Dear friends,

What a wonderful day! Shabbos, Rosh Chodesh & Chanukah!

It’s so easy to focus on darkness, and so amazing to remember that light is always on the palette. I have plans for each day. Just saying Hallel- the psalms of praise, makes a day special. Going to the Kotel and seeing the Menorah it inspiring. Each day makes it easier for me to identify with the people in the Bais HaMikdash who saw light when they had every reason to expect darkness. The finale, on the eight day, is the best of all. 

Shimon HaTzadik, although he lived over a hundred years before the Chanukah story began, is very much one of its heroes. When Alexander the Great, the founder of the Grecian Empire, which in its time included the entire known world, reached Israel he encountered the Kuttim, Later known as the Samaritans, they were a people who were brought to Israel by the Assyrians in order to repopulate it after the Jews were exiled  They converted sort of, out of fear, and later created their own version of Judaism. They came to hate the Jews whose very existence created an aura of illegitimacy of their claim to be Jewish (somewhat reminiscent of the extreme theology of some groups of the Black Hebrews). They became our bitter enemies and came to Alexander to feed him the fake news that the Jews are rebelling against him. Initially he believed them and headed out to Yerushalaim. When the Kohen Gadol of the time, who as known as Shimon HaTzadik heard what was about to happen, he headed out to Alexander to plead for Yerushalaim. When Alexander saw him, he immediately went down from his chariot and bowed before Shimon HaTzadik. His entourage were dumb struck. What is the Emperor of Greece doing bowing before a Jewish dignitary? He told them the secret. “When I go into battle, I see his image, and I know that this is what brings me victory”. The story is very puzzling. What connection is there between a Kohein devoted to Hashem serving in the Bias HaMikdash and the brilliant general? The answer is that Hashem is the One who gave the Greeks victory in order that people like Shimon Hatzadik lay the foundation for the Jewish people to face the challenge that Greece will present later under Antiochus, and emerge greater and stronger, clearer about who we are and who we are not than we ever could have been if we had not been challenged. From the roof of the tomb of Shmuel HaNavi, you can trace the Maccabean battle.
What was the challenge that the Macabees faced like?

It was unique. We had faced all sorts of things. There were those who tried to steal our land, those who tried to steal our hearts, but the Greeks tried to steal our minds, which is the most painful and dangerous game of all. The human centered world is a Greek creation, made to replace the G-d centered world we had “lived in” since our emergence as a people. It was (and is) very appealing to let your subjective view of life define morality. It lets you play as you go, defy conventions, and climb intellectual plateaus all at the same time.

The rebellion began with one family. Five brothers. They were principled, and they were courageous. They were descendants of Yehuda. Some of you may recall his raw courage in facing down Pharaoh who the worlds most powerful man. He had taken responsibility for his brother Benyamin, and would face whatever he had to face in order to live up to his commitment to his father, Yaakov, to bring Benyamin back from Egypt alive.

Every generation has its heroes. The people who don’t hold back and don’t compromise. The range is enormous. They run form the physical courage of the Maccabees, to the moral courage of those who left everything behind them in Spain and headed to North Africa during the inquisition, to Sara Schenirer doing battle against ignorance. What they shared in common was not the kind of battles that they fought, but their absolute clarity that victory would not be reached by humans’ strength or valor, but by Hashem’s spirit, just as He told the prophet Zechariah.

Today’s battles are often private. Do you really have the strength to say, “Wherever I live, I ‘ll make my house a sanctuary”?   The first ones to do this were Avraham and Sara who turned their home into the only place where belief in Hashem was taught in a world full of darkness. Would you have the inner fortitude of Moshe? He could have easily turned his back on everything and settled on being the golden boy in Pharaoh’s palace. You know your battles.

When you light the candles, feel some of the joy that the Maccabees felt when they saw that the light kept on going. Have the courage to see that the light within you stays lit
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Love,
Tziporah

Dear Friends,
This is the letter that I would have written before the main event in Yerushalaim. 
I arrived in New York and from there, after a week of shiurim in various places, I began the process of meeting the Neve girls where they are-in four different cities.

Each place was a journey. When the girls saw the posters of themselves and of their “foremothers”, the girls who were in Neve decades before them, something happened. They were able to look at themselves, and chart their progress. Usually you are so involved with the moment that there isn’t the headspace to look at who you were, and how many miles you travelled. One of the girls found herself asking, “was that me?” not because she actually looked so different (I, on the other hand, am totally unrecognizable as Myself Of The 70’s). She saw the curiosity, innocence, willingness to learn morphing into achievement and a certain sort of spiritual stability for herself and her family (who didn’t exist, of course, when the picture was taken). I found myself floating into the world of “what if”. 

