Dear friends,

One of the more interesting things about having a large family, is the huge age difference between the children. The way things work, is that you are actually raising several different generations simultaneously.  When the older ones marry, things get more complicated. The children of the older ”generation” are more or less the same age as the children of your younger” generation…”.

Envision this happening on an ordinary Shabbos afternoon. The girls are schmoozing in the kitchen. Four boys who are brothers, but of different “generations”, are hanging out in the living room. The four- year old built a really huge tower using magnablox. It’s far bigger than he is, and he is standing on the couch to add what presumably will be the penthouse, since there are no more pieces for another story. Suddenly the entire structure meets the fate of all kid-built towers; it crashes to the floor. The little boy begins to cry inconsolably. His older brother who just entered yeshiva ketana (high school age yeshiva) says, in the manner of unsympathetic teenage boys “you don’t even know what’s worth crying over. I’m in trouble with the mashgiach. That’s real.”. The twenty-two-year-old says, “That’s nothing. Apologize and grow up. You don’t know what real life is about. The last date I had was a disaster.  I really wanted it to work, but she doesn’t want to see me again. That’s the real stuff”. The 35-year-old interjects, “Forget it. You’ll find the right one when Hashem wants you to. You can’t imagine the stress of meeting mortgage payments and paying tuition at the same time. You don’t know how demanding raising a family is”. They are all right. They have all forgotten some things, and are not as yet willing or able to see other things. Enter their worlds, so you can see something of yourself in them.

Be the four-year-old. Did you forget how much fun it was to build your fantasy with the brightly colored tiles? How important it is for you to see them crash so you can move on to things that are more real.

Be the fifteen- year old. Did you forget how much you love the moment your mom took you to buy your clothes, as you saw yourself moving into another phase, one that has more truth and more power. How much you want to shine, and how the mashgiach is there to help you not fall back.

Be the twenty-two-year old. Did you forget how much you want to see yourself move beyond being a piece in what is ultimately someone else’s puzzle. How each date gave you hope that your time has finally come. How much you want it to be the right one, and how honest you have to be about how both of you have to be on the same page, and what an important lesson this will be later.

Be the thirty-five-year-old. Did you forget how struggling and sacrifice turns you into the kind of hero you want more than anything to be, and how your kids and your responsibilities build you more than they take from you.

Why am I telling you all this? With Rosh Hashanah rapidly approaching, it’s important for you to have a deeper and broader vision of who you are, and what it is you really want in the coming year. You want to live a meaningful life, which ultimately means having a real connection to Hashem. You don’t want to spend the next 50 years doing the equivalent of weeping over fallen pieces of plastic. 
​
One of the customs for Elul is reciting Tehillim 27. Arguably the most meaningful line is “I ask for one thing; it’s that that I seek; to live in Hashem’s House all the days of my life….” Being in Hashem’s house in the simplest sense means living to see the Bais HaMikdash. King David, the author of this psalm lived before the Temple was built. He wanted to be close to Hashem, surrounded by His presence. Aware of being a member of His community and living a life in which every day and every activity has meaning.
David was a king. His function was to act as a living example of what it means to let the ultimate king, Hashem rule. He had to relate to Hashem with absolute selflessness. He was forbidden to have the horses, women, and money that gave other rulers their sense of importance. His role was to be part of the greater picture continually.

On Rosh Hashanah, your main task is to commit yourself to being conscious of how much you want Hashem to be your ruler. Not your ego. No other people’s voices from your past or your present. Not your bank account (or lack thereof…) and certainly not your body’s endless demands.

One week of Elul is behind us. It’s a good time to think about how free you can be if you let Hashem be your own ruler. How much more fun life is when you see the whole process, and not just the incomplete episodes.

