Dear friends,

Let’s go back a couple of weeks to the week before Pesach. Mike enters his boss’s office with the usual trepidation that he feels whenever he opens the cage to feed the lion. Mr. Levine looks at Mike, and says, “Yes?”. Mike looks at his nails, and finally says, “It’s two days before Pesach. I need to take off some time to help my wife”.  Mr. Levine’s reply was immediate. “There’s no way that you can take off time now”. Mike’s entire demeanor changed. His face opened up into a sunny smile, “Thanks Mr. Levine. You’re a real friend. I knew I could count on you”.

Mitzvot can feel like work, and you can find yourself itching for a vacation. You are not alone. One of the major poskim (specialists in halachic law) would sometimes answer his phone with the word, “permitted”. If you asked what he means, he would say, “look. That’s what you want to hear, so why beat around the bush” (okay, his terminology was more formal, but the idea came through).
The kosher laws are especially hard. They prevent you from eating out with nonobservant or non-Jewish people. They require that you learn the symbols that tell you that the food item you are looking at makes the grade in kashrus. You have to learn how to examine some greens and grains for bugs instead of going into denial and eating them along with your lunch (I guess you would be fleishig forever). The Torah spells out the restrictions in this week’s parshah, Shemini.

The word Shemini means “the eighth”. The reference is to the final day of inaugurating the sanctuary in the desert, and feeling and seeing the miracle of Hashem’s presence descending. The number eight is often used as a symbol of transcending nature. The world was made in 6 days, the number 7 tells you that the world has an inner, spiritual dimension, but the number 8 takes you a step further.

The laws concerning the mishkan and the laws of kashrus have something in common. They are hard.
The Jews worked hard at building the mishkan-they gave their gold silver and much more to Moshe and from him, to the artisans who made it. They needed extraordinary skill and inspired insight to follow the design that Hashem revealed. Each thread, each piece of metal, each beam of wood, had an address. What was the extreme attention to detail. 

The word for forbidden is “assur”, which literally means “tied down”. Hashem structured the world by creating animals, situations, etc. that are ”assur”. They don’t reveal anything of Hashem. They are tied down to being just what they look like, purely physical. What are they for? They are there not to be uplifted, but to give you the opportunity to uplift yourself, by learning to say no to your base instincts.  

Meyer Birnbaum was a soldier in the American army during World War 2. The mood in America in those years was very different than it is today. Multiculturism had not yet emerged. The goal that almost any young person had was to enter the melting pot and become a “real American”. His mother taught him that whatever else he is, he is always a Jew. This meant that kosher is kosher in the army, just as it is in mom’s kitchen. He managed on raw fruits and vegetables, occasional meals given to him by Jewish families and faith in Hashem. One of his favorite treats was hard boiled eggs, cooked in his battle helmet. Those eggs were not only not “assur”, they were “muttar” which means “released”. They weren’t just food for his body, they were food for his soul. 

The beginning of the parshah is about the holiest moment that we had ever experienced, the moment when the Shechinah descended. The end of the parshah is about the kosher laws. These are not two separate ideas. They are two ends of a bridge. One end, is the material world in which you live, and the other end is Hashem’s infinity flowing down to earth. As Jews we know that both ends are connected.
These ideas are not new to some of you. The underlying problem for you may not be intellectual, but in bringing these ideas home to your heart. You are not alone. There is no road as long as the one from the head to the heart. 

The first one to walk the bridge was Avraham. Even as a child he looked at the world and realized that the things that the saw didn’t make themselves.  He had questions and sensitivities, but no answers. His parents took him the circular route. They worshipped idols that represented various natural forces, and encouraged him to do the same. At some point he realized that all of the forces of nature are creations, and that there is a Creator who made the natural forces just as He made the animals and plants that seem to be their “offspring’s”. As he grew older, he debated the people of Ur Kasdim, and was perceived as a threat by their king, Nimrod. He was sentenced to death by fire if he refused to recant his belief in Hashem, and survived the ordeal. None of this is new to you. The next question that I will ask, may be new.

What was it like to be Nimrod the next day? If the trial by fire was on Monday, for instance, and he saw the miracle with his own eyes, there was no way for him to escape into denial. What was he thinking when he got out of bed on Tuesday? 

