We experience a BIG storm today: lots of rain, wind, and hail. It started yesterday. It was so nice to go to bed and hear the hail on my ceiling windows. When I woke up this morning, I could not only hear it, but also see it - it was magical!
The Jerusalem neighborhood in which I live now is full of almond trees and lemon trees. Until this week, the almond trees were in full bloom, and reminded me a lot of the Japanese cherry blossom. It was just so beautiful! My new apartment has some nice, big windows, and it is nice to look out of them and see blossoming almond trees, and lemon trees full of ripe, yellow lemons. What a blessing!
I've been wanting to write here for so long, but got caught with other things. So if any of you out there read this, it would be nice if you make yourselves felt a bit, it will give me the energy to continue.
I'm so happy with the move. I like my new apartment, and I like the change in mindset that it brings with it. I've declined many new Hebrew students who were referred to me by other students recently, because I want to focus more on my professional career as a neurotherapist, and less on Hebrew teaching. Baruch HaShem, just after the move, I started treating two different women for depression and anxiety. Both of them come here, so I don't have to go out to them like I do with my Hebrew students. All of my students meet me in the city center, and it's sometimes tiring to go there every day, and run from place to place to meet them while I'm there. I'd like to gradually bring more of my business closer to home - to treat children and women in my place. I figured that if I move again, I will try to think of having an extra room that would serve as my clinic. We'll see. Big dreams, and I'm just starting, doing the first few steps. I've done this as an employee before, but now it's my first time as a self-employed therapist.
Moving here gave me courage and strengthened my faith. I've realized that I am not attached to my place of living - I will be fine anywhere, as long as I walk with G-d. And I know His plans for me are good.
Something sweet happened recently, and made me smile, even laugh. Three or so weeks ago I walked from my area the long walk to Rechavia, my old neighborhood, to have a Shabbat meal with my old friends in the neighborhood. I prayed at the Great Synagogue. It was so nice being there again, feeling like I'm home again, and it made me sad for a split of a second. I thought to myself: "Did I do the right thing leaving? I could have stayed in this area". Just as I was thinking this, the cantor (a young one, not the regular, fabulous Cantor Adler), who was reciting Psalm 98 (which is part of the Shabbat evening services), changed his tune for only one of the verses in the Psalm, verse 6: "With trumpets and sound of the horn shout ye before the King, the LORD". He sang this verse with the tune of the BEAUTIFUL Hebrew song titled "From the summit of Mt. Scopus, Shalom to you, oh Jerusalem". It made me shudder, and then laugh. This was such a clear, beautiful, symbolic message for me. Just earlier that week I was at the hospital of Hassasah Mt. Scopus, playing music to sick people there. My partners in playing suddenly played that song, which I hadn't heard in a long long time, and it was so moving to hear it, and play it, in that special place. I joined them with my recorder. Then, on Shabbat at the Great Synagogue, the verse that talks about serving G-d with wind instruments was suddenly (and for the first time ever in my experience) sang with that tune, I felt it was as if HaShem was telling me: "I need you there, close to the Hospital, to serve me there by brightening the days of sick people." I was moved. And whenever I feel like it's too much for me to travel to the city center without having a place of my own there, and run from place to place to meet my students, I remember this episode, and I smile. I know I'm in the right place and HaShem wants me here. The fact that He gave me two patients to treat here, and another student who lives in my neighborhood, says a lot too. I'm very happy and content. And grateful.
One more thing which made me feel encouraged to continue my volunteering at the hospital was this: I happened to see in a local library a book titled "Dream New Dreams" by a woman named Jai Pausch. I took it and read it in one breath. The book is the story of how she and her beloved husband, Prof. Randy Pausch, lived through the hardest times in their lives, when Randy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was a very honest book, and an important reading for everyone who once in a while works with sick people or their families. The only thing I didn't like about the book is that the word "G-d" appeared in it only once, and that too not in a form of prayer or acknowledgement. But later, when I saw an interview with Jai and her husband online, and they were asked about faith, they said it's private and they didn't want to talk about it. They did go to church, so I'm sure they had faith. Towards the end of the book, Jai told the following anecdote, which made me realize how much visiting the sick in hospitals is important: when she and her husband used to wait in line to see a doctor or for chemotherapy or whatever, in hospitals, some volunteers used to come and offer them coffee and snacks, and a smile. She said it was such a bright point of the day, that when her husband died, she decided she would volunteer doing the same thing. It was another reinforcement for my decision to dedicate more of my time for such activities. Living a walking distance from the hospital on Mt. Scopus makes is easier, and I think this is the main reason why G-d wanted me to move here.
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And now I want to say a few words about this week's Torah Portion (Exodus 35:1 - 38:20). This is just one of many Portions and many chapters in the Torah that are dedicated to the building of the Mishkan (Tabernacle). The Portion and chapters describe in the most minutest details the commandment to build a Mishkan, with the precise instructions as how to do everything, including everything - the structure, the utensils, the materials, everything, and then the actual building of it. It makes one wonder - why does the Torah, which is usually so succinct and (like a poem) uses very few words to describe much deeper and more complex layers of meaning - why does it "waste" so much "real estate area", so many words, chapters and Portions, on something so technical, when the Creation of the whole world is described in less than 30 verses? And - even more perplexing - why does it "waste" so many words on something that WE WOULD NEVER BUILD AGAIN?! After all, the Mishkan was a once in a life time occurrence. We are not planning to build it again. We do hope (and plan!) to build the Mikdash (the Holy Temple), but not the Mishkan! The answer is that below the surface meaning of these verses lies another, deeper, symbolic meaning. Our Sages along the centuries researched hard, using special words in the text to find parallels in other parts of the Torah, to uncover some of these secret, encoded messages. I encourage you to try to read about it yourselves. My own interpretation is that the Mishkan is an allegory to the human mind, the human heart. Elsewhere in the Torah G-d says: "And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell within them". G-d doesn't say that they should make a sanctuary so that He would dwell within IT, but rather, that He should dwell within THEM - within the people. I think this is a big clue that can help us understand the hidden meaning of the detailed description of the building of the Mishkan.
The Mishkan is to be built from the BEST, most expensive materials such as gold, copper, leather, etc. But this is not the most important things. It is to be built from materials that the people DONATED from the generosity of their heart. The root letters of generosity, נ.ד.ב. appear a few times (at least five) in our Portion as a lead word. We build a Mishkan to G-d in our hearts and minds by the things we are willing to GIVE: our charitable acts, our monetary donations, our efforts at building our personalities to be holier people. And we are to give of our very best, and of our own will. It is a free choice that we are given, and if we choose to give, and give of our best, not just materially, but in any other way as well, we will build a beautiful Mishkan within us, and it would be a proper place for G-d to "dwell" in.
Israel is probably the place with the most charity organizations per-capita ever, and within Israel - Jerusalem is the city with the most charity organizations, formal and non-formal, with lots and lots of people being busy doing good in the world. It is true that many other people from other cities in Israel and from other countries do amazing, beautiful things - but I've never known any other city like Jerusalem. It is exponentially more charitable and holy than any other city in the world, and I think that for this reason, it is a good place for G-d to dwell in. So many charitable projects are taking place here, and people are constantly helping each other and helping total strangers. It's so beautiful to see, and I wish this model of a Mishkan-like city will spread to the rest of the world in much greater intensities, so that the light and goodness of Jerusalem will encompass the whole world. Speedily in our days. Amen!
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