Now be yourself
Forgetful
Stuck in the visions of fragmentation
Longing for the Whole
And
Make room for it
 
Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,

I went to shul this morning (yes, Sunday, not Shabbos, such things happen…) and heard the shofar. (no, not Rosh Hashanah, just the first day of Elul)

Elul is the last month of the Hebrew calendar. It’s a time of taking all of the lose pieces of your life, and trying to tie them together. Very appropriately, Rabbi Edelstein of Neve is introducing an alumni shiur, so that girls who “finish” Neve (no, you never really finish Neve (no comparisons to summer colds p lease). For a long time after I finished seminary in Bnei Brak, I received a monthly letter from the principal together will all of the other graduates. At the time they were meaningful-they brought me back to the heady idealism of seminary. When we moved away from my first apartment, I didn’t bother giving the office my new address. It was so clear to me that everything I read is so completely integrated that it wasn’t worth the effort. If I were to have them today (yes, I threw them out.), they would mean more. They would give me insight into what Elul is, which is really examining who you are, why you emerged as you did, and who you want to be in the future. 

Rambam delineates various things that make you yourself. 

Your biological heredity is a factor. I often suspected that intellectual ability has a hereditary side when I looked at some of the great rabbinical families such as the Soloveitchiks. More recently I discovered that all sorts of other stuff, like dyslexia and ODD are part of the package.

 The next factor is what you chose to integrate from your environment and make your own. My parents were both scrupulously honest with money. I still remember how my mother went to Bais Yaakov to enroll me. I was about to enter the 7thgrade, had only after- school Hebrew School background. My mother came as is; no hair covering and no pretentions of being more religious than she was.  I doubt if I would be accepted into Bais Yaakov today. The rabbi asked me briefly if I am sure that this is what I want, looked at both of us, and took out the forms. When my mother asked him how much the tuition was, he told her $9.00 a month ($100 then, was like $802.70 today. Even factoring in inflation, tuition then was very low. The parents were mostly immigrants, and the little they paid was food off the table.) There was a split-second pause. He expected her to bargain. She didn’t. Nor did she ever miss a payment, or send it late. This was far from normal in an era when no one paid retail….

My father similarly was a straight arrow. His furniture business turned sour when the neighborhood his store was located in changed. His customers had to be chased into a corner to get the money they had committed to pay out of their wallets. That never was an excuse to add on charges (or to defraud the government by not reporting income).  There is no way to delete these images. They are as much part of me as my eye color or my hair.You are more than your heredity and your environment. 

You have also made choices that narrow your future choices. One of my neighbors and English teacher whose has made computer graphics her hobby. Whenever there is an “occasion” in the building-a bris or a wedding, or someone moves away, there is always a witty sign with an appropriate message. The effect on her, is that she has become, over the years, an extremely sensitive person, aware of the ebbs and flows of other people’s lives and has developed into a person who is always there for them. I doubt that she realized that her first Mazal Tov sign would be the first step into becoming a person positively involved in other people’s lives, but it did. When tragedy strikes, she is there. When one of the neighbors developed memory issues, she was there, subtly helping the family. The big choices are often pre-made by the small ones.
​
You also have gifts, potentials that not everyone else has. You may be the kind of person who intuitively knows how to make other people relate to you and to each other. You may have musical talent, or the ability to be silent and content. You may have used your gifts well, not at all, or (in the worst case) as a tool to manipulate others. My daughter’s father in law Elya Succot is a very well- known Israeli artist. His paintings and murals can be seen all over the world. The themes are inevitably of the joy of seeking and finding Hashem. His style is impressionistic, and full of intricate sub-designs well hidden in the main focus of the painting. Really looking at his paintings are like a walk through the fields and forests of your inner life. He made choices. When he was young, and studied art  in Italy, he could have let things take an entirely different direction.

You have also developed habits that you may or may not realize have become part of you. How do you respond when you are afraid, or feel trapped? Do you know how to keep your mind and heart on the same page? The way you respond today, may be the product of years of responses that you may or may not have noticed. 

These fives things are open books that you can read to learn who you are. You will notice some things you like, and some things that you don’t. The good news is that Elul is the time of year that Hashem imbued with the power to open doors that you may have closed. You aren’t stuck.

It’s a time of joy,
 renewal,
 love
 and most of all possibility.

Love,
Tziporah