Rebbetzin Abby Lerner - Caring For Klal Yisrael in Times of War

I wanted to explain to you a little bit of the background of of why we're doing this conference um or at least from my perspective okay so um towards the beginning of the war I was thinking about you know I work with I work with oim well specifically with women and I was thinking like who who how can we help and who do we need to help because we don't really have a lot of our people living in the North and the South a lot there's not a lot of English speaker ol Lio though I've met many more than I thought there would be um and so I really thought more about like mothers of hyim wives of we started going to different communities um to give like evenings of support to the mothers of Kim and I wanted to bring to every evening I would want to bring like a psych like a someone in the mental health field I had this woman who has like a uh she's like a professional mother of Kim she has her Facebook group and she's like a blogger or whatever so her and then of course I wanted to bring the voice of Torah and I thought you know I could bring anyone but I want to bring someone from within the community because I want these women to have this person that they're going to be able to go to who knows what's I mean God willing everything should go fine but like I want to make sure that they have that connection to the Ritson in their community so that if they need more support if something happens like they have that that beginning of a relationship and in every community that I went to I asked people there like who do you think I should ask who's the reiton of this community who do people talk to about their issues and in every place they didn't have an answer and these are like standard Anglo communities and they just they were like I don't really know let me try to I'll ask somebody else let me think think right and I thought to myself like how could this be like I understand that we live in Israel and you know a lot of times the Sho might be an Israeli sh we don't all have to go to English shools but the fact that nobody knows who to go to they don't have their like Rabbi and rabbits and English speaking person that they connect to that they can go to when they have issues it's really a problem and especially right during the time of War when things are really happening um and so I've been doing a lot of thinking and really my end goal is I really would like to have jlic for adults um all over Israel like I I think to put a couple no but but I'm saying not only for the the younger people but in general in every Community even if there's not an Anglo but there should be these are this is the these this is the couple that's you know making things like there's also you know doing activities but also there as mentors I think it's it's really important um and so my goal is really that all of you are doing amazing things and you all have your professional life and you're doing a lot of CLA work but you all also except for you all live in a community in Israel but you live in a community in America and that's also good um you all live in a community in Israel and they need you right so when when we talk about the different issues that we're going to talk about I want you to think about it from both perspectives right from your hat as whatever Seminary or psych you know where whatever Clinic you're working in or whatever obviously you're going to have that hat on as well but also to think about how can I take this into my community um and because um it's not that there are people people we don't lack people that are are qualified to be that person in every Community but nobody has that official role and so they don't they don't feel comfortable even taking on that role and they don't feel it's their place right but people need you right so um we have to figure out how to like kind of get over that hurdle and I think part of it will be like if we actually can make an official position but until then right the goal is really that I want you all to feel empowered to be that person right and we know that um when we think about the Prototype Jewish leader right Mosher rinu right he's great leader right what do we know about Mosher rinu the first thing that we really hear about him is right he says um right he comes he goes out to the Jewish people and he sees the Egyptian whipping the Jewish guy and he says he look he looks both ways he saw there was no one else there and then he kills the Egyptian so there's a lot of different explanations what's that what is he looking for what right but one explanation is that he looked around to see is is there anyone else who can do this job by she saw there was no one else there was no one else that was going to take initiative and so he jumped in there and he did it the first thing that he did was that he looked right he looked he saw he saw that there was a problem and he said well if no one else is there I'm going to take that initiative and we see that also in the perm story with Esther right what is Esther saying test your knowledge here what ises Esther saying well before that right she said she says um um right how can I go on right I'm here in the palace everything's great for me but how can I live if I see all the suffering that's happening with my people and so she takes action and that is that's really what this conference is about we're going to give you tools but the main thing is actually jumping in there and saying I can do this right if God forbid right somebody you know somebody loses a child at War who is going into the home everyone's going in but nobody feels like they're the rabbitson right so obviously and someone we'll talk about it here later but like how and how to do it right but but how do we make sure that there's someone there that's actually there from the very first moment and is going to be with them and he's going to be with them 3 months later and he's going to be checking in on them right none of us feel like that's our job so unless it's our best friend we won't do it right but the question is anyone else doing it and so obviously there's a you know a balance and