Episode 17: A Home for Your Talent | With Ella Mia Efrati, singer-songwriter and manager of the website "Yotzros Or"

00:00 Speaker 1 She wrote and composed a song about Jerusalem for her school choir when she was just eight. She released an album of original songs as a keepsake for her bas mitzvah, and at some point decided that she wouldn’t just bring her own talent into the world—she would also help thousands of other girls express themselves and their talents. Join us for a particularly fun conversation with Ella Mia Efrati, who isn’t afraid to turn dreams into reality. How do we turn our lives into lives of shlichus, full of meaning? I’m Chani Moskowitz, a shlucha in Kharkiv, Ukraine. On this podcast, we’ll meet women whose shlichus takes different forms, and through them help each of us discover and refine our own shlichus in the world. Because living the life we were created to live is the best there is. Shlichus as a way of life. Let’s begin. Welcome, Ella Mia.

00:56 Speaker 2 Hello. That’s right.

00:57 Speaker 1 Did I say it right? Yes.

00:59 Speaker 2 Yes.

01:00 Speaker 1 Great. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m really excited, um, just—

01:04 Speaker 2 I’m so glad to be here.

01:05 Speaker 1 Yes, from getting to know a little about you beforehand, I was already curious to meet you. Tell us about yourself, because that’s what we want to hear. Go ahead.

01:13 Speaker 2 First of all, it’s such a privilege to meet you.

01:15 Speaker 1 Thank you.

01:15 Speaker 2 You’re amazing. I looked a little at what you do, and I connect so much with this idea of shlichus as a way of life. It’s amazing.

01:24 Speaker 1 Boruch Hashem.

01:26 Speaker 2 So, a little about me. My name is Ella Mia Efrati. I’m from Kiryat Tivon, and I’m twenty-one. What should I tell you—what I do?

01:38 Speaker 1 Wait, maybe we should have saved your age for the end. People will be shocked by how much you’ve done. You’re so young—not in an insulting way, of course. Just out of curiosity, is there a story behind your name? Where did it come from?

01:52 Speaker 2 Yes. So my parents—

01:53 Speaker 1 It isn’t exactly conventional, after all.

01:56 Speaker 2 Right. You’re one of the few people who say it correctly right away.

01:59 Speaker 1 Yes.

02:00 Speaker 2 My parents are baalei teshuvah, and that’s how they chose to write my name. They’d always been very spiritual, and they thought about how it contains letters from Hashem’s name. Ella is also an elm tree, so it’s about a connection to the earth, to—and also toward Hashem, being on a path, in a process—

02:27 Speaker 1 Wow, I never thought about how you can break that word down like that. Wow.

02:32 Speaker 2 Yes, it has letters from Hashem’s name, and Mia is water and Torah. I was also born in May, so that too—

02:42 Speaker 1 It all worked out.

02:43 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:44 Speaker 1 Beautiful. And Mia also has that connection to the name.

02:46 Speaker 2 Right.

02:47 Speaker 1 Since we’re breaking it down.

02:48 Speaker 2 Exactly. What a name.

02:50 Speaker 1 Wow, that’s deep. It’s just a name, but there’s so much more to it. Beautiful. So tell us about yourself. Let’s start at the beginning. Not that you’re eighty, you know, but let’s start with your childhood. What kind of home did you grow up in? How did you get to where you are? From the beginning.

03:09 Speaker 2 So, boruch Hashem, I really grew up in a very musical home. As I said, my parents are baalei teshuvah. My father is a voice teacher and musician, and we have a recording studio at home.

03:23 Speaker 1 Wow.

03:23 Speaker 2 Yes, so music has been part of my life since I was very little. My mother is a poet and lecturer. She has books, and she also teaches cognitive-awareness studies. Do you know what Yemima studies are?

03:36 Speaker 1 I’ve heard of it, but I couldn’t tell you what it is.

03:38 Speaker 2 It’s a method of reflection and inner work.

03:41 Speaker 1 We probably need a whole separate podcast just for that.

03:44 Speaker 2 So, the writing came from her, the composing from my father, and the singing—it all guided me in that direction. At school, I joined the choir in first grade, and they even sang songs I’d written in the choir.

04:09 Speaker 1 Wait, let’s start with the fact that you wrote a song. How old were you? You wrote the words and composed the music, right?

04:15 Speaker 2 Yes.

04:16 Speaker 1 Wow.

04:16 Speaker 2 I had—I have an album that came out for my bas mitzvah, with songs I’d written from those ages—

04:21 Speaker 1 Wow, that’s incredible.

04:22 Speaker 2 From around age seven.

04:24 Speaker 1 Wow. Your parents are amazing. They didn’t see a child writing songs and say, “Well, she’ll grow out of it.” They took it completely seriously.

04:32 Speaker 2 Yes, boruch Hashem. That’s the gift my parents gave me: they’ve been very attentive throughout the whole journey—and still are today—

04:39 Speaker 1 Wow.

04:39 Speaker 2 To where I’m coming from, and they’ve really given me room to express myself. That isn’t something you can take for granted today, because—

04:44 Speaker 1 Right.

04:44 Speaker 2 It’s also a profession that requires investment, and the reward isn’t always immediate, and...

04:52 Speaker 1 Right.

04:52 Speaker 2 They’re amazing.

04:53 Speaker 1 So you composed a melody and wrote a song to it. At what age?

04:57 Speaker 2 Yes, I was eight when I wrote the song you’re talking about, I think—

05:01 Speaker 1 Second grade.

05:01 Speaker 2 “My Jerusalem.”

05:02 Speaker 1 Yes, it’s a lovely song. Maybe we’ll add—

05:05 Speaker 2 Thank you.

05:05 Speaker 1 A link later. Well, it’s all on the website; we’ll explain in a moment. Okay. So your teacher took the song and taught it to the whole class?

05:14 Speaker 2 Yes, the music teacher. Actually, it was the choir for the whole school. Most of the girls were in sixth grade, and I was the only first grader who made it in.

05:23 Speaker 1 Oh, wow, they really moved you up for that.

05:25 Speaker 2 Yes. Actually, we sang that song in second grade. And years later, I heard that on Jerusalem Day—it was a religious state school—they were still performing that song.

05:43 Speaker 1 How moving.

05:44 Speaker 2 Yes, even after I no longer studied there.

05:46 Speaker 1 Wow.

05:46 Speaker 2 Afterward I went on to study at a Chabad Bais Yaakov school.

05:49 Speaker 1 You know, as you tell this story, I’m thinking about how important the adults around us are.

05:55 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

05:55 Speaker 1 What a responsibility.

05:57 Speaker 2 My teachers.

05:57 Speaker 1 To notice talents and help them grow. A child’s professional future might depend on one teacher who simply took them seriously, who noticed—

06:06 Speaker 2 Exactly.

06:07 Speaker 1 Children often express these things in little ways, almost in passing, and someone needs to notice and do something with it.

06:15 Speaker 2 Absolutely. There are teachers I especially think of—really, all my teachers encouraged me so much and made room for my talents. You can’t take that for granted.

06:27 Speaker 1 Wow, that’s moving.

06:27 Speaker 2 Educators really do have a lot of responsibility.

06:29 Speaker 1 Yes. So by age twelve, you had an album.

06:32 Speaker 2 Yes, boruch Hashem.

06:32 Speaker 1 Did you record it at home?

