Ami Living_136 by Ami Magazine

MEGA SUKKOS EDITION

5 - I N G R E D I E N T R E C I P E S BY L E A H S C H A P I R A A N D V I C TO R I A DW E K

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013 / 11 TISHREI 5774 ISSUE 136

THE REBBE’S DAUGHTERS discuss the unique missions with which their father, the Klausenberger Rebbe, zt”l, entrusted them

FOOD CURRENTS: THE CASE OF THE BREAKING CHALLAH BRAIDS

ISSUE 136 SEPTEMBER 15, 2013 11 TISHREI 5774

The Kitchen Overlooking Two Oceans:

Whisk Journeys to Panama

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Gilgulim from the Holocaust Does Bubby Play Favorites? A Water Cure for Cancer? >>> THE REBBETZIN SPEAKS TRANSCENDING OUR DIVISIONS >>> BYTES THE SECRET TO A HAPPY FAMILY >>> MY TAKE WHAT VALUES ARE WE TEACHING OUR DAUGHTERS? >>> TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES HE SATISFIED HIS WIFE’S LOVE OF THINGS WITH A DECEPTION >>> OUR DAYS MY HUSBAND’S TOXIC SECRET ALMOST DESTROYED ME >>> AN ESROG BOX BRINGS US OUR LONG-LOST MONEY >>> WHISK HOW DO THE HIGH-RISE DWELLING LADIES OF PANAMA CITY PREPARE FOR SUKKOS?

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CONTENTS

11 Tishrei 5774 September 15, 2013

Features 38 Truth or Consequences

Should I divulge to my wife the source of my gifts to her? As told to Rafi Berger

44 T he Clean Bill

Did this alternative water treatment cure his cancer?

By Yitta Halberstam Mandelbaum

59 The Rebbe’s Daughters

The Klausenberger Rebbe’s daughters share their story By Shira Leibowitz Schmidt

68 The Chapter After

Gilgulim of the Holocaust return By Sara Yoheved Rigler

Departments

78 Away from It All

Life in a back-to-basics yishuv By Shiffy Friedman

84 When Bubby Plays

Favorites

10 Editorial

Five men and women relate their experiences with favoritism, and AmiLiving’s panel of experts weighs in.

By Rechy Frankfurter

14 Letters 20 The Rebbetzin Speaks

By Racheli Sofer

By Rebbetzin Feige Twerski

26 Golden Nuggets

PASTRY SCHOOL WITH PAULA SHOYER: YEAST DOUGH + ROSH HASHANAH = APPLE PIE BABKA

Inside Whisk

By Basha Majerczyk

28 My Take By Sarah Pacther

32 Bytes

in Whisk

By Miriam Glick By Liora Stein By Basya Fruchter and Devoiry Fine

98 The Shidduch Saga

102 The Narrow Bridge

By Victoria Dwek

By Dina Neuman

106 Our Days

The rhythm of our lives SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

By Victoria Dwek

Sukkot in Panama

104 Daddy’s Girl

By Leah Schapira and Victoria Dwek

20 Eight Extra Hands

By Peri Berger

AMI•LIVING

8/22/13 8:15 PM

You don’t need a lot of ingredients to get great flavor.

19 Ask the Winemaker

By Mimmi Kirsch

to your Rosh Hashanah Menu

liv134_whisk_cover.indd 1

8 5 Ingredients

96 2 Girls on a Diet

By Victoria Dwek

Zehava’s

Easy Additions

6 Reader’s Kitchen

34 Debt Diary

2 Hello Cooks

ISSUE 134 AUGUST 28, 2013 22 ELUL 5773

11 TISHREI 5774

26 Food Currents By Racheli Sofer

Dear Readers, When Sara Yoheved Rigler first proposed her feature to me, “The Chapter After,” she was very hesitant. “Rechy, you’ll probably think this is off the wall...” To her surprise, not only didn’t I think it was outlandish, I told her that I actually know quite a few people who also believe they went through the Holocaust in a previous gilgul. One friend told me she isn’t sure whether she actually went through the Holocaust or it’s just such a part of our psyche that she thinks she did. That is certainly true. Even in this issue, meant to be a joyous one for Yom Tov, the subject has crept into some articles, such as Shira Leibowitz Schmidt’s interview with the Klausenberger Rebbe’s daughters. Its starting point is the Holocaust.

Editor in Chief Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter

Editorial

Senior Editor Rechy Frankfurter Managing Editors Victoria Dwek Yossi Krausz

Sukkos is a time of dramatic transition, from the most solemn day on the calendar to the most festive time of year, Zman Simchaseinu. Similarly, the life of the Klausenberger Rebbe transitioned from the utter destruction of both his family and world to the creation of a triumphant new existence.

Feature Editor Yitta Halberstam Mandelbaum Coordinating Editor Toby Worch

Shira Leibowitz Schmidt shared the following story with me, as told to her by Reb Shimon Yidel Gluck of Boro Park: When General Eisenhower arrived at the DP camp in Feldafing, Germany, he asked the Klausenberger Rebbe what he could do for him. At the time there were still many shortages in the camp. Among other scarcities, the survivors were still dressed in tatters or parts of Nazi uniforms they found in the storehouses. But the Rebbe was looking ahead. He explained to the General that in five days the Jews would be celebrating the Biblical Festival of Tabernacles. Scripture describes the four species needed for the holiday. Two were easily available in the surrounding German countryside: willows and myrtles. But the other two, esrogim and lulavim, would have to be procured from southern Europe. Unbelievably, Eisenhower ordered an American military plane to fetch a supply of citrons and palm branches from Italy and bring them to Feldafing and several other nearby camps.

Copy Editors Basha Majerczyk Dina Schreiber Rabbi Yisroel Benedek

Art

Art Directors Alex Katalkin David Kniazuk

Food

Food Editors Victoria Dwek Leah Schapira

Advertising

Executive Account Manager Zack Blumenfeld

What strikes me about this story is its irony. Just a few short weeks before, these Jews were slaves to the Nazis; now the most powerful nation in the world was putting its military might at their disposal to obtain esrogim and lulavim for them!

Executive Sales Directors Surie Katz Esther Friedman Europe Advertising 44 7891 297 866

As we start this Yom Tov, the threat of gassing from countries like Iran and Syria, reminiscent of the Holocaust, has the potential to dispel any Yom Tov joy. But as we celebrate Sukkos and sit in our temporary shelters commemorating the Clouds of Glory that surrounded and protected our forefathers during their sojourn through the desert, we reaffirm our faith in Hashem in His protective benevolence and promises.

Advertising Coordinator Malky Friedman Markowitz Distribution 917-202-3973 646-247-0262

Ami Magazine

May we merit to see the fulfillment of the verse, “Then the redeemed of Hashem will return and come to Tzion with glad song, with everlasting gladness upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee”(Yeshaya 35:10).

P: 718-534-8800 F: 718-484-7731 info@amimagazine.org Ami Magazine. Published by Mezoogmag LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form without prior written permission from the publisher is prohibited. The publisher reserves the right to edit all articles for clarity, space, and editorial sensitivities. Ami Magazine assumes no responsibility for the content of advertisements in the publication, nor for the contents of books that are referred to or excerpted herein.

AMI•LIVING

SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

A joyous Yom Tov to all!

Rechy Frankfurter

rechy@amimagazine.org

11 TISHREI 5774

www.designixonline.com

LETTERS

Seek Advice Early On Second marriages need guidance In reference to “Parenting,” Issue 135

Dear Editor: I would like to comment on “A Letter from Your Father’s Wife.” I am commenting from two different positions: one as a daughter-in-law whose father-in-law has remarried, as well as from the position of a certified marriage coach. My heart goes out to this struggling woman. I also understand the pain of adult children losing a parent. My husband was very close to his mother. The relationship between a new wife and the children is complex and complicated. When a new person enters a family, the dynamics shift and everyone will need to readjust. It is so easy for the emotions to take over completely. In our case our new “Babi” was a wonderful woman who may have unintentionally overstepped some emotional boundaries. My husband used to be irritated: “She didn’t give birth to me or raise me, why does she call herself my mother?” (She never said she was their mother, only that “they are all my children.”) Two of my husband’s sisters were angry with me. I had met with the woman first. Wanting to create a warm, caring relationship, I offered to call her “Babi.” My younger children will unfortunately never know their biological Babi, and after all, people can have many “Babi”s. I did not realize that for some of us, calling a woman with their mother’s title was hurtful. They had wanted to call her “Mimeh.” Now, when not everyone wanted to call her Babi she was upset. There were more conflicts. She used to tell me what terrible people these sisters were. My sisters-in-law are wonderful people. Intelligent people can behave irrationally when emotions take over logic. It was hard on my father-inlaw when his wife and daughters couldn’t get along, and they

AMI•LIVING

SEP TEMBER 1, 2013

26 ELUL 5773

tried hard to respect her for his sake. As a coach I want to advise families in this situation to be in constant touch with a rav you respect or a family therapist! Early intervention is the key here. This is crucial, especially if the parent remarries quite soon, and the pain of the loss is still raw. The woman is this article writes that “she was advised” to stop taking the abuse. While I believe every person should protect himself or herself from being abused, did she seek counsel only when she was already knee-deep in trouble? Was the advice daas Torah? Was it professional advice? Children! Realize that you are ruining it for your parent by not respecting his or her spouse! Look for her strengths and focus on the positive. Both your parents will be grateful to you for it. We must realize that all the people in our lives are here because Hashem wants them here, and we must bend our will before His will. We pray to grow old together with our spouse, but have no guarantees. Get help to make sure you are not acting on emotions alone! May we all be zoche to improve our relationships for the coming year. Gemar chasimah tovah. Name withheld upon request

AMI MAGAZINE 1575 50th St., Brooklyn, NY 11219 Phone: (718) 534-8800 Fax: (718) 484-7731 letters@amimagazine.org

LETTERS

Cinderella Fairy Tale Isn’t Reality This usually backfires

In reference to “Truth or Consequences,” Issue 134

Dear Editor: I would like to make a couple of comments on an article in last week’s AmiLiving, Issue 134, titled “Oh, My Brother.” I want to acknowledge the pain of having a loved one who is selfdestructive, and feeling totally powerless to positively intervene and just sitting by and watching that loved one spiral downward. I am glad the story had a positive ending. However, it should only be so simple! Two points to consider: Regarding the therapist coming to the brother’s home without his knowledge, in the hope that the brother would have an epiphany and everything would be lovely in the end: This is, to my knowledge, unprofessional conduct on the part of the therapist. Truth be told, I do not know of any therapist who would do this without the express permission of all parties in attendance. The therapist being there, without the brother’s knowledge, is a breach of trust and a betrayal, even though the ulterior motive was for good. Professionals are very careful about dishing out information—whether in writing or actually being present in a situation—without the express permission and/or knowledge of the person whom the therapist wants to “reach.” Further, I believe his or her license could be in jeopardy as well. I am not a professional psychotherapist, so I might be ignorant about the professional protocol here. The other point I’d like to make is that, although in this story it eventually had a positive outcome—the brother saw the light and sought

encore

Gaining or Giving? The debate surrounding unpaid interns

In almost every industry, as described in “Guinea Pig or Savvy Shopper?” in Issue 52, from salons to hospitals, thousands of people are benefiting from the hard work of unpaid or grossly underpaid interns— except, it seems, for the interns themselves. The concept of unpaid internships has come under scrutiny lately—especially in the offices of senators, where 80 percent of Democratic senators employed unpaid interns, as opposed to only half of Republican senators, who pay their interns. Just recently a federal case made headlines when a judge ruled that Fox Searchlight broke employment laws by not paying interns. In another high-profile case, a magazine company was sued for paying interns less than $1 per hour. The debate rages on: Do internships take advantage of unpaid work and at the same time exclude those of a lower socioeconomic status who cannot afford the opportunities of such unpaid work? Or does the concept of an internship truly grant the student invaluable learning opportunities? Some say you can’t put a price on education, but most interns probably don’t agree.

help—this is not so in the majority of cases. In fact, there is usually anger, distrust and depression. Although the brother did display these feelings at first, it seems that he came around in a timely manner and we had a Cinderella ending in the long run. I am happy for the author that this was the situation for her. However, many of us in similar predicaments, trying to do similar interventions, have been totally ineffective. Or worse, it backfires. Sadly, we “lose” the person whom we were really trying to help, and it may take months or even years for the “victim” to seek help. Or maybe he or she

won’t ever seek help at all. There comes a point where we, as close family members, in spite of all our good intentions of helping in the end, may just have to surrender and let go and leave it to G-d. I know this idiom is a painful platitude to acknowledge. Nevertheless, it is the only one that we can adopt and remain sane and loving when interfacing with a difficult person and/or situation. Thank you. Chana Geffen Jerusalem, Israel

LETTERS

A Babysitter Can’t Replace Mommy

Nonfiction at Its Finest Kudos to Sarah Shapiro for her excellent story

School is a better option

In reference to “Here and Now,” Issue 135

In reference to “My Take,” Issue 135

Dear Editor:

Dear Editor: The point I would like to make is that school for toddlers is mostly a convenience for the mothers who can’t stay at home [but must] go to work. With that being the case, sending a child to an enriching and educational environment is much more beneficial to the child than leaving him or her at home with a babysitter who utilizes the babysitting time for either her own convenience and comfort or to do other housework if that’s what she is hired for. A child benefits much more from healthy stimulation in school, where professionals are hired to create an enriching environment for children, as opposed to napping and having foods stuffed down their throats all day and once in a while going on a walk in the stroller while the babysitter talks on her phone at that time. Even a good and responsible babysitter cannot replace a mother, which is obviously ideal when possible, and when facing the choice of school or a babysitter, I think school is far more beneficial. Estee L. Brooklyn, NY

I’m not sure when the last time was that I read something that hit so many excellent notes in a piece of Jewish nonfiction. Every turn of phrase in Sarah Shapiro’s honest portrayal of her childhood was perfectly constructed with just the right amount of childhood whimsy tempered with the distance of adulthood. I cannot stop thinking about these paragraphs: “As I looked on from where I sat, the floor beneath my feet melted and tilted a little, sickeningly—a not unpleasant sensation— and something that can sort of be described as illuminated cotton candy spun around inside my mind.” Continuing on, “I thought nothing of it, and the moment was already gone. But from that day on, my own light started getting dimmer. It weakened so gradually, imperceptibly, school day by school day, disappointment by disappointment, jealousy by jealousy, self-doubt by self-doubt, that by the time my light was almost out, I myself didn’t remember that life had ever been different. I was just me, a darkened moon, pulled out of orbit by an unseen sun.” Her story was heartbreaking and touching and full of an intense self-awareness. It made me want to cry for her, and cheer for her. And the idea is both terrifying and humbling, that someone else’s “invisible turbulence” can so drastically change the course of another’s destiny. Thank you so much (Ami and Sarah) for sharing this story with us. It made a tremendous difference to me and my perception of things. Hindy Bertram

Ami’s staff would like to wish Rabbi and Mrs. Shlomo and Esther Gartenhaus a hearty mazal tov on the occasion of the engagement of their son Elazer. |

AMI•LIVING

SEP TEMBER 1, 2013

26 ELUL 5773

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y friend Miriam, a woman of character and substance, recently surprised us by confessing that Sukkos is not her favorite Yom Tov. The reason she gave was that at heart she’s a real homebody who loves being in her house. While her surroundings are by no means ostentatious, she relishes using her talents to add imaginative, personal touches and create a cozy space that is a product of her own making and input. It makes her feel safe. Interestingly, as she was articulating her thoughts, it occurred to her that in large measure her apprehension about moving out into the sukkah is due to the illusion that the walls of her house protect her. She ultimately came to the realization that it is precisely inside the sukkah, in G-d’s domain, represented by the heavens and the stars, that she is truly safe and protected. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we proclaimed Hashem’s sovereignty over our lives and committed ourselves to letting go of an inappropriate past. Sukkos, following on the heels of the Days of Awe, provides us with an opportunity to manifest this realization behaviorally. We leave the comfort of our homes and venture out into the unknown—the world of nature and endless possibilities, placing ourselves

AMI•LIVING

SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

under the protective wing of the Master of the Universe. In doing so, we metaphorically state that we wish to disabuse ourselves of the illusion of the manmade constructs and edifices of grandeur and power that hold sway over our lives. The point is best illustrated by a wellknown anecdote attributed to the Chofetz Chaim, of blessed memory. A merchant traveling on business once decided to make a detour to visit the holy rabbi, who had a worldwide reputation as a saintly person. The traveler was dismayed to find the tzaddik in a sparsely furnished room that contained nothing but a couple of chairs. Taken aback, he stammered and said, “Rabbi, where is your furniture?” In response, the Chofetz Chaim asked the traveler, “Where is yours?” Puzzled, the merchant replied, “But I am only passing through.” “Yes,” the rabbi concurred. “So am I.” Our daily pursuits and accumulation of material things foster the illusion that these possessions have lasting meaning. Useful as they may be in the short term, however, we are only passing through, and they cannot be taken along with us on our eternal journey. A second and equally compelling illusion that Sukkos dispels is our feeling of separateness. Our homes are built with walls. These walls form barriers. They suggest by their very existence that we are independent, apart and disconnected from others. When we leave our walls behind and step out into the sukkah, we 11 TISHREI 5774

are equalized under the heavens and can grasp the concept that we are truly a single entity: a seamless whole, and one neshamah under Hashem’s protection. The chasidic luminary Reb Zushe of Anipoli was once returning home from one of his self-imposed exiles when a man came running toward him lamenting that Hersh Mendel, a local child in the community, was gravely ill. The Rebbe turned pale and started running toward his house, thinking that the youngster was his own son by the same name. Breathless, he walked in and asked his wife how Hersh Mendel was faring. His wife quickly assured him that it was not their own son but a neighbor’s who was sick. The Rebbe gave a big sigh of relief but caught himself immediately, realizing with great consternation and sadness that his relief indicated that his caring for someone else’s child was not equal to that he felt for his own. He walked out the door, and promptly returned to his self-imposed wanderings in search of selfimprovement. Unquestionably, Reb Zushe was an exalted human being whose level of excellence is way beyond our reach. Nevertheless, the story should help us appreciate that ideally, to whatever extent a single one of us is in pain, insufficient and lacking in wholeness, the other cannot be complete and intact. The secular world, to some degree, at least philosophically, shares the universal dream of the unity of mankind. Indeed, when President Ronald Reagan exhorted

the then-president of Russia, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” it was both literally and figuratively an expression of bringing people together. (In this case it was East and West Berlin). Similarly, putting up permanent walls in individual relationships blocks our ability to discern the other and discover what makes him tick in terms of needs, strengths and vulnerabilities. These walls obstruct the lines of communication. Consider Rachel, who had been in a brief but abusive marriage and finally extricated herself after much suffering. Sometime later she met David, a prince of a young man, who was committed to her happiness and well-being. The problem, however, was that Rachel had built walls around herself in an effort to protect herself from the hurt she subconsciously expected would accompany the vulnerability of letting her guard down. It took a long time to build a relationship of trust. There are many messages imparted by this holiday of “zman simchaseinu— the time of our rejoicing.” One is that the joy associated with the Yom Tov is clearly a result of living in reality rather than illusion, and in togetherness rather than in walled isolation. The challenge is to carry that awareness with us into the rest of the year. In so doing, we will merit that our plea, “May the Merciful One restore for us the fallen sukkah of David,” comes to fruition speedily in our day.  Rebbetzin Feige Twerski is the mother of 11 children and many grandchildren, whose number she refuses to divulge. Alongside her husband, Rabbi Michel Twerski, she serves as Rebbetzin to her community in Milwaukee, and counsels people all over the globe. The Rebbetzin is a popular lecturer, speaking on a wide variety of topics to audiences in America and overseas. She is the author of Ask Rebbetzin Feige and, more recently, of Rebbetzin Feige Responds.

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GOLDEN NUGGETS // By Basha Majerczyk

THE FOURLEGGED GUEST

t was the first night of Yom Tov, and the sukkah of Reb Yossele Ungar, the Dombrover tzaddik, was packed. The chasidim were in a festive mood. At any moment the Rebbe would arrive to make Kiddush. Golden birds and decorative fruits were suspended from the schach, and dozens of tiny lamps cast an otherworldly glow. Suddenly, a big black dog sauntered into the sukkah. Making its way through the crowd it deliberately trotted over to the Rebbe’s tish and made itself comfortable in the exact spot where the Rebbe would soon sit. After their initial fright, the chasidim saw that the dog didn’t appear to be vicious. The braver among them even tried to shoo it out but the animal refused to budge. No one knew what to do. The Rebbe obviously couldn’t conduct a tish with a big dog curled under the table at his feet. Finally, with much effort and the help of the Shabbos goy, they succeeded in luring the dog into a sack and deposited it outside. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. A second later there was a crash as the dog jumped in through the now shattered window, having somehow managed to free itself. Calmly, it walked over to the same place and resumed its wait. A ripple of fear moved through the crowd. Everyone understood that this was not an ordinary dog, and there was more going on than met the eye. There was nothing to do but wait. A moment later the Rebbe arrived and was apprised of the situation. “Let the animal be,” the Rebbe said, surprising everyone. “It will soon leave the sukkah of its own volition.” Reb Yossele then walked over to the table and bent down to speak to the dog. “I forgive you,” he said. “I forgive you with a whole heart. Now you can go to your eternal rest.”

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Suddenly, a big black dog sauntered into the sukkah. With that, the animal raised itself to its feet and walked out of the sukkah. The chasidim were astonished. The dog, they realized, must have been the gilgul of an unfortunate soul that had sinned against the tzaddik and sought his forgiveness. They were terribly curious to hear more, but no one had the courage to ask. Fortunately, the Rebbe explained what had happened right after Kiddush: “My father, Reb Mordechai David, zt”l, did not at first want to be a leader of chasidim,” he began. “He was a follower of the Lubliner, and when his Rebbe instructed him to be a Rebbe in his own right and accept pidyonos he balked, although he did obey as far as wearing Rebbeshe garb. Nonetheless, he continued to support his family from the income he derived from an inn he owned. He soon found out, however, that the words of a tzaddik are not so easily ignored. “One time he was planning a trip to Hungary to buy wine for the inn for Pesach. It would be a huge transaction and he had amassed a sizeable amount of money, not only his own but loans he

11 TISHREI 5774

had taken out for the business. The night before his departure he decided to hide it in a safe place. Unbeknownst to him, however, he was observed by a neighbor, who snuck in when no one was looking and stole it. Needless to say, the trip was canceled. Instead, he set off to Lublin to pour out his heart to his Rebbe. “‘I have fallen,’ he wept, ‘from the proverbial lofty height to the depths of the lowest pit. Before, I was a wealthy balebos; now I am an impoverished debtor.’ “‘No, you have not fallen,’ the Rebbe corrected him. ‘Rather, you have been uplifted to your rightful place. You must now return home and be a Rebbe of chasidim. When something is decreed from Above, it must come to pass. Because you did not wish to obey ‘from wealth,’ you must now obey ‘from poverty.’” The chasidim then understood that the dog was the gilgul of that thief, and Reb Yossele, as his father’s inheritor and successor, had mercifully forgiven him his sin, thereby allowing the poor soul to find its tikkun. n

TAKE SCHOOL MADNESS

Have we forgotten why we send our daughters to school? BY SARAH PACHTER

“W

hat is her marital status?” they ask me. “Married,” I answer

with despair. “What? She’s just 15!” I am met with eye rolling and tongue clicking. “Yes, she is married to her seminary [high school].” And this is when I have to ask forgiveness from my good friend Chana. I remember those years when I was busy with my large family of young children. When I would complain to Chana, she would complain to me about her daughters and lack of help. I did not believe her. After all they were big girls. “Just wait for the day they go off to high school,” she’d say, trying to convince me. Now the big day has arrived. My daughters have entered seminary. What can I say? I yearn for the good old days. As I write this statement, my eyes fill with tears.

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Because my daughter is in high school. What goes on there in high school? Are the headmistresses sure that life begins and ends in the walls of the high school? It seems like it. There’s no other explanation as to why they cause us mothers such frustration. Do we not deserve, after the years of raising our girls to maturity, self-reliance and mitzvos, to receive a helping hand from them? But, how can we ask anything of a girl who has a massive amount of tasks—a girl who needs to do homework, take a crazy amount of tests, must submit projects and participate in activities? Exactly when should she have the time to help around the house? When I went to the headmistress with complaints, she opened her eyes wide. “What do you want? That she should roam the streets?” Ribono shel Olam! What do I want?! I want her to help me! I am a mother of a large family, thank G-d. I work fulltime in a busy office. And, no, I still don’t

26 ELUL 5773

earn enough to hire a housekeeper. I want my daughter—the one learning about middos and good deeds—to have the time to help me. I wiped her tears. I ran with her from the library to the Gymboree, this girl who has turned into a high schooler. I want her to help me with her younger brothers. And she wants to help. But she comes home at five, exhausted. And then she has to study for tests and do tons of homework. When I was brazen enough to approach the headmistress again, to throw myself at her mercy, to persuade, to beg… “Her time to take care of her own children will come soon enough,” was her only response. When the headmistress told me this, I was enraged. I asked myself: How can this be? A Bais Yaakov high school? Let me relate my personal story. Years ago, I too was a high school girl—the oldest in a family of 14

AMILIVING READERS ARE INVITED TO USE THIS FORUM AS A MEANS FOR EXPRESSING THEIR CONCERNS REGARDING ISSUES FACING OUR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES. THIS IS YOUR SOAPBOX. SEND YOUR SUBMISSION TO EDITORIAL@AMIMAGAZINE.ORG

“MARRIED???” “WHAT? SHE’S JUST 15!” “YES, SHE IS MARRIED TO HER SEMINARY [HIGH SCHOOL].” children. I didn’t go to school on Fridays. I felt that I was obligated to help my mother, who couldn’t manage the overwhelming work on her own. Baruch Hashem, there were many small children at home. Because of my strong belief in the values I was educated with, I stayed home on Fridays to help my mother. A week passed. Two weeks passed. After a month, the headmaster called me

into his office. “Why are you always absent on Fridays?” he inquired of me. “My mother needs my help. You taught us in Bais Yaakov to honor our parents. And that’s what I’m doing!” I answered with youthful earnestness and believed every word I said. The headmaster lifted his eyes from the table, looked at me, and said: “More power to you! If this is your

reason, you will be excused every Friday. You will get a pass and you have permission to be absent on Fridays.” Do you get it? This Bais Yaakov headmaster understood what many good people today don’t. Where are the bygone Bais Yaakov headmasters? Where are the important values? Why has the home turned into a “hotel” for high school girls? They get full accommodations: food, drink, a made bed. And we, the mothers, are there to serve them. Today, to my sorrow, I have a new outlook in order to cope. I imagine that my daughter has gotten married. Yes, just like that, with my imagination as my guide, I survive this crisis. It is hard for me. It is painful to contemplate. And it’s not just me. I am sure that many mothers will relate. n Sarah Pachter resides in Eretz Yisrael. A journalist and mother of 11 kids, she is the author of ten books including Supermom, published by Israel Bookshop Publications

Translated by Gershon Hellman

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BYTES

// Morsels of Wisdom, Wit and Practical Advice By Miriam Glick

Siblings inHarmony THE SECRET TO A BIG, HAPPY FAMILY

Is the thought of all your children coming together under one roof this Yom Tov giving you a headache? Siblings, married and unmarried, can get along with the help of a few tips and tricks:

START YOUNG Jealousy begins festering as soon as a new baby is born. Make sure the children know there is plenty of love to go around. STOP COMPARING! “Why can’t you be just like your sister?” Not only does this not make them try to be like their sister, it makes them resent her too. Every child is unique. You wouldn’t like it if your husband compared you to someone else.

UNINVOLVED PARENTING You don’t have to be there to solve every fight or argument. Your kids are perfectly capable of doing this on their own. And don’t assume the older one is always at fault.

TALK TIME There is nothing like family discussions. Seudos and suppers should be a perfect time to allow everyone to voice opinions. Make sure one child doesn’t always dominate the conversation.

FAMILY TIME Give children the opportunity to spend fun time together. This will help them bond and will create lasting memories.

