HAPPINESS

Here is a speech I wrote for my Bat Mitzvah in school. Since I spoke about happiness, I think it is very appropriate:

Good evening everyone ,

Thank you for coming to celebrate this special event. It really means a lot to me. My name is Esther Lowen. The subject of my speech is happiness.

We all strive to be happy, yet isn’t it strange that we only get a glimpse of it now and then? Who doesn’t want to say, “I have everything I want and everything I need?”

Nobody seems to be completely happy. We try for a while until a parking ticket or an F on a test ruins it. Well I think we have this whole happy bussiness wrong. We chase something that does not move. Happiness does not run. It lies in daily ordinary things.

Like waking up in the morning and eating a full breakfast. Happiness is seeing your friends every day and playing outside until dusk. Happiness is watching a movie as a family and spending the week-ends on the sofa reading a good book. Happiness is missing a school day because the snow is too high. Happiness is when you were very sick and suddenly it dissappeared. Happiness is every little thing just waiting to be appreciated.

The key to unlock happiness is gratitude. When we start appreciating everything we have, everything G-d has given us, we will be happy. So when we get that parking ticket we will be grateful that we did not have an accident while speeding. When we get that F we will be grateful we have a whole new year to improve. Even if we all have hard times in our lives we have to keep a smile on each day, because happiness is important. Happiness doesn’t come from riches and things. It is worth something when it comes from the bad. Like a star, it shines brightest in the dark.

Happiness is the key to everything. A rabbi from Tanach used to teach his students to find the good in things. He would start learning with a joke to open the minds of his scholars to be able to learn better.

So when bad things happen, we should be positive and when good things happen we should be grateful. For to know how rich a person is you do not count how much money he has or how many expensive things he owns. You count how many things he has that money can’t buy. Thank you again everyone for coming, to my family and friends. No one could be as rich as I am to have such special people in my life. 

This is what makes me happy!

Big News

In honor of my Bat Mitzvah, my parents helped write an article about my special day:

http://m.yiddish.forward.com/articles/172666/a-unique-bat-mitzvahhttp://m.yiddish.forward.com/articles/172666/a-unique-bat-mitzvahhttp://m.yiddish.forward.com/articles/172666/a-unique-bat-mitzvah

The Creator

When I was small I always wondered what G-d was. After leaving the cult I had nothing to believe in anymore. Here is a chapter of my diary that I wrote when I was ten years old:

 Who made the creator? Where was he when he made the universe? Maybe the creator is smaller than the univers. Like humans travel to outer space, maybe the creator traveled to the universe and created it there. What's bigger than the universe? Before, how did the world turn dark (Tohu Vavohu)? What was the world like before that? In what years was the creator born? If it was magic, who waved the magic wand? Is the creator invisible? Is he a piece of air? Is he a superhero? How did the world begin? Is he a girl or a boy? Maybe the creator disappeared after creating the universe. Maybe the creator transformed/turned into the universe. How did the first person learn how to talk? Was Adam the first person? Maybe there was a human before the creator. Is that possible? Maybe the creator is electricity. How do thoughts appear in a person's head? Maybe the creator puts thoughts in everyone's head. Anyways, these were the thoughts I had in my head today. (And if god thinks that these are not holy thoughts than too bad because there is a fifty percent chance that he put it in my head.)

911

At the age of seven, my family moved to Jeane Mance. It was a very old house with cabinets that were falling apart. It had a kitchen, a dining room, one front room, two bedrooms, and a basement. It was not like a second floor, or the downstairs. It was a crummy dirty place with low ceilings and spiderwebs everywhere. We usually kept the basement door closed because it was so gross we hardly used it. One day we heard loud banging and screams. My mother asked us to go check what was going on. Two strong men who we couldn't see clearly through the window said they were police. I was terrified! We were raised to be scared of officers, guards and all the people with uniform who actually protect us. My mother thought they were fakes and warned them that she will call 911. At this point, she was dialing 911 on real police officers. When the finally succeeded in braking down our door, we had realized what was going on. We calmed down and they explained that they were sent to investigate because my brother was not attending school. My other brother, Eli also hated school because his Rabbi had been physically abusif. My mother talked to them for a while and they left. Till this day, we are not really sure who reported us. Probably his Cheder. This event was critical in our choice to leave. This made us have to look for another school and none accepted. Why? Well because the Toshe people had convinced them that we were crazy and that we were planning to go to college which was terrible for them. We were rejected multiple times. My mom tried more than 10 schools. We went from frum schools to less religous schools until there was no other option then to try orthodox schools. Finally we found UTT. So if you didn't get it yet, the Toshe people had basically pushed us into going out of the cult.

A call for help

When I was very young, my brother had been hurt by a classmate who had purposly pushed a sharp pencil point into his forhead. The Rebbe had no intelligence to do something about it. When he came home at the usual time, and we saw the damage, my father called the police which was ``forbidden``. The police went to their home and explained that their child had done similar things in the past and that he was wild. Since they were in the country illegally they were sure we knew about it and told the police. A few weeks later I went to my friends house who lives under this family's apartment and when the younger sister realized who I was, she ran up the stairs. When she was nowhere to be found I thaught it was over, but then her older sister peered out the window and when she spotted me she began screaming at me, cursing my family and telling me that we are all crazy, and that my father was a Russha and that my mother was a Goiteh. I started crying and my friend felt bad for me and called her mother. She gave me chips...Like that would help. (Although I could always use some goodies.) The good thing is, they soon moved out of town and we never heard from them again. And we had just another reason to change schools. ☺

Flushed memories

When I was about six years old I was locked up in a bathroom stall in my kindergarten classroom with the lights out. I was always the innocent kid. The one who gets nominated for being the most respectful. But once, I made a little noise during story time and I was quickly sent to the punishment corner. It happened when it was time for that part of day again, when the teacher read to us a story about some other rabbi. The ones that have long beards and curly Payot. Another courageous soul who gave up his life for the Holy One. She turned the nob and click I was locked in. Now you all may be wondering... What could have possibly been positive in a situation like this? Well for one, I was lucky I wasn't sent to the office to wait for the principal because the last time that happened I was stuck in a chair and I needed to go... At least now I had no stress of possibly wetting my tights... And num. 2, I got a break from the boooring lectures on how we are supposed to follow the Tsadik's example.

Welcome

Hey everybody, welcome to my blog! I will be celebrating my Bat Mitzvah very soon and have decided to create a blog for my project. My Parasha is Ki-Tavo which talks about the evaluation of evil. The list of blessings is way too short in comparison to the list of curses. I will show you how we can turn bad into good and stretch those positives. Here I will talk about my past experiences. As most of you know, I lived in a closed Hareidi community for most of my life. It was very hard and the process to heal took a long time. But this will help me face the problems in a positive way. I hope you can relate and maybe share some stories.