​Dear friends,

There are gifts that can never be anticipated, and certainly not repaid. When you think about your life; I am sure that you will detect many such presents. Some of them are so general and so easy to share that you can easily not see them. Last night, for instance, the sky assumed a usually deep shade of blue before it finally receded into black, and let the white/golden moon take its place with the kind of delicacy and splendor that are hard to find at the same moment. Everyone in Yerushalaim sees it; some of us were able to let it speak to us, and others were not.

There are other times that the gift you receive is so unique, that it stands out. Friday night, I received this kind of gift. I was with the Bnos Avigail for our Shabbos in the Old City. We stayed on Har Tzion, very near the tomb of King David. When we arrived on Friday afternoon, the security men only allowed 15 girls in at a time. The result was that the rest of us davened minchah immediately outside the kever in the open area that no doubt was the place that countless people davened or learned before us, and the girls who went inside had the rare experience of being there when there aren’t crowds of tourists breaking the silent speech of tefillah. After the seudah, we walked to the Old City. 

To give you an idea of why I call this a miracle, I want to recall a conversation that I heard about a half a year ago. Professor Robert Aumann is a Nobel prize recipient, and is completely observant. In fact, when the committee in charge of the event informed him that 1) tickets for the event itself will only be given to immediate family, meaning parents, spouses and children, and 2) formal dress is required, and the Nobel committee in Stockholm will arrange for tuxedos for the men they were in for a surprise. Most Nobel laureates have relatively small families, i.e. a spouse, and two kids or so, and maybe an elderly parent. They were not ready for a laureate who needed 11 seats. He also informed them of the Biblical injunction to refrain from wearing wool and linen, and the absence of an official shatnez checker in Stockholm to check the tuxedos for himself and his sons. What this all tells you, is that he is both quite brilliant, and more significantly a man of deep commitment to Torah and profound faith in Hashem.

He was talking to a non-Jewish college quite a number of years ago when looking at the Old City from the panoramic view on the Haas Promenade. He was asked if he ever expected to get to go to the Western Wall. He had said that man will walk on the moon before this will happen.

It happened.

When Hashem decided the time was ripe, in what was close to a dream sequence, everything changed, and we can walk through Shaar Tzion, the gate through which our forces entered as they re-took the Old City in 1967. Heading onwards, we walked on Rechov Chabad. I was explaining some of the history (we could see the Cardo, the remains of the ancient Roman marketplace), when an elderly gentlemen said, “I have a story to tell you about Yerushalaim”. He told us how he took an active interest in building a mikveh in the Old City, and raised funds, and sat with the architect and contractors about making it happen. As things turned out, they uncovered a water duct that goes all the way to Beit Lechem, built by Shlomo HaMelech, thus bonding the past and present in ways that typify being in the Old City. When he was finished, I asked him to give the girls a brachah. He said that the Talmud tells us that there are always 36 hidden tsaddikim, and he isn’t one of them, but he had one moment in which he as. Of course I asked him what happened.

“The law requires that before any reconstruction can be done in the Old City, the archeologists have to be given the opportunity to examine the site. There is a recently built basketball court built for the children of the Old City. As they dug, the remains of an ancient church were uncovered. The plan suggested by the secular authorities was to dig up the entire area so that the church be presented and become a tourist exhibit. He found out about this, informed the erudite senior Rav of the Old City, Rav Nebentzahl shlita who invited the mayor to his home to discuss the matter. The mayor, Mr. Leon, who Is traditional and very respectful of religion immediately agreed that what the Old City needs is not a bastion of avoda zara and arranged for the plan to be stopped. “That was my moment”, he told us. At that point I suspected something. I asked him for his name, and he said “Holtzberg”. I asked him if he was the Holtzberg who is so active in visiting the sick. “Yes” he told me. I immediately realized that he is Rav Aryeh Levine’s grandson, son of Reb Simchah Holtzberg who was also called the “Father of the Wounded” for his commitment to wounded soldiers.

Was this not a gift to the girls?

I only have one regret. I could have asked him about his grandfather, and about what his moments of being one of the 36 hidden tsaddikim were, since he told him that he had one.

But who has to look a gift horse in the mouth?