FAIR AND SQUARE Equal is not always and fair; allow your children to know that. Some children, especially adult ones, need more help than others.

HIDDEN HOTEL FEES

And you thought the Mommy Hotel came with a price …

Staying at Hotel Mommy may have its hidden downsides, but at least you are not faced with any hidden charges. Guests staying at hotels are finding surprising fees in their bills. Fees include moving items around in a minibar (without buying any); a bellman (regardless of whether you used one or not); the safe in the room (whether or not you used it); checking out early (yes, early!); and even parking in an open, unattended lot! Hotels tend to hide the

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fees when booking and will only let guests know about it once they have checked out. Fees collected this year will hit a record of $2.1 billion dollars!!! Who knows, maybe soon they’ll be charging for how much air you breathed… If you’re a cheapskate, there is no need to worry. These hidden fees tend to crop up in more expensive hotels. (Phew! I always knew that it pays to be frugal.) 11 TISHREI 5774

PUTTER

AROUND

the

HOUSE

CAMPING OUT

Besides the mitzvah, it’s got some health benefits too You might just want to join the men when they go out to sleep in the sukkah. Sleeping outdoors has proven to have many health benefits. Being indoors all day tends to make people groggy and cranky because there is not enough oxygen—especially those who work in offices all day long, who are exposed to all the toxins that the machines give out. Sleeping outdoors restores normal activity to the lungs by increasing oxygen, and it also strengthens the central nervous system. But that’s not all; it also helps the body resist disease and immunity and greatly increase strength and working power. Health specialists in the former Soviet Union have studied the benefits of outdoor sleeping on patients. They noticed tremendous improvement in those who suffer from cardiovascular disorders. Anyone joining me for a night outdoors?

the

BUZZ about BEES

Give me your honey and not your sting

Sitting in a sukkah is no fun when there are bees buzzing around. Here are some ways to avoid the buzzing bees. CHECK THE AREA Before putting up your sukkah, make sure you are not inadvertently crashing on some bee party. Bees like dry sunny places and like to nest in hollow trees. SCENTLESS Avoid wearing your favorite perfume while sitting in the sukkah. Bees get attracted to sweet-smelling scents. COVER THE FOOD Try to keep food covered at all times so that it won’t attract bees. Desserts should be kept covered until eating. The same goes for any sugary drink. TONE DOWN THE COLOR Bright, flowery clothing attracts the pests. Wear light-colored clothing. RAKE THE YARD If you have any fruit trees in your backyard, clean up the fallen fruit before they start to rot. Bees get attracted to the sweet snack. CLEAN UP AFTER EATING Yeah, I know you do. But do a thorough job of it.

EATING IN

After all, there is nothing like homemade food

Feel like you’re running a restaurant this Sukkos? Some people really do run one at home. EatWith is a site that pairs up diners with home chefs. These chefs host dinner at their homes (with a fee, of course). Hosts post menus together with photos of their homes; guests then reserve seats. Hosts then get to approve of their guests, and once that’s complete, EatWith charges the guests and pays the hosts after the meal is done. This idea originated in Tel Aviv as a way of offering tourists a feel of an authentic Israeli dinner and home, but the idea has now even spread to New York. But in New York, the host must prepare the food in a kitchen with a permit, and then bring it home. So if you are cooking for a crowd this Yom Tov, you might just consider uploading your menu. 11 TISHREI 5774

SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

AMI•LIVING

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Recap: Though Tzvi earns a six-figure salary, the Stein’s have a monthly shortfall of $4,899. Though Liora feels guilty she overspends she refuses to go through the spreadsheet Tzvi created, which details their expenditures. Liora and Tzvi have agreed to discuss this issue with their therapist.

Part 6: Therapy “What are you most afraid of?” the therapist asked. My eyes wandered to the painting of a flower hanging on the dreary grey wall. I was silent. I tried to open my mouth to speak but felt my throat close tight around the words, keeping them inside, suddenly confused about what we were doing in her office. Though therapy had been my idea, sitting across from the head doctor with her neat sheitel, crisp black skirt and flowing cardigan, I suddenly didn’t want to bare my mistakes. “My credit rating,” Tzvi said, breaking the quiet. “Your credit rating? Are you joking?” I was shocked, hurt that Tzvi’s main worry was for his own reputation, not how to care for his family. “At least you have one!” I was suddenly aware how vulnerable I felt, like marriage and motherhood had clipped my wings. I’d given up my high-powered career to raise our children, yet clearly Tzvi was dissatisfied with how I managed our finances. He feared my spending was ruining his credit. Ouch. “Hey, that’s not fair! Everything I have is yours,” Tzvi answered. “No secrets.” He threw his hands up in the air, facing me as if throwing me an invisible pekel. Tzvi didn’t understand how powerless I felt without my own money to spend, how uncomfortable I felt

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11 TISHREI 5774

depending on his earnings for all of my needs. I knew everything I brought home technically belonged to him, but I feared he resented relinquishing his paycheck to fill the requests and requirements of others. “You don’t like it when I work, you don’t trust how I spend your money,” I fought back. “I have nothing.” I fell back into the hard chair, looking down, suddenly embarrassed that I’d let loose. “You won’t even look at my spreadsheets,” Tzvi yelled. “See why I can’t deal with her?” The therapist pointed upward to warn us that the office above could hear the outburst. I was breathing too fast, and clenched my hands, wishing I could shout at Tzvi. Where was my voice? “I just wish you wanted to take care of me,” I said quietly. “It’s awful feeling like I’m a burden.” I couldn’t look at Tzvi; I stared at my phone. The next thing I knew, Tzvi was outlining our expenses and calculating—right there in front of the therapist—how we ended up short every month. Tuition, food, mortgage, car insurance and cleaning help, though we’d cut down, added up to more than his generous salary. I was shocked that he’d admit the specific numbers to a stranger. I edged closer as he opened up. “Are there any areas where you think you could be

THE NU MBERS

more careful?” the therapist asked, after Tzvi finished. “We spend about $2500 on food,” I said, hoping the therapist wouldn’t start detailing ideas on how to coupon, or recommend a cheaper store. I couldn’t handle that much input. “That feels like too much.” “Do you serve fleishigs every night?” she asked. “No, chicken for Shabbos and meatballs once during the week.” I thought of my friend who served a hearty fleishig supper every night. I’d always felt so inadequate in the past for my simpler, cheaper approach. When the therapist smiled, I felt validated. “I’ve already stopped buying cappuccinos from the bagel store and given up takeout,” I continued, awaiting more praise. “I’ve started taking my lunch, instead of buying sushi,” added Tzvi. For a minute I worried he was trying to outdo me. “How’s that working out?” the therapist asked, her head tilted to the side. Her bright eyes met mine. She looked like she understood how much meeting up for coffee had meant to me: friendship and caffeine. “It’s mostly fine,” I answered. I missed seeing my best friend for our daily schmooze, and the coffee I made at home didn’t have the same strong punch as the one from the store. Nevertheless, I’d probably saved about $100 so far. “Do you buy the individual snack bags? Those can add up,” the therapist added, crossing her ankles, waiting for our reaction. I shook my head no; I bought jumbo-sized pretzel bags and divided up the snacks at home, not realizing it was cheaper. “I don’t think Liora’s buying the wrong nosh,” Tzvi said, suddenly defending me. “But we might cut back on bottled water. We’ll have to look at our receipts.” I rolled my eyes. The receipts—again. “Anything else?” the therapist probed. “Are you giving extra tzedakah?” “Well, I am putting two donations on the Amex every month,” Tzvi admitted. “You are?” I hadn’t realized he had committed us to another monthly obligation. I hated recurring charges, even if they were for a good cause. A lump sum felt better to me, easier to keep track of. I shoved down the sense of betrayal rising in my stomach: Tzvi hadn’t told me. “My friend who’s a campus rabbi needed predictable income,” said Tzvi. “I wanted to help.” “What’s the other pledge?” I asked, feeling heat rising in my cheeks. I turned red. “Torah classes for BTs in our neighborhood,” Tzvi said, looking down at his clasped hands, embarrassed. Though I was angry Tzvi had been increasing our credit card debt without telling me, I didn’t

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want to stop supporting our friends in kiruv. That felt devastating. It was bad enough to forgo small pleasures and treats, but to cut down on a mitzvah would be sadder. “Can you give that up?” the therapist asked, her hands folded in her lap. “I understand it could be difficult to tell your friends.” She did not understand. How could she? The humiliation of withdrawing a generous pledge, lowering our tzedakah amounts would change our social status and the way we saw ourselves. “No, we can’t!” I jumped in. “That would be awful.” The therapist lowered her chin, as she listened intently. I tried to read her body language. I hoped she didn’t see us as poor, idealistic baalei teshuvah. This process was unbearable. “It sounds like you are both on the same team. You share the same values about food and tzedakah,” the therapist noted. “You can extend this generosity of spirit to figure out the rest of your budget.” “I guess I’m most concerned about the kids’ yom tov clothes. Even if my mom sends dresses, I’ll have to fill in with cardigans, possibly more.” “We’re late for the sitter,” Tzvi said, standing up abruptly. “We’d better go.” Though we were in a rush, Tzvi held the office door for me as we left. n To be continued... 11 TISHREI 5774

SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

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TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES

The Collector My wife l iked TH I NG S. I cou ld n’t take t he fi nancial pressure, until I found a solution. But would she find out w h a t I ’d d o n e? AS TOLD TO RAFI BERGER

hen I was a boy, I had one great-aunt who had a fascination with THINGS. What I mean by “THINGS” is tchotchkes. She had one breakfront full of silver tchotchkes and one full of little glass pieces. Then there were paintings, which were pretty uniformly boring—full of shells, fruit and flowers (but probably expensive nonetheless). She had so many of those that they couldn’t all fit on the wall. There were picture frames stacked in a cabinet, and she would switch them from time to time. And she enjoyed jewelry as well, and would show my mother a different piece every time we came to visit. My great-uncle seemed to humor his wife. She was a housewife and didn’t bring in money herself, so it was clear that he was willing to provide the money for her collections. And he seemed entirely at ease among the glass and the silver and the paintings. My grandmother was quite unlike my great-aunt, though they were sisters. In my grandmother’s house, everything was practical. There was silver in the breakfront, but that was Kiddush cups, menorahs, and other similar items. Ornamentation through the house was subdued. Her jewelry was minimal. My mother was much the same, and I’d always admired the simple households that they headed. My great-aunt’s house always seemed a bit crowded or too busy. So it was a bit unnerving when I first found out that I’d married a woman like my great-aunt. I had no idea of that during my engagement. I’d given my wife gifts, like every chasan, and she’d oohed and aahed over them, as I’d expected she would. And when she wore the bracelet, for example, that was just natural, right? But after our marriage, when we moved into our new apartment, I realized that she loved THINGS. She had a little collection of painted wooden birds that she arranged carefully on our dresser. “How cute!” I said. She had me hang a matching set of colored scarves (at least, that’s what they looked like to me) on the living room wall. “Colorful!” I said. She assigned one drawer in the armoire for her jewelry. As she put each piece in, she told me exactly which grade she had been in when she had received it and what stage in life she’d been in at the time. I said nothing, my mouth wide open. It wasn’t that my in-laws were wealthy; it was clear, however, that they had indulged my wife’s love of THINGS. And her eagerness made me want to indulge her, as well. So it started. At first, I got her a gift at each special occasion through the year. Her birthday—another few birds for her collection. Our anniversary—a silver flower for the breakfront. When our first child was born—a new pair of designer earrings. (“I love these,” she said. “They match three of my necklaces.” For some reason, the thought of her collection of necklaces gave me a

sudden feeling of vertigo.) Each Yom Tov was, of course, also a time for a gift. Money was tight even in those early days, and I felt myself getting tense each time that the day approached when a gift was due. The pieces my wife liked weren’t cheap; even I, generally a philistine, had to admire her taste. But taste is expensive, and constant gifts means billowing debt. At first, I wasn’t aware of what was bothering me. I found myself becoming snappish with chavrusos. (Later when I went to work, it was with my colleagues.) But eventually I realized that it was a seasonal mood, and it was because of the pressure of the impending gift. Thankfully, it wasn’t the choosing of the gift that was a pressure. I’m not much of a shopper myself, and had I been all alone in choosing gifts, I would have really been at a loss. (A good friend of mine, driven to distraction by his wife’s rejections of his semi-annual attempts, eventually copped out entirely and began coming home with gift cards or certificates. “I may as well just buy them myself,” his wife sneered when he first did that, and it nearly landed him in a mental health ward. I was certain I would never stoop to going down that path.) Instead of me choosing on my own, my wife would give me hints. I say hints, but they were really directions. This could mean a simple sketch of a bracelet, done in pencil on plain writing paper at the kitchen table over a half an hour or so, punctuated with “I’m sure that Gold Mine (or some other jewelry store) has this.” Or it could be a careless comment like “Isn’t this nice?” with a catalog in her hand, open to some delightfully collectible thing, made by the (no doubt callused) hands of craftsmen. Or it could involve pointing-out something as we passed it in a store: “Wouldn’t that look nice on the mantel?” (The mantel, in fact, had at that time started to be a showcase for temporary exhibits of sorts, mirroring in my mind the way the walls of my great-aunt’s house had been used for paintings.) The arrival of children in our household did nothing to rein in the accumulation of THINGS. It added, of course, to the categories of THINGS being accumulated. (“Isn’t that a beautiful outfit?” “Wouldn’t he just love that set of blocks?”) But the rush of items into our household continued unabated. I don’t want to give the impression that my wife was a hoarder. At one point I had thought we would have to rent a storage space to keep items, but that turned out to not be true. Most of the objects that she wanted were small, to begin with. She was a master at organizing, so that what would have been unmanageable had I been the one to try to store everything was carefully packed away. And she wasn’t above giving away THINGS she’d tired of; my three sisters and her sister got a number of expensive, shiny THINGS over the years, as did both of our mothers. Some were gifts; some were merely on long-term loans, like a museum might lend out its collection. Our house, therefore, stayed neat, if somewhat over-decorated. 11 TISHREI 5774

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But the expense in the gradual acquisition of fancy and exotic items—that drove me over the edge, into the hands of evil.

Copycat

The first step down the garden path for me came at work. I was sitting in my cubicle, working, when Duvie walked in. Because the project I was working on was already late, I groaned inwardly. Duvie was the sort of coworker who will, not meaning to, evaporate an afternoon for you by telling a couple of anecdotes with all of their attendant details. My manager had already warned me about wasting time with Duvie. “How are you doing?” he said, slapping me on the back. “Uh, fine,” I said. “Ready for Yom Tov?” he said, sitting on the edge of the desk. I gave him a sidelong glance that was probably as desperatelooking as I felt inside, and I blurted out the first thing I could think of. “Just thinking about where to get my wife this silver necklace she wanted.” Duvie gave a meaning laugh. “Still busy with that?” I looked at him. “Huh?” I didn’t recall ever discussing giftgiving with Duvie. “My wife used to be all after me to get her this and that. But you know that you can get copies of all these THINGS on the Internet, right?” He was already leaning down over me and typing on my keyboard. “Just one sec—” I said, hoping that the file I had been working on was saved, but he paid me no mind. “Here. You said necklaces? Look at this site. They do knockoffs of all of the brands. What did it look like?” I gave him the description of the necklace. He tapped on the keyboard and fidgeted with the mouse. “This?” I shook my head and he scrolled down. “This? This? This?” He still hadn’t found it, but to my amazement, it looked like we were closing in on what she had carefully described to me

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the other week and then shown me in a neighborhood jewelry store. “This?” he said, and there it was. “That’s it,” I said. To the side of the item on the screen was the price: $39. In the store it had been $500. “Give me your credit card,” he said, but then I read the description next to the item on the screen. “That’s stainless steel,” I said, “not silver.” “Of course,” Duvie said, creasing his forehead quizzically at me. “She’ll never know the difference.” “I don’t...” “Give me your credit card.” I went home with a bad feeling that day, not just because Duvie had spent the rest of the afternoon in my cubicle (I could hear my project leader’s voice already in my mind), but because I felt like a cad. My wife had wanted something special. I had bought her a $39 imitation. That feeling intensified when I got the package in the mail. (The company, apparently knowledgeable about their clientele, had an innocuous name and innocuous packaging. Still, I checked for deliveries obsessively.) And when I gave it to her, that feeling was almost overwhelming. But I had already embraced the darkness. In the months to come, I searched out masters of imitation, on the Internet at first and eventually also in person. A necklace, bracelet or earring? There’s a website for that. A Russian wooden duck—and these THINGS cost a pretty penny when they are made by the genuine craftsmen, probably in the shadow of the Kremlin—that would look just lovely in the dining room? A man named Anatoly, in a cramped workshop in the back of a Brooklyn tire shop can make it for you in 30 minutes. The colors are almost exactly right, and you can ask him to smooth any rough edges if you notice them before you leave. That nice scarf in the fancy clothing store in the shopping district? There’s a woman named Esperanza who can make it for you in less than a week. She doesn’t speak English (and you’d never ask about her immigration status), but if you give a picture, torn from a catalog or snapped with a cell phone, she can make it at less than a tenth of the price.

A man named Anatoly, in a cramped Brooklyn workshop, can make it for you in 30 minutes.

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It’s not easy having a secret. But I almost didn’t notice that I had one. I was too busy planning how I’d find cheaper versions of what I was supposed to be buying for my wife. I rarely balked at any copy. One of the few times was when, looking for a LEGO set that my wife had suggested our oldest son would like, one with a pirate ship complete with five cannons, I headed to the shop of a man named Ivan, recommended to me by Anatoly. “LEGO?” Ivan said, laughing. “Thees easy, meester.” I stood there as he poured the plastic into his handmade mold, the vapors billowing upward as he pressed, repressed, and clipped the pieces. But the horrid miasma of plastic that came out of the authentic-looking box he’d placed the piece in (“My cousin print these, meester.”) made me doubtful about giving it to any child of mine, even if Ivan had promised that the smell would dissipate in the two weeks until the birthday party. So I dumped the fake in a street corner trash can and went to a toy store to buy a real one, for three times what Ivan had asked. My life seemed like it had become less pressured. But that couldn’t last.

The mask removed

The first event that shook my carefully made façade came one day, when I had just arrived home from work. I scooped up the mail from the front stoop and headed inside. As I sat down to my late supper, still sorting the mail, I sighed. It was one of those days when it seems that the only people who want to correspond with you are companies sending bills. “No,” my wife suddenly said, from behind me. “Give me those. You eat supper. I’ll do the bills.” I nearly handed her the pile, when I realized that my credit card bill was in it, and that she would examine it. That would be disastrous. The websites would make her suspicious; the low balance would make her doubly suspicious. Where was the outlay of money for the crystal pitcher I had just given her? “Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said. “Please, Zevi,” she said, reaching for the pile. “Oh, no. I like doing them.” I was clutching the pile to my chest.

She gave me a questioning smile. “Hiding something?” “Of course not,” I said, feeling sweat drip inside my collar. “You know I always loved mathematics as a kid. I love doing the bills—all that addition and subtraction. Really.” Another wan smile from her. I was doing the bills later, bent over them as if to obscure them from view, when she called to me from the other room. “What’s the password to our bank account online, Zevi? I wanted to look up our balance.” The online bank account would give her access both to the account, not as drained as it should be, and to the linked credit card account, which I was crouching over. My mouth fell open and went dry. I made a weird blubbering sound. “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.” “I’ve forgotten the password,” I said. “That doesn’t matter. You can recover the password. Which e-mail address did you use with it?” The thought of her getting access to the bank account suddenly seemed less dangerous. Getting into my e-mail account would reveal my extensive back-and-forth with the fabricators of almost-exclusive items from all over the city and country. “I forgot which one I used.” “How many e-mail addresses do you have? I’ll check them all.” “I forget how many I have.” “What?” “Um, can we talk about this tomorrow? I’m feeling a bit sick.” “Really?” “Oh, am I feeling sick,” I said, running off to the bedroom with the stack of mail. “Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.” “I’d really like to check the balance,” she said, but I was already busy burying my head under the pillow.

Revelations

The next morning, I woke up early, with a wince already on my face. After Shacharis, I headed home for a quick breakfast. “Can I get the password now?” my wife said.

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TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES

We really need a new rider on the policy to cover our valuables, Zevi. “Ooooo,” I said, which was a strange-sounding thing to say but the first thing that occurred to me. “I’m really late. I’ve got to be heading off to work.” My wife seemed puzzled and looked down at the fancylooking watch I’d bought for her from a street vendor. “You’re late?” “Yes, they’re trying to be early today.” “Today?” “Uh, yes, it’s a monthly thing.” “Have you looked into that painting I was interested in for Sukkos?” she said, suddenly. I had. There were two different painters I was investigating. Both were undercutting the market for reproductions. “Yes,” I said. “I’m interested in talking to the insurance agent about it.” “Insurance agent?” I said. “I’m having an agent come over this afternoon, to discuss appraising my jewelry and some of the art.” I didn’t mean to, but the coffee came out of both my mouth and nose in a sudden stream, as I choked. My wife jumped up and grabbed a towel. “Are you okay?” I mopped at my face with the towel. “Why are we getting an appraisal?” “We really need a new rider on the policy to cover our valuables, Zevi. The agent says that our policy doesn’t really cover much, as it is right now. Are you sure you’re okay?” “Oh, I’m fine,” I said, giving a smile to try to hide my abject terror. “Isn’t it a bad week to have an insurance agent here?” I said. “Maybe next month would be better. Wouldn’t it?” “Next month?” she said. “Why?” Before I could answer, she went on. “Anyway, I want my valuables insured as soon as possible. The THINGS you’ve given me are so precious to me. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.” She looked at me. “The fact that you’ve given them to me is so special to me.”

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My mouth opened and closed. “Like this watch,” she said, lifting her wrist. “It must be worth… Well, how much did you pay for it?” “I can’t remember,” I said. “You know how my memory is.” I tapped myself on the side of my head and gave a manic laugh. “I-think-I’d-better-go-because-I’m-late-but-I-think-theinsurance-agent-should-just-come-next-month-maybe,” I said, the words coming out in a jumble. My wife laughed. I jumped, involuntarily. “There’s no insurance agent coming,” she said. I gaped at her. She smiled. “Did you think I didn’t know?” My knees turned to jelly. Was this the end? “I like this watch,” she said. “It’s just as good as the genuine one would be. “So is the Russian duck,” she added. “And that necklace, the first one.” “I’m sorry—” I started. She laughed again, but this time it somehow made me feel better. “Did you think, by the way, that I don’t have the passwords to the bank account and your e-mail accounts? You must think I’m brainless.” “I didn’t...” I started again. “What I said before was true,” she said. “I’m glad to get gifts from you, no matter where they come from. And I’m glad you found ways to save money. I like getting gifts, but I realize they’ve become a burden.” She stopped, considering. “Just make sure they are sanded well, okay?” I couldn’t help smiling. “Okay.” “Now,” she said, “what’s the deal with the painting?” “Well,” I said, the smile growing. “There are these two painters…” n To submit your story for this column or to have your story featured here, please contact us at submissions@amimagazine.org.

THE CLEAN BILL // Real People on the Quest for Health

foun the

BY YITTA HALBERSTAM MANDELBAUM

YOUT

? F

Water is essential for life. But can it cure disease? And can we trust the water we’re drinking?

ntain

rom time immemorial, water—colorless, tasteless and odorless, but utterly essential to mankind’s physical and spiritual well-being—has played a central role in Jewish tradition. During the time of the Beis Hamikdash, practically all of the halachos associated with tumah and taharah pivoted around purification by water. It was not the actual physical cleansing that was at the heart of the process but a mystical experience, which we still do not understand. There is no Yom Tov as closely connected to water as Sukkos, when we rejoice over this fundamental blessing that is both life-giving and lifesustaining in myriad ways. Of all the days of the year, it was only during Sukkos that we were commanded to fulfill the mitzvah of pouring water on a designated opening in the Mizbei’ach. We still commemorate this ritual today by observing Simchas Beis Hasho’eivah—the simchah of drawing the water (and, according to Chazal, drawing ruach hakodesh as well), an act laden with mystical significance. Why the drawing of the water should merit its own festival, and be commemorated with such intensity and passion, no one really knows. But we do know this: Water is sacred and holy, an extremely potent element that holds the potential to heal on many levels. The Rambam states the following: “It seems to me that the mitzvah of the arbaah minim is connected to the happiness and joy of coming out of the midbar—a place where nothing could be planted and where there was no water—to a place (Eretz Yisrael) where there were trees and fruits and rivers. So on Sukkos we celebrate—on some level—the abundance of water in Israel and all the benefits it brings.” In Yeshayahu (12:3) we encounter an equally powerful statement: “U’sheavtem mayim b’sasson mi’maayanei hayeshuah—You can draw water with joy from the springs of salvation.” Yet how many of us truly recognize this, on a daily basis—when we are overcome with the banal tasks that draw us away from our spiritual source—of the eternity of water in our lives? There is so much that we take for granted, and so little that we truly see with open eyes and an awakened heart! For the Sukkos “Clean Bill,” we thought it would be appropriate to draw our readers’ attention to various aspects of water’s significance in our lives, illuminating areas that might be relatively unknown to the average layman. In three articles, we have emphasized the life-giving properties of both the water we ingest and the water in which we bathe. The final article might seem anomalous as it departs from this theme, but in actuality it fits right in. On Shemini Atzeres, we pray for rain, a prayer that continues for a good part of the year, emphasizing our awareness that without water we cannot live. We need the water to fill our reservoirs and nourish our crops. But as ecologists have already proven, human actions affect the quality and quantity of water in our universe, and we must be respectful of our environment. Indeed, long before “the green movement” was born, the Torah already made it clear in Sefer Vayikra (Bechukosai) that rainfall is a function of our doing Hashem’s will, and if we keep the mitzvos, “the rains will come in their time, the Land will yield its produce and the tree of the field will give forth its full.” But if we fail to observe Hashem’s laws and dishonor the earth by ravaging it with our greed and negligence, the opposite will occur. So in keeping with this dictum, we included the fourth article, which—like the first three—provides essential information that is life-giving…just like water. We hope that our readers and all of klal Yisrael will be showered with abundant blessings this coming year—most importantly of all, with excellent health—which is the very mandate of our column, “The Clean Bill.” 11 TISHREI 5774

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THE CLEAN BILL // Real People on the Quest for Health

the

When the doctor told him the diagnosis, he was taken aback. But the results he got from a holistic treatment, in turn, shocked his doctor.

