Today the Queen of England passed away. 

I grew up going to London every summer of my childhood to visit my grandparents. 

My mother and her parents moved to England when they were able to escape Germany on the eve of World War II. They always lived with a deep sense of gratitude to the British for taking them in and saving them from Hitler. 

When I spoke to my Mother today she was very saddened by the passing of the Queen. She spoke of the sense of duty the Queen personified. She recalled how during the war when London was being bombed, the Royal family did not run away or abrogate their responsibility, but instead remained with their subjects, casting their lot together with their people, soldiering on together. 

Famously known for saying her life would be devoted to service, the Queen lived a life of dignity and duty from her youth until her dying day.

This weeks Torah portion is call Ki Tetze, which means when you go out to war. 

This Portion is unique in that it has the most commandments of any portion in the Torah, 70 in all. 

One of our sons teaches high school in Chicago. Last year I met the mother of one his students. She told me that her son loves having my son as his Rebbe, Judaics teacher and said that he is the goat. 

Now apparently I am not good at masking my emotions. I have been told more than once not to play poker. So it seems my face must have betrayed my horror that this mom thought it was fine for her son to call his teacher a goat. I must have looked somewhat aghast as she added insult to injury by repeating his comments. 

She then asked me if I knew what goat meant. 

I replied that perhaps I might be missing some important information. 

It turns out that GOAT is a well know (who knew) acronym for

Greatest Of All Time. 

That was a learning moment for me. 

First of all I realized that I was very quick to judge in this instance. And secondly, I realized that I should’ve communicated my confusion as opposed to jumping to my own conclusions, not giving the Mom, and her son the benefit of the doubt. 

As we traverse the month of Elul there are many lessons we can learn to make this time more meaningful. 

The word Elul is in itself an acronym. The Hebrew letters Alef, Lamed, Vav,Lamed

are an acronym for Ani LDodi VDodi Li which means I am for my beloved as my beloved is for me. 

During these weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana it  is a commentary on the relationship we are trying to build with Gd. We are trying to create connection and meaning. 

How are we to accomplish that connection?

Another acronym which can be derived from the Hebrew letters which comprise the word Elul is Ish Lrayahu VMatanot Levyonim. 

This is a snippet of a verse in the scroll of Esther which we read on Purim.  The verse tells us to celebrate the day with connection to one another and by giving charity to the poor. 

So it seems that Elul is the month of connection and one of the ways to connect to Gd is by taking care of Gd’s children. This is achieved by getting along with one another, being charitable to each other either literally with financial support or with emotional support by speaking kindly and giving the benefit of the doubt. 

The Torah portions in the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana all have messages that are timely. 

Our portion is called Shoftim, which means Judges. Moses teaches the Jewish people that when they arrive in the Land of Israel, it will be incumbent upon them to seat judges and create a police force. 

There is a story told about Yossele the Miser who lived in Krakow, Poland. 

Yossele,  or perhaps he might be colloquially known as Joe, was a mean of great means. He lived in a palatial abode, surrounded by luxury. The local charity collectors appealed to him regularly for donations, but Joe was consistent in his response. 

It was always a flat out No. 

The most heart wrenching stories wouldn’t move Joe. 

He held on to his fortune with hands clasped shut. 

Time passed on, and even Joe could not outwit old age. He slowly succumbed to illness. 

The leaders of the community visited Joe on his deathbed and gave him an ultimatum.

Either he would share his wealth with the indigent paupers who desperately needed support, or he would receive a simple burial, no pomp and circumstance as befitting his station, rather just a grave in the least prominent part of the cemetery. 

Even in his weakened state, Joe, or Yossele remained intractable. 

No charity. 

The day dawned and Yossele returned his soul to his Maker. 

He received the most perfunctory of funerals, as the community leaders laid him to rest in disgust. 

Then something unusual started happening. 

The leaders of the community were deluged with requests for charity. People who had never asked for money before, came with desperate requests for assistance. 

The community leaders were befuddled.

What had created such an economic crisis?

The leadership started interviewing the supplicants to find out what had happened. 

It seems that all these individuals would receive a weekly envelope filled with money which contained enough  to supply their needs. 

This week, for the first time in decades, they had not received an envelope and they were now desperately in need. 

It did not take long for the communal leadership to realize they had made an egregious error. 

Yossele the Miser had secretly been sustaining almost the entire town for almost half a century. 

He had done it quietly, wanting to preserve the dignity of the recipients, and was willing to accept censure and ridicule to keep their secret safe. 

Yossele the Miser kept the 479th of the 613 commandments. 

To give charity. 

When I was a little girl I had a fear. 

When my parents went out in the evening, I was afraid they wouldn’t come home. 