06:34 Speaker 2 Yes, all of it at home. My father—

06:36 Speaker 1 Truly homemade.

06:37 Speaker 2 He arranged everything for me.

06:39 Speaker 1 That’s wonderful. I think it’s a dream for a lot of girls.

06:43 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem. Yes. Actually, the bas mitzvah album came together about a week before my bas mitzvah. We said we’d give everyone who came an album as a keepsake, and within a week we put together the cover and everything—

06:54 Speaker 1 Wow.

06:54 Speaker 2 Really quickly.

06:56 Speaker 1 What, you had to make the booklet and...

06:58 Speaker 2 Yes. No, the songs were already—

07:00 Speaker 1 Oh.

07:00 Speaker 2 Recorded. They were songs from when I was, um...

07:02 Speaker 1 So you just had to put them together and release them as a—

07:04 Speaker 2 Yes.

07:04 Speaker 1 Finished product.

07:05 Speaker 2 Yes.

07:06 Speaker 1 How exciting. That was the CD era, then. Well, you’re not that old.

07:10 Speaker 2 No, yes, it was. With my latest album, for example, I didn’t release a CD. It’s an album—

07:15 Speaker 1 Right, who even still has a CD player?

07:18 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s...

07:20 Speaker 1 You have to keep up with the times, with...

07:22 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s...

07:23 Speaker 1 With technology.

07:24 Speaker 2 Technology keeps changing.

07:26 Speaker 1 It really does. So take us on from your bas mitzvah.

07:30 Speaker 2 From my bas mitzvah. So, boruch Hashem, gradually there were performances. I also got to perform with my mother. We had a subsidized show in the Jezreel Valley, and I performed with her, as well as at various women’s evenings I was invited to and challah bakes.

07:48 Speaker 1 Wow. So when you perform, you come as a singer?

07:51 Speaker 2 Yes.

07:51 Speaker 1 Singing your own songs?

07:52 Speaker 2 My songs, and my parents’ songs too. Even on my latest album, The Message from the Fields—which isn’t all that new anymore; it’s about a year old—

07:59 Speaker 1 Your most recent one.

08:00 Speaker 2 Yes. There are a few songs on it that my parents made: my mother wrote them and my father composed the music. They have a few songs—lots of songs, actually, but...

08:08 Speaker 1 Are you an only child?

08:10 Speaker 2 I also have a brother.

08:11 Speaker 1 Okay, because it sounds like you’re an only child, with all the...

08:13 Speaker 2 Yes.

08:14 Speaker 1 They’re so—

08:14 Speaker 2 It’s kind of...

08:16 Speaker 1 So involved in what you do, and... Wow, it’s so—

08:19 Speaker 2 I have a brother, and he’s also, bli ayin hara, very talented. He’s a pianist and all that. But he’s more... He’s modest. He doesn’t...

08:28 Speaker 1 Wow, a truly musical family. How wonderful.

08:30 Speaker 2 Yes, boruch Hashem.

08:32 Speaker 1 Wow. So at some point you say, “I don’t want to keep this to myself.” There must be other girls around me who can sing, want to sing, and want to develop that talent.

08:41 Speaker 2 Yes.

08:42 Speaker 1 And you come up with a great idea. Tell us about it. It’s such a great idea.

08:46 Speaker 2 Thank you. Wow, it really is, baruch Hashem, that Hashem sent me this idea. It came from something I felt myself, too. First of all, there’s the issue of women singing. It was very important to me to share my songs, but to do it within all the guidelines of halachah. And I was always looking for a platform for that. I also have friends who are so talented and sing beautifully. And I see so many talented girls who don’t always go ahead and fulfill that potential. They don’t do anything with it because they feel there’s no platform for it, especially in the more Chareidi community. And then Hashem really sent me an idea.

09:33 Speaker 1 Wow. Do you remember the moment the idea came to you?

09:36 Speaker 2 It developed over time.

09:37 Speaker 1 It sort of simmered.

09:38 Speaker 2 Yes, it developed gradually. It started with an idea to open a website just for women, where girls could upload their songs. At the time, I didn’t know whether it was even practical, whether it was possible. Little by little, I also began to see how I could include different ideas there. When the site first opened, we started having a weekly meeting on Zoom—it was during COVID. We called it the monthly contemplation assignment. There was a monthly theme that we would create around: arriving at creativity through contemplation. And...

10:17 Speaker 1 So what’s the name of the website?

10:18 Speaker 2 Yotzrot Or.

10:20 Speaker 1 Where did the name come from? It immediately reminded me of “Who forms light and creates darkness”...

10:25 Speaker 2 Wow. Yes, I think that really was the inspiration. Actually, there was a film I made. I used to make films in high school, when I was a counselor—

10:37 Speaker 1 Another thing you did along the way.

10:40 Speaker 2 —with the girls I was a counselor for. I love drama, too, and it goes together with my love of the stage and all of that. So...

10:45 Speaker 1 That whole field.

10:46 Speaker 2 Yes, that whole field. I made films with the girls I was a counselor for and with my friends, filming scripts I’d written. My mother helped me write, too. One of the films was called The Artist. I filmed it in twelfth grade, and it was about each person’s unique light, and how art is a tool for sharing our talents with the world—or, sorry, how the talents Hashem gives us are a tool for bringing the light He gave us into the world. There was one girl who spent the whole film searching for her identity, trying to find out what her art was. In the end, it turned out that her art was lighting candles: helping other people discover their own art. And then someone said “creating light,” and somehow that’s where it...

11:46 Speaker 1 Beautiful.

11:46 Speaker 2 ...connected for me with the name of the site. I said, “That’ll be the name: Yotzrot Or.”

11:50 Speaker 1 It’s very special, because “yotzrot”—“creating”—fits every kind of creativity, whether it’s something physical or not, whether it’s a song or a painting. And “light” can express anything positive that you bring into the world. And...

12:03 Speaker 2 Right.

12:03 Speaker 1 The name fits perfectly. Beautiful.

12:05 Speaker 2 Hashem really sent it to me, baruch Hashem.

12:08 Speaker 1 So how do girls find the site? How did they discover it existed—or how did you introduce it to the world? How did it gain momentum?

12:16 Speaker 2 Well, first of all, I just opened it and—

12:20 Speaker 1 Jumped in.

12:21 Speaker 2 Yes. Actually, no, I never advertised it. I didn’t spend money on advertising or anything like that. It spread by word of mouth. At first it was very gradual: girls would come in and hear that there was a place where they could share their work. And baruch Hashem, over the past year—and especially in the past few weeks—more and more come in every day. One thing that brought in a lot of visitors was a writing and composition competition we held—

12:48 Speaker 1 Wow.

12:49 Speaker 2 Before that, there were about two hundred members on the site, and the girls kept asking, “Ella Mia, we want a talent competition! Make us a competition, a competition, a competition.” One wanted a singing competition, another wanted something else—

13:04 Speaker 1 When really the point isn’t the competition—

13:05 Speaker 2 Exactly.

13:05 Speaker 1 —but having some kind of platform to express yourself, right?

13:08 Speaker 2 Yes, and I really didn’t want to hold a competition. I told them, “I’m sorry, I don’t want a competition. I want you to use the opportunity you have right here to—”

13:17 Speaker 1 There’s no need to compete for one spot. There’s room for everyone.

13:20 Speaker 2 Yes. I really didn’t want it. I was worried about that aspect of it. It’s exactly the opposite of the site’s purpose.

