Shoshana's Teshuva Story - A Woman Discovers Truth About Tikkun HaBrit

[Music] my name is shashana Abrams and I'm 46 years old I was born and raised in a town called dundock which was the heroin capital of America in 1995 though I had no idea at that time I was raised Catholic by my mom though my father was a self-hating Jew in June 2001 which was a few months before 9/11 happened I I came to Israel on a vacation and uh I did for the first time in my life I I felt like I was home and uh when I came to Israel I was like this is this is the place to be I was on a plane returning back to America and I was devastated and crying non-stop watching the shoreline of the Mediterranean slowly disappear from my view when I returned home I took a phone book and I started calling every Orthodox synagogue I could find cuz my friend in Israel told me if you want to be a real Jew you have to convert with the Orthodox not reformed conservative or whatever else is out there and it took a couple of months of me calling congregations and people were not returning my calls and one Guru conversion Rabbi in Pikesville told me why don't you get your feet wet first before jumping in the deep end of the pool I didn't really understand what he meant by that so I asked him if there was some books I could buy and he just turned me away not understanding that being turned away was part of the conversion process I found a conservative Rabbi I made an appointment with him and during our first meeting he gave me a free Tanakh he gave me a list of books to read and he said if you have any questions call me and I will answer your questions and a few months into our once every 3 week meetings he could see that I'm asking him hard questions like why does your congregation drive cars on Shabbat While others don't he explained himself and then said it sounds like you want to be Orthodox why are you here with me I told him because you're the only Rabbi out of many who actually called me back I learned with this conservative Rabbi for one and a half years went to the Mikvah went back to the guru Rabbi of conversions showed him my conversion papers and said I got my my feet wet now I want to go into the deep end he looked at me shocked and told me to start coming to his classes on Sunday mornings from 10: to 1: I did that then he told me to move into the Jewish Community I was still living with my mom so it took me six months to save up my money but I finally managed to move to Pikesville I became friends with a rabbi who was doing Kyro in Baltimore City and he was my rock during the conversion process for 5 years I helped him to try to keep his job to keyo with him and worked with petitions and lawyers cuz I believed in what he stood for I'm saying all of this because this is how I am today with Rabbi rain I sent his Sher room on WhatsApp groups some people like him others say he is too amongst other things but I believe in standing up against the rim in the world and the stupid politics that are brought into the Jewish religion and during this s years of learning and converting and and all this stuff all these rabbis never talked about geham um or you know wasting seed I heard about through people but some of the things just it didn't sound it sound like a preference but not mandatory so and I always as a Christian believed in geham you know but then when I became Jewish you know Jews didn't really seem to to believe in geham so much and my grandmother who was Jewish she said no we don't believe in that so I I was very uh I had to kind of erase all that stuff from my mind fast forward uh Co came and now I'm living in Israel and uh I was listening to Rabbi mrai for 4 years so he had already cooked me he was cooking me feeding me hashkafa and talking about toua and for four years I'm just my stomach is churning my heart is aching and I'm I'm I'm hearing about all this tshua that I have to do but I don't know how to do it I'm learning about all the sins that I committed but I don't know how to fix them and so one day during during Co lockdowns and very early in the beginning of the processes of Co I think it was like February or March I found Rabbi rain on Rabbi mra's page so I was like you know what he's promoting him as his tamed let me see who this guy is so I started listening to a Shor and I was just like flabbergasted I was just I couldn't believe how amazing of a speaker he was and and all the sources he was quoting so many sources and I that's what I wanted to hear I wanted to hear sources you know so it's like this guy's legit and so I started uh I I think I asked R mrai for his um telephone number and he gave me his telephone number and I just started slamming him with questions on WhatsApp like about this and about that and and one of the questions was was how do I do Chua because for 4 years I'm I'm sitting here my stomach's churning and and it felt like someone was giving me an autopsy while while alive I'm like how do I do to Shuan R you know he started telling me you have to regret the sin you have to feel sorry and you have to and cry about it and I never cried about a sin before I didn't know what to do so I was like how do I how do I start to feel not level and he he's like he points me in the direction of the tikuna breed series and when I started listening to that I was like oh no oh my gosh I can't believe who I was how disgusting I I am and that brought tears to my eyes so fast forward like a few weeks ahead and I'm talking to Rabbi R Ruan through WhatsApp and I'm asking I'm bombarding him with clap questions and he's answering them answering them and finally he says look if you want to do real to sha for this sin the best way to do it is to stop people from doing the sin themselves so I was just like okay I'm going to like what do I do and he told me like you know you can buy some CDs and distribute them and I I had absolutely no money Co is here I clean houses in Israel so I'm not rich or anything you know and so he tells me I'm going to send you the CDs for free all you have have to do is give them out they were tuna pryds so I'm thinking okay sure great so I didn't think he was really going to do it you know I'm like for free like what Rabbi gives you stuff for free anyway the CDs came a month later I started crying you know and I'm thinking how much this Rabbi really cares about me he wants me to do toua he wants me to to eliminate these sins from