Dear friends,
What confusing times we live in!
The elections are over, but are they really?
There is a vaccine for Corvid 19. Is it really what we were hoping for?
There are countless conspiracy theories floating around. It would be easy to dismiss them, but over the years I have discovered that sometimes the most outrageous conspiracy theories turned out to be true. Of course I have also discovered that the majority of them don’t turn out to be true. Where do you turn to when you are looking for truth?
When my boys were still teenagers one of Israel’s repetitive wars was going on. Word got out that Rav Shach zatzal had made a major address about responding to the situation. When I went down to the mailbox to pick up the paper (we had a subscription that I had bought for my first husband thinking he would enjoy it. He didn’t nor did the kids. I was the only one who read my “present”). Of course, since they were teenagers, one of them grabbed it out of my hands immediately. After a moment he threw it on the table and said. “He didn’t say anything”. I looked at the front page, and saw that there were 6 columns worth of “nothing”. I asked him what he meant to say. He said, “Oh you know. Daven. Learn. Show greater respect and generate unity to your fellow Jew”. To him this felt like nothing. He would have much preferred something novel and (even better) dramatic. Maybe a call to have every single person in the country to go to the Kotel at dawn, or maybe a demand that everyone adopt a foster child or at least that all of the yeshivos close for a day of focused prayer in one of the holy places in the north (preferably not too far form a nature reserve). 
It doesn’t go that way.
Truth is the whole picture. We humans are far too limited to see the truth as it really is. Our lives are too short, our intellects too limited and our emotions too strong to avoid subjectivity.
Truth is far bigger than factuality. If someone were to ask you “Who was Hitler” and you answer “a vegetarian”, your answer would be accurate, but far from true. The only possible address for truth is truth that is from a source that is higher than you are (much as in the physical world, what you see form the top of the mountain is far more reflective of genuine reality that what you see from your window) From the mountain top you can see an entire panorama. From your window, if you are not careful (and if the pane isn’t clean) all you see is yourself and your immediate surroundings. When Hashem gave us the Torah, He gave us truth.
There’s a problem.
You can only hear the truth if you don’t block it out. You can block it out by physical passion or by ego, or by unwillingness to change. The illusion is that living a life of falsehood is sweeter. In the short term this is often accurate, but accurate and true aren’t the same things.
The only one of the patriarchs who is mentioned in Birkat HaMzaon (the prayer after eating bread), is Yaakov. We refer to Hashem as “Our holy One, the Holy One of Yaakov”. The reason that he is mentioned and not Avraham or Yitzchak is that he took their teachings even further than they did. He used their legacy to climb the mountain, and to see the world form its top. Avrhaham introduced the world of his time to belief in one G-d, and realized that we are in His image, and we can develop ability to bond with Him by mirroring Him. He is the host of the world? Be hospitable. He is compassionate; plead the case for others the way that Avraham bargained for Sdom.  Avraham was the pillar of chessed, Yitzchak built on what Avraham had started. He saw that there are many obstacles that are in the way –and he combined dealing with them with living he kind of life Abraham had lived. Besides the awesome and inspiring moments that you are familiar with (for instance, the akeida) he brought the ideal of living for Hashem into every aspect of his life. His “pillar” is the pillar of devotion to Hashem. Devotion demands strength, He left us our collective ability to make awesomely painful and difficult choices to stay Jewish. Yaakov saw the “whole picture”-Avraham’s love of Hashem, and Yitzchak’s strength and devotion.  He became a man of truth. This means seeing the whole picture. The whole picture always includes Hashem in it, since He is every blood cell and every galaxy at the same time. Yaakov’s name is mentioned in Birkat HaMazon because he could see Hashem even in the bread he was eating. 
Eisov was his twin
Equally as gifted, brought up by the same parents. His every choice ended up false for one reason. He couldn’t ever take himself out of the picture. His cheessed is based on the personal satisfaction and external recognition that it often brings. His courage was unfocussed.  I grew up on the Three Muscateers and the Knights of the Round Table. They were portrayed as being courageous, but the loyalty was never to Hashem, who for them was at most a vague presence somewhere Out There.
I don’t know who will resolve the confusion concerning the American election. I don’t know what will end the Corona Pandemic. What I do know is that tshuvah and tefillah and tzedakah are the visible sources of change that you can see when you are on top  of the mountain.
 
Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,
Age was once respected. Things have changed. Once you are in your mid-twenties people avoid asking you the ‘A’ question. Things were different when you were a child. If someone accused you of being 7 when you were actually 8, you would correct their mistake. After all, you have something to show for the year they omitted. You are bigger, smarter, and more like an adult.. 
What happened?
There are all sorts of theories about why age is perceived in a progressively more negative light as you move onward and upward. One is the untenable fact that you don’t get better and better looking, or more and more energetic. Actually the word undeniable is not a good choice. I have been in denial for years, and so have some of you. You also may discover that at least technologically, you are less with it than the post millennials. We all have literally trillions of neural pathways, but gosh, the ones you developed aren’t the same ones that they did if you were born when your Date of Birth began with the number 19….
Is it always a downhill slide?
Sara lived to be 127. The Torah presents it in three segments. The person she was at 7, the person she was at 20 and the person she was at 100. Each stage is described as holy, innocent and beautiful. 
Do you remember being 7?
I do. It was the age of Mrs. Neary’s second grade classroom being the place where things Happen. It was the era in which my lifelong love of reading began to become real and serious.  I became the heroes of the books that I read, and their adventures filled my rich fantasy life. 
The Bais HaLevi says that this stage is one in which your love of good, of justice and or making something of yourself, begins to show itself. It is potentially the beginning of your becoming a holy person. Then comes adulthood; a time in which the need to actually interact with the real world replaces the unborn aspirations of childhood. It’s a time for fulfilling ambitions so that the inner voice of the child who wants to be a hero can now be heard. This stage also comes to an end. In secular society there is no defined ambition or even purpose for life at this stage. Relaxation, dedicating yourself to pastimes that may give pleasure but rarely give more, are colors on the palette for this era. Given that life expectancy is in the 80s nowadays, this leaves quite a few years without defined structure. Kedushas Levi has a different approach. He says that this time of life is one in which the acquired wisdom of all the previous years meld into a potential self that is both reflective and wise.  For the most part, this is when the Gedolei Torah reached their highest levels.
What does this have to do with you? The basic message is to see that you stay alive throughout your life.  The Talmud tells you that tzadikim are called “living” even after their deaths, while evil people are called dead even while they are physically alive and breathing. The reason that it says this is that life actually involves connection to Hashem. Every stage of life opens its own possibilities.
Sara made use of each stage of her life. We are all in the middle of the drama. 
Here, at Bnos Avigail, Neve, and with you, my dear dear friends who I “know” from the online community, ask the kind of questions that tell me that you are very, very aware of this. 
Simcha comes from resolving doubts. When you see every day as “lihatchila”, as a purposeful gift, there are no real doubts.

Thursday the 25th of Cheshvan, is the sixth year since the Arabs attacked the Bnei Torah shul on Agassi Street in Har Nof killing 6 and seriously wounding 2.  The attackers lived in Jabel Mukaber. Those of you who have been on the Tisha B’Av trip around the hills of Yerushalayim have seen it, even though at the time you didn’t know it. It is the idyllic village that you see when you look towards the Temple Mount from the extreme  left side of the Haas Promenade. My son lived in an adjacent Jewish neighborhood called Nof Tzion for several years. When he looked out the window, he saw the same view that they did; he saw the holiest place of all. The two neighborhoods shared a playground (more correctly the children of Jabel Mukaber found their way to the play area that their neighbors in Nof Tzion constructed). On “our” side many people viewed this as natural, given the closeness of the two neighborhoods, and watched to see what fruits would grow from this particular tree. Others stood aside hoping that there would be no trouble and acknowledging that there were no real choices given that this is where they had chosen to live. 
My granddaughter Oriya played there, and got to know the neighbors. One day, a little girl about her own age said “you know, you can take a different name. You don’t have to be Oriya. You can be Anastasia. Then we can be real friends, and when we grow up, we can go to the mall together. You can be like us”. When she came home and told her mother, my daughter in law knew that the time had come to tell Oriya the truth. She told her about what had happened in Har Nof, and what had happened years ago in Chevron not far from where her aunt currently lives. And then she told her the most important message of all.
You can choose who you want to be every day. You don’t have to be anyone you don’t want to be. You have to watch that no one hurts you, but you don’t have to be someone who likes to hurt people. You don’t have give up being Oriya and be Anastasia to deserve life, and no one has to murder 6 men who came to pray on an ordinary morning because they hate anyone who isn’t what they are. There may be difficult people in your life. You may not be able to choose who they are but you can choose who you are. 
This message is one that can transform the way you look at your life regardless of what stage you are. Choose life. Choose to be the self you want to be.
 
Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,
 
When you take the first part of this coming week's Parshah and isolate it from the rest of the Torah, you will be able to step out of your picture of Avraham, and see him as he was.
 
He began sensing that the world is a place of wonder when he was a young child. You are familiar with the story of his breaking his father's idols, which took place when he was still young. When you explore the missing years, the Midrashim tell you so much more.
 
Before Nimrod forced him to choose between his belief in Hashem and facing death, he had already spent ten years in prison. He was completely alone with his convictions; the entire world was on the "other side", one in which believing in a personal G-d who loves you, cares for your life’s purpose and who extends His hand to you when you try to find Him was something between a myth and a heresy.
 
In today's world, believing in a Higher Power is socially acceptable, but letting Him into your choice making mechanism is not. Avraham began teaching so that other people would find their places in Hashem's world, and lead lives that have real meaning.
 
It was then that Hashem told him to go to the Land "Where I will show you yourself" as the text tells you. Hashem will always take you to where you have to be in order to discover yourself. Whether you succeed in this mission is up to you; we are sometimes open to self-discovery, and sometimes less so.
 
I am keeping this letter short. The reason is technical, but there is also something to be said for brevity.
 
Avraham's path included not only going to Eeretz Yisrael, but also being forced to leave in the face of a famine. It involved his return, and ultimately his becoming a person of such greatness that literally every Jew and non-Jew in the world is affected by his life to one degree or another.  

