​Dear Friends,

One of the best things and worst things about Western society is undifferentiated tolerance. While it keeps people from blood libels and various other evils, there is another side to the coin.  Every idea is seen as equal to every other idea, because they are, after all ideas. The same holds true of lifestyle issues - all are equal because they are all lifestyles. You may very well be wondering why I am talking to you about this; you aren't likely to adopt this way of thinking.

At least not consciously.

What threw me was the response to the "murder" of an authentically innocent gorilla, named Harambe.

Part One: A four-year-old child climbed into the exhibit moat in Cincinnati's zoo... His mother was with him and was distracted for just a few moments by her baby. The gorilla's initial response was far from savage; he picked up the little boy and stroked him. Of course, no one could assume that that was where the story would necessarily end. The security man had few choices; shooting the animal with a tranquilizer gun was not an option. It takes about twenty minutes to take effect, and the immediate consequence would be to irritate the animal, who would of course have no idea of why it was being attacked. He had to choose between the ape and he child, and he chose the child. Many of you may have heard about what I consider part one of the story.

Part Two: The mother has received a huge number of online death threats. None of this surprised me. What did, was the response of one of my frum students; let's call her Chasya (which is of course not her name). She is furious at the boy's mom. At first I just assumed that she was totally unaware of what taking care of young children is about; I had her pegged as the youngest one in her family and assumed that her extended family must live far enough for her not to have much to do with any possible nieces or nephews. It takes seconds for a pint-size adventurer to start moving. I know her well enough to not fall into the trap of assuming that Chasya is emotionally or mentally instable. That's an easy out (and one that many people use with distressing frequency), but it just doesn't fit. When I thought about the episode more deeply, I realized that Chasya is a victim.

She has been trained to devalue the preciousness of her own life.

Rambam tells you (in Hilchos Deos) that it is human nature (he doesn't say weakness) to be influenced by your environment. Tolerance and equality are very attractive, and in fact are spiritually beautiful if they are rooted in truth and in compassion. They become ugly when they are corrupted by falsehood or envy. Think of Korach's rebellion. Rabbenu Bachaya sees the problem as one that stems from being unable to accept Hashem's unique plan for each individual. This leads inevitably to envy. Here are the steps.

1. You don't see why some people have more, and other's less. Since Hashem isn't a player, you call your desire to have what everyone else has, "justice". Since your self-esteem is involved.  "If I have less, I must be less" is the subconscious version of this way of thinking) you will have no peace until the "injustice" is corrected.
2. Having what others have materially doesn't do it. You also need the appreciation, validation, and acknowledgment that makes you feel like legitimate contender for Best. Or else you have to determine that there is no Best.
3. You need control. Without control, others define you. With control, you define them! You feel unfree if you can't make up the rules of the game.
4. Ultimately, this can lead a person to resenting Hashem's "right" to define anything at all. Avoda Zara is a form of presumed connection to a Higher Being in which you call the shots.

​The only way out of this trap is to really embrace your life  (and that of other people) as being a mirror of Hashem's providence for you and for them. You aren't exactly like anyone else who ever lived.
You have everything you need to be a genuinely great person.

So does everyone else. The issue is never "Elitzafon". Elitzafon was appointed as leader of the Levites in spite of Korach being the logical next in line. The real issue wasn't Elitzafon as a person, nor was it the heredity issue. It was Korach's dissatisfaction with his own life. You have amazing potentials and everything you need to actualize them. Every minute of your life has infinite value. You are not an "innocent gorilla".

You are what Hashem had in mind when He created His world.

