Dear friends,

This promises to be an exciting week. There are two weddings coming up in Neve. Bnos Avigail is ending for the year next week, so this week the girls are re-learning, and (hopefully) integrating everything that they learned. This set me thinking about how often I do the same. Life flows so quickly, that it’s hard to stop and think, and even harder to integrate what you already know.

This Friday I felt I was crossing the Sambatyon River where the Ten Lost Tribes are said to be. I was visiting my relatives on a Yishuv over the Green Line, high in the Shomron, where you can see almost all of Eretz Yisrael from the hilltops. It’s a different country. The villages are tiny, the Shabbos clothes are lighter in shade. And yes, a shaitel beautician would not be able to make a living in an area where virtually all of the women wear artfully draped head wraps. It set me to thinking about what a miracle it is that we are so unified and so fragmented at the same time. My musings took me to the story of the nazir.
A nazir is a person who makes a vow to refrain from wine and all grape products, who may not cut his (or her) hair, and who has to refrain from any contact with the dead, which would render him ritually impure.
Why would anyone in their right mind make this kind of a vow? Isn’t it hard enough to keep the Torah without adding anything extra? Isn’t it arrogant to add on to a G-d given document? These are questions that the Rambam asks, and his conclusion is that it is wrong to deny yourself what the Torah permits. There are of course exceptions.

Have you ever tried dieting? I am an expert one-day dieter. It has two forms. One is “One day I will diet” and the other is starting a diet that lasts only one day…. If you have ever tried this, then you know that habit can be so strong that you confuse what you do with who you are.
Recently there have been numerous studies that question the well documented fact that most diets work temporarily. The pat response is, “diets don’t work. Change your lifestyle”. This is no doubt true, but what it has lead to for the most part is advertising “lifestyle changes” that are the same old diets re-served and re-branded. Eat more vegees. Exercise. No more white sugar. How novel. The more serious researchers have discovered that dieting leaves you feeling deprived, which subconsciously causes you to associate everything that is a “no no” with self-love and self-nurture. That leads to not only abandoning the diet but eating more of the “forbidden” foods in order to demonstrate that you really care about yourself. None of this is conscious. The source of the problem is that the word “you” is stuck in the mud. Whoever you are today is “you”. It’s hard to let go of that “you” and discover that it wasn’t “you” at all, just the garments that the real “you” are wearing.

The various 12 step programs, all of which have a much better success rate than ordinary dieting or abstinence, often get people past addictions. Before anything else, is the most crucial step of all. It is recognizing that you don’t have enough strength to overcome “you” (or at least the behavior that is disguising itself as “you”). You can overcome someone else, but not “you”. This requires that you turn your battle over to Hashem.

Yes, you have to do everything possible to win. No. You won’t on your own. What replaces the sense of self-love or self-nurture that the addiction gave is the sense of self worth that comes as a result of self-conquest.

Yes, it’s possible to win. No. You won’t on your own.

In this past week’s parshah, you have the situation of a Nazir. He is trying his best to change himself by denying himself wine, which puts your mind to sleep which is the cause of so much tragic loss of the real self. He also moves beyond physical vanity by letting his hair grow uncombed, and beyond contact with everything that blocks your heart from realization that Hashem is the G-d of life. He isn’t trying to do it on his own, by his own rules.

What happens if suddenly someone dies near him. He has become tamei, ritually impure. Can you imagine how it was for the nazir at that time? It was probably a very devastating moment. What does he do? He has to conclude all of the rituals, and then start again!
What does this tell you? It tells you to keep trying despite all of your failures. Pirkei Avos tells us (2:4) don’t believe in yourself until the day you die. The Bartenura (and of the most popular commentaries on Mishneh) tells us that “Yochanan was a righteous kohen gadol for 80 years, and in the end, he became a heretic (Sadducee, one who doesn’t believe in the Oral Law). This means that no one’s future is guaranteed.
The Rebbe of Kotzk said that we should learn from this that no one should lose hope of improving his ways. If even a tzaddik might change and become a rashah (an evil person), how much more so a rasha can change and become a Tzadik.”. The Tanna DVei Eliahu  (Rabba 22:7) says, “Even if a person did a hundred sins, one worse than the next, but does tshuvah, I will deal compassionately with him and I will accept his tshuvah. And even if a person will stand up and speak brazenly against Hashem and does tshuvah, The Holy One will forgive him for everything”.