13:25 Speaker 1 Right.

13:26 Speaker 2 But then one member managed to convince me. Her name is Baila Turk, and today she’s my deputy director. She handles all the emails now; she’s amazing. She said to me, “Listen, Ella Mia, it’s true that competition isn’t something you want to encourage. But the fact is, it motivates girls. They want it because there’s something about it that really gives them a push—”

13:55 Speaker 1 A kind of fun.

13:56 Speaker 2 “—to create. It gives them that extra spark.” And she told me, “I know so many girls who would want this.” So I said, “All right.” Somehow she convinced me. Then she said, “Listen, I think we’ll get about a hundred contestants.” And I said, “Wow, listen, if we get twenty, I’ll be impressed.” So we announced the competition, you know, through statuses and groups. In a single day, there were thousands of visits. It was unbelievable. Just—

14:29 Speaker 1 Wow.

14:30 Speaker 2 I hadn’t expected it. She’d suggested that the prize would be having a singer perform your song, and that I would be the singer. She knew me as a singer from the site. I said, “What? It’s embarrassing to advertise that the winning song will be recorded by a singer, and then it turns out to be me!” But she said, “Yes, I’m telling you, that’s how we’ll advertise it.” And then I saw hundreds of girls coming in and submitting songs—

14:56 Speaker 1 What exactly did you advertise? What did someone have to do to enter?

15:01 Speaker 2 Send a song to the site’s email address.

15:05 Speaker 1 A song she’d written and composed?

15:07 Speaker 2 Well—

15:07 Speaker 1 So that was the competition, not singing.

15:08 Speaker 2 There were two tracks in the competition. That’s another thing that developed as we went along. The competition itself took shape—

15:13 Speaker 1 Right.

15:13 Speaker 2 —according to what was needed, and—

15:14 Speaker 1 I’m thinking maybe you advertised it and then said, “Wait, I didn’t work out the order of things first.”

15:18 Speaker 2 At first, it was advertised as a writing competition. Then it became a writing and composition competition. So there was the silver track, which focused more on writing, and the writing-and-composition track, with original lyrics and music. And then I said to her, “Okay, Baila, listen, this is serious. We can’t do this—”

15:39 Speaker 1 On your own.

15:40 Speaker 2 Yes. We needed judges and singers to perform the songs.

15:45 Speaker 1 Right—how do you narrow down so many entries?

15:47 Speaker 2 We did the initial screening ourselves. But little by little, as the stages progressed, my mother got involved too, and we brought in a panel of poets to evaluate the writing and a panel of musicians and singers. And then, baruch Hashem, singers stepped forward to help. It was all voluntary, too, which is amazing. There was tremendous siyata d’Shmaya with that competition.

16:19 Speaker 1 Wait, so how did it end? Was there an event?

16:22 Speaker 2 For the silver track, the writing track, we held a live broadcast on Zoom. The judges discussed the songs there, and the winning song was set to music by one of the singers. That was the prize. One of the judges, Orita—an amazing singer whom I perform with—composed the music, sang it, and recorded it. Then, about a month later, we held the final for the gold track. That was much bigger, because it included composition, and we needed... It took place in a studio at the Jewish film school in Yad Binyamin. They gave us the studio, and we worked really hard to adapt it. We had to install internet infrastructure there, too. It was quite a production. Baruch Hashem, it simply came together.

17:15 Speaker 1 How amazing!

17:16 Speaker 2 And—

17:17 Speaker 1 You built it from nothing.

17:18 Speaker 2 Yes, and so many girls volunteered to help.

17:20 Speaker 1 Resources, too—and getting everyone and everything together.

17:23 Speaker 2 And singers came. Honestly, right up to the last moment, I was just praying that it would all work.

17:28 Speaker 1 You just approach a singer and say, “Hi, my name is Ella Mia. I decided to hold a competition, and somehow it worked.”

17:36 Speaker 2 Yes, listen. The truth is, I already knew most of the judges. I’d collaborated with them or done things with them before. But yes. For example, Yafush Barkal, who came—I simply reached out to her. I didn’t think—I mean, I thought, why would she want to?

17:53 Speaker 1 How amazing that she said yes.

17:55 Speaker 2 Seriously. There was such incredible siyata dishmaya. And really, Yafush, if you’re hearing this, thank you.

18:02 Speaker 1 We need to do a podcast with her too. Wow, how wonderful! Just amazing! And at the event itself, the girls sang their songs, there was judging, and that was how it went.

18:13 Speaker 2 Yes, and then the winning song was announced. The audience voted at the same time, during the broadcast. It was live. So the girls—

18:22 Speaker 1 How did they vote?

18:22 Speaker 2 We set it up—my friend developed a voting app. It was really—

18:26 Speaker 1 Wow, how wonderful!

18:28 Speaker 2 Yes, baruch Hashem.

18:29 Speaker 1 And there’s a winner.

18:31 Speaker 2 There’s a winner. Her name is Sarah Lewis, and about three weeks ago, the music video for her song came out. That was the prize—the prize for the winning song in the gold track. It was a music video with singers, and the winner joined them to sing it. They all performed the winning song together. It’s called “With Love.”

18:52 Speaker 1 What’s it called?

18:53 Speaker 2 “With Love.”

18:54 Speaker 1 Wow.

18:55 Speaker 2 She wrote a truly amazing song.

18:57 Speaker 1 What kind of responses do you get—or did you get—from girls who took part?

19:01 Speaker 2 Wow, baruch Hashem. The site is full of really moving comments. And what was amazing to see was that, during the competition, I was very worried about the competitive side of it. Very worried. We really did everything we could to make it—we tried hard to think how to handle the judging so that it would feel as little like that as possible.

19:21 Speaker 1 So they wouldn’t be disappointed or hurt.

19:22 Speaker 2 Yes, and we also rewarded them at every stage as much as we could.

19:29 Speaker 1 Wow.

19:30 Speaker 2 It was just amazing to see that even the girls who didn’t make it through, or girls who were competing, kept cheering each other on. It was so moving to see. A competition can be complicated, and the girls just didn’t stop complimenting each other. They thanked us so much for giving them this platform. They were so—I said, there really is a need for this. Now I’m trying to work out how to run the next competition. There’s a huge demand, especially for a singing competition. But I really want to do it in a way that’s as uncompetitive as possible, while still keeping that excitement of—

20:03 Speaker 1 I think someone who comes to something like this—from how it sounds to me, looking in from the outside—doesn’t necessarily come to win. She comes to express herself and meet other girls.

20:14 Speaker 2 Right.

20:14 Speaker 1 Girls who share her hobby or talent, and to enjoy herself. To enjoy herself. So I think winning is just a bonus.

20:23 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem.

20:23 Speaker 1 Meaning, they’re not coming to compete; they’re coming to enjoy themselves.

20:24 Speaker 2 Right.

20:25 Speaker 1 That’s amazing. Because you built it that way, it’s possible for that to happen.

20:30 Speaker 2 Thank Hashem.

20:31 Speaker 1 How amazing.

20:32 Speaker 2 We tried.

20:33 Speaker 1 When was it, actually?

20:34 Speaker 2 About six months ago—the final, the final event. The music video only came out very recently.

20:40 Speaker 1 And can people see all of this on the site, for example?

20:43 Speaker 2 Yes, you can still watch the final event. It’s all there.