May you all soon be in Yerushalaim in the Bais HaMikdash, feeling the beauty of Hashem’s greatest gift to us; His presence.
​
Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,

The nights are long, and dark. Last night the stark white of lightning illuminated the sky, with the background symphony of thunder. Chanukah lends itself to theatrical weather.
​
When you look at the special addition for Chanukah that appears both in the prayers and in Birkat Hamazon, you can get a feel of how much more stark and powerful this kind of night was during the war.
The Maccabees had to face it. Taking refuge in the caves and forests agent the best largest and most disciplined army in the world was a life-or-death disciplined performance. They were few, untrained, and had lived their lives pursuing truth through learning Torah, not pursuing Greeks against impossible odds. They assumed that they would die, and they still found the gamble worth it.
It was all ideological. Can you picture saying the equivalent of “Who cares?” and just getting on with your life?

It’s no coincidence that the story of Yosef is read during Chanukah. He too faced impossible odds, and had no expectation of survival, but for him the battle was entirely different. He had come to do battle against himself, pitting his natural desires and fears against his awareness of Hashem’s will.
Can you picture yourself saying the equivalent of “Who cares?” if you were Yosef?
Potiphar’s wife stopped at nothing to get Yosef to have relations with her. She changed her clothes several times a day, created situations where she could speak to him, and ultimately threatened to fake a scenario presenting him as an attacker, and herself as a victim.

What motivated her? Was it just the banal old cliché of a lonely woman meets an attractive man?
It was far deeper than that.  She knew astrology (which was very common in Egypt during her lifetime). She saw that Yosef’s descendants would come from her line, and she wanted to make it happen, she wanted to be part of something bigger than herself. What you may not know is that Yosef also knew astrology. He saw the same stars that she did. His conclusion was that he would fail the moral test he faced. He would end up committing adultery with her, and she would bear his child. He now had the best excuse in the world. He could say, “I am inevitably going to fail this test.  I am doomed. The test is too big.”
AND YES!! The whole thing is ideological. Who will know what happened between them? Can you picture yourself saying the equivalent of, “Who cares?” if you were Yosef?

Now he had the same choice as the Maccabees. Should he head off to battle (in his case against his yetzer hara, his evil inclination) knowing he will lose, and face spiritual death? Should the Macabees enter battle against the Greeks knowing that in all likelihood they will face brutal and immediate physical death? They came to the same conclusion. They both decided to do the right thing, regardless of the possibility of facing death.

AFTER ALL, IT’S ONLY IDEOLOGICAL…

This is called “mesiras nefesh”.

IT’S NOT ONLY IDEOLOGICAL. IT’S ABOUT WHO YOU ARE, AND WHO YOU WANT TO BE. 

The result was (both of them!) divine intervention that changed the game completely. The Maccabees won, entered the sanctuary, and witnessed the miracle of the candelabra staying lit for 8 days (the time needed to bring down new oil from the north). Yosef ended up as the viceroy of Egypt. He saved his family, Egypt, and ultimately the entire known world which was affected by the famine. He also ended up showing us what it truly means to be a tzadik.

You have your challenges, and I have mine. The one thing we share in common is that you and I are both going to find ourselves thinking that there is no hope - that we are going to lose this one. The truth is, that Hashem will help you as He helped the Maccabees and as He helped Yosef.
How are you going to find the courage you need to survive the dark moments?

Even Potifera, Yosef’s master, knew that “Hashem is with him”, in his own words. He recognized that Yosef had ruach haKodesh, inspiration from Hashem, a higher source.

The Talmud tells that you can only have ruach hakodesh if you are happy.
NOTHING MAKES YOU HAPPIER THAN LIVING A LIFE OF MEANING, OF LIGHT, OF WHAT CHANUKAH MEANS TO US ALL.

Yosef’s secret was being happy with any situation that he faced. THIS CAN BE  YOUR SECRET TOO.

