Me, the Newspaper Junkie

There's another book being released every second! As much as I would love to buy a new book every week it's just not monetarily feasible, but more importantly it's simply not necessary. I like to remind myself that books are not a one time experience. It's the yetzer hara that likes to convince oneself that you need "new," and assuming that a book interests you, it's meant to be read more than once. Between all the book shelves in our house I could read and reread from now until the next Birchas HaChamah (4/9/2027- put it on your calendars) but . . . there is something nice about purchasing some fresh material.

This is where the newspapers come in.

I love newspapers.

My two favorite weekly's are the Hamodia and the Mishpacha magazine. Both of them are, in my opinion, the leaders among religious Jewish publications in quality and substance. Besides for the typical news items that are reported everywhere, they also are able to find original interesting stories that are fun and inspiring to read and news items that interest me as a Jewish person. The Hamodia is significantly cheaper (in price, not quality) than the Mishpacha so I am able to buy it every week, but when a particularly good Mishpacha comes out I make an effort to go and get it. And when I say effort, I mean effort. To get the Mishpacha requires strategic coordination on my part because for some reason it is not sold at newsstands or seforim stores in either of my two residences. The closest it is offered is about 45 minutes away so my choices are between finding an excuse to, say, go to Brooklyn, or calling up someone who lives in those locations and asking them to please pick me up a copy. I actually just did that about 2 hours ago when I called up my lovely aunt and asked her if she could buy a copy of this weeks Mishpacha- it's one of the special expanded editions that are put out before Pesach and Succos!!!- which I will pick up when a next get a chance. But going back to the main topic, it's the opportunity to buy the newspapers each Thursday, whether it's the Hamodia, Mishpacha, Jewish Press, etc. that helps feed my addiction for new material. The benefits are twofold. I save money since, for example, the Hamodia only costs me $2, and the papers are long enough to make me feel like I'm getting something new to read while at the same time remaining short enough that I can then go back to the books sitting on my shelf waiting to be finished. You can even save the Mishpacha and Hamodia Magazines and reread those too.

Ah, now that I've just spent a half hour thinking about the papers, come Thursday I think I'm going to be one very pumped up Hamodia buyer. Watch out!