20:46 Speaker 1 Tell me, you keep saying “girls,” a competition for girls. What ages are you talking about? Was there an age limit to begin with?

20:52 Speaker 2 It started at high-school age—I think sixteen or fifteen, I don’t remember anymore—and there were contestants who were sixty.

21:01 Speaker 1 Wow.

21:02 Speaker 2 The woman who won the silver track, Bracha Bloy, was sixty.

21:06 Speaker 1 How amazing!

21:07 Speaker 2 Yes, and the one who won the gold track is actually my age.

21:11 Speaker 1 We won’t guess.

21:11 Speaker 2 Twenty-one. Yes.

21:13 Speaker 1 Wow. That’s like—

21:14 Speaker 2 Quite a few older women were really, really interested, and it was—

21:19 Speaker 1 It shows you the need.

21:21 Speaker 2 Yes, across all ages. We really had every age.

21:23 Speaker 1 You’ve tapped into this enormous need that exists. It sounds to me as though you imagined girls would come—

21:29 Speaker 2 I imagined teenagers—

21:30 Speaker 1 Yes.

21:31 Speaker 2 And then, suddenly, yes.

21:33 Speaker 1 Wow, how—

21:33 Speaker 2 No, I never dreamed it would be on this scale. But really, it was a competition that grew as it—

21:39 Speaker 1 Wow.

21:39 Speaker 2 Went along.

21:40 Speaker 1 Didn’t some eight-year-old turn up, like a little new Ella Maya?

21:43 Speaker 2 There was one sweet girl who was around eleven, but we’d said that the minimum requirement was—

21:51 Speaker 1 Right.

21:52 Speaker 2 At that age, you can’t really compare an eleven-year-old’s songwriting.

21:55 Speaker 1 It’s not a fair match.

21:57 Speaker 2 Yes.

21:58 Speaker 1 Wow, how special. And recently you also made some kind of series.

22:03 Speaker 2 Right.

22:04 Speaker 1 Are you still filming it, or have you already—

22:06 Speaker 2 Just a few more days with singers I arranged things with a long time ago. I’m still filming, but we’ve basically finished shooting, and now I’m editing, editing.

22:15 Speaker 1 Wow. Do you do the filming too?

22:17 Speaker 2 Yes.

22:18 Speaker 1 Or is someone there with you?

22:19 Speaker 2 Basically, my friends—on every filming day there’s a team of whichever friends are on duty.

22:25 Speaker 1 I’m trying to understand whether your friends are gradually becoming camera operators—

22:29 Speaker 2 Some are, some aren’t.

22:29 Speaker 1 And logistics people—or whether that’s how you choose your friends. Where does it start?

22:36 Speaker 2 So I’m studying—I’m now in my third year at a Jewish film school. I’m learning all the related fields there: directing, cinematography, production, sound—

22:48 Speaker 1 In the end you need all of it, because it’s...

22:50 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s the whole package. So friends from there are amazing, of course, and they help a lot. And there are also girls who aren’t in the field but have a good technical sense or know how to help on set. Sometimes they come as production assistants too. It depends on the size of the shoot.

23:09 Speaker 1 And it’s all volunteer work?

23:11 Speaker 2 It’s all volunteer work.

23:12 Speaker 1 Just for fun, I mean.

23:13 Speaker 2 Yes.

23:13 Speaker 1 That’s amazing.

23:14 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem.

23:15 Speaker 1 It’s really not something you can take for granted.

23:17 Speaker 2 Ah, baruch Hashem.

23:18 Speaker 1 Wow.

23:18 Speaker 2 Now I’m trying to figure out how—I have so many girls helping that I can’t keep having them work for free. So—

23:25 Speaker 1 Yes.

23:25 Speaker 2 It’s really nonstop work. But with Hashem’s help, we’ll see how, little by little, maybe I can earn something from it too, so I can...

23:34 Speaker 1 Once it starts having costs, you need to make sure there’s income.

23:36 Speaker 2 Yes.

23:36 Speaker 1 But I think that because you came to it out of love and enjoyment and real passion, you’ve built such a good foundation. Now you have so much to work with.

23:45 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem, yes.

23:46 Speaker 1 So what is the series, actually? What are you filming? What will we see? Tell us before it goes up.

23:51 Speaker 2 The series is about singers and songwriters. It’s divided into segments. There are “A Day in the Life” episodes with singers, mostly on days when they have big performances at Binyanei HaUma. We filmed there a few times. Somehow, almost all the “Day in the Life” episodes ended up being at Binyanei HaUma, with Yafush Barkal and Yael Kalifa.

24:15 Speaker 1 The same women, you mean.

24:16 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. It just happened that Yafush performed at Binyanei HaUma a lot this year, but—

24:21 Speaker 1 So these were in different contexts, different conferences and things, not necessarily a performance—

24:24 Speaker 2 No, no. Each time we focused on one person.

24:28 Speaker 1 Right, because you can’t follow several at once.

24:30 Speaker 2 Yes, each episode follows one day. There was a day in Yafush’s life, for example, a day in Tzipor Reivgi’s [?] life, and days in the lives of various other singers. There’s another segment that’s more interview-based. We filmed it in a green-screen studio: interviews with well-known singer-songwriters, a segment introducing new creators who aren’t known yet, and also a panel segment with questions girls from the site sent us.

24:59 Speaker 1 How sweet.

25:00 Speaker 2 And all sorts of topics, like women singing—topics that matter to the—

25:03 Speaker 1 Yes.

25:03 Speaker 2 Girls who create. Really, all kinds of subjects related to creating, but with more of a focus on performing. The panels were more with singers.

25:12 Speaker 1 So you get to hear from the masters.

25:14 Speaker 2 Yes, and they gave—honestly, there were really interesting discussions. I’m looking forward to posting and sharing them.

25:19 Speaker 1 In what kind of setting did you do that? How did you get everyone together on the same day? Did you just invite them, or was it—

25:26 Speaker 2 I invited them.

25:27 Speaker 1 Wow. Where was it? Where—

25:28 Speaker 2 Each one chose—

25:29 Speaker 1 In the studios too?

25:29 Speaker 2 Which segment she preferred: an interview, a panel, or a day in her life.

25:33 Speaker 1 Wow, how special! Wait, was that also filmed in a green-screen studio?

25:37 Speaker 2 Yes.

25:38 Speaker 1 So a green-screen studio, for example, does cost money.

25:40 Speaker 2 Well, no—it’s at my school too. It did cost me a little, but...

25:44 Speaker 1 So the school also provides some kind of—

25:46 Speaker 2 They sponsored the final for us. They really encourage it; they help a lot.

25:50 Speaker 1 Right, they give it a push.

25:50 Speaker 2 They really do, yes. I did pay a little for the green-screen studio, but...

25:56 Speaker 1 In terms of...

25:57 Speaker 2 No, less than if I’d gone and rented a studio—

26:00 Speaker 1 Of course.

26:00 Speaker 2 Elsewhere...

26:02 Speaker 1 How wonderful. We need to do a day in Ella Maya’s life. Follow her. Just get on the bus with a camera in the morning, and a friend who wraps things up, and—

26:10 Speaker 2 Buses. I come from Tivon, the studio is in Yad Binyamin, and I still don’t have a driver’s license. So for now, that’s the...

26:18 Speaker 1 Wow, that’s impressive.

26:19 Speaker 2 But I really enjoy it, and...