I have no way of knowing the answer. I can just tell you what he wasn’t thinking. He didn’t consider the implications of knowing that there is a creator who not only brought the world into existence, but who is aware of human choices, and is capable of breaking his own natural law to intervene for the sake of Avraham. He stayed on one side of the bridge. Crossing the bridge takes effort, but each step you take moves you from assur to muttar and finally to being able to find Hashem wherever you look.
​
Love,
Tziporah

Dear friends,

So much enslavement seems to have taken place over this past year.
To one degree or another we were all enslaved to our bodies. No one could escape from the increasing awareness of how frail we humans are. The daily toll of Covid touched all of us to one degree or another.
Here in Eretz Yisrael it feels (at least for now) that the clouds have parted. Over 7 million people have been vaccinated, and so far of those who have had both doses the number of people showing signs of infection has been about 2%, and of that number so far the cases have either been asymptomatic or with very light symptoms.

The question remains in many of our minds. How do we absorb the huge impact on our lives? I write ahead for Hamodia, so the Haftorah that I saw today will only be read by you folks in over a month. One of the images that left an impression upon me was that we choose slavery. The problem is that we are “imprinted” to be enslaved to Hashem, but instead we enslave ourselves to all sorts of other masters.

I was in Hadassah Har Tzofim yesterday. Thank G-d it was nothing really serious. I tripped and cracked a bone (actually the doctors remained unsure as to whether it was a small crack or a small break). The results are that I have to be relatively quiet for a few days, schlepping around with a walker in the house.
In order to leave the hospital I needed a release document for kupat cholim. A doctor had to sign the pre-printed paper. He was on the phone. So was everyone else I saw who was sitting.So were all the people on line. The hallways were close to silent.

We are enslaved. Humans need connection, achievement, and a sense of belonging. I guess that the rhetoric of the anti-media Rabbanim was somewhat overstated. No more.Freedom is so, so sweet! On Pesach night we were all really free. Free of external slavery, pain and estrangements. Most meaningful to me is that perhaps for the first time in our history, we were all free on the inside. Some of us were not. They didn’t want to leave Mitzraim. The darkness that choked them and blinded them was a physical manifestation of their inner reality. But there were those who wanted out!

When you go outside and see the renewal of life orchestrated by what we call nature, but is really Hashem wearing enough of a disguise to let us see Him, and feel His life force in everything that surrounds us, you can begin to feel free. There’s no need to open the phone in order to feel real, at least for a few moments.

Enjoy the freedom that you can feel at the seder,

Love,
​Tziporah

Dear Friends,

Purim is behind you and Pesach is in front of you! I haven’t been in touch for the longest time because I am busy keeping my head above water. Baruch Hashem I am busy!!!!  

Years ago, I lived on a tiny Moshav in the north; my kids were babies and toddlers. They lived in babyland, and kept themselves occupied with their constant game of Search and Destroy. I found myself with empty hours. Some of them were spent walking through the Land, with a baby on my back and another strapped to my chest with an army pack, and a Big Girl holding each hand. The pace was very slow, and offered me the opportunity to really see the leaves as well as the trees.  Other hours were spent at home, with my washing machine providing the only sound. I made a resolution. If Hashem would offer me a full menu of people to observe, hear, learn from, and give to, I would take them. I wanted the stress of making Shabbos for a full table, with adults, old people, people in need, people who are unusual, and people who are distressingly normal and regular. I would never complain about being busy. I learned that I love being awake and doing. Did I keep my side of it? More than I imagined, but less than I should have.

At times, however, I realize that the price isn’t cheap. I don’t always manage to keep the people I treasure the most in my life. I miss you (all of you -y'all as they would say in the South).  When I write to y'all I see you in my mind’s eye, not necessarily as you are today. Some of you are grandmothers but I knew you when you were 19 and 19 you remain. Some of you are new, and in the process of figuring yourselves out. I don’t know if I will recognize you when you evolve into the Person You Want to Be.

I do manage to make time for Pesach.   

Pesach is busy, and pre-Pesach us busier, I am fully aware that much of what I do is unnecessary. Every year I ask why I wash the walls, take down the paintings to wipe away a year’s worth of dust… Go through the pictures still again. The answer is that I want a new beginning, fresh, spic and span-New Start
Like our ancestors
Who turned their backs on everything that was choking them with familiar falsehoods?
Who threw away fantasy
All of this came to a head at Pesach, a time that in some ways is an unexpected crack in the wall of the familiar. Why in Nissan? Wouldn’t Tishrei be more natural?
  
Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of the world. The world came with an unwritten book of instructions. The name of the book is Nature. Its rules are pretty much inviolable. They reveal Hashem. To Avraham the revelation led to a passionate desire to find the Artist. It awakened his sense of being part of the picture, and he longed to find his place. He did so by learning to feel the connection to the Creator by being directly involved in showing love to His creations.

When Hashem turned us into a nation, at  Pesach, He made His presence far more visible. The   plagues were a resounding slap in the face to nature’s consistency. In order to be worthy of all of this revelation. If we weren’t really “there”, we would have been like deaf people at an opera watching the drama without understanding its meaning. If you were there, you would have found a way to show that we are willing to bring Hashem’s presence into the world. Maybe you would be like the wise son, who knew that there are pathways that lead you to where you want to go. Perhaps you would be like the simple son, who stood aside in wonder. Would you be like the wicked son, who engaged in meaningless wars of words to defend his passivity in the face of miracles. If you know him (or someone like him), keep him from trivializing what he saw. “Ground his teeth” by sharing your own experiences with him. Perhaps you would not even question the miracles that so easily become “normal” and let you close your heart to your souls  
   
You would have been there when Hashem commanded us to keep Rosh Chodesh. This mitzvah tells you that it is up to you to discover the power of renewal.

You can do this in any life situation, in any place, and at any time in your life. 

Begin by getting rid of the old assumptions; the chometz of your life. Move towards looking at the way Hashem reminds you of His presence by nature’s renewal. Here in Israel everything is green and very much alive. It seems that covid is taking less room and Hashem is giving us more inner and outer space to experience More.

Purim was a time of redefinition. Nothing played out according to plan. Here is another part of the story; Haman’s descendants converted and ended up teaching Torah in Bnei Brak! 
​
LOVE, 
Tziporah
 

Dear friends,

I spoke to you a while ago about a family that I would very much like to help.
The father of the family was my daughter in law Bilha's brother. He was a melamed, much beloved by the kids he taught. One of his less usual features is that he always seemed to be in a good mood, regardless of what was going on around him. Death sometimes seems to love surprising us. His was sudden-he was gone within 4 days.
​
He has kids at home, some of them are teenagers, good girls innocent and sweet the way BY girls can be. There is of course the overworked and overwhelmed young wife, who hasn't had a moment to breathe and who hasn;t (at least as far as I know) said a word of anything that can be construed as a complaint.
I am enclosing the Vaad HaRabbanim form for them.

I am sure whatever you can do to help out can only bring you simchah and brachah,

Love,
Tziporah
https://www.vaadharabbanim.com/donate/
Fund # 5542
Reb Yehoshua Luber z'l

קרן 5542 - ר' יהושע לובר זצ"ל
לשיווק ותמיכה: 03-7630543

Dear friends,
This really feels like the best of times and the worst of times.
The terrible news of death after death is too big, to overwhelmingly painful to ignore. Last week one day left the world so much emptier than it was the day before. The Rosh Yeshiva of Brisk, Rav Dovid Soloveitchik was once a neighbor of sorts. We lived on Ovadia, and he lived on Amos the street that ran perpendicular to mine. His first-floor apartment faced the street, and because of the crowding in his living room, I sometimes saw the inside of his shiur room when the porch door opened because of the crowding. It’s intensity and feel for torah was what I envisioned when I see another world, a world that is no more. He would walk back and forth with his sons, who were young at the time, between minchah and maariv. I found myself back there when I heard his will read at the funeral, appointing his oldest son as the new Rosh Yeshiva. 
I didn’t know Rav SHeiner, the Rosh Yeshiva of Kamenetz. I heard more than once of his mixture of erudition and warmth. Imagining this coming out of Pittsburg of close to a century ago is mind boggling. There was nothing there; no yeshivas or Bais Yaakov’s and it would have been very easy for him to settle into the complacency and comfort of being the biggest fish in the small fish tank just by keeping Shabbos and kosher in a world that was still taken up with the American dream. He blossomed, and became something no one could have predicted.
 
