This week’s Torah portion is called VaYikra which is a funny way to start because VaYikra means he called.
Ok maybe not so funny, but I’m very tired.
I’m sure I’m not alone.
Scores of Jewish women around the globe are experiencing various levels of exhaustion as they plow forward in their preparation for the upcoming Passover holiday.
For some this may entail some stressful wardrobe choices as they prepare to jet off to an exotic location, while for others the stress might be building as they have to curate menus and make food for the masses.
Either way it makes us all a bit looopy.
I was talking on the phone with to a friend today and she was looking for something on her desk while we spoke. She said - let me just move away my nonexistent menu and I’m sure I’ll find the paper I need.
Like I said, stress does funny things to people.
May as well inject a bit of humor.
But these are serious times and cleaning and prepping food for the multitudes is no joke.
So you might think this would not be the optimal time for a woman to decide to become Jewish.
That really sounds like someone gone a bit mad, black humor even.
At least if a woman would decide to take such a step it might be wise to wait till after Passover, right?
I am so enamored with a true story of a young woman who happens to be a social media influencer.
Her moniker - nonJewishnanny.
She is a non Jewish young woman, a budding opera singer named Adriana, who took a job as a nanny to a Jewish family to make some extra money. She had never been exposed to a Torah lifestyle at all so she started to share her perspectives on this foreign culture on instagram and her posts went viral. While many of the posts were quite funny and showed how interesting things can look from a different perspective, the underlying premise was one of great respect. Adriana was extremely inspired by the closeness she witnessed in the family dynamic and she was very taken by the children. She found the kids to be warm, loving and accepting. They were so anxious to teach her everything they could about Jewish life and customs, and they did so in a loving way. She felt closer and closer to these children and their family.
The outcome?
Right before Passover:
Her new handle @nowjewishnanny
The power and love of young children is incalculable.
They can literally change the world.

The Bibas family set the tombstone for their beloved family. Shiri and her two red headed sons, were interred in one coffin. Today, the orange hued slab which covers their grave was set.
In the Haftorah for our portion Pekudei, ( the Haftorah is a portion from the prophets we read in conjunction with the weekly Torah portion) it is written Hashem has said he would dwell in the thick cloud.
In this week’s Torah portion, the Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary was completed, and a Cloud rested upon it. The cloud signifies the resting of Gds presence.
So too in the Haftorah there is a similar account of the conclusion of the building of the Temple and King Solomon said Gd would dwell in the thick cloud that would descend on the Tenple.
Rabbi Yaakov Bender explains the meaning of the thick cloud.
Such a cloud descended also when the Torah was given, a time of great joy and clarity. But there are many times when it is not easy to feel Gd’s presence.
The cloud is a symbol of those times when things feel very dark and “cloudy”. We do not feel Gd’s presence, but even though we may not feel it, we know Gd is with us.
Rabbi Bender shares a family story his mother often told of her Aunt Leah. When Leah was 12 years old, she was walking at the outskirts of her town in Belarus, when she heard crying. She saw a young peasant boy weeping. When she asked him why he was so distraught, the boy said he dreamed of learning and attending university, but his father was dead set against it, feeling he was reaching above his station. The father would not consider such a request. Little Leah wanted to help and she ran home to her father who was a very wealthy man. She shared the story with her father who was touched by his daughter’s compassion. He handed her a significant sum and told her to bring it to the young man so he could follow his dream to study.
When Leah handed the money to the peasant boy he was shocked by his good fortune. He thanked Leah from the bottom of his heart and left to follow his dream.
Years passed.
Leah married and had a family.
One Friday night, the people in her town heard terrible noises as a brigade of Russian soldiers descended.on their Shtetl.
The goal was to grab young boys who would be inducted against their will into the Czar’s army. This was unfortunately not an uncommon practice in those days as young boys would be spirited away, often for many years, or never to be heard from again. They were lost to their families. The soldiers announced they would be taking the boys after Shabbat.
That night the members of the community turned to a rabbi for guidance. He told them to appoint Leah as their ambassador. She was to travel to the governor of the region and attempt to free the boys from their decree.
Leah left at once in her fashionable clothing and elaborate buggy.
After a few hours travel Leah arrived at the Governor’s mansion. As she was well dressed and well appointed, she was granted immediate access.
When she entered the governor’s office, she was surprised as he stood for her with great respect.

