Rejuvenation: The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Partition

[Music] hello everybody and shovel a tub this is Eve Harrow and you listening to rejuvenation humble and official Network today's Sunday the 26th of November 2017 the eighth day of Kislev 5778 and I'm home I spent two weeks in America different venues speaking to people mainly about life in Israel and some politics some of the media work but also the spiritual aspect of living here the more personal items on the agenda of how to connect to Hashem and like some of the things that have happened to my own life anyhow it was really interesting if exhausting two weeks I am very happy to be back home hit the ground running of course and and that's why if I sound a little bleary voiced that would explain it but I don't want to thank Tabitha and Ben for their patience and for helping me put out the show every week and of course Jeremy and Arie and everybody at the network and when I go around the outside of Israel as and I hear this also from my colleagues who do the same it's really gratifying to meet people who hear our voices who are so happy to meet us in person but who listen in at least occasionally and a very appreciative of the effort that we put in to try and put a little bit of what life in Israel at really the the central point of so many things happening not just in the Jewish world but in the world in general out to them every week so it is impossible of course to look at the day today and not connect it with what happened 70 years ago this week today's 26th of November but on the 29th of November 1947 the we had the very famous or infamous if you were a partition plan the UN's proposal for partitioning the Land of Israel the UN proposed the partition Israel accepted it the Arabs rejected it and went to war we talked a lot about a war of independence and that happened of course we have we're coming up we have our 70th birthday may the equivalent of May 14 1948 and the English date and that's really something that I wanted to talk about now because I've always found that that that date we don't call it the 29th of November we call it cuff type in November and cuff tete in Hebrew letters each letter in the in the Hebrew language and if you don't keep saying this you need to learn here bro to really understand so much not just about the Tanakh but about the modern world of Israel but cuff tete symbolizes 29 coffee's 20 each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical equivalent one through 10 and then following that I guess you could say it's kind of like Roman numerals in that sense so following that is that goes by 10 so cough is 20 tete is 9 and you don't hear this date referred to as the 29th of November you hear the state referred to as cuff tip in November every city in Israel has a street cuff tip in November commemorating this date and I find that fascinating I don't know of another date that has this mix of the secular calendar meaning November is not a Jewish month it's ours it's a secular calendar but cuff tete is straight out of the Hebrew calendar and if anybody knows of any date please let meet any other date that's like this let me know but I do believe that it means that there is somewhat of a religious element that was put even into this secular date because we don't commemorate the Hebrew date this happened we commemorate their dad in the English calendar but still there was something in here that saw it as the beginnings of the redemption the prophecy is coming true even with the again so-called secular leadership at the time and again and I say this all the time all the time that there's no there's no such thing as true secular when it comes to Israeli side society today but in any event cuff pepper November's a very unusual date and seventy years ago this week the UN proposed partitioning the western part of the British Mandate for Palestine the eastern part the sev five or so percent had already been given away to create an Arab entity known as Transjordan Kingdom of Jordan and so as opposed to the narrative that you most usually hear of the poor Palestinians whose land was taken away from them by those greedy Jews who somehow convinced Britain in a moment of weakness to to give them something maybe over guilt from the Holocaust which might or might not have happened and of course they are the true victims of the Holocaust because the Jews come here and do to them exactly what was being done to us in Europe if that really happened anyway a lot of confusing different little messages there but the ultimate goal of course is to make the Arabs here and the ultimate victims and still suffering after 70 years all this of course is one big fat lie that the western part of Palestine the Land of Israel what's between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean is once again partitioned by the UN and this time this time by the UN into a Jewish state and an Arab state pretty much based on the population breakdown the also the Jews had done a tremendous job at settling the Negev and so the larger part of that map in this is a radio show and how to visual show so you can have to crank out that map for yourselves but when you look at the but if you're not familiar the Land of Israel and if you're not you should be the bottom like triangle there is mainly Negev it's mainly the desert and that's really the part that the Jews were given because they had