You aren't alone

Dear friends,

It has been are long time since we were in touch. Baruch Hashem, my family was busy with simchas from the generations that we never could have anticipated…

My first husband came to Israel in 1965. He had $40 in his pocket and wanted the holiness and intensity of yeshiva in Israel. His only connection was a Rabbi (Rav Elya Weintraub ztl) who picked him up at the airport. He was very much alone.

I came in 1966 with a monthly allowance, daily letters from home and a brilliant principal in  Bais Yaakov in Bnei Brak who made time for my questions.  There was no setup in the dorm for girls who didn’t have family. There were usually a few girls who had nowhere to go (with stories to match) who stayed in for Shabbos.  We spent the time cheerfully sharing each other’s loneliness with songs and some Torah. I remember going for long walks Friday nights, and seeing lights on in the apartments on Rechov Rabi Akiva. I wished that I could be a fly on the wall, enjoying the singing and feeling of being alive. I was very much alone.

My dear present husband financed his trip to a yearlong stay at Merkaz HaRav, encountered Israel head on, it met his expectations and his dreams. He was very much alone.
I was in a clothing store, and an Israeli woman watched me struggle with my fractured classical Hebrew. Mrs. Fishoff (yes, that was her real name. I never learned her first name) invited me for Friday night dinner. There was homemade challah, fish called bourie that was a delicious sweet and sour dish cooked with potatoes. A particularly rich chicken soup followed this. At that point, I wondered how I was going to manage to eat the main dish. There wasn’t one. We were all so full, that desert was more than enough. There was singing, Torah, and many kids around the table. They all had asked for books for their afikomen extortion, and were a bright well-mannered bunch. I realized that I was watching a real to life version of Know What You Want . There’s more to life than not being alone. It’s being in a new state, called Never Alone. 

You want to live in a way that has meaning that goes beyond the moment. We all do.

There is a pasuk in Kohelet that tells you that going to a house of mourning is better than going to a house of celebration. Think a moment about the last time you went to a shiva ho use. There is a feeling of closeness, and you sit across from the mourners and listen to how people tell stories about the person who passed.

What’s worth remembering? What will be remembered a generation from now?

I asked this question to my Bnos Avigail girls. One girl told me about a grandfather who never recovered financially from losing out an opportunity that would have made him a financial success because of principles that were worth everything to him. What made this story particularly moving was that there was no happy ending. He didn’t find a pot of gold. However, he also never regretted his decision.  A man like that lived in a world in which he was never alone.

Hashem has changed our lives. We have children, grandchildren and a sprinkling of greats. We are not alone in the literal sense, but making the choice to stay Never Alone is always a challenge.
One way to do this is to make time at the end of the day to think about things you did, or saw that open your heart to recognizing your inherent connection to everything that is real and eternal, to Hashem Himself. 
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You aren’t alone. 

Hashem’s goodness to us is incalculable.
 
Love,
Tziporah