we don't want to be like you know invading someone's space but we also want to make sure that everyone's needs are really being taken care of because there is that vacuum and in America they would just go straight to the rabbi and riton and they might not have one here and they might not have a family Network here so we want be able to make sure that again it's that it's that it's that you know look around obviously if they're if they have their their circles and they don't need you you don't need to stick yourself in there but um if they don't right we want to make sure that we're there for them um okay now what we're talking about today though right now the topic right now um is on the other hand right it sometimes it could feel a little bit daunting right because we are all very busy right and we're busy with our own families and we're busy with our own jobs and then to say let's also take on this extra thing that I'm going to be like the rabbitson of the community even though I'm not right how do we have time for everything how do we balance everything um and um okay the BIOS were supposed to be here um so I um but reent abar I don't need a bio for because I just love her and she is such a role model to me um and she was been a she was a riton in America for how many years I gu my husband started before we were married Okay so 43 years right so um she's been dealing maybe not with the war but she's been dealing for many years with how do we balance all of our roles as women right there's so much that we have to try to juggle um and how do we do that and she'll talk about it from a general perspective having been a community ridon and doing that all the time um um and also about the war and I remember just at the beginning of the war I remember that like everything was crazy right everyone like remember that time it was a crazy crazy time and I was trying to like deal with my own emotions and then I was trying to deal with all my kids who are at home and I was trying to deal with being working at the OU and figure out what are we supposed to be doing right now in this situation and then I was dealing with all the families that had been displaced and were living in mitz um sorry I didn't introduce myself I'm from mitz um and um and I got very involved mainly because of my kids cuz my older kids felt very they didn't have a purpose you know teenagers were just sitting at home doing nothing and they didn't know what they were supposed to do with themselves so I said let's get involved let's go help there's so many families here let's go help them so we we took on this job to like be arranging all the meals and all the toys and all like all these different things for all the families and um all of a sudden it was like I was on the phone constantly it was like such a it was crazy um and the kids were helping me with some things but they couldn't really be doing all the organization and so there was like this thing how am I dealing with my kids and this and that like how do I do all this together so revon ABY learner is going to help us to figure out how do we juggle all of our important responsibilities both in times of war and in general um okay so thank you very much okay first of all I already feel so comfortable here I feel like I know everybody and we really I would love to get that directory out um one of the reasons why I feel so comfortable is I heard people who are heading me to Rush show so for 30 years I taught in Central yiv University High School for Girls that's I'm saying to you why I feel so comfortable because I know all these schools from the other R of speaking to our students about where should I go to school so I know a lot about about the schools I taught of course called wigel women in Jewish law for many many years um and now I do something very interesting I am involved with gas for the rabinal Council of America so I spend many unfortunately starting probably at about 4 5:00 in the afternoon speaking with people who need help regarding their conversion process and that is beyond fascinating so when you said midr Rael some of our younger women have gone there and we're really very grateful to you so thank you for that and of course I want to thank deir for asking me to speak in incredible amount of work that went into this conference so really thank you um going to try to share some Reflections and experiences that may be helpful for you here on the front lines of education and community life in erell during these extremely trying times and and we have nobody to look to um you know who do we look up to who has the experience with us where we're not only on the front lines but even historically it's it's a difficult thing for us to get someone with the experience that we need um I think it's very important to find the point of connection with communal life here and communal life in America and the sh in Israel is not the focal point of communal life as it is in America and having lived here now for three and a half years in katone uh I'm not sure that that's a good thing and even my some of my isra friends who've lived here for 40 years and now move to Jerusalem are also struggling with the fact that they can't they can't find a home they can't find a community they're in jerus as long as we are moving like from other places it's it's a very very difficult thing and I think there are things here um that Israel can learn from the United States the in the diaspora and um especially now that so many people believe it or not ironically are looking to make Aliyah and looking for the kinds of connections that they've been taught to expect um in sh and you know outside of Israel and then you come here and there's like there's nothing um very very difficult so I think it's something to pay attention to as rabbis and rabbits in the United States we often found ourselves in communities that we would not have chosen to live in had we not been in our rinic rle so this posed challenges to us as parents um and we're often not able to count on the communities we lived in to model the behavior behaviors that we wanted for our children so the challenges for us included