15 Aug SPEAK YOUR VUES WITH THE VUES MASTER

TRUMP INDICTED AGAIN
Dear Vues Master:
Donald Trump and 18 allies were indicted in
Georgia this past Monday, accused of scheming to
illegally overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
It’s the fourth criminal case to be brought against
the former president and the second this month
to allege that he tried to subvert the results of the
vote. At what point can they stop him from running
for president?
Vues Master’s Note: A better question is, if he wins
back the presidency will any of these indictments
mean anything?

HOLIDAY MOUNTAIN
Dear Vues Master:
I just want to let you know that I took my family
this past Sunday to Holiday Mountain in Monticello
for the first time & my family had a great time.
We went on the go carts, bumper boats & played
miniature golf. The staff was really nice & friendly
& I would like to recommend that everyone goes
there, especially after the day camps are over for
the season.
PD
MK
Vues Master’s Note: Holiday Mountain has been
advertising with the Country & Jewish Vues for many
years and Larry and his staff are the nicest people.
They go out of their way to make everyone have a
good time and enjoy themselves.

40TH ANNIVERSARY
Dear Vues Master:
Last week’s 40th anniversary edition of The Country
Vues really brought back a lot of nostalgia. My family
have been coming upstate now for almost 35 years
and we remember a lot of the events that happened in
the Country Vues Top 40 events in the last 40 years
article. Keep up the good work! We are all big fans!
LB
Vues Master’s Note: Thanks! We love compliments. It
was a lot of work, but we appreciate our customers &
our readership!

LOTTERY
Dear Vues Master:
I am so happy that I didn’t win the lottery this past
weekend. I really didn’t want to have so much money.
If I had a billion dollars, I’m sure I could give a lot of
tzedakah but it would take up so much of my time that
I wouldn’t be able to learn anymore.
NM
Vues Master’s Note: As the Chofetz Chaim said, I can
handle any nisayon but the nisayon of Ashirus!
TOP 40 EVENTS
Dear Vues Master:
Regarding #33 of the memorable events of the last
40 years, your reference to the Emunah fashion
show doesn’t take notice of the origination of these
wonderful fundraising events that started out in
Vacation Village in the late 80’s. As an original
coordinator, now looking back, it was an amazing feat
as this took place way before social media, WhatsApp
and the like existed, there weren’t even cell phones,
and all bungalow colonies had representatives who
would sell tickets and be an important part of the
event. Yes, things have changed but all involved will
remember the camaraderie and gratification all felt
at the incredible job that was done for, with and by
Emunah Women of America, and although the ‘event’
has graduated with the times, the tzedakah goes to a
wonderful cause ba’Aretz, may it continue.
Faigi E.
Vues Master’s Note: Yes, Emunah Women is a great
organization and a very worthy tzedakah!

SEE
Dear Vues Master:
See, this day I set before you blessing and curse:
blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord
your G-d that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if
you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your
G-d, but turn away from the path that I enjoin upon
you this day and follow other gods, whom you have
not experienced. -Deuteronomy 11: 26, 27 A bracha
when you “See” with your mind’s eye and a curse
when you follow your physical eyes. In other words,
the difference between Sex and exS is where you

place the S(ee). A child, whose eyes are
closer to the ground, sees what is in front
of him, the physical. The father sees the
horizon, the spiritual. The best the father
can do is explain why Gittin (the laws of
divorce) comes before Kiddushin (laws of
marriage) so the son can’t claim he didn’t
hear about exs. When the Torah says,
“and follow other gods” it is referring to
those who make themselves into a god
and push the father aside. They act like
a god by offering wealth, wine (fun) and
win (glory). I often quoted to my son
Proverbs 15:27, “He that is greedy of
gain troubles his own house; but he that
hates gifts shall live.” Back then I had
knowledge but not life experience so I
was naive and didn’t teach him about the
wolves in sheep’s clothing.
DG
Vues Master’s Note: Still did not give up,
you are a one track writer!