The third loss was that of Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twerski. Did you ever read any of his books? You must have. There were about 60 of them. He is reputed to have once said, “I really only wrote one book. It’s about helping people find the place within themselves that can be held in high esteem.” There are limitless versions of the way self esteem changes lives, and there are many ways in which you can pull yourself out of the mire that is caused by low self-esteem/ Rabbi Twerski came from a home that was a virtual oasis-his father was a Rebbe in Milwaukee of last century. Instead of becoming a Rebbe, he decided to make a move that in many ways was also like the kind of Chassidic master of 200 years ago. He learned psychiatry and reached out to addicts, people who had nowhere to go in their endless desire to escape themselves. He opened Gateways, and was deeply involved in promoting the 12 step programs in the frum community for those who needed the support and structure of this method. Oh right. He did this while authoring the 90 books. He had tremendous presence and dignity. His white beard, Chassidic clothes and compassionate eyes gave him the look of a tzadik and could easily have scared off those of us who would feel small in his presence. He compensated by wearing a tie with Charlie Brown characters on them. How afraid can you be of a man who wears Snoopy?
 
The Kabbalists tell you that what makes you human is your mind, your heart, and your liver. Rav Soloveitchik was the mind of a generation of yeshiva students. He was the only member of the Brisk dynasty to write books, and by doing so to leave something of the sharp analysis of his ancestors to those who will only know them in print. Rav Sheiner brought his heart with him wherever he went, his warmth, lack of pretension, and genuine caring. Rabbi Twerski spent his life helping countless people learn to do what the liver does-reject what is toxic and harmful, and learn to nourish themselves. 
Their passing made the world somewhat less human in the deepest sense. Having this all take place in one day was overwhelming. Then this morning, my dear friend Dina sent me a clip. It showed the picture of beautiful dates. What makes them unique is that the tree from which they were harvested is the “daughter” of a tree that was planted from a seed that was found in Masada. Yigal Yadin, a famous political leader and general was also an accomplished archeologist and was very involved in excavating Masada. He found a handful of seeds. He gave them to be studied and then planted. Their approximate age, according to the scientists involved is 2,500 years. That means that they were from the time of the second temple. The particular kind of seed became wide spread even earlier. They planted the seeds and
It blossomed
And grew into a tree
That declares the message of hope with its every leaf
And tells us
That there are always
New beginnings
And life.
Love,
Tziporah
 
https://youtu.be/Y65kNqHWpEI

​Dear friends,

No one can say that they don’t know.

The last year has been hard on all of us, but the last few weeks have been far more painful. We have been forced to see that Covid isn’t a threat to specific groups, the elderly, the vulnerable and those with pre-existing conditions., Even if it were, would that justify allowing an emotional mechitza to separate you from them? hardly. It’s about newborn babies, mothers of tiny infants and of large families. Boys of 17. Young men with what we would assume is an entire life before them. No group is safe. Hashem has told the angel of destruction not to differentiate between the righteous and the wicked. Even the great scholars and the most generous and compassionate people have not always been spared. 

The scientific community has ceaselessly worked, doing whatever they can to preserve life and to make it possible to tame the beast. Hashem has granted them success in producing a vaccine that will, BEH, silence its roar. IN the meantime, more remains unknown and as yet undiscovered. The story is not over; not for the thousands of people presently afflicted , those on life support, those on respirators and ventilators, those who will never be quite the same, and those who don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Will their husband/wife/baby/mother/father/ child/beloved friend or chavrusa/rabbi or rebbetzin still be alive?

It’s time to recognize that the only One to whom we can turn is Hashem.

Rabbi Dovid Lau, the Ashkenazi chief Rabbi has organized a tefillah in Kever Rachel. It will begin at 4pm today, and whoever can take the time to daven with him then, or at whatever time works out for you, will be part of Am Yisrael’s collective voice. The main thing is to daven, and to open your heart to Hashem, who awaits our tefillot

May we only hear good news, and soon see the geulah shleimah,
​
Tziporah Gottlieb

Dear friends,
The lockdown in Israel is still on, and may continue for a third week. The number of people with Covid is still getting higher by the day, and the tragic deaths are becoming more and more frequent.  The funerals are as always grim, sober, and most of all heartbreaking. 

If you were to let yourself step back, and see the situation as it is, what would you say?

It’s hard to know. The one thing that you know is that this isn’t the first or last time that events were impossible to interpret as they happened. At times, they are easy (or at least possible) to interpret in the course of time. At times, they are not. This leaves you with the question of what Hashem wants from us, when we don’t really know or understand what is happening.