26:22 Speaker 1 I want to tell you that spending so many hours on buses actually lets you work during that time and do things—

26:26 Speaker 2 Right.

26:26 Speaker 1 That you can’t do when you’re driving.

26:27 Speaker 2 Though usually I sleep, unless—

26:30 Speaker 1 That’s something too. And if you’re not sleeping, then—

26:31 Speaker 2 Either I sleep or songs come to me.

26:34 Speaker 1 You know, you can’t sleep while you’re driving. Bit of a problem.

26:36 Speaker 2 Right, right.

26:38 Speaker 1 Wow, how special.

26:39 Speaker 2 That’s the advantage.

26:40 Speaker 1 What part of the series did you especially love? Share something with us that’s a bit more—

26:46 Speaker 2 Um.

26:47 Speaker 1 So I can picture it.

26:48 Speaker 2 There are a lot of interesting things. There’s one now, um—

26:52 Speaker 1 Maybe something that surprised you?

26:53 Speaker 2 Something that surprised me. Um, I’m trying to think. There was—I don’t know if it was a surprise at the time. Um, I need to think about it. Nothing comes to mind off the top of my head right now, but there were days—the day-in-the-life episodes were more, you know, full of experiences. The panels are also very—the truth is, all of it, the whole concept, was interesting. But those day-in-the-life episodes really had days that were very funny and moving, each with its own character. It was really...

27:29 Speaker 1 Look, people—people are fascinating material.

27:30 Speaker 2 Yes.

27:30 Speaker 1 So did you start at their homes?

27:34 Speaker 2 Well, that varied a bit. For example, with Yifush and Yael, we started at Yael’s home. There’s an episode about the two of them together. It’s just the first episode that’s going up, so I keep mentioning it because right now I’m—

27:46 Speaker 1 Focused on it.

27:47 Speaker 2 Focused on it. Yes. So, with Hashem’s help, it’s going up this week, I hope. We had a bit of a delay. It was already—

27:54 Speaker 1 Wow.

27:54 Speaker 2 Supposed to go up last week.

27:55 Speaker 1 We’re waiting. So you went to Yael’s house—

27:58 Speaker 2 Yes.

27:58 Speaker 1 With the equipment.

27:59 Speaker 2 And we filmed from there until, basically—sometimes these days even end at five in the morning, because the whole night continues after the performance ends. Then there’s all the activity, and they go out to eat or stay at another singer’s house, and it’s like that. And there are days when we do finish at the performance, or—

28:17 Speaker 1 Good thing you’re doing this now, you know, before you have children and all that.

28:20 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Though singers, really—with all that adrenaline, just think: they finish a show at Binyanei HaUma, and then they can’t sleep.

28:29 Speaker 1 Day and night.

28:29 Speaker 2 If they could sing until five in the morning, that’s what they’d want to do: just sing together.

28:33 Speaker 1 Wow, you really live in that world.

28:35 Speaker 2 Yes.

28:36 Speaker 1 That’s wild. Wow.

28:38 Speaker 2 Yes.

28:40 Speaker 1 And tell me, do you think that bringing several creators together for one panel, or having several creators appear in the same series, creates some kind of bond? It feels very unifying.

28:58 Speaker 2 I really—yes, actually, that’s very much part of the, how do you say it, underlying messages.

29:06 Speaker 1 Yes.

29:06 Speaker 2 I really aspire to that: unity and Ahavas Yisroel between—actually, among everyone. With the creators, there really are so many different creators. It’s amazing to see collaborations between creators from different backgrounds. To me, that’s amazing to watch, and it does lead to interesting connections. Here and there, I’ve seen connections form because they came to be filmed together. And when they see each other, too, they really come from opposite ends of the spectrum. For example, we had a filming day with, I don’t know, Tzipora Ivgi, Yifush Barkan, Esther Khalifa, Tzipi Kולטניוק—various singers who are more, um, Haredi. And then there’s Din Din Aviv, for example, who performed with Keren Peles, and we filmed Keren Peles too, which is a completely different world.

29:59 Speaker 1 Really bringing everyone together.

30:00 Speaker 2 Yes, and it’s—

30:03 Speaker 1 Unifying.

30:04 Speaker 2 With Hashem’s help.

30:06 Speaker 1 You’re involved with women’s singing, and I’m curious whether, in the course of everything you do, you’ve ever found yourself needing to explain and represent that position: what women’s singing is, why women’s singing, why we’re not deprived, why it’s good, why it’s normal. Have you ever found yourself being a voice for this to another community?

30:35 Speaker 2 Um, wow. First of all, this subject came up in the panels, even when it wasn’t the topic of the panel. It’s a very sensitive and very—

30:45 Speaker 1 Charged subject.

30:45 Speaker 2 Yes. I feel that the whole idea of launching the website really came from there, from that supposed restriction. I told myself, “Hashem, if He put the restriction there, surely there’s a solution too.” And then—

31:03 Speaker 1 A restriction is really a boundary. Something was created here.

31:05 Speaker 2 Yes. It’s there to help something else, something good, grow.

31:08 Speaker 1 It holds something within it.

31:10 Speaker 2 So I feel the website is, in a way, a platform for women’s singing. Have I had a chance to talk about it? I’m talking to you about it now.

31:18 Speaker 1 Okay. No, I mean, say you’ve met a singer who doesn’t observe Torah and mitzvos, and she’s said to you, “Tell me, what’s the deal with all this?”

31:24 Speaker 2 Oh, that happens a lot. Yes, this whole subject comes up a lot in conver—yes.

31:29 Speaker 1 You really live it.

31:30 Speaker 2 Yes.

31:31 Speaker 1 And do people understand?

31:33 Speaker 2 Um.

31:33 Speaker 1 Or—well.

31:34 Speaker 2 It depends on each person, their background and their personality, but I think people really respect that choice.

31:42 Speaker 1 Yes.

31:43 Speaker 2 At least the people I meet. Some might not, but—

31:46 Speaker 1 Interesting. It really is an issue.

31:47 Speaker 2 It’s a complex subject. A complex subject.

31:50 Speaker 1 Wow. Tell me, how many songs of your own do you have altogether? Or have you stopped counting?

31:56 Speaker 2 I don’t count, but on the latest album, which is more of an album for listening to—the album before it was less so. So those aren’t all the songs. Yes, baruch Hashem, I have whole notebooks full of songs, lyrics and melodies that I haven’t released. But this album has ten songs, “The Message from the Fields,” and that’s the album I’m performing with at the moment, and—

32:19 Speaker 1 Wow.

32:20 Speaker 2 Those are the songs I sing at shows.

32:21 Speaker 1 I can really relate to that exciting feeling of taking a melody, putting words to it, and then having it come out into the world. It’s almost like, imagine breathing life into a body, something like that—

32:37 Speaker 2 Exactly.

32:37 Speaker 1 Giving it a form. I know it from my J Kids channel of children’s songs, though that actually didn’t come from a musical place. It came from a need for—as I told you earlier, we talked about videos in Russian.

32:51 Speaker 2 Which is amazing.

32:52 Speaker 1 Jewish videos for children. So then I said, okay, if we’re doing them in Russian, of course we’ll do them in Hebrew too. And the Hebrew ones naturally gained more momentum, because it’s easier. And then at some point I said, wow, I used to have this thing where I loved composing and writing songs, so let’s bring that in. Let’s give it expression here.

