Dear Friends,
The one thing that virtually all Neve girls have in common is that they know how to break out of the old mold that may have been normal for at least a good portion of their lives. The fact that they actually got on a plane, came to Neve, and left a changed person tells it all.  If you were to look at the instructions that appear on the back of many containers,  a phrase appears that, at least to me, tells their story.

The phrase is "linaer haitev". Its meaning is "shake well", a phrase that appears on many American products as well. The root of the verb linaer, is naar, which means a youth. Arguably, one of the most striking characteristics of youth is change. As you probably have noticed, there are people in their early twenties who are no longer young. They are set into the rigidity of the American Dream with super-glue. There are, conversely, people who are biologically old, but who are always in the process of discovery.
​
One (but by far not the only) reason that people stop moving is that they have no idea of what is possible. From the time that they began to watch/read/listen to the world, the message was always the same. You're here on your own to make it or break it. Enjoy the ride. Don't think too much or too deeply. Escape as much as you can. Watch. Text. Listen. Watch more. Don't let yourself be alone without at least one other voice to drown out your own inner voice. The media (and contemporary literature and art) are not anti-G-d. That would require them to engage with ideas and concepts that rock the boat (and in any case seem irrelevant). Seeking G-d and searching for meaning puts you in the linaer mode. Read. Think. Do. Give. Part of the fear of movement in today's world is the fear of isolation. Moving forward when everyone else isn't, can be excruciatingly lonely. It seems to me that this is one of the hardest tests that you face when you return to the States or to anywhere else that English is spoken.

In the past Parshah, Lech Lecha, you have examples of people who could have chosen to challenge themselves to grow by placing themselves in the company of people who are more than a step ahead of them. When you meet someone who has moved beyond your comfort level, you can make two responses. One is feeling threatened enough to do whatever you can to make that person too small for his/her role as your example and source of support.  Another is becoming vulnerable enough to actually learn from someone who is neither your double, nor necessarily charismatic enough to make you feel that you are in the fast lane. When you read the narrative of Lot and Avrahahm you find Lot willing to live anywhere except with his illustrious tzadik of an uncle. Being with Avraham made him feel like a spiritual midget. It made him feel vulnerable because he thought that the comparison between uncle and nephew would leave him permanently number two. The traits that he developed, and that were passed on generationally via his daughters, are taavah and chemda, desire and envy. The smaller you think you are, the harder it is to fill the void. The other figure who rejected the linaer model was Hagar. She started out with enormous credibility as a woman who could outgrow herself. She left life as an Egyptian princess (at her father, Pharaoh's request) and re-created herself as Sarah's co-wife, brought into the family to have a child who Sarah and Avraham could raise. So far so good. The problems arose when she had to face the fact that she would never be Sarah. She ran away to escape the reality of Sarah's being her mistress. For both Lot and Sarah the result was tragic. They both ended up frozen in limitations that at least at first felt good.
​
How do you see that you don't end up being old before your time? If you are biologically not very young, how can you be sure that your inner life is still moving with the same enthusiasm that you once felt? How do you stay in the linaer mode?

One of the surest ways to stay alive is to be sure that you find a mentor who is more than what you are, and who may be on a level that you may never reach.

Some of you know Risa Rotman. Her husband, Chaim, for whom many of you davened this past year since he was wounded in the terror attack on the Bnei Torah shul in Har Nof. He was always growing. When he learned in Ohr Sameach his "hobby" was assisting Rav Meir Schuster in his never ending Kiruv. Later when he married and worked in a government office, he saw his role as becoming the equivalent of the mezuzah on the door, in charge of bringing Torah to the workplace. His fellow workers were so inspired, that during the close to a year that he was in a coma, they came on Tuesdays to the hospital to be with them, the religious ones and the ones who only knew Chaim as representing everything that religion is meant to mean. He attended Rav Rubin's shiurim and stood the entire time. He was afraid that after a long day at work, if he sat comfortably, he would drowse off...

