Dear friends,In today’s world, no one who you know thinks of himself as a tribesman. In fact, the word, “tribalism” has come to be associated with meaningless bloodshed and collective xenophobia.  The world has become a global village, and creating needless subdivisions leads you back to a dark past that none of us want to recall. What this view ignores in the power of belonging, the effect of heredity, and the need to move beyond a homogenized version of one-worldism.

You and I aren’t only products of our respective environments. You have traits that are there from before day one! In fact a great deal of what you are depends on factors that go far beyond your environment. The Talmud tells us that “mazal” is a significant factor in almost anything. The literal meaning of mazal, which is usually translated as fortune, is “flow”. Your mazal is the flow of all of the components of your life that you need to be you. This includes when you were born, where, and to whom. It includes your gender, how many brain cells you have, what your life span will be, and many other factors.  When someone says, “I have the worst mazal”, what they are really saying is, “I have no idea of how to play the game with the cards I was dealt”.
In earlier times, astrology was a science. Today it is a bad joke. The astral signs once could be read with amazing exactitude. The twelve constellations reflected mazal with such accuracy that by knowing one’s sign, many other factors would be already on the table. Jews can move beyond mazal, and outgrow its limits
The twelve tribes, Yaakov’s sons, were born under twelve different constellations, had twelve different natures, and matching mazals. The reason that it is worthwhile for you to think about this is that the Jewish people are a composite of their traits. You can still find out a great deal about yourself by learning the blessings that the tribes received… They tell you what potentials are there within the collective consciousness of the Jewish people. If you don’t know this, you can fall into the trap of developing cookie cutter thinking.
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My son knew a young man who felt burned out at the ripe old age of sixteen. He spoke to the spiritual director of his yeshiva (the mashgiach), who advised him to rededicate himself to what he is learning. “If you try to really untie the knots, and know things well, you will have enormous satisfaction. Maybe you could invest a couple of hours to review, so you will have the great feeling that really mastering big ideas gives you”. The boy, (let’s call him Avi) heard something that the mashgiach didn’t say. “Learn more” was all he heard. “I don’t want MORE. I want LESS” was his unvoiced response. He nodded his head respectfully and headed back to the dorm to spend the rest of the afternoon listening to music/sleeping/noshing on his bed.

Towards evening, he went downtown. The scene was simultaneously unreliably engaging and stultifying boring. The thought of being there day after day wasn’t all that appealing, but he certainly didn’t want to head back to the study hall. “First I’ll leave, and then I’ll figure it out” he thought with the maturity of his sixteen years. He had a monologue with his Rosh Yeshiva who was unaware that nothing that he said was heard let alone absorbed. His next stop was to share his plans with his friend, Ruvi. Ruvi was sure of one thing. Leaping and then looking is a bad idea. “Why don’t you go to the top? Speak to Rav Shteinman, and if you still need to go no one can say that you didn’t try”.  “What’s he gonna say that I didn’t hear? Whatever I didn’t hear already, I’ll hear when I break all of this to my dad”. “What do you lose?” was Ruvi’s response, and they set off to Rechov Chazon Ish 5. “What do you want to do? “the sage asked him, and didn’t drop his gaze when the reply was silence. Avi finally said, “I don’t know. Maybe work. I don’t know…”. “Look, why don’t you think about what you would really like to do: you’re only sixteen-you don’t have to support a family. Why not do what you really would like to do?”  And come back tomorrow”. Avi agreed. The next day he was back. “I want to volunteer in an organization that helps kids with cancer”. Rav Sheinman’s face lit up. “What a gevalt! What a zechus! “ Avi smiled back. This was the first time in his life that someone had grasped that he was himself.  “You still have to learn though. Everyone does”. Avi’s head bobbed up and down with agreement. By the time he left, he was volunteering part of the day, and learning the rest of the day. “What mazal that I went to Rav Shteinman” he told Ruvi. 

Why am I telling you Avi’s story? To let you see that he is Avi, with Avi’s soul root which may just not happen to be from Levi or Yissachar or Yehudah. All twelve tribes are holy, potential perfect, and very very beautiful. 
Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,

It has been so long since we were in touch. It’s only a little over a week, but so much has happened.