I can’t explain the root of this paranoia, perhaps it’s a symptom of second generation post Holocaust trauma. 

But it was very real. 

I would stand by the window and cry bitterly. 

Only when I would hear the footsteps of my parents in the hallway outside of my apartment could I finally calm down. 

The quiet footfalls consoled me. 

Then I could come to myself. 

This week’s Torah portion is called Eikev which means heel. 

You may recall that root of Eikev in the name of our forefather Yaakov or Jacob, who was named so because he held onto the heel of his brother Esau as he was born. 

We also find the root word Eikev when we refer to the pre-messianic time, called in the ancient Aramaic language, 

Ikvesa DMeshica, the footsteps of the Messiah.  

The Torah portion begins with an exhortation to listen, to the do the commandments to preserve the connection with Gd. 

But why use the esoteric word Eikev in our portion? 

It is actually superfluous. 

Why not just say “listen”?

Rashi, the main Torah commentary, focuses on the word Eikev, heel, and understands it allegorically. 

What should we be listening for, paying attention to in order to preserve our connection with Gd?

We should focus on all manners of connection, even the small, seemingly insignificant mitzvot that we may feel are insignificant so we figuratively step on them with our heel. 

We may perceive a mitzva as lacking import  and we walk all over it, so to speak. By doing so, we lose a possibility of a deeper connection, one which will ensure the covenant is kept between Gd and the Jewish people, and ultimately bring us to the end of days, the Messianic times. 

In life, we tend to focus on the big stuff and may overlook the small things. 

But this is a mistake. 

Have you ever experienced an HP moment?

HP stands for Hashgacha Pratit, in English,  Divine Providence. 

As Yitta Halberstam, author of the Small Miracles series says

“coincidence is a tap on the shoulder from Gd”. 

Nothing in life is a coincidence. 

Everything happens for a reason. 

My husband is a wandering Rabbi. 

One of his favorite duties is teaching in some of Atlanta’s finest high schools, during their lunch break. 

Rabbi Silverman goes to a number of schools and brings pizza and conversation on Jewish topics to high school students. 

A number of years ago, the president of the club in one of the schools brought in an article. The young lady, who was the president of the club, proudly showed my husband an article featuring her great grandfather, Rabbi Jerome Tolochko. 

The name rang a bell with my husband and after conferring with his father, ob’m, it turned out that my husband’s great grandmother was a Tolochko. 

We had found long lost relatives!

At the end of the senior year, we were invited to her graduation party. 

We arrived a bit early, and were given the grand tour of the home and all the Jewish artifacts within. 

My husband spotted some old books encased in a bright red box. The books had Hebrew writing on the outside. Our new relative explained she had no idea what the books were all about. She had selected them from her grandfather’s collection of books because she liked the bright red box, it caught her eye. 

After inquiring, my husband was given permission to peruse the books and was astonished to find novellae, original writing, on all six Tractates of the Talmud, the Oral Torah. 

With the gracious permission of our newly found cousins, my husband embarked on an investigative mission to discover who wrote these works and what they actually contained. 

The manuscript was written in a copperplate Hebrew script and difficult to decipher. Eventually it was sent to Israel, and a scholar worked on the manuscript for over a year. 

It turns out that this work was composed in Grodno, which is in Belarus, in the 1840s. 

It has approbations from world class Torah scholars of the time, whose rare signatures are included within. 

This rare and illuminating manuscript, written by my husband’s great, great uncle, was printed this week, the Torah within available now for study for scholars and laymen alike. 

The author writes in the document that he hopes his work will be printed and brought to light so that future generations will be able to study his elucidations on the Torah. 

I don’t like change. 

I am a creature of habit. 

I take comfort in the expected. 

My husband thrives on change. 

He embraces it and relishes the opportunity to allow new ideas, people and challenges to propel forward. 

Sometimes our views may therefore clash. 

I often recognize the wisdom in his attitude. But it’s hard for me. 

I am working on it. 

It’s a paradigm shift. 

JWC Atlanta just concluded our 15th Israel trip with Momentum. 

It was 8 days of ancient Jewish wisdom, connecting to the land of Israel and experiencing it all with an absolutely incredible group of women. 

My circle of love has expanded exponentially!

One of the many ideas shared with us by our trip leader, the inimitable Adrienne Gold Davis, was in reference to the paradigm shift. 

She encouraged us to look at the situations in our lives as opportunities. 

Adrienne mentioned the true story of a shoe chain that sent a sales rep to uncharted territory to open new shoe stores. 

The salesman sent a telegram back to the head office. 

“Send no shipments of shoes. 

They do not wear shoes here”. 

The head office sent another salesman to scope out the potential and he sent the following telegram 

“Send as many shoes as you can find. They don’t wear shoes here”. 

What a perfect example of a paradigm shift.