Dear friends,

The questions that can’t be answered are much more numerous than the ones that can. The news reports are endless, flooding you with a river of facts and semi-facts. How many people were stricken? How many are under quarantine. How many fatalities. The answers change by the hour. The scope of the pandemic has never been equaled. There is nothing to which it can be objectively compared. The endless hype is only a symptom of an underlying issue.
We hate saying that we have no control.

Being able to talk about the stats, symptoms and numbers brings things down to the great world of The Describable. That world is one in which we are very comfortable. The only problem is that control is an illusion, and that knowledge is only what your senses can pick up and transfer to your brain.  
Rambam illustrates the reality of human limitation in his usual succinct way. “If you saw a bird, and also saw an iron bar, you can imagine an iron bird that flies in the sky”. He lived about a thousand years ago, but he already could envision a plane. However, “If you never saw a bird, and never saw metal, you would not be able to “see” a flying metal bird”. 

Human wisdom is compared to a ladder. You can walk up many rungs, but you can get stuck. The top of the ladder is where Hashem’s grandeur replaces the world that your senses project. To reach the top, you have to be humble. When you can step back you can finally get a more honest perspective as you put Hashem back in the picture. It means reaching a point in which your heart and mind agree, and they both find themselves saying,” I see what I see, but the entire picture belongs to You”.

Rambam also tells you that for Moshiach to come, one thing has to happen. You have to be educable. That doesn’t mean that you have to be perfect, Hashem’s commitment to His people doesn’t make perfection a pre requisite to becoming ourselves, which is what redemption really means. It means that you have to be humble enough to say “I don’t know”, and recognize that there is no one upon whom you can depend other than Hashem.

I am sure that in your life there have been times in which the rug was pulled out from under you. The flight was cancelled. The position was filled. He didn’t like you enough to marry you. The diagnosis was much less severe than what the illness actually was. These moments can be transformational.
In last week’s parshah you have Moshe making an interesting request. He asked Hashem to show him His glory. This may leave you wondering, didn’t Moshe read the beginning of this letter? Didn’t he know that humans don’t see the whole picture? He obviously did. He didn’t ask Hashem to see Him, He wanted to find Hashem’s glory.
So many things happen in the world that conceal Hashem’s glory. The hardest one to swallow is that the good people suffer at times, while at times the really bad ones seem to have easy pain free lives. The way this is put in the classical sources is “the problem of a tzadik who has evil and an evil man (rasha) who has good”. 

You can look at these words from an entirely different angle. Even the worst of us has some good. It may be buried under untold layers of selfishness, despair and fear. If you go to the trouble of seeking out this bit of good you can make a dramatic change. If you relate to it as the key to the deeper and more genuine piece of G-dliness in a person who has lived a bad life, you can change his way of relating to himself. His entire identity can be altered. For this reason, Hashem, who is the only one who knows anyone’s inner workings, will sometimes let the rasha see undisguised good, and let him find the place of peace, gratitude, and wonder that can change him if he is willing to be changed. Sometimes the opposite takes place, and with this, I will get personal.

You are good. So many of you are real Tzadikim. Knowing you has been one of the best things that ever happened to me. But you are tzadik v’ ra lo. A tzadik with some bad still hidden inside. You ask Rabbanim (and very rightly so!), “What is this for? What does Hashem want of us?” or “What should I change?”. The underlying whisper is, “I look at myself and see a clean slate. I don’t see anything that needs correction. What is there for me to do differently?”. Sometimes, Hashem in His kindness will present you with situations that can bring out the hidden tzadik in you. The tzadik that can only surface when things don’t go as you would have chosen. When the stress that this terrible plague brings everyone, hits home, the tzadik in you can come out. It can take you to recognizing that other people need your validation, that you need to express your care, that your prayers can come to express a deeper level of trust in Hashem than you ever believed that you had inside you.

So, I’ll end with a rather strange wish, which is that the plague be forgotten, that it be a rung that takes us closer to Moshiach (which feels so plausible given that everything else seem so surreal), and that its impression takes us to being more than we ever thought we could be.
​
Love,
Tziporah    
 

Dear friends,

It feels like Purim!
It’s not just the Neve girl’s costumes, or the need to plan a menu for a feast that begins at a set time but doesn’t end at any set time and features an uncertain number of guests.

When I was looking at the Parshah, it hit me. It’s the time of year when you can change your identity, and adapt a much happier and more positive one. What set me off in that direction was the narrative about the eight garments that were made for the Kohein Gadol.  There is a little bit of kohein in all of us, even those of us who are in no way related to Aharon’s descendants. Before the Torah was given, Hashem told us how it would transform us into being “A Holy nation and a kingdom of kohanim”, people who can uplift the beast within us, and who can bring down blessings. 

