Dear friends,

The last day of Chanukah is like all finales – both a dramatic farewell and a realization that the time has come for readjusting to life the way it’s meant to be lived, without the high drama. You can keep the light, but the brilliance of the menorah and the holiday feeling will fade, as they should, leaving only the light to inspire you in Ordinary Life. The truth is that you choose the way your Ordinary life feels, just as much as you choose how to let the exceptional moments touch you.

Every so often, it’s good to think about the menorah in the Bais Hamikdash even though today your menorah is back home on the bookshelf.  When you look at your menorah, if you were to see it as it was back in the Temple, it would have 7 branches. Today we have a ninth light, the shamash, the one that is used to light the others. In a certain sense, the shamash is like the kohein gadol, whose job it was (among others) to light the original 7 lights of the menorah. Was he just sort of living for others? Not really – the person he became was the person that he wanted to be.

My family had a Chanukah party.  It was a full house.                                                

When I came to Israel in 1966, it was just me. I am an only child. My parents married late (even by today’s standards) and soon after their marriage the war broke out and my father joined the American army and served for the next 5 years. I was born the year after my father came home, and at the time my mother was 46. I had no plans to stay in Israel beyond the school year. As an only child, I wanted to loosen some of the bonds, but also couldn’t imagine living outside the nest. In the course of the year, things changed. Some were subtle, such as the way I fell head over heels in love with Israel. Others were overt and surprising, like my parents agreeing to the shidduch my teacher suggested for me. The combination of both led to my first husband, Dovid Heller, and I returning to Israel a month after our wedding. We were very sure that we would stay for two years and no longer. Until we didn’t. One year led to the next. The babies came one after another, and my parents adapted to the role of long-distance grand-parenting. The first one, Rachel, was their dreamed of princess. The next and next and next were surprises, unknown people, more than they could have imagined. After my father’s passing, my mother came more often and eventually made Aliya. Hashem’s design was that our next-door neighbor asked me if I knew someone who would sublet their apartment. It was too small for their growing family – just a living room, kitchen, and one bedroom. I did. My mother lived right next door for many years. One of the great surprises was that she had little need to escape into the orderly quietude of her apartment. She loved the noise, the constant “happening”, and also enjoyed hosting the crew Wednesday afternoon for a civilized lunch. Napkins. Matching everything. No getting up from the table. A bit different than the somewhat unsophisticated, loud, and unpredictable (and arguably a bit barbaric) scene next door. She loved it.

The kids grew, and she lived to see some of the weddings. There is no way she could have predicted having the kind of family that no longer can fit into our living room when we make a party. When I think about her role, (she was involved, but the differences in age and culture made her a mixture of an actor and the audience), it was very much like that of the Kohein Gadol.

It’s not so bad to be the one who lights the candles. It didn’t bring a great deal of recognition on a daily basis, however, when you step back you see the picture that you can’t see when you are in the picture.

SEVEN AND EIGHT

With Chanukah still in the air, the number eight is very much with you. The Talmud tells about a rather unusual combination of seven and eight.  It says that there will be seven shepherds and eight princes. The context is a description of history’s outcome. The seven shepherds put Dovid in the center, with the tzaddikim who lived before the Great Flood, namely Adam, Shett, and Metushelach, on his right, and on his left, Avraham, Yaakov, and Moshe. You may be wondering, why Adam, Shett, and Metushelach? What do we really know about them? We know that Adam contained all of what later can be described as human potential. Shett was the one of his three sons who wasn’t destroyed by his own tragic choices. Metushelach was a tsaddik who was so great that Hashem postponed the Flood until the seven days of mourning after his death had passed. The meaning of his name, Rav Hirsch explains, is that it is a contraction of two words: mettu (they died) and shelach (send away). He lived as a hermit, looking in disgust at the world around him.   After the great flood, the restoration of human potential returned slowly, with Avraham being the first to shift the way things were going from being more and more distant to drawing closer and closer to Hashem. The process was completed by Yaakov, who turned a family into a nation, and Moshe who gave the nation the Torah by which the nation can live. What happened to Yitzchak? He is not mentioned because when the end of the story comes closer, he leaves the group to plead for the rest of us and to save us from gehennom. The eight princes of Adam (humankind) are Yishai, Shaul, Shmuel, Amos, Tzefania, and Tzidkiyahu followed by Eliahu and Moshiach. Some of the eight are prophets and other leaders.
 
What is relevant to us is that Dovid was in the center of the shepherds. His trait is called Malchut, which means kingship. His regality wasn’t self-directed. It was always towards bringing the Jewish people closer to being aware of Hashem’s rule. For that reason, in Tehillim, he is compared to the sun, which gives warmth light, and energy.
 
