Shtark -This is a classic wannabe yeshivish error. Yeshivishe chevra never, ever, use the word shtark in reference to a bochur’s frumkeit. In other words, true shtarker yeshivish guys never use the word shtark in this connotation.
(What should be used: Top Guy, Masmid, Greaser)

Frummie - Same as above. I’ve never heard a frummie say frummie.
(What should be used: Yeshivish, Frum, Greased, Chanyuk).

Pashut Pshat – Another frequent loshon often misused by wannabe yeshivaleit. Even in the course of learning, this one rarely crops up. Stay away from it.
(What should be used: Pashtus)

Rav - (with a long “A”) – This is only used in reference to one person, and almost always only derogatorily. It is not used to refer to a Rebbe, Rov, or respected yungerman.
(What should be used: Rebbe, Rov)

Maidel – While the topic is generally avoided b’chlall, if push comes to shove, other euphemisms are employed. Not maidel. I blame the Blogovelt for this one.
(What should be used: Osoh Davar, It, Them, etc. SG’s, of course, are entitled to far more caustic adjectives. V’hamayvin Yavin).

Follow these hard and fast rules, and you’ll find yourself on the road to stardom faster than you can say pashut pshat, shtarker guy.

Ad astra per aspera. Good luck.

(Via Chabad.info, Via Shtetl Vision )

Note:
Obviously, I do not agree with the particular limudim that this bochur was learning; however, we must all take note of this schedule. See what a young man can accomplish.

The best way to get a glimpse into the high neshamah of Nosson Deitsch, 21, who was tragically taken in an accident on Lag Ba’Omer in Tampa, Florida (where he had gone to help a Chabad Shliach with his Lag Ba’Omer event), is to look at his daily schedule.

7 a.m.: mikvah.
7:30: mark down who came to Chassidus on time (he was themashgiach).
7:30 – 9:00: listen to Hagaon Harav Yoel Kahn’s taped shiurimon Shaar Hayichud v’Ha-emunah (chelek of Tanya containing deepest concepts of Chassidus).
9:00 – 9:30: review Likutei Amarim Tanya which he knew by heart, all 53 chapters. He knew them perfectly, word for word, letter for letter, with all the haga’osand tikunim.
9:30: daven Shacharis, every word said loudly and clearly, followed by Tehillim
10:30 – eat breakfast in 10 minutes
10:45 – 2:00 p.m. – learn b’chavrusa Hilchos Issur v’Heter, with Gemara, (with plan to eventually seek semichah), every word said out loud, with full concentration.
2:00 – 3:45 minchah and lunch. Nosson would eat quickly and then use his lunch time to call his mother (his father, Reb Zalman Yuda, z”l, passed away three years ago); eleven siblings; uncles; aunts; friends; cousins; and anyone who might need to speak with him. Nosson would use the remainder of his lunch break to learn three perakim of Yad HaChazakah by the Rambam, a takanah instituted by the Rebbe, in 1984/5744. He also fit in his daily shiur of Chumash and Tanya now.
3:45 – 7:00: back to Issur v’Heter.
7:00: He would eat supper within 10 minutes. Ever since his little cousin, Alta Shula Swerdlov, a”h,was killed in a tragic bus accident in Jerusalem eight months ago, Nosson would learn (during supper break) for 20 minutes the ma’amarim of the Frierdiker Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz, zt”l, in zchus of his young cousin.
7:30 – 8:00: Nosson would learn Shulchan Aruch Harav with a baal teshuvah who is relatively new to the daily practice of mitzvos
8:00 – 9:30: Nosson would choose five of the younger bachurim with whom to learn the Rebbe Rashab’s ma’amarim.
9:30: Maariv. Afterwards, Nosson would learn a sichah of the Rebbe.
10:30: Despite being a very sociable person who enjoyed time with friends, and who enjoyed playing an occasional basketball game, Nosson tried to be asleep by 11:30 at the latest, in order to be able to learn in top form the next day.

Nosson was the youngest of twelve children of the chossid and baal tzedakah, Reb Zalman Yuda,z”l, and tbl”ch Mrs. Cyrel (nee Edelman) Deitsch. Mrs. Deitsch is the daughter of respected Chabad Shluchim to Springfield, Mass., Rabbi Dovid and Rebbetzin Leah Edelman, who were sent there by the Frierdiker Rebbe in 1949.

Nosson was named after Rebbetzin Leah Edelman’s uncle, Harav Nosson Nota Zuber, z”l, who was a tomim and learned in Lubavitch (both the city and the yeshivah), and was boki b’Shaas.

Nosson Deitsch, too, was well known for being an outstanding masmid and a “top bachur.”

Like his father before him, Nosson would reward younger bachurim as well as his many nephews,kein yirbu, for learning Tanya b’al peh. He got them excited about learning Tanya, and he knew that mitoch shelo lishma ba lishma.

Like his father before him, Nosson was a Lubavitcher chossid with his entire heart, soul, and all hiskochos. Every Sunday he would write a letter to the Rebbe and fax it to the Ohel, where it would be torn up by a secretary and left at the grave. What he wrote in those letters is not known.

During a free Shabbos or bein hazemanim, Nosson would help Chabad shluchim. He traveled all over, wherever there was a need, leading programs, learning and putting on Tefillin with Yidden, and adding tochen and freilichkeit to Chabad events.