greened it had brought water in and we're making the desert bloom but places like bear Sheva the the capital of the Negev which is now approaching quarter of million people and really turning into a big city finally that was going to be given to the Arabs and it was mainly based on the population centers so the Jews were gonna get about 15,000 square miles about 54% to be a Jewish Democratic state and about 12,000 square clocks it's not couple miles whoa kilometers and the remaining 12,000 square kilometer is about 45% what's going to be an M Arab Democratic state did you hear that yes not an oxymoron at least not 70 years ago an Arab democratic state and then about 1% which was mainly Greater Jerusalem was going to be internationalized gerrymandering Bethlehem in because Jerusalem was mainly Jews and if you're breaking down things by population centers really Jerusalem should have been given to the Jews but in order to not give it to the Jews Bethlehem has worked into there so it's really Jerusalem Bethlehem and therefore it's about 50 percent Jewish about 50 percent Muslim and therefore it can be internationalized and not given to the Jews and there's not even a corridor for the Jews from the the fledgling Jewish state into Jerusalem anyhow that map is is voted it is voted on by the UN 33 countries backed at 13 were against and ten countries abstained including BRIC Great Britain and the leadership of the Jews serve that you should have accepted this plan even without Jerusalem as our capital it is two years after the end of world war two and we need our own country we needed it a few years before have the British actually done what they promised to do maybe we wouldn't have had 6 million dead in Europe because they would have had a place to go to oh there's nobody else about the Jews in but um at least this and the Jews accepted this and the Arabs did not and really our war of independence starts now 70 years ago even though it's so it's in May of 1948 when Israel declares independence as the British quit the mandate that and then our were attacked by seven Arab armies and the official War of Independence starts really there's been there were was a six-month war of the local Arabs here continuing from the time of the partition plan until the official establishment of the State of Israel so really the War of Independence starts 70-year the fish or of Independence starts 70 years ago this week and still our most devastating war in terms of percentages one percent of the Jewish population here is killed six thousand out of 600,000 people so none of this do I ever for one minute take for granted and as the world spins as I think even more and more not just out of control but further away from the truth and you know I I just came back from the states and and yes I was speaking to people in the Maine this time whoo-hoo I didn't have like debate situations or hostile environments that I was speaking in I have had on other trips and that's fine I have no problem in defending my positions in front of different audiences if people are willing to listen that's great sometimes people are just not willing to listen but it's just incredible how far from the truth of Israel the world is going and in that you you have to realize that there's something really off here if not insane if not anti-semitic if not real enmity it's not about the issue like um you know last week right before Shabbat right so on Friday for those of you who weren't those for my audience in America if you weren't in a turkey glazed turkey stupor still from the Thanksgiving holiday and here we give thanks every day so so that's I didn't have turkey I love it I love Thanksgiving but it's not an Israeli holiday and I give thanks every single day for this country and for what I have but on Friday 305 Sufis were murdered in the northern Sinai probably by Isis although take your pick it's like it's just amazing it's just amazing the Sufis when people call Islam the religion of peace it would be it really would be if the Sufis were the ones running the show they're the mystical Muslims of the whirling dervishes they're they're the ones who see the good in mankind and are willing to live with other people there that really the god-fearing in the sense of the good God and not the God that makes you kill other people in order to establish your fealty to him and they're murdered in the northern Sinai did anybody care the enemy really cares Linda Sarsour now organizing some kind of demonstration is black lives matter getting out there and saying Sufi lives matter are all the people who spend night and day Jews included by the way and this is I say with such great pain are they now organizing demonstrations for the Sufis and saying like this is just terrible and maybe Islam needs a little bit of tweaking and what the hell is going on or no no are they gonna still be saying we shouldn't be eating dates from the Jordan Valley and Israel is just such a terrible place and the Jews it to such awful people so guess which one is going to be happening this week and it's such a patronizing attitude really when you come down to it it's like well you know even among people who would say that there's no such thing as Islamophobia of course there is such thing as the Islamophobia there's an if phobia is when it's irrational okay so it's not irrational it's not irrational at all to be afraid of certain elements of Islam and therefore