You may very reasonably wonder why I am telling you this. The reason is that a person whose trait is Malchut, to quote the Zohar, has nothing of himself, no ego involvement. He is focused on those who he affects.
 
This takes you back to the kohein, and my mother, and to what you may be in your life as a woman.
 
Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,

Who likes being number two?

Candle number one was heroic. The Maccabees found the pure oil in the balagan of pagan idols and sacred stones.

The second night was potentially anti-climactic.

It’s not. There’s something about the endurance of the light that has its own message. I was thinking about this tonight. It’s the second night of Chanukah. The light of the two small flames on the menorah is something special – not quite stuck in Now, but not quite of the great expanse called Then. My husband has a video of the Bostoner Rebbe’s father, who was his original Rebbe, lighting his menorah. The songs are ancient, not the kind of music you hear this century, but not in the Neverland of history either. 

The darkness also isn’t really just Then, it’s also Now. The problem with the Greeks was not that they were savage and aggressive. They didn’t even really hate us as people. Their issue was the irrelevance of religion. A kind of darkness that, if anything, is spreading – from the UN and the NY times to the college campuses to subtle entrance into our hearts.

Irrelevance?

Irrelevance is the big enemy. Try to interest some young students – they are not so much resistant as they are bored by the very idea of hearing religious ideas. To someone living in today’s erase society, religion is somewhere between ‘Out’ and ‘A Threat’. It belongs to the reactionaries and the racists. It has nothing to say to someone who thinks. Or at least thinks whatever the progressives are selling today. What disturbed the Greeks (as is recorded in al hanissim, the prayer added on Chanukah in all three prayers and in benching) is that they wanted us to forget Hashem’s Torah and to move us past observing His statutes. The specific mitzvos were not the issue. The issue was living in the presence of Hashem.
The tricky part is that somewhere inside virtually everyone is a deep and abiding need for meaning, and something, inexplicable, called conscience. You find yourself attracted to people who are caring, courageous, morally strong, honest, transcendent, loyal, and dedicated. These traits are all spiritual – they don’t get you anywhere materially, but they are what you value the most in the people you love.

And in yourself.

Because you and the people you love (and those you don’t) are in the Divine image. When you look at the two tablets upon which the Ten Commandments were written, you will notice that one side concerns your relationship to Hashem, and the other to the people you will encounter in life. When you match them up (as the Abarbanel did) you will find interesting parallels. “I am Hashem your G-d” is the first commandment. The sixth one, which is the first one on the other side, is “Don’t murder.” What this tells you is that the natural abhorrence you feel towards murder has a root. It is that humans have souls. When society puts G-d underground by making His presence so unPC that it isn’t really okay to mention Him, murder goes up. The reason isn’t that people aren’t afraid of hell. It’s because human life loses its value when you can look at a person with a heart and soul and see neither. Murder is momentarily empowering. When that means everything to you, you can forget that there is more to you than stress, frustration, anger, fear, and vulnerability. You forget your life has meaning that has eternal reverberations, and that you are happiest when you love, care, and give. Seeking harmony and inner peace doesn’t work without something more than You with a capital Y in the picture. The Greeks were threatened by the idea of God because it would rob them of the empowerment that comes from being the winner and all-time champion of the contest that matters the most.

Shabbos puts Hashem in time.
Bris milah puts Him in the human body.
Rosh chodesh gives you a calendar in which you celebrate His presence in the world by having holidays that commemorate His involvement in our lives.

The two candles are there.  In you.

The flames have outlived their half-hour lifespan. The light and the gratitude for being part of this stays with you. You get up to this kind of light when you say modeh ani, and go to sleep with it when you say shema. When you see old people who have lived lives of faith it comes to you, and when you see little gan kids you see it in their eyes. The seminary girls have it when they head out for chessed afternoons and when they study the texts that only speak to their minds and hearts. The guy in the pizza store who has a picture of Rav Ovadia right over his cash register has it. The folks in the supermarket who look for the kashrus endorsements that make their already kosher food cost at least a third more than their non-kosher buddies have it.

It’s all the light of the second candle.

A word from EY:               Over the years I hear women wishing they could go back to seminary. My daughter Devora is organizing a trip for women, which is not seminary in the ordinary sense, but a spiritual vacation in the Land. The information is below, and the flyer can be found here. 

Those of you who can’t go can just be jealous.

