Dear Friends,
Beit Meir is a small rural community about twenty minutes from Har- Nof on the Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv highway... Unlike most Israeli communities, Beit Meir is one in which individuality is treasured and the people who live there don’t fit into a specific mold.
One of the families is my daughter-in-law Peninah’s parents. They are Reb Usher Chassidim, semi empty nesters (no one home young enough to make lunch for, but not everyone married off). They live quietly, and unlike yours truly don’t have a compulsive need to stay abreast of the latest news. Late Thursday night their daughter phoned. Fortunately, Yaffa, the mother of the family, was up – she just couldn’t sleep that night. She didn’t know what was keeping her awake, and when she answered the phone she was shocked to notice that it was close to 2a.m. “Are you alright?” Her daughter asked. “Of course” she replied, “Why do you ask”. Her daughter began to tell her that the wind driven forest fires that had consumed building after building in Haifa were now a present danger in the Jerusalem Corridor. Moments after she hung up there was hard knocking on the door. They opened the door and found themselves facing two soldiers. “Get into your car. Now. Don’t pack. You have to leave immediately”. 
No one had to tell them why. The blackness of the night beyond the door was illuminated by flames. They did as they were told. The road out of the moshav was filled with cars, each one bearing a family trying to escape what threatened to be an inferno. It took two hours to navigate the narrow road out of Beit Meir. When they reached the last stretch a tree fell onto the road blocking it completely. The soldiers who accompanied the convoy of cars were unable to move it. The path on the side of the road was burning. “Drive through the fire. The helicopter above you will shoot water onto your car.”
That’s what they did. They left Beit Meir through fire and water.
Later I found out that there were at least 200 areas in which the fires started. There were estimates that there were up to 700 “offspring” of the blazing conflagration as they moved from the original sites in which the fires began. The wind and dry forest provided the perfect environment for the flames to travel. They spread to Haifa, Zichron Yaakov, Latrun, parts of the Shomron, the Jerusalem corridor. Over 60,000 people were evacuated. Thus far over twenty arsonists were apprehended. Some yeshiva students took the pictures that forced us out of denial. They show young Arabs bringing cartons to a fire to spread it more rapidly. No one wanted to think too much about what they saw... It’s so much more normal, if that word can be used in this context, to think that 200 fires started spontaneously in different areas. At this point you have no choice but to either bury your head in the ground or read the writing on the wall. The Arabs are trying to burn the country down.
There are people who see the trees in the forest of their enemies... They see the earth itself as defiled because we live here. It is a very oppressive image, and there is only one thing that makes it look completely different. Hashem in His kindness is taking out His fury on wood and stones. 
Hashem is in the picture. Imagine tens of thousands of people evacuated from Haifa. Thirteen story buildings in flames. No fatalities.
No fatalities,
No fatalities
No fatalities.
This is an open miracle, and not one foreign newspaper chose to acknowledge the events that surrounded it. I don’t think that we have yet grasped the enormity of this miracle. Just think about how quickly death by smoke inhalation can take place. Think of the Twin Towers, the Sassoon children and think of the implications of 60,000 evacuations without any deaths.
There are many theories of what the best response to the fire and the miracle should be. The one thing that we know with certainty is what the worst response is. It is retreating into denial and going back to sleep deeply enough to file the events of last week under the file labeled “Just a co-incidence”. That frees you to ignore the miracle and to move your inner eye to political or military responses.
The problem is concretizing your desire to respond to the message that Hashem is sending. You may feel like you received a writ on Royal stationary. It has the king’s signature and is addressed to you, but it is written in a language that you don’t understand. You know Who sent the letter, but you don’t know what it says.
In general people look at what mitzvah is most real and precious to them, and try to see if they are living up to what that mitzvah demands. Shabbos celebrates the fact that we don’t own the world; Hashem created and is its sole owner. If nothing else, the fire made us all recognized how little control we have over nature. Another approach is to answer the irrational hatred that fueled this tragedy with love, and to increase our tolerance and love for our fellow Jews. After all, this, like so many other tragedies is caused by the fact that we are in exile and in a certain sense strangers in our own Land. The sages tell us that the cause of the second destruction and the subsequent exile is senseless hatred; sot the core and hope for return must be loving people without their having to “buy “your commitment to them. There are other possibilities, just as there are other mitzvos. I asked Rav Gamliel Rabinovitch who I have turned to many times when I find life overwhelmingly puzzling. I expected him to pinpoint a specific mitzvah to take to a higher level. Instead, he said everyone knows their heart.
In our parshah, Toldos, we find that Yitzchak gave Yaakov many blessings. They are not “spiritual” ones. Who you are spiritually depends on you. Instead, he blessed him with the material prosperity that gives you the opportunity to see Hashem moment to moment in our lives, by observing His presence in His world. May we all be worthy of this
As ever,
Tziporah