elementary schools that we would not have chosen a school demographic that meant we had to check seriously check the kous of birthday parties and homes where our children played barn by Mitzvah that often included dancing and entertainment that we did not want to expose our children to codes of dress that did not meet our Dem on our girls and I have to tell you one time and a lot of the more observant families had the same issue one time my daughter um had a little friend over and she comes upstairs they were paying me she says Abby by the way everybody in the suburbs first names that's a very okay that's like Israel Israel too but not not in other areas of New York Abby um are you kosher I mean this what she said yes tly we're kosher you know are you really religious yes from like and you know this was part of what growing up in that Community was about other people had the same issue but we you know we had it like on steroids so these aren't necessarily the challenge that you know that our participants here fac today although somehow I know from my daughters who are raising children here there was definitely differences in externals and how the D Umi Community looks and how they would want their kids to look even though I don't think they're like K but there there were definitely challenges on the other hand I have to say that there were many positives uh we and our children were exposed to amazing dedicated people who are most eff for our community and for Yiddish kite and our children learn to respect all kinds of people and really love them until today and even though the day-to-day standards and lifestyles of the members of our community often did not look like our own and I think that living in a heterogeneous Community helped our children to develop um independent standards standards that were not about peer pressure their own standards things that we had to talked about so that we had to speak about it wasn't just going with the flow because that's what everybody did and I think that was a huge positive um but as public communal figures on both sides of the ocean we Face several challenges who are the people who are walking into our home and spending time with us as we give to the community and have all these people over that's one and number two time management how are we there for our community and our students and also there for our spouses our parents and our children and it's not just about time it's about being emotionally present and available for our families I'll just tell you one of our sons-in-law we have four daughters one of our sons-in-law is very involved in a Tor there are many young men of various backgrounds at their shabas table packed oh it's a quiet chabas but most say shabas we're having an oeg with 40 guys and was like that's a quiet chabas so I really I credit these young men with keeping our grandchildren and this is something to think about when you have people in your house they keep our grandchildren grounded open and tolerant even as they live in their neighborhood boys come in with earrings long hair tattoos jeans on chabas and I must say that our grandchildren take great pride in these young men they love them exactly as they are they learn AAS from them and they also take great pride in in their growth in Torah and they boast about their progress and how exciting it was for them when one of them married a great niece of mine from one of the Fest most yish neighborhoods in the New York area all of a sudden their world had worlds just merg together and what a lesson it was for them to see that these worlds could come together and and and everybody's okay um on the other hand let's say if these boys came to the house and used language that we would not use or shared inappropriate experiences with my teenage grandchildren one would expect that they should not and would not be invited back how do we create that line so I'll share one small example from you from our own home so not so long ago uh within the last 10 years my youngest daughter was a single adult at time she's here now with her family in Israel and we had company for rashash two couples and their adult children one husband was very very involved in the Sho and we had been invited to their home many times don't we had rules about being invited to other people's houses like a whole story but we had been invited to their home many times at this table this man whom we knew to be a difficult person in his dealings with people in the show said something at my table terribly abusive to his wife I said to my husband afterwards I love this woman by the way I'm still in touch with her I have a Kus on the phone with her but I don't care how many times they invite us they will not be invited back to our table I can't have them here with our own children present and other people from the community I mean it was a it it was ter of course this lovely woman who was so dignified was so used to being verbally abused that she did not even hear what her husband said right classic a few years later when she took courage in hand and divorced him she had two big kids like in their 20s so brave and what a model for her children for her daughters that she took courage in hand and did this so the community was in shock because they seemed like the perfect couple except my daughter and us who had been there on that yto night uh well does she said I was only waiting she said and hoping that they would get divorced so like what do you do with that like what do you do with that at you know where are your limits on who's walking in your house and what's happening at your table um and now reaching out to our students in our community we also we need to ask ourselves how is this impacting our family one shabas morning before cell phones our phone rang and rang shabas morning well I have to tell you we finally picked it up a doctor in our community whose wife had an order of protection against against him had been released from jail on Friday night and was coming home and she was terrified there we were at home on shabus morning she starts at 9: whatever time this was 7:30 in our bath Roes with our friend from The