One way to answer the question is to think more deeply about ourselves, and our responses in a world that by its nature, is both good and bad. What does good really mean? What does bad really mean?

To my mind, good is synonymous with clarity, light, revelation, while bad would be synonymous with chaos, darkness, and concealment. This mixture isn’t easy to separate into segments. In the Torah, where we find the story of Adam eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the challenge involved eating. Once you eat something, it is part of you. Similarly, the chaos and the order, the light and the darkness, the clarity and the concealment are all there not only in the world, but also in you! How do you separate the components? How do you manage to rid yourself of evil, and retain what is good in yourself?
The effect of learning Torah and doing mitzvos is to strengthen the part of you that is drawn towards light. At the same time, you have to strengthen your emunah, your basic faith in Hashem’s presence, so that you teach yourself to find Him in simple daily life.  The opposite is to let your body dedicate itself to the act of constant taking without informing your soul as to what it wants, how it will get it, and what the price really is. Being a chronic taker will turn you into a person whose repertoire includes most of the base desires. Did you ever steal anything? How about when you were a kid? If you did, you “invested” in chaos. You didn’t know it at the time. At that point, the core motivation was impulsivity and pleasure. The same would hold for an illicit relationship and similar moments of darkness when the spiritual side is silent. 

Is this you?

Don’t worry! You aren’t a finished product. You all know the basic steps that let you return to what you were before these indulgences became part of your “normal”. Let’s say you don’t really think you have the strength for all three parts of T'shuvah"? Don’t give up. Even if you just feel regret, and never really completely wean yourself off the behavior because it’s too hard for you (translate: You are weak), the fact that at least your guilt and regret are honest, is enough to move you beyond the place you are now, and to let you have some clarity.

Suppose your issue isn’t’ desire, impulsivity etc. Suppose you have assimilated skepticism about Hashem’s involvement in your life, about the truth of the Torah or about whether or not keeping the mitzvos really changes anything. If this is you, you are potentially in a much more painful and difficult place. The reason is that you think you are right, which means that you may have managed to redefine darkness to mean light. At this point it’s harder to do Teshuvah. How can you feel regret and feel right at the same time? The answer here is to step back and remember who you are. You come from a people who have experienced Hashem in every step of their journey. The stories in the Torah are not myths. They happened. You can‘t tell thousands of people that they have all simultaneously suffered the same massive delusion. No one can convince a generation to accept something that happened in the immediate past as a true event that they actually experienced through the eyes of those who all told the same story. You may feel that the Torah is true. Emunah goes deeper than history. It’s part of your inner sense of not being alone, of looking at the most basic parts of you, the desire to love and be loved, and the universal awareness of meaning that takes you back to Teshuvah.

That’s what this week’s Parshah is about. 

The Jews in Egypt were very blocked. The nature of their lives as slaves was dark, empty and painful in ways that we can’t easily imagine today. When they came close to crossing the line that would make them redeemable, the part of them that knew the truth was rediscovered.
They cried out to Hashem. 

It wasn’t their Plan A. That was to wait things out until Pharaoh died, and then assume that the enslavement would end under the new regime. It didn’t’
Then the emunah that they had latent within them, as part of their spiritual DNA came forth.
Maybe it’s time that we tried this method.

Today’s Parshah tells you about the last plagues. Hosts of locusts stopped at Egypt’s political borders. That showed the broken, hollow, hoping against hope, Jews, that forces other than natural ones are involved. Nature doesn’t know what political borders are. The locusts did. IT was an eye–opener.  Hail showed them that fire and water can coexist. They can unite to serve one Master. Just like darkness and chaos can be redefined as challenge, and light can be redefined as inspiration, and together they can lead you to Hashem. In the next plague, there were Jews who experienced the light that Hashem made accessible to them, and other Jews who identified so strongly with the darkness of Egypt that they wanted more than anything to stay where they were.
​And to do
Nothing
At all
Just to stay where things are 
Familiar
And not alive.
 
Hashem guided them, and is giving us. You have choices to make.
Love Tziporah

​Dear friends,
 
I just received a letter that I had never expected. 
A number of years ago, I got a letter from Chaim Dovid Goldstein, who had read one of my articles in Hamodia, and had a few questions. In and of itself, this is very unusual. By and large if there are questions they get filed away under H for ‘hmmm’, and are forgotten. Occasionally the person with the question will ask her rabbi or rebbitzen, and more rarely actually send me a letter.
 