I have a large family in Israel.
Many of my cousins are very talented artists.
As one of the younger of the bunch, and unfortunately not one gifted with the same talents, I often enjoyed watching my cousins as they exercised their gifts.
One of my cousins became an expert weaver.
She bought a loom and made the most beautiful fabrics.
I was enthralled as I watched her hands gracefully pass the shuttle from hand to hand all the while coordinating with foot pedals. This elaborate dance resulted in a beautiful fabric which seemed to appear as if out of nowhere.
This week’s Torah portion is called VaYakhel, and it’s a bit of an enigma. It seems to be a repeat of the portion Teruma which was read three weeks ago.
Our Sages teach that the first rendition is Gd commanding Moses to build the Mishkan, the portable Sanctuary.
This portion is the instruction coming to life and the Mishkan actually being built.
In this portion there are a number of references made regarding the women.
Rabbi Tzvi Teichman shares some deep insights regarding the unique characteristics of women that are brought to light in the portion.
There is one particular verse which specifically describes the women and their contributions to the Mishkan.
“All the women whose hearts inspired them with wisdom, spun the goats”.
This is a strange turn of a phrase indeed.
It seems that the women were spinning the goats.
Rashi, the super commentary, teaches that this alludes to a special talent these women had that they could actually spin the goats wool while it was still attached to the goat.
That seems like quite the balancing act.
What message is meant to be derived from this information?
Each element of the creation of the Mishkan has many esoteric meanings.
The goat wool was woven into curtains, or coverings, that were draped over the whole edifice of the Tabernacle.
The Talmud teaches that the goat is the most stubborn and brazen of small animals.
The women had to have a high level of patience and dedication to coral those mischievous and jumpy goats in order to weave the goats wool into magnificent curtains or spreads for the Tabernacle.
(Sounds like Parenting 101)
The wiry wool and the never ending movements of the goats represent the harshness of the world and the ongoing challenges which keep us on our toes. The jumping goats represent the goals and aspirations that keep shifting and moving.
The women were focused on the end goal of creating the drapery for the Tabernacle, no matter how difficult the challenge.
Who taught them this skill?

Tonight is Purim.
The story seems more relevant than ever.
The Jews are in peril as the powers that be conspire to annihilate the Jewish nation forever.
The story is riveting and frightening.
The tragic ending seems inevitable.
Then, when all seems lost, the entire tale is turned on its head.
Those who wished to destroy the Jews are themselves destroyed, the little orphan girl becomes the Queen of Persia.
The Purim story is complicated and messy.
But if you listen to the Megillah being read, the whole story is concluded in a nice,neat bow in about 45 minutes.
Sure, it’s a cliffhanger, but a few grogger turns and before you know it, Mordechai who had been mourning over the fate of his people dressed in sackcloth and ashes, is, instead appearing in a position of authority, arrayed in royal garb.
Forty Five minutes of nail biting suspense we can stand.
But the Purim saga actually took place over the course of nine years.
That’s a long time to wait for a happy ending.
I had the opportunity to listen to Hadas Loewensturn share some insights on Purim.
Hadas is the widow of Elisha.
Elisha Loewenstern was killed in Gaza on December 13 by an anti-tank missile fired by Hamas. He was on a mission to rescue wounded soldiers. Though exempt from reserve army service, Elisha felt that it was his duty to defend the State of Israel and volunteered for service.
Elisha was a high-level Torah scholar, successful software engineer and a devoted father and husband. He is described by friends and family as a pure soul, who never raised his voice and always strove to become a better person. As an ordained rabbi committed to helping others, Elisha was a pillar of the community in Harish, teaching extensively.
He made Aliyah with his family from Highland Park, New Jersey at the age of eight.
He was 38 when he was killed.
Hadas, his widow, is an inspiration. She has a positive view on life despite the challenging reality she lives.
She is a modern day Queen Esther.

