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The practical pasuk in Parshas VaY’chi for all generations is found in last week’s parshah, VaY’chi, where two of our patriarchs speak of their own deaths. It signifies an awareness that life comes to an end, applying it towards logistics involved with estate planning, and ensuring that the body is brought into the ground in a halachic manner. “Yaakov realized that he was going to leave his world... He wanted something to be sure to happen,” said Rabbi Paysach Krohn. “He specifically asked Yosef to swear to him that he would be buried exactly where he wanted to be buried.”

What does it mean to be a New Yorker and have a say in its elections? According to a bill passed by the City Council last Thursday, December 9, only 30 days of residency is needed to allow an individual to register as a voter in local elections. “In a time where many states are passing voter suppression laws like we haven’t seen since the Jim Crow era, New York City must be seen as a shining example for other progressive cities to follow,” said upper Manhattan Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, the sponsor of the bill.

 The community that walks humbly often keeps a low profile, avoiding interviews with secular media, which results in slanted reporting that depicts Orthodox Jews in a negative light. At last week’s annual Agudath Israel of America convention, three outspoken panelists sought to correct the narrative with examples from their experiences and advice on how to interact with editors and reporters.

A once-ubiquitous packing material that the manufacturer refused to take back was kept by the Orenbuch family of West Hempstead and assembled into a menorah like no other. “We used to drive past a home on 136th Street that had a sukkah made of red Coca-Cola crates. When we got married, we started collecting them from shuls after their kiddush,” said Rachel Orenbuch. “Our first home in Queens was a garden apartment, and that’s where we made our first sukkah.”

Keeping on message is among the difficult elements of a political campaign, when a soundbite receives more attention than the subject of the speech, or when a crowd of supporters defines the candidate rather than the other way around. Last Sunday, Republican gubernatorial contender Rob Astorino stood outside the office of Bronx Democratic Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz to protest his bill requiring vaccination for all students to attend classes.

Among this nation’s cities, the power of the purse to shape policy is perhaps the strongest in New York City, which has a pension fund worth more than $273 billion that it invests in industries that reflect the values of the city government. Earlier this year, Comptroller Scott Stringer invested $8 billion in projects related to the Green New Deal, which failed in Congress but was promoted by its progressive members. In line with its environmental vision, the city also divested $4 billion from fossil fuel companies.