Rav Sheinman ztl isn’t with us. In spite of his advanced age, he was until very recently very much part of live here in Eretz Yisrael. At the age of 100, he was still involved in establishing new kollels. I was somewhat skeptical (not too shocking for those of you who know me…). I thought that perhaps it meant allowing the administration to use his name. I asked my son what his participation actually entailed. It meant that he chose the staff, took responsibility for the funding, and until very recently came to deliver lectures and words of encouragement and/or mussar, usually on a weekly basis.

My vicarious connection to him came through my son Chaim. He volunteers in an organization called Lev L’Achim, which means giving your Heart to your Brothers. It reaches out to various populations. The entire country is divided into districts (under the general supervision of Rabbi Sorotzkin). Chaim’s district is Ramel-Lud. It is one of the lowest socio-economic districts in all of Israel. He reaches out to street kids (just as an aside, the Lud bus station is the country’s wholesale drug capital). That means organizing the kind of classes that they will want to attend-there has to be food, fun, and content. They often straighten out, marry, and have kids who go to Torani schools, and break the cycle of ignorance, spiritual apathy, poverty and crime that began when their grandparents arrived in Israel close to 70 years ago. It also meant a monthly meeting with Rav Shteinman, who would listen to the month’s events and add new insights and new goals. And yes, new demands.

“What about the women?” “What about the guys who got married before they learned enough to live Torah lives?” “What about all of the parenting and educational issues that are going to come up when young people who never had real examples of parenting raise their own kids”. There was follow up. “Would one on one work better with the women?” “Call it a kollel! Their learning is valuable”. “Shiurim on parenting and chinuch aren’t enough. Who can they reach by phone?” Chaim brought his “kids” to meet the Gadol. They were always received with the greatest warmth and affection. Some of the kids broke out of the cycle beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. They went on to real yeshivos, and one of them actually came back to the Chanukah party (the year’s biggest bash) to make a siyum HaShas.

Rav Shteinman was also the address for more standard families who found that they had a child who needed a new framework. In fact, he forbade the yeshivos to expel a child (no matter how much of a misfit the child and the school actually were) until another school was found.

Just about two months ago, when my sem. visited Bnei Brak we met the Rav’s daughter, Rebbitzen Berlin (who passed away just a few weeks after we visited). She was light hearted, charming, greeted each girl with a warm handshake and told us about what growing up in her father’s house was like. They had very little materially, but they always felt rich. Part of the reason was that their mother was an expert in turning clothes that had seen better days into fashion items, but still more was due to the feeling of love and tranquility that turned their lifestyle into a choice for more, rather than a life in which having was more important than being. I was in the States when Rav Shteiman passed away. Ironically, I was on my way to Las Vegas…..

I never actually made it to Vegas. I made the mistake of booking my ticket via Spirit Air. I knew that something was wrong as soon as I told Chaya Ertal, the woman who drove me to the airport from La Jolla, asked which airline I was on. Her expression when I said Spirit said it all. In case I didn’t catch on, she said, “Oh, it will probably be alright” in the kind of tone you usually hear outside of the O.R. in an emergency room. She wisely waited until I checked in and even when she left she kept her phone on. It was only after several hours that the pilot announced that there was a problem with the starter (planes have starters?) and that at some point the mechanic should come. I wasn’t able to get a booking on any flight that would get me to Los Vegas before Shabbos, so I called Chaya who not only came to the airport Friday afternoon when she had a house full of guests for Shabbos, but she also arranged a new flight for me for motzei Shabbos since I wouldn’t be leaving from Vegas.

You may reasonably wonder why I am telling you this story. Most of you have your own airport/airline tales. The real reason (other than it being cathartic) is that it occurred to me when reflecting on Rav Shteinman, how unappreciative we are to the great people who surround us. Some of them are famous, but many of them are not. Chaya Ertal isn’t well known, but she is the real deal.

The next to last day of Chanukah, I gave my sem girls a treat. We were originally supposed to go to Shmuel HaNavi’s tomb. Thank G-d the Arabs departed from their usual level of rioting and violence when things don’t go their way. We didn’t know how they would respond to Trump’s announcing that he would move the embassy, and later his “shocking” statement that the Kotel is not only part of Jerusalem, but that it will never be given away by the Jewish people. We decided to stay close to home for the next couple of days.