As some of you may know, I actually have two part time jobs.
I am very privileged to be a member of the JWCAtlanta team, and I am also part of the administrative cohort at a girls high school called Temima.
We just successfully concluded our annual fundraising effort.
In the euphoric moments after we reached our goal I had two interactions.
The first was with someone who thanked me for my efforts but immediately launched into an analysis of the average gift that was given. To his point, many of the gifts were small, and even though their were many small gifts and we did reach our goal, we needed to research this phenomenon and work on raising the size of each gift.
That conversation, while well meaning, left me depleted and strangely depressed.
Fortunately, there was another interaction amongst the team members who have been in the trenches together. This team of women and students, banded together to create energy and support.
When done, we all complimented one another, said job well done, and heaved a collective sigh of relief as we celebrated the amazing students who all pulled together and made our campaign a success.
That conversation left me elated, proud and grateful, with an emphasis on hope for the future - these young women will change the world.
This evening I also had an opportunity to hear from four women who shared their thoughts about Jewish philanthropy and legacy.
As matriarchs, they are keepers of the family wisdom, and by sharing their stories, they have the opportunity to nurture future generations.
Each of the four panelists, Raya Zalik, Etta Raye Hirsch, Cathy Selig and Candy Berman, shared their unique story of philanthropic endeavors. They focused on the lessons they learned from the past and the hopes of the impact they will leave on the future.
Tzedaka, charity or philanthropy, are clearly an important driver in their lives, and the desire to pass that passion their children, is the ultimate focus.

What does a hero look like to you?
For many, heroes are depicted as stereotypical characters, complete with capes and impressive physiques.
What does a Jewish hero look like to you?
Does it look like a man with an orange Kippa?
Does it look like a woman cradling two children in her arms?
Does it look like a young woman with a pony tail?
Does it look like an emaciated man with fire in his eyes?
Does it look like a diminutive woman in black robes?
There are so many Jewish heroes to emulate.
I have referenced just a few-there are so, so many more we need to learn about, to learn from.
Yarden Bibas shared that his captors promised him better treatment if he would convert to Islam.
His response?
“I was born a Jew, I will die a Jew”
The image of Shiri Bibas HYD, may Gd avenge her blood, holding her children as they are being taken in to captivity is seared in our consciousness forever. We can only imagine the strength she needed in those horrific hours.
But her heroism began well before.
Shiri is a woman that most of us would never have had the opportunity to encounter. But through the stories and the eulogies we learn about a strong, loving, protective wife and mother, professional who embraced her students and nurtured an exceptional family dynamic.
That is heroism.
Daniella Gilboa is a recently released hostage. She taught herself to sing Shalom Aleichem in Arabic so she could defy her captors and continue to sing the ritual prayers of Friday night.
Eli Sharabi, another recently freed hostage, shared that from the first day of his captivity he said the Shma prayer daily.
He said “the power of faith is incredible”.
This from a person who returned to a decimated family.
A lone survivor.
That is heroism.
And our own Stacey Hydrick, Dekalb County Superior Court Judge, who articulated her horror over the October 7 massacre and faced a public backlash.
Standing up for the truth is true heroism.

In 1933 the Nazis opened up
the concentration camp called Dachau in Germany.
The Jews who were arrested and interrogated there were killed. Their bodies were sent in sealed coffins to the nearby Munich Jewish community accompanied by strict instructions that the coffins were to remain sealed.
My Grandfather, Tzvi Landau ztzl was on the Chevra Kaddisha, the burial society, in Munich. He ignored the instructions and opened the coffins in order to ritually purify the bodies before burial, doing a process called Tahara.
When he opened the coffins, he was horrified by what he saw.
The people had been tortured and their bodies mutilated.
This moved by grandfather to speak to a Rabbi who was his mentor. The Rabbi told him to go to Palestine (as Israel was known then) as terrible things were on the horizon.
My Grandfather listened to this unlikely suggestion.
He saved his wife and children by doing so.
I thought a lot about my Grandfather today when we saw the hideous scene of the return of the coffins.
Suddenly 1933 did not seem so far away.
We are all reeling from the tragic news.
And the story is still not resolved, the beasts have put an unidentified body in one of those coffins.
Just like my Grandfather, we are horrified by what was seen when the coffin was unsealed.
The weather in Israel matched the mood.
Raining
Gloomy
Dark skies
But the Jewish people is indestructible.