I guess you could say it's not a phobia it's a very rational fear but um but is that like what's you know what's what's going on in the world does that bear any relation to the reality of are those people who defend Islam now coming out and saying well I I think Islam is this wonderful religion and therefore these kinds of people need to be stopped no it's more like well it kind of what do you expect attitude which really ultimately is quite racist and quite patronizing like we can't expect any better from them I do I expect better from everybody especially people who claim that they are God people God people are the last ones who should behave like this like animals if you really believe in God and you believe that he created the world in His image and everybody everybody in the world in His image which is what Judaism does Judaism doesn't feel like we've got some kind of in with God or some kind of luck I'm God and the only way to really know God is to be Jewish quite the opposite it's one of the talks that I gave when I was in the States a short one but something that has been kicking around in my mind for a while about if Judaism its imperialistic which it isn't cut to the chase but uh we're not like that we don't feel that we've got the only truth we have a special job in the world that a shaman has asked us to do but everybody is created in God's image and when you in any way aid and abet a religion that is doing the exact opposite now then how can you call yourself a religious person how can you even say that you're a human being forget where you stand visiter God and and until until this kind of behavior is given absolutely no space with which to continue no help at all from the side or tacit agreement or just by silence then we're in for a really really rough ride and that has nothing to do with being anti Muslim or anti-arab that has to do with being Pro humanity and it's just really so upsetting that that people aren't seeing what's happening here and how enabling this kind of behavior in any way shape or form it's just taking the world down a very very dangerous path and something that I believe that my country here and my people have a role to play in in saying like this is just wrong this is just flat-out wrong so of course wishing we return to recovery for the people who were wounded many many children as well I don't know how anybody who survived that Massacre though can in any way have a full recovery of the trauma of seeing relatives and friends be murdered in front of their eyes and I think it's just travesty that that this kind of thing continues and will happen again of course and stupid articles like Ansel Pfeiffer's article about how Egypt is paying the price for letting the northern Sinai go and and not be under control is really kind of missing the point okay it isn't because the Egyptian army isn't in the northern Sinai okay yes that's why these things can happen if there isn't a strong whatever to stop it and not that the Egyptian army or a group of righteous people either but this is the threat to their regime so fine it's happening because there's a mentality that says that it's okay to take weapons into a house of worship or any house it doesn't matter if it was a bar locked the doors and just start slaughtering people right and left that's what the real problem is and until that is dealt with in excuses aren't being made anymore anymore for this behavior the world is in for a very very very rough ride so you can only do what you can do and that's what I'm busy doing what I think it is that Hashem wants me to do in this world so I spent two weeks in the States I went to southern Florida which was so nice and warm broke out my sandals even got a pedicure so I'm now looking at very bright very bright red toenails I had you know been done with my sandals feet because it was getting cold here in Israel and back in Florida though you gotta just do that again so that was fun but uh but I worked there I didn't just go get pedicures I worked there I spoke for a camera a couple of evenings camera the media watchdog that I'm also privileged to be a part of here in Israel and speaking to people about the importance of yes sometimes it could be tilting at windmills but the importance of speaking the truth even when it seems like nobody's listening even on the campuses which some people think are just totally gone they're not totally gone and cameras got some great programs on the campuses but also it caught in really calling onto the carpet the New York Times and other very influential news organizations that insist on spreading lies about Israel and about other things and about whatever their version of liberalism is which isn't liberalism it's some insane left wing left wing ideas it has now feared Paris perilously close to two really at and not even close they're into anti-semitism and to meeting the far-right on that very common ground of of hating my people and so spoke for them met some really wonderful people wonderful caring people people who've devoted their lives to a great degree to Jewish organizations be it camera B at AIPAC be a J&F although something that's quite heartbreaking is that some of the people that I met have not been able to bring down that love of Judaism to their children and to their grandchildren the Jewish values that cross with American values so that's been fine but too many people that I met have Jewish children