When you confront your real life; work, relationships, school, and living with yourself (which can be daunting), you can make choices. You can be a kohein. That means letting your life take you to a higher plane. The Kohein in you can see the beauty and design of nature and of your body, and at the same time experience the intricacy, challenge, and little victories that you have when you try to make your encounters with other people. They come more easily when you accept their “beastly self” and your own “beastly self” as being part of life, but not life itself. 

One of the more challenging parts of being a kohein (part time…) is that other people are hard to really know. Their souls (and your soul...) are an aspect of Hashem, Who has no limits, no description, and is invisible by its nature. You “see” the soul through the garments that it wears. The soul’s garments are thought, speech and action. Think about the people in your life who occupy significant amounts of space! You may find that communication is really your key in “seeing “their thoughts, and interpreting their actions. You are right (doesn’t that feel good?).

When Hashem created the first person, the Torah says that “He blew into him the soul of life”, which Targum Onkelos translates as “the spirit of speech”. The Midrash tells us that Hashem planned Adam before he brought anything else into being.  A “whisper” of everything that was created is part of Adam. Adam had the potential to take himself upward, and elevate the entire world along with him.  Adam was originally “clothed” in garments of spiritual light (Kutones ohr in the text), which were “bigdei kehunah”, a kohein’s garments. This means that his thoughts, speech, and actions (until the sin) were all done in ways that could have made him more and connected to his source.

Then things changed. The effect of the sin was that the “garments of light” were no longer his. He had betrayed his mission. Human thought speech and action sometimes looks really ugly. Periodic mass murders, now somewhat normal, tells you something about the face of action. The almost unprecedented verbal abuse and negativity in the public sphere all have a message. They tell you that somehow many people no longer think in terms of the inherent beauty and meaning of life, they are out of touch. Speech and thought have been compromised.

The situation isn’t hopeless. 

The Parshah tells you that Hashem provided garments that can replace the old ones. There are new ways of thinking, speaking and feeling, and of doing. You can learn how to change “clothing” and change direction.
Each one of the kohein gadol’s garments atoned for a specific area of failure, and opened the gate to replacing failure with change.

1-The trousers were made of pure white linin. They atoned for carnal sins; Through the Torah, base desire can be a source of profound spiritual connection by living a life of purity.

2-The shirt atoned for sins of bloodshed. It covered the heart, the seat of passion. Hatred can be rejected, and the same passions redirected into love, caring, and connection

3-The turban atoned for the kind of arrogance in which you can come to hearing only your own thoughts, and living to coronate yourself in endless acts of ego fulfillment. If you are aware of there being a Mind beyond and above your mind, you can make another choice. You can live to coronate Hashem, by replacing your will with His.

4-The Efod, a garment made of many colors and designed like an apron, covered the Kohein’s back. It atoned for idol worship. When you see the world as a self-contained system, with nature (which really is just a series of rules that repeat themselves) somehow exists independently, you can fall into all sorts of nature worship. Today, not that many of us are drawn to actually serving idols, but many of us worships nature in other ways. When you see the world through the eyes of a person who lives for pleasure, or for controlling, or for making money, who do they think is really running the show? When you look at the world for what it is, you can do one thing and change everything. Put Hashem back into the forces of nature that He authored. Look at the sun, and see it as raw energy, the source of all growth - you have all the components you need for idol worship. Look at the sun and see it as Hashem’s creation, His medium for generated growth, you have devotion.

5-The Choshen. Straps that extended over the Kohen’s shoulders had two onyx stones on them which were attached to the next garment. It was a rectangular piece of cloth, folded over so it had an inner “pocket”. Each side had a different design. The twelve tribes of Israel were represented by precious stones upon which their names were carved. When a parchment with a Divine Name was placed in the pocket, the stones had power similar to that of an oracle. Letters would light up to form words and at times messages. This garment atoned for sins in judging. You may feel that you never sit in judgment because you aren’t an actual judge. Mistake! You most probably act as judge and jury several times a day. You can develop a negative and distrustful relationship with others (if that’s what you want...). All you have to do is to judge them unfavorably at every possible occasion. You can change all of this! You can begin to question your interpretation of events. You can bring down brachah, like an actual kohein.

6-The next garment is the sash which atoned for thoughts that are so private that they are known only to your heart. Everyone has dark places. You can end up being consumed by guilt. Alternatively you can recognize that Hashem m is there wherever you are, and you can ask Him for His help.