Why does this remind me of my trip to the Shomron? On some level no matter how fragmented we are as a people, there is something that unites us. It seems to me that what holds us together is that the “you” we all have wants the same thing. We want to do what is right, what draws us closer to Hashem. What makes us better people, and the world a better place. On His terms. Yes, we are different, but still very much the same. This is why a Neve wedding (which you will hear about next letter BH) and a graduation of new young women facing the world with so much is relevant to you.

And to me
And to all of us.

Love,
Tziporah
​
P.S. Please daven for Faiga Leah bas Malka Shifra, one of our Oldees but Goodies who is waiting for test results.

Dear friends,

The day of Lag B’Omer, when I get of the bus at the bottom of the hill in Meiron, the burial place of Rabi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar and simultaneously a brilliant Talmudic scholar I am no longer just in the present. The past and future don’t cower in the corners in Meiron. They are both bigger than life!
Lag B’Omer is a potentially both a dream and a nightmare. Massive crowds are wherever you look. In fact, a significant proportion of Israel’s population comes for the day. Whatever you think when you hear the word, “mobbed” doesn’t begin to describe the barely controlled chaos. No more!

From the moment you get of your bus (which leaves on time) you are in good hands as the ads say. The sound system informs you in English, Hebrew and Yiddish of the color-coded parking lots in which you will find your bus home. The Yiddish one concluded with a heartfelt blessing that your prayers bring good results. There were large poles every few yards. Each one had a number on its top so that it was easy to describe where you are if you find a lost child. It also could tell a medic where to head in case of emergency. The best part was that once you entered the actually tomb of Rabi Shimon, there were metal separators, similar to those at the airport keeping people far enough from each other to be able to pray without being pushed by other people who want to pray just as much as you do. The effect is that the trip back to the 21st century was less of a contrast than it used to be.

There is still an otherworldly aura in spite of the technical changes. The hill you climb was probably climbed by Rabi Shimon, and probably looks much the same. On the one hand being there is incredibly NOW. On the other hand, it is untouched by the passage of thousands of years. It inspires you and makes you want to be in the past and the present at the same moment. Staying in two places at the same time is far easier than it sounds. There are people out there who do it all the time.
One of the names that resonate in the observant community here in Yerushalaim is Rav Yitzchak Weiss, the famous rabbinic judge. His book of halahcic decisions, called “Minchas Yitzchak” is a classic. He told his students the following story about himself. It is one that makes you see how connected Now, Then and Tomorrow really are.

“When I was young, things were very different. When I was old enough to marry, my parents took the initiative in finding me a suitable wife. After they put out feelers, a shadchan called with a proposal. The families matched like a pair of gloves, and everything they heard about the girl was unbelievably wonderful. Because of the distance between the two cities, my parents hired a representative to actually meet her. He came back with rave reviews and the shidduch was concluded. As was arranged, the entire family travelled to the girl’s home town to finally meet her in person just a short time before the wedding was scheduled. It became clear that we had been fooled. My father had a talk with me that night. He told me that since our ‘representative” apparently deceived us and turned out to be a “misrepresentative” we are not bound by any agreement that was made. I am free to return home without any obligations. I thought about it and told him, “I can’t do this to the girl. It’s too much. I can’t humiliate her this way. Everyone will know what happened and why. I’ll marry her. If the situation is unbearable, I will divorce her. Even divorce would be kinder than this.” We got married, and had a child, my son Berish. Tragically my wife was killed in the war. I remarried  and eventually she too passed away. My final marriage was to the daughter of the VIshnitzer Rebbe. No children were born in the course of either marriage. We went through all of the usual medical procedures. The doctors were of one opinion. I would never father a child. Berish’s birth was a miracle.”