and grandchildren who Judaism is not important to them who married non-jews were raising non-jewish children and and it's not enough to care about whatever it is that you think Jewish values are and we can have a discussion on that as well without a framework of Judaism without Shabbat without the distinctive things that the boundaries that have kept you tease them alive for so many years and and yes some of those can be tweaked some of them can be some of them are maybe ideas and in issues and I believe that also that that were okay for the many years in the Diaspora and that maybe need to be changed now that we have a home but but maybe only if you're in that home and that you have to be more strongly Jewish in terms of that framework if you're not here as you're not living the Jewish life just in the street and and and there are always the pressures and even the seductions of the non-jewish world out there outside of your home and so many of my co-religionists have fallen to that and their children and grandchildren just being Jewish is that all that important to them or isn't important at all and that's really a heartbreak and the numbers of assimilation and the numbers of Jews just not getting married the numbers of Jews just not having Jewish families are rising all the time and to the point where were one night during the course of my trip actually went back to my room and cried because there is it's it's fit it's failing and I don't know what's going to happen to the Jews of the Diaspora if this is symbolic of what's happening because it's easy because because it's not important when things are easy and then did it become not important anymore when you don't have to fight for something it seems it seems so sad to say that that only when you're made aware that you're Jewish because anti-semitism then then it means something to you I don't know and that's also not so true because there were plenty of too let's say in Nazi Germany who my own father's family included who were like running from Judaism you know and didn't wanna belong to the people that were being persecuted so there's a lot of different answers for why Jews leave Judaism but it's when there's so much rich Jewish life that's available especially in the United States and different communities and synagogues and schools and colleges and and the easy easy availability of kosher food things that were once so difficult to get and not having to work on Shabbat and people understanding Jewish holidays and and people leaving Judaism it's just not important enough and in places that I went to where people work who do send their children to Jewish schools but are complaining to me about how they don't like what's going on in the Jewish schools that there's a lot of things that the teachers are teaching their kids that they feel are not Jewish values are much more the so-called American liberal values now and so my question is so why you're sending your kids to schools like this why are you paying a lot of money if your kids see it that kind of Jewish education the answer was well we like the other parents and think my kids have friends there and overall it's okay and so what I mean overall it's ok you like everything about the Jewish education that your children are getting except the education part so how does that fit in and you're paying a lot of money for that and then you're then you're gonna be surprised in five or ten years when your kids values and the things that they're saying to don't meet up with what you're teaching them at home but from the course of most of the day they're they're being almost intimidated because some teachers if you don't agree with them will just not give you a good grade there's there's the classrooms are not safe spaces anymore to voice and opinion that's different from the teacher and with all the pressure of doing well in school so that you can get into some top university it's gonna take a very very brave young person in order to stand up to the teacher and say you know I disagree with that and I don't want to be learning Palestinian poetry in this classroom and and I don't some of the things that you're saying don't jive and so you're throwing goldfish into a shark tank expecting them to survive it gets even worse when they get the University you're paying a lot of money to do that and this all makes sense so maybe I'm missing something it could be that I'm missing something absolutely it could be that I'm missing something but I don't get it I really just don't get it and we're gonna see what happens in the next 10 15 or 20 years and how these kids who are now in in those environments where they're gonna be visa vie Israel visa fees Judaism fees to view some of the other values that they have that are not necessarily forget Torah values even you know just like a lot of that Torah morality that seems to have also gone by the board's so um I came home a little bit confused and that's after being with people who who as I said weren't giving me a hard time yet seem to to have given up to some degree on on what it is that so important to them but but or maybe maybe none of us realize and it's and I'm speaking for myself as a parent also the tremendous influence at the outside world has on our children so we think and yes we can do that and we should do that around our own tables that's why I bought is so important because you actually can catch your kids away from all their