Episode 26: A Healthy Soul in a Healthy Body | With Miri Forst, running group coach for women

00:01 Speaker 1 Run to listen to a podcast with Miri Forest, the woman who never stops running. How did she come to establish dozens of running groups for women across the country? What does running give you? Who is it for? And more generally, why and how should we take better care of the body Hashem gave us? All the answers, and plenty of interesting surprises, in this podcast with Miri. This podcast was recorded with the sponsorship of DJ Schneur Zohar. An event where you won’t stop dancing. A reminder: if you enjoyed the podcast, please share it so it reaches as many ears as possible. Intro, and let’s begin. 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 women who have brought their shlichus into a variety of fields, and through their stories, they’ll help each of us find and refine our own shlichus in the world. Because living the lives we were created to live is the best thing there is. Shlichus as a way of life. Starting now. Good evening, Miri Forest.

01:09 Speaker 2 Good evening, Chani.

01:11 Speaker 1 How are you?

01:11 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem. It’s lovely to come visit you.

01:14 Speaker 1 Thank you, thank you. You’ve brought me back to Nachlas Har Chabad.

01:16 Speaker 2 Wow, absolutely. I should tell everyone that before we started, you said you remember me from when I was involved with youth clubs.

01:25 Speaker 1 Right, from a previous life.

01:27 Speaker 2 Listen, to me it’s not a previous life. It’s completely part of the journey I’m on. Training counselors to do things with energy and joy. Whatever you do, give it a hundred percent. That’s something I consider very, very important in life, and I’m glad you remember me from back then with good energy.

01:48 Speaker 1 Yes, and fondly.

01:49 Speaker 2 That’s really good.

01:50 Speaker 1 Do you want to give us a little background about yourself?

01:52 Speaker 2 Yes.

01:52 Speaker 1 How you got here, what you’ve been through? Just to bring us up to speed.

01:55 Speaker 2 Okay, so first of all, I’m a chossid of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a Chabad woman, a shlucha of the Rebbe. I grew up in Neighborhood D in Be’er Sheva. The Rebbe sent—

02:05 Speaker 1 You’re gradually heading north.

02:07 Speaker 2 Yes, eventually I’ll reach Mount Hermon. My parents came to Be’er Sheva on the Rebbe’s shlichus in 5730, and I lived there until I got married. I went to high school in Nachlas Har Chabad. We were shluchim right there in the neighborhood, Neighborhood D in Be’er Sheva. We weren’t just the only Chabad family; we were the only religious family. When you’re in a place where you’re focused on giving, you don’t really notice. It was a very, very difficult environment. There were drug addicts there, and some genuinely unpleasant things, but we didn’t experience it that way because, again, we were a Chabad House. When you’re a Chabad House, your focus is outward, on giving to others. Shlichus really runs through my DNA, and it has stayed with me throughout my life, in everything I do. We were a family of eleven children. It wasn’t easy for me as a child. I was always a bit rebellious. When the teacher told us to sit down, I stood up, and when she told us to stand, I sat down. I was always against the rules. At many points in my life, especially in elementary school and high school, that didn’t serve me well, and my report cards were terrible. I barely got my high school diploma. I spent most of my school hours outside on the grass. And there’s a message I want to share here: I graduated with honors in psychology from the Open University, after all those zeroes I’d gotten. In tenth grade, a teacher gave me a grade in English—I won’t mention her name—minus zero, in the second-level group.

03:47 Speaker 1 Wow.

03:47 Speaker 2 Yes, that was my grade. So I just want to tell any teachers listening: don’t give grades like that, okay? It’s not nice, and you don’t know how it might affect a girl in the future. Nobody is a zero, and nobody is a minus. Maybe the only person who deserves a grade like that is the one who gave it. As a child, getting very low grades can really break you. It stays there on your report card, and I’m telling you, I can still see it—

04:18 Speaker 1 Right there in black and white.

04:19 Speaker 2 Exactly. So I’m not a zero and I’m not a minus, and no one else is either. Anyway, I graduated with honors in psychology from the Open University. Anyone who’s studied there knows how hard it is and how much self-discipline it takes. That change—from a girl who really didn’t study in high school to someone who succeeded at university, by then a mother with children—I think it comes down to choice. When we do things because we choose to and because we want to, we throw ourselves into them and give them everything we’ve got.