Round the Corner an amazing psychologist coming in after went and got him and our kids this whole thing is playing itself and by the way our kids were in the same classes as her children and and here this whole thing is playing out the drama of answering the phone on chabas morning their beloved neighbor psychologist coming in his bathrobe this woman coming over right for years one of our children were traumatized this is how it would go yak and I would walk home from sh together how come you and ABA are in holding hands no now go go have a whole explanation and talk to her about wasn't about to start doing this as a 10-year-old child right how come you and ABA AR holding hands from sh we would have company how come you're walking next to Mr so and so and aba's walking next to his wife and you're not walking next to each other he all of this which if I spoke to them now they would probably talk to me about it's like right beneath the surface it happened years ago what dramas with our students and Neighbors play themselves out right in our homes what do children hear you say day on the other end of the phone what's your tone of voice as you're talking to somebody what are they hearing they remember things forever and they remember they remember the good stuff too I have told just the other day I don't know one of my sons-in-law what'sapp the fil me and said like okay which women here like don't do laundry on you know on Ro like everybody we all do laundry everything they said but I remember I wrote when the kids were small I would take them out I was mock but to take them out for R KES he we would go whatever the local ice cream place whatever okay great one of my girls writes back EMA I remember that that was such a cozy memory I remember we were in Corville talking about 100 years ago and and they remember it and it it's you know it's reflective of their of their childhood it comes back and of course I have to say we we admire people like Kenny Maus I remember those girls when they were in central those sisters Le um who opened up her home to the world but my understanding is is that those people were not part of the Maas Family shabas Table that all happened after after they ate as a family so how do we manage the balance between children being intensely proud intensely proud of the fact that we open our home to the community as the MAA children were and still are and the need for every family for important serious time together and that you're just not always on display all the time two moving experiences regarding time and emotional presence one of the solutions of our busy lives in our community was to spend our summers this phenomenon in America The Bungalow Colony so for a couple years we had taught in Camp and we decided we're going to a bungalow and this gave our children a chance to be with a different population because the co- camps we were at we were still telling them no we don't dress like this we you know right so in the Bungalow they were with a different population gave us a complete rest rather than spending our summers preparing in teaching classes and we were grateful that we were financially able to spend our summers in our beloved Bungalow which is still a cherished memory of our children and you'll hear why in a minute one of our goals of surrounding ourselves with very similar people was that our children would experience being like everybody else and of course our children would never be like everyone else who had grown up in very homogeneous environments because they had already been exposed at Young ages to many other kinds of people were much more open and tolerant than their summer friends but the Bungalow provided them with chilled out very un busy parents and my husband I could just see him sitting on the porch where the Bungalow there was nobody near us he would sit and learn and he didn't care people from schul could call him all day as long as he was out there on that porch he was happy because and we didn't mind we loved our community I have to tell you but like walking and shopping was like oh hi you know a question of this or that in other words the streets were his office like there was no and he was fine with it but he really appreciated the break so once he was on that porch he didn't care how many people called it was fine I remember at the end of the summer on our way home just before we would make that last big turn to get to our house our oldest would say I'm going to cry when I say it everybody say goodbye to Aba we'll see you next summer ABA now I have to say as one of our older Rea colleagues once pointed out at a conference a probab a rabbi probably sees his children more than any other father he's usually home for supper he works in the community he can even get away to go attend a sitter playay what was the goodbye to Aba what was that all about it's about really being there and not just at bedtime it's about not being interrupted in mids sentence by phone calls it's about long games of football yes with our girls they were never the Barbie football that was their thing they would go out there and play football with them and laughing and shrieking together I'm looking at all of you working so hard with our communities our children miss us they miss our eye contact while we're paying attention to everybody else's needs I once read an article years ago that said that kids know at the table which child gets more eye contact than other children we never sort out you know who we do better with but even at a dinner table there are kids that we don't realize that we're listening to more we're looking at more and we're not there we're often not there for them and one of the last RCA conferences that we went to before Co hit Rabbi yway Jacobson spoke does anybody know Rabbi why okay if you don't know I'm should Google him he's delightful at the end of his talk he told the rabbis okay so at the end he said you have to spend time with your kids I don't mean he said learn with them although that's very nice he said but I mean spend real time go out play ball with them have fun with them and then he Beed his soul I would never say this if he