He was one of the most awake people I have ever known, may his memory be a blessing and an inspiration.
As ever,
Tziporah

Dear Friends,
The news that you have been hearing isn’t the kind of news you like. Some of you may be asking, “Is Eretz Yisrael worth it? I have everything I need to live a fulfilling Jewish life right here in Passaic, or Brooklyn, or Monsey? Is it really any better to live in Yerushalayim than it is to live in Lakewood?”

It may have been the sort of question Avraham Avinu would have asked himself if he wasn’t Avraham Avinu. Of course, he was commanded to leave Ur Kasdim by Hashem. You are unlikely to have a similar prophetic experience. What you may not be aware of, is that many commentators (Daas Zekeinim amongst others) point out that this was in fact Avraham’s second journey to Eretz Yisrael. When you trace his age, you may deduce that he was seventy at the time that he entered the famous “covenant between the pieces”, which took place in Eretz Yisrael. We then find that he was back in Haran for five years when Hashem told him, at the age of seventy five, to leave his land, his birthplace and his father’s home and come to “The Land in which I will show you.” No, this isn’t a typo. It is the way the text reads. The word “arekka” is reflective, and that is its literal meaning. It isn’t hard to imagine what he had been doing during the five years he was back home. He had thousands of disciples who had changed so radically that they are referred to as “the souls that he made”. So did Sarah. The question remains “why face the hardship of leaving home with everything that that means, to face the inherent hardships road and estrangements from everything familiar?”

The question is both clarified, and simultaneously mystified, by the implications of the first Rashi in the Torah. Rashi points out that the Torah is the blueprint of life, and logically should have begun with instructions of how to live, rather than a lengthy description of the world’s creation. He answers by quoting a verse from Tehillim. “Hashem told His nation of the power of his works (i.e. the creation) to give to them the heritage of nations (i.e. meaning their land).” What this implies is that the only real reason for focusing on the fact that it was G-d who created the world is that “in the future seven nations will claim that you stole their land; you must tell them that the Land belongs to me. I gave it to them, I can take it from them, and give it to you.” What Rashi is saying, is that the pivot of our knowing the creation narrative is to recognize the fact that G-d wants us to have Eretz Yisrael.

That leaves you with your original question. What’s so bad about the rest of the planet?
Meshech Chochma (a series of comments on ideas presented on the Parshah by Rav Meir SImchah of Dvinsk) tells you that if you really want to know the answer, you have to look at three things:

1. From the beginning of time, people recognized that this is where they could make sacrifices. This is where Adam, Noach, and Avraham built their altars. They saw that this is the place where the “animal self” can be sanctified.

2. This is where Hashem sanctified His Name and made His presence known to the entire world, when Avraham showed readiness to offer Yitzchak to Hashem (interestingly all of the major religions begin their narrative with this as its core). At that moment the latent love and awe that Avraham had deep within his heart was revealed and changed everything. He concludes by saying that this is the deep meaning of the word “arekka” – “the Land in which I show you who you can be.” When Lot went to Eretz Yisrael, it was never with the same intent that his uncle Avraham had when he left everything behind him. He came because Avraham was his family as well as being his closest friend. He didn’t come to seek Hashem, and never reached what Avraham did. Eretz Yisrael reveals who you are. It doesn’t alter who you are. That’s up to you.

3. The word “arekka” can also mean, “Where I show you Myself”. It’s not only the land you find yourself in, it’s the Land where you find Hashem. Of course, Hashem is never “lost “, the problem is that material reality is awfully distracting. You may feel, at times, that living in the real world dooms you to being spiritually arid most of the time. Your body is like an opaque wall that keeps you from going very far. Meshech Chochma gives the following example to tell you how to contend with the problem of being a spiritually aware person in a deadening world. Imagine looking at reality through a microscope. You would be able to see an entire world that you can’t see with the naked eye. Similarly, Torah gives you the ability to discover the aspects of Hashem’s presence in Eretz Yisrael that would otherwise be invisible.

Eretz Yisrael reveals a dimension of reality that can’t be uncovered anywhere else. The fact that you were once there, has changed you forever. When you face Yerushalayim as you daven, some of it can come back.
The present wave of terror is nothing new; we have been here before. It’s part of the package. Let it take your heart, and mine, and make us more and more aware of our utter reliance on only Hashem.


