Pick Up “Center Spirit” Magazine for Some Fascinating Reads While Relaxing this Sukkos

By Yehudit Garmaise

Once the sukkahs are built and the meals are cooked, z’man simchasanu provides us with some time to sit down, relax, read, and spend good times with family and friends.

For downtime over Yom Tov and Chol Hamoed, stop by your nearest grocery to store to pick up the latest issue of “The Center Spirit” magazine, which provides a book’s worth of fascinating reads that relate to the fall Yom Tov season.

The magazine, which Boro Park Center (BPC) publishes, offers great tips for how to keep the dreaded bees and other pests out of sukkahs, delectable Yom Tov recipes, and a page-turner of a story about Eitan Rosa, whose life journey brought him all the way from Puerto Rico born in a Christian home, to Brooklyn, where he evolved into not only a frum Jew, but a celebrated baal tefilla who trains the biggest names in chazzanus.

An aptly named section, called “Shema Kolainu,” provides six different articles on ways to prevent, treat, and even reverse hearing loss.

To develop the theme of its beautiful cover that depicts a crate full of red and gold apples that looked as if they were freshly picked in an orchard, the magazine offers an interesting two-page spread that provides fun facts about apples, which are the fruit of the season.

For those wondering whether to refrigerate apples, for example, the magazine reports that apples ripen six to 10 times faster at room temperature.

Recalling our recent readings of two great mothers: Sarah and Chana, “two women who exemplify the strength that comes with age and experience,” Rabbi Aaron Wajsfeld, BPC’s rav, explained that Sarah’s motherhood at age 90 and Chana’s heartfelt tefillos for a child, “both emphasize that age does not diminish our abilities to contribute to the world.”

In his column, Rabbi Wajsfeld, who always provides inspiring and beautiful words of ruchnius, “to make a commitment to engage with our remarkable older relatives over Yom Tov: to listen to their stories and to learn from their experiences.”

While we are not only commanded to honor our fathers and mothers, he said, we can extend our kevod to all of the elders within our communities.

“Let us visit the nursing home, share a smile, engage in conversations, and bridge the generational gap that often separates us.”