Healing Miracle

pH WATER AS TOLD TO YITTA HALBERSTAM MANDELBAUM BY MOSHE KESSLER

t was in 2003 that I first noticed the constant presence of blood in my urine. Although the discovery was a bit unnerving, I wasn’t really alarmed, because I knew that I ate healthfully, exercised and did all the “right things.” So how could I be sick? I was also relatively unconcerned because I had seen blood in my urine just a few years before. I had visited a local urologist, who told me that the blood came from an old infection; and that “I shouldn’t worry about it.” So I assumed I was experiencing residue from the same condition. But as the weeks flew by, I couldn’t help but notice that this time, the blood did not disappear. I began to feel uneasy. By hashgachah, I happened to have an appointment with Dr. Frederick Vagnini, a renowned holistic cardiologist (recently retired), and in passing, I mentioned the blood. “It’s probably a benign polyp—as the presence of blood in the urine signifies in the majority of men—but you should go to a urologist to be sure,” he said. The new urologist took some blood tests, and once again, I put the entire thing on my mind’s back burner, leaving for vacation with my family. I was in Amish country when I got his call. “I need you to come into the office right away to discuss your test results,” he said. During our vacation, I remained calm, paying little heed to his call, not believing that anything ominous was at hand. In

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fact, if I remember correctly, I probably procrastinated in making the appointment with him even after my return home. (Like many men, I felt extremely uncomfortable with the idea of a cystoscopy.) But when I finally gathered up my courage and had the procedure, the doctor immediately said afterwards: “I see cancer. There are tumors inside your bladder that definitely look cancerous to me.” The blood tests had already indicated that I had elevated levels of an enzyme associated with the disease, but he needed to confirm them with the results of the cystoscopy. Now he was sure. From that point on, I no longer deferred action. I quickly had an operation, and the doctor told me that he had removed the cancer, but I wasn’t confident about his prognosis. When most people hear the word “cancer” they totally flip out—as I did then. My paradigm of thinking was to think of the worst: Instead of being in the moment or the present, my mind leaped to the worst possible scenario. (I truly believe that a big part of my healing afterward had to do with changing the way I feel about life, but at that time I wasn’t fluent in the language of the mind/body connection.) So my immediate reaction was “Oh, I have cancer; he’s just a local urologist; I have to go to Sloan-Kettering!” I didn’t know how serious my condition was until a “top” specialist who had been highly recommended by several askanim imperiously swept into my room and—without a word of introduction, without even trying to make a small, human and personal connection with a frightened patient before delivering news—looked at my chart in a cold, detached manner and said: “You have about a 20 percent chance of survival. You have grade III bladder cancer and the cells are very aggressive. Even when they’re removed they grow back very quickly, and 80 percent of the time they return. I think we have a great shot though if we take out your bladder, your lymph nodes and your prostate.” I didn’t like the man or his suggested treatment protocol. So I decided to switch both doctors and hospitals posthaste. I conferred with the ECHO Cancer Foundation, the Skverer Rebbe and others, and was referred to the head of urology at Columbia Presbyterian, a kinder, gentler man, who didn’t immediately concur with the first specialist. After carefully reading my files and examining me, he said: “You know, it may be true, you may have to have your bladder removed, but let me first do my own biopsy”—they had already done one at Sloan—“and then I’ll tell you what I think.” In the recovery room, the physician approached me and said:

“I’m so very sorry, Mr. Kessler, but Sloan was right. The cancer is all over your bladder. Call my office and make an appointment for a week from now and we’ll discuss removing your bladder.” I was devastated but called nonetheless. In December 2003, the night before my appointment, I was on the phone with the gabbai of Rabbi Ben Tov, a”h, a mekubal from Israel who was renowned for reading mezuzos, and the gabbai conveyed a message from Rabbi Ben Tov. “The Rav promises it’s going to be better than you can possibly even imagine!” he said. I wasn’t encouraged. The number-one bladder surgeon in the US tells me that I have to have my bladder, lymph nodes and prostate removed, while an Israeli mekubal says it’s going to be better than anything I can imagine! Who does an all-American boy believe? The next day, after staggering up the steep hill that leads from the patient parking lot to the Columbia-Presbyterian hospital building, I literally started dragging my feet the last hundred yards to the office—probably in a last-minute attempt to delay the inevitable. I felt like I was headed towards the gallows. My wife and I finally entered the “top man’s” office and the doctor and his nurse arrived shortly thereafter. He intently scanned my medical file lying on his desk, glanced up and said in a humbled voice: “Mr. Kessler, I made a mistake.” His nurse of many years looked at him in astonishment, her jaw virtually dropping in surprise, and stammered: “You made a mistake? In twenty years, I have never heard you say that you made a mistake!” “Mr. Kessler, it’s true that you have cancer in the bladder, but it’s not as bad as I thought,” the doctor continued. “Much of what I believed was cancer turned out to be fatty tissue.” We were both in a state of shock! So the surgeon operated on me, removing the cancer, but, baruch Hashem, kept my bladder, lymph nodes and prostate intact. I was so grateful. The mekubal had been absolutely right. But when I returned for my first check-up, the first doctor’s dire warnings echoed in my memory: The surgeon announced in a stunned voice that the cancer had returned with a vengeance. It was only six weeks later, but it was definitely back. Every three months for the next year I would return to the surgeon’s office, and the scenario was unvarying: He would consistently find new tumors growing—sometimes 15, sometimes 20, sometimes even 28. The cancer was indeed very aggressive, just as the first doctor had predicted, and absolutely 11 TISHREI 5774

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THE CLEAN BILL // Real People on the Quest for Health

nothing, it seemed, could keep the tumors from multiplying at an extremely rapid clip. They were unyielding to all treatments and absolutely relentless in the way they returned. They laid claim to my bladder and refused to vacate. The only good news that the doctor could proffer was that the cancer had not yet invaded the muscle wall of the bladder. But with such an aggressive cancer, it was only a matter of time. One of the treatments for bladder cancer is an infusion of a weakened tuberculosis strain called BCG, which irritates the lining of the bladder, forcing your immune system to fight the cancer. In 2004, I went to a different urologist (less expensive than the eminent surgeon I had been seeing) for this procedure, and somehow he did not perform it properly. In what was clearly the result of a physician error, I developed full-blown tuberculosis—BCGosis (which happens in 1 out of every 10,000 patients)— on top of the cancer. Believe me, the agonies of TB made my struggle with cancer seem small. I would sometimes wake in the middle of the night with my temperature reaching 106; and my weight dropped to 125 pounds. Now I was also forced to take medication designed for people with tuberculosis— understanding that this medication had the potential to damage the liver, too. It was at this point that I began to realize that maybe Western medicine alone wasn’t going to cure my medical problems. A year before, when we had first learned of my diagnosis, a friend had told me about a book called The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health by Dr. Robert O. Young, which outlines a program revolving around a protocol of drinking alkalized water and eating alkaline-based foods. Dr. Young’s thesis was that all disease is caused by an acid/alkaline imbalance in the fluids and tissues of the body. If you bring your body into acid/alkaline balance, it returns to a state of equilibrium and health. I had slowly started incorporating parts of the program, but I was invested in Western medicine, and wasn’t fully committed to the alternative approach. After the tuberculosis fiasco, however, I began to lose faith in orthodox medicine and started following Dr. Young’s recommendations more seriously, becoming very diligent about drinking my bottles of alkalized water—consuming a gallon each day—which we made even more alkaline with pH drops. I also started juicing, drinking wheat grass, and eating lots of sprouts and raw foods.

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What Is Alkaline Water? Alkaline water, also known as ionized water, is a beverage with a pH above 7. It is touted by some as a cure for a wide range of conditions, but it also has many critics. Regular water usually is considered to have a neutral pH of 7. Alkaline water has a pH of approximately 8. The most common method for home consumption of alkaline water is through an alkalizer connected to a tap water system, such as a kitchen sink. Alternatives are to buy pH drops, which one adds to water, or to buy bottled water. Some believe that diet— including alkaline water—is a major way to influence the pH balance of the body, therefore affecting physiological functioning and overall health. Proponents claim the water can treat asthma, heartburn, indigestion and many other ailments. Slowing aging, preventing cancer, and preventing illnesses caused by bacteria and viruses are other supposed benefits. Critics believe that the stated health benefits of alkaline water are overstated. In fact, some argue the stated health benefits are simply a fabrication of the alkalinewater industry.

Chemists say water is not conductive enough to go through any significant ionization. Also, alkaline beverages cause the stomach to produce digestive acids in order to keep the stomach’s pH balance around 4. Sodium bicarbonate and potassium bicarbonate, both bases, are byproducts of this process and enter the bloodstream, so any increase in the body’s pH from alkaline water is indirect. The stomach’s response can also disrupt healthy digestion. Compensating for an overly alkaline diet can also tax the body’s buffering systems that eliminate acids and bases. Experts point out that viruses and bacteria thrive in an enormous range of environments. Stomach acids can eliminate pathogens that cause illness but do not kill all harmful organisms. Similarly, moving the body to a basic condition merely shifts which types of organisms survive to cause illness. A nonmedical reason for rejecting manufactured alkaline water is that most tap water is already slightly alkaline. Water treatment officials often alkalize water to at least 8 to prevent the erosion of piping. Source: www.wisegeek.com

In October 2004, after three months of following this program, I went for my quarterly check-up, and for the first time ever, the multiple tumors had not returned. During his internal examination, the surgeon found exactly….one. On each of the previous check-ups, dozens of recurring tumors had been revealed. The doctor was astounded. “Whatever you’re doing,” he said to me, “continue to do it.” And that was the very last time I had any trace evidence of cancer in my bladder. Can I say that it was only the alkaline water and diet that reversed my cancer? It’s hard to know what exactly was responsible for my remission, because we did many different things and there were many miracles along the way. Thousands of people were praying for me, and my wife didn’t leave my side for a year. When you’re sick, you do anything and everything to help yourself, and I don’t remember half the things I did. But you check out every possibility. I was a much more closed person when I began my journey than I am today. I started to shift my mind-set by learning how to meditate and getting into NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and a lot of other alternative stuff, and my wife and I have maintained this lifestyle for ten years straight, without veering off the path. Unfortunately, a lot of people will attempt these things while they are sick and then after they are pronounced cured, will immediately revert back to eating ptcha. It doesn’t work that way; it has to be a life-long commitment. To this day—ten years after my initial diagnosis—we still eat very alkaline, and I continue to drink a lot of alkaline water and fluids every day. I haven’t deviated from the program, nor do I intend to. I attribute my recovery to the radical changes I made to my entire dietary structure. You can’t eat steak and then drink the alkalized water, hoping it will do damage control. Of course, drinking the pH water is beneficial unto itself, but you have to make your entire body alkaline in order to ward off disease, and that includes expelling acidic foods from your diet as well. The bad news is that the typical Jewish diet is very acidic. Foods like dairy, alcohol, coffee, eggs, and sugar are harmful to the body. Things like sprouts, vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds and avocados are alkaline. Dark green leafy vegetables are the most alkalizing of all the products in the world. There are pH strips available in your local pharmacy that can help you measure your body’s level of acidity. Any pH above 7 is alkaline; below 7 it’s acidic. For all the water that I use—not only for drinking but for cooking and food preparation as well—I have an ionizer that gives me a pH measurement of 10. I add pH drops to the water to make it even more alkaline, and I still continue to drink a gallon a day. My water is also filtered twice: I have a large house filter that removes all the heavy metals and impurities in my tap water, and a second filter that is specifically designed to increase the water’s pH level. A typical alkaline diet for me would be nuts and fruits in the morning, a big salad with a vegetarian protein (beans, tofu, seitan, tempeh, avocado, nuts) for lunch, and lightly cooked vegetables for dinner. I want to emphasize that I am not advocating that anyone throw out Western medicine. That would be a serious mistake. Even though I became very ill from the tuberculosis medication, the reality is that the surgeons were able to remove the tumors from my bladder, and I am very cognizant of and grateful for that. My philosophy is to use the best that Western medicine has to offer, but if it isn’t working, to try to supplement with alternative medicine techniques. For me, Dr. Young’s alkaline water and food program gave my health a big boost, and it’s clear that the tumors stopped returning once I followed his program and integrated other holistic techniques into my life as well. But could I have gotten to where I am today—baruch Hashem, cancer-free ten years later—without the initial surgery? Definitely not!

THE CLEAN BILL // Real People on the Quest for Health

“TAKING THE WATERS”: A Thing of the Past? I

was standing at the head of a trail at the base of a steep mountain, which led to a scenic overlook. While fit and trim adults nimbly made the climb, I watched warily. I didn’t have a good feeling about my prospects: I could already envision beads of sweat pouring down my face, my muscles straining—or screaming—with every step forward, my breath expelling in rapid bursts, as I choked for oxygen. So I did what any practical middle-aged woman in my case would do: I sat down on a bench and waited for my far braver (and fitter) friend to return from her foray up the summit. A young girl sat down next to me sighing, and we exchanged sympathetic looks. Ironically, she was waiting for her mother to return from the arduous ascent. Now that’s a switch, I thought. She must have read my mind. “I’m partially handicapped,” she ventured. “I have several herniated discs in my neck and my back. I can barely walk sometimes.” What hashgachah! I thought. I had just started researching the topic of miracle

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water cures (both the kind you ingest and the kind you immerse yourself in) and had some names at the tip of my tongue to suggest. “I’m sure you’ve probably tried everything,” I began tentatively, “so please forgive me if I’m in any way intrusive. But have you ever tried any water cures?” “As a matter of fact, I have,” she said. “The one place that really had a powerful effect on me—I wasn’t in pain for close to a year— was in Florida. It’s called ‘Warm Mineral Springs.’ Have you ever heard of it?” In fact, I had. Russian Jews from the Northeast are known to make yearly pilgrimages to the place they call “Chudo Ozero” (Miracle Lake), which is located in the city of North Port in Sarasota County, Florida. I had met a few of these Jews in Brooklyn, who told me that all kinds of conditions were (anecdotally) being treated and cured by the countless minerals and sulfur gas contained in the 80-degree water, including stress, psoriasis, kidney problems, slipped discs and…cancer. Like other similar springs in Florida (The 11 TISHREI 5774

approximately 1,000 springs throughout Florida have been sites for healing spas since the 19th century), Warm Mineral Springs in Sarasota is rumored to be none other than the legendary “Fountain of Youth” that Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon sought. While back and hip problems, for example, seem to be clearly ameliorated by immersion in the water, the other more far-fetched claims have yet to be proven by any conclusive scientific or medical studies. Nonetheless, the fabled power of Warm Mineral Springs has created such great “word of mouth” among Russian émigrés that some of them no longer live in Sarasota County temporarily, but have actually taken up permanent residence there. (The population in the city of North Port is now 10 percent Eastern European.) The appeal of a curative “watering hole” may seem strange to the younger generation, but in our grandparents’ time, it was practically de rigueur to make summertime treks to similar springs with reputations for healing all kinds of ills. In

DR. JASON PERLMAN & DR. LUCY PONTRELLI THE DEAD SEA, ISRAEL

the 1970s and 1980s, Sharon Springs, New York (a small town near Albany), was predominantly populated by chasidim (at least from June to September), and the frierdiker Bobover Rebbe and his entourage would regularly journey up to Saratoga Springs (previously popular with American aristocrats) for therapeutic purposes, too. “Taking the waters,” in fact, has a long rabbinic tradition, and there are many stories recounted by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach on his tapes about the various rabbanim who came to the Carlebach home in Vienna en route to the popular mineral springs in Baden Bei Wein. The fourteen sulfur springs located there purportedly cure rheumatism—one sulfur bath reversing sulfur deficiency in the joints after only 30 minutes—but these seemingly outlandish claims must have some validity, since the area has, over the millennia, drawn not only great rabbis, but such notables as Peter the Great, Beethoven and Napoleon. Water healing has been popular throughout history, the world’s oldest medical literature making numerous references to its beneficial use. According to legend, Prince Bladud—the ninth king of the Britons and supposed father of King Lear—was cured of leprosy after immersion in the muddy waters of the hot springs located near the city of Bath.

Hippocrates, the “father of modern medicine,” was the first to use water cures—both internal and external—to treat disease, while two prominent physicians of the Roman Empire—Celsus and Galen—also believed in the salutary properties of bathing to treat a number of specific diseases. In 1600, “public vapor baths” were established in Paris, France, geared towards restoring the general health of the masses. “Hydrotherapy” became part of the medical canon in the early part of the nineteenth century after a peasant by the name of Vincent Priessnitz popularized the use of cold water as a curative measure. In the 20th century, cold bathing for remedial reasons became supplanted in popularity by what was then viewed as the healing properties of certain hot mineral springs. Although skeptics believe that it is simply the moist heat obtained from the water that is beneficial, and that the water itself possesses no miraculous healing powers, most people have not been disabused of this notion and continue to flock to places of renown, which include:

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IS BOTTLED WATER to be 44 grams lighter than conventional water.

NORDENAU, GERMANY.

Busloads of pilgrims arrive here daily, claiming all kinds of miraculous cures and healings. Two German labs, which analyzed the water, found it to be 8 percent lighter than ordinary water.

NADANA VILLAGE, INDIA.

In 1992, water began to spontaneously gush from a deserted well in a small village 90 miles north of New Delhi. Local villagers who bathed in the water said they were cured of various skin diseases. Approximately 20,000 people still visit it daily. The altruistic owner of the well, a Mr. Mamraj, was purportedly offered a huge sum of money to sell it to a commercial developer, but he stalwartly refused, saying he wanted to use the healing powers of the well to help people —he doesn’t charge a fee—not make profits!

THE DEAD SEA, ISRAEL.

More than any other condition, psoriasis is the number one reason people from all over the world travel to the Dead Sea for treatment. Documented scientific research over the past century has indicated that the Dead Sea contains a rare blend of natural minerals such as magnesium, bromide and sodium, which draws out toxins, exfoliates the skin, soothes stress, regulates enzymes, reduces inflammation and helps diminish swelling. People suffering from other skin conditions such as eczema, as

AMI•LIVING

well as those patients afflicted with joint or muscle injuries, disc pain or arthritis, also find thalassotherapy (treatments using sea waters specifically for their unique combinations of salt and mineral content) very beneficial.

Tourist attractions that revolve around the presence of “hot springs” in their area are ubiquitous all over the United States, and today, many are overcommercialized. Still, there are cadres of “believers” who staunchly claim that their various ills have been cured by the waters they deem magical, and they faithfully flock to their favored ones year after year. As for Sharon Springs (Members of the older heimishe generation still remain nostalgic about its yesteryear), after a severe decline in the late 20th century (It was virtually heartbreaking to witness its deteriorated buildings, boardedup stores and desolate air), it has undergone a remarkable revival. Many of its abandoned hotels (including the renowned “Hotel Adler”) and “kuchaleins” (particularly popular with the chasidishe crowd) were recently bought by Korean entrepreneurs, who decided to pump serious money into the forgotten town and revitalize it. Its forlorn atmosphere banished, Sharon Springs is now reborn, buzzes with life, and has become the new thing for summer vacationers of a certain age and economic persuasion. Your grandparents would barely recognize it, though, because it’s now overrun by... yuppies!

SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

A SCAM?

11 TISHREI 5774

Many years ago, I used to pass—on one of the major roads in the heimishe part of the mountains—a bottling plant whose plastic water jugs were a common commodity on local supermarket shelves. (I haven’t been in the lower Catskills for a long time, so I honestly don’t know if the company still exists.) Every single time my husband and I drove by the building, I made him brake and pull up to the shoulder of the highway, so I could study the plant and its environs. My curiosity—which I admit can get piqued by what other people might consider utterly mundane, but which my husband will always patiently indulge—was aroused by the fact that although the sign on the building proclaimed that it was the site of such and such pure hydration, the only visible source of a body of water nearby was…Kiamesha Lake! “That’s not possible, is it?” I would ask my husband in alarm. “They’re not using the water of Kiamesha Lake, are they?” “Don’t be ridiculous!” My husband would roll his eyes and dismiss my fears. “So where is their so-called source?” I would demand suspiciously (a voracious consumption of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books in early childhood having left their indelible mark). “Maybe there’s a spring nearby or a waterfall we can’t see,” he’d sigh. I would immediately make him circle the area, searching for said bodies of pure H20. Neither a meandering spring, nor a burbling brook, nor even an artesian well was visible to the naked eye. “Maybe they truck the water in from somewhere else,” my

husband would suggest. “So where are all the trucks?” I’d pounce, pointing to the perennially empty parking lot. “So they’re not here today; I’m sure they’re here other times.” But whenever we passed the building, there was no sign of activity of any kind, and the parking lot was bare. I never saw an army of trucks—actually not even one—lined up at a loading dock, and my misgivings that something was amiss continued to grow. My husband assured me that I was paranoid, and my timing must

simply be off. Considering the fact that I used the road twice a day to shuttle my son to camp , the lack of meaningful movement in the building’s vicinity—every time I drove by—filled me with grave concern. “They are using Kiamesha Lake!” I would shudder. “You don’t think these things are regulated?” he’d counter. “I really should report my suspicions to somebody,” I’d mutter. “To whom?” he’d ask. I had absolutely no idea. And to this day, I still don’t know if my suspicions had

any basis whatsoever or were simply the function of my overactive imagination. But during that period of time—the early years of the bottled water craze—everyone basically took for granted the assumption that all the claims made by bottled water companies were true. Today, after a series of shocking exposés by the media that have blown the roof off the bottled water industry, no one is one hundred percent sure about what exactly it is that he or she is drinking, although it is still being consumed. Old habits die hard, and despite the fact that there has recently been a small

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downturn in the sales of bottled water— which costs 1,000 times more than what comes out of your ordinary spigot—most people still believe that they are treating their bodies better if they hydrate them with Dasani or Poland Spring or Nestlé Pure, rather than with humble tap water. The great irony is that 25 percent or more of bottled water (according to a four-year study conducted by The Natural Resources Defense Council) is tap water, sometimes treated, sometimes not. Every single second of the day, an average of 1,500 Americans swig down— and quickly discard—a plastic container of bottled water. According to statistics compiled by the International Bottled Water Association, Americans spend more than fifteen billion dollars each year on their H20, with global water bottle sales totaling $50 billion annually. It’s understandable then that lobbyists protecting the companies will scramble to provide damage control and “spin” the facts to their advantage whenever a scathing new study is released, charging the industry with either secrecy or outright corruption. In 2009, the Environmental Working Group (EWG)—an organization that specializes in environmental research and advocacy in the areas of toxic chemicals, agricultural subsidies, public lands and corporate accountability—published a groundbreaking report that documented the bottled water industry’s failure to disclose contaminants and other crucial facts about their products. Their Bottled Water Questionnaire—distributed to all the major producers—asked three simple questions: 1) Where does the water come from? 2) Is it purified? And if so, how? 3) Have tests found any contaminants in the water? The questions were not complex and

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should have elicited company transparency. But surprisingly, among the ten bestselling brands—including Pepsi’s Aquafina, Coca-Cola’s Dasani, Crystal Geyser, and six of the seven Nestlé brands—nine were evasive and skipped answering at least one of the three questions. Only Nestlé’s Pure Life Purified Water disclosed its specific geographic water source and treatment method, and offered an 800-number, a website URL, and a general mailing address where consumers could write to receive a water quality test evaluation of contaminants in its products. One of the significant revelations of the “Bottled Water Scorecard” was the shocking fact that in some instances, bottled water proved to be nothing more than disguised tap water, prettied up in nice packaging. And in certain cases, it wasn’t even filtered (although in others, like Aquafina and Dasani, it was). Environmental and consumer groups were outraged. Aside from the sheer deception about the source of the water itself (which was infuriating enough), advocates from these organizations were also distraught by other findings of the report, which divulged that: 41 Out of the 50 billion bottles of water being bought each year, 80 percent end up in a landfill. 42 Seventeen million barrels of oil are used in producing bottled water each year—the amount of petroleum that could fuel a million cars. 43 P lastic bottles leach toxins into the water, which have been linked to health problems such as reproductive issues and cancer. 44 Plastic can never biodegrade. From both an ecological standpoint and

11 TISHREI 5774

a medical perspective, the conclusions of the Environmental Working Group’s survey were disturbing. The only positive note gleaned from the Scorecard and good news for readers living in the five boroughs was this: New York City municipal tap water surpasses all federal and health standards and is, in fact, considered to be the best in the country! After the bottled water industry came under fire, following the release of this study, it tried to appease advocacy groups by implementing various protocols and improvements. However, a brand-new EWG survey has recently found that 18 percent of companies still fail to list the location of their source and 32 percent disclose no information whatsoever about the treatment or purity of the water being used. Indeed, in his investigative work, “Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water,” published in 2010, environmental scientist Peter Gleick reveals that various production batches of bottled water have had more than 100 recalls after they were found to contain: mold, algae, bacteria, glass particles and…crickets. “Take Back the Tap!”is the message behind a crusading video called “The Story of Bottled Water,” which went viral on YouTube when it was first released in 2010 and has since garnered close to three million views. It accuses the Bottled Water Association of “scaring us, seducing us and misleading us” into buying their products. Annie Leonard, the writer and producer of the video, argues that not only does tap water often surpass bottled water in blind taste tests, but it is more regulated and subject to greater controls. Tap water, she asserts, is “monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency, whose standards are generally stricter than the Food and Drug

THE CLEAN BILL // Real People on the Quest for Health

water the

Administration, which oversees most bottled-water sales.” Although bottled water may have reduced amounts of copper, lead and other metal contaminants, since it does not run through the plumbing pipes where tap water is exposed to metal corrosion, in most other respects it significantly lags behind tap water when it comes to consumer safety. In a study conducted by Goethe University of Frankfurt, for example, a high percentage of bottled water (in plastic containers) was found to be polluted with estrogenic chemicals. In another study, published in the journal The Science of the Total Environment, samples of 25 different bottled waters were found to exceed the contaminant level set by the EPA for mercury, thallium and thorium. When Cleveland Public Utilities had its local water tested against high-end brand Fiji Water in 2006 (in a PR debacle, Fiji had run an unfortunate series of ads in glossy magazines proclaiming “The label says Fiji because it’s not bottled in Cleveland,” raising the shackles of that city’s residents), it found that while Fiji had 6.31 micrograms of arsenic per liter, the city’s tap water had none. As a result of these studies and others, and because of a tremendous backlash by “green” groups (Not only do two million tons of plastic water bottles clog up landfills each year, but the actual transportation of bottled water to US ports releases thousands of tons of pollution into the atmosphere), an active anti-bottledwater movement has taken root in the US and is burgeoning. Several San Francisco restaurants actually began banning bottled water in 2006, and the campaign spread to some of New York’s fanciest joints one year later. Today, a growing number of universities

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have jumped onto the bandwagon (Washington University, in St. Louis, Missouri, was probably the first college to ban all bottled water sales on campus), and local governments such as San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver are also getting into the act. Zion National Park in Utah, one of the most visited national parks in the United States, instituted a similar ban in 2008, eliminating the detritus of 60,000 plastic bottles from its pristine environment during the first year of the program. But the long arm of the bottled water industry exceeds the reach of even the most fervid environmentalists. When Grand Canyon National Park tried to follow Zion’s example in 2010 (officials citing the fact that discarded plastic bottles accounted for “30 percent of the park’s total waste stream and comprised the biggest source of trash found inside the canyon”), the plan was abruptly blocked after intercession by Coca-Cola. The company, which distributes water under the Dasani brand, has, over the last few years, donated more than $13 million to the Park Foundation. Talk about a conflict of interest! Still, despite attempts by big business, the anti-bottled-water movement continues to gain momentum. Most consumer watchdog agencies and health organizations now conclude that tap water is more healthful, more environmentally sustainable, and more ecologically sound than bottled water. Just because it comes in a bottle doesn’t mean it’s pure. And if none of those points are persuasive enough, here’s one last thing upon which to reflect: In contrast to a dollar or more per bottle of water, a glass of tap will cost you approximately…one cent.