Love,
Tziporah

​
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Dear friends,

​What time does Shabbos come in where you live? Here in Yerushalaim there was a difference of opinion between two calendars. One had it at 3:55 while the other had it at a 4:01, which of course would allow you to luxuriate in the ample time for “just being” drinking a coffee or sliding into first base if that is your style. Theoretically early Shabbos means that Friday night when the meal ends you still have time to read, catch a schmooze with the folks around the table, or finally get the inner space and time to pick up a serious sefer. For me, the theory only goes so far. No matter how early it is, when the table is cleared my eyes grow heavy, the lines in the book seem to flow into each other and before I can seriously command my body to stay awake I find myself in bed, in horizontal heaven.

Now that we understand each other (notice how I made you an accomplice) you will understand why I never genuinely understood Rashi’s comment on the words, “And Yaakov dwelled”. Quoting the Midrash, he tells you that the tzaddikim are not content with their reward in the future life, but they seek tranquility in this world.   Yaakov had been through so much: Eisov, Lavan, and Dinah, that he wanted some respite, but this is not what is meant for the tzaddikim. Instead of the tranquility he sought, what happened was the fury and chaos of what life became when Yosef’s story began to evolve.

The reason that I found this Rashi to be so difficult is that tranquility seems like such a worthy goal. Don’t we greet each other with the word Shalom? Isn’t the word Shalom the climax of bircat kohanim, the ancient triplicate priestly blessing? Tranquility is to me what Shabbos is to time. Isn’t that what we all long for?

Not really.

The hoary old joke has it that there was a man who won the second prize in the contest (it doesn’t matter what contest. Don’t send an email asking for clarification). It was a two day trip to Philadelphia. The winner of the Grand Prize won a one day trip to Philadelphia. While my intent is not to randomly offend those of you who live in the City of Brotherly Love, it’s to make the point that when nothing much is happening the result is not always raw joy.
Yaakov had contended with Eisov, Lavan, and Dina’s abduction to Shechem. In each case he was able to get through the coarse layers of falsehood and end up a spiritual hero. Eisov’s endless power playing led Yaakov to to turn to Hashem with even greater devotion. Lavan’s depravity left Yaakov even more committed to the mitzvot than he was before he was tested. When he confronted Eisov after leaving Lavan’s house, he could honestly say, “I lived with Lavan and kept all 613 mitzvot.” He took what was evil and found ways to let them lead him to Hashem, as though the ladder he saw in the dream he had on the way to Lavan’s house was magically transposed into a spiritual ladder in which each challenge to him up to the next rung. This not only touched him, but his children were also transformed by their having confronted Lavan. They are referred to in the text as “his brothers” even though some of them were really just kids. The final act, when they faced off Lavan and went separate ways, and then did the same with Eisov they were ready for the Grande finale where the curtains come down and the credits are given to all the performers.

Hashem can see you better than you see yourself, and He knew that what Yaakov, and all of the tzaddikim want is not the Grande finale. They want to live! To be here and constantly add to the world’s goodness and light. In a certain sense they want to bring the light of Shabbos to the struggles of the work week.
Sleeping on Shabbos is more than just rest; it’s surrender to the reality of Hashem finishing the work that you live for a love. The Arizal who was extremely guarded with his time, using every moment purposefully slept two hours of Shabbos afternoons.

Wanting tranquility is a just and beautiful desire.  Confusing tranquility with passivity is very very easy. Tranquility is the feel of a meaningful job that is finally complete. Passivity is the rejection of struggle. It’s valid to want Shabbos in every sense of the word.

For that reason, even on the crazy winter days when Shabbos comes in leaving you struggling to catch your breath, try taking it in 10 minutes earlier. When I was with Bnos Avigail in Bnei Brak, Rebbitzen Koladetski made this suggestion which I promptly considered, thought about, contemplated, and envisioned. You guessed it. I did nothing to change my slide into first base habit. Then my friend Ayala Hass mentioned to me that she has started an initiative for her friends and acquaintances to enjoy the act of bringing in Shabbos early, and was incentivizing it with a small raffle for those who could honestly affirm that they did this three or more times. My first inclination was to think about wiping Ayala’s number off my phone. My second one was to think about what I really want, and when the answer was the tranquility of Shabbos, I jumped in. It’s been four weeks.

No, I didn’t win a prize. A bit more Shabbos was the best prize imaginable.

Have a great Shabbos,

Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,

I returned home to Eretz Yisroel yesterday. The Great Plan obviously was that Tuesday would be the day, but my Little Plan was to get home on Monday. No, you didn’t ask for any particular details of how things evolved, but as you already figured out, this never stopped me.

I knew I had a problem last Thursday.

