Episode 20: The Shlucha in Media | With Sivan Rahav-Meir

00:03 Speaker 1 How can we turn our lives into lives of shlichus full of meaning? I’m Chani Moskowitz, a shlucha in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In this podcast, we’ll meet different women who have brought their sense of shlichus into a variety of fields. Through their stories, they’ll help each of us discover and refine our own shlichus in the world. Because living the life we were created to live is as good as it gets. Shlichus as a way of life. Let’s begin.

00:32 Speaker 2 Wow. Good evening. Good evening. Ah, what a niggun. It’s always hard to come down from the world of niggun to the world of speech, especially after a niggun like that. Perhaps we should say that today, as the Alter Rebbe sits in prison and they come to take him out of his cell, he’s saying Tehillim. He reaches the words “He redeemed my soul in peace,” and then his soul is redeemed in peace, and Chassidus is redeemed in peace, “and I will trust in You.” So these words—this is exactly the right time to sing them. Well, Sivan, we’ve spoken a little about shlichus here. You know, at the International Kinus Hashluchos, they have a roll call: a shlucha from here, shluchim from there. They missed the shlucha to the media. Wow. That’s one of the most genuine compliments I’ve received. I’m humbled. Thank you. Thank you very much. Your job is to be modest, but I can say that you really have a great deal of merit and a very big responsibility. In just a minute, you can film yourself sharing a light Torah thought, post it, and millions of people see you. It has an incredible impact. It really is a special shlichus. And I want to ask you: you have another shlichus at home, too. Five children, right? Boruch Hashem. Same here. So how do you choose? How do you prioritize? How do you schedule the different shlichus responsibilities? Say you have five minutes to sit with your son over his homework, and suddenly you think, “Oh, maybe I should post something, maybe I should say something.” How do you manage to prioritize and say, “Right now this is the important shlichus, and now it’s that one”? Wow. First of all, I think that’s a question we all ask. You know, I’m a journalist, and I’m sitting here with hundreds of amazing women who came to farbreng. But wait—you all need to give yourselves a round of applause. Hundreds of amazing women who came to farbreng from all over the country. They traveled here to join me, women of different ages

02:23 Speaker 2 and backgrounds. Really, bli ayin hara. It’s so moving. It’s moving to be here, and it’s a privilege. But let me get to your question. I think today we’re all journalists. In other words, it isn’t just about how Sivan Rahav-Meir manages when WhatsApp is over here and the children are over there. Excuse me—how do you all manage? We’re all in this together. Writing in the class WhatsApp group, responding to something in the preschool WhatsApp group—which is one of the plagues of Egypt. I don’t know how they sent us to preschool without preschool WhatsApp groups. We managed; we turned out normal. Really. By the way, my mother is sitting here, speaking of turning out normal. A lot of that is thanks to her. Thank you, Mom. Truly. Yossi[unclear] is here too, and so is her daughter. We’ve really come as three generations of—of Simon[unclear], of Tzema[unclear]. So, before I answer, I just want to sharpen your question. There isn’t a woman here who doesn’t face it every day: do I post the dinner I made for the kids, or [unclear] at dinnertime? Whatever it is, we’re content creators. That’s the challenge of our crazy generation. You know, the Alter Rebbe wrote the niggunim in the face of—how do you put it? There’s communism and there’s Nazism, and every generation has its own struggles, with the artists and all the rest. Come on: serving Hashem and WhatsApp. That’s the question of our generation. What do we do? So first I’m just broadening the question. Now, of course, I don’t have an answer I can just pull out of my sleeve—“Do it like this.” But deep down, here’s something made possible by that very technology we’re speaking against. Just before I came onstage, the shliach in Cozumel sent me something—you’ll remind me of his name—the shliach in Cozumel, Mexico. Come on. Kaplan. Ah, Kaplan, Kaplan. Right, Kaplan. Dudi Kaplan sent me a WhatsApp message. I just saw him outside. That same dreadful technology also lets me hear an amazing Chassidic idea