He made a tremendous impact on the people he met. As one Jew told the shliach after Nosson left, “Can we get that student rabbi here more often? I love hearing his speeches. He is so sincere, and so lovable, I just want to do whatever he encourages.”

Nosson utilized his famous sense of humor and outstanding lebedikeit to further his Chabad work. For example, this past Chanukah, he helped organize a public menorah-lighting, and it began raining. Instead of sticking with the program (speeches), Nosson told the musicians to crank it up, grabbed some men, and began dancing. Everyone was surprised but joined in, perhaps thinking that dancing in the rain on Chanukah was another Chassidic custom.

Frequently, when the bachurim were on their way to an event, Nosson would spot a mall or office building and say, “Wait! Let’s go in there and find some Jews who need to put on Tefillin!” The bachurim would quickly fan out and cover the building, put on Tefillin with some Yidden (some for the first time ever), and then rush back to the vehicle to get to their destination.

The last thing Nosson learned was the part of Shaar Hayichud v’Ha-emunah that says we cannot understand Hashem’s ways.

Nosson leaves behind his shocked and heartbroken mother, grandparents, siblings, and extended family; the hundreds who have come closer to Hashem because of him; his many loyal friends; and the bachurim and staff at the Yeshivah Gedolah of Miami Beach (founded by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1974 and headed by Rosh Yeshivah Hagaon Harav Leib Schapiro).

He was paid for his work as mashgiach at the yeshivah, but every month he would keep just the little he needed to live, and give the rest to his siblings who are on Shlichus in Toronto, Canada; Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; Chandler, Arizona; Tyson’s Corner, Virginia; S. Rosa, California; and Boulder, Colorado.

Family is sitting shivah at 518 Crown Street, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, until Shabbos.

This is a real life class list of names from a kindergarden in the Golan.

Aviva
Ayelet HaShachar
Emunah Rochel
Uri
Boaz
Gad Chaim
Hadar
Hodaya
Michal
Ma’ayan
Nevei
Noam Yehuda
Na’ami
Amichai
Raius
Rayeh
Sarah
Shachar
Tehillah
Tohar
Talyah
Yarona
Yanun
Yascha
Ya’aleh

My favorite? Easy.

Ayelet HaShachar.

I wonder if the Bubby’s name was really Esther or something like that…

Old school. Uh huh.

Note: I must apologize in advance for the pretentious writing style used. I feel that due to the heavy nature of the topic at hand, any attempt to deal with it in an offhand, light manner would only serve to detract from its weightiness.

It is deep, and searing. Elemental, in ways I will not, cannot, describe, but those of you who have experienced this sort of pain can understand, and know all too well how to relate to this sort of pain.

I speak of real, true emotional agony. Boruch Hashem, many go through life without experiencing this. And even the people who do occasion encountering this emotion more frequently often enough shelve it deep in the closet of their minds, where they dust it off and examine it only twice, or thrice per decade. This is out of necessity, more often than not. For after all, who among us can stare into that abyss for long, and not be adversely affected in the most basic way?

The pain I speak of, and for, is not specific. It has no particular name, nor are there any criteria by which it can be defined. It is better this way, I think. It should not be lightened by pithy tags or convenient handles.

There are many within our community and many without who know this sort of pain, R”L. Today, however, I speak of one sort in particular. Some of the people who have met with and live with this agony are the older single men and women in our community. They, perhaps more than anyone else, are most familiar with this foe. They do battle with it daily. No vacation, no sick leave, no Shabbos or Yom Tov.

I hear every day of yet another older individual not yet married.

I confess plainly, I cannot think about them. I dare not. Quickly, I file their names in the musty box that resides deep in my mind’s closet, and shove it back, back where it belongs. Back where I need not think about it, or them.

This is wrong.

Painful as it may be for me, for us, I refer back to elemental pain. I have, perhaps, experienced it on a passing level. Perhaps not. But they, these Yidden- and I do not adjectivize them here for lack of a suitable term; heroes does not do justice to the mountains they’ve climbed in life, or to the peaks they scale and stare at us from- they know no respite from it.

I do not point fingers. I do not say, “Why is everyone silent”?

They, we, are not. True enough, the pages of Jewish dailies throughout the world are awash with the “crisis”. Good. Let them be. But the natural corollary, aside from the desensitization it engenders, is the alleviation of personal achrayus it provides. See; others are handling it. Shidduch groups abound. The Letters to the Editor page is rife with their plight. Look, it even has a name. Now we must be making progress.

Am I bitter, too bitter? Maybe.

Imagine how they feel.

The truth is, we think, that we are not at fault. We don’t know people, or if we do, we don’t know enough people.
Anyway, single people, as everyone knows, are notoriously difficult to deal with. A professional shadchan is called for anyway.

The facts, however, are not so. We do know people. And if the pain affected you, even just on a fractional level, you would be working the phones, all day, every day.

So I guess I am pointing fingers. We are all responsible. We are all culpable.

In closing, I ask only this:

Have you actually picked up the phone yet? Just once, have you lifted the telephone receiver and placed a call? Do you realize that people around the world are desperate to hear the ring of the phone, your ring? Anyone’s ring? I think it not hyperbolic to state that someone’s life may depend on it.

Make the call.

Someone’s life depends it.