Instead of Shmuel HaNavi, we visited Rebbitzen Sarah Finkel, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel’s ztl mother. What a personality. She came to America as an infant, and was raised in St. Louis (this is over 95 years ago). Her parents moved there so that her father could work as a shochet (shomer Shabbos jobs were hard to come by), and you took what you could get wherever it brought you. Although girls didn’t go to after school “cheder”, she did. She later married her husband, who had studied in some of the world’s greatest yeshivos (he had simchah from Chevron). Life in the States couldn’t have been easy for him either. They still managed to bring up their children with an amazing and committed level of love of Torah. My students asked her how she pulled this off. They key was not only love, but also acceptance. Not only being a good role model, but also absolute honesty with the kids. Although she and her husband had a successful catering business, they knew the art of being materially successful without turning into materialists. She is ambitious. I met her years ago when she was an avid shiur goer. She paints, writes cook books, and receives guests with charm and dignity. Our visit ended with many of the girls buying her cookbook, prints of her portrait of her son, and getting her brachah for their futures. It’s worth noticing this sort of person if you want to keep yourself really alive.

I have my sem’s Chanukah party and Sarah Hemley’s (Neve about 8 years ago) wedding, so this will be it for now.

Love
Tziporah
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​Dear Friends,
More on the way Torah in America is alive and moving forward.
Texas has broad spaces, is flat, and the feeling is that there is no feeling of rushing around.
Houston was new to me. I hadn’t been to Houston before, but I had heard a great deal about it from Eva Lou Chapman. She visited Israel on occasion, always bringing with her as many packages of clothes for distribution as possible. She and her husband were real pioneers of Torah in a time a place where there was so little Torah that the word desert fit like a glove. They built a mikveh in their garage and somehow made everything they touched resonate with Judaism.  I had no idea of how much was going on there today. Out of town is a relative term. Houston has the warmth and simplicity that makes out of town life appealing, but there is a surprising amount of ambition for more Torah and more quality expression of everything Jewish.  Dallas was even more of a surprise. DATA is a kollel and a movement that has made the desrt bloom. It touches everything. The last thing you would expect is a Bais Yaakov that is on the level of any “in-town” Bais Yaakov. The secretary Mrs. Rich, is a mechanes by her example as well as any teacher does! On to San Diego!
Wednesday night was a campus get together. Front line kiruv is a real battle for the minds and most of all hearts of the kids who don’t know how much they want Torah. What I saw at the        house was mind-boggling. The room was full of students, and also full of trays of Chinese food were on the table. They had already finished their weekly challah bake. Communal life is also on the plate in San Diego. When you walk into the Adat shul, you discover a community that didn’t exist until Rabbi Wohlgelernter made it happen 30 years ago. The religious level varies from people who could pass for residents of Har Nof, to people who are just getting their feet wet. They have an extraordinary level of unity and tolerance for uneven levels of growth. The secret it seems is the combination of amazingly numerous shiurim (since the Torah speaks for itself) and his wife, Shoshi who is one of the warmest and most emotionally safe people I have ever met. I had an amazing time watching her in the kitchen. There were four women there (I kept a safe distance) making tortillas. This involved soaking corn stalks, making corn mush, stuffing them in two flavors and cooking them over night in special steamers. I was reading in the other room while most of the action was happening. It finally dawned on me that when she is doing all of this, she really isn’t just pursuing a hobby or making a statement. She’s the real deal. She wants her Shabbos guests to have an unforgettable experience, one that shows a high level of caring. In my own life, I can get myself to stay up late Thursday night making salad after salad for Shabbos. I can’t honestly say that I think that much about the people who eat it, as Shabbos itself. She brought another dimension into the picture.
I was ready to head out for Las Vegas Friday morning. Baruch Hashem, it seemed like I did everything right. I was on a relatively early flight, had a ride to the airport and was at the gate early enough to check out Starbucks, where you can always count on soy milk being available.
Hashem had other plans. There was a spate of mechanical difficulties on the plane, a foiled attempt to find another flight that would get me to Vegas before Shabbos and a wonderful Shabbos in San Diego as a result.
The last leg of trip will have to wait until next week. I’m off to Shushan HaBirah, otherwise known as Greatneck for a get together with Naz and the Meshadi kehillah (and whoever else comes).
Love,
Tziporah      