Yours always,
Tziporah

Dear Friends,
Does Eretz Yisrael sometimes feel like a dream, distant, redolent, but far from real life? After spending time here, you expected things would feel different when you head home, and you are back with people whom you love and believe in, but who didn’t share your experiences here.
You aren't alone.
In this coming week’s Parshah, we find that the Jews in the desert faced up to the same situation in reverse. They had to leave everything familiar to journey to Eretz Yisrael. Nonetheless, the results were tragically similar. They too found facing change painful. Their lack of belief in both G-d's willingness to see them through this, and ultimately their lack of faith in themselves, might resonate with you. The desert was vast, daunting, and in many ways, its emptiness evoked an excruciating sort of inner hollowness. Paradoxically every day put them face to face with Hashem. Their "normal" was miraculous. They ate mann, their clothing didn’t wear out, and Miriam’s well followed them until her death. More than any of this, the desert was a place in which they experienced Hashem by learning His Torah. Moshe taught the men, Miriam the women; every day was the spiritual equivalent of climbing Mount Everest and seeing terra firma from an entirely new angle.
Then the rules of the game changed.
Eretz Yisrael was always the long awaited fulfillment of their destiny as a chosen people. Heading towards Eretz Yisrael was the first demand G-d made of Avraham You would assume that Avraham's first prophecy would be about his destiny in the spiritual sense. It began by telling him about what he had to leave behind, and where his next stop along the way would be. G-d told Avraham to go to the land where (to use the words of the text), "areka" which doesn’t; translate literally as the “Land that I will show you” but the as the “Land in which I will show you you”. Hashem didn’t promise Avraham paradise. He held out the possibility of building a certain kind of paradise here, one in which Hashem could be revealed in the material grind of living in the here and now. This is the Land of self-discovery. 
Centuries later, their descendants found the same promise to sound more like a threat. It was overwhelmingly daunting. The problem is that they felt that they would have to face the world WITHOUT the kind of miracles that took place daily in the desert. They had to come out of the bubble. They were afraid of the next step. They wanted to comprehend the Land, and to assess what they saw. Moshe attempted to quiet their fears by making it possible for them to see the Land for themselves. His goal was to get them to recognize that the same G-d who told them to enter and conquer the land, is the One who made it virtually impossible for them to do so without His help. They were right. The land couldn't be conquered by them alone. They are NOT alone, and never were! The spies who were sent were meant to tell the truth, unvarnished, and bare. The Land was populated by people who are bigger than life, who live in open cities because they feared no one. They knew that this is a Land that had been promised again and again. The issue is do you believe G-ds promises or not?
Sound familiar?
You may face employers or university administrators who are skeptical about Shabbos and holidays being non-negotiable. Friends who wonder if you are really still you. You are no longer in the Promised Land, you are living with other people, in civilizations that were built by them (albeit with your participation, but still theirs). Your role is to seek Hashem from the place that His providence has taken you. You have to tell yourself that you can bring Him anywhere
The spies gave up. They said, "We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves (next to them) and so did we seem to them". The problem didn't begin with how they saw us; it began with how we see ourselves.
You are in the upper ten percentile of educated Jews. Hashem brought about the situation; there are thousands of Jews who didn't have your opportunities. You have to be unafraid to be yourself if you are going to have any real influence on them or on the greater world.
Rabbi Hanoch Teller was once on a plane. He used the washroom, and when he returned to his seat he was still on the last few words of "asher yatzar", the blessing said after the bathroom. The man next to him asked him what he was muttering. He could easily have retreated into an apologetic "nothing nothing", but he didn't. He said, "I was just saying a Jewish prayer thanking G-d for having a body that works". The man was shaken to his core. He suffered from a kidney disease, and he appreciated the wonder of an operative human body the way only someone who doesn't have one can. This led to a long discussing (after all, they were on the plane…), and a moment of transformation for both of them.
The moral of the story?
Don't be a grasshopper!
As always,
Tziporah

Dear Friends,

Shavuot! The literal meaning of the word is somewhat elusive. It means "weeks" in reference to the weeks that passed between the first episode of the epic liberation leading to the climax at Mount Sinai. It also means oaths. There were oaths that were made – we said, "We will do and we will hear", and Hashem promised us that were chosen to be a holy people and a nation of kohanim.

On a conscious level, you don't remember either oath. You may have grown up with some of the people around you keeping the first oath. They circumcised the boys in the family without being able to give a real answer if someone were to push them to the wall and demand an explanation. They are doing, whether or not they "hear" the reasoning intellectually. You may be able to use your imagination to put your feet in the shoes of the thousands of people who throng to the Old City every Shavuot. Some of the people recall that Shavuot is one of the three festivals that the Torah calls for Aliya largely "going up (by foot) to the Bais HaMikdash. Others have no idea of what you would be talking about if you were to refer to this mitzvah. They still come. Something inside them recalls the oath.

This year, after shiur in Neve, I walked with my students from Bnos Avigail. We left at 1 a.m., but Kanfei Nesharim was far from silent. There were people heading in our direction, and people who "brought the Mountain to them" by spending the night in study. When we passed the yeshiva at the end of the street, it could have been mid-morning. The lights were on, every seat was full, and the energy was almost tangible in the Merkaz HaRav building.

After we passed the central bus station things changed. The street which had until now had its darkness and silence pierced by the sound of Torah and the light chatter of sem girls and the sprinkling of adults moving eastward now took on a different shading. Kids dressed in the uniform of “Those At Risk” appeared out of nowhere. They were heading in the same direction that we were. One of my students approached me quietly and asked if they were Jewish. (It's Ramadan, and she was on edge). I assured her that they are "mishelanu"- ours. More and more different brands of Jews mixed as we entered the Jaffa gate. It was about 2:15am when we arrived at the Jewish Quarter's community center via the shuk (market). Its narrow cobblestone road was full of “Members of the Tribe” whether they had the words or not, everyone felt like part of the holy nation of kohanim, who have the task of drawing the world closer to its Source, and drawing down blessing from above.