What if Rabbi Refson would have never put the original ad in the Jerusalem Post. What if he would have said, “I was looking for young men”, and politely told the original 6 that he really doesn’t have a program for them after all.? What would have happened if he would have turned his back on Neve after the first crisis? What would have happened to half of the girls if they would have let their love of comfort outshout their love of truth? What would have happened if Hashem didn’t help us and guide us all along?
I encounter the former Neve girls vicariously. I meet their daughters in Bnos Avigail, in Bnos Sarah, and in the other sems when they end up eating in my house because my number is on their Shabbos list. I meet the second and third  generations in Kiryat Sefer, and Beitar, and in every place in the Great World where you find Shomrei Torah. 

When I was growing up, my friends in Bais Yaakov by and large were the children of survivors. There were many exceptions, but that was the rule. They often didn’t have many relatives, and certainly not grandparents. Because they were the majority, their empty places, numerous yahrzeit candles, and acceptance of the horrors of the holocaust seemed absolutely normal. The spiritual holocaust that is taking place in America has already taken more victims than the physical one in Europe. It too seems normal. There are two critical differences. The first and most obvious one is that the indescribable torment of the holocaust’s early days when the impossible began to happen, and the agony of the seemingly endless days until it played itself out has no parallel in the American experience. Jews disappear into the bottomless pit of assimilation in an inviting and tolerant society and never re-surface. The second is that the survivors understood what had happened, it was (often times literally) engraved upon them. Those who lose their connection to Judaism, Torah, and any awareness of Hashem, usually don’t regret the loss because they never had anything more. One of the ways that people dealt with their holocaust reality was through bonding with other survivors. If you lived through it, and were still frum, you were almost like a relative. What I saw in America was that the Neve girls (who are now women, some of the grandmothers) still relate to each other as “lager shvesters” sisters of the camps. They all know what it is to have to write their own stories from chapter one, without the support of relatives. They know how to put up with living in a society in which they are not always understood. But they survived, and if you were there, and now here, you remember 
Each trip to the Kotel
Each deep talk with a new “sister”
Each class that shook your assumptions
Each encounter with families that you wish were you in the future
Each holiday that suddenly had meaning
Each walk down HaPisga
Or HaKablan
Led you to new inner realizations
 
Those of you who were There and those of you who were not, but are reading this letter anyway (although it might be a bit tedious, like going to someone else’s class reunion is bound to be) can let yourself be moved. 

Soon it will be Chanukah, the celebration of miraculous light in the midst of the darkness. The Leviim whose job it was to maintain the Bais HaMikdash were very well organized. Each group were called a “Shaar”. The group who had to face the Kohein Gadol, Matisyahu, who had to tell him (initially) that there was no pure oil left , may have expected him to give up. Even after the vial of pure oil was found (there are those who say that Matisyahu himself had preserved a vial while the temple had not yet been desecrated. Although he was not in charge of seeing that there was oil for the menorah, one of his duties included doing specific offerings. The “minchah” didn’t require the extremely pure oil used for the menorah, but he wanted to do things with the maximum, level of perfection, a therefore had put aside some very pure oil with his own seal). Finding it in the total chaos of the desecrated Bais HaMikdash was another matter. The Leviim had to scrape away images, clear out every vestige of idol worship, put aside the stones that were defiled, and finding a small vial of oil wasn’t a simple task. If I was there, I can picture myself thinking that there would have to be some sort of compromise. Even after the vial was found, there was clearly not enough. Why even begin? Perhaps they realized that one day, there would be light so bright that it would last thousands of years, so that it could be seen…
When two girls share their thoughts in the dorm
 And let the light of Torah shake their assumptions
About family, and about building
And about Hashem’s presence in our lives On Pisga or on Kablan Streets.

The Charidy campaign is still happening today and tomorrow.
Follow the link 
https://www.charidy.com/nevefbclid=IwAR3kX0uutDZM0YFlvpGuobjjHIQpIoxZPlx0XeVwK1FM2uGoSshEAT7hZ2g

Love, Tziporah

Dear Friends,
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This letter is really letter 2. I began a letter in my mind (where so many letters stay…) last week. I wanted to tell you about the amazing people who I meet when I travel, and how wonderful it was to see so many girls at the events that took place throughout the States, and how the organizers brought a level of professionalism that I haven’t as yet seen at events for Our Crowd.

Then I went to the final event, last night’s 50th anniversary and reunion in Yerushalaim. It took place in Neve’s wedding hall, which is on top of the dining room, and easily holds a thousand people. It was more than full. It was FULL FULL, there was a “girl” from Neve’s first year, when they lived in an apartment, all 6 of them. There was a photo image of the ad that Rabbi Refson placed in the Jerusalem Post offering yeshiva courses to beginners, which brought him the half dozen original girls rather than the young men he had anticipated. There were “girls” who slept in the Neve library when there was no more room for them in the dorms, but they loved Torah enough to brave it out. We called it the “Geriatric Ward” because it was only the more mature girls (in their late twenties) who realized that this was a great bargain-getting meaning and eternal life for just a bit more discomfort than they had ever imagined having to experience. There were the Grand Success stories, women who made a name for themselves in every imaginable field including women who are now stars in the world of Kiruv, and famous teachers and authors. And (at least to me) there were the Mothers. Women who raise Torah families. Women who could show me their children’s wedding pictures and leave me moved by seeing the armies they have raised. There were the young women, still starting out, still figuring out where they will be in another month or year. The one thing that they know is that they want to be part of this.

