Uri Westrich (YC ’09) was honored this past week as Valedictorian for Yeshiva College, and spoke in front of his graduating class. Among Uri’s many activities during his time at YU was Eimatai. Uri served as an Eimatai advisor this year working with YULA and the Frankel Jewish Academy in Detroit.

Among Uri’s other talents is a penchant for making videos both serious and humorous, and some of his works can be found here, here and here.

Tu b’Shevat, the Jewish “New Year of the Trees,” falls this year on February 8-9.  It’s a great time to learn and share with your community about Torah teachings on protecting the environment.  This year Canfei Nesharim is offering a wealth of NEW resources for this Tu b’Shevat, including FREE colorful haggadot for your Tu b’Shevat seder; synagogue activity suggestions (with resource sheets) for children, teens, adults and communities; FREE “Appreciation for Creation” wallet cards for you to order and give out to your community; “The Trees Sang with Joy,” a new Torah teaching for Tu b’Shevat (available for reprinting); electronic greeting cards to share with your loved ones; and the opportunity to plant a tree in our virtual forest OR in the land of Israel.  Don’t miss this great opportunity to learn and educate your community about our Torah-based responsibility to protect the environment.  Check it all out at http://canfeinesharim.org/community/shevat.php!

For those of you who have not, it is an actual lecture, and a subsequent book, by a professor of Computer Science who recently received a prognosis that his pancreatic cancer would leave him with less than one more year on this earth.

Put in this new perspective on life, Randy Pausch wanted to impart a message of life-meaning to the next generation. He spoke in front of a packed crown at Carnegie Mellon University, and answered the following question:

“What wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?”

Listen to this lecture if you get the chance, and think about your goals for the coming year. Listen to Randy’s reflections, and see if anything speaks to you.

Randy passed away on July 25, 2008, and learning from his lecture is a great way to pay him tribute.

Check out this lecture either on YouTube, or as a free download from Itunes.

Another lecture by Randy Pausch on Time Management is great to listen to as well.

The root question of this debate is how we balance the rights of individuals versus the protection of the American public from potential harm. Do we have the right to treat someone in an inhumane way in order to prevent a terrorist attack?

The question becomes – how big of an attack must be prevented in order to justify the torture of someone? Do you treat a major attack similar to 9/11 the same way you would an attack that might kill 2 people?

When, if ever, is torture justified? What do you think?

Last week I was watching the Today show when I saw the most amazing story. A  15 year old girl named Hannah Salwen convinced her family to sell their 6,500 square foot Atlanta home for another half the size. Half of the price difference between the two homes (over $800,000) would then be devoted to combating hunger in Africa. (Her brother Joseph made a video of their story which can be seen above, and they have been covered in the media as well.)

Hannah’s Lunchbox, as they call it, is an amazing new take on what normal American families are willing to do to help needy people around the world. One day while driving home, Hannah saw a man begging for money on the street while a Mercedes was idling at a red light right next to him. The epiphany she had was that if normal Americans cut back on some things which were truly luxuries, they would be able to use that money to help countless others.

This selfless act forces us to think what we can possibly cut back on in order to help others. While the Salwens donation of 3/4 million dollars is amazing, small donations really can make a difference. Drinking tap water over bottled water can save a lot of money; buying clothing from target instead of Banana Republic can save a lot of money; sharing DVDs, CDs and video games with friends instead of buying multiple copies can save a lot of money.

A number of websites can now allow you to support small projects in countries around the world, with very little money. Kiva is a Web site where you can choose from hundreds of entrepreneurs who would benefit greatly from loans as small as $200 to buy supplies for their businesses (and that’s money you get back in the end!). FINCA is an organization that doesn’t let you choose who to help, but does similar loans to small business-people. Donorschoose.org is a great site that allows people to finance small projects and supplies in low-income schools across the United States.

So think about it – what can you live without? Tell us your story.

My name is Aaron, and I will usually be the voice of the EimaTimes. Hopefully we will have guest contributors who will be Eimatai advisors, alumni, or just friends of the project.

I will try to share my experiences, and how they relate and are relevant to high school age leaders. Sometimes I’ll write in first-person, but I won’t totally abandon the objective portrayal of an issue without my own spin.

I hope you enjoy this new style, and please let me know what else we can be doing to improve this site!