The reason that you hear this oath goes back to an earlier oath we all made. The Talmud tells you that before you were born you knew the entire Torah, but forgot it before you could be born. It was at that time that your soul swore to be righteous and not wicked, and that even if the entire world tells you that you are a tzadik, you will remain a rasha in your own eyes. What this means is that the subconscious drive to do what's right is a voice that you all hear. None of you ever will feel "perfect"- your soul won't let you. Neither will the soul of all of the rest of us heading towards the spiritual core of the world.

What does this tell you, back in Great Neck or L.A., or London? It tells you that there is a part of you that will keep the oath. It's up to you to find out how. You have the same commandments as I do, but your life and mine are not meant to be the same. You have to head to the same place as I do, but as yourself.
When your ancestors approached Mount Sinai, they heard lightening and saw thunder. No, this isn't a typo. Their narrow understanding that truth is what your senses tell you (“If I see it, I'll believe it”), was exposed for what it is, an illusion. Your senses themselves are only creations, and function as such. The One, who makes eyes see, is the same One who can just as easily make them hear. Your ears can hear only because that's how Hashem programmed them; anything can change at any moment. The only unchanging truth is Hashem's will. The beginning of your journey towards the truth that was revealed at Mount Sinai begins when you let Hashem's words, "I am Hashem who took you out of Egypt" resonate not to your ears, but to your soul.

It was so crowded.

It's impossible to daven at the Kotel on Shavuos. You drift as your fellow travelers, unconsciously longing to be part of the Nation and its dream, embrace you. There are the discordant sound of simultaneous minyanim praying in different styles until there is the brief respite of the silent amidah a dawn. We davened at the Churvah synagogue above the Kotel. It was still crowed enough to be, well, breath-taking. The words of praise were said in absolute silence, followed by shmoneh esreh and the singing of Hallel with the kind of unity that echoes the kind of unity that we had so many years ago. When the tefillah was over, we retraced our steps, viewed the Kotel again, and headed home watching everyone retreat into taking Shavuot's oaths into their lives.

​You were there.
Find out what you can take with you.
Your book is yet unknown and unwritten
 
As ever, Tziporah
 

Dear Friends,

Most of you don't know Melissa, but the truth is that it doesn't matter. You know the Melissa's of this world. They are the ones who take the world and make it their own, the ones who don’t wonder where the wonder of living disappeared to, leaving only with the memory of what you wanted your life to be.
​
This week's Parshah includes Bircat Kohanim, the ancient triple blessing that is still recited by Kohanim today. The last one is, "And may He give you peace". It's so easy to confuse peace with complacency. They are very different. In Hebrew the word shalom has the same root as the word shalem, which means "whole". Peace is wholeness, not passivity. The two are very, very different.

Today Is Yom Yerushalaim, meaning it is anniversary of the day in which the Old City was recaptured from the Jordanians who had taken it in 1948, destroying its synagogues and sending the women and children to an uncertain fate. The men were taken as prisoners of war and suffered for months in the desert until they were traded. Most of the families ended up in what is today Katamon and adjacent areas, unless they had families who could take them in. They started their lives all over again and with the courage and optimism raised their families. They were helped to rebuild by the rest of the Jews living in Israel at the time.

Who were they? Mostly impoverished refuges themselves! The scar of the war in 1948 was a barbed wire fence that ripped the city apart, separating its heart, the Kotel, from its body. In 1967, all of our neighbors declared war against us. The impetus was the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdul Nasser dreaming of a gigantic pan-Arab nation, and our presence was a thorn in his eye. No one thought we could survive. In less than a week, everything changed.

I read a published fragment of a diary written by a young soldier. He studied in yeshiva, but since his childhood, he dreamed of being a paratrooper, when the time came he enlisted in that branch of the army. It was the Monday of the war. He gathered his courage an approached the commander, Motta Gur. "Are we going to take the Old City?" he asked. "I don't know yet, it depends on how things develop." "When the time comes, can I be one who goes in?" "I'll do my best", Gur answered. In the meantime, the soldier was sent to the area around the tomb of Shimon Tzadik, near where Ohr Sameach is today. Then the command came. He led his group street by street. He was ahead of the others, checking out what they were going to face. Suddenly he found himself facing the Kotel. The plaza that we have today was not yet built. It was part of the warren of tiny streets that you see when you walk through the shuk. He could barely take in what he was facing. He had put his tefillin in his pack and now took them out. After putting them on, he said the Shma, and then stood and said the silent Amida. Only when he came to the blessing "Blesssed are You who builds Yerushalim", something in him broke, and the dam that was holding back his tears broke, and he found himself weeping. Suddenly he heard steps. Four Arabs were heading towards him. "Put your hands up over your heads," he found himself shouting in Arabic. They did, which he immediately knew was a miracle. Suddenly there was more noise. It was his men, and then others, and then tens and tens more who stood in awe at what they lived to see.

This past Friday I found myself saying "It's so, so hot. Maybe I'll just skip the Kotel."
Hashem make me more like Melissa!

Yours,
Tziporah