03:58 Speaker 2 and bring it onto the stage right now. That’s the whole complexity of good and evil. He spoke about the most basic words in the Alter Rebbe’s Tanya: “The mind rules over the heart.” We won’t survive the technological challenge unless the mind rules over the heart, because the heart is the heart. The algorithm works on the heart. The best experts are sitting there now with Zuckerberg, at Twitter, at TikTok, at an app that hasn’t even been created yet but, G-d forbid, will drive our children crazy in two years. The algorithm goes for the heart, the heart, the heart. And we have to bring the mind back to the heart. So this isn’t an answer of “Do steps one, two and three,” but deep down, I think “The mind rules over the heart” is the slogan I’d put everywhere in this generation, and especially [unclear]. Last week was our Netanel’s birthday. We went out to a restaurant, and while we were sitting there, someone sent me a video. Professor Cyril Cohen, an observant French Jew who was appearing on French television, contacted me. In the middle of the interview, the interviewer asks him, “Why are you wearing a kippah in the studio?” Did you hear about it? Have you seen that video?

05:00 Speaker 3 Oh, yes.

05:01 Speaker 2 How many people? Let’s see—raise your hands for a moment. How many have heard about it? Most of this room. Okay, so Cyril Cohen sends it to me and says, “Listen, an interviewer on French television is asking a Jew why he’s wearing a kippah!” And at that exact moment, they’re bringing Netanel’s cake out with a sparkler. I tell him, “I’m at my son’s birthday celebration. Save this for me for another two hours.” I could feel that it was huge, but this was exactly the moment—you know, in this case, I passed the test. We finished the birthday celebration, I got home, and boruch Hashem, the video still reached the public after the birthday. The mind doesn’t always rule over the heart, but I think that’s the work we have to do.

05:30 Speaker 3 Beautiful, thank you. All right, we’re going back to your shlichus. You’re not getting out of it.

05:37 Speaker 2 But do you know what you’re not getting out of?

05:40 Speaker 3 It’s very nice to be asked questions. My job is the other way around.

05:42 Speaker 2 I’ve already been interviewed.

05:44 Speaker 3 Right, what can I do? But just finish the story about the wafers for me—what did you do?

05:48 Speaker 2 Wow. Honestly, honestly, again, I don’t—

05:52 Speaker 3 I learned that halacha beforehand.

05:53 Speaker 2 No, I don’t either. What about you?

05:55 Speaker 3 I had three options: put them outside the door, give them to the non-Jewish housekeeper, or put them with the chametz that had been sold. And I don’t remember which of the three I did.

06:06 Speaker 2 Will you let me make up an ending? Because I’m going to tell this story. It would be a shame not to.

06:09 Speaker 3 I’d be honored to hear your version.

06:11 Speaker 2 I’ll think with Yedidya about which message works best, and we’ll let you know.

06:16 Speaker 3 Thank you. Just so you know, I like a Chanukah ending.

06:18 Speaker 2 Come visit me.

06:20 Speaker 3 So, about your shlichus in the media and everything that goes with it: sometimes you’re sitting in a studio, and I really want to say this—you’re in the lion’s den, one against everyone. You have to stay true to who you are. You choose, again and again, to go against the current and still bring out the good. Every woman sitting here grew up in a particular environment. She has different neighbors, different friends, but she has her own truth. And she doesn’t always have the courage to follow it all the way, because going against the current is hard. It’s tough. And you do it in a big way. So give us a few tips. How? How do you do it?

07:02 Speaker 2 Thank you very much for all those exaggerated compliments. First of all, there’s an expression the Rebbe used often: “Geon Yaakov”—pride in being a Jew, a sense of confidence. I heard Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau say that what gives him the confidence to stand onstage—bli ayin hara, he stands on stages representing Judaism—is that Avraham Avinu is with him. So even if I’m facing the editor of the news broadcast—and a news editor is... or a very, very famous presenter—Avraham Avinu and Moshe Rabbeinu are with me. You have to keep working on it, strengthening it. It’s not as though I wake up in the morning feeling that Moshe Rabbeinu and I are a team. And again, let’s say I’m shouting to the children from the kitchen to the living room—that’s quite a shlichus too. So I don’t always feel Avraham Avinu and Moshe Rabbeinu with me, but—

07:41 Speaker 3 There, you feel it much more.