didn't say in front of like 200 men at the conference and sprinkling of women he told us that they were having trouble with one of their teenage boys and they took him to a psychologist the psychologist asked the boy about his relationship with his father and Rabbi y why reported that the child said oh I don't have a father my father is Rabbi why why everyone else has him but not me I don't have a fun do your children have a mother we are the perfect teachers hosts counselors but how are we when it's just the kids at home do we appear to them in the same way that our students and our community see our perfect little selves oh EMA everybody thinks you're just the perfect person but we know right one suus I was so stressed with all the work and cooking that I was mom is crazy and I remember thinking not about the cooking and the company and fitting 30 people in our Suka that didn't fit 30 people how are these kids of mine going to be from if they think they're preparing for yff in company is so horrific and I don't really know how but by the grace of God they survived my ER insanity but you know what like don't test them I mean really if you have to order out I'm not kidding like you have to do the things that are going to make you a normal person because the kids are not going to care and the company's not going to care it's but they're going to remember your craziness and I'm just grateful I don't know maybe they were't next to I I have no idea why they live through that listen to your family in we have two days of Y to SAR by the way one seder you're here visiting one seder one day of is less stress and it's one of the most important reasons for making Alli y it changes your life and this whole country's attitude to Yanti especially P I walk out on a griffer m 9:00 AR of yff and everybody's sitting the Roa I'm like what you know you like what what is going on here it's I I you can't imagine it's like a whole people go on vacation the week before it pays okay that's just an aside so as a rabbi family we had lots of shell we say interesting people at our table for the sedor sometimes we had friends from the SHO regular people but most often we had the people that my sister calls dians called D diin the people that really needed a place one year when our girls were already teenagers and my in-laws were in Israel for PES with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law the kids had a request can we have one Sader alone alone that sounds so weird like just like just us yeah it sounded bizarre it sounded lonely it sounded awful we said okay okay what can I tell you they were able to say endless beautiful div Torah without boring the guests we were there for hours and we were loving every second of it none of this you know watching the other people and don't know what's going on falling asleep as girls they could sing at the top of their lungs three different Melodies sometimes to the words right now you can think of three melodies for Thea okay we had three fam million things we sang our hearts out at the door during we swayed in a circle back at the table for L with our eyes closed and for a moment I opened up my eyes and I looked up and there were tears streaming down the cheeks of one of my daughters IMA thank you so much for this thank you so much what price are we paying what price are our children okay there's no second Sor here but we need to find a way to have private religious family experiences they are the ones that set the tone for our future and our families Futures the families that our children create at an Outreach convention that we attended one year a million years ago there I think it's still in existence aop the association for Jewish Outreach professionals um and uh one of the rabim said with great pride that his wife had served something like 200 meals over the course of the days of the and I'm like okay great but maybe we need to serve fewer meals and sing longer songs and have more important conversations with our own children even here in ER with one day of Y it's Our obligation to figure it out maybe no company at the lunch meals maybe no company Onan maybe on chabas maybe once or twice a month on chabas no company at all you've saved the world and what have we done to our families we owe it to our families and I promise you you will never ever be sorry what was it I think uh senator Paul tangis I think from Massachusetts who was very sick as a young man and died and quoted somebody and said you know nobody ever died and said oh I wish I had just spent more time at the office we're busy all the time with everyone else we need to set side a time time aside for our own kir of projects our families I find that when all the company leaves my husband and my kids get my tired adrenaline depleted self unlike our truly truly truly cherished company who always see us at our best and what about us and our husbands last summer I went with my adult daughters to Kim for a spa day okay it was amazing and then we had an amazing laugh sitting all by herself at the other end of the dining room was a friend of one of my daughters a very very fir woman that she had gone to school with Camp has gigantic family about she was about to move apartments and the summer program about to start that she runs and she was there all alone for tun we couldn't believe it I mean we were so proud of her right we always see her as the best the calmest the most mostes and she had run away sometimes that's what we need to do so that we can be there again for our families our spouses and our students we need to heal we need to nourish ourselves if we're going to give so much to others we need to replenish and like we afraid we're such good friends with her like we didn't want to talk to her oh hi hi bye okay bye go ahead go like we we were just afraid to even have a conversation with her I'm very proud of one of my daughters who is a very hardworking social worker by by the way I'm proud of her also because she was in a different career teaching and she changed careers in her late 30s and I'm this is what she should have done from kindergarten you know like and I'm so proud of her that