Dear friends,
I love reading stories of the Tzadikim except when I don’t. They are uplifting and inspiring on one hand. On the other hand, they can leave me feeling like the spiritual equivalent of the overweight overaged person in the picture that is captioned, “Before”, facing the svelte young beauty labeled “After”.  One example of how overwhelming things can appear is what happens when I spend time reading the excellent biography of the Chofetz Chaim,  reading about how he ultimately achieved perfect control over his speech (albite after many struggles). I like to be positive, but never uttering a needless rant is an entirely different story (pun intended). It’s not just that I am far from the goal; I am also not sure that in this lifetime I will ever reach it.
That’s why Noach’s story is so genuinely inspiring. He was a tzadik in his own times, and in his own way. Could he have been greater still if he lived in Avraham’s era? Maybe. It doesn’t matter. He was great enough to save the world. He had to face the life he had, not the one that Avraham had.  You have to live in your skin, so do I. When you face imperfection, far too often the next step is blame (it comes disguised as understanding the circumstances).
He lived in impossible times.
His world was totally corrupt and headed to the point of no return. When Hashem told him that the world had to be erased in order to begin again, he didn’t argue
Would Avraham have argued? 
If you compare him to Avraham, the contrast is overwhelming. Avraham bargained with Hashem over the city of Sodom and Amorah even though their evil was so painfully and visibly present. 
Would Moshe have argued with Hashem over the fate of the world?
Moshe went much further. When the Jews of his time worshipped the golden calf, instead of taking Noach’s approach (let them be erased if that means a new beginning), or Avraham’s (if there is critical mass, you can save everyone; the example of even 10 people committed to living decently will have influence). Moshe took it much much further. “Erase me form Your book”, he said, almost forcing Hashem acquiesce to his demand to let them live, accept them as they are, and Moshe bonded himself completely to the Jewish people when they were at their worst
Hashem knew what Noach didn’t know. He knew that it is only fair to open doors even if there is no likelihood that anyone will walk through and enter another room. He commanded Noach to build an ark. It took years. People asked him what he was doing. He didn’t hide anything from them. They mocked him and despised him, to the point that they saw him as a patronizing fool, and  an ideological enemy.  He didn’t save them, but he didn’t waver.
Did he make any baalei tshuvah? Not even one.     
Noach isn’t the only hero of the story. Chazal present us with a view that his wife was Naamah. Her family line is not impressive. She was a descendant of Kayin, whose view of the world was one in which there was little room for anything but his own fulfillment. Seven generations later, her father, Lemach, (the man who introduced polygamy to the world in the pre-flood era by having one wife for pleasure and one for family . Obviously both were exploited.) One brother introduced the idea of making music, one of the most spiritually alive experiences, and using it for idol worship. Another took animal farming to a new level by introducing itinerant ranching. I third was gifted. He understood using metal. He used this gift to make weapons. Naamah’s name literally means pleasant, and it was given to her to tell us about her deeds. She too stood alone.
Every human being in the world is a descendant of this pair. That tells you that no matter what your surroundings, family, or personal predilection is, you can be a tzadik.
The year on the ark was one in which they had to find the potential within themselves to build again. In order to do this, Hashem put them in the position of constant moment to moment chessed. They had taken refuge from a world that was defined as being a world of “grabbers and takers to the point of violence, promiscuity and finally instinctively ignoring other people’s right to even the smallest amount of their own  property, and they turned it into being a world based on the most h human and G-dlike part of what we can be,
Givers
24/7
To the animals.
A great deal of giving takes place nowadays. There are those who supply people who are in quarantine with everything that they need. Great Rabbanim such as Rav Zilberstein have “children’s hour” telephone shows. We are alone more than ever. We are people hungry. We are longing for more contact, and reaching out. We are not perfect. Maybe we are like Noach.
Maybe we have to keep trying to love the people we long to be with, believe in ourselves.
Even when we fail, we can come to see ourselves the way Hashem sees us. When Noach and his family came off the ark, Hashem made a sign of his commitment to refrain from ever destroying the world again by making another flood. The sign is the rainbow. The seven colors of the spectrum are really all manifestations of white, the color of light. Because light refracts and is picked up by pigment in different ways, you see colors.
Maybe, just maybe, my fellow imperfect tzadik, we can all learn to see it a little more clearly, we can see other people’s different ways of expressing Hashem’s light, and see our own version of this light.
In ourselves
In others
And in the world Hashem creates
Movement by moment.
Love,
Tziporah

The number seven is so much part of the Great Plan. The entire creation came into existence in 6 days, but it didn’t come to an absolute standstill. Surprisingly the menuchah that Hashem created was active; Hashem allowed kedushah (transcendent holiness) to enter, so that later people like you and I have the ability to get out of a picture so that you can see the picture without distorting it by putting yourself in the center. The menuchah of the 7th day brought kedushah with it, so that you can see both the art and the Artist in ways that elude you during the 6 days when you are occupied with the business of living your life. 
Let’s look at the number six- the number that Hashem used in creating everything mundane. The number fits; every material object has 6 sides (the four sides plus up and down). However, something of the 7 touches 6. No matter how thin an object is, it also has an interior. This is where the number seven “lives” it is the pnimiyus, reality’s inner dimension. Today’s Haftorah is the 7th one of the “Shiva Dinechemta” the seven Haftorah’s of consolation. In many ways, its themes tell you the inner realities of Hashem’s evolving plan for the world, describing both the 6 (the external nature of redemption) and 7 (it’s inner meaning).

WHAT DOES IT SAY? 