Seeing Hashem’s providence demands your being two places at once. You have to be in NOW, questioning what life really is presenting you with, and what Hashem wants of you by way of response. You also have to have a sense of eternity, and of being part of something bigger than yourself. That sensitivity to the ultimate future that awaits all of us is going to affect the way that you see NOW. You also have to be able to see the past, and all of the complex configurations that took you to standing where you are this moment.
If I were Rav Weiss, I am not sure that I would have had enough of a sense of what the bigger picture demands.  Would I have the courage and sense of Hashem’s providence to weigh my own immediate feelings of vulnerability, anger and fear of spiraling into a black pit against my sensitivity to the the feelings of rejection, worthlessness and shame that a woman I never wanted to marry would feel on what would be a farce of a wedding day. I don’t even feel sure that I would see that the same coin has two sides. I am also not sure that decades later I would look at my only child and see “miracle” and not just “great stroke of luck”.  Are you?

Present. Past. Future.

Whatever else Meiron teaches you, it teaches you how close you are to the world of Rabi Shimon who certainly knew how to make NOW an extension of the ultimate Source and Creator of the bigger picture. He also knew that his life and his teachings would touch generations and make it possible for them to see what he saw, but from a much greater distance. He invited us, you me and the rest of the crowd, to be with him on his yearly “hilulah” – his celebration. He knew that we will always have the capacity to be connected to Hashem, and he was willing to be our tour guide through the jungles that we all pass through on our way to the future.

Every shidduch is its own hashgachah story, one in which past present and future come together. On that note, I will end by wishing mazal tov to Brachah Meyers on her engagement!

Love,
Tziporah

​Dear friends,
People sometimes assume that my trips leave me culture shocked. They don’t. Nothing changes. People are still earning it and spending it. What does happen is that meeting new people and seeing more of the planet is always endlessly fascinating. I will give you a bit of a blow by blow, not so much of people, but of what encountering people tells me about our journeys. One of the things that I am supposed to resent is the traveling from place to place. The truth is that I like it. I like people watching, and I like the quiet time when I find myself sitting next to people who have absolutely no reason to have anything thing to do with me.

When I landed, I encountered my first surprise. It was still winter. Dvora Schorr a dear old friend rescued me. She took me home in her heated car. She didn’t tell me that she had literally just moved. It couldn’t have been too convenient to have a guest, and she probably knew that I would suggest that this time I stay elsewhere, so she didn’t tell me.

LESSON ONE THIS TRIP: DO ANY MITZVAH HASHEM SENDS YOU.
After speaking in Rebbitzen Assaf’s sem I was off to Baltimore by train. I had a ticket for what I found out later is a “silent car”. You are not allowed to speak loudly, call on your cell or make any other kind of noises.  What a pleasure. Although it had all of the charm of a dentist’s waiting room, it simultaneously had the capacity to be a backdrop for a bit of hisbodedus. My chavrusa of many years standing met me at the station. It was still winter. She drove me to Burlington Coats just as they were closing and helped me find what was literally the only jacket left in my size. From the looks of things, they too were surprised by winter lasting so long. The next day, I returned to the NY area with Bracha Burr, one of my Bnos Avigail girls. She did me the great favor of letting me nod off for the 4-hour trip to Monsey.