stuff but but not realizing the tremendous pull of the outside world and the values that aren't necessarily ours on our kids and here I'm speaking not just to Jews but to Christians into people with conservative small C values that Wow it's scary out there and again I speak as a parent also and my kids haven't been immune to that either and I don't know how we're going to deal with this but but when you come in from the outside with a different perspective sometimes you can see things a little more clearly and say guys like whoa what's going on here so I can only try but I went from Florida over to Phoenix still had that pedicure out so had those sandals so beautiful in the Valley of the Sun and I want to give a shout out to Arthur and Amy Rothstein and to Adam and Val Brodsky for bringing me into Phoenix Arthur and Amy were just incredible hosts brought me into their synagogue mcore a scholar and residents beautiful little synagogue man they made of people who are finding their way back to Judaism or finding Judaism for the first time in their lives and and getting involved with prayers getting involved the Torah learning a lot of the campus also there some of the kids coming in there who have one Jewish parent and who suddenly are interested in Judaism it wasn't something that they were exposed to growing up and now they're looking for that and they're looking to to establish Jewish homes and it was really a great experience for me really a privilege to be able to speak to the community both on Friday night and during Shabbat and is well co-sponsored with the JCC the Jewish Community Center the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center on Sunday to a larger audience and and hopefully at least what they said they'd like to invite me back so I would love to get back there and and you know speak to more people and and you know bring it out and connect connect people with Israel always great to see people that I have seen here that I've guided here like the Rothstein's and the broadsky's and and then go back and see their home environment what it is that they have you know that where they're trying to raise their children it to that degree is easier here in Israel to raise at least Jewish minded children if not Torah value children that's another struggle that we're having here in Israel because the environment is Jewish so sometimes people think that they could slack off on on some of the more religious values and that's a struggle that we have here in Israel but it's I learned so much from my trips hopefully I people things or explain and connect the point is to connect and to connect in a respectful way and to to educate but I also am educated and I love meeting people some people that I meet a particular one couple that I'm thinking of in Phoenix that I met and just like really connected immediately you know how sometimes you just really like people from the first sentence and then on the other hand sometimes you really dislike people also from the first sentence so I found people that I really connected with immediately in Phoenix if you believe in the recycling of souls or the not recycling that sounds so plastic bagi but that you've been around the block before and there's people that you've met in a different place or a different way and both for the good and for the bad right so there's definitely people that I instinctively dislike or maybe they just remind me of people that in my life that I dislike and people that I just instinctively like so that I that happened in Phoenix of course floating around on a canyon didn't hurt either for that day on a lake in a canyon but so that was you know these people that you know that you're gonna meet again and hope that you'll meet again and they went on to LA toes now not so much out during the day but not in the evening it was colder in LA than I thought it would be and had a partner meeting for when Israel fund which was which was very interesting and again got to meet some people who are very devoted to Israel even from you know pretty far away on the west coast and I'm from LA so it's like going home and then being grateful I have to say that that I'm not in LA anymore and that I moved Israel close to thirty years ago it's been a crazy ride but but I'm happy that I made that choice and then over to the East Coast now definitely into closures and speaking in Brooklyn at the Kingsway Jewish Center lovely lovely people there are people who like I have seen here in Israel some people have been on my buses and taken trips around with me and now hopefully people who will do more so and very receptive and you know just talking about some of the common issues that we have with our kids with our grandchildren that that have to be discussed they just have to be discussed we cannot give up we cannot give up we have to keep saying even if even if nobody's listening and there are people listening look we can only do what we can do and sometimes someone will say to me like why are you wasting your time really you're going out there with a message that is just not politically correct these days and and I'm thinking about that also because at the end of December I'm going to lis mood UK where people will tell me like that's just totally not your but getting out of my comfort zone is something that I do and feeling that if there is something happening it has to be expressed it has we I don't have the right to to