04:50 Speaker 1 Wait, you did that after you were already married?

04:52 Speaker 2 I was a mother, and it took me ten years to finish the degree. I started in 2005.

04:56 Speaker 1 Oh my goodness.

04:57 Speaker 2 Yes.

04:57 Speaker 1 A whole generation went by.

04:58 Speaker 2 Completely. I finished in 2015. It wasn’t easy. I gave birth to two girls while I was studying, so by the time I finished the degree I had three daughters. Two daughters born during my studies, plus work, life, family, and earning a living. And it really is all possible. That’s the bottom line: it’s all possible. And as for my personal story, I struggled with being overweight my whole life. I was a heavy teenager. I remember weighing 72 kilos in seventh grade.

05:28 Speaker 1 I beat you. I weighed more.

05:29 Speaker 2 Really? In seventh grade?

05:31 Speaker 1 In seventh, eighth and ninth grade.

05:32 Speaker 2 Well, seventh grade is the weight I remember. My weight went up, went down, up and down. Eventually I got married, and for the wedding I was at my lowest weight. Then I gained and gained until I reached 100 kilos, and that’s when I stopped looking at the scale. My whole family, bli ayin hara, boruch Hashem, are large people—100 kilos and up. Seven of my siblings and both my parents had bariatric surgery to lose weight. The bottom line is, anyone who knows about bariatric surgery knows that if you don’t make a real change in how you think about food, it won’t help. A restriction alone doesn’t help; instead—

06:14 Speaker 1 It doesn’t last.

06:15 Speaker 2 Exactly. We really have to change our approach to food. When do I eat? Why do I eat? How much do I eat? How do I eat? And when it becomes an addiction, it’s an addiction in every sense of the word.

06:27 Speaker 1 Completely.

06:28 Speaker 2 We’ll talk more about that. Anyway, that’s when I really began a process. I lived in Kiryat Malachi in my first years as a married woman, and there was this rather sorry little gym there. I don’t know if it still exists. It had two hours for women at the community center. My Yael was a baby.

06:43 Speaker 1 Where?

06:44 Speaker 2 Yes, there was a gym next to the community center.

06:47 Speaker 1 How nice.

06:47 Speaker 2 Yes, with two hours a week for women. My oldest, Yael, gave us a crash course in parenting. She really had three states: eating, sleeping or crying. I discovered this gym, and my husband would stay outside with her, screaming in the stroller, while I worked out. Suddenly I realized that the sweat, the energy I was letting out—the aggression, I’d call it, that I was getting out of my system—simply gave me my sanity back.

07:16 Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

07:16 Speaker 2 And it happened again after every birth. I would just sink into depression, sadness and pain. How could the world keep going? How could the sun be shining outside when everything in my life felt dark, like I had no life anymore? Physical activity really saved me, again and again. At every difficult stage of life, it lifted me up. Even today, motzaei Shabbos is a hard time for me. Shabbos ends, and my extra soul leaves—

07:47 Speaker 1 Along with it.

07:48 Speaker 2 With a vengeance. And when I go out for a run, it simply brings me back to life.

07:54 Speaker 1 Wow. But wait, how did you get into running specifically?

07:56 Speaker 2 Right. At that gym, during my two hours a day, there was a treadmill. I started walking on it and gradually began to run. And I saw—actually, let me tell you a little story. There was a woman there who kept hovering around me. She couldn’t stand the fact that I was running; she just couldn’t bear to watch it. She said to me—

08:17 Speaker 1 Why?

08:18 Speaker 2 Because I was very heavy, very heavy. I was wearing one of my husband’s army undershirts, a three-extra-large, and even that was tight on me. She came over with this look of utter disgust and said, “Women like you shouldn’t run. First lose weight. Walk, and then run. You’ll damage your body.” And all I need in life is a trigger like that. That’s all I need.

08:41 Speaker 1 What a kind soul.

08:42 Speaker 2 Honestly, she deserves flowers. In general, all the people who come into our lives to dump their garbage on us bring us—they—

08:51 Speaker 1 Right.