We were on the way to a wedding in London. For some reason, my dear dear student Tamar, the kallah, who arranged the tickets, actually assumed that the names that she knows us by, Dovid and Tziporah Gottlieb, would appear on both the tickets and our passports. Our passports were made out to (blush, but a very inappropriate one) Dale Victor Gottlieb and Phyllis Bonnie Heller….
There was no problem getting out of Israel. I just sweetly smiled at the young woman checking documents and told her how back in America he was called Dale, but of course here in Israel things are different. I began to tell her an Aliya story, but she went on to my passport. When I told her how we recently married and how wonderful it was to have a new beginning at this age, she realized that she had better just let me go if the plane will make it out on time. When we were on the way back, in the airport in London, as soon as I saw the woman checking documents, I knew we were in Big Trouble. She was about 60, named Clara, and looked as though in a previous gilgul she may have been the rector of the University of Berlin. I knew the smiley dotty stuff wouldn’t work. It didn’t. All it achieved was her carrying on the rest of her conversation exclusively with my husband, leaving me to watch the clock and the bags. When I asked if having my lawyer email a statement from Israel attesting to our identity would help, she asked someone to get me a chair….

The story ended with a pending refund and new tickets. 

Now for the reason I told you the tale of Dale, Phyllis, Dovid, and Tziporah.

CHAPTER 1

My mother was one of six sisters. They all went to the same public school in the lower east side. In those days, the teachers were almost all Irish, and they didn’t particularly like Jews. On the first day of school, the teacher asked each child for her name.

Fagaleh became Fay.
Raizeleh became Rose.
Dvairah became Dorothy.
Tzirel became Celia.
My mother, Sara, z.l. became Syd.
When it was Goldie’s turn, the teacher told her that Goldie isn’t even a name. Gold is a metal. She will be called Gussie.

Goldie turned to the teacher and said (at the age of 6!) “I won’t answer unless you call me Goldie,” and Goldie she remained.

A generation later virtually everyone had English names. Even the children of the Very Frum had names such as Regina, Irving, Milton, and more oldies but goodies. Things have changed. I don’t know anyone who is shomer Shabbos who gave their child a secular name (unless pressured to see that Aunt Shirley had a namesake or similar reasons).

CHAPTER 2

When Yaakov left his home behind him (imagine what growing up with Yitzchak and Rivka must have been like, but that’s another story), he had to go to Lavan. When he finally left and encountered his brother Eisov he said the words “Im Lavan garti” which means “I dwelled with Lavan.” Rashi asks why this phrase is part of the Torah. What does it teach you? – The word Torah is related to the word Horaah, which means, “teaching.” Nothing in Torah is either irrelevant or there for the ride. He answers by mentioning that the number value of “garti” is 613, the number of the mitzvos. He hinted that even in Lavan’s house he kept all of the mitzvos. He didn’t have to – the Torah had not yet been given, so his observance reflected a desire to serve Hashem rather than an obligation. That desire was his entire identity.
 
CHAPTER 3

Some of us are what I call pseudo-Marranos. You were Dale or Phyllis but never never never let anyone suspect you of having been anything other than Dovid or Tziporah. It’s a deep dark secret of a past you left behind. You may forget that the process makes you who you are and that it is Hashem who authored your first chapters.

No one reading this letter had an experience similar to my mother’s and her sister’s experience. Episode one is your entire early life. Some of your grandparents were sisters under the skin of Goldie. Others were not. You may have grown up in a family that identified as Americans. You alternatively may have grown up in a family that identified as Jews, or any mixture thereof.

Episode two is the one you write for yourself. You can learn to ask questions, real “what” questions, to deepen your awareness of being Jewish and its meaning to you. You can ask “why” questions about your relationship to the current progressive society, questions about who you really aspire to be. Everyone writes their own book. Our books could be read (at least to some degree) by looking at our passports. There is no reason for shame – my blush was misguided (a misguided blush? Nu nu). You are on a journey with a beginning determined by Hashem’s providence, but your last chapter is determined by your choices.

I haven’t been back to the States since Covid. I miss you, and miss being back to episode 2 and watching it morph into episode 3 which is still unfolding….

My husband and I will be in the States for two weddings (I imagine that if we had stayed Dale and Phyllis this is would have been extremely unlikely). We are both available to speak from January 15 through January 27. We can speak either individually or together. For instance, we did a speaking engagement in England in which we spoke for about a half hour each and then did Q and A with people in the audience addressing their questions to whomever they wished to hear.

The one who is arranging things is my daughter Chani. You can reach her by email at [email protected]. She will let you know which days are available and will send you a menu of topics along with what the cost will be. Because of the weather and my history of canceled flights, only the East Coast will be possible this time around.
 
Looking forward to seeing you,

Love,
Tziporah