11 TISHREI 5774

CURE

“I’ve never encountered a patient with a disease who wasn’t dehydrated,” states Dr. David Brownstein, prolific health author, awardwinning board-certified family physician, and one of the foremost practitioners of holistic medicine in the United States today. Dehydration in America has reached epidemic proportions, he claims, with nearly “two-thirds of the US population affected.” And though he attributes a preponderance of medical issues directly to this easily addressed cause, the “sad thing is that most people have no idea that a simple lack of water” is the primary root of their problems. “Think about it,” he says. “Seventy percent of your body is made up of water (your brain alone is composed of 80 percent water), and it is the water that keeps your blood flowing freely and smoothly to do its job: carrying nutrients to all parts of your body and flushing out dangerous toxins. Yet medical schools never teach their students the vital importance of drinking water, nor do doctors think to ask their patients: ‘How much water do you drink on a daily basis?’ They are utterly oblivious to the fact that the patient’s answer to this question could mean the difference between a lifetime of optimal health—or chronic disease.” Dr. Brownstein’s views are reminiscent of those espoused earlier by medical maverick Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, a Persian doctor (1931-2004) who was among the last students of Sir Alexander Fleming (the inventor of penicillin). His 1992 best-selling book, Your Body’s Many Cries for Water (which went through 30 printings), promulgated his simple—yet radical—belief that water can transform the health needs of society. In the book, he emphasized the damaging effects of dehydration, and like Dr. Brownstein, asserted that chronic dehydration is the cause of many

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THE CLEAN BILL // Real People on the Quest for Health

physical diseases including asthma and allergies, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, lack of energy, osteoporosis, hot flashes, gout, and kidney stones. Although Dr. Batmanghelidj’s writings were translated into fifteen languages and he became an icon in certain alternative health circles, there were many practitioners in the medical field who dismissed him as a “quack.” That created a particular irony since the organization founded by Dr. Batmanghelidj was called “The National Association for Honesty in Medicine.” Accusations flew from both ends of the spectrum. Dr. Batmanghelidj derided the “establishment” for withholding critical information from the general public. I think it’s totally dishonest, in fact criminal,” he once said in an interview, “to treat a person who is just thirsty, and give him toxic medication instead of plain water.” Dr. Batmanghelidj, a supporter of the Shah of Iran before he was overthrown by the Iranian Revolution, was incarcerated in prison in 1979 because of his politics. It was there, he claimed, that he first stumbled upon the healing miracle of water, as he tried to minister to the inmates with whom he lived. “There was a man doubled up in abdominal pain and the only thing I had at my disposal was water,” he reported. “There was no medication available, and nothing I could do. So, at my wit’s end, I had him drink two glasses of water, and I was shocked when I saw that the water gave him relief. So I decided to instruct him to drink two glasses of water every three hours, which he did, and that was the end of his ulcer pain for the rest of his duration in prison. “The body manifests dehydration in the form of pain. Now, depending on where dehydration is settled, you have pain there. Pain is a sign of water shortage in the body, and water shortage is actually the background to most of the health problems in our society.” Although Dr. Batmanghelidj’s theories in their heyday often came under attack, today there is a consensus among many physicians that drinking lots of water prevents kidney stones, facilitates dieting, fights fatigue, helps lower high blood pressure, and aids the healing of many other conditions—all these “new findings” corroborating what was once considered to be merely a fringe thesis. One thing is for sure: Drinking lots of water is not invasive nor detrimental. It can only help—not hurt—our bodily functions. n

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11 TISHREI 5774

Is the Cure to Overeating in Your Gut?

medica minutel Latest H and Reseealth News Around tharch from e World

YOUR BRAIN MIGHT BE TRAINED FROM THE SMALL INTESTINE New research shows that the while a major cause of overeating and obesity may be in the brain, the method to stop it may involve the intestines. Studies have shown that obese individuals’ brains respond less strongly to the “pleasure chemical” dopamine than average-sized people’s brains. Researchers at Yale University found that even when a regular-sized mouse doesn’t taste food, it gets a dopamine rush. (They delivered food directly to the mice’s small intestines through catheters.) But an obese mouse does not have the same strong effect. The researchers examined the role of a chemical called oleoylethanolamine that is present in the small intestine. Normalsized mice get a boost of the chemical when they eat. The researchers hypothesized that oleoylethanolamine stimulates the production of dopamine in the brain after eating, signaling the body that it is sated. The researchers injected oleoylethanolamine directly into the small intestines of obese mice while they ate. Dopamine levels spiked when they ate, and they ate less, lost weight and enjoyed low-calorie food. Oleoylethanolamine therapy would not involve the use of dopamine-regulating drugs, which have nasty psychological side effects. It also does not involve directly affecting the brain. The research group and others are intensively investigating whether oleoylethanolamine or a substitute will work just as well in humans as it does in mice.

The

REBBEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S

DAUGHTERS The five remarkable daughters of the Klausenberger Rebbe talk to Amiliving about the unique missions with which their father entrusted them. By Shira Leibowitz Schmidt

was late at night, and Miriam Leah Halberstam, the eldest daughter of the Klausenberger Rebbe, zt”l, was sitting at a table in Kiryat Sanz, Netanya, and writing. The year was 1967. One might think she was burning the midnight oil making guest lists, planning her upcoming wedding or lettering place cards. While these are the usual things that keep kallahs up until the wee hours of the morning, this was not the case with the Rebbe’s daughter, known today as Rebbetzin Leah Goldman. In fact, she was waiting for her father, the Admor of Sanz-Klausenberg, to return home so they could continue working on a book of shiurim he felt were vital for the girls who learned in the Sanz seminaries. Night after night (or rather midnight after midnight) he would lay out the lesson plans in Yiddish, and Leah would translate the shiurim into the Hebrew vernacular spoken by the high school girls of Beis Chana. Eventually, the lessons were printed in a book, Sefer Derech Chayim.

Five Doughty Daughters

Rebbetzin Leah Goldman is the oldest of the Klausenberger Rebbe’s five doughty daughters. Each was involved in one or more of the dozens of projects initiated by the Rebbe. The Old English word “doughty” means steadfast, courageous and resolute, and it describes these women quite accurately. I recently spoke to several of them. The interview with Mrs. Goldman, wife of the Zvhiller Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Goldman, took place in Union City, New Jersey, where they reside. “Before my wedding in 1967, my father would sit with me at night and explain the concepts he wanted to convey to the girls so they would have a solid grounding in chasidus and hashkafah. In the morning I would show my father what I had translated and written, and he would make

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corrections and additions in the right places. These included Torah verses, mefarshim, aggados, midrashim and other sources. Then I would test-run the lessons when I taught the girls in the Kiryat Sanz high school.” The chapters went through several iterations. “Sometimes a chapter was too long, sometimes too short. The material had to fit into a 50-minute lesson plan, so we had to shorten or lengthen it accordingly.” The lessons were truly custom fit for the girls. By the time the young kallah sat down with her father, the Rebbe had been going full steam since before dawn. His packed schedule began with a pre-Shacharis shiur he gave in the kollel, followed by davening, teaching in the yeshivos he established, and dealing with the many daily problems of running the institutions he founded, including Laniado Hospital, Mifal Hashas, Tessler School of Nursing and an orphanage. He also wrote teshuvos to sh’eilos that came to him from all over the world, studied, and received a multitude of visitors and petitioners. Still, when it came to the education of girls he was adamant about giving them the best. To this end he asked Leah to be in charge of the high school’s upper grades, thereby enabling him to finetune their curriculum. He also wanted to make sure they had the best sources to understand chasidus. That is why, despite his backbreaking schedule, he undertook to give shiurim via his daughter, who faithfully recorded and taught the material. In addition to providing the girls with a textbook, he insisted on teaching them personally, behind a screen or curtain, several times a year. The lessons in Sefer Derech Chayim include not only hashkafah but history. For example, in explaining the Baal Shem Tov’s role in laying the foundations of chasidic thought and practice, the Rebbe discussed the milieu in Eastern Europe at the time the Besht was born, at the very end of the 17th century

Laniado Hospital

(shnas “nachas,” 5458/1698). Another entry reads, “A number of revolutionary movements began to germinate based on rationalism.” Then the origins of the term are explained: “‘Ratio’ is the Latin word meaning ‘logic.’” Other chapters delve into the subjects of emunah, ahavas Torah, kevod ha’Torah, chochmas ha’Torah and tzaddikim. The volume has since been through several printings and has been translated into English by Rabbi Daniel Rose of Baltimore.

Who Was the Klausenberger Rebbe?

Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam was a great-grandson of the first Sanz Rebbe, the Divrei Chayim. He was the Rebbe in the Romanian city Kluj (or Klausenberg) until the Nazis invaded in 1944, ultimately murdering his wife and ten of his 11 children. One son, who managed to survive the war, succumbed to disease just after liberation. In 1944 the Rebbe became a slave laborer in Hungary. He was then sent to clean up the debris of the Warsaw ghetto, and in the fall of 1944, to a forced labor camp near Dachau, Germany. Upon liberation he had no time to mourn his own losses and threw himself into the task of rehabilitating the survivors physically, economically and spiritually in the DP camps. Eventually he made his way to the United States, where he married Chaya Nechama, the daughter of the Rav of Nitra in Slovakia, hy”d. Her brother-in-law, Rav Michael Ber Weissmandl, made the shidduch. The modest wedding took place on Friday, August 22, 1947, in an effort to economize and have the wedding seudah coincide with the Shabbos seudah. They subsequently had two sons and five daughters. All of the siblings took part in helping bring the Rebbe’s dreams to fruition. Today, one son, Reb Shmuel Dovid, is the Rebbe in the United States, and the other son, Reb Zvi Elimelech, is the Rebbe in Eretz

Yisrael. Nonetheless, it was precisely one of his daughters whom the Rebbe entrusted with the task of creating a text of basic chasidus, not exactly the usual burden one would place upon a kallah before her wedding. Miriam Leah had been born and raised in Brooklyn, coming to the seaside town of Netanya at age 11 when her father founded Kiryat Sanz in 1958, bringing intense Yiddishkeit to this tourist resort. “Suddenly a whole new world opened up before me." Rebbetzin Leah explains. "Although we spoke Yiddish at home and in the community, we were now in a Hebrew-speaking environment. Acquiring Hebrew opened up vistas in literacy and gave me access to our written heritage.” Picking up the gauntlet, she would be instrumental in making her father’s vision a reality. “My father wanted to upgrade girls’ education and put it on sound footing. The title Sefer Derech Chayim embodies several concepts: derech, the way in which we should go; and chayim, a nod to the founder of the Sanz dynasty, my father’s greatgrandfather, Rabbi Chayim Halberstam, the author of the Divrei Chayim responsa. At the end of the book a kuntres was appended—an appendix for teachers, with ten points outlining what the Rebbe felt was expected in the chinuch of girls. In previous centuries, girls were educated at home and absorbed chasidus through osmosis. Today, however, we need formal chinuch. The kuntres discusses the goal of the education of young people and discusses mitzvos, tznius, ahavas Yisrael and mada (science). It even has a section entitled, ‘An Approach to NonJews and Disbelievers.’” Rebbetzin Leah reminisces about those early years in Netanya. Her wedding and seudah took place outdoors, because there wasn’t any hall or hotel appropriate for the occasion. As a young bride she continued to teach, testing out the material in the upper grades of the high school, even though she was barely out of high school herself. “The Rebbe didn’t talk down to the girls in his written or oral presentation. If he referred to the Kuzari or to Aristotle, I had to give them the appropriate background.”

Trailblazer in the DP Camps

Actually, the Rebbe’s devotion to improving girls’ education had a long history; he had been a trailblazer in girls’ education after the Churban of WWII. I intererviewed several Holocaust survivors who as girls made their way to the DP camps in Feldafing and Fohrenwald, Germany, because they had heard that the Rebbe was there. Mrs. Chaya Telewitz Strubel described her first Rosh Hashanah after liberation. She had been orphaned and lost five of her seven 11 TISHREI 5774

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siblings. “Before Rosh Hashanah the Rebbe gave every girl in the camp a kosher chocolate bar and a machzor. But as Yom Kippur approached, we were forlorn. Who would give us the parents’ brachah before Kol Nidrei? My girlfriend’s brother was the Rebbe’s gabbai, and he arranged for us to stand outside the Rebbe’s room. The Rebbe put a cloth over his hand and blessed us on our heads, like a father. There were five of us—me and my two sisters who had survived, and my girlfriend and her sister. That brachah gave us hope to go on and rebuild our lives.” In her classic book, Hidden in Thunder, historian Rebbetzin Esther Farbstein writes (page 697) that in the DP camps, the “Klausenberger Rebbe played a major part in the struggle for girls’ education. Hundreds of girls enrolled in the network of schools he set up in the first year after liberation. In Fohrenwald, the Rebbe…kept track of each girl’s spiritual condition, listened to the girls’ troubles, and gave them moral support and encouragement….One project was the ‘Letter to Girls,’ a page on Jewish doctrine and the weekly parshah he wrote for them each week. In particular, he assumed the responsibility for finding them suitable husbands. His attitude was so fatherly and personal that some people regarded his educational work with the girls as the pinnacle of his activity.”

Mindy, now Rebbetzin Weiss of Jerusalem’s Kiryat Sanz, continued. “The Rebbe founded the orphanage when a distraught father appeared on his doorstep a few years earlier with three small children in tow. The man's wife was incapacitated, and he couldn’t care for the little ones. The only alternative was to send the children to a missionary orphanage, chas veshalom. The Rebbe then and there opened up a meon yeladim, a home for infants and children. It wasn’t only for orphans, but also for children from broken and dysfunctional homes, where the parents weren’t able to cope or the children were suffering terrible abuse. The Rebbe convinced me to switch my plans from teaching to being director of the maon.” “It states in Avodah Zarah 17a, ‘Yesh koneh olamo b’shaah echas—There are those who acquire their eternity in a single hour.’ I was persuaded by my father that this was my hour, my time of nisayon. I could be of help to these children from broken homes. But I still hesitated because I was so young, not yet 19. The Rebbe reassured me that he would help. I started the first year on a small scale, managing a group of the older girls. Slowly, I learned the ropes and ascended the ladder of management until I became director.” Rebbetzin Mindy cited examples of how different the universe of these unfortunate children was from that of their peers in intact families. “One of the things I wanted them to do was learn how to shop. I had a small allotment of money for shoes and clothes before the holidays. They were used to receiving care packages and hand-me-downs and were grateful for them. But I wanted them to also have something new. Some of these girls had never shopped in a store in their lives. The first time we went they asked me, ‘What’s that?’ and pointed to the price tags on the dresses. They had never seen a price tag before. We felt it was important for their self-esteem and for acquiring life skills to learn how to shop.” The Rebbe was concerned with even the smallest of details, like how the rooms were furnished. “My father’s advice was invaluable. I would discuss all the nitty-gritty details with him and he gave me very helpful eitzos. For example, if there were problems in chinuch or discipline, he might suggest switching the children to different rooms or rearranging their schedule. The Rebbe really understood and cared for these children.” Rebbetzin Mindy recounted a particularly anxious moment. “One day the national inspector of orphanages and children’s

WHEN IT CAME TO THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS, THE KLAUSENBERGER REBBE WAS ADAMANT ABOUT GIVING THEM THE BEST.

Orphanage Director at Age 18

Fast forward to 1968. The Rebbe’s second-oldest daughter Mindy has now reached the ripe old age of 18, and the Rebbe has a challenge for her. Mindy had come with her family to Netanya from Brooklyn when she was in the fifth grade. Her greatest aspiration was to be a teacher in high school and seminary. She explains why this so fired her imagination. “Being a high school teacher was considered the greatest intellectual challenge and carried immense responsibility. This was my dream. There was no teachers’ seminary in Netanya, so the plan was for me to study on my own and then take the exams. I was raring to start a career in education. I was mamash chalishing to be a teacher! But then…” She pauses as she reminisces. “My father called me in and spoke to me for two hours. He had founded an orphanage in Kiryat Sanz, and felt that the direction it was taking was not what he originally had in mind. He wanted me to take the reins and become the director. I was flabbergasted!”

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homes called to say she would be bringing donors from Montreal to visit several orphanages and wanted to include ours on the itinerary. I tried to discourage her from coming because I was intimidated. But despite my reservations they came and were impressed by the calm atmosphere and smiles on the girls’ faces. At one point the inspector turned to me and asked, ‘Where’s the television room? What do the girls do for bilui (entertainment) without a TV?’” “Here I was, barely 19 years old, the inspector was twice my age and the donors were from Montreal. None of them were frum. I didn’t feel sophisticated. I was worried that there shouldn’t be chillul Hashem. But I had siyata di’shmaya! In the zechus of our avos and imahos, Hashem give me the right words to respond. I pointed out how the girls were jumping rope, playing Israeli jacks, chatting and singing quietly, playing board games and reading. The visitors couldn’t help but see how content these children from troubled homes were. I told them about all the after-school programs we offered, like arts and crafts, sewing and baking, and they began to understand that you can have bilui even without a TV—we didn’t need one. And the simchah our kind of entertainment gives to the neshamah is longlasting. We had succeeded in created an inviting and friendly atmosphere where the children could thrive and feel at home.” In response to a question about the other challenges she faced, Rebbetzin Mindy replied, “I wanted the rooms to be cheerful and the children to be dressed nicely, to increase their selfesteem. We had only a limited budget so I had to raise funds. It wasn’t easy. But I loved the children and was devoted to them, and wanted this residence to be warm and homey. This desire gave me the impetus to undertake the unpleasant endeavor of fundraising. I learned that if you put your heart and soul into something with true mesirus, you are often granted help from on High and can succeed. So I wrote letters and went out to meet donors. It was important to me that the girls have colorful, cheerful curtains and new clothes that they were able to pick out by themselves. “The children were sent to us by the welfare authorities from all over the country. In the beginning we even had infants, but when I became director the youngest residents were three.

There were separate sections for boys and girls. When the boys got older they went to cheder and yeshivah ketanah. We set up a separate program for them with male counselors. The girls attended the Beis Chana school in Kiryat Sanz. This was actually a problem, because some of the classes in Beis Chana were in Yiddish, and many of the girls came from Sephardic homes. The Rebbe had tremendous ahavas Yisrael and wanted the children to preserve the customs of their parents and grandparents, so the Sephardic girls davened according to the nusach of the Eidot Hamizrach. On the High Holidays, the Rebbe encouraged the children to go to synagogues that perpetuated their own very chashuveh traditions. He wanted them to take pride in their minhagim. The Rebbe’s heart was open to klal Yisrael.” We asked Rebbetzin Mindy if she’s still in touch with any of these children. “Baruch Hashem, I’ve had the nachas of seeing many of them grow up, get married and establish families of their own. Two of our first boys, Yemenites who came to the maon as infants, are now grown men and very religious. The son of one actually married the daughter of the other last year! The wedding was held in the Galei Sanz Hotel in Netanya. People turned out in huge numbers—chasidim, Litvish and Sephardim—because it was evidence of how the Rebbe’s dreams have materialized. Part of the mitzvah tantz at the end was done to Yemenite niggunim. This was true mizug galuyos, a beautiful admixture of all our traditions.” Rebbetzin Mindy continued as director for several years after her marriage to Rav Dov Berel Weiss. In 1973 they went to live in the Sanz community in Union City, New Jersey. “I felt a certain emptiness; a vacuum when I left the maon. But it was time for the next stage in my life, raising my own family. We subsequently moved to Jerusalem when my husband took up the position of leading the Sanz community there.” Today, the residence has been renamed Bait VeTikva, House of Hope. Some 80 girls from ages 6 to 18 call it home. This summer, one of the older girls married. Many things have changed in the intervening years; there are new forms of therapy such as art, drama, dance and music therapy; and an animal care program to teach responsibility. The staff includes psychologists,

because there was no hospital at all in Netanya. The Laniado Hospital was, at that time, only a glint in the eyes of the Admor, and had yet to become a concrete reality. After Yehudis finished first grade in Kiryat Sanz, her parents moved the family back to the US, not to Williamsburg, but to Union City, NJ, where she has made her home ever since and where her husband, Rabbi Shaul Yehuda Prizant, is dayan of the Sanz-Klausenburg community in Union City, and rosh mesivta Yeshivas Shaar Efraim in Monsey. With the Rebbe establishing so many major institutions spread between two continents, and smaller mosdos in Europe and elsewhere, someone was needed to hold the fort at home. Rebbetzin Yehudis saw that as her goal in life. After teaching in her father’s schools for a few years, she became a full-time homemaker. She has said that she couldn’t imagine anything more fulfilling than raising her 15 children, a challenging career in and of itself...or actually more like three careers! The Rebbe inspecting the Surgery Dept. Dr Baruch Schmidt on his left, Dr Manchefsky on his right

psychiatrists, social workers and counselors. But one thing hasn’t changed: the need for donations to supplement the budget and provide the girls with all the extras that most other children take for granted.

Uprooted, Rerooted, Rerouted

The next Halberstam girl, Hindy, also aspired to the teaching profession, and indeed became an educator par excellence. Known today as Rebbetzin Mutzen, her husband, Rav Fishel Mutzen, is rav of Kiryas Baal Shem Tov in Petach Tikva. Rebbetzin Hindy is in great demand for her incisive shiurim and inspiring lectures. Only two months old when her family made aliyah in 1958, she was bas mitzvah-age when they relocated to Union City. It wasn’t long before Hindy’s teaching gifts became apparent, and she taught in the Sanz high school her father founded there. She too took part in helping the growing number of institutions the Rebbe established. Fifteen years ago, she and her husband took up a new challenge and moved to the chasidic community in Petach Tikva, from where she commutes to Netanya to continue teaching. Although each uprooting was difficult, she always understood why it was necessary and she rose to the occasion, like her sisters. Yehudis Halberstam was the first “sabra” born to the Rebbe and Rebbetzin. “Sabra” is an endearing term referring to those Jews born in Eretz Israel. The sabra is the fruit of the pricklypear cactus, and symbolizes the Israeli youth who, like the sabra fruit, are sweet on the inside, but tough on the outside. Although the family lived in Netanya, Yehudis was born in Tel Aviv,

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Turning a Disadvantage into an Advantage

Suri Esther Halberstam is the youngest. Although born in Eretz Yisrael, she grew up in Union City from the age of two. At age 19 she was engaged to Rav Duvid Shapiro, and planned on staying in America. Shortly before the wedding, however, the Rebbe broached a new challenge he had in mind for her. “What do you think about moving back to Kiryat Sanz and working there?” Nineteen-year-old Suri Esther was stunned. “But we already picked out furniture!” she replied. Her father pointed out that it was still possible to cancel the order. More importantly, he explained that the chashivus of Eretz Yisrael was paramount, and if there was an opportunity to make aliyah, the young couple should take advantage of it. “He emphasized what a privilege it was to have the zechus and kedushah of living in Eretz Yisrael. This trumped the difficulty of dislocation and the pain of leaving friends and family. It was the right thing to do, even though it was hard for me personally.” Buying new furniture wasn’t the only problem, but the young rabbinical couple took on the challenge and settled in Kiryat Sanz. Speaking only Yiddish and English, Rebbetzin Suri Esther assumed she would be at a disadvantage in the wider Hebrew-speaking environment of Netanya. But when Rebbetzin Suri Esther and her husband arrived in the Sanz enclave in 1988, Laniado Hospital was already up and running, and her ability to speak, write and type in English turned out to be a distinct advantage. At that time, the Public Relations Department was urgently searching for an English speaker. Like her sisters, Rebbetzin Suri Esther stepped up to the plate and used her knowledge and skills to further the work of their father. Subsequently, she worked as a secretary in the Employee Welfare Department, a department which only Laniado Hospital has

because the Rebbe did not allow a workers’ union at the hospital, for fear that the Laniado staff would join the hospital strikes that are too frequent (sadly) in Eretz Yisrael. The Rebbe maintained that saving lives, and easing the pain and suffering of the patient and his family take precedence over any reason to go on strike. Rebbetzin Suri Esther excelled in the Public Relations Department, putting her heart and soul into helping and supporting the staff. She couldn’t let the Rebbe down. Establishing a hospital in Eretz Yisrael was a project her father had nursed ever since sustaining a bullet wound during the Shoah and bleeding profusely. Tying some vines around his arm to stanch the bleeding, he had vowed to build a hospital in the Holy Land if he survived. Three days later the bleeding stopped, but the Rebbe never stopped dreaming about establishing a hospital along halachic guidelines. It took decades to collect the funds and obtain all the permits. The hospital, part of the Sanz Medical Center, had been started by her father in 1975 as a four-room outpatient clinic. A year later the first baby was born, in its brand-new maternity ward, to a Yemenite resident of Kiryat Sanz. The Rebbe asked that the baby be named Yekutiel Yehudah. In the winter of 2008, the 100,000th baby was born at Laniado. Rebbetzin Suri Esther also subsequently worked as a secretary in its Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, where nerves of steel and diplomatic skills are requisite, both of which she has in abundance. Several years ago her talents were rerouted again, when Rabbi Shapiro was asked to head the Sanz community in Bnei Brak. The challenges of being the wife of a community rabbi are as significant as those she faced with aplomb in Laniado.

Family Teamwork

It is a puzzle how some chasidic groups managed to forge ahead after the Churban, while others did not experience such growth spurts. What is that special ingredient or recipe? Almost the entire Sanz-Klausenberg community was destroyed in the Holocaust. Approximately 15 percent survived, including the Rebbe. Emerging as a leader in the DP camps, he created a multitude of communal organizations for the survivors, including religious schools for boys and girls, yeshivos in 19 different camps, kosher kitchens and places in which to daven. One might think “dayeinu.” In 1947 the Rebbe established his court in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, founded Jewish day schools, and launched a revolutionary program for the study of Talmud (Mifal Hashas). His influence was felt as far away as Canada and Mexico. One might think “dayeinu.” In 1958 he established Kiryat Sanz in Netanya. Over the next few years he raised money for its girls’ and boys’ schools, an orphanage, an old-age home, the Tessler School of Nursing, and Laniado Hospital. One might think “dayeinu.” In 1968 he founded yet another Sanz enclave, this time in Union City, New Jersey, with all the institutions necessary for a thriving community. Afterward, the Rebbe divided his time between New Jersey and his residence in Netanya. Throughout their travels, his Rebbetzin, Chaya Nechama, was quietly at his side, a staunch eishes chayil. The Rebbe was niftar in Netanya in 1994. His two sons, one the Admor in America and the other in Eretz Yisrael, continue his legacy. There is no doubt that the role of the Rebbe’s daughters, in turning his dreams into reality, is part of the answer to the conundrum of how Sanz-Klausenberg arose from the ashes and became the bustling, vibrant and chesed-oriented community it is today. n

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When Gilgulim of the Holocaust Return

THE BY SARA YOHEVED RIGLER

fter World War II, the Ponevezher Rav, Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, used to visit Miami annually in order to raise funds for his yeshivah. Rabbi Berel Wein, who was a congregational rabbi in Miami during that period, relates this story: "One day the Ponevezher Rav called me and asked me to arrange a meeting in my home with all of the younger couples affiliated with my congregation. I told him that I would do so, but I cautioned him that I did not think that he would raise much money from them. He gently told me that he was not going to speak to them about donations at all. At that meeting, which was very well attended, the Ponevezher Rav rose and said to them: “My beloved children, the souls of a million and a half Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust are floating in the air above us. Your task is to give those souls bodies to live in.”

– April 1969. New Delhi. I was a 21-year-old American college student who had just spent my junior year in India. With a Pan Am round-the-world ticket in hand, I made my way to the airline office to book my itinerary home. After an hour’s wait, I took my seat across a desk from a young woman with a long, black braid, wearing a blue and orange batik sari. I handed her my ticket and told her: “I want to fly as soon as possible from here to Israel, then to Stockholm, then Paris, then London, then Philadelphia.” She smiled, and started leafing through a thick tome—the airlines’ scheduled flights. A couple of minutes later, she looked up and announced: “Pan Am does not fly directly from New Delhi to Tel Aviv. But you can get a flight at 2:00 a.m. tonight to Istanbul, and from there fly to Tel Aviv.” “Fine,” I said amiably. “Very good,” she said, writing it down. She then started leafing through the tome again. Several minutes later, she looked up and smiled once more. “We have no direct flights from Tel Aviv to Stockholm, but I’ve found you an excellent connection through Frankfurt. You leave Tel Aviv in the morning, you have two and a half hours to change flights in Frankfurt, and you arrive in Stockholm early in the evening.” “N-N-No, not Frankfurt,” I stammered. “Please find me a different connection.” Her smile faded as she looked at me quizzically. “But this is the best

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At the beginning of ninth grade, I had a dream that began to unravel the mystery for me.