33:09 Speaker 2 That really came from a place of shlichus too.

33:11 Speaker 1 Yes.

33:12 Speaker 2 There was a need, so you did it.

33:13 Speaker 1 Yes, the need of the hour, as they say.

33:16 Speaker 2 That’s amazing.

33:16 Speaker 1 And I was so excited whenever a song came out, even though I wasn’t the one singing it. Some child in Israel sang it, and to this day I haven’t even met him. People often ask me who sings. It really was very difficult to do it that way. You know, it’s a small world, but still... And when I got the finished song, it was like a sweet little baby had been born.

33:36 Speaker 2 Totally.

33:36 Speaker 1 It’s incredibly exciting.

33:37 Speaker 2 Really exciting.

33:39 Speaker 1 Really. And I’m thinking about how you built a platform that lets so many girls express themselves.

33:45 Speaker 2 With Hashem’s help.

33:46 Speaker 1 We were browsing the website earlier, and it isn’t just music. There are girls who write.

33:51 Speaker 2 Right.

33:52 Speaker 1 And girls who paint. There are so many categories, and really it’s like, come and bring your light into the world. I’m curious to ask you: you’ve surely met a lot of girls who were in that position of, “I have a talent. I feel I sing well. I feel I write well; I have a melody. But who would even look at me? Who would like it? Maybe it isn’t good enough.” And I think you, in the competi—first of all, in yourself, and also in the competition, you’ve seen many girls take that step. So I’m sure a lot of girls listening now are saying to themselves, “Wow, I’d like to do that too. But how do I do it?” So let’s hear what you have to say about that.

34:33 Speaker 2 So first of all, self-confidence really is something you build over time, and I’m still building it all the time. But for me it really comes from believing in Hashem: if He gives me a talent, it’s so I can do something with it, bring good into the world with it, give something through it. If I keep asking myself, “Am I good enough? Am I not good enough?” I’ll get stuck, and it will stay inside me, as something that’s just mine. That way of thinking really limits me. Instead, I think: You have talents, and you can always improve. You can always keep working on them. But with what you have right now, Hashem has given you an opportunity to do good. That faith in Hashem helps me believe in myself and actually do something with it. And truly, nothing stands in the way of a person’s will. When you really want something, with Hashem’s help, I see it happen. There’s siyata d’Shmaya.

35:38 Speaker 1 Wow.

35:38 Speaker 2 And humility is part of this too. I really feel that humility means recognizing your abilities and talents, knowing exactly where you stand, but also knowing that they aren’t yours. I’m only a channel, and Hashem gives them to me. Bringing them into the world is a shlichus.

36:07 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

36:08 Speaker 2 And sometimes it’s precisely that feeling of inferiority, when I tell myself, “I’m not good enough,” that I recognize as a bit of pride. No, it isn’t yours. You don’t have permission—

36:19 Speaker 1 Because it’s like, if it isn’t perfect, I’m not willing to do anything with it.

36:22 Speaker 2 You don’t have permission to keep it to yourself. Sorry, that’s not what you’re supposed to do.

36:26 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu—you’re only a channel, really.

36:28 Speaker 2 Yes.

36:29 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu sends a talent through you, and when you keep it to yourself, that isn’t humility. It’s just a kind of false piety.

36:36 Speaker 2 It’s humility tucked away in the pantry.

36:38 Speaker 1 Yes, exactly.

36:39 Speaker 2 It’s misleading, but yes.

36:41 Speaker 1 Really, it’s about bittul: Hakadosh Boruch Hu put something in me, and I don’t have permission to keep it to myself.

36:47 Speaker 2 Wow, that idea of bittul. My father says something I really love: just as Hashem created an olive tree to be an olive tree, He created everything to be the best version of what it is. My bittul to Hashem is to be fully myself, as much as I possibly can, with the talents He gave me and everything else He gave me. To be at peace with it, to love it, to give from it. That’s what it means to have bittul to Hashem: understanding that this is what He wants me to be. He doesn’t want me to be something else.

37:21 Speaker 1 Amazing. Right. I think a lot of girls sometimes get confused. They go round and round, looking for themselves: “Maybe I should be like her, or maybe like her.” I talk about this a lot with girls because I deal with the subject of shlichus, of finding where my shlichus is. It can feel like everyone else has found theirs and I’m the only one who hasn’t. And the answer is: Look inside yourself, because—

37:42 Speaker 2 Right.

37:43 Speaker 1 Your shlichus is where you are: the physical place, where you were born, the family you were born into, the street you live on. What are your talents? Everything is precisely arranged from Above, everything is by Divine Providence, and it’s right there. Just—

37:56 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

37:56 Speaker 1 Go out and use it. Take what you have. Don’t keep it to yourself. That’s your shlichus.

38:02 Speaker 2 Right.

38:02 Speaker 1 And since we’re talking about talents, some people have talents outside this particular field. Being able to talk to people is a talent too.

38:10 Speaker 2 Right.

38:11 Speaker 1 Being able to connect with people—and there’s so much you can do with that.

38:15 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

38:16 Speaker 1 We shouldn’t keep it to ourselves. That’s very, very important. It’s like not giving tzedakah.

38:20 Speaker 2 Right. And it’s something you develop through honest self-examination. The better we know ourselves, the better we understand what our shlichus is and what we want to say to the world.

38:32 Speaker 1 Exactly. Tell me, I have an interesting question. Do you feel your age works in your favor or against you here?

38:38 Speaker 2 Wow. Honestly, at first I thought, “No, I’ll launch a website after I’m married. What’s this—a young girl running a website?” But I just felt I couldn’t wait. I wanted to get started already.

38:57 Speaker 1 You couldn’t hold back.

38:58 Speaker 2 Right, I couldn’t hold back. So it just happened, age and all. And boruch Hashem, I’m very happy about it. But I won’t pretend it doesn’t take work on my confidence. I do feel young. Sometimes I interview teachers for the series, and I feel inexperienced, like a little girl. What am I doing interviewing someone like Esther Khalifa?

39:19 Speaker 1 Even though you’ve built up quite a résumé. You’ve done a lot.

39:21 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem, yes, but it’s funny. Sometimes the creators who come to be interviewed haven’t seen me beforehand, and then they arrive and say, “Hello…”

39:28 Speaker 1 “You’re the one? Are you sure?”

39:29 Speaker 2 Yes.

39:29 Speaker 1 “Or is your mother waiting somewhere nearby?”

39:32 Speaker 2 Yes.

39:33 Speaker 1 Right. I’d seen everything you’d done too, and then suddenly it’s, “Yes, I’m twenty-one.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay.” But on the other hand, there’s a huge advantage here: you have the time to devote to it.

39:42 Speaker 2 But I’m still very much building myself. I’m just—

39:43 Speaker 1 Yes.

39:44 Speaker 2 I can see it in the first interviews, too. I’m telling you, everything I said about believing in yourself doesn’t mean it has to be perfect. At first I wanted to bring in someone else to conduct the interviews. I didn’t feel capable of interviewing anyone at all. And I can really see it in those early interviews. I seem to have just two words in my vocabulary: “Wow” and “amazing.” If you watch the first episode of the series, it’s really funny. I laugh at myself all the time while editing.

40:17 Speaker 1 But it’s so sweet and genuine. People can see your process and learn from it, too.

40:21 Speaker 2 And little by little, I’m learning. I hear myself while I’m editing and think, “Okay, next time let’s try to say that a bit less.”

