Dear friends,
The fast is half over, and I can’t help thinking about the difference between my version of the diaspora experience, and the version that the people who came before me had.

What could it have been like to be forced out of Israel when as far as you know, expulsion means doom? It means disappearance. After all, isn’t that what your eyes tell has happened to every other nation that ended up divorced from its land?

 I can’t go there. I was born to a cosmopolitan society in which almost no one I know lives where their ancestors lived. When I ask girls in Neve, where is your family from, I get answers like, Eastern Europe, England, South Africa, Bukhara, Israel, Russia, Morocco, Syria, Persia, Mexico, and more (we are a rather international bunch at Neve!). Once n a very long time, “my family was in the States 7 generations”. My reality is just too far to find geographical exile to the horror it actually is. The fact is that none of our ancestors left their homes for adventure; they left because they had no real choices left.

I didn’t stand in their shoes. 

Growing up in the States never felt like exile. It’s the culture that feels like home, the language that I speak best, and the place that nurtured my Jewish self. My aliya was far more a matter of “going to” what turned out to be a far more intense and vivid version of being alive, than “escaping from” fear of death or the kind of poverty that no one in the 21stcentury can relate to. Every so often the holocaust sneaks in and breaks through my wall of indifference. I will share some of my more recent vicarious exile experiences.
​
My son lives on Chai Taib (for those of you who for whatever reason are coming out of a cave, that is in Har Nof). There is a small synagogue near his house. One of the regulars is a man in his nineties, with the strength of a man far younger. He appointed himself the shul’s caretaker. He straightens up, puts the siddurs and chumashes back on the shelves, and sees that the shul’s general appearance is inviting. Every so often the shul has a shalosh seudos, or a bris, and food is served. Once, after a meal, someone wrapped up the plastic table cloth and threw it in the trash can along with everything that was on it. The old man turned to my son, and said, “Look! There’s a lot of rolls in there. They’re still good. Take them home, you have kids”. To tell you the truth, my son had absolutely no desire to salvage the rolls, and told the man that Baruch Hashem, he has bread in the house. That wasn’t good enough. “You’re just too arrogant to use them. You don’t know what bread is worth”. And then, this man, who made a principle of never discussing the holocaust, opened up. “I ended up deported with three friends. Once a crust fell from of one of the guard’s sandwiches, and he just walked away.  All three fell over themselves trying to get a piece of the crust: I was too far”, There was nothing more to say. My son took the whole rolls out of the plastic wrap and brought them home. Did they eat them? I don’t know, but it opened his heart enough to want to, just to share something of the old man’s pain.

The other story is about one of the great lights of the pre-war world, Rebbe Avraham Elimelech of Karlin. He saw the clouds beginning to gather far before anyone could anticipate that they would inundate the world with the kind of horror it had never known. He travelled to Eretz Yisrael in the late 30’s to pray at the kivrei tzadikim and entreat Hashem to change the decree. The old Karlin chassidim still know how shaken they felt when they saw him daven with tears running down his cheeks. He made it clear that he would not remain in Israel, he would not abandon his people back in Karlin when they needed him the most. He sailed on what turned out to be the last boat heading out to Europe before the war broke out. He spent the next 2 years in the Pinsk-Karlin ghetto suffering hunger and the constant threat of death. In the last days of the ghetto’s existence the great majority of inhabitants had already been sent to Auschwitz, where many of them had already turned into ashes. The remaining Jews were ordered out, they were told to search their “homes” and give over anything of value. They were then gathered together, and told to strip off their clothing. It was clear that these were their final moments. The Rebbe, and his son said no. This was not the way the plan was supposed to go, from the perspective of the SS men. No one says no. They were the first ones to be shot. They would not let themselves be killed more than once; their bodies are vulnerable but they would not willing give up their human dignity.

When I heard the story the first time, I wondered whether they were right. Even a moment of life has infinite value, and the Talmud tells you to never give up hope even if the hangman’s noose is around your neck. It does however say (Maggid Mishneh one of the commentaries on the Rambam in perek 5 of Yesodei HaTorah) that a person who is known in his generation for piety, is permitted to give up his life for love of Hashem to avoid any transgression, not just the 3 cardinal sins.