07:42 Speaker 2 Right, exactly. Not always. Sometimes it’s more from Bilam’s side, or from... yes. But we all know what that’s like. And in the end, I think shlichus in the home is sometimes much harder. Because I’ll tell you something: people see me in the studio, so it’s all out in the open. If I’m there and it’s all, wow, and so on... I really feel that shlichus at home is harder for me, more complicated. Because in the studio, it’s like, she’s the frum woman from Channel 2—what do we expect? She’ll say “Boruch Hashem,” she’ll say those things. There’s something about that shlichus that’s, in quotation marks—I don’t want to say it—but less complicated than the real shlichus, which is working on our middos, deep inside. Someone once told me that in the studio, it’s easy not to speak lashon hara. In the makeup room and the dressing room, are you on shlichus there too, or only when the cameras turn on?

08:30 Speaker 4 That’s the real test.

08:31 Speaker 2 Exactly. But I’ll say one more thing. There’s a story that really guides me, because maybe you mean that in the studio I’m the frum woman, the right-wing woman, the baalas teshuvah—but I’m not. There are so many arguments today. The media around me is full of noise, with very heated debates. Right, left, right, left. I have a certain approach. It’s a well-known story, so I’ll tell it briefly. Rabbi Moshe Feller, the legendary shliach in Minnesota, once had to write an article about what Judaism is. He wrote it and sent it to the Rebbe for review. Among other things, he said that Judaism is like a person who has fainted: you need to come and shout his name, and then he wakes up and remembers who he is. He said, “That’s our role. There are Jews who have fainted all over the world. Let’s shout their names to them so they remember who they are.” The Rebbe approved the whole article. He only crossed out “to shout” and wrote “to whisper” instead. And that’s the whole story. When a person... I don’t know. I don’t shout so much; I whisper more. That story spoke to me so deeply, because everyone is shouting, and I think the way you say things matters very, very much. May we merit to whisper the right things. It’s a story that means a lot to me.

09:40 Speaker 4 Very real situations.

09:42 Speaker 2 It was a correction. He approved the whole article; he just corrected that. I once saw it. He crossed out “to shout” and wrote “to whisper.” There’s depth to that, I think.

09:49 Speaker 4 Amazing. Sivan, fifteen seconds.

09:51 Speaker 2 Wow.

09:52 Speaker 4 How does everything you’ve said bring your avodas Hashem closer to you?

09:56 Speaker 2 Wow! There’s a saying Yedidya doesn’t let me quote, but don’t tell him, okay?

10:02 Speaker 4 It’s only women here today.

10:03 Speaker 2 Only women. Okay. Yes. Okay, then I’ll say it. It’s a saying of the Rebbe’s that Yedidya says isn’t meant for a workaholic like me. The Rebbe didn’t mean me. But someone once asked the Rebbe, “How are you?” and he said, “I’m always happy, but I’m never satisfied.” There’s great depth to that. Happy no matter what the circumstances are, but always wanting more. Never resting on your laurels. Now Yedidya says, do I have to be such a workaholic, always doing more and more? You’re always happy but never satisfied—so he isn’t crazy about that saying. But I don’t know. Boruch Hashem, I hope we’ll both always be happy and never satisfied. There’s something in that. It’s an inner drive: may we see our circumstances, whatever they are, with joy, but also always strive, strive for more. With Hashem’s help, me too.

10:43 Speaker 4 Thank you so much, dear Chani. What a pleasure! Thank you.

10:46 Speaker 2 Thank you, thank you.

10:47 Speaker 4 Wishing you success as you continue your shlichus. Thank you so very much.