What made this letter unique is that it came from Federal Prison. Periodically, he wrote letters to me about my column  The questions were always on target, often accompanied with a dash of wit and always with a full cup of good humor. In the course of the years, I got to know about his transformation. He read chumash, mishnah, and articles on hashkafa. Jewish volunteers from the area would visit him as well as the handful of other Jewish prisoners. He began to keep kosher very seriously. What that meant was never having hot food, since even kosher food that was brought couldn't be warmed up in the general oven. It also meant adopting a very different schedule than the rest of the prisoners. He would get up early to learn and to daven, and go to sleep as soon as possible to avoid the dissolute lifestyle and language that was so much part of the culture of the prison.
 
I know him as the man he is now; an idealistic baal tshuvah who serves Hashem with significant mesiras nefesh. And of course I hope that this is the way Hashem judges all of us. None of us are completely clean, and Hashem is merciful enough to look beyond our incredibly numerous failures. 
 
We have been through hard times. The Covid has imprisoned all of us to one degree or another. I hope that you have been well and are managing under the circumstances. The political turmoil has also done its bit to pull the rug out from under our feet.  May we soon all be free, and may it happen with the miracles that we saw in Mitzrayim or more!
 
Miracles happen all of the time. Wait a minute. If they happen all of the time, why call them miracles? Why not just describe what you see. You are surrounded by miracles that you may have never noticed. 
 
Did you ever hear the harsh silence of the forest? I would  at times escape to Brooklyn's Botanical Gardens during my High School days. I didn't know enough to see the author of the silence and the beauty. I was in Bais Yaakov, but to shallow to make the lessons that every Parshah and every prophet spoke out with such elegance have much to do with real life. I didn't use the word "miracle' in my self-talk. I used the vocabulary of Waldon Pond which we learned in our rather forgetable English class. It was only much later that I knew that a miracle isn't supernatural necessarily, or even unusual. It’s anything that leads you to Hashem.
 
Ramban tells you that a miracle is something dramatic enough to catch your attention and make you recognize that G-d is not only the direct cause of the world's existence, but is also involved in its moment by moment continuance. Not only that, but that He is fully aware of the choices you make, and the way they cause you in a certain sense to rebrand yourself and the world as a whole. Think about what being in Egypt during the year before the exodus would have been like.
 
Blood (and don’t forget, the act of changing water to blood not only is changing the appearance and taste of the liquid, but its entire chemical structure), Frogs (and don't forget that the Hebrew word for frog, tzfradea has its root in the word tzfar, which means siren. The incessant croaking was their proclamation of Hashem's ability to change the rules of the game, by changing the instinctual responses of animals.) The frogs came indoors, away from their outdoor wet habitat into the ovens and beds of the Egyptians. Lice emerged from the earth so that they were literally stepping on swarms of the repulsive creatures. The Egyptians didn't open their minds; to them the event was tragic, not miraculously. The Reason that this was the case is that t a miracle must by definition lead you back to Hashem, and they didn't have the fortitude to let themselves go so far beyond their assumptions about life. 
 
What does this have to do with you?
You don't have your water turn to blood, or your bed full of frogs, or your ankles oozing with lice bites. What all of these plagues tell you is that you matter. You are seen. Hashem responds to you. You are the reason that the cosmos exist.
 
You can partner with Hashem by being part of the story, not just a spectator. Notice what goes on around you. See His hidden hand. When you do this, the gigantic miracles that your ancestors saw in Egypt become part of your life.  You come to realize that you are seeing what they saw, but in far more subtle form.  Thinking in these terms can make you realize something.
 
You are in His image
You can notice HIs involvement
You can mirror His involvement and caring, by more like HIm. That means, (gulp) being more involved and more caring.
 
You can replace words like "impossible" "terminal" "all over" "too late" and "hopeless" with new words. "Unlikely, but then again,  who really knows?" "The One who cared enough to get me to Israel, keep me alive, and find me people who care, is still with me now. 
 
Think about the big miracles as you obsrve the small miracles of daily life.
 
Chaim Dovid Goldstein didn't know or care about "impossible" hopeless" or "too late". You can make the same kind of choice. Let his example stay somewhere in back of your mind, so you can pull it out when you over overwhelmed. You can learn to think in these terms even if you are in quarantine. Even if  you have Covid. Even if you have had enough
 
Love,
Tziporah.