Love,
Tziporah           

Dear friends,
I teach at an Israeli Midrashah called Netiv Binah. I can hear you clearly, thousands of miles away.
“What is a Midrashah?”
A midrashah is a learning framework for women who work. People who aren’t acquainted with Torah Judaism can’t always relate to it easily. The students work at a real-world job. We have a lawyer, a language specialist, and a woman who is in a high position on one of Israel’s major industries.  They come in after a full day at work. At the end of the day, you might assume that the next “activity” is dinner, the news and finally a shower and bed.
Not for them. They come to the MIdrashah (which begins its classes at 5:15 breaks for dinner at 6:15 and continues most nights until about 10 (!). They want more than to come in first in the rat race. They want Torah, and of all of the women I teach, they are the least afraid of changing.
Not all of the women come every night, and not all of the women stay for the entire program. Even so, it is unique. There is nothing like it as far as I know in the secular world. They don’t take tests, get marks or degrees. It is all for the sake of learning more, in order to be more and to do more.
The Midrshah is located on Sorotzkin Street not far from Yerushalaim’s central bus station. Thedesign of Sorotzkin 35 (where the Midrashah is located) features 6 entrances on two levels, oneof which faces the street, the other one right behind. So, you have Sorotzkin A and Sorotzkin B. There is a shared underground area for parking, and on either side, there are storage areas. 
A fire broke out last week. It began in one of the storage basements, and spread from unit tounit. It stopped rather mysteriously at entrance 3, the one that leads up to Netiv Bina.  That is miracle number one. It also spared one other unit. That is miracle 2, and it carries a deep message.
 The story began well before the fire.
“Avi” the owner of the spared unit, answered a phone call from his neighbor. It seems that there was a plumbing issue, and the neighbor wanted him to come up to his apartment to help him out. Avi did, but just a few days later had reason to regret it. The symptoms were the usual ones; and before he even had it checked, he knew he had COVID-19. And so did his wife. And their kids… Their neighbor, it seems, had COVID when he asked Avi to look at the problem, but didn’t “bother” to mention the extremely catching virus. He knew that he was exposing his neighbor, but he wanted the fix the plumbing. 
 It wasn’t an easy time for Avi or for his family. He could sort of hear the outdoor minyan, but not really. His kids could sort of focus on the telephone classes, but not really…. When his neighbor (finally) called to ask him for forgiveness, his first response was to say that he forgives him, just because it is so unpleasant to say you don’t forgive someone, but he knew that in his heart there was no forgiveness at all.  Avi was too honest to just say the words. He wanted to be able to say them sincerely.
He stepped back from his ego. He had enough perspective to ask himself the hard questions.
Who determines my fate, and the fate of my family? “Who benefits from Hashem’s decrees, are they not made with only our ultimate good in mind?”. The thoughts flooded him it felt like a lifetime, but it was just a few seconds. He forgave his neighbor sincerely. This story was told by Rav Meilich Biderman, one of the brilliant stars in the contemporary world of teaching Torah to the masses of people who want inspiration.
I then found out that no less that Avi himself had recounted the entire thing on mainstream media…
Besides opening my eyes, I hope to some degree at least, it opened my heart
Having an “ayin tovah”, a good eye, means being willing to see what is good and meritorious in your neighbors, and in your friends. It generates feelings of being invested in his success, and generous when judging his failures.
The opposite is ayin raah, w hen you look at others as though they are engaged in an unending war of Us against Them. Avi was able to see that everything he is ad has is a gift from Hashem, and that no human is genuinely a real competitor. If nothing else, Corona has taught us that we have absolutely no way of controlling events, or even anticipating what will happen next. It is in other Hands. One of the lesson s that this plague has taught us is to finally quit eh game of Us angst Them and of course its “daughter’ Me against Him.
Yosef’s brothers felt threatened by him, and for good reason. They tragically misjudged him, and thought that there was option for what they know was the beginning of a nation, to defend its unity by not let one of the brothers push the others into the twilight of history
You can easily understand their misjudgment if you let your mind take over, and keep your emotions out of the picture, which is usually the best way to make serious decisions. There’s one problem. After the tragic deed was done, and Yosef was sold, they sat down and had a meal. What that shows are that a moment that could/should have been one in which they mourned their brother, even though they thought there were no other options, was tinged with their raw envy and their desire to win the battle of Us against Him. 
Would we have done better?
I don’t know who will read this letter. Just go back a bit and ask yourself how you feel w hen you are vulnerable. Let the answer sink in deep enough for you to replace the fear of loss/failure/rejection/losing the game/competition that fuels envy with tranquility/trust/courage/ emunah.
I hope that I can,
and I hope that you can too.
 
Love,
Tziporah