It's Gatkes Weather

It’s currently 16 degrees in New York City. If my grandfather were alive, he’d ask me if I was wearing gatkes and the answer would be…yes!

Keep warm out there today!

You Go, Girls!

Check out this article in today’s New York Times about some young Afghan girls and their families.

If ever there was a time for God, Allah, or some other all-powerful presence in the universe to bless these girls as they struggle to overcome the narrow-mindedness of misogyny, it is now.

So God bless them and their families for their courage, persistence, vision and moxie…and just let them be kids.

Amen.

Gal-Gal-Gal Galatz and Other Things Israeli

For ways to keep your heart, mind and spirit close to Israel during these difficult days in the east, check out my latest post on RJ.org.

As always, thanks for reading!

Procrastination Pays!

Finally, some good news from behemoth Baruch. In today’s mail, I received the following letter:

December 2008

Dear students:

As all of you are aware, the School of Public Affairs has had, as part of the curriculum, a Computer Competency Requirement. In the past, students have completed this requirement by either successfully passing a timed exam, or by registering for the PAF 8000 workshop.

Due to increasing demand by students that the requirement be revised, the issue was brought to the School of Public Affairs Curriculum Committee, and was later voted on by the faculty of the School of Public Affairs. It was decided that the existing Computer Competency Requirement will be eliminated effective immediately. Students with a graduation date of February 2009 or later
will no longer need to have satisfied the requirement in order to graduate.

The Registrar’s Office has also been made aware of this change. If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at Spa.Advisement@baruch.cuny.edu.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Engel
Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Programs
School of Public Affairs
Baruch College, CUNY

To those of you who know me well, it will, I know, come as somewhat of a shock to learn that although I am one-third of the way through the master’s program, I had not yet taken the Computer Competency timed exam nor registered for the PAF 8000 workshop. And so it is that I have learned (finally!) from firsthand experience that sometimes—not often, but sometimes—procrastination pays!

Bernard Baruch Must Be Spinning in His Grave

Today at lunchtime, I walked from 40th and Third down to 25th between Third and Lex to pay my tuition bill at Baruch College, where I’m enrolled in the MPA program at the School of Public Affairs. I’ve taken to paying this bill in person because my experience with Baruch’s behemoth administration has been that if there’s something to screw up, they’ll screw it up.

I should have been suspicious when, much to my surprise, there was no line at the Bursar’s Office, even though the deadline for tuition payments for the spring semester is tomorrow. However, the walls of the office were plastered with homemade-looking signs that said something along the lines of “No credit card payments are accepted at the Bursar’s window.” Lovely…

Not one to believe everything I read, I stepped to the first empty window and, slid my bill and my Visa card into the tray. The conversation with the woman behind the window went something like this:

Me: “I’d like to pay this bill.”
Window woman: “Only pay by credit card online.”
Me: (slightly apoplectic): “I can’t pay this here?”
Window woman: “Only pay by credit card online.”

Muttering things that most definitely would not pass the “family blog” test, I left the window and the building and, with my blood pressure somewhere on the way to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, returned to my desk after my fool’s errand.

Fast forward to the evening. Immediately upon returning home from the office, I logged onto eSIMS, Baruch’s online student information and registration system, and navigated my way to the tuition payment page. There I learned that the College accepts only American Express, Discover or MasterCard. I, of course, wanted to pay with my Continental Airlines Visa card (the only card I ever use) so I could get airline miles. Nine hundred and four miles in one shot is nothing to sneeze at, but noooo…no such luck.

And so I pulled my American Express card from my wallet, dusted it off (I don’t remember the last time I used it) and entered the account number, the expiration date and the name on the account, as well as the email address to which I wanted the payment confirmation to be sent into the form on the screen,. When I hit “Next,” the total showed $904 for tuition and $23.96 as a transaction fee.

Assuming the fee was there because I was using a “high-end” American Express card, I dug out a brand new MasterCard (it arrived just yesterday) that I got to ensure overdraft protection on my checking account. Again, I entered the account number, the expiration date, the security code from the back of the card, the name on the account and the email address to which I wanted the payment confirmation to be sent. When I hit “Next,” the total again showed $904 for tuition and $23.96 as a transaction fee.