want to be popular and so therefore I just have to say things that will get me more audiences and I know people like that I know people who have changed their views I'm not gonna mention names but I know people who have I don't know if they've really changed their views but they do in public say things that will get them more speaking engagements in front of bigger audiences with very big fat checks for saying things that people want to hear but that's not what I can do I have to say the truth is I see it as I live it from Israel and so yeah it's going to limit me to where I speak they're not going to end up speaking to hundreds of people in front of a packed audience and get $10,000 their speaking engagement because I'm not saying things that are popular but I'm saying things that I believe have to be said and and so yeah it's self-limiting but at least at the end of the day I can feel like I didn't bow to that the winds of like I said of political correctness and more doing what I feel - wants me to do and what my heart and my head they're aligned in this tell me that I need to do and so I had a beautiful night in Livingston New Jersey with about 50 women and that wasn't politics that was really more Judaism and women and Israel and some of the the personal issues that we all struggle with and where Hashem can come to help us not by giving us the answers but by giving us the strength so we can find the answers on our own and so many people struggling with issues in their marriage and in their health and and with relationships and with their children Judaism doesn't provide the panacea for that but definitely can give you like that family grounding and like I said and the strength to the strength to the strength of community the strength of Prayer the strength of feeling that there's a lot of people who went before us and and who dealt with things and who coped with things doesn't mean that you solve the issues but at least you have the strength to deal with them and they understanding that so at the end of the day we don't understand but there is some kind of meaning to everything that we're doing and what you can't not do is not try and so everybody has issues and again I was blown away by by some of the really difficult situations that some of the women are in and how they're coping with them and by sharing some of my experiences and learning from them their experience in how they're dealing with things I was really humbled just to meet women who are going through just really if it's abusive marriage whatever it is they're going through and are coming out on the other side what I can tell you after my whole trip is that money does not buy happiness and the correlation between wealth and I was with some extremely wealthy people and happiness is not there yeah it can it keeps you from being hungry and it means that if you have a problem you can go get help for it it would be a physical problem or be it an emotional problem but to say that if you if you have a certain kind of economic stability then you also have emotional and spiritual stability sometimes I was thinking that it's even the opposite that some people who are very ready and don't have the challenges the economic challenges that others have have to look for other ways and to fulfill that that need for some kind of goal if that goals already been reached so and sometimes those goals are not good ones when you when you're financially secure then sometimes looking for the kicks is not in terms of getting ahead on your career getting ahead on other things the the excitement that people are looking for taken away from the good things in their lives and everybody I think out there knows what I'm talking about and so that's something that also I think have to you know be watched I saw and heard and spoke to different psychologists and different people and and people in the Jewish world as well deep into the Jewish world that that some of the some of the the wealth and some of the security has brought with it then they commensurate like I said going out into behaviors that are not so healthy and that not so healthy that can actually destroy the families and destroy everything that people worked so hard to build so it's something that we all have to be so careful about and and you know have that balance have a balance always in our lives between appreciation which is really I guess what this last weekend was about if what hasn't been taken over completely by the Black Friday and all the sales and all the commercialism but really getting back down to it is is being grateful for what we have and not having a sense of entitlement although was funny because I spent Shabbat surrounded by a lot of ex-british now living in Israel at a family function and it's funny because and yes now when you think about it it does make sense when you Thanksgiving means different things to somebody who grew up in England okay it's those uppity colonies and and their independence and so it's very funny and it comes back down to things being about perspective I suppose so but I hit the ground running when I got home Jews are on Thursday I ran a bus trip for one is all fun because it was Thanksgiving and people were here in Israel who normally aren't here because they came for a long weekend and that was a day that reconnected me to Israel in such a beautiful way we started off in pijl in a community the day was spent in Western being