Women’s gatherings have become a pillar of year in Israel, especially the New Moon gatherings. Fortunate for me, at every station on this journey extraordinary women have been placed in my life, nourishing me with woman-love. Starting from birth with my mother, whose all-encompassing embrace has been my lifeline, secure and durable, a mother’s love has a quality of eternalness. I continued receiving heavy doses of woman-love from sisters, friends, cousins, aunts, and teachers throughout life. I can try an explain what woman-love feels like, although language is so limiting, I urge you each to reach into your own experiences as I try to elaborate: it’s warm, encompassing, accepting, forgiving, the closest we can get to being in a womb again. Until you’ve been blessed by a room full of women, had healing energy directed to your bleeding wounds, been danced circles around, been embraced by, been loved by, kissed by, remembered by, caressed by, joined voices with, held hands with, and let your soul come out and join in with other women until you are absolved into a puddle of fertile light prepared to birth the next era... that is my pathetic attempt to explain woman-love.
Women are extraordinarily powerful beings and it’s a pity that common culture has written us off as sex objects or even worse, as equal to man. Liars, Shekar. Women are magicians, shamans, witches imbued with the secret powers of creation, we make miracles, harness the greatest potential and grow it into actuality, heal, listen, build, expand, nurture, create worlds. Every sage whose ever written about the messiah, acknowledges that it’s the feminine aspect that will cater in the next era, with song, laughter, kindness and love, this is the uncompromising nature of women. Most ancient and indigenous traditions have also tapped into this awareness. Returning to a state of Mother Nature, reversing the cataclysmic events in the Garden of Eden, breaking the terrible misnomer that in order to be great, women need to act more like men. We need to act like women. I want to send love and encouragement and gratitude out to all the women who have generously shared their love. Please continue supporting each other as we tread down this life path.
OK, that was an introduction to the new women’s movement; you should join too, sign up now and give a generous contribution….love.
I apologize a hundred times (will you mochel me?) for not writing in the past four months. Be assured, I was doing some important work in the interim. I returned to Mayanot Institute of Torah Studies after the extraordinarily high days, Rosh Hashonah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot. Experiencing these holidays with full consciousness enabled me to really tap into the energy pockets G-d has masterfully tucked into the folds of time, like sailor, I was able to adeptly turn my sails, catch onto the currents of wind (spirit), and be propelled up and up. It was glorious.
When I returned to Mayanot after an amazing summer, my Rabbi sensed that I had entered into a new space and responded by building a special curriculum to further my studies. I stepped into a hermetic existence (some may call it the Pardes ;). I learned Torah from early morning until late in the night, breaking only to pray, put food in, let food out, and take solitary walks around Jerusalem to inhale the sacred air and allow the words to saturate my soul. This time was magical, G-d began opening my mind, revealing the secret formula used for creating the world, the elixir of life and happiness, letting me sip from the fountain of youth, shining the wisdom of the infinite into my eyes…mmmmm it’s sweeter than honey from a rock.
It was so good, but this living can only last for so long. Wisdom is slightly useless when a person is not living. Life is the arena in which is all takes place, and since I was not being tested by life, I was not applying anything. Stagnation, like the foaming water that gathers next to a waterfall, fully capable but stuck, longing to be part of the current. And so I pulled my head out of the book and finally did it…booked a ticket back to the United States.
I am ready to be reborn, ready to leave the womb of t’shuva, Israel, Jerusalem. I am grossly overdue, but oh how my spirit has enjoyed sucking from the breast of the source, where spirituality, holiness, and kosher food are without end. It’s time to be weened, time to come back to the US…I am expecting on January 10th.
I feel incredibly grateful to the Creator for letting me selfishly take this time and space, for protecting my friends and family in the States so that I could comfortably be here without worry. Coincidentally (although nothing is coincidence), right after I booked my ticket, I was suddenly called back to the states. My sister sustained a serious knee injury and it getting surgery the day I arrive (please pray for Miriam bas Devorah for a complete and fast healing).
Additionally, there is a lot of joy happening in the states that I need to be part of. My cousins both had babies (welcome to the family Oliver Shalom and Maya Pearl…you are very lucky to join our tribe), friends are getting engaged and married….mazel tov, the biggest congratulations to Julie Gutman, Miri Cohen Birk, Devora Rosenheim, Yehudis Rumbak, Esther Nemy, Leah Casper, Romy Greenblatt, Emiliano Acevedo ….G-d should bless you to build homes filled with light and that you’re doors are always open to share it. So many incredible things are happening in this world, bodies have a limited capacity for experiencing such joy, so thankfully the soul is infinite and is expanding for the occasions. I think it has to do with the shift since Chanukah and the solstice, the world has realigned, the days are getting longer and there is more revealed light.
Friends and Family in the States, I am so extraordinarily excited to see each of you and I want to badly to make time and space to reconnect. Please contact me. I will have my old cell phone back, I think? As for my plans…I am trying something new. It’s called not making any plans. Crumbled in the recycling bin are my to-do lists, my future expectations, and my monthly planner. I am currently suspended in air and being catapulted into…….the unknown. I am testing out my trust in G-d that what is destined to happen is much grander and more extraordinary than what I can conceivably plan. If anyone wants to join, let’s go. I’ll sprinkle some special fairy dust on you and we can fly to NeverNever Land. We’ll try to get a peak at the world from G-d’s ariel, omnipotent viewpoint.
To summarize (I know this is getting long) my last few weeks in Israel have been amplified. Every moment is intense, every color more vivid, every step is clearly taking me to the destined place. Chanukah was brilliant, I reveled in all the candles, all the lights of the amazing people who have blessed me this year. People and their influences are like the oil used for the candles, it leaves a stain, a bit of residue on our hearts forever. I will miss everyone here so much, but leave in complete faith that I will see everyone again.
Chanukah at the Wall, the 7th night
10:30 Roast lamb
9:00 - until the am : dance and celebrate
Shaking the lulav and estrog in the sukkot. Yael glows whenever she does a mitzvah!