Beyond Segulos

In the book "Riding the Waves" by Tamar Ansh, there is an amazing story that the author heard directly from the girl's mother.  It's called "The Sister Project" and it's on page 156 and the story goes as follows:

Shoshi (pseudonym) was a senior in an Israeli Beis Yaakov and there were about 40 girls in her class.  Most girls were from large families and although parents wanted to marry off their children in order, this was sometimes hard to do when there were many eligible siblings.  Many girls in Shoshi's class were worried about how they would do a shidduch when they had one or several older single siblings.

Shoshi and her friends made a list of all the older siblings in their class alone and it amounted to 40 singles! They did every known segula such as hafrashas challa, saying Tehillim, saying Perek Shira and Shir Ha'Shirim, they gave tzedaka, etc. and nobody got engaged.

Shoshi had initiated the project (even though she did not need this yeshua herself) and she was very disappointed.  She wracked her brains for an idea and came up with this - maybe they needed to do something that required mesirus nefesh on their part.  It's not that doing segulos is easy.  They take time and effort, but they're formulaic and don't necessitate going out of your comfort zone.

Her class had a teacher that no one liked and the girls misbehaved in her class, talking, passing notes, etc.  It occurred to Shoshi that their mesirus nefesh project should be that the entire class behave like model students for ten hours of this teacher's class.  Her classmates did not exactly jump at the opportunity but Shoshi insisted and convinced them all. 

You'll have to read the story for all the details but suffice it to say, the girls behaved, the teacher was thrilled, and after ten hours of behaving properly, ten singles from their list got engaged!

The girls were overwhelmed by this obvious cause-and-effect connection and decided to do another ten hours.  Yes, another ten names were crossed off their list.

Shoshi wanted to do a third round of ten hours but many girls had had enough.  Shoshi must be an extraordinary young lady because she convinced them, and she had to convince them all, to do it again.  The teacher was ecstatic, they had behaved for thirty hours, and thirty singles from their list were either engaged or married, and some of them were over thirty years old!

The story ends with the girls working on their fourth set of ten hours.

So, You Want A Boycott ...

http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/02/why-health-authorities-are-so-worried-about-europes-mutant-e-coli-outbreak/

News item: Why Health Authorities Are So Worried About Europe's Mutant E. Coli Outbreak

By Bryan Walsh Thursday, June 2, 2011

Health officials were worried enough about an unusually virulent outbreak of food-borne illness from the E. coli bacteria, which has infected more than 1,500 people in Germany and killed at least 17. But the concern jumped to another level on Thursday when the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the responsible pathogen was a strain of E. coli that they believe had never before been seen by scientists.

News item:
http://www.eip-news.com/2011/03/germany-do-not-buy-from-jews-or-boycott-israel/

BERLIN, March 16, 2011 – (EJPost) Germans “Kauft nicht bei Juden!” (“Do not buy from Jews!”) - under that name the National-Socialist regime staged his boycott of Jewish businesses and factories in 1933.

In today’s Germany you can no longer say that, because it is forbidden. But what will you do as a staunch “S“ocialist “A“ctivist in Germany, if you’re a Jew hater, and do not want to be punished, but want to be progressive in a modern sense?

Simply hide your anti-Semitism under a new cloak and call it “anti-Zionism” – then you can ideologically clean, stand with signs in front of shops and calling for a boycott of Israeli products.

On March 11, at 4 pm a guard of activists from the Bremen-Peace-Forum (Arbeitsgruppe Nahost), positioned itself before the REWE-market in the Wachmannstrasse, in the city district of Bremen-Schwachhausen.

With posters, they called for a boycott of Israeli goods, distributed Information material and tried to talk with passers. On the Posters you could also read the slogan, “Save the Palestinian people”. (To what Palestinians are able to do and what we must know about the Palestinian people, can be found here… )

Their reasons: “Israel holds the West Bank occupied for decades, contrary to numerous UN resolutions, more and more illegal jewish settlements be built and Israel exports the harvested fruits from there. They say this is all against international law and the exports from the occupied territories are illegal”.

Today's News Item: Produce farmers across the European Union are hurting, as consumers have stopped buying vegetables and fruits, afraid that anything might carry the pathogen. The situation may only worsen; Russia announced an immediate ban on all European fresh produce in response to the outbreak. Although the E.U. has protested, if Russia holds up its ban, it will hurt: the Russian market for European produce is worth $5.5 billion a year.

After numerous calls for boycotts of Israeli produce and goods from numerous European countries, Europeans are getting a taste of their own medicine.