Dear Friends,

Did you make the time to think about how much Hashem has given you this year? Some of His gifts, the kinds that come wrapped in the experiencial version of shiny gift wrap; joyous occasions, unexpected moments of profound beauty.; people who entered your life and will become part of you and the gift of having more capacity to be who you want to be, so that you meet challenges far more successfully than you ever thought that you could. There are also gifts you dreaded receiving and didn't want to open. That doesn't mean that they weren't gifts; at the time that's certainly not what they look like or feel like. Sometimes you can look back, and recognize how precious they were.

This past week I was fortunate enough to be at my granddaughter Shoshi's wedding. Some of you may know her from having stopped by my house of Friday morning when she would come by to clean. Her squeeky new husband's father was talking about something that took place in his life that he sees as a real gift, but that's not how it felt at the time.

He was in the States on business. He left on time to get to the city he was headed to on time on Friday. Don't you know the next sentence before I write it? To make a long story short, he and his partner ended up in an anonymous motel with various unrelated items that he managed to pick up at the nearest convenience store (I imagine that it must have been a real feast, featuring canned peaches, matzah and ‘Must’ chewing gum, or something similar.) From then on, whenever he left on a longish trip, there was always wine challah and other basics in the trunk. What makes this story worth hearing is a story within the story.

He just had to do a flashback on his father's life, and all the strength you could ever want would flow through his veins. His father was born in the States in an era when Torah institutions were still unheard of; in a world enamored with modernity. Modern equals American. American equals good, sucessful and most of all redemption from a painful past. He was sent to yeshiva in New Haven, which was just about  the only show in town at the time. The late tzadik, Rav Scheinberg ztl was there as a young man just about at the same time. The next step in his life was marriage, and with that facing the struggle to earn a living while still keeping shabbos. The possiblities were somewhere between non-existant and brutal.

A friend had invested in a farm, and had began to make grapejuice. The next step was marketing the stuff. Neither man thought that there would be any possiblity of marketing to the general public. Our hero's job was to take the bottles of grapejuice (and later wine), and show it to other religious (or at least wannabe religious) Jews who would want kosher wine for kiddush. Step one was getting them to taste the stuff. Step two was to take orders. So far, so good. The next step was to deliver cases of grapejuice to the customers. For him that meant lugging cases up and down the stairs as he crossed Brooklyn-Manhattan topography again and again. He had a shopping wagon that held several cases. That meant repeating the entire process with mind numbing repititions. The end of the story is the world famous Kedem wine which many of you have heard of and tasted. You might think that when the week finally came to an end, and he could park the wagon in the basement, shower and dress for shabbos that there would be only one thought filling his mind; sleep. Get through the services in the synagogue. Do the meal and head to the heaven in the back of the house, slip between the sheets and float off into blessed oblivion. That's not what happened. He was filled with energy, joy, so that each moment of the day was treasured. No wonder that his son carried shabbos in his inner repertoire of beloved moments.

You may not have that in your repertoire. That means just one thing: you can be the one whose story is the first one in your family's diary. Your hard moments can be changing your life and your children's lives, and the lives of anyone who will know you, far beyond the reaches of your family. Your hearing this story changed you (whether you realize it or not), and will change anyone who will know you.
The main thing for you to realize on Rosh Hashanah is that underneath many layers, your deepest self wants Hashem, who knows you better than you know yourself, and loves you far more than you can possibly love yourself, to be the only One who writes your script.
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May Hashem grant us all a chativa vechatima tova,
Tziporah

Dear Friends,

Some things about time's passage are deceptive. Israel's headlines today could have been copied from almost any Israeli paper printed since the State's beginning. Political turmoil; will there be a cabinet crisis? Tension on the northern border; Arab hostility… Yawn. Last week's Parshah, Ki Teitzei has a narrative that can open your eyes to the possibility of staying really alive, and not submitting to the deadening habits of thinking 'Nothing is Ever New'.

The Torah tells us about a case that we are also told never occurred and never will. It is the case of a boy between twelve and a half and thirteen who steals a huge amount of meat and eats in the company of bad companions without it being really cooked. He also has to drink a great deal of wine and to top it off, his parents have to warn him to stop this kind of behavior in the presence of valid witnesses, and do everything in their power to get him to stop. If this has no effect, he is brought before the court, and if the evidence proves his guilt he is killed. You can easily see why this isn't going to happen: All he has to do is to cook the meat a little longer, or just wait a couple of months until the entire case isn't relevant.

So, why do we learn it? The word 'Torah' is related to the word 'Horaah', meaning teaching. Nothing is irrelevant. A further question is the way he is put to death. The justification for his execution is that he will inevitably go through his parents money and end up a thief and a murderer. The fact is though, that the means of execution for murder is death by the sword, which is less severe than the punishment meted out to the rebellious son. It appears on the surface that the potential for murder is worse than the deed itself. Rav Aharon Kotler asked these questions and resolved it with his hallmark brilliance.