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connection.” “I don’t want to go to Germany,” I replied firmly. “It’s just two and a half hours,” she explained. “You won’t even leave the airport.” I gazed at her. How could I tell this young Indian woman—one of a nation 600 million strong who had resided in its homeland without interruption for at least 3,000 years—that as a Holocaust-obsessed child I had vowed to never set foot in Germany? Not even if I had to go hundreds of miles out of my way to go around it. Not Germany. Not ever. Hatred of Germany was the passion of my growing-up years. Even as a child, I refused to buy any German product, refused to have my picture taken with a German camera, and refused to ride in a Volkswagen. Neither my parents, my brother, nor my friends shared my seething hatred. Born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1948, I had no idea where it came from. No one in our family had been exterminated by the Nazis. I didn’t know a single Holocaust survivor, until the Schwartzes moved in around the corner from us, and one hot summer day my brother Joey came home and announced that Mrs. Schwartz had a tattooed number on her arm. I had never seen a Holocaust movie. Indeed, there were no Holocaust movies to see in the 1950s and early ’60s. What was the root of my passionate hatred of everything German? At the beginning of ninth grade, I had a dream that began to unravel the mystery for me. Everyone in my ninth grade glass was required to select a language to study for the next three years. Our choices were French, Spanish, German and Latin. All my friends chose French or Spanish. I chose German. When my surprised friends asked me why, I replied with steely eyes, “‘Know thine enemy.’ I want to read Mein Kampf in the original.” At the end of my first week of German study, after two classes and a language lab, repeating “Guten tag, Fraulein Hess,” I had a convoluted dream. I woke up in the middle of it, shaking. I and everyone else in the dream had been speaking fluent German. I knew nothing about gilgulei neshamos except as jokes about people coming back

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I crossed the side street in the opposite direction. That’s when I heard them—a gang of blond-haired, blue-eyed youths laughing raucously, coming down the side street behind me. as animals. But from that dream, I was convinced that I had lived before—in Germany. Perhaps my anger and hatred of Germans was fomented by my own nightmarish experience at their hands. Seven years later, sitting in the Pam Am office in New Delhi, I looked at the pretty clerk and repeated, “Please find me a different connection. Any country except Germany.” Sighing, she turned pages for a few more minutes. Finally, shaking her head, she announced, “The only other connection I can find for you is through Vienna. It’s a seven-hour layover, and it gets you into Stockholm at midnight. Is that all right?” “That will be fine,” I said. That night I flew out of India. After a week in Israel, I landed in Vienna on a sunny, pleasant spring day. My mood matched the weather. Vienna to me conjured up visions of Strauss waltzes and Viennese pastries. And the seven-hour layover was perfect. I would have time to taste the flavor of the city (and its pastries) and then catch my flight to Stockholm, without having to pay for a hotel. I took the airport bus into the center of the city, a wellmanicured commercial area with fine department stores and outdoor cafés. By now I was a seasoned traveler. During my peregrinations throughout India, I had developed my own approach to getting to know a place and its people. I would go to the residential districts, wander around examining the buildings and their use of space (inspired by my book about how different cultures use space differently), strike up a conversation with the locals, and often be invited inside to experience the family setting. Eager to start my investigation of Vienna, I caught a local bus heading toward one of the residential neighborhoods. Some 20 minutes later, I picked a stop at random and alighted. In order not to get lost, I decided to cross the street and walk along the bus route so I could easily retrace my steps to the bus

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stop going back to town. At first, I stood there and examined the architecture: flatfronted, yellowish buildings four stories high, with rows of shutterless windows. They were old, but I couldn’t tell how old. Certainly before World War II, possibly before World War I. I walked down the street, pondering what I had learned from my book about the anthropology of space. After a few blocks, I became aware that I was feeling uneasy. The buildings looming above me started to assume a sinister appearance. I came to a corner and crossed the street. As I continued on the other side, I felt a menacing presence issuing from the cross street behind me. I swung around—and saw only an elderly woman walking her dog. “What’s wrong with you?” I chided myself. “You have almost four hours before you have to be back at the airport. It’s a beautiful day. Calm down and enjoy yourself.” I took a deep breath and resumed walking, trying to concentrate on a litany of cultural indexes: how the other pedestrians were dressed, the frequency of the litter baskets, and the nature of the advertisements on the side of a passing bus. But as soon as I crossed the next side street, my heart started to beat wildly and my palms started to sweat. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “This is ridiculous,” I told myself. But my feet had already turned around and were carrying me back to the bus stop. I crossed the side street in the opposite direction. That’s when I heard them—a gang of blond-haired, blue-eyed youths laughing raucously, coming down the side street behind me. I quickened my steps. They were calling to me, following me, gaining on me. I broke out into a run. Sweat drenched my blouse despite the coolness of the day. I could hear them behind me, their laughter now turned to curses and catcalls. A bus passed me and pulled

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over to the bus stop some 20 meters in front of me. The gang was right behind me, running fast. I sprinted with all my might, and leaped onto the bus just as it started to pull away from the curb. Only when the bus had closed its door and picked up speed with me safely inside, did I turn around to look. The street was empty.

– Rabbi Efim Svirsky is a Jerusalembased psychotherapist who utilizes a unique psycho-spiritual method he created to help people suffering from phobias and emotional blockages. He employs Deep Relaxation, an altered state of mind in which the patient’s free will is never suspended; the patient is completely aware throughout the process and remembers everything upon returning to day-to-day function. A rosh yeshivah came to Rabbi Svirsky with a strange phobia. He was afraid of showers. He explained that he was not afraid of water; he swam in the sea and in swimming pools, and took baths without fear. But any time he went to take a shower, he was gripped with fear. Rabbi Svirsky assumed that the rosh yeshivah had experienced a trauma involving a shower as a child. So he led him into a state of Deep Relaxation and asked him to imagine himself in a shower and to feel the fear. “Let’s go back to where this fear started,” Rabbi Svirsky suggested. The rosh yeshivah immediately went into a past gilgul and saw himself in a gas chamber constructed like a shower. Rabbi Svirsky then took him through his death, gently coaxing, “As you die, go with the soul.” He saw himself going out of the body into the spiritual realm. When the session was over, the fear was gone. Notably, this Litvish rosh yeshivah was surprised when he came back to the present, because he had never believed that the concept of gilgulei neshamos could have applied to him. During 25 years of treating thousands of patients, Rabbi Svirsky has witnessed

scores of patients unexpectedly discover the root of their problem in a Holocaust gilgul. “Because I’m not a researcher,” maintains Rabbi Svirsky, “it doesn’t matter to me where the patient goes under Deep Relaxation. I have no theories to prove. I have no investment in where the patient goes. But many times it has been back to a Holocaust experience.” One young woman who came to Rabbi Svirsky for help had an extreme sensitivity around her throat. Under Deep Relaxation, she saw herself as a young girl, and relived an experience where a Nazi officer killed her by choking her to death with his bare hands. Rabbi Svirsky led her through her death to her soul entering the spiritual realm. Afterward, her neck sensitivity disappeared. A Russian Jewish woman in Deep Relaxation reported that she was going into the gas chamber. Having succumbed to the Nazis’ carefully crafted plan to break the spirit of their victims, this woman was completely broken as she entered the gas chamber and the doors closed behind her. “They can do whatever they want,” she said, her face betraying deep depression and despair. Suggesting, “Just go out of your body as it goes down on the floor,” Rabbi Svirsky led her through her death into the spiritual realm. At that point, the woman’s face changed, and she broke out into a big smile. Perplexed, Rabbi Svirsky asked her, “Why are you smiling?” Still in an altered state, she replied, “Over there I had the total feeling that they won. Now I feel like they lost.”

– Over the years, in occasional conversations with certain friends, I have disclosed that I feel certain that I perished in the Holocaust. Every single time, the friend’s response was an admission that she too felt that she had been in the Holocaust. The testimonies below are all from American women who today are religious Jews living in Israel. Jackie Warshall was born in Brooklyn in 1950 to American-born parents. When

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she was four years old, at night after her mother tucked her in and left her to go to sleep, little Jackie would stare into her pillow as if it were a TV set, and see a vision. She saw herself inside the back of a truck filled with women. Some of them were collapsing to the floor. Then she saw herself fly out of the truck. There, above the truck, she would feel a sense of liberation, and say, “I got out. I’m free now.” Only decades later did she learn that the Nazis’ earliest experiment in mass murder was to pack people into a truck and pipe the carbon monoxide gas from the motor into the back of the truck. Many years later, Jackie was teaching a fourth-grade class in a Jewish day school in Connecticut. In the library, leafing through a Holocaust book for young readers, she found a watercolor sketch of women standing inside the back of a truck. “Standing in the library,” Jackie recounts, “I felt like a lightning bolt of recognition hit me.”

American-born parents. As a child, the game of “hide-and-seek” was much more than a game to her. Little Beth felt that it was vital to sequester herself in a hiding place where her playmates could not find her. She would wedge herself into the narrow space between the wall and the furnace, or on the uppermost wooden shelf in the closet under the basement stairs. At other times, she would squish herself above the thick cement heating pipes, which gave her an excellent lookout position, where she could watch her siblings searching for her without being detected. To Beth a good hiding place meant safety, which meant life. She also felt that strength and endurance were crucial for survival. She had to be the fastest runner. “If I could run fast,” she remembers, “I could outrun my enemies, and that meant life.” Beth also had a recurrent nightmare throughout her childhood. She dreamed she was using a latrine where the door had been removed and she was abashedly exposed. There was

A rosh yeshivah came to Rabbi Svirsky with a strange phobia. He was afraid of showers. Anna B. was born in 1957 in St. Louis to a traditional Jewish family with no direct link to the Holocaust. When Anna was five years old, she began to have a recurring dream that she was being tortured in a laboratory setting. Her torturers were a doctor wearing a white coat and, incongruously, a man in a military uniform. She had this recurring dream until she was ten years old. When she later learned about the Holocaust, Anna felt, “Oh my gosh, the Nazis were the people in my dream.” Starting in third grade, she became obsessed with the Holocaust, reading whatever Holocaust books and seeing whatever Holocaust movies were available at that time. At some point, she concluded that she had been experimented upon in Mengele’s infamous twin experiments. Years later, Anna was invited for a Shabbos meal in New York City. When she arrived, an elderly gentleman who was a fellow guest opened the door for her. She looked at him quizzically. She knew him, but she couldn’t place from where. He also stared at her with a perplexed recognition. Finally, still standing at the doorway, he said, “I think I know you.” Anna replied, “I think I know you, too.” Neither of them, however, could figure out from where. The connection between Anna and this man, many decades older than she, was so strong it was inexplicable. The man and his wife had been guests in this home many times before. Over Shabbos lunch, however, the elderly man, a Holocaust survivor, revealed something that his hosts had never before heard: He had been a subject in the Mengele twin experiments. Beth D. was born on Long Island in 1962 to assimilated,

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a guard who stood at the entrance. When she was 28 years old and pregnant with her first daughter, a new set of dreams beset her. She saw herself and her daughter running, escaping from Nazi pursuers. In these dreams, she and the others were speaking Romanian. Although most of my friends reported recurring dreams, Tzirel’s Holocaust nightmare occurred only once. Born in 1950 in Englewood, California, Tzirel was ten years old when she dreamed that she was lying next to her mother in a huge hole or pit. She looked up and saw a bulldozer at the edge of the pit, dumping dirt on them to cover them up. Tzirel never forgot that nightmare. “It felt so real,” she insists, “as if I was reliving it.” Rabbi Z. once told me about an American secular Jewish woman who was taking her first steps toward Jewish observance. She encountered a formidable problem: Whenever she attended a synagogue service and heard the congregants saying “Shema,” she would feel like she was choking and would have to flee the synagogue. She turned for help to a psychiatrist, who recommended instead that she talk to Rabbi Z. Rabbi Z. asked her, “When you hear Shema, where are you?” “You tell me,” she countered, surly. “Okay,” replied Rabbi Z. “You’re in the gas chambers.” “How did you know?” was her whispered response.

– In his book, Beyond the Ashes, Yonassan Gershom chronicles

you’ll be born Christian.” Of course, the Arizal lived in the aftermath of the Spanish Inquisition, where half the Jews of Spain converted to Christianity. Pre-Holocaust Europe, however, presented a different challenge. There, over half of the Jewish population defected from Torah observance in favor of secularism. When those Jews were persecuted and tortured for being Jewish, no doubt many of them wished they were not Jewish. Witness the case of a middle-aged Chicago housewife who reported a childhood nightmare: I had my coat on with my yellow star, and I was told to take off my coat. So I took off my coat, and even on my dress I had my yellow star. I started to go through the line, and they started writing numbers on us. I remember asking my mother, “Why are they doing this to me? But I’ve been a good girl.” [Later in the dream]…a soldier came in, and he just said that the children were going to be taken the next day, and we were. We got in a truck and they drove us halfway there, and I remember barbed wire was just about everywhere. And I still didn’t know what was going on. This time I was closer to seven [years old]. It didn’t really seem like we were there long, but it was too long. … They had furnaces, I remember there were some furnaces that were in buildings, and they were brick, and they were tying some people down, strapping them down, just sticking them in. They opened up this door of the furnace, and they just started throwing the children in, one after another, and I kept on looking around to see if I could find my brother. I wanted him to hold onto. I couldn’t find him anywhere. Soon it came my turn. I kept telling them, “Well, I’ll tell you what—I won’t be a Jew.” I didn’t understand what was wrong with being a Jew, but apparently it wasn’t good. Didn’t help at all. [Beyond the Ashes, p. 85] Of course, even religious Jews, when exposed to Nazi torture, may have wished they were not Jewish. The Gemara states the principle: “In the way a person wants to go, in that way he is led.” Could those myriads of broken and bitter Jews have returned in non-Jewish bodies? And could this phenomenon account for the SmartDesign

cases of strange phobias that occurred to people who were born in America after the Holocaust. For example, two women reported an extreme fear of high black boots. He quotes a letter he received from a woman born in 1948 in North Carolina: During the early years I was petrified of black boots—the shiny kind that go up to the knees. My grandfather had a rubber pair and I exhibited great fear about those boots. My mother would set them near the wood stove so that I wouldn’t touch it and get burned. I never went near the stove because of the boots. I remember going around the perimeter of the room with my back against the wall—to get as far away from those boots as possible. I never understood why I was afraid of the boots until I watched a movie about Hitler and saw the goose-steppers. There were those boots! I felt then that I had been there. [Beyond the Ashes, p. 131] Another woman reported that as a child she was so terrified of tall black boots that her mother would place a pair at the top of the cellar stairs to ensure that her toddler would not approach the stairs. Interestingly, former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the youngest survivor of Buchenwald, wrote in his memoir, Out of the Depths, that his most vivid memories of the Holocaust could be summed up in three words: trains, dogs and boots. Another unusual phobia was reported by a teenager named Joan, who grew up on a Midwestern farm. She had an inexplicable terror of barbed wire. As Gershom writes: “There was nothing in Joan’s current life that could account for this fear. … Nevertheless, every time her father brought home a roll of wire in the pick-up, she would take one look and be filled with absolute terror.” Yonassan Gershom lives in Minnesota, and most of his case studies were non-Jews .This brings up the question of whether a Jewish soul can come to a non-Jewish body. According to Rabbi Efim Svirsky, the Arizal said that if a Jew does not behave as a Jew is supposed to, for example, he converts to Christianity, then Hashem in effect determines, “You want to be Christian? Then

Elana is so clearly a Jewish soul. How did she “land” in a Polish Catholic family? unprecedented number of gerim in this generation? The Arizal explained that when Jewish souls are born in non-Jewish bodies, they feel foreign and out-of-place in their Christian family. Then they start searching. Either they convert to Judaism, or they do their tikkun, and next time they are born as Jews. This corroborates a feeling I have always had about a good friend, whom I’ll call Elana, who was born in Poland in 1951 to a Polish Catholic family. Her father was actually an anti-Semite. Elana, who is intellectual and highly literate, simply never fit in with her family. The family immigrated to the US when Elana was a teenager. Elana was sent to Catholic schools, but she was always different from her peers. As an adult, Elana started searching. Eventually she converted to Judaism and is now married to a rabbi. Elana is so clearly a Jewish soul. How did she “land” in a Polish Catholic family? I can imagine her in a crowded, horrific boxcar on her way to Auschwitz, deprived of her basic needs and human dignity. Peeking through the cracks and seeing Polish peasants in the field, she could have desired, “I wish I was one of them.” After she was born as “one of them,” she had to undergo the lengthy and arduous process of converting to Judaism so she could become who she innately was: a Jewish soul. Yonassan Gershom, who interviewed scores of non-Jews who believed—based on dreams, flashbacks, phobias or hypnotic regressions—that they had died in the Holocaust, writes: Non-Jews who remember having been Jewish in another life are often disturbed by this fact, feeling that they are somehow “deserters” from their own people—which, in a sense, they are. On some level, even if it was only through being confused after death…these souls did choose not to be Jewish anymore. This does not necessarily mean that they consciously said, “I want to be a blond-haired German.” In some cases they simply wished to be something else besides Jewish, and this desire set the pattern for the next life. After a horrible death at the hands of the Nazis, it probably seemed safer to be born into the dominant culture, without fear of being singled out for persecution. Yet now that these souls are living in a relatively open society where outright persecution is not as likely, they find that Jewish memories are coming back to haunt them. [Beyond the Ashes, p. 99] Such a moment-of-death wish explains the remarkable life of Brian Arthur Rish. Born in 1977 in Omaha, Nebraska, to a

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Roman Catholic mother and a Presbyterian father, Brian did not know a single Jew while he was growing up. At the age of 21, Brian started studying metaphysics and mysticism. One day, he walked into a Barnes & Noble in Columbus, Ohio, and bought a book that delved into six different kinds of mysticism, including Kabbalah. While studying Kabbalah, he dreamed a dream that was to recur frequently for the next two years. As he later described it: I was a religious Jew, with a beard and pei'os. I was a scribe. I had written out sifrei Torah and other parchments, like tefillin. I saw myself putting crowns on letters. When I would wake up, I would think, “That’s crazy! Why would anyone put crowns on letters?” Then I would see myself being ushered into a shower room with a whole bunch of other Jews. I knew that the showers were really gas chambers. As I was going into the showers, I was trying to understand why this was happening to me. I had been living a frum life. I had fought to make sure my children married Jews. So at that point I was extremely angry at G-d. Right as they were about to turn on the showers, I dropped to my knees and said, with as much anger and hatred as I could muster, “G-d, why couldn’t you have made me a gentile?” At the end of 2001, while the dream was still recurring, Brian went to a Jewish chat room online. He started chatting with an Orthodox Jew who called himself “Bnei Torah.” Within three months, Brian abandoned Christianity. Two years later, he started the conversion process through the Chicago Rabbinical Council, the closest beis din to Omaha. In 2010, Brian moved to Israel. In November 2011, he officially converted, taking the name Yitzchak. What did he take away from his recurring dream of the angry sofer who wanted to be a gentile? “I did not believe in past lives,” asserts Yitzchak. “The only thing I could really take from the dream is not to turn against G-d. When I turned against G-d, my life got worse. Now I know it’s my job to not turn against G-d.” Yitzchak now lives in Yavniel in northern Israel. He is learning to be a sofer. And he puts crowns on letters. n Sara Yoheved Rigler is collecting more stories for a possible book on this subject. Readers who have stories alluding to a Holocaust gilgul are invited to send them to the author at info@sararigler.com.

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Talya's home

Away fromIt

How far would you go to commune with nature? Meet Talya Zahavi, who lives in a community in northern Israel where residents eschew electricity and most other aspects of modern civilization.

BY SHIFFY FRIEDMAN

All

or me, the joy of Sukkos doesn’t last eight days a year but all 365 of them,” Talya Zahavi says as she ushers me into her rustic home of wood, stone and glass. “I live in the company of nature, unadulterated and pristine. This is the dream to which my husband and I aspired.” On this glorious summer day I’ve traveled three hours from my home in Jerusalem all the way to Kadita, high up in the Galil near Meron and Tzefas, to take a peek into an isolated world: a picturesque village consisting entirely of homemade structures, wooden huts and pretty gardens. Of course, I immediately turn off my cell phone upon entry. I don’t want technology to intrude upon the peace and tranquility these people obviously seek so desperately. “When I met my husband,” Talya tells me, “we were both living in Tel Aviv, chasing our tails in the rat race of city life. Even in the quietest moments I felt a sense of unease; peace of mind was impossible. It was hard to just shut out the world around me. The beauty of nature fell unnoticed by the wayside, like a daisy growing next to a chemical plant. Instead of appreciating the here and now and the gifts G-d gives us, my peers and I were preoccupied with technological gadgets that only take us further away from our true selves.” 11 TISHREI 5774

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Kadita at night

Talya takes a sip of the raspberry and lemon tea she has grown in her own garden. “So when I learned that my husband shared these same sentiments—we both love nature and abhor all the dangerous chemicals and intrusions of the modern world—we embarked on the path less taken. For us, it’s the ideal way to live, and we’ve never looked back.” It’s been six years since Talya and Ilan heard about this place from childhood friends and made Kadita, a unique ecological settlement founded 30 years ago, their home. I sit with Talya on her terrace overlooking the breathtaking mountains and rolling hills. “Thirty years ago this land, the southern slope of Kutar Mountain, was bare. When the first settlers arrived the only vegetation here was two olive trees. They lived in a tent while their house was being built.” Located about 840 meters above sea level, the air of Kadita

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is untainted and wholesome, a blessing to my lungs. I fill them with deep breaths, the smell of freshly cut grass an exotic perfume to this city dweller. “How does your philosophy about nature express itself in daily life?” I ask, the tang of fresh raspberries on my tongue. She points upward toward the roof of her house. “See that? The whole roof is made of glass. The house was built by our friends about ten years ago; we moved in after they left the village. They specially built the entire top part out of glass, using four kinds of recycled windows, in order to maximize the exposure to sunlight.” I glance into the living room, which at midday is filled with sunshine. It is an inviting, warm and welcoming place. “Since our windows face eastward, the sun is strongest in the morning hours, and we automatically wake up when the sun rises. In the summer months, this means that morning can begin

as early as 5:30 or 6:00. But in the winter, when the sun isn’t so strong or it’s a cloudy day, we usually don’t get up till around seven.” Yawn. As a city girl, it’s hard for me to imagine adjusting my sleeping pattern to planetary orbits. “Wow!” I say. “Things must really get hot when the sun beats down directly.” Talya laughs. “It does,” she says. “And don’t forget that we don’t have air conditioning.” “That’s hard.”

make different kinds of cheese. In the village itself there aren’t any shops except for a small restaurant, so the rest of our food shopping is done in nearby towns.” As if on cue, a bleating chorus breaks into song somewhere in the distance. “Cute,” I say. “Not the type of background noise I’m accustomed to.” “Yeah, I love this,” Talya smiles. “I can’t handle city life anymore. On the rare occasions that I return to the city, usually only for family visits, the sound of the traffic almost bursts my eardrums. I don’t know how city people can tolerate all that

Aside from solar power, some of our basic devices, like light bulbs, are powered by wind-powered propellers. “It sure is. That’s one of the only disadvantages of living here. We don’t have any electric power whatsoever. When it’s really hot, we sit inside and cool our skin with bottles of ice water from our ice box. Or we take a ride in the car, where we do have the luxury of air conditioning. But the benefits of living here far outweigh the cons.” “How do you manage without electricity?” I wonder aloud. To me, it seems like an utter impossibility. Talya reads my thoughts. “It’s not as crazy as you think,” she says. “The absence of electricity definitely contributes to the blissful peace and quiet and the sense of isolation from the outside world. Some of the women do their family’s laundry by hand, but others either travel to a laundromat outside the village or share a solar-powered washing machine with a neighbor. Aside from solar power, some of our basic devices, like light bulbs, are powered by wind-powered propellers. When that’s not enough—the illumination they provide is pretty dim—we just light some candles.” “How many families live here?” “Thirty. We’re all very friendly with each another. Whenever a new family arrives, which happened three times in the past year, we help them build their new lodgings. We’re all invested in helping each other and enjoying the peace here together.” “Does every family grow its own food?” “Not all of it, but a nice part of the produce is grown locally, especially olives, grapes, figs and herbs. A lot of people grow vegetables in little plots outside their cabins. Many of us also raise our own goats, so not only do we get milk but some people also

pressure.” Although the residents of Kadita don’t enjoy the convenience of stores and schools within walking distance, they still prefer the seclusion of their little hamlet. There is some semblance of normalcy here, though. All residents own at least one car and their mode of dress doesn’t differ from the rest of society. “We don’t live in society,” Talya summarizes the villagers’ lifestyle. “Rather, we live beside it.” The particular degree to which a resident wishes to avoid modernity is a personal choice; there are no rules in this selfgoverning village, as reflected in its unpaved paths and roads. “We’re like one big happy family,” Talya says. “We meet in shul on Shabbat, eat in each other’s homes and share our lives. In the summertime, we even have what we call an ‘open stage.’ We all get together in someone’s backyard on a weekly or monthly basis, and everyone gets a chance to perform onstage, a song or a little speech. Everyone loves it, both the children and the adults. We make our own entertainment here.” Many residents play not only one but several musical instruments. It figures they would prefer to express themselves through music rather than waste time with the usual braindeadening toys the modern world has come to worship. “Which instrument do you play?” I ask Talya. “I play the violin, and my husband plays the violin and guitar.” “Nice! Is that what you do in your free time?” “Yes. And we also like to read, visit neighbors and take nice long walks in the mountains surrounding the village.” Talya points towards a peaceful lake in the distance. Interior of Talya's home

The kitchen area

“Do you see that body of water up there on the mountain?” I nod. “Legend has it that that’s where a volcano erupted hundreds of years ago. It made a depression where the water collected and completed this idyllic scene perfectly. As you can see, the rest of the terrain is rocky and volcanic.” Indeed, the drive on the winding roads leading up to this quaint village was jolting and rough, a paradoxical welcome to this oasis of serenity. “This place is actually very ancient,” Talya shares proudly. “At the entrance of the village is the grave of Rabbi Tarfon, as well as the cave in which he studied with his students. In fact, archeologists recently discovered a coin dating back to the times of the Second Temple. Somehow, it’s easier to connect to G-d here. I feel like my prayers are so much purer and direct because of the untainted environment.” Talya lists the names of several other tzaddikim buried in the vicinity, including Elkanah, the father of Shmuel Hanavi. Gila, a friend of Talya’s, walks by as we talk, her clogs raising a cloud of dust in the dirt road. Talya waves her hand in greeting. “Come join us,” she calls out. Gila accepts the offer. “I was actually on my way over,” she says. “I wanted you to taste these grapes. I just picked them this

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Some of the women wash laundry by hand, but others travel to a laundromat or share a solarpowered washing machine with a neighbor.

A home in Kadita

morning.” She proudly holds up a small red bunch in the air. A few minutes later, Gila looks at her watch and exclaims, “I didn’t realize it’s getting so late. I have to go pick up the kids from school. It’s my turn today.” Talya explains that parents have a rotating carpool schedule, as the school is located outside the village. “Do all the children leave the premises?” I ask. “Actually, a few kids are homeschooled, but not too many. Our daughter goes to a nearby kindergarten. It’s hard. But aside from transportation, the women are busy all day long.” “Doing what?” “Many of us don’t have refrigerators, only small coolers, so our meals have to be made fresh on the stove or in a gas-powered oven.” Most structures in the village look like Talya’s: a large living/ family room that also houses a small kitchen, and one or two small bedrooms off to the side. In the summertime, most children and adults entertain themselves outdoors, except in extreme temperatures. In the winter, however, because the weather is generally harsh and windy, most residents are forced to remain indoors, heating their homes with wooden logs. “How do people support themselves here?” I ask. “We all use our individual talents to earn money, but another wonderful advantage of this place is its de-emphasis on materialism. Unlike the rest of society, most of us are fed up with the pursuit of wealth and power. We choose instead to focus on the beauty of the natural world and live off of it as much as possible, only working to acquire basic necessities. My husband creates magnificent works of art from steel and glass, and carves natural scenes or images of Jerusalem into glass and then colors them. His clients love his work. He also fashions menorahs out of steel, and makes stone mosaics.” “Do you also work?” “Yes. I work hard but I enjoy what I do. I’m a cheesemaker. I use the milk of our own goats and sell it to friends and neighbors. Every month there’s an open market here in the village, where everyone has the opportunity to sell his wares. We call it ‘Shukdita,’ and it’s a lot of fun.” “What types of things do people sell?”

Quality time, distraction-free

“Some offer fresh produce. Others sell works of art like rugs, paintings and ceramics. One villager even sells the wool she shears from her sheep.” “You sure are a talented group,” I say. Talya smiles. “That’s because we allow our real potential to come through. Our true selves aren’t crushed by modernity and the bustle and distraction of technology. I truly believe that people are worth much more than they think. It’s up to them to let their inner strength shine through.” She laughs. “But only with natural light.” n

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PARENTING

Who Does Bubby Love Best? W What happens when grandparents show favoritism?