Dear friends,

What do you really want? It’s not a simple question. If you take, for example, someone who loves her friends and family and get her to ask herself whether living for the feeling of closeness is what it is all about, sometimes the answer is, “I don’t know”. This is sometimes the result of her asking herself another, far more basic question: “Do I really live in a way in which I am totally dependent on other people for my sense of purpose? There are people who live for the satisfaction that their work gives them. “It feels good to express your potential and doing it successfully is marvelous. You still may find that the answer may be a question. He may ask himself, “Do I really live for the feeling of achievement?”  

Today’s parshah begins by telling us that Yaakov lived. Of course, he had the almost unimaginable joy of bringing up a family that could be the foundation of a great nation, one in which each one is a tzadik in his own way. He was reunited with Yosef, who exemplified the ideals that he lived for. He had every reason to feel profound satisfaction with his life. The Torah presents him with words that seem to have nothing to do with really living. “And Yaakov lived in the Land of Egypt”. There are two ways to hear this statement. One fits right into the way you would generally think. Yosef was in Egypt. After so many years of anguish at last, they are reunited. Not only are they reunited, but he discovers that Yosef is still Yosef, that none of his exposure to the worst of the worst at the most vulnerable age, and after base betrayal by his own brothers changed him. What could make Yaakov feel really alive more than that?

The Sfas Emmes questions this assumption. Yaakov knew that when he went down to Egypt that he was beginning a story that didn’t have an easy narrative. He knew about the prophecy that there would be enslavement, suffering and estrangement. He was a man of truth, and a man whose vision went beyond his personal life. How alive could he feel when he knew that he was leading his family into tragedy? He answers that if you are a person of faith, you can feel a sense of purpose and vivacity (what a word for being alive!) even in Egypt. Being alive for a human isn’t all that different than for a tree. If you are connected to your roots in the earth you can stay alive. If you aren’t dead it is just a matter of time. Hashem is the root of all life; the reason that you feel so much joy from love and success is that they both mirror Hashem’s middos, which are embedded in your soul. The more you have connection to this inner reality, the less the outside world will change your inner peace.

Every so often things happen that make you aware of how involved Hashem is in the life of ordinary people even in today’s world. Rav Melech Biderman is a bright light. He is like the rebbe’s of old (although he is not a rebbe) who made their life’s work bringing a sense of Hashem’s presence to people who are not up there on top of the invisible roster of Greats. He told the following two stories that I want to share with you.
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A man named Rav Druck lives in Ramat Shlomo is a wonderful baal chessed and a real scholar. His elderly father lives in Netanya, and has great pleasure in inviting his children and grandchildren (and great grandchildren) over for a yearly Chanukah party. Last year was no exception. Rav Druck also has a daughter who lives in Neve Yaakov. She is a single parent of several young children, and her life by the nature of things isn’t all roses. On the way to Netanya, Rav Druck’s daughter and son in law had an idea. They would drop in by her sister, who found it too hard to travel to Netanya with her little kids, and liven things up. They followed up and came with treats, music and sang and played with the kids. When Rav Druck’s daughter looked at her watch and saw that it was getting late, she told her husband, “We have to leave now. The direct bus to Netanya leaves at 6:15”. As soon as they heard this, the kids began to cry. They didn’t want their world to revert to the quiet evenings that they were used to. Her husband realized that they were far more needed in Neve Yaakov than they would be in the crowded and jovial scene in Netanya. “Let’s stay here tonight. It’s a bigger mitzvah”. The bus that they missed was in a terrible accident, (one that made all of the papers here in Israel). They have no pretense of knowing why the accident happened, or why other people had to suffer whatever they suffered. The only thing they know is that when they did what they were sure (to the best of their ability to know) what was closest to Hashem’s will, He did the equivalent of saying “yes”.

When I heard Rav Biderman tell the story, at first I was very surprised that he used real names rather than hiding behind names that were made up, or anonymity. I listened again, and the second time I heard the story (it was recorded) I understood. His message was, “this is real. It happened. Not thousands of years ago. Now. To people you may have walked by. To people who are just like you”. 

Story 2 is saved for next week. Stay tuned.

For those of you in Eretz Yisrael, enjoy the semi lockup. Let it take you where you need to be.

Love,
Tziporah 

​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.
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Love,
Tziporah