The majority of murders are the result of emotions gone wild. Passion. Fear. Greed. Hatred. The case of the rebellios son (which as stated previously was never an actual case, but an instruction about what life is really like) tells you that there is  something worse. That is reaching point in which the default response to life is one that can only turn you into a monster. Training yourself to impulsivity, animalistic inability to say no to yourself under any ciurcimstance, turns you into a human beast. Conceivably there is a murderer out there who has other parts of his inner life that are still spiritually real. While he will still be executed (since human beings can only judge deeds, not the of another person), we believe that it is possible for him to do tshuvah and to die in that state. When you turn yourself into a human beast through inner corruption that is manifest by reaching a point where your habits of respnse silence your conscience so totally that you can't control yourself at all, there is no one left to save.

What does this have to do with you? Rav Dessler says that on Rosh HaShanah we are judged by Hashem, who is the only One who can judge you as a human being. If you are sincere about wanting to change direction, and break free of distructive responses to life, even if you haven't fully integrated your desire to change, and even though it will take time, and there will be failures, you are judged favorably. You have demonstrated to Him that you are still alive inside.

Don't be too hard on yourselves! You have all proven that you can change direction just by having chosen to learn. Just have enough inner courage to  keep it up, which isn't always easy once you are out of the bubble. Do what you can to find good friends, mentors, and most of all, see your own goodness.
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As ever,
Tziporah

 
Dear Friends,

Let me share something of my day.

I made a really stupid (yes, sometimes that’s the right word) mistake. The result was a great deal of having to eat humble pie and face the embarrassment of asking other people to renegotiate their plans because of my goof up. There was a time that I would have found this so unbearable that I would do my best to bury the entire incident in the sand. Today things are different. The moment I faced my victim wasn’t a picnic - I am not at that level - but afterwards I was able to go back (unfortunately not too far back) to times in which I judged other people’s inefficiency very harshly. The fact that I may have been right technically in seeing their mistakes as avoidable and reflective of lack of thought was mirrored by my own having made a mistake that was avoidable and the result of lack of thought. All in all, I think that Hashem did (as always) a great job of opening doors that I closed. And of course, there is no time like Elul for this to happen.

When you review your year (what an assignment!) you may find an unimaginable amount of freebies and almost unimaginable positive interventions, and a similar amount of challenges and difficulties. The truth is all of them are blessings, but it is reasonable to use a different word to describe your feelings about losing a job that you really liked to the way you describe your feelings about finding a job that is your dream.  The fact is that some experiences are painful, and others give you immediate joy. The long term picture is often different, but hey, you are living today, not tomorrow. The deeper perception of what today is about may change your Elul.

The Torah tells us “Be simple with Hashem your G-d”. Targum Unkelos, the classical and original translation of Torah to Aramaic often substitutes commonly used Aramaic words for Hebrew words that are steeped in profound symbolism. He translates “simple” as “complete”. This is of course very close to the way we use the word “simple” in chemistry; it excludes compounds that are mixtures of more than one component. When you say “pure honey”, you mean “only honey”, simple honey unadulterated with any “improvements”. Being simple with Hashem means being willing to walk the path that He sets out for you without second guessing Him. The halachic side of this would mean that you don’t go to fortune-tellers, don’t give in to superstitious nonsense, and don’t try to predict the future using tarot cards or a Ouija board. It means more.
It means that when you are faced with a choice, you examine the realties that Hashem places in front of you. You accept the need to make choices as His will, and you do your best to make the choice that seems right at the time. What you don’t do is assume that if you don’t get the results that you wanted, that something necessarily was wrong in your choice making. Rather, look at the new reality you face, accept it, and move on with the next choice. Does that mean that your choices are irrelevant?

Absolutely not...

It means that your choices may not change what Hashem had in store for you, but definitely will change you. Rambam tells us that you can end up as great a tzadik as Moshe. No, he didn’t say that you will be as great a prophet (in fact he tells us that there will never be a prophet whose prophecies are like Moshe’s). It does mean that you will be as great on a human level as he was if you walk simply with Hashem, and make the best choices in the areas that He opens up for you).

One of the problems that I come across frequently is that some of you think that your lives are lived in the slow lane. You find yourself questioning how much difference your choices really make. Let’s say you are a programmer and come home at night, eat dinner, talk a little, read a book, maybe make a call or two, maybe take in a shiur once a week, maybe go to the gym or the pool, and then it's time to get ready for tomorrow. No headlines here.