You may be reasonably wondering why this story touched me so deeply. It’s because in our current exile, no one has to force you or me to lose our basic sense of dignity. It’s gone. We have absorbed the degradation of the society that we live in. The appalling rate of assimilation tells the whole story. Most of the unaffiliated Jews I know are beautiful people. They could understand the way the old man in the synagogue values bread, and would respond to him with understanding and sensitivity (as I am proud to say my son did). Most of them would not really understand the second story. They grew up in a society in which (as Rabbi Mannis Friedman says famously) No One Blushes Anymore. 

We are in deep galus, perhaps deeper than the physical oppression that was the norm just a few generations ago.

We are redeemable. Every last one of us. We have to pray, be personal examples, and hope for the times that Yechezkel prophesized as being ones in which even Jews who don’t know they are Jews, return.

Love,
Tziporah

​Dear friends,
Every season the Jewish calendar has its own soul. We adjust the calendar by making
sure that Pesach comes out in the spring, a time of renewal and growth, by having leap
years. The two hottest months of the Jewish year, Tammuz and Av, are months that
have historically spouted tragedy. The “season” of the chaos that defines exile and living
without answers begins with the 17th of Tammuz and reach its climax on the 9 th of Av. In
the classical Jewish calendar, there are 6 seasons (some of you may remember this
from Rashi in Parshat Noach. Just joking…). The season’s name is kayitz, which means
the end, the time that is as far from blossoming and growth as you can get.
Nonetheless, it’s a time in which you can learn how to come back to yourself. You have
all had times in your life when you felt that your back was to the wall, times in which
there was no place to escape the reality that surrounds you except turning to Hashem.
Feeling trapped and choked seems like the end. In many people’s life, it is the
beginning.

Last night I was in Kafir Charrith. What? You never heard of it? It’s a medium size Arab
village not far from Ariel and is the place where Yehoshua and Kalev ben Yefuneh are
buried. Periodically one of the groups that arrange trips to the less accessible tombs of
tzadikim organize trips to Kafir Charrith (with the security provided by the army). When
you go a few times, you end up on their list. When I received their call, something in me
said, “yes”. It isn’t a dream trip. You leave at about 9 pm and return at about 2am. It
involves about walking 20 minutes through the kfar, there is something about the three
weeks that made me recall Yehoshua and Kalev, and when I heard that there was a trip,
I said, “count me in”. Much to my surprise, there were hundreds of people on the buses.
What made me think of them now?

It was because their lives told me how to be when you are trapped. When they were
sent to spy out Eretz Yisrael immediately before the Jews were anticipating entering the
Land, along with 10 others. The others felt trapped by the horror that they anticipated
that the conquest and settling the land would bring upon them. They saw that the people
were strong, the cities fortified, and there was no chance of surviving battle after battle
against them. They were right excluding Hashem’s promises.
They should have known better - they had seen the sea split, and the miraculous
intervention that took place in their battle against the Amalekites. One of the women, in
the very Land that they were afraid to conquer saw the same things. She recognized that
life would never be the same. The waters split all over the world; the sun stood still for
everyone. Trying to “escape” into “normal” was not an option. She waited until the
moment was right, and when Yehoshua sent spies she helped them in every way
possible. When the time of conquest came, as was arranged she had a red string
hanging from her window, so that the Jews would recognize her house as belonging to
someone who was very much on the same page that they were. Eventually she
converted, married Yehoshua and ended up with 9 descendants who were prophets.
One of them was Yishayahu, who prophesized both the destruction and the beauty of
the ultimate redemption.