she did it but now with the war and theim and the people of the returning home she is busier than ever she works in a r besides her own private practice and she has her own children to be concerned about it's like you R your own little clinic going on and at home as we all do and of course the kids are so proud of her for her work and the real help she's providing but let me tell you what I'm proud of because sometimes at a day she was working here at the Dan Panorama with the munim and I am promise you that at the end of that day she would call me crime because she needs a social worker after a day like that by the way I'm just telling you reg she said it was a nightmare whatever family problems they were having exacerbated Beyond words abuse violent there's like no place to go it was horrible they say after a day like this she was a wreck so what did she do she just said to me Emma I'm taking off a day and I'm having my own spa day at home she has a masseuse that comes to the house the masseuse came to the house she went to an exercise trainer she walked alone on some of her favorite paths and at the end of the day she was a mench again back to herself we need to seriously consider ways to regularly nourish ourselves body and spirit Rabbi Bri witz this morning spoke about our own pain what we're all dealing with as we're dealing with everybody else we're dealing with our own pain our own anxiety I have to tell you we I'm going to say his name I don't even care if it's recorded he's a public figure around the corner for us lived one of our dearest friends David pelovitz and Yakov would always say like that's how we were able to do it because if we had a problem in the Sho that we David right if we are David right and so we had our own psychologist around the corner and sometimes you need that I will not say this out loud I will not give the name although he did tell us last week that he announced it to his gigantic sh a few years ago one of our friends a very prominent RV who is now retired got up in his Shool and told everybody that he's on Lexapro which is a tranquilizer had his own issues in his life which were well known and he said I did it I wanted people in SCH to know that it's okay okay so we need to think about that how are we doing ourselves with our own anxieties and all the stress that we're dealing with and now you're going to try to give to somebody else so we were very proud that he had told us about that and important for us to think about every now and then even when the kids were small thanks to my available in Lord Z we would go into the city for one night dinner alone quiet we needed to sit face to face with each other talk listen with nobody there no phones and turn the phones off I want I'm the worst I really you know RAB Bri said like don't talk if you don't I'm just telling you right now I'm very bad okay but the phones are destroying us I remember at a talk once right by our Bungalow was mosha Weinberger from the five towns see he said in the bungal there he was next door to us the only people talking to the children and not on the phone were the nannies that were brought up with the families because they weren't allowed to they were being paid no mother was talking to a child any mother with a child was on the phone only the nannies were not on the phone so I mean we are killing ourselves we are killing ourselves with the phones okay so go on if you can't get away for night go on a date every now and then go to a restaurant where you're not going to see your whole neighborhood or your students this this is something that we need to do for ourselves personally and as a couple to to refocus and to reinvigorate ourselves what are we here for what are we doing how are the kids how are we and having said all this I want to conclude with the following we spent an entire career a good part of our Lives 45 years for my husband being there for our friends and our community and I have to say I don't think the word balab batim ever crossed our mouth once we really had an amazing relationship with our community they really are our friends but we didn't just entertain we listened my husband counselled a lot as Rabbi Bri not because that's what he went in for he went in to give shuran but then he became an excellent counselor just from the experience and of course I did my fair share as well and we taught once I remember our house was used as a safe haven for one of the members of our sh who was running away from her abusive husband in my basement with her kids they're still married we're still in touch was Years Ago by the way Shalom task force people here she parked her car in my driveway okay her husband looking for her went around to every house where he thought she went and clicked and was waiting for the lights to flash back just be aware if you're being a safe haven for somebody the car needs to go somewhere else or Park deep in your drive like where it's not visible that was you know and then my doorbell was a terrifying thing okay um I really cannot imagine a more fulfilling way of spending one's life it was the best our children were part of the project and they also took great pride not just in the giving but in the very real relationships that resulted that are an important part of our lives and their lives until today remember when our oldest son-in-law spent his first shabus at our home he remarked after our family shabas lunch I can't believe it I feel like everyone here is is the rabbi it's like I'm in a family where everybody is the rabbi that's how involved our children were and they still feel connected of course nothing confidential was ever ever ever shared with them to this day they don't know things but they saw a lot going on and they heard and we still call our community and we still host families when they come to Eris from our show and so in these very very challenging times there's nothing more important you can be doing than giving to your students your community to CLA we need a lot of wisdom Ray mael and I wish you all of that and it's F that we'll be able to do all of this and to contribute to those around us in times of [Music] peace