“You will be happy, you will rejoice” you as a nation, and you as an individual are in for changes. Two words that mean happiness that used at the beginning (Soss and Tagel) were chosen carefully. The word “soss” means external and collective happiness, the kind that was felt on VE day, when news of a final victory in Europe hit the States. My mother told me how throngs of people spontaneously headed to the streets to celebrate together. The geulah is a time of far greater victory; the final defeat of evil will bring the people of the world together in ways that not only haven’t ever been equaled, but can’t even be imagined. “Tagel” is related to the word “gil” which (as Malbim explains) is used to describe inner joy. Only you know what finally being rid of all of your devils, your vulnerabilities, fears, and scars will feel like. It isn’t only the world that will be healed, you too will be healed. Malbim compares your personal geulah to a tailor-made garment that fits you uniquely. No one else can “wear” it or even fully understand it.

What if we aren’t ready?

Yishaya tells us that Hashem will never let you reach the point of no return, or allow Yerushalaim to disappear. He has” placed guardians at the gates”.  Who are these guardians? The meforshim take you in many directions. Perhaps, as Yalkut suggests, one may be Michael, the great angel who offers the souls of the Tzadikim before Hashem, drawing down their merits. Perhaps Gavriel who is empowered by Hashem to bring justice to our enemies is the other guardian. Perhaps, it is the merit of the Avos whose lives go beyond their lifetimes and are the ones who drew angelic intervention. Perhaps (Alsheich suggests) it is those who devote themselves to living like the Avos, in total devotion to Torah that brings them down to this world. Perhaps it is tefillah, maybe even your tefillah. The important thing, Yeshaya tells you, is don’t be silent; keep asking and longing.  And if there isn’t enough merit, the geulah will come anyway, and the day will arrive when the brilliance and clarity of what lies inside, under the surface will be recognized even by the non-Jewish world. 

The bills will be paid. Good and evil can’t coexist in uneasy harmony. Evil has to be destroyed and Yishaya tells you in no uncertain terms that everything that Edom represents will no longer have a place on the planet. They will be utterly defeated and destroyed. Hearing this isn’t just meant to leave you with a feeling of optimistic hope. It should awaken your ability to see that Hashem is with you in your suffering.
What does it mean?

One of the final psukim in today’s Haftarah is, “In all of your sorrow, He has (no) sorrow”. You didn’t see a typo. The word for “him” lo, is written with a vav. If written with an aleph, it means, “not”. Let’s look at how both meanings relate to you. Hashem when ‘lo’ is read as though it is written with a vav, the Shlah explains, it tells you that Hashem indeed is with you, and always has been. There are times when you make it hard for Him to maintain His deep connection because you can close the door against Him with such force that you end up drowning in a whirlpool of doubt/fear/innui/escapism. The more you try to get out the more the chaos  deafens you with its unceasing roar. It is when you feel you can’t try any longer, that you have taken yourself out of the center. .. At that point Hashem is with you, feels your pain, and waits for the moment when your eyes are open enough go to grab at a rope he tosses towards you. It can save you if you see it. Let’s say that you do. It seems too far for you to reach; you have exhausted yourself to the degree that you don’t know if you can make it. The next moment you are holding onto the rope, and can feel yourself being pulled to safety. This is the syatta di’Shmaya that can bring you back to being the seeker that you want to be, and know that you can be. Seeing you in pain and struggling is His pain, His sorrow.  This is Lo with a vav. 

Let us now understand the pasuk with ‘vov’ with an aleph.   Once you are safe, something changes. No more self-imposed chaos. You are clear about one thing; your place is dry land; stability, growth and dveikus. At that point the One who let you feel the pull of the water, and the awesome fear of death that you experienced is not sorry that this is what you went through. It was needed. It seed you life. ‘Lo tzar’, He has no sorrow for what happened. His “lo” is with an aleph . 

WHAT DOES IT SAY TO YOU?

