This has been an extremely hard year for us Jews. On October 7th over 1,200 were killed and over 200 were taken hostage in the most brutal attack on our people since the Holocaust. Jews were attacked in their homes and at a peace-loving music festival. Survivors were dragged from their homes, tortured, and taken to Gaza, where they faced months of terror in captivity.
I used to wonder if my local paper, the New York Times, was biased. This would happen when the paper was to far right, or left, of where I thought it should be. I felt that the paper was twisting the facts to get its viewpoint across. I thought, “Why didn’t they just tell the truth?! Why not just tell me the facts?!”
As I was sitting on the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas, one of the world’s most luxurious cruise ships, I found myself immersed in the stillness of the morning. I like to meditate in the morning and wait for the world to wake up. The peacefulness of that time is transcendental, and it’s during these moments that I’ve come to appreciate the sunrise.
The Times magazine had a great piece on New York’s marijuana problem. The piece centers around the problem of how the industry should be regulated. On the one hand, having too much regulation allows illegal shops to pop up. However, the author points out that regulation is important when talking about addictive and harmful products.
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey emphasizes that to communicate effectively, we must “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.” This principle is essential for building strong relationships. Covey teaches that empathic listening involves deeply understanding another person’s perspective before offering your own input, which fosters trust and effective communication.
A study published last year quantifies how social media platforms like TikTok create digital peer pressure and use it to their own advantage. Kids feel compelled to use these platforms because their friends are on then even though it makes them feel worse.
Why are our kids using social media so much when there are piles of evidence that it’s bad for them? This isn’t the classic generational clash where parents disapprove of the new-fangled gadgets the kids have. Instead, it’s about how these tools are hijacking their social worlds and enabling a new form of peer pressure.
It’s tempting to want something so bad that you believe you can will it to happen. Instead of examining risks and continually examining and reducing them, projects just forge ahead. This happens at work all the time. But most interestingly, there are some things that humans want so bad, like peace, that we also think that our prayers might make this happen, even when complete peace is impossible.
London, April 27, 2024, 7 PM
At first, I thought I was stepping into a world of high culture, of high tea, which many of us think of as posh and elite. But in reality, high tea is a working-class meal, hearty and robust, eaten at the end of the workday. It turns out I was going for afternoon tea. Afternoon tea is the high culture one. It’s all about elegance and light bites—think scones and tiny sandwiches, eaten in the late afternoon.
London, April 26, 2024, 7 PM
I enjoyed Stonehenge far more than I expected. When I first glimpsed it from the highway, it didn’t strike me as anything special—just a cluster of old stones set against the vast, open landscape of Salisbury Plain. But as I walked closer, my perspective shifted dramatically. The site wasn’t just a collection of rocks; it was a portal to a deep and ancient world.
We just got back from a skiing vacation. Skiing is a bit of a non-intuitive vacation. Why would a person want to spend their hard-earned money and vacation time in a cold, physically punishing environment? For the challenge. The challenge in skiing is commonly thought to be pushing your body to its limits in harsh conditions, but the real challenge is to ignore all of the distractions and mindfully focus on the mountain.
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