Dear Friends,

Everyone wants to be understood. When you share your experiences or feelings with a friend and feel genuinely understood, you feel somehow larger, more significant and more real. The pain of not being understood may leave your feelings exposed, invalidated, and trivialized. Real communication takes place when you hear in words and in body language, ”You and I are on the same page. I get it. I stood where you stand.” This gives you validation, courage, and has enormous power. It’s the stuff that unity is made of.
There are times when this kind of bonding can go tragically wrong.

“ You are so right! I’m on the bottom of the barrel, just like you. My job pays minimum wage. Want to know why? The Jews own it all. They control government, the media and the economy’
“ Of course I understand. When I was married I put up with the control and abuse that all men spew. I know how you feel. Get out while you can. I did. Marriage is a trap”

Both of these statements have enough truth to resonate. Jews are ambitious and successful (some of the time). Some men are controlling all of the time. Others like to get there way some of the time (just like you do). Some men are abusive, but not all, and not necessarily the one who is the most central figure in your life. Communicating with half-truths, stereotypes, and greed generates negative bonding. When it does, you have a major moral calamity brewing. This is what underlies the story of the Tower of Babel.
The world was really a global village at the time. Bonding was easy; everyone spoke the same language, lived in a contained area, and understood the contours of each other’s lives. This could have potentially led to building the kind of society in which loving G-d and your fellow man would be the basis of your ambition. You would share your drive to do more and better with people who really understand where you are coming from, and what you envision.

That’s not what happened.

The bonding they generated was based on creating a society that essentially was based on self-worship. No transcendent morality. Independence from conscience. No G-d. Their basic concept was that belief in G-d is enslaving, and belief in yourself and your abilities is liberating. They wanted a human-centered materialistically oriented society. The result was that they lost the ability to communicate with each other. While this was miraculous, and the direct result of Divine intervention, it was the logical outcome of their choices.

The more materialistic your world view is, the less you will be able to really communicate deeply and meaningfully. Materially and physically we are all different. Age is a factor. Many people can’t communicate with anyone more than ten years older or younger than they are. Income is a factor. Many people find themselves “not seeing” the people who serve food, clean the street, or sell tickets for events. They certainly can’t communicate with them. Some people are even stressed when they have to communicate with people who have disabilities. Inevitably you have literally no common language with them.
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A person with a spiritual life-view will always have something in common with every person they meet. Their common ground is the spiritual soul that we all have. When that is their basic level, they can communicate with anyone.

One of today’s greats is Rav Yaakov Edelstein. He recently suffered a stroke, which left him unable to communicate verbally. He does, however understand what he hears, and can communicate in writing. One of the speech therapists who are working with him told him that there may be a chance that she can help him regain a very basic level of speech. She said that she would like him to select two words, and to devote their time to getting him to a place where he could use them. She could not guarantee that this would work, or that it would necessarily lead to opening the door to his regaining more than these two words. “Write down the two words you want to be able to say the most”.
What would you write?

One word he chose was “amein “which is an acronym for Kel Melech Neeman, Hashem is faithful. The other word was “toda” which means, “thanks”. These two words convey the essence of what spiritual speech is about. It involves both G-d and man. It is focused on sharing positive feelings that are sometimes hidden from view, but alive in your heart and in your soul.
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Isn’t that better than building a tower?

Yours,
Tziporah