There is a Talmudic story of an elderly man who was planting a carob tree. A young person passed by and scoffed.
“Old man, it takes 70 years for this tree to blossom, you will never see its fruit.”
To which the old man replied, “just as others planted for me, so too will I plant for others.”Today was TuBShvat.
The birthday of the trees.
Tu stands for the numerical value of 15, so literally the birthday of the trees is the 15th day of the month of Shvat.
Much is made of the fact that at this time of year there doesn’t seem to be much to celebrate.
The weather is cold and gloomy, and the trees themselves bare and looking dead.
But the reality is different.
What meets the eye is not the whole picture.
Because miraculously, in that very tree that seems devoid of life, something is stirring.
The sap is starting to rise within the tree.
Rebirth is taking place.
This message of hope is so vital to us now.
In the time of greatness darkness when hope seems out of our grasp, the trees provide us with the ultimate inspiration.
It may look dark, there is not even a glimmer of change, but deep beneath the surface, far from the seeing eye, there is movement.
That movement will bring growth and change.
Ella Blumenthal survived 3 concentration camps. At one point she was actually in a gas chamber waiting to be gassed. The Nazis had an order to murder 500 women and there were 700 in her group. As the orders were for 500 her group was led out and saved. In Auschwitz, Ella was determined to survive. Her only remaining relative, a niece named Roma, begged Ella to allow them both to end the suffering by touching the electrified fence. Ella convinced her to hang on just one more day. Each day she delayed the darkness just for one more day.
When asked about her gestalt in the face of such despair, Ella said she never gave up hope.
In 2022 she was quoted as saying “there is always sunshine tomorrow”.

Rena Quint is a Holocaust survivor.
Rena was a young girl during the War and has limited memories of what she experienced.
She barely remembers her own mother.
She does remember that the family was rounded up at the synagogue and there was a moment where she had a window to escape. She thinks her mother pushed her out the door. She can’t imagine what strength that required.
Many years later, Rena learned that all those who had been captured that day, were taken to Treblinka, where they perished.
In her book, A Daughter of Many Mothers, Rena chronicles her incredible journey of survival. She credits that survival to many women, mothers as she calls them, who protected her along her way.
Being a mother is a difficult job.
It is not defined or limited to being a biological mother, certainly as seen by Rena Quints experience.
Part of being a mother is having faith, often in the most trying of circumstances.
A mother has faith that the child will…survive…thrive…achieve excellence…transcend…she believes in her child, she sees the possibilities.
In Hebrew the word for mother is Em, or Ima.
The letters EM are the first two letters of the word EMUNA, which means faith.
Mothers give birth with faith, they give birth to faith, and their steadfast faith in Gd carries them through.
These Torah portions chronicle the journey of the Jewish nation through the exile of Egypt and to ultimate redemption.
The Talmud states that it was in the merit of the righteous women of that generation that the redemption took place.
This week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, gives us a glimpse of the stalwart nature of those women.
The portion narrates the Jews departure from Egypt and the remorse Pharaoh feels after their leaving.
He exhorts his army to take off in pursuit and can only convince them to do so by giving them great wealth which they carry in their chariots.
The Jews arrive at the shores of the Red Sea, where they find themselves at an impossible impasse.
The Egyptian army is closing in and before them and there is no hope, no road to be taken, only the Sea before them.
One of the Princes of the 12 Tribes begins to walk into the water and when the water reaches his nostrils and he is about to drown, the Sea miraculously splits and the Jews walk through to the other side.
The Midrash shares a conversation between two Jews as they traversed the Sea. One said to the other “it was muddy in Egypt and now it’s muddy here”
This proverbial conversation reflects an attitude.

We are reading the Torah portions in Shmot, Exodus.
The first letters of each of the names of the portions
SHmot , Vaera, Bo, Beshalach, Yitro, Mishpatim spells out the word Shovavim.
(It works when you use the Hebrew letters)
During the weeks of Shovavim we focus on the Jewish family and the roots that support it.
We focus on the Jewish women and their faith.
In Hebrew faith is Emunah.
The two first letters of Emunah are EM, which translates to mother.
The basis of faith in the family stems from the mother.
The basis of faith in the Jewish people stems from the women.
The Talmud famously teaches us that it was in the merit of Jewish women that we were redeemed from Egypt.
There is a Midrash that says that the women took it upon themselves to support the men during the time of exile. They did this from a place of trust and faith in Hashem, Gd. Without their support, continues the Midrash, it is questionable if the men would have survived.
The Talmud goes on to say that it is in the merit of righteous women that we will ultimately be redeemed.
We are in a long dark exile that seems hopeless.
Yet, we are tasked to bring it to an end.
The famous poem of Aishet Chayil, the paean of praise to the Jewish woman, penned by King Solomon in Proverbs 31 says “she arises when it is still night”.
This refers to the strength the Jewish woman who stands up against adversity even in the darkest of times.
It doesn’t seem that times can become darker.
If we are waiting for the inspiration that will bring us out of these times, we need only look around the room.
It is our responsibility to step up and bring redemption.
Time is of the essence.