Your personal geulah is a tailor-made garment. Hashem is with you in your struggles He is the hidden author of your book. This is true for us as a nation just as much as it is for individuals. Our national identity is our relationship with Hashem. Other nations “find themselves” through their interactions with the world through agriculture, technology, natural science in all of its forms, they live in the world of the 6. We don’t - we have a deep need to find the inner dimension, which is the part of us that is inherently connected to Hashem. There have been times when our sense of self as a nation has floundered.

​We struggle, come close to extinction but Hashem is always with us, saves us, and gives us the opportunity to rediscover the joy of return.
 
Love Tziporah

Dear friends,
I love Elul. The freshness, the hope, and most of all the sense of being able to negotiate the past and present are all so sweet.

The Ohr HaChaim lets you answer the doubts that tend to rise when you feel like you are treading water. You want to be more and do more, but sometimes you may feel defeated. 
Look at yourself hard enough to notice that there are three hurdles to deal with.  They are universal, and that tells you that you can deal with them, just as every other human can; we face the enemy, and find that he is us…and often times we win.

1-The yetzer hara (generally translated as the evil inclination) has to be understood. Everyone likes destruction. It’s empowering! It can be (ironically) so charged that you can confuse it with creativity. If you can get yourself back to your post toddler years you may remember how good it felt to knock down the leggo tower that you just built. It made you feel “in charge”, empowered, and strong. Here’s where things get complicated. You knew the good feeling of destruction even before you knew how good it is to give and to connect. The yetzer hara has been with you for years; he has a head start.

2-The problem of instant gratification can’t be overstated. Saying the wrong thing, but feeling the surge of “gotcha” happens in seconds. Impulsivity in every area of sensory pleasure is often the tool that the yetzer hara uses to get you to do what you would never do in a saner moment. 

3-Your sense of “normal” can change. The third time you make a bad choice and do something that you know very well is bad for you, t doesn’t overwhelm you with guilt the way it may have done the first time. 
After analyzing why things are so hard to change, Ohr HaChaim doesn’t leave you in the lurch. “It’s true”, he says, “If you and to fight this battle alone, with your strength as your only ally, you would recognize that you will lose. You just don’t have the strength to win this kind of war. However, the Torah tells you that even when actual soldiers went to war in earlier times, a specially appointed Kohein had to tell him, “Hashem’s is with you. His great strength will save you”

There are all sorts of ways in which you can do the equivalent of opening y our h and to receive Hashem’s help. Rav Meilech Biderman wrote,  Learn from a ship at sea.

It says in Yirmiyahu, “Who places a path in the sea”, Hashem makes it possible for you to navigate even when there are no signs to guide you. This the Arizal said, refers to Elul. Objectively there are no paths in the sea. There is no set route so you have to chart your own path. There are some basic rules you have to know, (such as how to use a compass), but for the most part he is on his own. 

Everyone has his own path, his own purpose in being here, and his own destination. Everyone has to discover their own path of tshuvah. You find your way based on examining your talents, your tests, and the role that Hashem gave you in life. Each one of these three things ultimately are gifts, presented to you so you can become the person you want to become. 
​
When you examine yourself honestly, it’s time to go on to the next step. You open your hand and to receive the help Hashem has ready to extend to you from the moment you were created.

Your path. Your destiny.
Your set of wings
That take you higher
Into a place that you
Never never never
Wanted to go
Until you were there.
Love, 
Tziporah    

Dear friends,
​
Can you really choose life? Isn’t being alive or not out of your hands?
The fact that the Torah tells you to choose life means that you can look and see that Hashem put before your life and death, blessing and curse, and then tells you:

Choose life!

The Torah would never tell you to do something that you can’t’ do no matter how you try. It’s the Torah of life! Not a collection of dry principles that are inapplicable to ordinary people and apply exclusively to the Very Righteous. 

What actually is involved in choosing life? Before going further, it’s important that you and I are on the same page when we talk about what the word life actually means. The dictionary begins its definition of life by offering two options. One is “The quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body. The principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings …The second it “the Sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual.” On the surface of things neither definition lends itself to being available to you as a choice. The qualities that make you at least “not dead”, are not qualities that your efforts or money can acquire. You also can’t choose your experiences.   