ORDER
Dear Vues Master:
The reason parshas Eikev (heel) comes
before Re’eh (see) is because it is a
necessary prerequisite for one not to tread
(Eikev) on basic mitzvos in order to be
able to see (Re’eh) good and bad. The most
basic and neglectful mitzvah is honoring
and respecting one’s parents. Without
them the child doesn’t have a proxy to
understand the world. Man’s freedom of
choice is part of G-d’s expressed desire
and a result of this system is that man is
judged in accordance with his deeds. If he
chooses the right way he will be rewarded,
if not he will be punished. This is what
Isaiah 50:11 said, “Do you think this was
decreed for you by ME?” and ibid 66:3,
“They have also chosen their own paths”
Concerning the above Solomon said
in Koheles 11:9, “Rejoice young man
in your childhood let your heart cheer
you in your youth; but remember that
for all these things G-d will call you to
account.” Solomon warns that though it is
within your power to do what you fancy
and to lead a life of frivolity, remember
that the day of accounting is not far off. –
Rambam in Hilchos Teshuvah.
DG
Vues Master’s Note: What does one do
when he feels like a heel and can’t see
past his nose? He writes letters like these.

EXILE
Dear Vues Master:
In reference to the פסוק in ג ,ב זכריה,
which, in connection with גלויות קיבוץ
the ,ויראני ה׳ ארבעה חרשים states
גמרא in Sukkah 52b states that the four

,אליהו, דוד בן משיח are craftsmen
Responding .כהן צדק and ,יוסף בן משיח
to the question of why we need two
משיחים, Rav זונדל of Kaminetz said:
one to take us out of galus and the other
to take the galus out of us.
MV
Vues Master’s Note: No more meat
boards? Oy Vey?

ROAD
Dear Vues Master:
On behalf of all walkers, runners
& cyclists in the mountains for the
summer, I beg of drivers to do the
following: Please DO slow down when
you pass us. Please DO move over and
give us at least 3 ft. of room. Please
give a SMALL tap on the horn way
back to let us know you are coming. It
is very scary to have a car traveling at
60 miles per hour pass you 12 inches
away. Please don’t blast your horn at
us up close. This can cause a serious
accident. Thank you. Dear walkers,
runners & cyclists; Please realize that
many drivers think we should not be
on the road at all, so try to keep as far
to the side of the road as safe, and be
aware of your surroundings. Thank you
Dovid L
Vues Master’s Note: Why is common
sense not so common?

CRY
Dear Vues Master:
A husband and wife came before a rav and
asked for a divorce. Trying to reconcile
them, the rav said
.הלא אמרו חז״ל: כל המגרש אשתו
ראשונה, אפילו מזבח מוריד עליו דמעות”
The husband responded: “Until now, I
was the one that was דמעות מוריד. From
here on in, let the מזבח do it.”
SE
Vues Master’s Note: Some marriages
produce korbanos! Look how many
children are affected by bad marriages!
Not a laughing matter!
RECONCILIATION
Dear Vues Master:
Alex and Shaindy had a horrible fight.
Trying to make up for his behavior, Alex
said “I’m going to make you a very happy
woman.” “Good,” she replied. “I’m going
to miss you.”
BU
Vues Master’s Note: He probably
answered good but please don’t shoot
again!

BAKERY
Dear Vues Master:
Fred came into the bakery, complaining
that he found a fly in the raisin bread that
he bought that morning. “OK,” said the
saleswoman, “bring me the fly and I’ll
give you a raisin.”
GE
Vues Master’s Note: I bet that won’t fly in
our day and age!