a meme just north of Jerusalem look but far in the sense of being in this little this gorge which is also where the Maccabees hid when they had their guerrilla war against the cell ucedds about Oh 2200 years ago that led to independence for a hundred years in the Second Temple period and our holiday of konoka but we started off in pijl which overlooks the airport these are all places of course that people would say the Jews have no right to live in and these are all so-called settlements but pgl overlooks the airport the security argument is just so no brainer but what we did is we went to visit a kindergarten with these kids there's no there's just no line at all between so-called specular things and Torah so they're planting wheat and then there's convinced that when the cloud then comes over to water the little wheat patch in the backyard the Hashem brought that cloud because obviously like you pray for rain and then Hashem brings the cloud to water the wheat and when they were making they made little pizzas for us so it's accompanied by the prayers of thanks for having the food and and while they're learning about nature and about weather and about how things grow they're learning it in a way that shows that it all comes from Hashem and there was just like when I grew up there were secular studies and there were religious studies and here it's all together and everything was done with song and with movement and with happiness I thought oh my god what a beautiful kindergarten this is and it's a it's a special project it's different kindergarten it's all over the all over Israel and so they need funding which is why I took people there in order to get out of the little apartment that they're in and have a proper classroom such a beautiful way of educating children you could just see that these children are just they're happy they're strong in the Judaism they're strong in the relationship with Hashem it's just like obvious that he created the world and that the good things that are here are things that he gave to us and Wow I mean to be three years old again and to be able to learn the teachers were just so impressive and so joyous and so loving it was just great and from there we went over to Tillman and tell Mona's the community with their rabbi the rabbit of the community I think I've spoke must have told the story before the rabbit of their community whose name I always mess up so I'm not going to say it he's now the rabbi of the police in Israel and he's a rabbi that I heard of a few years ago because there is a motorcycle group that goes around Israel everywhere and they go on Shabbat and since Taman is right on the main road they asked permission to be able to drive through Timon on Shabbat and Timon is a community there normally their gates are closed of Shabbat it's a religious community they don't have traffic on Shabbat but the rabbi years ago said gave permission but not only that when they showed up there the motorcyclists they were met with cake and with coffee and with the kiddush they were met with a warm community who welcomed them and I remember thinking at the time wow what a brilliant rabbi instead of saying like okay fine and kind of gradually saying alright you can drive to my community he welcomed them he made Shabbat for them which is what Shabbat is supposed to be about and so it came as no surprise to me when I heard that he was given a fairly important job in Israel and I would hope that rabbis like him are not few and far between although unfortunately sometimes I think that they're more rare than they should be so we were in taman and we went to visit the Pina Colada the warm corner for soldiers and then we went to this incredible woman hora who makes ceramics and I found myself drawn to this bowl just a beautiful Bowl it ended up I had a hole in the middle of it in the bottom and I figured okay maybe it's I don't know it made me I don't really know why there was a hole in it and then she told me that it's really a sink so but I loved it as a bowl so it's now my new fruit ball in my kitchen I love ceramics I love people who work with their earth especially the earth and the Land of Israel and and who are talented and creative and artistic all of which I am willfully not and so I figured ok well it's a small hole and maybe one day if we ever build another house in Israel this will be my new strength there but in the meantime it's a beautiful ball and you can't see the hole because I put a piece of fruit over it so I guess I came home that day with the kitchen sink but everybody loved her I try and at least you know go like to one artist because there's such creativity in these hills there's such creativity in Judea and Samaria and she was no exception and and just a bubbly warm colorful person in her own right and then we went from there to deliver to to visit a school for girls who are at risk because their family they come from very dysfunctional families or terrible things have happened to them and it's a heartbreak that there that there are girls like this in Israel that there are families that are dysfunctional but just like everywhere who are also dealing with people who are dealing with things and but the whole community of it'll ever alleys to help the girls in this school every single family takes the girls in for Shabbat and loves them and cares for them and models for them what a healthy nuclear family should look like because