That’s only when you decide to stay on the surface. There is more out there than surface experience. Where does the “principle or force” actually originate? Did it make itself?  Sfas Emmes would say that Hashem vivifies everything you will ever see or experience. There is what he calls “an internal point” of connection between any dimension of reality and Hashem Himself. It is He who generates innumerable forces to “make up the physical and mental experiences” that make up your existence. He is both the source of life, and the orchestra leader who composes its unending symphony. You can choose to uncover the concealed source of life as you live ordinary life, working, eating, interacting with others and making the daily choices that face you, or you can choose to live on the surface. One problem in choosing to live on the surface is that the physical world is death bound. Did you ever look around at all of your Stuff-you know the Stuff you buy, store, use, enjoy? Did you notice that it is headed towards oblivion? I don’t think in those terms very often, but every so often I let myself take it in. There is a choice I can make that changes the picture. If I choose to find the spark of eternity in all that Stuff, by letting it take me (and it!) to its root, then it never really dies.

My kids are good kids, Baruch Hashem (for sure it is His grace, not my somewhat shall we say, ‘A’ for effort parenting). Two of them decided (without being asked!) that it would be nice to offer my husband and I an escape from the covid generated isolation we have been in long enough to contract a bit of cabin fever. Sky, earth and variation becomes precious when you don’t have enough of it for a while.  Child number 1 decided that he could figure out a tiyul that have the magic word, OUTSIDE and at the same time bring us to places where we could maintain isolation. He took us on a trip to Maarat Hamachpeila late morning when there were no organized prayers going on, and from there to the tomb of Ruth and Yishai, and onwards to mountain spring in Bat Ayin, off again to a fenced off beach in Ashkelon and finally to the tomb of the prophet Samuel. Yes. All in one day. By the time we got home we were totaled, and didn’t want to go anywhere else for the next century or so. However, three days later we were once more Ready to Go, and another child did the organizing. This time we were off to Shiloh, the site of the ancient mishkan (sanctuary). We saw the place where it once was. I looked around me, and realized that the stones and the earth are still alive with the same force that was there when the Jews first laid eyes on its thousands of years ago. The same is true of all of the places we saw and all of the land that we tread upon, the spring at Bat Ayin and the waves hitting the sand on Ashkelon’s lonely shore. And here in Yerushalaim, and back where you are. In the States or anywhere on the globe. There is life force to discover. Always. You can reframe your life to learn to feel it.

 “There she goes. Who says I want to reframe my life?” Listen to the reframes, and take in that they may be what you need to choose life. There are seven in Orchot Tzadikim, but we will just  look at two of them this time around.’

1 - Realize that Hashem has compassion for every human being. He has more compassion for you, than you will ever have for yourself   Compassion isn’t’ pity - it’s closer to love than to patronizing solicitousness (how’s that for a big word no one ever uses? Isn’t playing scrabble worth-while?)  You may think at times, that you are the only one who knows your feelings and what your heart tells you. You aren’t. Hashem sees what you and I see, the surface of reality. He also sees far more than that. He sees your inner life more clearly than you do, knows your fears and pain without the defenses that you put up. You may at this point say, “Where I am today has nothing to do with Hashem. I killed so many relationships dead, I let my ego trap me so many times.  This may be true.

That doesn’t mean that Hashem won’t re-open doors that you closed. As long as you are physically alive (which you usual can tell…) the message is that Hashem believes that you have a reason to be here, that your inner capacity for living a genuine, meaningful, contributive, joyous life are all still in the picture.
2 - All of the benefit that you have ever reaped from any other human comes through them (for which they deserve acknowledgment validation and thanks) but from Hashem. No one can give you what they don’t have; whatever you received from your parents, mentors, friends, spouses are real. They made the choice to care. Nonetheless, all they can give is what they have, and everything they have comes from Hashem, whose love for you is ultimately the source of their love. Knowing this and living this is what choosing life is about. 

So much for now!
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Well, stay alive till next time…
Love,
Tziporah