BY RACHELI SOFER

hile we all know—but are loath to admit—that Mommy and Totty tend to favor one child over the others, as research suggests (and was discussed in Issue 41 of AmiLiving), here’s a newsflash: Bubby and Zeidy play favorites too, according to the latest studies on the subject. When I asked Ami readers for their take on the subject, I heard lots of stories about what appears to be a hot button topic. Grandparents play an essential role in children’s lives— and that’s not exclusive to our community. After all, “National Grandparents Day” which is observed on the first Sunday in September here in the US, just passed. But while most interviewees reminisced about warm and fuzzy Yom Tov meals gathered around Bubby’s table and beautiful relationships with grandparents that drew on unconditional love, some bemoaned how their grandparents had played favorites or how their children appear to take a backseat to cousins or other siblings when it comes to grandparents’ affection. It was interesting to discern one common—although hardly unanimous—theme: Grandparents tend to favor their daughters’ children. More than one interviewee expressed feelings of resentment towards cousins who were related to Bubby and Zeidy on their maternal side, claiming they were preferred. Many grandparents also felt that their grandchildren favored their daughter-in-law’s parents. And so, I set out to explore this phenomenon. In one particular study, researchers asked Canadian undergraduates about the frequency of their contact with maternal and paternal grandparents; the results were heavily skewed in their maternal grandparents’ favor. “We may have lived around the corner from Bubby and Zeidy, while our Saba and Savta were halfway around the world, but for some reason I always felt closer to my mother’s parents. We didn’t see them as often, and it wasn’t like today when international phone calls cost only pennies, but I simply felt more connected to them,” my friend Rochel S. related. Rochel wasn’t surprised by the research I uncovered suggesting that her connection to her maternal grandparents was probably reciprocal. In fact, researchers have theorized that grandparents tend to prefer grandchildren with whom they share the most DNA. “Maternal grandmothers are closer to their grandchildren than

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other grandparents. The next closest relationship is between grandchildren and maternal grandfathers, then paternal grandmothers, and last of all, paternal grandfathers,” says University of New South Wales psychologist and study coauthor Dr. Bill von Hippel. Interestingly, I learned that according to the Noda Bi’Yehudah, there are some who rule that the prohibition of yichud is more stringent regarding a son’s daughter, although most poskim aren’t strict about this. Rav Moshe Feinstein (Even Ha’ezer 1:60, top of third page) writes that while it is preferable to be stringent, we should not admonish those who are more lenient. Another study explains something that is also supposedly a common phenomenon: that grandmothers often prefer granddaughters over grandsons. That’s because a woman passes around 31 percent of her genes to her son’s daughters, but just 23 percent to her son’s son. “A father transmits his Y chromosome to his sons and his X chromosome to his daughters,” said Dr. Urban Friburg of the University of California. “This X chromosome usually comes from his mother, so it means his daughters have more in common with her and the grandmother has a natural bias.” And I wasn’t surprised to learn that you often “get what you pay for.” Maternal grandparents are, according to researchers, more likely to be on the receiving end of their grandchildren’s affection; they were found to be more likely to receive a gift, receive a call, and receive a visit than paternal grandparents. Nonetheless, this supposedly “natural” connection to maternal grandparents doesn’t always exist, as many of my interviewees pointed out. Gitty F. in particular was adamant that her feelings depended on the grandparents themselves. “My siblings and I are definitely closer to our paternal grandparents. I have beautiful memories of spending Shabbasos and yamim tovim with my father’s parents. They’re just much warmer and more loving than my maternal grandparents who, though wonderful, are more distant by nature. In fact, now that I’m an adult I try to emulate my paternal grandparents. They worked hard to foster those bonds. I remember staying with them whenever my mother had a baby. Their house was always open to us and it’s my second home. And it isn’t only my siblings and I who are closest to these grandparents; it’s like that with my father’s brother’s kids as well.” When grandparents are directly questioned about favoritism,

however, they usually insist they are impartial. Grandparents may be disinclined to acknowledge, or may not be aware of, having preferences, but here’s the million dollar question: Is preferential treatment harmful? “That depends on what else is going on in a child’s life,” says Dr. Nathan Solomon, a clinical psychologist practicing in Brooklyn. “For example, for a middle child who is burdened by his order in the family, dealing with that issue on top of his grandparents’ favoritism towards his sister won’t help his self-confidence or self-esteem. I don’t think that grandparental favoritism alone will defeat him for the rest of his life, but it certainly won’t help!” “Is favoritism harmful to the child being favored?” I asked him. “No,” he replied. “Extra support is always great, wherever it comes from.” Next I wanted to know if parental favoritism is more damaging than the grandparent variety. “Yes. Parental favoritism is definitely more harmful because parents are simply more important to a child,” asserts Dr. Solomon. “While a grandparent who shows favoritism hurts the other children, it isn’t damaging to the same extent,” he explained. I asked Dr. Solomon to explain the psychology behind this phenomenon. “Favoritism affects children by sending the message, ‘I’m not as important as my brother or cousin; maybe something is wrong with me. Why doesn’t he love me? Maybe I’m not as lovable.’ Favoritism impairs self-respect and makes the children who aren’t favored feel that they aren’t as worthy as their siblings.” But it doesn’t have to be that way—and Yom Tov can be the perfect opportunity to build relationships and create memories. AmiLiving asked several men and women to relate their experiences with grandparents and favoritism, and invited some popular therapists to weigh in on their stories.

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Yaakov’s story

ecause my brother is a full-time learner, my parents have always gone out of their way to make sure his kids don’t feel deprived of all the extras my brother and I took for granted growing up. They’re very proud that he’s a full-time learner, and figure it only makes sense to help out the grandchildren who need it most. I went into business right after I got married, and have been on my own financially ever since. Over the years I’ve watched from the sidelines as my parents helped my brother with his rent, bought him a car and contributed in other ways to his growing family. These gifts were never offered to my children because it was assumed I could pay for everything myself. I’m sure I don’t know the extent of it, but it was obvious who was paying for my nieces

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and nephews to go to camp as well as for their braces. It’s true that my children never lacked anything. Baruch Hashem, I’m grateful to be able to provide for them, but it just seems unfair that a present from my parents is a rarity. It was only to be expected that my kids would eventually pick up on it. One time, my son was admiring his cousin’s new bicycle when he heard it was a gift from Bubby and Zeidy. I’ll never forget the look on his face. It’s not as if he didn’t already have a bike, but he asked me why Bubby and Zeidy never bought one for him. I’m feeling especially resentful now that all the children are grown. My parents helped each of my brother’s kids with money for a down payment for a house;

all of them have followed in my brother’s footsteps and are completely dedicated to Torah and chinuch. But that doesn’t mean that my own kids have houses yet! Two of my sons are still in kollel, and even the ones who are working are struggling to get by. But when I asked my father if he could help my oldest daughter buy a house he refused. “You can certainly help her out,” he told me. “You know your brother can’t give any money to his kids.” I don’t think that’s a fair assumption for my parents to make. I could also use some help. My parents think they’re only being practical by giving money where it’s needed the most, but it feels like favoritism.

Am I justified in thinking that my parents favor my brother’s kids?

SARA FREUND RESPONDS: Dr. Sara Freund, LCSW, is a therapist who works with both children and adults.

When there is money in the family there is often resentment, but the issue at hand here isn’t money; it’s only a manifestation of your resentment and anger over feeling mistreated. The situation is similar to many yerushah stories, where parents leave more money to the children who have lesser means. Every parent wants to help when children are struggling, but grandchildren in particular must be treated as equitably as possible. Lavishing gifts only on those from the poorer family is a recipe for resentment. Grandparents don’t have to buy each grandchild the same thing,

but they should at least buy something to make sure there’s no resentment. It seems to me, though, that in this case you've been making things worse by transmitting your hard feelings to your kids. You could certainly say to your parents, “I might understand why you give more things to my brother’s children, but it’s hard for my children to comprehend why they never receive any presents from you.” Instead of letting your resentment fester, perhaps the situation would improve if you explained the situation from your children’s perspective. As far as helping the “favored” grandchildren buy houses— that’s a lot of money! It is a legitimate complaint, but it’s a useless

Let it be our own little secret...

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one. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always seem fair. We have to teach our children not to have expectations. There are two ways to go about this: You can be open with your parents and explain to them that your children are hurting, or you can just tell your kids, “I can’t be responsible for my parents. They think I have a lot of money and don’t need any help.” The main thing, however, is that you as the father must

make peace with yourself about it first. In the grand scheme of things, every person gets what he’s supposed to get. The grandparents aren’t in charge; Hashem is. We must remember that. We shouldn’t get involved in machlokes. No one can blame you for your anger, but you still have the mitzvah of kibbud av va’eim. If your children still have questions you can say, “Go ask Zeidy. Tell him your father can’t buy you a house, and ask him for help.”

Shaina’s story

hen my kids were growing up, my in-laws played favorites to an extreme. They were openly preferential to the children of their youngest daughter, the baby of the family, and everyone knew it. My kids all felt it. They knew their grandparents spent the most time at Aunt Sarah’s house, giving her kids a disproportionate amount of their attention and lots of extra gifts. My

in-laws always took Sarah’s family on vacations, but didn’t take us because “we had much larger families.” They also paid for Sarah’s daughters to go to seminary in Israel, but didn’t do the same for my girls. I’ll admit it: I was very angry about this obvious favoritism, and it really shaped the way I decided to treat my own grandchildren. I’ve always strived to be perfectly fair. I know my children

all have different financial realities, but that doesn't have anything to do with my grandchildren; they all deserve equal treatment from their grandparents. I’ll give you an example. If I’m buying my grandchildren clothing for Yom Tov, every granddaughter will get the same dress and every grandson the same exact outfit, even if I have to travel all over Brooklyn to find the right size for each child. Baruch

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Hashem, one of my daughters is very well-off. When I buy her something she accepts the gift and then adds it to her children’s sizeable wardrobes. I know my other daughter is struggling financially, but I still think it would be unfair to buy more things for her children. If I bought her kids multiple outfits I’d have to do

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the same for all of them, and I can’t afford that. Some of my children live in Lakewood, and I follow a strict rotation system when I go there for Shabbos, regardless of which set of grandchildren might have spent Shabbos with me most recently in Brooklyn. And so I’ll end up

Can I as a grandparent ever be perfectly fair?

LISA TWERSKI RESPONDS: Lisa Twerski, LCSW, is on the Board of Directors of Nefesh, The International Network for Orthodox Jewish Mental Health Professionals, and maintains a private practice in Brooklyn. She has recently published a book entitled, I’m So Confused, Am I Being Abused? Guidance for the Orthodox Jewish Spouse and Those who are Trying to Help.

First let me say that what you are trying to achieve is possible—if your goal is for all your grandchildren to feel that you love them equally. The solution you have chosen, however, has two different components: a) making sure they all feel loved, and b) treating them all exactly the same. For some reason you’ve lumped them all together as if each individual grandchild is the same as any other, but in reality they are all unique and distinct human beings. That is why I say that what you are doing might not be the best solution. There are several things to keep in mind: The first is to understand that feeling equally loved and feeling jealous are not mutually exclusive emotions. If you asked them, your grandchildren might say that you have no favorites (or perhaps each one would say that he or she is the favorite, which is equally good!). That doesn’t mean that at certain times they won’t feel jealous that it’s Shaindy’s turn to go shopping with you, or that it’s the Friedmans’ turn to spend Yom Tov at your house. Jealousy over isolated incidents doesn’t wash away the overall feeling a person has about a relationship, even in young children. Certainly, as they grow and mature, even the emotional reaction of jealousy will be replaced by a more mature capacity for patience—which will not necessarily erase wishing that it was their turn, baruch Hashem! Now let’s go back and talk in more detail about your personal experience, the pain it caused and what you decided you wanted to do about it. Wanting to right a wrong by doing things differently when you are in a position to do so is a very common reaction to a negative experience. When you are a caring person and you’ve experienced something painful, it follows that you would want to protect the ones you love from being hurt in the same way. What’s wrong with that? Unfortunately, when we say things like “I’ll never do such-and-such” it puts blinders on

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spending Shabbos yet again with one set of grandchildren while their cousins will have to wait until it is there turn for Bubby to come for Shabbos. My daughters have complained on various occasions that in my quest for perfect fairness some grandchildren get what they feel is the raw end of the deal.

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us and sets very rigid terms for our future behavior. In addition, when we react in an inflexible or extreme way, not taking into account differences in the situation or people involved, we can even find ourselves acting in a way that doesn’t make sense or which actually recreates the exact situation we were trying to avoid! How does this happen? Feelings are not always pleasant and are harder to navigate than rules. Rules are easy. If I was hurt by favoritism, I will make sure that everything is evenhanded. Even is easy to measure. It’s concrete, and can be defined. Also, if I stay focused on the number of visits and outfits that each grandchild gets, I won’t have to focus on the pain of the situation that got me here. Rigidly adhering to rules allows us to deflect painful emotions. Most people would rather be busy visiting and shopping (even if it means schlepping all over Brooklyn for the right sizes) than face the helplessness, frustration and resentment you felt at not being able to protect your children from the hurt of their grandparents’ actions. However, doing the exact opposite of what made you feel bad can perpetuate your painful emotions rather than help you achieve your present goal, which is why it often misses the mark. Different people and situations sometimes call for different solutions. It’s important to not get bogged down in the details of the solution you would have wanted, but rather look at the totality of what felt bad to you and what you don’t ever want someone you love to feel. So how do you do things differently—but better? Step back and ask yourself, “What was the core issue that hurt me?” In your case, it was the feeling of being less loved and possibly inferior. But the time has come to switch the focus from what your in-laws could have done differently to concentrating on what your grandchildren actually need from you. We cannot change the past, and while the past can inform what we want to do differently in the future, it shouldn’t strictly dictate it. Do your grandchildren really require you to go around with a yardstick measuring every tangible expression of affection? Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that others aren’t carbon copies of us; what would have felt good to us doesn’t necessarily work for them. I suggest you sit down and have an honest talk with your children. Articulating your goal, while eliciting their suggestions, might very well get you close to achieving it.

Shira’s story

lthough I live near my in-laws, as do my sisters-in-law, when it comes to the grandchildren, somehow it just isn't the same. The grandchildren are divided into two groups: “grandchildren from sons” and “grandchildren from daughters.” My mother-in-law has told my husband on more than one occasion that she doesn’t feel that she should be responsible for doing as much for our kids as she does for her daughters’ children because “that’s the girl’s mother’s responsibility.” I know she really loves our children, but her behavior is sometimes hard to understand. For instance, she’ll buy Yom Tov outfits and toys for my sisters-in-law’s kids but not for my children. In her opinion, that’s the job of the other set of grandparents.

It’s not as if she doesn’t buy anything at all for my kids—she recently purchased a beautiful layette for my newborn—but she doesn’t buy them things on a regular basis as she does for the others. I think that part of the reason it bothers me so much is that my own mother passed away a few years ago. I really wish there was someone to dote on my children wholeheartedly, without reservation. It hurts me to think that there isn’t a grandmother in the picture who loves my children “the most.” My husband told me that aside from what his mother considers proper protocol—that the daughter-in-law’s parents are supposed to provide the basics for these grandchildren—she’s also reluctant to buy things for my kids because I might not like her taste.

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Apparently, a daughter can tell her mother that her four-year-old doesn’t like to wear turtlenecks, but if I said the same thing I would be viewed as ungrateful. My mother-in-law also spends a lot more time with her daughters’ children than ours. It’s a given that she sees those grandchildren several times a week. I don’t know how this will affect all these relationships in the long run. Right now, my children are still very young, but I wonder if they’re going to feel resentful when they get older. I don’t think our experience is so unique, though. When I look around, it seems to be pretty common that children feel more connected to their maternal grandparents—but that doesn’t make it any less painful.

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Question

Why does my mother-in-law favor her daughter's children?

LISA TWERSKI RESPONDS: Protocols are usually in place to help people know what to expect. They set ground rules so that people will know how to navigate touchy situations that are fraught with feelings and sensitivities. Specific guidelines can be a good thing for those who don’t know how to initiate open conversation. Rules are comforting, and when they’re in place we aren’t pushed to explore the bounds of our ability to communicate. They become problematic, however, when two people have different expectations or conceptions of these rules. It can also be a major problem when one side is totally inflexible. The only solution in a case like that is to sit down and have a serious conversation. Unfortunately, that is not a skill that is usually taught to us, and if we live in communities where there are protocols in place for numerous aspects of life, we may not have much practice at honest and direct communication either. Of course, there are also some people who cannot be communicated with, no matter how wonderful your skills might be. In your situation, it sounds like your husband has broached the subject with your mother-in-law to some degree. The question, though, is whether he has done so on a deep enough emotional level or just written her off as someone whose mind is made up and cannot be moved. From what you relate, it sounds more like the latter: He asked his mother about the different treatment your children get, she told him “protocols,” and that was the end of that. That is not the same thing as sitting down with her and letting her know that: a) you understand she has expectations about how things should be handled in this area, but that b) you weren’t raised with that same protocol; you really value a close relationship with her, and c) it’s hurtful when there are differences in treatment, all the more so when there isn’t another grandmother in the picture. You can then ask her if there is some way to bridge the chasm between her expectations and the kind of relationship you would like to have. This kind of conversation is exactly what protocols obviate people from having, and for good reason—they’re difficult! However, by communicating honestly and expressing yourself fully, you have a better chance of initiating real change. The secondary gain is that you’ll show her that a daughter-in-law can be honest with a mother-in-law in a caring and respectful way, so she won’t have to worry about what will happen if she buys your children clothing that you or they don’t like! If, on the other hand, you or your husband have already had a deeper conversation on the subject and there’s no change in sight, that still doesn’t mean your children are doomed to resentment and jealousy. If there’s nothing you can do about the facts of the

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situation, one solution would be to work on shielding them from those facts. Who says they have to know what their cousins got for Yom Tov or how often their grandmother visits? Not only shouldn’t you raise the subject to them, you should be careful not to mention it to your husband or friends when your children are within earshot. If they bring it up because one of their cousins innocently (or otherwise) referred to a new Yom Tov outfit from Bubby, you have two choices: You can react negatively in front of them, or you can “cover” for your mother-in-law. While you might resent having to pretend that nothing is wrong, just remember why you’re doing it: because you know what favoritism feels like. The best gift you can give your children is to protect them from that feeling and make them feel loved by all the important people in their lives. Saying something like, “I really prefer to buy what I like for you, so I told Bubby not to bother” or “Tante so-and-so really needs some extra help, but baruch Hashem, we’re managing,” when said with confidence, will go a long way to keeping them in the dark—in a good way. Of course, it would be even better if you could actually feel that way, but we’re only human and that’s not always the easiest or quickest transformation to make. Until then, acting as if you’re assured of their grandmother’s love for them is certainly something that can be achieved. Finally, let’s turn to the issue of whether grandmothers are naturally closer to daughters’ children over sons’ children, but first we need to define what “closer” means. Does it mean spending more time with them, or actually loving them more? In general, women are more sociable beings than men. In case no one’s caught on by now, we haven’t even mentioned the word grandfather yet! Is that because men aren’t capable of close relationships or favoritism? I doubt it. More likely, it’s just because men have relationships in a different way than women. And let’s not forget the relationship with the grandchildren’s parents. Mothers may spend more time with daughters who are past a certain age than sons simply because the relationships are different, so it isn’t far-fetched to think they would spend more time with their children too. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she feels less love for her sons (or his children) or that her sons feel less loved by her. It is also probably true that most women expect to have a closer relationship with their mother than their mother-in-law. This might also help explain why your mother-in-law expects to have more interaction with her daughters’ children than yours. This is not to say that giving them more attention and gifts is okay—it’s not. Grandmothers have to understand that even if they feel closer to certain children, they have to work hard to make sure that no one picks up on it. Nonetheless, even if

you haven’t been blessed with a mother-in-law who possesses this insight, you can still work on improving your children’s relationship with her. The bottom line is that favoritism is painful, and so is losing a parent. Replacing a mother isn’t possible, and you might

be craving more closeness with your mother-in-law now that your own mother has passed on, but what’s wrong with that? I hope you are able to make good use of the suggestions outlined here, and may you be comforted and see much nachas in the New Year.

Tova’s story

y in-laws are yeshivish and put a lot of pressure on their children and grandchildren to lead a certain lifestyle. I find that they favor the grandchildren who they feel “bring them more nachas.” My children are dressed differently—the girls are fashionable and the boys have shorter pei'os and longer haircuts. Our kids are being raised in a more modern atmosphere which my inlaws don’t really approve of, so they take a

step back and distance themselves. My in-laws enjoy spending more time with their other grandchildren and are more involved in their lives. If my niece has a siddur party, my motherin-law will be sitting in the front row 30 minutes before it starts, camcorder in hand. By contrast, when I invited my mother-in-law to my daughter's preschool graduation, she asked me several times to remind her about the

event—but of course, when the time came she couldn’t make it. My kids get a lot of attention from my parents, so at least they have a good relationship with one set of grandparents. But it hurts me that they’re not getting the same one-on-one attention from the other side as some of their more yeshivish cousins, who sit next to Zeidy on Yom Tov or get invited out for lunch with Bubby.

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Is it natural that my in-laws prefer the grandchildren who follow in their path and are more like them?

RABBI SHAIS TAUB RESPONDS: Rabbi Shais Taub is a noted expert on Jewish spirituality and addiction. His advice column, Ask Rabbi Shais Taub, appears weekly in Ami.

Is this natural? Yes, but in the same way that it’s “natural” to prefer a piece of seven-layer chocolate cake over whole wheat bread. Being an adult means that you get over doing things because they are pleasurable and easy. A lot of things in the world are natural, but as frum Jews we have a Torah that teaches us to transcend nature. So is it natural? Yes—if that’s any consolation to you as a mother. There is no excuse for such behavior. Being an eved Hashem doesn’t mean doing whatever comes naturally or gives you more nachas. I can imagine that these grandparents would argue that chocolate cake is a taavah, and that you can’t compare nachas to chocolate cake. “Aren’t they totally opposite?” they might argue. “Chocolate cake is physical; nachas is spiritual.” In truth, though, serving Hashem means that you are the servant; you aren’t being served. In that sense, nachas is like chocolate cake: I get more nachas and feel good when I am with this set of grandchildren. If grandparents think their lifestyle is superior, then they should spend more time with these grandchildren and be mekarev them. You, their daughter-in-law, should know that they aren’t acting properly with a Torah hashkafah. Not only can it cause a chillul Hashem, but it’s a great way to be merachek grandchildren and alienating them from their way of life! They are giving these grandchildren an emotional reason to feel bad about this brand of frumkeit, and are setting them up to not want to be frum. My advice to you, however, is to be careful what you wish for. If you get the message out to your in-laws, maybe they will actually wake up and start to see it as their mission to be

more involved—and you might be resentful. You can therefore mention this issue to them, but be careful about what you are actually asking for because you might get it. I don’t think these grandparents are consciously being manipulative and trying to send a message about the kind of Yiddishkeit they want their einiklach to have. I have to assume it’s just a matter of gravitating toward that which is more pleasurable for them. If this were some sort of intentional cold shoulder treatment, that would be really awful. I wouldn’t suspect them of such a thing. I don’t think you should tell your children anything about the situation. What kind of explanation could you ever give them that wouldn’t make them feel even worse?! The whole thing has to do with adults and their hang-ups. Children don’t need to be told about such things. Let your children have their own relationship with their grandparents; it will be whatever it will be. I am assuming that they also have another set of grandparents: your parents. They will see that there is a different relationship. That’s fine. We love our family members equally but we don’t have to have the same level of relationship with all of them. If the kids ask? It’s not your place to answer that question. Do you want to train your children to be suspicious and selfconscious? You should dismiss the question by saying, “I’m sure that Bubby and Zeidy love all of their grandchildren equally.” And if the kids say, “Yeah, okay, but then why do they spend more time with the cousins?” Then you can say, “If you want to spend more time with Bubby and Zeidy, let’s tell them.” The truth is, though, that I don’t think the kids will ask. They’ll just end up growing closer to one set of grandparents than the other. The ones who are playing favorites are the ones who will lose out.

Pessie’s story

y oldest daughter, Mindy, is six years old. She’s very charming and personable and has a lot of friends. The problem is that my fatherin-law openly favors her over my other children. For example, he’ll sit and have a conversation with her and ignore the other kids at the Shabbos table. Or he’ll give her some nosh he brought especially for her and forget to share it with the

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others. He tends to pick out one child from each family who is his favorite. My mother-in-law is constantly reminding him to stop giving Mindy so much attention. Honestly, it makes me uncomfortable because I feel bad for my other kids. They’re still very young, but I know there’s definitely resentment. What’s interesting is that my own

mother adores Mindy too, and a lot of it is because she’s named after her mother. “Mindy reminds me so much of Bubby,” she’ll say. It used to bother me whenever she mentioned it. But unlike my fatherin-law, my mother never shows any favoritism. My mother is very good at being fair. Maybe that’s why she is equally close with all of her many grandchildren.

Can I put a stop to my father's-in-law favoring one of my children? |

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LAUREN ROTH RESPONDS: Lauren Roth, MSW, LSW, family therapist in Lakewood, New Jersey

It’s very normal for a parent, grandparent, teacher or any other human being to relate to one person more than they relate to someone else. The problem is in showing that favoritism. The Sforno says that “Yaakov erred in making known to the brothers that he favored Yosef in his heart.” We all feel differently towards different people—but to actually show one child in a family favoritism causes resentment among the other siblings. Indeed, the Sforno explains the verse “And [the shevatim] couldn’t talk to him peaceably” as a result of his favoritism. In practical terms, though, what can you do about someone favoring one of your children over the others? Not much, because you aren’t that person. You can talk to your father-in-law and tell him it’s great that he loves Mindy, but you think that the other kids feel (or will feel) left out when he favors her. You can show him the Sforno cited above; it’s on Bereishis 37:4. You can ask him to keep his feelings of favoritism to himself. Ultimately, however, it’s impossible to change someone else’s behavior. The only person you can really change is yourself. So I would make sure that you treat all your children equally. Praise them equally (keep a mental tally), give them treats in equal number, and include all the children in your praise of the

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other children. Let me explain what I mean: If you want to say how adorable Mindy looks, make sure you also praise something about the other kids too. For example, “Binyamin, you spoke so nicely to Bubby! And Binyamin, didn’t Mindy behave well in front of them too?” Or, “Reuven, you look so nice in your new Shabbos outfit! And don’t you think Binyamin made a great picture in school today?” Or, “Rivky, I saw how you included that girl in your game—that makes me proud. And don’t you think Shimon played nicely with everyone today?” Make the praise ubiquitous, apply it to everyone and spread it around. Let it move freely among family members. Make it known that getting praise and attention isn’t the sole right of any one child, and that accolades are like the waters of a river, flowing copiously over everyone equally. And every so often (like maybe three times a day), just come out with random praise of the whole family: “I love being with my kids!” Or “You guys are such good people!” Or “I’m so happy that Hashem gave you all to me!” So even though you can’t control your father-in-law’s behavior, you can create a positive, no-competition-for-love-and-attention environment in your family despite his behavior. If I were you, I wouldn’t mention anything to the “nonfavored” children. Just giving them all the positive attention I detailed above should suffice to provide them with all the love

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PARENTING

they need to make up for their grandfather’s favoritism. However, if the children ask you why Zeidy treats Mindy better than he treats them, you can say, “Maybe Zeidy just likes giving her things more; I’m not sure why. But I know he loves you all the same, and I know that I love all my children. It’s nothing to worry about.” That’s why it’s so vital to lavish your children with copious praise and attention, as it reassures them that they are loved. And a mother’s love can heal any and all wounds. Regarding an older child or teenager who clearly understands that the grandfather is favoring a certain child, then I would

have an honest conversation. I would say, “I’m sorry it hurts your feelings when people do things that make you feel bad. Who knows why people do what they do? We can’t always understand what’s in their hearts and minds. Just know that I love you, and I’m certain that Zeidy loves you too. I’ll talk to him about it, if you want.” The child will probably not want you to mention it to his grandfather, but will probably feel relieved that you understand his feelings and have validated them. He’ll probably think, Phew! At least I’m not crazy and imagining things! I knew I saw favoritism going on!”

Practical Tips

FOR DEALING WITH FAVORITISM

TALK TO THE GRANDPARENTS. VALIDATE YOUR CHILD’S FEELINGS.

They may not even realize they’re hurting someone’s feelings or that they’re playing favorites. This might sound awkward, but it can be helpful. Just make sure the conversation (or letter, if you prefer) centers on your love for your children and isn’t an attack. You can also suggest other ways for Bubby to show her love and even out the playing field.