Visiting the tombs of the Tzadikim can be both inspiring and a source of connection to
visions of life that are bigger than you are. You are not them; you have your choices,
your potentials, your background. You still can be very much on the same path. Who
could be more different than Yehoshua and Rachav if you are looking at ethnic
background, life experience or any of the other factors that can be so definitive? What
made it possible was what I call “spiritual flexibility” which means seeking Hashem when
He is concealed, and seeking Him with just as much love when you instinctively think
you “don’t need Him”, because everything is going well. Your particular way of finding
Him is not like anyone else’s.
One of the great sources of nachas that I have, is that my daughter loves the kivrei
tzadikim as much as I do. We both pore over Rav Gamliel’s books on the topic (and by
doing so, also discover that some of them are not necessarily real - of course we choose
the ones that have solid basis for their authenticity.) I am including her add for those of
you in Israel, and for those of you abroad, it offers you the chance to experience some
good old envy.
For those of you who come, explanations of who these greats were are a part of the
trip…
Love,
Tziporah

A TIME FOR YIDISHKEIT
with

Rebbitzen Tziporah Heller
Day of Davening for Women
at the Kivrei Tzadikim in Eretz Yisrael
Monday 26th Tamuz / 29TH July 2019

550 nis

ITINERARY
Kever Rabbi Abdami De Man Haifa
Mearat Eliyahu
Kever Rabbi Yishmael Kohen Gadol
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai
Rabbi Yehuda Bar Ilai
Rabbi Benayahu Ben Yehoyada
Choni Hameagel
Amuka (with time)
- 079 500183 -

DINNER at Bar Yochai!

Thanks for joining us on this exciting and inspiring Davening Day!
With a prayer that all our tefillos will be answered for the best and that we will be

zocheh to see the Geula Bimhera veyameinua.

Devorah
0548495896

Dear friends,

People often ask me if going to the States is a culture shock. It isn’t. Nothing really changed since my childhood. People are still earning it and spending it, and enjoying the process to varying degrees.

Israel is constantly changing. It moves so fast that you don’t even have time to escape feeling more or less continually in the grips of culture shock. I have culture shock when I go to Malchah Mall (which was the largest mall in the mid-east when it was built, and now is Nothing Special). When I first came to Israel every possible item was sold in its own specific store. Even meat and chicken were sold in their respective Ma and Pa enterprises. Most businesses closed Tuesday afternoons and didn’t reopen, while on the other days closed between 2 and 4 for siesta. Most women worked until 1, when the troops came home from school, and taking full day job was for those whose kids had flown the coop. When I recently heard that the seminaries are no longer even offering courses in “little” jobs because there is no demand, Culture Shock made its next appearance.

All of this came to mind when I was watching the scene at Bnos Avigail’s graduation on Tuesday. The girls grew up in a different world than I did. They have a “normal” that they think is : The Way It Is. This is normal only when you are young enough to not see beyond your specific frame of reference. They don’t know how fast the world changes. The trick is to enjoy the show.

Hashem is taking us exactly where we want to be and have to be in the unfolding vision He had when He began creating the world.

If you want to enjoy the show the first step is to refrain from speaking lashon hara. Loshon hara is toxic. It poisons your view of life, and your ability to view the world optimistically. It allows you to focus on the perennially empty half of the glass, while ignoring the half full aspect that you have just as easily chosen to make reality’s center. 

Going back to Malchah Mall. People had a lot of negative things to say when it opened. Lots of kvetching about how it is just another step leading us all down the road to the bottomless pit of indiscriminate consumerism. When I opened the radio that night to hear the news, I was surprised to hear that Rabbi Kaduri, the famous Moroccan Kabbalist had come to the mall. He blessed the mall, wished all of the storekeepers and vendors success, and even inspired one of them to have a room in the back of his store where he would put his unsold end-of-the-year items and give them to people whose economic situation makes buying new clothes an unrealized dream.

The same choice is yours to make when you think about the ever-growing number of people who go to the Kotel. You can let the negativism speak so loudly that all you hear inside of yourself is that people have lost contact with the kedushah of the kotel and relate to it as still another tourist attraction. You can make another choice. You can see the thousands of people who stream to the holy Wall as living testimony of how alive the spark of longing for kedushah still is in the hearts of so many people who have no idea of what it is that they are experiencing.

The halachic definition of lashon hara is speech that is negative, harmful and true in the narrow sense of the word true. After all, it’s just as accurate to say the glass is half empty as it is to say the glass is half full. 
​
Love,
Tziporah