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Disposable Income

Posted by admin under Child Poverty, Disposable Income, Getting By In Israel, Poverty in Israel, Social Justice, Unemployment, What can THEY do

Disposable Income

A friend of mine used a great metaphor the other day. We were speaking about the differences between life in Israel vs that of living in North America. He used a very thought provoking comparison. He said that here in Israel when there is no food at home it means, that’s the way it is. Not much to do but to wait until the beginning of the next month, and payday. Whereas in the US one would say, hmmm, no food at home, lets go out to eat!

No, not everyone in Israel has the “Israeli Experience” of not having food at home. In fact, the vast majority do have, and sometimes even plenty of it.

There  are however many many homes where that is very much not the case. As we have discussed before, a disposable income is something that even for the majority of Israeli families is a foriegn concept, pardon the pun.

The question of course still remains, ok, we know that, but what can we do about it?

Always Look Up – Some Thoughts on Tu BiShvat

Posted by admin under Perspective, Self Improvement, What can "I" do

Sweet Apples

Have you ever wondered what would be the one single ingredient to a better life? What is the one thing that one can keep doing to make their lives that much better, that much easier?

Well, I had a thought this morning. Given that its Tu Bishvat, The Jewish new year for trees, I got to thinking about trees. Well actually, I got to thinking about why G-D made it that the fruits on a tree are for the most part above the ground, above our heads. And then I thought,well, one sec, Tu Bishvat is about “fruits” of the ground as well, just think about tomatoes, cucumbers, wheat and the like.

Barring a few exceptions, it seems to me though that the sweetest of G-D’s nutritious gifts to humanity are the fruits above ground. That is, the ones we have to look up to see and pick. The less sweet things, the vegies, are on the ground. All we have to do is look down and there they are, ready to pick, ready to eat.

Looking down is always easier. Seeing the negative as they say. Its not always easy to look up, to see the positive, and yes, sometimes we have to climb a bit to get there, to grab the fruit, but the prize is always the sweetest!

Happy Tu BiShvat!