7- The next garment is the coat. It was made of sky blue wool. It atoned for purposeless and negative speech. If you want to know who you are, listen to the words that come out of your mouth. When what you communicate reflects your awareness of Hashem in the soul of every person you encounter, you will not speak lashon hara. The “trick” is not to be blinded by superficial differences that make you brand people as “other”.

8-The tzitz: The Kohein wore a diadem (like a necklace, but worn on the head, so the chain goes over the head, and the words are on the Kohein’s forehead). The words were, “Kodesh La ’Hashem”, sanctified to G-d. This made not only the kohein, but everyone who saw the tzitz see them as they actually are. This leads to feeling the awe of Hashem’s knowledge of what you are, and awake a deep desire for Tshuvah.

Purim will be here soon! 

Whether or not you dress up on the outside, dress up on the inside. You can and will discover the self you like the best.
​
Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,
​
Sometimes titles don’t tell you much, but this week when I was at Project Inspire, the title said it like it is.
The amount of people, and their variegated backgrounds was in and of itself inspiring. No one was there for any reason other than to try to learn how to be a source of inspiration to the huge number of unaffiliated Jews you come across just by being alive. The speakers were all wonderful. I shouldn’t say all. I didn’t hear most of them. The program was designed to make it possible to select which class you want to hear, and there were as many as six (!) classes going on simultaneously. I haven’t as yet learned the art of being at more than one place at a time, so I missed quite a few of them. They can be heard on Torah Anytime, so nothing is permanently gone.

The most moving speech of all was given by a man whose wife went on the famous JWRC trip to Israel. (I think that is the initial, but many of you will realize that I am talking about the trips that are organized to give women a sort of renewal of their relationship to Torah, and a reconnection to their roots). She came back with a real love of making challah. As far as he was concerned, this was a great hobby; he had no interest in the religious angle. It took time, and the willingness and patience of several rabbinic mentors, but he came to share the spiritual equivalent of adrenal rush that learning Torah gave him. Another speaker was able to succinctly tell parents that approval (which is necessary, but by definition related to what is done) isn’t the same thing as acceptance (which is even more necessary, because it has to do with being, not just with doing. By definition acceptance means that your child feels emotionally safe in your home). These two insights are just the tip of the iceberg. Just listening to the man who is the CEO of Aish, and watching a movie about its founder was another part of the experience, as was seeing some of the authentic Torah greats of our times relating to the need to reach out to ordinary people.

You may be wondering why I am telling you all this, after all it will be another year before there will be another Project Inspire weekend, and a lot of water will flow under the bridge until then. The reason is that we have just read Parshat is Trumah.

The word Trumah literally means “uplifting” even though its colloquial meaning is donation. Hashem told the Jews in the desert to “Take trumah for Me”. Notice it says that we should “take”, not “give”. How is donating material things taking? It feels more like giving. The most honest answer is the best way to take, is to give.

When you look at where your life has led you, and you look for the golden moments, you will often find that the moments when you gave of yourself in a way that had genuine meaning were right up there, far more than the moments when you received anything that a human can give.

The Torah tells you what the result of this kind of “taking is”. Hashem says, “Make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in your midst”. If you give of yourself, then Hashem’s presence becomes part of your life.
The people in Project Inspire were takers just as much as they were givers. They were in the midst of the endless process called, “becoming”, and what made it even better was that the audience was just as much involved in this p process.

When I came home, I began to look for givers who are takers. In Neve it’s so easy to find them! Rabbi LIff (who heads mechina for those of you who live in a cave) gives constantly. Just yesterday, he mentioned that one of the teachers took notice of one of the student’s rather unusual last name. “This is the name of one of the most famous rabbis of his time. Are you a descendent?” the teacher asked. As things turned out, she is, and the moment of sensitivity to having deep roots wasn’t lost on her. When Rabbi Liff told me about this, he was literally beaming. He was so glad that the girl, who was only in Neve a short time, had an experience that touched her. The moment belonged to him almost as much as it belonged to her.
My Bnos Avigail girls made a musical Melave Malka, with original songs and dances as well as script that was both meaningful and funny (which doesn’t always happen as you know too well). I missed it because I was in the States. When the madrichot told me about it, they were there- enjoying “their” dances, songs and skits.

This Parshah and the coming ones are there to tell you how to do it. How to concretely and honestly become the kind of person who takes/gives and has Hashem dwell inside your heart. You will learn about what the Torah tells you your mind can be by learning and giving/taking by telling you all about the Ark of the Covenant. You will learn about your heart and soul by studying the menorah, about your body and your endless appetite for everything the world offers by studying the sacred table.

All the best!
Take in 
The World
And make it yours
To give

Love,
Tziporah