Again I felt my blood pressure creeping up, not only at having to repeat the process again and again, but also at what my father would call “aroisgevorfene gelt,” (thrown away money). And so, yet again, I went back to the payment page, and this time selected the electronic funds transfer option. Experienced now, I entered my checking account number, the bank routing number, the name on the account and the email address for payment confirmation. Just as I was going to hit “Submit Payment,” the screen flickered and without warning I was back at the eSIMS home page. Urghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

And so one last time I navigated my way to the tuition payment page, selected the electronic funds transfer option, and entered my checking account number, the bank routing number, the name on the account, the email address for payment confirmation and the name of the goat my father bought for two zuzim (just checking to see how carefully you're reading!). This time, the total showed $904 (no transaction fee!) so before you could say “Bernard Baruch,” I hit “Submit Payment” and almost immediately received the promised email confirming my payment.

Speaking of Bernard Baruch, the man was an extraordinarily successful financier, business mogul and presidential advisor on economic matters. How ironic. I have no doubt that if he had even the slightest inkling of what’s going on in the Bursar’s Office (and at the online payment site) at the school that bears his name, he’d be spinning in his grave.

For Israel

As I’m sure you can imagine, a lot of rabbinic writing crosses my desk on any given day. Today, as Qassam rockets continued to rain down on Israel and her armed forces met harm in Gaza, I was especially touched by this prayer by Rabbi Yehoram Mazor, Av Beit Ha’Din of MARAM Israel:

A Prayer for Times of War

May the Everlasting who blessed our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah bless all the soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces and all those who are protecting our people. May the Source of Blessing protect them and free them from all trouble and anxiety, and may all they do be blessed. May God send safety and redemption to all our soldiers in captivity.

May the Eternal have mercy on them and bring them from darkness to light and from enslavement to salvation, give them strength and save them. May the Eternal
listen to all the prayers of our people.

Merciful God, may Your compassion be with us, and remember Your covenant with Abraham. May you spread the covering of Your peace over the descendants of Ishmael, son of Hagar, and over the descendants of Isaac, son of Sarah, and may it be fulfilled that they shall hammer their swords into spades and their spear into ploughshare. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation and they shall learn war no more. And each shall sit under their vines and their fig trees and none shall disturb them.

And let us say: Amen

It’s a Small World…and It’s Getting Smaller!

The world is a small place and it seems that with each passing day, it is getting smaller. Last Friday evening, I was at home--reading, browsing on the computer and generally minding my own business--when a friend from work called me. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: “What number is your building?”
Me: “343. Why?”
Friend: “I’m walking into your building now.”
Me: “What are you doing here?”
Friend: “My friend CJ* lives in your building.”
Me: “No kidding…what floor?”
Friend: “15…15B”
Me: “OMG, I’m in 15P, I’ll meet you in the hall.”

A few minutes later, my friend and I were knocking on 15B, where he was expected by CJ and a friend of hers who was visiting from the Midwest for the weekend. In fact, her visitor (who answered the door) was a young guy whom I’d met at a L’Taken seminar in Washington, DC last March. (He and I are already Facebook friends.)

Although I didn’t actually meet CJ that night (she was getting ready to go out and not quite ready to “meet her public”), we’ve now become friends on Facebook, where we had 12 mutual friends right from the get-go. Eleven of them (from the ranks of the Reform Jewish world) were no surprise. The twelfth, however, was somewhat of an outlier…a friend and study-buddy from grad school who (aside from his friendship with CJ and me) has little if any connection to the Jewish world, let alone the Reform Jewish world.

When I asked him about it, he said, “Remember when I first came to your apartment and I said I've been to a party in this building? It was CJ’s! Weird. She used to work (and is friends with) two people from my softball team. Weird small world.”

Weird small world, indeed. But six degrees of separation? Nope…I’d say more like three!

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.