40:29 Speaker 1 But listen, that’s how life works. We do something, then look back and reflect on how we did it.

40:36 Speaker 2 Right.

40:36 Speaker 1 Nobody is born with experience. Experience is something you have to gain.

40:41 Speaker 2 Right.

40:42 Speaker 1 When I started the podcast, I thought, “Wow, I’ve never done anything like this in my life. Who says I’m good at it? Who says it’ll work out?” And then you start, you improve, and you figure out how to do it.

40:53 Speaker 2 You’re amazing.

40:53 Speaker 1 You learn. But that’s how it looks to you from the outside. I did feel I had something to bring to it; I didn’t start with no foundation at all. But whenever someone wants to start something, they need that courage. Because—

41:04 Speaker 2 Right.

41:05 Speaker 1 Since we mentioned Tzipi Koltunyuk, she has this lovely song, “Kumi Ori.”

41:10 Speaker 2 Oh, it’s gorgeous.

41:11 Speaker 1 And it’s true: there’s something inside you. Take it and run with it. At worst, it won’t work out.

41:18 Speaker 2 Right.

41:18 Speaker 1 But try. Try, and bring yourself to it. When I came across your work, that’s what stood out to me most: this self-expression, and the space you give other girls to express themselves too. It’s simply amazing. Truly amazing. There I go using the word “amazing” again, but it is amazing. It’s moving. Tell me, I see you’re doing so many things, putting it all together on a shoestring and volunteering your time. If someone came to you tomorrow and gave you a million dollars…

41:48 Speaker 2 Wow.

41:49 Speaker 1 What would you do with it?

41:50 Speaker 2 Wow, what a question. Well, I have so many dreams. First, I think I’d invest in my songs and in the website. I’m actually trying to develop a musical for women now, and that kind of budget would help enormously.

42:12 Speaker 1 Wow, you have so many dreams. That’s beautiful.

42:14 Speaker 2 And all sorts of other things. It never ends. Another idea is coming to me right now…

42:19 Speaker 1 A musical, for instance, is very expensive to produce.

42:21 Speaker 2 Yes.

42:22 Speaker 1 You can’t do everything yourself anymore.

42:23 Speaker 2 No, at that point you need funding and…

42:26 Speaker 1 And a team.

42:27 Speaker 2 Yes, we’re working on it. Right now it’s at a very early stage of developing the script, but we already have some possible sources of funding, with Hashem’s help.

42:33 Speaker 1 Wow, boruch Hashem, how wonderful! So it’s moving forward and taking shape…

42:36 Speaker 2 Performances, and… yes.

42:39 Speaker 1 Wow. Listen, this is so, so, so special, and I hope that a lot of the girls listening to you can really imagine themselves turning their dreams into reality too. So give us, by way of a summary, maybe even a list of tips. A little toolbox for setting out, taking my dream and turning it into something real, with shape and color and...

43:08 Speaker 2 I’ll try to break it down into steps. First of all, really believing in Hashem: if He gave me a talent, that means I need to do something with it. And really figuring out what I have to say to the world. That takes a lot of inner work, but it’s about building belief in myself out of my belief in Hashem, and truly understanding that this is a shlichus and we’re only a channel. Like we...

43:32 Speaker 1 Yes.

43:33 Speaker 2 Said. And once you’ve decided—once you’ve understood and worked out what you want to bring into the world—then really decide: yes, I’m doing this. To me, those are the two most important steps.

43:48 Speaker 1 Not wavering.

43:49 Speaker 2 Yes.

43:50 Speaker 1 Maybe.

43:50 Speaker 2 Nothing stands in the way of a strong will. Really, when the desire is strong. I truly believe, and I also see, that with Hashem’s help it happens with a great deal of siyata diShmaya and prayer. With Hashem’s help, of course, it’s all siyata diShmaya and prayer. It’s...

44:02 Speaker 1 I think that even at the moment of truth—say you’re going onstage and suddenly get cold feet—you can tell yourself, “No, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is with me. It’s not me up here, it’s...”

44:12 Speaker 2 Right.

44:13 Speaker 1 I’m the channel, and that’s...

44:14 Speaker 2 That helps a lot. Honestly, it’s something a singer works on all the time: staying in tune with yourself. Because it’s also very, very—how do you put it?—very delicate. It can change in a second.

44:26 Speaker 1 Yes.

44:27 Speaker 2 And since you mentioned it, when my father teaches voice training, he teaches through a very particular method he developed. It’s about when we sing off-key, and it works. That really is the method. I can sometimes tell straightaway: when I’m not in tune with myself, I’ll sing off-key. In other words, singing off-key is really an emotional disconnect. It comes from the same place.

44:51 Speaker 1 Not connected enough.

44:53 Speaker 2 Yes. When you’re connected, you’re there, and you move people. My father always says, “After a performance, you don’t need to hear someone say, ‘That was beautiful.’ You need them to say, ‘That was moving. It touched me.’” And that’s really where the work on emotion comes in. It’s something you keep working on all the time. And think about it: in the middle of a performance, people suddenly start applauding you, and...

45:15 Speaker 1 Wow.

45:16 Speaker 2 It’s constant work on your ego. You have to really understand: no, stay humble, and find joy in this shlichus, and...

45:23 Speaker 1 That’s special. Wow. Okay, go on. I interrupted you.

45:28 Speaker 2 No, it was interesting.

45:29 Speaker 1 Yes.

45:30 Speaker 2 And that’s it. Now it gets more practical. Once you’ve decided, maybe make a schedule—whatever will help you see that you’re moving toward making it happen. Whether it involves—I don’t know—a budget. See what you can do to make it happen. Sometimes it’s a long road, and you need patience.

45:48 Speaker 1 I think patience really is the word. And persistence.

45:50 Speaker 2 Patience, persistence, investment—and understanding that if I don’t see results right away... To me, the goal isn’t fame. The goal is truly to bring this thing into the world. Then you can be happy with every step along the way. And you really need a lot of patience. Then set yourself a schedule, if that helps you, a deadline by which the thing will be ready and released. I just live by deadlines.

46:21 Speaker 1 Goals.

46:22 Speaker 2 Yes, I do. Goals, exactly.

46:24 Speaker 1 I think maybe a lot of girls set goals for themselves and then get stuck at the fear stage. Say you write yourself a list: tomorrow I’ll do A, B, and C. Tomorrow I’ll... I’ll reach out. Let’s put ourselves in your shoes.

46:38 Speaker 2 Yes.

46:38 Speaker 1 I’ll reach out to this singer and that singer and ask her to come judge my competition. Then a day goes by, and you look at that line on your list and think, “No, I don’t have the courage to do it.” I think that’s where people get stuck.

46:51 Speaker 2 Wow.

46:52 Speaker 1 You really need so, so much courage, and...

46:55 Speaker 2 That really comes back to believing in Hashem, that He gives you the...

46:59 Speaker 1 That’s it. It always comes back to that.

47:00 Speaker 2 It does. It helps you deal with fear. It helps you deal with everything, all the hesitation. To me, that really is... And strengthening that belief is spiritual work too. It also comes in phases. It’s okay to be afraid. That’s all okay.

47:13 Speaker 1 Right.

47:14 Speaker 2 But really understand: right now I’m afraid. That’s...

47:18 Speaker 1 But I really think the difference between people who manage to fulfill their dreams and people who don’t is overcoming that...

