Episode 1: Shlichus as a Way of Life - Opening and Introduction Episode

00:03 How do we turn our lives into lives of shlichus, full of meaning? This is Chani Moskowitz, a shlucha in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In this podcast, we’ll meet different women living their shlichus in a variety of fields, and through them, we’ll help each of us find and refine her own shlichus in the world. Because living the lives we were created to live is as good as it gets. Shlichus as a way of life. Let’s begin. Welcome to the Shlichus as a Way of Life podcast. In this first episode, we’ll get acquainted—with me, with the podcast, or the “hesket,” as we should say in Hebrew—and begin our journey together. So, to get to know each other, today I’m interviewing myself. Later on, with Hashem’s help, we’ll host a range of fascinating women here. My name is Chani Moskowitz. I’m married to Mendel, and I’m the mother of four children, baruch Hashem. I grew up in Israel, in a warm, supportive community in Kiryat Malachi, and I married my husband Mendel, who grew up in Ukraine. How did he get there? The Rebbe of Lubavitch sent his parents there thirty-two years ago, in 1990, 5750. This was before the Iron Curtain fell, before communism had completely collapsed, though little cracks had begun to appear in the wall. They were sent to the city of Kharkiv, in Ukraine, and started from absolute zero. Schools, Jewish life, a shul—none of it was there. There was a shul building, but it wasn’t in the community’s hands. It had been turned into a sports hall for decades. That’s where he grew up: a little shliach who, together with his parents, began building Jewish life out of practically nothing, in what was a spiritual desert. In fact, he was probably the only Torah-observant child in the entire country. Over the years, more shluchim were sent and arrived throughout the country. An incredible network was established in every city, and I really think only someone who has visited can understand its scale and power. It’s something amazing that you have to

02:08 see with your own eyes. We joined the shlichus in Kharkiv about a year after our wedding. We traveled with my eldest daughter, Mussia, who was two months old at the time. Russian is the language spoken in Kharkiv, and I didn’t really know Russian then. I mean, I knew a few words. I thought I’d manage somehow, but it was challenging to discover just how dependent we are on language. I couldn’t even make contact with people on the most basic, practical level. So we simply began taking part in the activities, and I learned the language as I went, while working. And it wasn’t just the language. I had to get used to a different place, a different culture, different habits—a whole new mentality. I began teaching at the school and the girls’ institute, getting to know families from the schools, and hosting people for Shabbos and the holidays throughout the year. I accompanied people through the Jewish life cycle, something that is far from a given for anyone who grew up disconnected from it. Even a Jewish birthday is something so special, and not something to take for granted. Every little thing is special and new. It’s amazing to wake up every morning knowing that you’re leaving home to give to others and to fulfill a role you came there specifically to fill, because there’s no one else there to do it. To go out and do good, to meet people—to introduce them to parts of Judaism they don’t know. Maybe someone will do a mitzvah for the first time today, or see a letter of the Hebrew alphabet for the first time, or hear a Torah story for the first time. Maybe they’ll simply need some material help. Whatever it may be, anyone who lives the shlichus enterprise the Rebbe of Lubavitch established understands how amazing it is. You give, but in truth, you receive a life of meaning. It’s hard to put into words what a tremendous privilege that is. A little over seven

04:00 years passed since we went out on shlichus, and the month of Adar 5782 arrived. By the secular calendar, it was February 2022, and Russia invaded Ukraine. I don’t think anyone missed that in the news. At first, together with all the shluchim families, we decided to stay and help the community with whatever was needed. After all, we hadn’t come for a nice volunteer stint. We were part of the community, even when things were hard—and especially when they were hard. For the first few days of the war, it was army fighting army. We were able to help people, offer support, go out and come back in. After five days, civilian buildings began to be hit by aerial bombardment from planes, and we received unequivocal instructions that we had to leave right away. We set out with our four children on a journey where, at every stage, we didn’t really know what the next stage would look like. It took fifty hours from the moment we left our home in Kharkiv until we landed in Israel, from Wednesday morning until Friday evening, before Shabbos. The journey is a story in its own right, with so many details and a chain of miracles that accompanied us. The prayers of all the Jewish people accompanied us, and now we’re here in Israel. We don’t know what will happen with the shlichus there, or with Ukraine. The war is still going on. Just yesterday marked three full months of war, and it’s not clear which way things are heading, or whether it’s anywhere near an end. While I was in Kharkiv, I would share glimpses of life there with people in Israel, along with insights from Chassidus for women. Quite a few times, I was asked, “Tell me, how can we do shlichus here too? It looks so fulfilling and enjoyable and good—how do I do it myself? How do I do it here? Is that even possible? How can you be on shlichus when it isn’t, so to speak, your official role—when you’re not a shlucha by title? How can you be a shlucha without flying

05:55 somewhere that specifically needs you, without traveling to some faraway place?” We also want to feel that sense of fulfillment. And I always answered: Of course. Shlichus is everywhere. It doesn’t depend on your job title, what you do, or where you are in life. And now that we’re here, I need to do more than say that. I need to see how to actually do it, how to live it. Because shlichus truly doesn’t depend on a place. Shlichus means waking up in the morning wherever you are, no matter where that is or what situation you find yourself in, and looking to see where you’re needed. At home, at school, at work, with neighbors, with friends, with your spouse, with your children—with everyone. I approach everyone with a sense of shlichus. It’s a way of thinking. It means living so that, in every area of our lives, we grow and make things better for others. When we get used to thinking that way, we live lives of shlichus—better, richer lives. Lives in which I feel that I’m giving and living for a purpose. And that purpose is for all of us, together, to make the world a better place and bring the Geulah, which we so desperately need and have been waiting for for thousands of years. When I had opportunities to share things, even back in Kharkiv, the little things I shared often seemed trivial to me, simple and obvious. I’d wonder, should I share this? Shouldn’t I? Maybe it isn’t interesting? And I’d get responses like, “Thank you for posting this—you changed the way I think,” or “Because of something you said two weeks ago, I started changing one of my habits.” What I realized from that is that each of us has things we’re used to. They seem obvious and simple to us, just part of life. We know them, we do them,

07:40 And for someone else, it could be a tremendous source of inspiration. A life lesson, an improvement, a change. When each woman takes her own talent and uses it to inspire others, that is an amazing shlichus in itself—one that can help them find their own shlichus too. It’s a kind of circle. The world isn’t divided into people who give and people who receive. We all give, and we all benefit from one another, in every area, materially and spiritually. That’s why I so want to host all kinds of women on this podcast: women with different professions, women with expertise in different fields, women who have faced or are facing all sorts of things. Anyone who can inspire us, give us strength, give us tools. Every woman has insights to share, and we’re all eager to listen, to learn, to improve and grow, to fill ourselves with useful knowledge, good feelings, and good habits that we can then pass on. And that’s the goal. Shlichus. That’s why I started this podcast, and I pray with all my heart that it achieves its purpose. I wish for myself and for all of you that we have a successful journey together—that it will be not only interesting, but useful, and that it will lead to a better world.