After an hour and a half of mixing, which felt like fifteen minutes, the program began. It was chaired by Estee Yarmish, the chessed queen of Har Nof, with her usual flair for being both enthusiastic and grounded. Rabbi Refson spoke first, and shared his message of how failure is pa rt of the package, and that getting up again is what counts; how the part of you that is like Yaakov (which means heel) is the same as the part of you that is like Yisrael, which means that Hashem prevails. I don’t know what Rabbi Chalkowski said. I had intended to listen, but I couldn’t stop just watching him and learning more from who he is in essence than I could have learned from words. I kept on trying to get myself back on track, but I was enjoying watching his fatherly/rebbe/very human/humble/humorous and serious way of speaking to really catch anything. There was a movie taking you back generation by generation to Neve’s girls; for some people the message was, “Look how things have changed since Cheshvan 1970” but to me it was, “Look how nothing has changed. The girls are still searching, finding, and becoming sisters. The teachers are still there for them, and willing to take them as far as they can reach. Outside circumstances changed, and the students are affected by the world that they live in. Inside changes have not taken place nor will they. Rabbi Refson’s son, Rabbi Yonah Aryeh Refson, spoke about growing up with 10 girls at the table on Shabbos when that was the entire student body. He also spoke about the future, and the aspirations that Neve has; the one that hit me hardest was the ambition of having more outreach to the girls who return to the States, more programs for them. Another movie, this one much shorter, showed the faces of Neve, quick portraits of a sampling of the girls who “introduced” themselves earlier by speaking about how Neve changed their lives.  At that point things changed. A moving and very real commemoration of Rabbi Azor was given, as well as a brief film in which you saw him as he was, smiling, dedicated and so very present.  Rabbi Michael Rokach took over from there. He , the one, who brought this about spoke about raising the money needed for you to be an active participant in Neve’s future. He asked everyone to commit themselves to pledges and by the end of the evening about $150,000 came in. But as they used to say, “YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN YET”. There are generous benefactors who have committed to give three times the amount of money that is raised. The goal that has been set for initiating the new projects is 7 million dollars. That means that only two and a half million dollars have to come in from the other donors like you and me. There was an electronic screen that monitored the incoming pledges and donations. They ran from $2.50 given by one of the rabbis (it was all he had in his pocket at the time), in order to demonstrate his feeling that he just can’t leave without showing that no amount is too small to some anonymous donors (ELENOR ROOSEVELT?) who gave four digit sums. This is just a prelude to the real fundraiser which will take place this coming Monday and Tuesday under the auspices of Charidy. There will be people womaning the phones, making calls and getting in the rest. As they used to say,
BE THERE OR BE SQUARE! 

Love,
Tziporah

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NEVE 50TH REUNITE CAMPAIGN

To celebrate Neve Yerushalaim’s 50th year and to launch it into 50 more, Neve’s 25,000 alumnae are REUNITING in a global fundraising campaign spanning decades, demographics and borders. 

Because of your passion, influence and personal soul connection to Neve, we would love to have your talent in raising the crowd in our upcoming crowd-raising campaign, December 15th and 16th. 

Your participation in our 50 REUNITE campaign - a 48 hour fundraising event is not only appreciated but crucial to the success of our campaign and overall fundraising efforts. With the goal of raising $7,500,000 we can go into celebrating a growing future together, focused on outreach, making Neve affordable to all through a scholarship endowment, and fully supporting our Neve alumnae in their future growth.
We live in very challenging times. Assimilation and apathy run rampant. Many young women are unaware of their inherent G-d given gift. Your partnership is critical ensuring an inspired, educated and empowered Jewish future.

Please join this campaign by taking on a personal pledge (personal fundraising goal) to have your own personal page link to share and post on all your social media platforms, allowing all your contacts to join you in supporting Neve and their work.

Remember, any donations you give to the campaign will go towards your Moral Obligation balance.
We have all the materials necessary to help guide you through and make this an easy process. 
(We would’ve loved to have an event in each state and country throughout the world. However, we will be making the livestream of the events held last week, available for you to view as well.)
Please take on a pledge: https://docs.google.com/…/1WIwX3jC34nF02IKdkqgHlL…/viewform…
To pre-donate https://www.charidy.com/neve

Thank you again for all your support.
The Neve Yerushalayim Family

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