LESSON TWO:  GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED, NOT WHAT YOU LIKE TO GIVE

Monsey for Shabbos was next. My best lesson here came from my almost 3-year-old granddaughter, Elisheva. She remembered me! Well, I don’t know that for sure, but she greeted me as Bubby, and stayed glued to me whenever we were together. She likes to chat and doesn’t mind if you don’t answer her comments (or understand them). It’s fine as long as you look at her and hold her. My next stop was Brooklyn for a day of learning. Interestingly there too I felt the instant joy of bonding with people I know. Some of the people have been coming to these classes for years.  Two of them are Old Neve   Girls who learned there 40 years ago! They invited me for lunch with the same inviting smile that Eliasheva mastered sans the innocence. I denied myself the pleasure of having time with another friend and the delightful food was waiting for me. I knew that she would understand because she is a real friend, and she also has that smile. The cream on the cake was having 11 Bnos Avigail girls for a shiur and shalosh- seudos. The warmth was palatable, as was the feeling of being relatives who are getting together for something worthwhile and fun.
LESSON THREE: A SMILE GOES MUCH FURTHER THAN YOU THINK. IT MAKES YOU VULNERABLE AND IS AN OFFERING OF LOVE.
 I have a special place in my heart for Persian Greatneck. The almost palatable emunah coupled by the need to bring whatever we learn into real life practical applications without it being heavy or pedantic is a real delight
Although the style is different, the substance is the same in Passaic and Englewood. They both gave me enormous inspiration. Their questions are real and serious, and the people asking them are not asking out of intellectual curiosity (although they are intellectually demanding), but out of an honest desire to know and to let what they know affect their lives.

LESSON FOUR:  SINCERITY COMES IN MANY SHADES.

And now, for the relatively new places: It’s easy to group Out of Town as one big version of Small Town America gone frum. To a large degree this description fits. I was introduced to Cincinnati years ago, by Paula Weinberg who brought me out there several times. When I told the women gathered that Paula is the one who introduced me to their community they all (for real) applauded her! There is something to be said for being the only show in town!! Denver is larger, more established, and nonetheless more varied by its nature than the East Coast communities that I had been to. The most interesting place for this trip hands down, was Seattle. I had seen Seattle quite a number of years ago but never in the spring.  Its outstanding and unforgettable beauty is in a class of its own. Its far more beautiful then Prague or any of the other European cities whose beauty is man-made. The people are also beautiful, earnest, chilled, and ready to hear more

LESSON FIVE: BIGGER ISN’T ALWAYS BETTER

The last days of my trip were in London. On the way there, I had my basic rule of travel not only broken but fractured. The blessed silence of the air was pierced by the unending dia-monologue of the minister who sat next to me. A member of the Witnesses, he became interested in me when he saw me davening. He asked about the letters, the direction of the pages etc. I naively thought that the end was near when I finished, put away my siddur and closed my eyes. I figured that the end of the flight is near, and I can use some shuteye.  But no. He wanted to tell me how The End Is Near in an entirely different context…!

LESSON SIX: MEETING PEOPLE YOU WOULD NORMALLY AVOID CAN BE FUN!

I could have easily ruminated about why I do this. I am no longer a teenager (I know that this is shocking news) and I should be past getting a charge out of packing up and heading out, but I don’t. If there was any doubt, it was allayed by my stay with Joanne Dove, who runs England. No apologies to the parliament or the Queen are necessary. They, as the Talmud tells us, no longer have genuine freedom of choice. Their hearts are in Hashem’s Hands. Joanne, however, chooses to see possibility, spiritual ambition in everyone she encounters, and moves right in and harvests it. I always come home from her house wondering where I missed the boat (a similar feeling to when I would speak to Henny Machlis who prepared Shabbos for over a hundred guests on Thurs. night, just like me. The only difference is that I did 20 guests and ended up emotionally and physically finished by the time I hit the hay, while she was still her mellow self).

LESSON SEVEN:  WATCH THAT LIFE-LOVERS!

Are you wondering why you are getting a travelogue when you wanted some learning? It is because I am sharing real learning with you. The kind that I took in the last two weeks. The kind of teaching that people do without even knowing that they are teaching you.
 
Love,
Tziporah