When there’s an obvious discrepancy in treatment, tell your children that they are equally loved but that Zeidy feels he needs to prove it to the other cousins with gifts, whereas he knows that your children don’t require it. Explain that their grandparents don’t mean any harm.

ACCEPT WHAT YOU CAN’T CONTROL. Your heart-to-heart might not yield results; you can’t control Bubby and Zeidy’s behavior—but you can teach your children to be thankful and gracious rather than jealous and greedy when they do receive a gift, regardless of what others might get.

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Basya

on a

ROSH HASHANAH BATTLE PLANS For Yom Tov, we are going to my parents. I'm excited to spend Yom Tov on the East Coast, especially this time of year.

Basya’s Menu

SUNDAY: Breakfast: coffee, oatmeal. Snack: rice crackers with peanut butter. Lunch: tuna sandwich. Snack: apple. Dinner: chicken soup. Dessert: grapes and almonds. MONDAY: Breakfast: coffee, toast with butter and jam. Lunch: grilled chicken salad. Snack: almonds. Dinner: grilled salmon, brown rice, grilled broccoli. Dessert: watermelon. TUESDAY: Breakfast: coffee, apple. Snack: orange. Lunch: whole grain bagel with tuna. Snack: cottage cheese with pineapple. Dinner: baked chicken, couscous, grilled peppers, salad. Snack: nut bar. WEDNESDAY: Breakfast: coffee, fruit salad. Snack: hardboiled egg. Lunch: minestrone soup. Snack: apricot. Dinner: leftovers. Snack: almonds, grapes, orange. THURSDAY: Breakfast: coffee, Cheerios. Snack: celery, red pepper, carrot sticks. Lunch: chicken salad. Snack: dried fruit. Dinner: whole wheat homemade pizza. Snack: pineapple. FRIDAY: Breakfast: coffee, yogurt, muesli. Lunch: bowl of chicken soup. Snack: chicken soup, small piece of zucchini kugel. Dinner: whole wheat challah, gefilte fish, cabbage salad, chicken soup, baked chicken, zucchini kugel, salad, brown rice, fruit salad. SHABBOS: Breakfast: coffee. Lunch: whole wheat challah, gefilte fish, cabbage salad, chicken, zucchini kugel, salad, fruit salad. Snack: pickles with tuna. Shalosh Seudos: piece of challah, gefilte fish. Motzaei Shabbos: froyo (½ cup).

AMI•LIVING

SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

The rav of my parents’ shul once explained that it helps us to do teshuvah when we see leaves changing colors and the weather changing, because it shows us that in nature it is possible to change. I'm aware of the changes I have made; I know what I am capable of. I know that I can now be disciplined; I can be in control and plan ahead. So I am planning ahead for the upcoming Yom Tov, both in terms of ruchniyus and vis-a-vis food. My mother is an incredible cook and baker. She creates her own recipes and perfects old ones. I know I am in for a real treat. One of my favorite desserts that my mother makes is apple pie. She makes it only for Rosh Hashanah and Sukkos. I have been dreaming of this apple pie since we booked our tickets. Its aroma is nearly as delicious as its actual taste. My mother hand-makes the pie crust. It is crunchy and soft, warm and sweet. This is precisely why I need to be prepared. I know I will have a piece of that pie. But what about the portion… will I have one piece every day? Will I only allow myself to have it once? I decided I will allow myself to have two pieces over the course of Yom Tov. And my pieces must be small. I will eat the pie slowly and enjoy every morsel. In addition to the battle of the apple pie, I have also asked my mother to make a lot of vegetable dishes. I will have at least two vegetable options at each meal so that I will not be tempted by the incredible kugels, stuffed meats, and bottom-burnt basmati rice. Well, to be honest, I will be tempted! But my hope is that I will successfully resist (most of it). I DO NOT WANT TO GAIN A SINGLE POUND OVER THIS COMING YOM TOV! It’s okay if I don’t lose, but I will not gain! I’m davening to Hashem to please help me. I know I’ve said this before: This is not what Yom Tov is about; it shouldn’t 11 TISHREI 5774

T he

Chal le

Basya

STARTING WEIGHT

200

CURRENT WEIGHT

172.5

GOAL WEIGHT

150

POUNDS LOST THIS WEEK

TOTAL POUNDS LOST SO FAR

27.5

be about eating and gaining weight, but it shouldn't be about worrying so much about weight and food either. I want to enjoy this Yom Tov, and so I will. With my plan and my strategy, I will be able to indulge in the special delectables my mother is preparing—but in moderation and with control. Wish me hatzlachah! Kesivah v’chasimah tovah! Basya (PS—Devoiry, I am davening for you, too!)

rls D

THE CONTEST

iet

Basya and Devoiry each want to lose 50 pounds. The first one to reach her goal wins a trip to Florida or $500. Follow them weekly as they share their diet journeys with us.

WEEK TWENTY-NINE

enge

Devoiry

STARTING WEIGHT

203

CURRENT WEIGHT

162

GOAL WEIGHT

153

POUNDS LOST THIS WEEK

TOTAL POUNDS LOST SO FAR

EVERYTHING COMING TOGETHER I love my boys to distraction, but that time period between camp ending and the first day of school feels like climbing Mount Rushmore during an avalanche! How I didn’t pick up and devour half the contents of my nosh cabinet during those two weeks is a miracle in and of itself!

Devoiry

Then the avalanche came tumbling down on me. Shloimy let me know that he was taking an emergency business trip for three days! It really was unavoidable, but dealing with first day jitters—my little baby Bentzi all grown up in a uniform on the first day of school—was emotionally draining! I held Bentzi's hand as we walked into the 'big boys' school building on the first day of school, and they asked me my son’s name. I told them Bentzi Fine. I was told that his rebbe would be Rabbi Z. I was taken aback. I’d met with the menahel the week after Pesach to ensure placement in Rabbi B’s class. My first reaction was anger. I forced myself to take a deep breath and asked where the menahel was. On the way up in the elevator I made a decision. Nothing in Hashem’s world happens by chance. If Bentzi was really placed in Rabbi Z’s class, he would be next door to his brother Yossi, and that had to be hashgachah pratis. Calmly, I came out of the elevator, found the menahel, and asked him what happened. The menahel was confused. What happened with what? Apparently there is a Bentzi and a Benny Fine in Pre 1A this year! Benny was in Rabbi Z’s class, and my Bentzi was in Rabbi B’s class! I realized that the potential disaster threatening to break loose was controlled only because I have my program. I took Bentzi into his class, and gasped as I saw him make himself comfortable in his preassigned desk. When did he get so big? And where was I while that was

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happening? I walked out of the classroom and cried! I did not have Shloimy’s to calm me down, and I found myself really craving stuff I should not eat. “No Matter What” also includes such situations! Mentally, I leaned on the support garnered by my fellowship and the Ami readership; I went out and bought a black iced coffee with Splenda, and laughed at how I have become a black coffee kinda’ girl! I want to take this opportunity to wish my readers a kesivah v’chasimah tovah, and may all your goals be realized this year the way you have helped me realize and reach for mine! Devoiry

Eat MorE WEIGH LEss!

11 TISHREI 5774

SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

AMI•LIVING

This is the shidduch saga of a staunch and proud chasidic family. Their four eldest children–a son, 22; a daughter, 21; and two sons 19 and 20–are not married. Now that may not be a problem everywhere, but in Mimmi Kirsch’s circle, where boys marry at eighteen and girls do not marry before their brothers, it is a huge challenge.

By Mimmi Kirsch

FOLLOW MIMMI KIRSCH ON HER SEARCH FOR A SHIDDUCH FOR HER SON

shidduchsagasukkos Suggesting Suggestions L’chayims, voicemail, and tichels

We had three prospective shidduchim suggested, with each of them putting us on hold until they came back from their respective Lag Ba’Omer trips to Eretz Yisrael. Then all three fizzled out. Of the three, the one mentioned first seemed the most viable. We held our collective breaths for their return to the US. We allowed some time for the unpacking of suitcases and jet-lag recovery, but after three days we got impatient and called the shadchan. Then we called again, and then yet again. This was the same shadchan who introduced himself as “the big shadchan.” I guess he was uncomfortable to take our call, or inform us of the other side’s change of heart. Eventually he called telling us the “no.” Fine. It has happened before. Truth be told, we’ve avoided taking or making uncomfortable phone calls too. It’s all part of the process. The second suggestion, given by our cousin Chaya, took on a little more steam. The girl’s father found himself “unexpectedly” in the yeshivah town one early morning and wanted to use the

AMI•LIVING

SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

opportunity to meet our Srully. Chaya went into a sudden frenzy trying to reach us: We had to get Srully ready. He wasn’t. He needed at least half an hour to get to that end of town. When he did arrive at the designated place, there was no one there. He waited for a while. He called me. I called Chaya. Chaya called “the father.” Voicemail. Redial. Voicemail. Eventually, the father called her back saying he figured there was time to daven while he waited for Srully to arrive. Now that davening was over, he would just grab a bite to eat and then “redt in

This raised the question of where I was on the chasid-o-meter. 11 TISHREI 5774

lernen” (discuss Torah) with the bachur. We delivered the message. Had Srully known, maybe he would’ve had breakfast too. Anyway, the two of them finally did meet and had a mutually pleasant shmuess. The father was effusive in his praise of Srully to the shadchan, saying he was just the kind of “aydem-son-in-law” he’d love to have, but alas Srully was incompatible with his daughter. It was comforting to know that we weren’t the only parents out there with a 22-year-old as-of-yet-unmarried child who would give a shidduch in question the same consideration our child deserves had he been eighteen, extreme peer pressure and desperation notwithstanding. The third shidduch prospect was choshuv, tempting, and would have been a feather in our cap; nevertheless, once we pushed our egos out of the way, she was not quite the right match for our son after all. So now it’s back to the drawing board. Mendel, our rav’s son, is a tachshit (gem) of a human being. He is very young and very capable, and has got a doll of a wife

on second try too. Together they came up with a suggestion. It ended up being just that—a suggestion. In its early stages, when he thought the boy and girl would meet, Mendel excused his lack of knowledge regarding this part of the shidduch process by saying he “never had a beshow (a shidduch meeting/date).” (!!!!) I didn’t believe him. I asked his wife, the young rebbetzin, and she confirmed the information. (!!!!) They were allowed a glance from a distance at the l’chayim. Of course not everyone can subscribe to this system, of an already arranged marriage, but I can assure you that they are the happiest couple. However, this raised the question of where I was on chasid-o-meter. I hadn’t even known that our own rav married off his kids this way. Then Srully’s friend Elya got engaged. Finally! Woohoo! A very yichusdik and bekavodik family. Elya told Srully that the shidduch had been back and forth for several months all because of the tichel issue. The women from one family tied it one way and the women of the other family folded it a different way. (There is a higher meaning to all of this. Just as every

color, stripe, ribbon and button serves a symbolic purpose on a military uniform and indicates the unit or rank, so do all these chasidish traditional nuances.) Anyway, eventually someone compromised—I’m not sure who. Srully was perplexed about the whole situation, and needed an explanation from me. That was pretty easy: “Srully, if a certain shidduch was suggested for you, but suppose that in order to join that family you had to wear a spodek instead of a shtreimel?” Oh! You should have seen his reaction. He practically jolted! “No way!! I can’t/won’t wear a spodek!” That’s Poilish! We’re Galicianer on one side and Hungarian on the other side—no Varsha and no Lodz—no spodek! Not negotiable! “Why not?” I asked. “They’re both fur hats. And they’re both round. And black. The difference lay in the extra inch—or perhaps centimeter— and by today’s impressive shtreimels, maybe even no more than a mere millimeter!!!” He laughed, but did not submit. n To be continued... Mimmi Kirsch is a pseudonym.

shidtrue d taleuch s

Things were not going well in the shidduch arena for me. I was already twenty-five and nothing seemed to pan out. Then, someone suggested I meet Moshe Yossi Birnbaum* from Lakewood. Our first meeting, I thought, went exceptionally well. The conversation was lively and interesting. I was starry-eyed and felt strongly that this finally might be the one. Unfortunately it seemed that the feeling wasn’t mutual. The next day, the shadchan called back and, in the gentlest way possible, said that the boy refused to meet me again. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Soon thereafter someone suggested another boy. He lived in Eretz Yisrael. Feeling entirely burned out, I told my parents I wasn’t ready to get back into the shidduch process just yet. Two weeks later, my parents informed me that the boy’s parents asked if I would meet his aunts who lived near us. Since they were in Israel and we here in the States, this could be a way to see if there was any merit to the suggestion I was so apathetic I never even bothered to ask the name of the boy. However, soon the two women began talking about Moshe Yossi Birnbaum. I was flustered and annoyed. If they knew anything about the boy I had previously met, why were they talking about him? Why were they telling me about him? Today, I am married to Moshe Yossi Birnbaum: not the one I had met the first time, but the boy from Eretz Yisrael, whose aunts had come to meet me. They knew nothing about the first Moshe Yossi—they were simply talking about their nephew. Life is funny like that. If this bizarre coincidence taught me anything, it’s this: Keep an open mind, an open heart, and plenty of emunah, and ultimately, things will work themselves out As told to Nissi Unger *Name and identifying details changed for privacy

shidduchresources

COMPILED BY ESTHER GARTENHAUS

The sheer volume of e-mails, letters, phone calls and faxes we receive regarding the shidduch crisis, is eyeopening. This column is our contribution to help address this crisis. A more complete list appears on our website: www.amimagazine.org. This is a joint communal effort, so we need to hear from you! Shadchanim and activists: Contact Esther Gartenhaus at matchmaker@amimagazine.org to list your appropriate services, shidduch meetings and pertinent activities!

FOR COMP THE LETE L IST, GO TO amim agazin e.org

General Shidduchim

Mental Health/Emotional Issues

Mrs. Sora Cohen 718.755.4836 / aryehsora@aol.com Mrs. Lisa Elefant 718.256.7525 / LisaElefant@yahoo.com Mrs. Ethel Halpert 718.853.4083 / Motzaei Shabbos Mrs. Rayzel Harrar 718.376.8547 Mrs. Hadassah Hoffner 718.309.5700 Mrs. Chana Rivka Jacobs 718.256.7525 at Binyan Adei Ad The Kesher Connection of Boro Park 718.576.1094 support@kesherconnection.com. Mrs. Pearl Klepfish 718.338.8106 Mrs. Dina Lapp 917.470.4840 / diny613@gmail.com lchaimshidduch.com Mrs. Tova Liebb 732.367.7252 / tliebb@yahoo.com Mrs. Libby Lieberman Mazal.brocha@gmail.com Mrs. Devorah Meyer 718.213.0761 / M, T, W 8–10:30 p.m. Mrs. Shaindy Mitnick 347.322.0001 / afternoons and evenings / shaindymitnick@gmail.com Mrs. Chava Most Fax: 732.377.5484 / sensitiveshidduchim@gmail.com / specializes in shidduchim for individuals with physical, medical, fertility and genetic conditions Rabbi Ahron Mueller 848.299.2598 National Council of Young Israel Shidduch Program Department 212.929.1525, ext. 150 / jsteinig@youngisrael.org Mr. Motti Neuhaus mottineuhaus@yahoo.com Mrs. Esther Notis 732.367.7942 / Please leave message. Mrs. Adina Reich adinareich@gmail.com Resumé Center ifoundashidduch@gmail.com Mrs. Chana Rose chanarose36@verizon.net Mrs. Rochel Rubanowitz 212.543.2723 Mrs. Joy Scher proudbubby1@aol.com Mrs. Sara Schwarcz 718.854.8722 / 917.446.3213 Mrs. Baila Sebrow 516.239.0564 / bsebrow@aol.com Mrs. Chaya Segal 718.854.6315 / evenings / specializes in older singles Mrs. Blimmie Stamm 732.363.1554 Mrs. Esther Zywica zywica111@gmail.com

Shoshana Goldman 718.983.9187 Temima Gross 410.358.7017 / temiragross@gmail.com

Ohel’s Simcha Program / Sarah Kahan 718.686.3262 fcbrecher@gmail.com

Public Announcements Thanks to those women who have called in to volunteer assistance with shidduch calls! If you are articulate and capable, please call in. More are needed! 347.482.8429 Plenty of shadchanim…yet never enough! Join as a volunteer shadchan. Call Kesher Connection at 718.576.1094. Resource for previously married men and women. Also, singles willing to marry previously married men and women, contact Mrs. B. Stein. belle960@gmail.com Seeking girls for quality, frum, working (non-degreed) chasidishe boys! 845.425.7520 SHADCHANUS SERVICES—HIRE BY THE HOUR. Hire your own private shadchan to network for

you! Shadchanim and interested parties, please contact Ruchie 718.438.2834 for more details. Shidduch meetings in Kensington. For details, call Mrs. Edie Jaffe at 718.853.8691. Looking for single girls/women of all ages, with controlled medical issues (i.e., on meds). Many special compatible young men available! Confidential! Please call Rivky 718.419.7855 Shidduchim Workshops in Brooklyn, Lakewood, or your town! Premarital/Shidduch hadrachah workshops with Mrs. Esther Gartenhaus for post high-school girls/young women! Call to schedule your workshop and for private appointments: 347.482.8429

Israel

Mrs. Yehudis Abir 02.586.3310 / evening hours / judyabir@gmail.com Mrs. Shulamit Goldberger 02.561.1019 V’hareinu B’vinunei (Yiddish-speaking organization) Shidduch for zivug sheini 011-972-54-849-9440

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11 TISHREI 5774

We welcome your letters, comments and shidduch questions, as well as helpful ideas, advice and tips on...shidduchim! Contact us at matchmaker@amimagazine.org or via phone (718.534.8800) or fax (718.484.7731).

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THE

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BRIDGE B

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE LAST WEEK: SHULI, WANTING TO MAKE UP, MEETS SHRAGA, BUT SHE CAN’T KEEP HER TEMPER FROM EXPLODING.

Shraga Asks If This Is What He Really Wants

s I was listening to Shuli rant and rave over a simple statement that I’d made, I sat back and tried to imagine that this was a first date, that I hadn’t ever been married to Shuli. I had said something mildly objectionable and my date was having a fit over it. Would I want to continue this relationship? No, I wouldn’t. I would end the date quickly and politely and then I’d give the shadchan a piece of my mind for setting me up with an obviously unstable person. But this wasn’t just another person. It was Shuli, the mother of my children. She deserved as many chances as she required to come around to me in the right way. But my fear was that she carried around this little balloon of rage, directed at me, that would explode every time we got together. The question I had to ask myself, and then answer, was whether this was the kind

102

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of life I wanted. Now was the time for me to make a choice, and I was having a hard time. Part of me wanted to fall back on the familiar, which, while occasionally unpleasant, was known to me and I was able to deal with it. And the advantages for the kids would be immeasurable. Why should they have to pay for my bad feelings? If I could just move Shuli over this hump, we could reunite as a family and perhaps see some nachas from our children. I don’t care what anyone says; children of divorced parents get messed up somewhere along the line. It can’t be helped. It’s probably fixable, but why drag them through that? Why take a chance? The fact that we were already divorced has been hard on them already. I can see it when I visit with them at the hospital. The accident did not help them feel more secure. Moshe Yonah is starting to stutter. The little ones could probably slide through if Shuli and I |

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get back together right away. Shuli’s still ranting and my mind is still wandering. Ask yourself, Shraga, are you ready to fall on the sword for the sake of your children, or do you want a better life? Do you want a wife who is refined and respectful or do you want this screeching harpy? All I’d said to her was that I wanted to set some ground rules, and she completely lost it. But don’t I have the right to set some boundaries? Don’t I have the right to expect my wife to stay off the computer and spend money like a normal person? Don’t I have the right to expect my wife to be honest with me, instead of finding things out about her in strange and scary ways? Don’t I deserve some sort of commitment from her that she will at least try to meet my needs some of the time? I’m looking at her face, trying to see how she looks with the sound turned off. She’s still looks good, but she’s scary. I don’t want to marry her again if she’s

going to be like this. I wonder if there is something I can say or something I can do to win her respect again—if I ever had it. That’s still a question in my mind. But I can’t live with the arguing anymore. I need a peaceful life, especially after the accident. Life is too short to waste it on these stupid fights. But the children. The children. The children. What am I going to do about the children? “What kind of things did I do that you’re so worried I’m hiding things from you, huh? What did I ever do to you?” Shuli’s not stopping for breath. “So I spent a little money you didn’t know about. Big deal. And anyway, I know from working in your place that you have plenty of money to throw around now, much more than when we were together. And by the way, why didn’t you work this hard when we were married? Why did you wait until we got divorced to figure out how to make a decent parnasah? Did you not want to support me? Did you want to make me suffer?” Shuli is talking too loud, and she is saying things that are starting to make me feel really angry. This is never going to work. But I know that I owe her more than one chance to make this right. “Shuli,” I said. “I’m still a little tired. What do you say we set another date to meet? I’ve obviously upset you and that is the last thing I want to do. We need to speak rationally and calmly to each

SHE’S STILL LOOKS GOOD, BUT SHE’S SCARY. I DON’T WANT TO MARRY HER AGAIN IF SHE’S GOING TO BE LIKE THIS. other.” “How many chances do you think I’m going to give you?” she asked. “As many as I need, as I will give you as many chances as you need. I’d like to make this work for the sake of the children, and for the chance to really give Hashem some nachas, for once in my life. I’d like to do the right thing. But I’m only going to be able to do that if you talk to me respectfully. Ranting and raving and screaming at me is not going to fly if we remarry. I won’t tolerate it.” “Oh, listen to you,” said Shuli. “Since when did you have to tolerate me? I was the best thing that ever happened to you. Who knows where you would be if it weren’t for me?” I knew I would be setting off another explosion when I spoke, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Well,” I said. “Maybe I wouldn’t be divorced.” Her eyes lit up like firecrackers, and it was such a predictable response that I almost chuckled. Then her eyes narrowed. “It’s your fault we got

divorced. I was just trying to make you see reason.” “Shuli, you were lying to me. You were going behind my back. You were taking money from your father when I had specifically asked you not to. What part of that is not a reason to get divorced?” “You were supposed to just give me what I wanted and we could have moved on. But you took me too seriously.” That was when I stood up to go. I knew that Shuli could keep me running in circles for the rest of the night, and believe it or not, I actually wanted to get back to the hospital already. I had forgotten how easily I get tired now, something I didn’t have to worry about too much in the past. As I went to say goodnight to my aunt and uncle, I passed by a long line of pictures they had up on the wall. And that was when I remembered about my cousin Raizy. 

To be continued...

BY DINA NEUMAN

Chapter Twenty-Five

“B

ut now everything is okay?” Lakey was asking. “Now everything is fine? Henny is fine?” “The office had an EpiPen from another student,” said the voice on her phone, and the secretary went on to say other things, about how fortunate it was that Mrs. Markowitz had realized that the hives—and the way that Henny was fighting for breath—had been an allergic reaction. “Probably because her son is allergic to nuts,” the secretary said. “Hashgachah pratis, really!” Henny’s teacher had dashed to the office and stabbed the EpiPen into Henny’s thigh, saving her life. “But Henny doesn’t even eat nuts,” Lakey protested, as though the secretary would agree with her that it was ridiculous, that it hadn’t really happened. “She is such a picky eater. She won’t touch peanut butter, or anything.” “They don’t know if it was nuts, or what. But it was a reaction to something.” “But she’s okay.” “She’s okay.” “Where is she?” “In the hospital.” “You said that she was okay!” Lakey demanded, her voice rising. “She’s out of danger. But she was in shock, and the Hatzolah men who came felt that, since we don’t know what caused the reaction, the hospital is the best place for her.” “Which hospital is she in?” Tova, Lakey saw, was hanging on to every word. When she hung up and ran towards the exit, Tova ran after her. “Is everything okay?” she asked, as if they weren’t the first words they had

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exchanged in almost half a year. “Henny had some kind of allergic reaction. She’s in the hospital.” Lakey increased her speed as the incredible words came out of her mouth. “She’s okay?” “That’s what the secretary says.” Lakey was dialing as she reached her car. There was an orange ticket on her windshield wipers, and she yanked it off and tossed it onto the passenger seat. “Hi, Avi? I’m going to the hospital. No, everything is not fine. Henny had an allergic reaction.” She sat down, closed the door behind her, and put the key into the ignition. “Where are you? But—that’s a good two hours away! Yes, she’s fine now, they said. But just get here, okay?” There was a light rap on her window. Lakey rolled it down and squinted up. Tova was standing there. Her stance was awkward, but her face was concerned. “Can I help?” Lakey looked at her older sister’s face and felt her shoulders relax as something tight in her chest eased. The world was returning to normal, then. Tova would step in. Tova would help. She would come to the hospital and Lakey would follow behind her, walk in the clear path left in Tova’s efficient wake. Oh, she had wanted this. No explanations, no recriminations, just the two of them the way it had been before. It was almost too perfect. If she had been reading about the two of them in some book, about two sisters who weren’t on speaking terms with each other, this would be the point in the story that something like this would have happened—a wedding, a funeral, a |

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hospital visit—and all would be fine again. But this wasn’t some book. And suddenly, Lakey didn’t want to reconcile, not like this. Because she didn’t need to be rescued. It was always Avi, or Tova, or one of her friends taking the reins. And that wasn’t right. Henny is my daughter. I am her mother. This is my call. “I’m fine,” she said abruptly, her face closing, her chest growing tight once again. She felt as if she had aged 15 years in 15 seconds. “I can take care of it.” She raised the window again and Tova had to take her fingers off the glass to avoid having them crushed when the window met the door frame. Lakey pulled away from the sidewalk and into the wide street in front of the courthouse, watching Tova get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror until she was nothing...nothing at all.

***

Tova went straight from the courthouse to work. She thought about the upcoming trial and her selected character witnesses. She thought about her chances of failing, and her lips were pulled together the whole day. The new waiter stayed out of her way. When she came home, she put Avraham Yitzchak down on his play mat and went straight to the fridge where she had prepped ingredients for dinner waiting. She took out a container of cubed chicken breast and another of diced onions and broccoli. The garlic spaghetti was already done, and she put it on a low flame to warm as she began stir-frying the onions and coating the chicken in egg and flour. She took out the soy sauce.

RECAP: THE PRETRIAL ENDS WITH A STALEMATE AND THE JUDGE AGREEING TO A TRIAL. FEELINGS, THOUGH UNEXPRESSED, ARE RUNNING HIGH BETWEEN LAKEY AND TOVA. THEN LAKEY’S PHONE RINGS AS THEY ARE WALKING OUT OF THE COURTHOUSE.