 
Dear Friends,

I am in the middle (or more correctly, closer to the end) of this year’s winter trip to the States. Thank G-d, my daughter Chani somehow managed to have all of the places I visited so far be in areas in which December means chilly at most and warm and balmy at best. This is a sharp contrast to other times, when I visited Ottowa and Chicago…. People always ask me how I handle the trips which often involve almost daily travelling. The truth is that I enjoy it. I like meeting new people, who by definition are the kind who want grow and move forward, otherwise why would they be bringing in a teacher to talk to them? I like the quiet on the plane, when I can stay with my own thoughts. I like seeing new places. In fact, the only thing I don’t like is standing in the security line. I can also live without a lively discussion as to whether the Greek yogurt is liquid and therefore a potential security risk…

So, I will write you a brief travelogue of the places and people that I have been to so far. My first stop was Brooklyn. I always try (with limited success thus far) to like the place of my birth. I love the people, but the pace and the place hold no charm. An exception is the learning groups that Ivy Kalazan leads. Some of you may remember her from pre-history when she was at Neve as a madrichah. She is one of the most humble people I have ever met, yet she somehow manages to touch hundreds of women’s lives through the learning groups that she organizes. She genuinely likes the women, and believes in them.

After that, it was off to the Amein group n Lawrence. The woman who took me, Eileen, who spent hours with me just because she is a friend of a friend, introduced me to a new (to me) American phenomena. There are stores where you can buy ready to eat genuinely kosher meals prepacked and ready to go. They range from Very Healthy (cabbage salad and tofu) to Sushi. The Amein group is an amazing thing to behold. It started in response to a community tragedy, the petirah of a young girl. During the time of her final illness, her mother encouraged her fiends to get together in the morning to hear each other say birchas hashachar (the early morning brachot) and say Amein. The word Amein is an acronym for Kel Melech Ne’eman G-d is a faithful king. This affirmation has profound impact on how you think and what you are if you let it penetrate. If you don’t, just saying it is still an affirmation of everything that is real and important. They meet daily, before work, before getting on with their day’s plans. On Rosh Chodesh they also have afternoon Torah study and that is when I come. The variety of women is enormous; every age is there, and the range of their religious “style” very broad. It is all orchestrated by Rebbitzen Fuchs who may not be a Yekke by birth, but certainly has orderliness and punctuality mark the events. From there, I headed to Monsey to get together with my son and his family. They are so delightful. Of course, I am completely objective in viewing them as charming and in all ways just wonderful. The day ended with going to Teaneck to Beth Avraham. The shul is the venue of one of the most charming, informal and genuinely interested learning groups. Betty Jacobson has been organizing this for years.

The next day I had the pleasure of a long drive with my grandson to Philly (he was going to Lakewood which is relatively near). Besides his company, I got to hear the kind of music young people listen to. Yes! They still also like good music, not the kind of stuff that passes for Jewish music after a brief and unsuccessful conversion…….Philly is the home of Malkie Schwartz, the queen of Bikur Cholim. She organized it, goes daily, and loves the kids she encounters in the famous children’s hospital. Whenever I come, she takes me with her on her rounds. This time I met a six year old who had just miraculously come out of a coma! Watching him and his mom interact was one of the most beautiful things I ever saw. This was of course incidental to the “real” reason for my being in the City of brotherly love, which was teaching in new places which is always a pleasure.

When I was a child, Miami was the place where the over seventy set spent their winters. They sent postcards that featured pictures of enormous beachfront hotels, unbelievably crowded shores, and stately palm trees. I always felt immensely grateful that (unlike my cousin Barbara who had to visit her grandmother) that I didn’t have to be there. It seemed like the ultimate near-death experience.  Things have changed. North Miami Beach has vitality, young people who are spiritually ambitious and a real Bais Yaakov. My adventure in cognitive dissonance was completed when I met the principal; Rabbi Leizerson who is the embodiment of Chaim Berlin’s very specific aura miles from Flatbush...Bocca Raton was even more startling. Rabbi Moskowitz’s shul has no fewer than nine minyanim I am told, ranging from netz (Yes! In Florida) to Sefaradi to various other time spots. The community is huge, and so is their range of religiosity. The atmosphere is one of Derech Eretz and tolerance, but not one of watered-down or compromised practice.

So much for now. Part two, next week, BEH.

I realize that this letter is too full of “I”, and “I” apologize….If you want to be in touch, call 732 543 6140

Love,
Tziporah