47:24 Speaker 2 Right.

47:25 Speaker 1 Because, you know, every profession has parts that are less fun. If someone dreams of being—I don’t know, I’m just trying to think of an example off the top of my head. Someone dreams of being... someone dreams of being a pilot. In the end, being a pilot isn’t just the fun of sitting at the controls. There’s also...

47:45 Speaker 2 A long road.

47:45 Speaker 1 Studying, bureaucracy, and frustrating things. Or someone, for example, is buying—building a new house. That involves so, so many things...

47:56 Speaker 2 Failures.

47:57 Speaker 1 That aren’t “building a new house” in the fun way it sounds.

47:59 Speaker 2 Right.

47:59 Speaker 1 And the person who’s willing to go through those things and really...

48:03 Speaker 2 Right.

48:03 Speaker 1 Overcome them and keep going.

48:04 Speaker 2 The journey demands a huge amount of effort, and sometimes there are failures too. So, yes.

48:09 Speaker 1 You don’t see...

48:10 Speaker 2 But that’s part of the...

48:11 Speaker 1 Yes. People only see the success. So it looks like, “But how did she do that?”

48:14 Speaker 2 Right.

48:15 Speaker 1 There are no shortcuts.

48:16 Speaker 2 Right. I learn from every filming day I have. I learn so much about what not to do next time, whether it’s a filming day or a performance. And that’s what builds things, little by little, afterward.

48:27 Speaker 1 I’m sure you’ve seen footage of yourself from a few years ago and thought, “Who did that?”

48:32 Speaker 2 Yes, that always happens.

48:34 Speaker 1 It’s amazing, because otherwise you wouldn’t have reached where you are today.

48:37 Speaker 2 Right.

48:38 Speaker 1 Wow, it’s just... it’s just amazing.

48:39 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem.

48:41 Speaker 1 I hope there’s...

48:42 Speaker 2 It makes me laugh when you say “where you are today,” because I really feel like I’m so early in the journey.

48:47 Speaker 1 Right, but that’s the point. You’re at a certain point now compared with a few years ago, and in a few years you’ll say, “Wow, I was twenty-one, and this and that was happening—how did I do it that way?”

48:57 Speaker 2 I’ll definitely laugh at this idea someday.

49:00 Speaker 1 Right, but that’s the whole... that’s the whole point. The journey is the...

49:05 Speaker 2 But that’s the beauty of it.

49:05 Speaker 1 And enjoying the journey.

49:06 Speaker 2 Right, I am enjoying it.

49:08 Speaker 1 Absolutely. You can see it in you. You really can.

49:10 Speaker 2 How wonderful! How could I not enjoy it? I’m here sitting across from you. I’m enjoying myself right now.

49:16 Speaker 1 And you’re really traveling all over the country doing this. How do you see yourself as a married woman? Continuing with it?

49:21 Speaker 2 Oh, yes, that’s challenging, because it’s really important to me that my home be the center of my life.

49:25 Speaker 1 I thought you were about to say, “No, I don’t want to get married for now.”

49:28 Speaker 2 No, no, no, not me. I want to get married.

49:30 Speaker 1 We’ll give you a blessing.

49:30 Speaker 2 It’s on the way. With Hashem’s help, amen. I believe...

49:33 Speaker 1 Ella Mia, daughter of?

49:34 Speaker 2 Ronit.

49:34 Speaker 1 Ronit. May you find a fitting match.

49:37 Speaker 2 Amen.

49:38 Speaker 1 So you do see yourself...

49:41 Speaker 2 Continuing with it.

49:41 Speaker 1 As a wife and mother doing this.

49:43 Speaker 2 I really hope so. It will definitely take work to manage both, because even today, without my parents helping me so much... That really makes a difference. And once you’re married, there’s earning a living and all that.

49:56 Speaker 1 Exactly. There are so, so many variables.

49:58 Speaker 2 With Hashem’s help, I can only pray. I have so many dreams to fulfill, and I pray that I’ll really be able to do it as a married woman too.

50:05 Speaker 1 I’m sure you will, and you also have so much... Look, you do “a day in the life”—a day in your life. You have so much inspiration to draw on. How do people actually do it? How do they...

50:11 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

50:11 Speaker 1 Juggle everything?

50:12 Speaker 2 I was just editing—because I’m back to editing that episode—with [unclear] and Yael. So I see it there. We laughed about how we’re learning from them how to be mothers.

50:21 Speaker 1 Right.

50:22 Speaker 2 And there’s [unclear], if you know her. There was this bit where we were laughing about it. It’s just...

50:28 Speaker 1 Right, because I think that really is the challenge. Now you have more free time and all that, and later the challenge is how to combine everything.

50:34 Speaker 2 I really look at her and say, “Okay, she somehow manages.” She doesn’t sleep at night, but at the end of the day, she’s also a mother of ten children.

50:42 Speaker 1 Yes, I’m sure it also means constantly reassessing priorities and being...

50:47 Speaker 2 Definitely. Yes, it’s hard.

50:48 Speaker 1 Challenging, but possible.

50:50 Speaker 2 Yes.

50:50 Speaker 1 Because shlichus is something you can’t give up. Once you discover your... Especially someone like you, who’s so sure and knows so clearly what she wants and what she can bring into the world, and you’re pursuing your shlichus—you’ll find a way to do it in the very best way.

51:05 Speaker 2 With Hashem’s help. And you’re constantly refining your shlichus, too. It happens little by little. I... I really am just at the beginning, though.

51:12 Speaker 1 Absolutely. Wow. Do you have a closing thought? A sentence, or maybe a wish for everyone listening to you?

51:20 Speaker 2 First of all, thank you so much.

51:22 Speaker 1 My pleasure.

51:22 Speaker 2 That’s simply the first thing that comes to mind.

51:24 Speaker 1 And thank you on behalf of everyone who listened.

51:26 Speaker 2 Yes, thank you all for listening. Thank you for giving me this platform. And yes, go do it. Fulfill your talents, your dreams, your... Because we really weren’t given these things for nothing. And it isn’t necessarily about talents, either. We’ve talked a lot about singing and all that, but if you’re talented at, I don’t know, teaching math, then yes, go do that, and put in the work it takes. Every gift we’ve received has a purpose. We were given it so we would use it and do something with it.

51:56 Speaker 1 Absolutely. Do you want to give your phone number so people can follow your status updates?

52:00 Speaker 2 Yes.

52:01 Speaker 1 Go ahead.

52:02 Speaker 2 It’s 0503116156.

52:07 Speaker 1 Great! So I think you’ll have a lot of work tomorrow adding and saving contacts. And Mia, this was so much fun.

52:15 Speaker 2 Thank you.

52:15 Speaker 1 Thank you so, so much.

52:16 Speaker 2 I really enjoyed it, and you’re amazing, and...

52:18 Speaker 1 Thank you.

52:18 Speaker 2 It was a privilege for me.

52:19 Speaker 1 With Hashem’s help, may a lot of good come from this. Maybe we’ll hear from someone who started dreaming, someone who made her dream come true, someone who...

52:26 Speaker 2 Shared.

52:27 Speaker 1 Right. May you merit to see the fruits of it...

52:29 Speaker 2 Amen.

52:29 Speaker 1 With your own eyes. Bye, thank you.

52:31 Speaker 2 Thank you. Thank you so much.