P.S. I heard of Rebbitzen Henny Machlis’ passing, Baruch Dayan HaEmes, and my next letter will be about her B.H.  I am sure that many of you have anecdotes and stories about meals you had at her home. Please send them in to [email protected]

​All the best,
Tziporah 

Dear Friends,

Now that Succot and even Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are behind you, you may want to ask yourself what you can take with you for the rest of the year. It's too easy to just file away the passion of Elul and the High Holidays.

Most of your life, like everyone else's, is replete with events that you will barely remember in a few days. You went to work, drove home (or road the subway or bus), ate dinner, had some (hopefully) blessedly undramatic conversation with your friends or your family. You learned, prayed, loved others, gave charity, waited, endeavored, and will do the same as long as G-d gives you the strength to continue.  Will any of it be recorded in The History of the Twenty First Century? Probably not. Most of your life significant because it is really all about being. You have to respond to situations as they arise; some of them are joyous, some are tragic, and the vast majority are somewhere in the middle. Hashem selected each situation. He gave you whatever you need to make the person you will be at the end of your story fulfilled and actualized.
​
The last days of Succot give you insight into how to take the light and beauty of the holidays with you. All of the other holidays on the Jewish calendar commemorate events that happened. Pesach commemorates the exodus (and lets you reconnect to its very essence). Shavuos connects you to the day that the Torah was given, and each of us heard G-d's voice. Rosh HaShanah brings you back to the creation of the first human, the who gave meaning to the creation of the world itself. Yom Kippur celebrates the fact that G-d declared that He forgives us (after the sin of the golden calf). Succos takes us back to the restoration of the clouds of glory that surrounded our ancestors in the desert, and the succot that we dwelled in for close to forty years. Shmini Atzeret commemorates nothing. No "event" is its core. It doesn't sensitize you to what G-d did and does. It sensitizes you to what He is, and how profound and unchanging His love for us really is. It's about being, not about doing.

I can't help thinking about the events of last Motzei Shabbos. A couple visited their parents on a street called Chomah Shlishit, which is in one of the charming mini-neighborhoods between Meah Shearim and the walls of the Old City. It is presently an enclave of Breslover Chassidim (some of you might know Yehudis Golshevski who recently moved from there to another area). They were headed to the Kotel. They entered via the Damascus Gate (Shaar Shchem), the hub of the Arab Quarter. Normally on a holiday it is safe; the hundreds of visitors and the heavy police presence makes it very different than the ‘Do Not Enter’ abyss of hostility that is its norm. As they walked through the main street (HaGai) they passed the alley leading to Lion's Gate, which is one of the entrances to Har HaBayis. An Arab jumped the husband and attacked him with his knife. His wife began to scream. None of this is relevant to what you need to know to take the headset of the holidays to your real life. Read on.
When Nechemia Lavi, who heard the screams, he was in his succah. He had just finished a dvar Torah. He spoke about how only two commandments involve your entire body; dwelling in the Succah, and immersing in the mikveh. I don't know what was next on the menu-maybe it was ice cream, maybe fruit salad. Whatever it was, it was never eaten. Lavi grabbed his gun, and ran out to the darkness of the shuk. For our purposes, this is the only relevant part of the story.

Whether or not he would succeed in saving anyone (he didn't) and whether or not he would safely return to his family (ditto), he responded to the situation that G-d put in his access with courage, nobility, and compassion. That's what's life for.

When you have to deal with "stuff", you may make the kind of mistake that most of us do. You think that it is all about doing. Did you finish the report? Get the stove clean? Tell a few stories? Resist the temptation to daydream at the water cooler instead of working? Smile at someone who is socially awkward and will remain socially awkward? This is what being is made of. If you can stay in touch with the fact that your deepest (and scarcely describable) inner self wants to find connection with the Source of all Being, your life has more meaning, instead of just a kaleidoscope of pleasure, pain, friendship, jealousy, love, resentment achievement and failure that just doesn't hold together.
​
Have a wonderful, meaningful winter!
Yours, Tziporah