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The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS Desalination is great – but it’s taking away some of the magic that our winters once had. By LAWRENCE RIFKIN   10/23/2014 Desalination plant (illustrative photo). (photo credit:INGIMAGE)   At the kibbutz where I lived for my first years in the country, there was an outside faucet where I’d fill the crew’s water jugs on the way out to the orchards. Above the faucet was a sign that said “ Haval al kol tipa .”Before I appreciated the finer points of idiomatic translation, its message was the ungainly “A pity on each drop” rather than the more utilitarian “Each drop counts.”Yet to this street-trained Hebrew speaker it still made perfect sense.We were located near Rehovot but because of the funnel-like topography and resulting meteorological…

The opinions expressed on this webpage represent those of the individual authors and, unless clearly labeled as such, do not represent the opinions or policies of TBS The Beggars of Lakewood By MARK OPPENHEIMER   OCT. 16, 2014     Elimelech Ehrlich (seated), a beggar who travels each year from Jerusalem, talking with students outside Beth Medrash Govoha. Credit Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, for The New York Times Once a year, Elimelech Ehrlich travels from Jerusalem to Lakewood, N.J., with a cash box and a wireless credit-card machine. During the three weeks he typically spends in town, Ehrlich — a white-bearded, black-suited, black-skullcapped, wisecracking 51-year-old — haunts the many local yeshivas, schools where Jewish men, mostly in their 20s, study the Talmud and other texts. Sometimes he loiters around the condominium complexes where students live with their young wives and growing families. Some days he hires a driver to take him to…