if you don't have an example where are you going to know when someone is raised in a dysfunctional family then they need help to figuring out it's not enough to know what not to do you have to know what to do and I can speak a little bit of that from personal experience and it's a very hard thing and and so they have people to model for them and families that love them and care for them and because they're far from the big city so they are less exposed to some of the temptations of the big city and and the school does incredible work in putting these girls back on their feet and we heard there from Karen or Bach whose son era's was killed by terrorists in January it'll be a year when the truck in Jerusalem killed just ran over four soldiers so her son was one of the soldiers and she talked a little bit about him and of of his dreams that will not be fulfilled and and it was really just an honor to be able to listen to her I don't know where she gets the strength and I know too many women who do this and I don't know where they get the strength from to be able to do this and and and to go on in what's about the most difficult thing that can they can ever happen to somebody and losing a child so she's involved with the school and she talked a little bit about eras and from there we went on to innovate tzuf which is a community that has had just a horrible year suffered from arson fires a few months ago where homes were burnt down like 30 homes or either burnt down completely or damaged by arson fires that were set by Arab by Arabs in the area because that's a that's an easy way to do terrorism and so they're still reeling from that and then they had terrorism in their in their community to Solomon family that was portrayed on a Friday night and so some of the challenges of securing the communities and due to a lot of the work of the one is I'll fund these things don't happen as often as our enemies would like them to happen and a lot of people are caught it doesn't make the news because if it bleeds it leads and when something doesn't happen not on the news but a lot of things a lot of good things are happening that you're not reading about because we're preventing preventing that kind of terror but to go to the community to talk to the people to see where the houses were burned down to see where the infiltration happened to to see the area in which they live and how they punch above their weight in a in a beautiful and very strategic area there's nothing like being out there there's nothing like meeting the people there's nothing like seeing these places learning the history not just of the hush my name of the maccabees seeing the olives and of course the holiday is all about the olive oil and you're seeing the olives just all the trees just loaded with the fruit now as we as we harvest them and understand the connection but once again between our holiday season and the agricultural cycle in the Land of Israel but also the challenges we're not yet there and we're not yet there to where we need to be we're stronger than we were 70 years ago and I stand on the shoulders of giants but we still have work to do and it's so called little people who are doing a lot of the heavy lifting and it's really the privilege of my life to be able to live among them and to in any way meet introduce those who don't know them to them and see see another side of Israeli society and especially a side that's so vilified by the world and it's so the opposite of what's really happening here so I love turning that around and then of course the end of the day I got winery and enjoying really some of the fruits of the vines of this beautiful country and bringing back bringing back something that we used to do that we're not doing again and I talk about that a lot but that was really that was really fun and a relaxing way to end the day and not just relaxing but enjoying Israel and appreciating Israel in another way so that was my last couple of weeks and if I sound tired it's because I am but it's good and I get rejuvenated just by coming home and just by doing what I do and feeling so blessed by Hashem and so grateful and so full of Thanksgiving for the place that I've chosen to make my home for the opportunity to have this be my home and once again as my plane flew my flight flew and the coast of Israel is outside I was going to see it if I can and the coast of Israel I see beneath me and my eyes full of tears a Sahara game al with such gratitude for being able to call the Land of Israel my home and for being able to be free to express my Judaism and live a full Jewish life and so that is really Thanksgiving every single day in every single way so wherever you are and wherever you're listening to this I hope that you are full of things for your health and for your family and just keep on if you're listening to this than I assume that you somewhat see things the way those of us here on the network see them and keep fighting for that keep fighting for the world as we know that it should be and not in the direction that other people are trying to take it that's what we as individuals have to do and if we do it together then really our whole is so much greater than the sum of our parts so Shavua Tov everybody if you have herro once again thanks to Tabitha independence everybody on the network I'm looking forward to an exciting week I'll be back I hope so take care everybody shovel I saw goodbye