Bear this in mind:
When Rivka gave Eliezer and his men and camels as much water as they needed, it wouldn’t have made the papers either. When Moshe went after a small lamb and ended up seeing the burning bush in which Hashem appeared to him, it was no doubt a day much like the day before. I am sure that this was not the first time that his compassion for his father in law’s flock came into play. When you work at your job with the kind of an example that brings some fresh air to your environment, when you encourage a friend to see herself as an interesting person by really listening to her when she talks about her day, when you call someone who needs a call (or call home and give something of yourself to your parents) you are changing yourself. You have no way of knowing how great the change in you is. It may take place when you say shema at night, and think for a moment about Hashem's unity, or when you feel life force flow through your body in the gym or pool and you recognize its source.
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You are judged by Hashem for where you are, not for where someone else is. If you could be more simple, you might realize how many times you chose to draw closer to Him and to other people, you might feel the Ani LeDodi (I am for my Beloved) part of Elul, and let that open you up to recognizing how much the other part, VeDodi Li (My Beloved is for me) has always been there..
 
As always,
Tziporah

Dear Friends,

How come babies don’t need vacation?

The reason that this question seems relevant to me (at least at the moment) is that I have just returned home from a marvelous long weekend with some of my family. It took place in Nazareth no less. The city has two sections, and needless to say the place we stayed was in the upper city, which is Jewish. It still sounds really funny to say that that is where I spent my vacation.  The hotel was rented by two brothers who are the sons of Rabbi Yitzchak Stern. I will tell you a little about him, and that will answer to a large degree the Problem Of Infantile Contentment With Life.

I meet Rabbi Stern a short time after my marriage. We lived in Brooklyn for a month, and then armed with $2000, extreme naiveté, and very opened ended plans, we arrived in Israel. The Plan was to stay for two years, and we never actually had a discussion about staying longer. We just did. Our first month was in a friend's apartment. The couple lent us their Bnei Brak home while they visited with their family abroad. This should be ample time for us to plan our lives. It was (sort of).

My husband decided that he wanted to learn in Brisk, which at the time was a very iffy proposition. When he gained admission, it was time to move. My own plans were to find a job and keep house. Since I had absolutely no experience in either area, getting my feet wet was not a simple matter. I had a teaching diploma, but teachers in Yerushalaim were as plentiful as mushrooms after a rain. I had no trouble finding the kind of job that would be a good addition to the income I could earn at a real job (a few hours teaching English in slum schools, one afternoon a week being a companion to an elderly lady, and a bit of house cleaning).

Finding a real job was something else. I finally found what seemed to have potential. Bayit Lepleitot is an orphanage for girls that was started after the war when the country was overwhelmed by the flood of kids who survived, but whose parents didn't. Today, thank G-d, this is no longer the situation, but there are still many girls who come from dysfunctional homes, or homes in which the poverty is so great that their parents literally have no place to put them, and no means of providing them with the basic necessities. It was headed by a Yerushalmi Rabbi, but Rabbi Stern kept the boat afloat. He was a man with a tremendous amount of energy who literally spent the entire day doing good without much respite.

While I didn't last very long in his office we lived on the same street in Geulah, and remained acquainted. I always felt a great deal of admiration for him. He carried the lives of hundreds of girls from the ages of 3 until whenever they got married. He found them their shidduchim, paid for their weddings, and stayed in the picture if they needed him for anything at all. For this reason, years later when I came across a student in Neve who needed someone to take over, I thought of him. President Reagan was the chief honcho in the States at the time. One of his policies in meeting his unrelenting goal of balancing the budget was to release all of the mental patients who weren't a danger to themselves or others.

​My student (let's call her Miri, which isn't her name), had a sister, Lisa, who had been an in-patient in a closed ward for over 15 years. A schizophrenic, she had very little sense of reality. After her release, she ended up expecting. No one (least of all Lisa) had any idea of who the father is, and what fate would await the unborn child. Miri decided that she wanted to bring up her sister's baby instead of surrendering it to the Social Service System. This is where Rabbi Stern entered the picture. I made an appointment for MIri. He took over from there. Citizenship, legal adoption, transportation, was all just another part of his day. It never entered his mind to say that this isn't his business, and being a student of his ex-secretary Miri part of his job. Two other children followed (until Reagan rethought his policy). Miri, at the ripe old age of 23 took all of them. She eventually married (Rabbi Stern again). Although the marriage didn't endure, he was there for her every step along the way. The kids are now all adult. They live here, are normal, productive, and well-adjusted members of the Tribe. Who knows what would have been the story if Rabbi Stern was a believer in the famous dictum, "Mind your own business". The critical words that he used when MIri spoke to him was, "I'll help you, you aren't alone."

A baby has no doubts and no stress. The inborn recognition that there is someone who is there for them is strengthened every time their mother picks them up and feeds them. With Elul around the corner, it's time to try to relearn what we once knew. You aren't alone. You are cared for and cared about. Everything that you experienced along the way, has a reason and is ultimately where you had to be at the time. There is no door that you can close that Hashem will nor re-open (possibly in a different way).

The month of compassion and forgiveness is here. Begin by finding the place in you that is secure enough to forgive others, and to ask them for forgiveness. The more you entrust your emotional life to the One who gives you life moment by moment, the easier this will be.
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As ever,
Tziporah