APOLOGISTS
Dear Vues Master:
Members of the leftwing activist group
Code Pink last month tried to persuade
Massachusetts congressman Seth
Moulton that China is not persecuting
its Muslim Uyghur minority. They urged
him to visit Uyghur regions “and see how
happy people were there,” one of his
aides told the New York Times. Two
years ago, the U.S. State Department
determined that the Chinese government
is carrying out “ongoing genocide”
against the Uyghurs, including slave
labor, torture, forced sterilizations, and the
imprisonment of “more than one million
civilians.” If Rep. Moulton does visit
China, government officials no doubt will
carefully arrange to keep him from seeing
the truth about the “re-education” camps
where Uyghurs are being held. Hiding
embarrassing sights from the view of
foreign dignitaries is a tactic dictators
have been using for centuries. Its pioneer
was Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin, a
Russian cabinet minister who reportedly
built fake villages to impress the Czarina
Catherine II during her visit to the Crimea
region in 1787. Some historians believe
Potemkin merely redecorated towns along
the czarina’s route, rather than fabricating
them entirely for the sole purpose of the
visit. Either way, Potemkin’s name has
come to be associated with this particular
kind of deceit. Soviet dictator Josef
Stalin was a master of Potemkinism. In
the 1920s and 1930s, Western visitors to
the USSR were taken to see Bolshevo,
which was presented as an example
of the Soviet Union’s “progressive”
prisons without walls or guards, where
criminals were educated and inspired to
become productive citizens. Nobel
laureate George Bernard Shaw went so
far as to claim that the only problem in
dealing with the typical Soviet prisoner
was “inducing him to come out at all”
when his jail term ended. In reality,
Bolshevo had been created to impress
foreigners. It was populated largely by
informers whose reward was to live in
the sham prison. The slave labor camps

of the Soviet gulag remained hidden
from foreign eyes. Adolf Hitler
used Potemkin-style deception to help
camouflage the mass murder of the
Jews. In June 1944, the Nazis invited a
delegation from the International Red
Cross to visit Theresienstadt, the Jewish
ghetto they created in Czechoslovakia
as a transit point for Jews being shipped
to the gas chambers in Auschwitz. In
the Nazi Potemkin version, the camp
was presented as an ‘Endlager,’ a final
destination where Jewish prisoners lived
happily. One inmate wrote in his diary
of the Nazis’ preparations for the Red
Cross visit: “They rain down order after
order. Kindergarten children are to sing
during the visit, the workers are to return
home. Plays and cultural events and
sporting activities must take place. Even
the few lambs left here roam about on
the grass around the city. The children,
the workers, the sheep–a perfect
idyll.” Another prisoner recalled: “A
playground was laid out with sandboxes
and swings, a ‘children’s pavilion’ was
built and painted from inside with big
wooden animals as toys. Behind a glass
veranda you could see a dozen cribs. It
was like a story book–but children were
only allowed to enter this little paradise
on the day the commission visited
Theresienstadt.” Houses were freshly
painted–but only those portions that
would the Red Cross inspectors would
see as they walked by. The delegation’s
final report to Red Cross headquarters
described conditions in the camp as
“relatively good.” They never asked
why the population of Theresienstadt at
the time of the visit was 30,000 less than
what the Red Cross knew it had been a
few weeks earlier. In the 1950s, the
North Korean government built a village
called Kijong-dong in the demilitarized
zone separating North Korea from South
Korea. To this day, the North Koreans
call it a “peace village” and claim it
is inhabited by two hundred families.
In fact, Kjong-dong has no civilian
residents; it houses soldiers, artillery, and
underground bunkers. A Washington
Post correspondent who visited the area
in 1998 reported that “if you squint
through your binoculars, you’ll see that
the buildings [in Kjong-dong] don’t even
have glass in the windows. It’s a lie, a
huge Potemkin village…” The sidewalks
are empty, and automatic timers turn
lights on and off in the buildings in order
to create the illusion that people reside
there. The Palestinian Authority has
engaged in its own forms of Potemkin-