my nshama and I'm just sitting there like looking at the box like wow what a gift like from Hashem so that's how I met Rabbi Ruan and I knew he was serious and I knew he really cared about my nshama and I I've ever since that first box arrived at my house I have nothing but cavod and gratitude and I'm just so grateful to find him in my life he's he's changed my life and he's even gave me the advice of to to cover my head so covering my head ever since I started covering my head which I think I was talking to him about 2 and 1/2 months after um I started talking with him and he he was telling me to cover my head and I wasn't married I was divorced and I thought you know and I wear my hair in a ponytail anyway and I don't put on makeup or wear perfume like that wasn't my thing I'm not trying to get attention from them or anything like that and so he told me to cover my head and I maybe 3 6 months after covering my head my whole life changed everything became easier everything got easier for me um none of these weird happenstances were happening to me during the day that were so terrible and and driving me crazy and and and you know bothering me or agitating me or irritating me or making me angry and and he talked to me and into into covering my hair not with a coui ro I never believed in Shadel so because of him my life got so much better and I don't know where I'd be without him right now the tun H breed series was definitely the series that made that changed my life um you know I everyone always made it sound like it was a man's Mitzvah you know the man can't it's his it's his breit and I never really thought that women women were a part of the breit so I was uh just as bad as a man you know not not as often probably as a man but uh I asked my girlfriends you know and they said yeah it's it's it's fine to to be by yourself you know and and not saying I maybe I did it twice a month or something but not a big deal right but then when I spoke with Rabbi Ruan he was just like no the women admits Rim they they did this too and it's disgusting in hashem's eyes I was doing it because doctors recommended people doing it and I was just like okay like it wasn't a big deal for me I was just thought I was doing something to to relieve stress so because of Rabbi ver ruing I just changed like a huge part of my life and I owe him everything because I would probably still be doing the sin if it wasn't for him you know he he explained to me you know hashem's watching everything you do and I I didn't think it was a big deal you know but no one and and I and people told me like no it's it's for a man it doesn't apply to women so here I was like involved in this disgusting sin not even understanding the consequences of it and these are people telling me it was okay so I mean it it my whole life has changed because of RAB ruvy I mean if he didn't if he didn't tell me and open my eyes then I would never been able to change my life based on the communities and people that I know who are it's it's sad that even the biggest Jews in the world don't understand how severe this sin is so my whole life changed when I stopped doing this when I started covering my hair um and even though I'm not married you know I'm divorced and I was hesitant towards covering my hair because you know it was just I I clean houses it's hot you know I you wear hats to keep the heat in your head in the winter time and I'm like how am I going to do this while cleaning a house especially in Israel I mean it's like one of the hottest places in the world so yeah he changed my life when I started listening to the the rabbi everything in my life started to change everything in my life got easier money started coming easier my mood started to become happier and more joyful and I became more enthusiastic about life so what can I say I owe literally everything and R by R vain if it wasn't for him I I I I don't think I'd be alive and I would barely be living whether you're Jewish or not Jewish rabbi ruan's lectures apply to every person in the world be imuna yat shamim looking for the truth of serving one God understanding the purpose of life life and why humans were created his lectures are relevant to every person on the planet people today are lost sad angry anxious mentally ill physically ill all these emotional sicknesses or diseases go away if you understand the reason why you were created but most importantly people must implement the strategies that Rabbi ruing teaches us for people who want to start their Journey with living life to the fullest I would recommend to begin watching the amuna series this teaches you how to accept the good and the bad in this world and that it's all a part of hashem's plan on how he operates the world and how to accept God's will the beton series allowed me to accept hashem's plans on how he runs the world and once I understood that the the anger of feeling like the universe is against me it all went away God tests us punishes us and gives us problems that we can handle in order to make us more powerful as individuals fun functioning in society these problems and asking hasem to give us strength to pull through it makes us cling to our creator and makes our souls and Minds stronger in this world and in the world to come these obstacles make us realize how small our problems are if we just ask God to help us through our everyday lives if if every person just focused on keeping their side of the street clean the world would be a much safer and happier place Rabbi R Ruan teaches us how to work on our character traits and once we conquer these issues our ton our lives are happier and life is more smooth and easier to cope 7 years of lectures 7 months of film editing countless hours of study by two [Music] rabbis information we received over 3,000 years ago all for this moment [Music] to whom had greed the movie there's a small member in your D it shouldn't take over your whole life if you satiate it you're never going to have [Music] enough the soer clan when it gets a hold of something it does not let go time for us to rectify what we have done normal numers should be somewhere around 20 million or higher you're never going to have control of it [Music] if you [Music] start only feed it when it's permissible according to the LA pornography is as addictive as crack [Music] cooking you're always going to be happy including this world and the [Music] next and done