. The thoughts you have about yourself - - your competence, your social acceptability and your sense of personal responsibility -- influence how you interpret the things that happen to you and how you feel about and, consequently, respond to those things. To see how this works, let us look at an example.

POET'S CORNER

The Heavens Belong to Hashem
by Mendel Weinberger

The heavens belong to Hashem
And the earth is man's domain
Yet man tries to reach the heavens
Again and again and again.

Sometimes his dream goes up in flames
In a flash of blinding light
Blasting human lives
Into the darkness of the night.

Still he tries again to conquer
The way to outer space
Leaving his broken dreams scattered
All over the planet's face.

Yet there is a way to ascend
To the highest heavens above
And that way is to stand in prayer
With a heart burning with love.

The soul has wings to fly
Far beyond the Milky Way
Past a thousand galaxies
To the light of the very First Day.

All that is needed to leave the earth
Is a pure and focused mind
And with his soul alight
One can leave this world behind.

As he reaches the outer limits
Of this universe so vast
He will finally understand
That the future is also the past.

And as he touches Infinity
All space does disappear
And Hashem's simple Oneness
Dispels all of his fear.

His return to earth is easy
He needn't fear the heat
As he gently touches down
On the ground beneath his feet.

His only wish is now
To shine the Infinite Light
To all the creatures of this world
Who dwell in the darkness of night.

His mission is to make this world
A dwelling place for Hashem
So all humanity can feel
The G-dliness that lives in them.