style deception. When President Barack
Obama visited Bethlehem in 2013,
PA officials temporarily removed a
large sculpture showing a map with
all of Israel as “Palestine,” which
the president would have seen as his
motorcade approached the city. For the
occasion, the sculpture was replaced
with a monument of a dove. Likewise,
when United Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-Moon was scheduled to visit
the Al-Zeitoun School in Gaza in 2017,
Hamas officials quickly covered up
a large map showing all of Israel as
“Palestine.” The Germans wanted to
hide the mass murder of the Jews for
fear that the international community
might intervene. The Soviets hoped to
improve trade relations with the West
and promote Communism as the ideal
system of government. The North
Koreans are trying to disguise military
activity in what is supposed to be a
demilitarized zone. The Palestinian
Authority and Hamas do not want
any negative publicity that could
jeopardize the international assistance
they receive. And if China, with
the help of allies such as Code Pink,
ever entices members of Congress to
visit, we can expect its government to
practice its own particular version of
Potemkinism to hide what it is doing to
the Uyghurs.
Rafael Medoff
Vues Master’s Note: Thanks for the
history lesson!

DELIVERY
Dear Vues Master:
At a convention of comedians, there
was no need to tell jokes. It was
enough to refer to them by their
numbers. One comedian said 12 and
everyone was laughing. Another said
32 and the room exploded in laughter.
It went on like this for some time,
when one of the comedians called out
23 and was met with silence. He then
said 71 and again no reaction. He tried
a few more numbers, but was met with
blank looks. “I don’t understand,” he
said to the group near him. “When the
others call out numbers, everyone is
laughing. When I do it, I don’t even get
a smile. What’s going on?” One of the
listeners explained: “The problem is
not with your jokes or their numbers.
You see, it’s all in the delivery.”
MK
Vues Master’s Note: I wish I could get
the right number! My responses are
never funny!

RABBI GIL STUDENT’S
WOMEN SECTION ARTICLE
Dear Rabbi Student
Your July 19th writeup on the women’s
section made me smile. I daaven in
a shul, where more than a few times I
found myself cleaning up before I could
daaven. I also usually cause a male or
two to hurry out upon my arrival. And
who am I to argue with the Chochmas
Adam; but I wonder if he would have
said what he said had he seen the way
a Rebetzin in my shul Chana Tzivya bas
Chaim Meir a”h daavened and cried to
Hashem in a way that made the rest of
us feel like Hashem k’vyochel was right
there. She has since passed away, but the
Women’s section, when she daavened
there, felt to me like the holiest place on
earth at that moment. Thank you for a
wonderful read.
R. H.
Rabbi Gil Student’s Note:Thank you!

SEARCHING FOR A JOB
Dear Vues Master
Many people are sadly finding
themselves out of a job. It is scary. It’s
anxiety inducing. No doubt about it. But,
like most things in life, this can be an
opportunity if you leverage it properly.
And here is my advice. Ask yourself
the following question. “When I am
120 years old and I am on my deathbed,
I look back at my life and make a big
check mark! What does that look like?
What’s my end game? What do I want to
accomplish?” Now, when you are trying
to figure out your next move, now is the
time to ask yourself that question and
then start working to get to that northern
star. It doesn’t mean you’ll get there, that
you’ll arrive at your final destination, but
at least you will have tried and gotten as
close as you can. Now you are asking
yourself “Um, how is my dream of being
an X going to pay the bills? That’s a valid
question. No one said that you have to
allocate all your time and resources to
that dream right now. You can get a job,
and since that job is not really your end
game, it can be any job, and start building
your passion project on the side. But now
is the time to tap into that passion and start
acting on it. If you don’t ask yourself this
question, you’ll always end up wherever
the wind blows you, and after 120, you’ll
look back and ask yourself why you didn’t
pursue your dreams! And don’t even
start with “My dream is impossible. Not
going to even waste my time.” Really?
Impossible? Well, does it exist? Is it a real
thing? Because my dream wasn’t. When I