There was a soft knock at the door before it was opened. “Hello,” said Shmuel. “Hi,” Tova said. She didn’t turn around. “Yitz fell asleep on the play mat,” he whispered. “You have to come see him.” “Oh, no. He’s supposed to be up for another half hour. Can you try to wake him?” “But he looks so happy. Look, he’s snuggling with his teddy bear. Look at

chicken. “I know. But he needs to stay on a schedule.” “Why? So you could make chicken stir-fry?” there was something new in Shmuel’s voice, something of the hardness that Tova had seen in his eyes only once before; when she had been impatient with the baby. “Well, not exactly, but yeah, okay, that’s part of it. He needs to be on a schedule so that everything goes smoothly. And it’s for

over to the play mat. He put the little boy down and handed him the closed pen. Tova followed him. “How dare you?” she said. “Selfish? Selfish! I do everything for this family! Everything! I work! I cook! I clean! I take care of the baby!” “Do I ask you to cook fresh meals every day for dinner? You can take food from the café! It would even be more costeffective! I tell you to do that all the time!” “And I tell you that I like—” Tova cut herself off, and she saw Shmuel smile, but there was no humor in his eyes. “The chicken is burning,” he said. Tova fled to the kitchen and turned off the stove. She looked at the burned pieces of chicken smoking in the pan, at the raw chicken in the container still waiting to be coated, and felt tears come to her eyes. “You didn’t even ask about how it went at the pretrial,” she said. “Speaking of selfish.” “And I’m sure that you’ll tell me all about it. Every single detail of the whole case. You’ll rehash it and analyze it and reanalyze it and that’s all we’ll talk about.” Tova turned around, maybe to let him see the tears in her eyes. If he did see them, it didn’t seem to deter him. “Because that’s all that’s important to you, isn’t it?” “That is the stupidest thing I ever heard!” “Is it really? Is that what you think?” “You want to know what I think?” Tova was hurt. “Yes!” So she hurt back. “I think that maybe,” she said, her mouth twisted bitterly, “my father was right about you.” n

But this wasn’t some book. And suddenly, Lakey didn’t want to reconcile, not like this. him.” Tova turned from the counter, her hands covered in egg and flour. “Please. Wake him. He’s not supposed to sleep right now.” Shmuel bent down and patted the baby on his back gently. “Yitz-man,” he said softly. “Yitzy-pitz.” “Oh, for the love of—” Tova washed her hands in the sink and came over. “Avraham Yitzchak. Not time to sleep now, sweet boy.” She picked him up. The little boy’s eyes flew open and he let out a wail. Tova handed him to her husband. “There. That’s how you wake a baby.” She walked back to the counter. Shmuel followed her, the crying baby in his arms. “That was horrible,” he said. Tova nodded, her eyes on the frying

him, too!” Tova said. “He’s much happier on a schedule.” “He sounds very happy,” Shmuel said. He jiggled the crying baby in his arms gently back and forth. Tova was still stung about the chicken stir-fry remark. “You don’t complain when you eat dinner,” she shot back. “This is not about dinner!” The baby finally quieted down and settled for trying to pull the pen out of Shmuel’s top pocket. “Then what is it about?” Tova asked. She crossed her arms in front of her and faced her husband. “Everything I do I do for us. You make it sound selfish!” “It is! Of course it is!” Shmuel exploded. “It is selfish! It’s incredibly selfish!” The baby startled and began to cry again, and Shmuel stormed out of the kitchen and 11 TISHREI 5774

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days Toxic Secrets

I was determined to keep my family together By Shani Rubin

faked a smile as I put down the heavy platter of roast on the table in the sukkah. Gravy spilled as I shifted the baby on my hip. My husband Shmuel nodded in my direction, which I took as a token thank you. The baby grabbed for the decorations the neighbor’s kids had made in school: Crayoned fruit shapes tied on strings, streamers and paper chains adorned the sukkah all of us in the building shared. Our table was at the far side, settled snug against the plywood wall. “Delicious,” one of our guests told me as he passed around the kugel. “What did you put in the sauce?” his wife asked. Our guests attempted conversation despite Shmuel’s silent demeanor. Between shuttling up and down the stairs bringing food, I tried filling in the gaps, waiting and hoping for Shmuel to work up the courage to deliver a short dvar Torah. Watching the other families crowded in, singing zemiros, and listening

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as their kids (older than our toddlers) read their stencils from school, my jaw clenched. My throat choked on words I’d never say, but wanted to: Why can’t you be like the other husbands and fathers—offering inspiration and pleasantries? The first morning of Chol Ha’moed, Shmuel raced off to work without saying goodbye, like always. I’d hoped he’d want to share a coffee in the sukkah, while our two-year-old would sip hot cocoa and spend time with us. I knew that without Shmuel’s help, I probably wouldn’t shlep the kids and breakfast down two flights of stairs. Shmuel’s silent exit tensed my shoulders. Where was he running to that he couldn’t at least say Goodbye, see you later, or Have a great day? I picked up the phone to berate him on his lack of manners, like I did every morning: a sad routine. He didn’t answer. I left this message on his voice mail: “It was rude to leave this morning without saying goodbye. Yom Tov was difficult |

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enough. Maybe we can see Mrs. Berg tonight.” Mrs. Berg was our therapist, recommended by my rebbetzin. I’d seemed overwhelmed, she’d told me. I tried to explain that Shmuel seemed cold, distant and critical. She advised me that men don’t like to talk as much as women and to “give him space.” When I said I thought there was something deeper, she recommended we see Mrs. Berg. I hated that we were in therapy. My family didn’t believe in the talking cure. It was humiliating to admit the crazy things I’d said to Shmuel in bursts of anger, aching for attention. I was so immature; I wanted to convince the therapist of my righteousness by criticizing Shmuel’s introverted personality. So far, Mrs. Berg hadn’t taken the bait. Her calm, deep voice offered healing to both of us. I sat down on the gray velvet settee in Mrs. Berg’s office. Shmuel sidled into the chair next to where I was, glancing nervously in my direction. I figured he

SHOCKED, I FELT AS IF ALL THE OBJECTS IN THE ROOM WERE GLARING AT ME, ACCUSING ME OF FAILING AS A WIFE. I WASN’T EXPECTING THIS.

was dreading the dress down I’d prepared about the way he’d handled the communal meals, withdrawn into himself, mute in his man cave, even at the table. As I was turning off the sound on my cell phone, I noticed in the periphery gestures from Mrs. Berg to Shmuel. I zipped my purse to signal I was ready to start the session. “Shmuel has something he’d like to share with you,” Mrs. Berg said, her hands folded in her lap. Her neck was straight, but her face was turned directly at me, her unblinking eyes showing concern. “Sure,” I said, expecting an apology— finally. I cocked my head towards Shmuel, smirking. Silence. I shifted my gaze to Mrs. Berg. “Shmuel, are you ready to tell Shani?” she pressed as she shifted her feet. He looked down. “I’m addicted to the Internet—to inappropriate sites,” Shmuel whispered as he focused on the flower petal pattern on the carpet.

Shocked, I felt as if all the objects in the room were glaring at me, accusing me of failing as a wife. I wasn’t expecting this. At the same time, clues blurred my vision: There had been strange e-mails addressed to Shmuel on our shared computer, which he used when he needed to work from home. Before I could answer, Mrs. Berg interrupted the din of my racing thoughts. “Shani,” she said, “Shmuel took a big risk by admitting his struggle to you.” I caught her blazing eyes, black pupils wide, staring at me. “Oh,” I sputtered. “I mean, thank you for telling me.” I swallowed hard. Shmuel sighed with relief. I wasn’t screaming or even spewing jabs across the room. “You might never trust him again,” Mrs. Berg explained, crossing her ankles. I focused on the popping blue vein on her right arch. “Of course I’ll trust him—always,” I said, not completely certain what I was committing to, but determined to protect

my reputation as the long-suffering victim of an emotionally distant husband. Shmuel sat motionless in his chair. Mrs. Berg raised her eyebrows at my quick reassurance. Shmuel remained quiet, like he was in a spaceship. Why wasn’t he apologizing to me? I wondered, and then identified his behavior: He’s probably humiliated. Back and forth: Shmuel, me, Shmuel, me. It was my fault. The realization created a heavy feeling in my chest. Looking at myself confirmed my feelings of inadequacy. If I hadn’t gained weight this never would have happened. If I were a better housekeeper, he’d never have been tempted. Maybe if I’d packed him a proper lunch every day like his colleagues’ wives, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to stray. Self-pity. “His addiction isn’t a reflection on you,” Mrs. Berg said, as if reading my thoughts. Shmuel added, “It’s not your fault, Shani. You’re a very good wife.” Suddenly our time was up. We had to

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days go home and pay the sitter. Shell-shocked I stumbled into our car. Once home, we retreated into different rooms of our postage-stamp sized apartment. I wanted to stomp my feet and scream, “Get out of my life!” But the words didn’t come out. Instead I sulked, shoving dinner in front of Shmuel, frowning, blocking out the chatter of our neighbors and their happy, normal families talking about their Chol Ha’moed trips to the zoo and the bowling alley. Tall tales grew around

“It’s not a sign that you’re defective,” she’d tried. “You’re a wonderful woman. Addictions are based on emotional needs.” She could sit across from me surrounded by embroidered pillows and throw out truisms, yet I refused to find comfort in her words. Shmuel pledged to stop viewing, yet I needed support. I couldn’t share my fears with the therapist. I was too afraid to be honest. Resentful, I pressured myself to improve my homemaking skills. Could serving

to check the Web browsing history on our laptop, I never did—not even once. He’d guaranteed that he’d avoid any impropriety, using the Internet only for work and shopping deals on Amazon. I believed him; I even imagined not checking up on him was proof of my trust. When the inappropriate, solicitous e-mails began appearing in my inbox again, a few years later, I confronted Shmuel. “I noticed those messages again,” I said

“SHANI, COME, I HAVE SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU,” SHMUEL SAID, AS HE WENT THROUGH THE SLIDING GLASS DOOR TO THE SUKKAH. fathers setting up portable sukkos on their adventures, or walking blocks so that they could eat. I was so distraught, I forgot to be self-conscious; no one interrupted our solitude. Yom Tov ended, and our routine returned. After the self-blame came my anger: I deserve better than this, I told myself. I gave everything up for him—my freedom, my chance for a happy marriage, and my youth. There were days I thought I couldn’t continue being married to Shmuel. Every time Shmuel touched the computer, I hovered over him like a helicopter parent. I scanned our e-mail for inappropriate mail. After a few more sessions with Mrs. Berg, we stopped going.

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dinner on time renew our relationship? Without Mrs. Berg to consult, I kept my feelings locked inside. I started eating more sweets as my dress size increased four times. If I didn’t manage to clear off the table before Shmuel got home from work, I’d apologize profusely, over and over and over. If our children’s needs taxed him, I’d jump in immediately. I micromanaged our lives so that Shmuel’s only stress would be his work responsibilities. We managed this way for a decade. As our relationship disintegrated, I sublimated my needs for connection and friendship, throwing my energy into volunteering at my children’s school and shopping. Though Shmuel had taught me how |

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one night after the kids were tucked in their beds. “That’s weird,” Shmuel said as he sorted through the mail. He wasn’t making eye contact with me. “Are you, um, looking at that stuff again?” I asked, bracing myself for the answer. “Nah,” Shmuel assured, his head was tilted at a downward angle toward the mail-filled table. I swallowed my pride and pretty much let Shmuel do whatever he wanted. Minyan attendance drifted over the years, taking the trash out, drying dishes, putting his socks in the hamper. Just accept and submit, Shani, I’d remind myself when anger crept into my shoulders, my growing stomach, and my

sparking a fight or pressuring him into a conversation. The therapist demanded a stop to his online activity. Facing him in a session each week helped keep Shmuel offline. Meanwhile, Shmuel had to find alternatives to dealing with his hard days, with his urge to escape the demands of family life. For a few years he started smoking, what some psychologists refer to as “addiction shuffle,” finding a new substance or behavior to substitute for the one no longer available. He also started having unpredictable angry outbursts. Instead of reacting, I walked away, as the therapist recommended, saying, “That’s not acceptable.” Eventually he calmed down, opening up to the therapist and then me. “I had a bad day at work,” Shmuel said, mumbling. I sat down and listened to him, without offering any advice or judgment. It was extremely difficult for me to not interrupt or discount his experiences, but I knew our marriage depended on it. He spoke only for a few minutes at first, but eventually our talks expanded into hours. One night on the way home from therapy, Shmuel said, “Thanks for listening to me lately. It really helps.” The car was dark, but I could tell he was smiling. I felt so proud of myself and of him. Yet our therapist was concerned—this time for me. “Shani, if you keep giving unconditionally, you might burn out and resent Shmuel later in life,” the therapist warned. “Of course, it’s amazing how you’ve been handling everything, but I’m here to help make sure it’s not at your own expense.” At first, I defended my role as a martyr. “I can’t set boundaries with Shmuel,” I complained. “Who knows what he will do?” My voice was shaking. My deepest fear had slipped out. I couldn’t meet the therapist’s gaze. But I knew I had to make it work better for me, somehow. Getting burned out was not an option. Leaving Shmuel would mean parenting alone, calming kids’ cries without another adult to share the night shift. Managing kids on my own seemed

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delicate heart. Shmuel came into our room just as I was about to fall asleep. “Shani, I’m so sorry,” he confessed. “I have been looking at those sites again.” He sat down on his bed, cradling his head in his hands. “You were right about the e-mails.” My stomach turned. “Thanks for telling me,” I said like a robot, without emotion. I felt dead inside, even more than the first time. My perfectionist plan had backfired. Shmuel and I had remained emotionally distant. A few months later, through a friend, I discovered a new therapist. Shmuel admitted his struggle right away so we wouldn’t waste years—or even months— establishing a treatment plan. The new therapist recommended practical steps to reduce the possibility of messing up. “Let’s set things up so that there’s no chance this will happen again,” the therapist said. “Either get rid of your Internet, or install monitoring and reporting software, along with a better filter.” Since I needed the Internet for work, we installed a program that monitors all Web traffic and sends reports to an accountability partner, along with alerts any time a person clicks on the wrong type of site. I set all the passwords and I don’t share them with Shmuel—ever. After ensuring that we put the necessary controls on our computers (in Shmuel’s office; and on his phone, his iPad and on our home computer), the therapist helped uncover the triggers that contributed to his struggle. While there’s no way to track cause and effect in these matters, exposure to inappropriate material at a friend’s house, when he was still a kid, had sparked Shmuel’s addiction. Work stress drew him online, as did feeling criticized or rejected by me. He had never learned how to communicate his frustrations and didn’t want me to think he was weak, so instead he’d retreat into himself, into the Internet. We sat in therapy for several hours a week for the first few years after Shmuel’s relapse. I agreed to criticize less, and accept his silences without

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days impossible, like walking on a tightrope without a net below to catch my missteps. And I couldn’t face the social stigma of being a divorcée. Secrets or not, I needed him. Slowly, the therapist helped me build a normal rapport with Shmuel. The suggestions for Shmuel were basic and practical: Don’t leave the house without saying goodbye, greet your wife in person upon returning home, chocolate, flowers, and gentle words of praise. Shmuel mastered all of these strategies over a three-year period. Believe it or not, these simple gestures helped bring us closer, and made me feel appreciated. My acceptance of his words and actions built up his selfesteem and sense of self-control. Eventually, I stopped compulsively apologizing for the kids’ mess in the living room or if dinner was delayed. I began to see myself in the mirror again, brushing my sheitel, and putting on lipstick on my way out the door. I started asking Shmuel to help with the kids or take out the garbage. In the past, when he’d offer help, I’d fight, because serving him at all costs was the key to our healing—or so I thought. The therapist suggested we implement weekly date-nights. The alone time encouraged us to confide in each other and forced us to communicate about more than the grocery bill, the carpool and the stack of mail littering the entry. “Thank you for everything. It means so much to me. Have a great day,” Shmuel told me, one morning before dashing out the door. I was shocked, but tried to act natural. “You, too! Have a great day,” I said, as he walked out the door. It took 15 years to repair our marriage from Shmuel’s Internet addiction

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confession. And yet, the heaviness in my chest— the ache—returns even now, when I’m washing the dishes or vacuuming or filing. Our marriage has been painful. Bonding has taken so much time and effort. Part of me wishes I’d never found out Shmuel’s toxic secret. I tried to not bring up the past, but sometimes I couldn’t resist seeking reassurance. “Do you ever wish you hadn’t told me?” I asked Shmuel one night, on our way home from Yom Tov shopping. “I mean, you know, about your addiction.” Sukkos had arrived again. It was Hoshana Rabbah. The heavenly gates were closing. Shmuel shook his head back and forth. “No secrets,” Shmuel said. “I had to tell you.” “Even though I still don’t trust you completely?” I asked. “It was the right thing to do, Shani,” Shmuel told me, glancing sideways to catch my reaction. I nodded my head, still wondering if I can ever let it go. Shmuel double-parked the car to unload the groceries and paper goods. I carried two heavy-duty boxes of tissues and napkins, and I lugged a huge bundle of paper towels and an unwieldy container of dish soap. The baby woke up from the noise, so I stayed inside the house to help resettle her. Once all the stuff was in the kitchen, Shmuel ran to the car to find a spot. But it was too late. The car had been towed. Devastated, Shmuel called the city pound, which wouldn’t open until the following day. On Erev Yom Tov, Shmuel traversed Brooklyn to retrieve our car, costing us hundreds of dollars. Shmuel returned home an hour before Shmini Atzeres. |

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BUT I KNEW I HAD TO MAKE IT WORK BETTER FOR ME, SOMEHOW. GETTING BURNED OUT WAS NOT AN OPTION. “Oy, such a hassle,” I said, with sympathy, when he entered the kitchen. “Shani, come, I have something to show you,” Shmuel said, as he went through the sliding glass door to the sukkah to have a drink. “Just a minute,” I said, annoyed to walk away from the stove. Shmuel unrolled a narrow slip of paper. REDEEMED was stamped across the width of the receipt from the tow pound. “We’re redeemed,” Shmuel said. “I feel like we have had a second chance.” I smiled, clapping as he danced around our sukkah, celebrating. I felt so lucky. I knew we were going to make it. 

Circle of Joy, Circle of Love From generation to generation By Yael Zoldan

y first child was born on Sukkos. He was the first grandchild, a son! After giving birth, I came back to my mother’s house like a dazed but pampered queen, holding the prince in my arms and ready to be petted and spoiled and praised. It was a workfree Sukkos for me; my only job was to hold my precious bundle tightly in my arms. It was Simchas Torah night and the men were going to dance around the Torah, celebrating our joy at being the recipients of Hashem’s greatest gift. We women lit the candles and whispered our silent prayers as they left to shul, then sat back on the soft cushions of the couch, admiring my newborn’s long fingers, his delicate ears, and the silky swirl of hair on his head. At last, the door opened with a cold blast of air, and the men came in. We sat down to a late night Yom Tov meal, eaten slowly in the exhausted happiness of a home with a new baby. We talked lightly of the food and the weather, and the men spoke of singing and dancing around the Torah in the barricaded street. In my arms, the baby slept the deep sleep of those to whom the world is new and strange, his tiny brow furrowing, hands clenched tightly, his fine lips pursed. He had not yet had his bris, so he was nameless. While we waited to find out who he would become, we called him “Little Z.” The dancing that night had been wild, the men recounted in exhilaration: masses of them clinging to the Torah, rejoicing with age-old melodies. We passed platters of food, we chewed and swallowed. And then suddenly: “What about Little Z?” my father asked. “What about him?” I responded. “He’s a Jewish man too! He should also dance tonight.” I smiled fondly—how silly!—and gazed

down at his tiny, warm weightlessness. But a moment later my husband reached for him. “What? No! He’s too little!” I protested, but he paid me no mind. “Come, Little Z,” he whispered reverently, lifting the sleeping child onto his shoulder. “Come to your Daddy, come dance.” The men in my family—my father, my brother, my husband and now my son— stood up from the table and moved to the open space of the living room. Sheepishly at first, they formed a small, tight circle and began to shuffle around, their hands on each others’ shoulders. “V’samachta b’chagecha,” they sang softly, almost humming, with the baby lying hangdog over my husband’s shoulders. Then they switched tunes to a faster tempo; the beat picked up, the pace quickened. “Moshe emes, v’Toraso emes,” they sang, and with every repetition of the word “emes,” they gave a little stomp. The hum became a song, the shuffle became a dance, and my baby, curled up like the fetus he had so recently been, opened his dark eyes: eyes that were curious and 11 TISHREI 5774

ancient and wise. “Look at Little Z!” I breathed.“He’s awake, he knows.” The floor creaked under the men’s heavy steps, the candles flickered wildly in the commotion, but my husband’s hand was steady on the baby’s head. Around and around the tight circle spun, husband, father, brother, son. And, I thought, this is the way Jewish parents have educated their children for thousands of years. This is the way Jewish boys grow to be Jewish men, wrapped tightly in the strong arms of their fathers, ensconced in an unbroken circle of love and joy. This is how we raise modern children to revere an ancient faith, clinging tightly to the Torah and to Hashem and to our people: dancing, singing, bound close with love. “Look at Little Z! He’s dancing!”  Yael Zoldan is a freelance writer whose work can be seen in print and online. Her upcoming books, We Can Do Mitzvos: All Through the Year (Feldheim Press) and Shimmy Shambone will NOT Take a Bath (Feldheim Press) will be available in Spring, 2014. |

SEP TEMBER 15, 2013

AMI•LIVING

111

days The Aravos Fields

How could I integrate my old life and new life? As told to Dena Estrin

sat opposite my brother at the same round wooden kitchen table where we had once happily dined and laughed together after school and various activities. But now we seemed pitched against each other and the stakes were high. No less than my mind, my soul and the entire direction of my life hung in the balance. His words threatened the delicate edifice of faith I had so recently constructed. “You mean that at the age of 18 years old you have figured out the truth of the world that great minds of many people older than you have failed to discover?” he accused. Suddenly my entire existence seemed profoundly presumptuous. This was the brother who had introduced me and my two other siblings to Yiddishkeit in the first place. He was the one who had sent us Torah tapes and had written to us about his experiences in the Old City of Jerusalem. He was the one who encouraged us to come and meet him in Israel to explore the new world he had discovered. He convinced us to temporarily disembark from the various journeys we were each on and join him in this newly discovered land that had previously only existed in the periphery of our worldviews. One thing that had originally piqued my interest in joining him was my

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brother’s new tone of voice. Typically aggressive, he was known as a very bright and creative person; an opportunist by nature. He was someone to be heard. His commentaries on life were always sharp, his ideas were cutting-edge, and his selfconfidence was unshakeable. And he was heard—especially since his charm, wit and enthusiasm drew people in. He was the brother that I had always admired; he was the leader of our family. Yet because he also kept himself aloof, my admiration for him was often tinged with the hurt that comes from not really being seen or considered. The web of the lifestyle he had spun for himself seemed to be woven from ego and it smacked of superficiality. He was a little too enchanted with himself, often self-promoting. Such was the product of a talented individual growing up in a society that glorified the self. But something about him seemed different as he eagerly made his pitch for us to join him in Jerusalem. His voice betrayed a lesser preoccupation with self. There was a softness, an openness to me, his little sister; a seeing of “other.” I couldn’t yet interpret what I was sensing in him, but I knew I liked it. A new and real respect grew in me as I experienced a new relationship with a person who was building his character and increasing his |

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contact with something very authentic. Alas, those wondrous transformations were to be short-lived. Now we had returned from the reassuring environment of Jerusalem. The uplifting and clarifying experiences that characterize early advances in Torah development gave way to wading back to my “old life”—values and relationships that far from reinforced my freshly revamped lifestyle and outlook. At the same time, ironically, it was the same brother who had started me on my path to truth who was now challenging me and confronting me. It was he with whom I was now battling to remain intellectually honest, and from whom, at the same time, I was seeking acknowldgement in how I had thus far developed. The honeymoon was over. I had been whisked out of my personal Mitzrayim, led through the desert, and now I had to make it on my own: to internalize it, crystalize it, and make it work, even in an antagonistic environment. And there was another factor I discovered what needed to go into the mix. During the time I had spent immersed in learning, I had neglected many pursuits that had lent a vitality and balance to my life, such as spending time in nature and engaging in art and exercise. I had to reweave them into my

IT WAS THE SAME BROTHER WHO HAD STARTED ME ON MY PATH TO TRUTH WHO WAS NOW CHALLENGING ME AND CONFRONTING ME. life in order to be truly happy and whole. A clear path emerged from the most unexpected place: A rabbi and his family had just moved to the east coast where he would soon begin teaching at Ohr Somayach, Monsey. In the meantime, our initial conversations showed great promise in dealing with my particular questions and issues. It was Sukkos time, a full couple of months since my return from Israel where my whole life had been turned upside-down, or rather right-side-up (but was nonetheless disconcerting). I was in great need of support in bringing all the facets together in a seamless,

healthy life that I could be comfortable with. “Come up to the aravos fields,” he suggested. He, his brother and a friend had started an aravos business, and it was now the harvest time. And that is how I found myself and a few other women surrounded by tall swaying aravos trees at the far end of a field. Wherever I looked, bold splashes of fiery colors blanketed the mountains. I breathed in the crisp air. I felt invigorated by the surroundings, which were, at once, reminiscent of my New England upbringing, and at the same time, as fresh as the new life I was

acclimating to. Working for a mitzvah while enveloped in exhilarating nature reminded me that a Torah life is in fact a multihued and diversified experience, one which truly resonates with who I am and who I could be. It was in the aravos fields that a sense of the healthy integration of my old and new worlds began to seem possible. This new awareness began a splendorous and colorful phase from which I began to blossom. It was then, in that beautiful moment of clarity, that I knew I could face my brother, and any other challenge to my convictions—from a happier and healthier place. 

1 3 S I VA N 5 7 7 3

M AY 2 2 , 2 0 1 3

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113

days

The Esrog Mailbox

The Kleinberg Fa mily

A letter finds its way home By Menucha Chana Levin

fter Yaakov Kleinberg and his wife Shulamis made aliyah for the second time in twenty years, they decided to open a children’s clothing store in Jerusalem. As both were experienced in business, and their own children were now grown, it seemed like a worthy enterprise for the hardworking couple. They planned to take turns running the store, so Yaakov could learn in kollel part-time. When the Kleinbergs found the perfect location for a small store in a frum neighborhood, they were ready to go into business, except for one thing: Even drawing upon all of their savings, they still lacked sufficient start-up funds. So they contacted some friends back in New York who agreed to lend them $10,000, to be repaid in one year. Yaakov and Shulamis gave it their all, and their little store grew popular with local families. However, as is the case with most new businesses, it did not yet generate enough of a cash flow to meet all their expenses. The first year flew by and, with the deadline looming, the Kleinbergs grew increasingly apprehensive about repaying the loan. The monetary situation was further complicated when their younger daughter became engaged. What should have been a joyful time for the family was overshadowed by financial woes. The happy holiday of Sukkos—zman simchaseinu—was also rapidly approaching but, unfortunately for the Kleinbergs, it was a time of great stress. To reduce their expenses, when the lease ran out on the comfortable apartment they’d been renting, Yaakov and Shulamis decided not to renew it.

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Instead, they moved into a much cheaper but dreary basement apartment. Without a porch, Yaakov had to build their sukkah in the small courtyard behind the building, which meant a lot of schlepping up and down the stairs. The tiny apartment also lacked certain other amenities—the lack of windows left them bereft of sunlight and fresh air. To add insult to injury, Shulamis realized that, as theirs was the basement apartment, they didn’t even have their own mailbox! The mail they received was left piled haphazardly on top of the other mailboxes, often falling to the lobby floor, from which she had to rescue the crumpled and soiled envelopes. Yaakov, however, didn’t seem quite as concerned over this issue. “The only mail we get these days are bills and more bills,” he commented wryly. “But we still need our own mailbox,” protested Shulamis. “You never know, one day we just might get something important.” Then her eye fell upon the small cardboard box that had contained their esrog. Yaakov had just transferred the esrog to his wooden esrog holder, purchased years before in a more affluent time. Shulamis decisively announced, “The cardboard esrog box will be our new mailbox!” Clearly printing their last name on the outside of the box with a marker, she grabbed a roll of tape and rushed upstairs to the lobby. After securing their improvised mailbox to the wall beside the metal mailboxes, she hoped the mailman would understand its true purpose. That very afternoon when Shulamis came home from the store, she couldn’t resist opening their new mailbox to see if |

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anything was inside. To her delight, she discovered a letter inside – from the bank. She couldn’t wait to show her find to Yaakov. “My idea worked! Look what was inside our esrog mailbox!” she exclaimed gleefully. Ripping open the envelope, they found a letter plus a bank check for $10,300! More than twenty years earlier, when the Kleinbergs had first come to live in Israel, they had purchased a new apartment in Beit Shemesh. But when things didn’t work out for them, and they decided to return to New York, they’d put the apartment up for sale. Although they’d received most of the money up front, their lawyer had explained that the balance—after the closure and other fees were paid—would be returned to them later. The Kleinbergs went back to New York, resettled and found new jobs. Though they wrote to the lawyer a few times inquiring about their balance, as time went by, they eventually forgot about it. Until now. Over twenty years had elapsed. They had moved several times since returning to Israel. Yet somehow the bank managed to find them at exactly the right time. The Kleinbergs could now repay the loan in full on schedule. There was even an extra three hundred dollars toward their daughter’s wedding expenses! Profoundly grateful to Hashem for this fortuitous turn of events, the couple realized that their little esrog mailbox had indeed fulfilled its purpose.  To submit your story for this column or to have your story featured here, please contact us at submissions@amimagazine.org.

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