started blogging, blogging wasn’t really a
thing. Startups definitely weren’t. Social
media wasn’t here. The iPhone wasn’t
here. Tech was barely a thing. But I loved
tech, I loved writing, and I wasn’t going
to listen to anyone who was telling me
that my dream of building a career on my
love of tech and writing was impossible.
And trust me when I tell you, I heard that
advice every single day for years. So
don’t tell me your dream is impossible.
I’ll win that game. My dream was more
impossible and yet, here I am. So here
is how it goes… “My dream is to have a
family and support it.” Is that really your
dream? Is that it? Nothing else? Great. Go
be a garbage man. “No no, I also want to
have an impact on this world.” Great, now
we’re getting somewhere. So you want to
make good money and have an impact.
Perfect. Go be a doctor. “Na, medicine is
not my thing. I also want to enjoy what I
do.” Now we’re really making progress.
So you want to make good money, have
an impact, and enjoy what you do. Great.
So go open an amusement park. You can
make money, enjoy yourself, and make
people happy. That’s impact. “Na, I want
to use my skills of x…” So now we have:
– Good money – Impact – Enjoyment –
Using your skills Now we’re starting
to get there. Keep going. What else do
you want? Every time you come up with
something, ask yourself “Is that really all
I want or is there something else that’s
important to me?” When trying to figure
out your next move, don’t ask yourself
“What have I done professionally?” Or
“What can I do?” Ask yourself “If I wake
up tomorrow morning and am living my
dream, what does that look like?” Again,
if your dream is to be CEO of Google,
chances are you won’t get there (Or
maybe you will!) but if you aim there,
you might end up being an executive,
oor even an engineer at Google. One
thing is for sure. If you don’t even try,
you will 100% not get there. “You miss
100% of the shots you don’t take.” –
Wayne Gretzky Here’s a short story. I
had breakfast with a good friend a few
months ago, a friend who has a marketing
agency. I asked him this question, what is
your endgame? I was sure he was going
to tell me that his dream is to scale his
business, but no, he told me he wants to
go into politics, and be an ambassador.
I was utterly confused. Why, I asked him,
is he wasting time doing marketing if his
dream is to be an ambassador. “Because
that dream will never happen so might
as well do something I’m good at.” I told
him what I said above. If you don’t try;

you definitely won’t get there. If you do
try, who knows what’ll happen? Crazier
things have happened. “But…I don’t
have the experience.” That’s a sentence I
hear 10 times a day, at least! I can’t do X
or Y because I don’t have the experience.
Um you know who else didn’t have
experience when they started out? Every
single human ever. You think Steve
Jobs was born with experience? Bill
Gates? Elon Musk? They started from
somewhere and at some point in their
early days, they didn’t have experience
either. Till they made the experience.
So if you’re out of a job right now, and
you’re justifiably nervous, no one is
telling you not to look for a job. You
have to support yourself. Of course you
need a job. But remember that you have a
dream and you need to pursue it! I started
my career as a technical writer. Do you
understand how incompatible that career
choice is with me and my personality?
But it didn’t matter what I was doing. I
could have been cleaning toilets. It wasn’t
my career. It was just a job. So while
you look for a job, keep asking yourself
what you need to one day make a check
on your life. Keep digging inside to find
your true destination and stop with the
excuses. Your dream is not impossible.
That I can promise you. Every challenge
in life can become an opportunity. If you
internalize this message now and keep
your eyes on the prize, the end game, the
dream, the check mark, it will become
the best decision you ever made. I am no
Tony Robbins who is going to tell you to
follow your passion and everything else
will fall into place, but I am Hillel Fuld
who is going to tell you to follow your
passion and everything else will fall into
place. Now is the time. This is a huge
opportunity for you. It’s being handed
to you on a silver platter. Seize it. You’ll
be happy you did!! Good luck on the
journey, and don’t forget to stop every
once in a while to enjoy the views and
smell the flowers!!
Hillel Fuld
Vues Masters Note: Great advice!
Thanks for sharing.