08:51 Speaker 2 They enrich the soil for us so that something good can grow from it. Throughout my life, even today, when I’m doing well with my running groups and what I do, every crisis—and by the way, a year ago I broke my leg; I’ll talk about that in a little while—every crisis makes me grow in an incredible, meteoric way that I couldn’t even have imagined. So it really was thanks to that woman who was genuinely disgusted by me and my size that I realized how much strength I had, and then I lost weight. I trained as a gym instructor, and then I simply took up running. Because more than any other activity I’d done—and I’d done toning, aerobics, Pilates, spinning, and I’d also taught at studios in Kiryat Malachi and Shafir and all sorts of places around Tel Michael, near where I lived—running, more than anything, made me feel sane. And then I realized that was where I wanted to be, that I wanted to specialize in it.

09:54 Speaker 1 Is there something different about it? I haven’t run yet.

09:56 Speaker 2 Yes, so listen. There is—

09:58 Speaker 1 I’ve done lots of walking and all kinds of other things, but I haven’t gotten to running yet.

10:02 Speaker 2 L-listen, it’s—

10:03 Speaker 1 I say “yet” because it’s on my wish list, you know.

10:07 Speaker 2 Maybe after our conversation you’ll say, “Okay, Miri—”

10:10 Speaker 1 Could be.

10:11 Speaker 2 “When do we start?” Yes, it simply balances your mind. Really, you go out carrying stress, pressure, pain, frustration, anxiety, fear, hatred—everything, everything, everything.

10:24 Speaker 1 Which we all have.

10:25 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And you simply release that energy. You run, and you come back feeling sane.

10:31 Speaker 1 Wow.

10:32 Speaker 2 As if someone sprinkled magic powder over you. Now, honestly, I’ll tell you: I don’t like running. Really.

10:38 Speaker 1 Wait. That’s funny.

10:40 Speaker 2 I promise you, I don’t like running.

10:42 Speaker 1 You don’t like it—meaning it’s hard to get started.

10:44 Speaker 2 I don’t like running. Give me a tub of ice cream and some chocolate on the couch; let me eat, cry, complain, be depressed. That’s easier for me. But running does something to my mind. It changes the way I see myself, and I love the Miri I am after a run. And that price—the “price,” in quotation marks, of going out to run for an hour—I know I’ll come back different. That’s what gets me going when I get up at five in the morning and think, “Why are you getting up? Go back to sleep.” And I tell myself—

11:19 Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

11:19 Speaker 2 How will you be at six? How will you feel? What kind of day will you have all day long? If I choose chocolate and ice cream, I get five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes—an hour if I stretch it out—of pleasure, and then a whole day of self-loathing.

11:34 Speaker 1 Because it’s not real pleasure, it’s—

11:35 Speaker 2 Exactly.

11:35 Speaker 1 It’s, it’s—

11:36 Speaker 2 With running, there’s suffering. Come on, it’s not enjoyable. It’s not easy to exert yourself, not easy to sweat, not easy to get your body moving. And especially when I weighed a lot, it wasn’t easy physically either. But knowing what I’ll be like an hour later—listen, really, that’s what gets me out there, that’s what keeps me going, that’s what I pass on, and that’s what the women who run with me report.

12:00 Speaker 1 And that’s how it is in life in general. When you leave your comfort zone and you suffer—

12:04 Speaker 2 It is suffering—

12:05 Speaker 1 Nobody sits on the couch and ends up enjoying it.

12:07 Speaker 2 Right, but—

12:08 Speaker 1 That’s our auto—our default. But Hashem help us if we followed our default every day.

12:12 Speaker 2 Right, it’s more—

12:13 Speaker 1 Where would we end up?

12:14 Speaker 2 Right, it’s easier, it’s a lower place. The comfort zone.

12:19 Speaker 1 Yes.

12:19 Speaker 2 It really is.

12:20 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

12:20 Speaker 2 It’s also a zone of incapacity.

12:22 Speaker 1 Yes.

12:22 Speaker 2 Not moving.

12:23 Speaker 1 Well put.

12:23 Speaker 2 But ultimately, when we push ourselves beyond who we are, we discover a new person. I really am Miri-plus after a run.

12:31 Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

12:32 Speaker 2 Really.

12:32 Speaker 1 That’s moving. It’s like taking care of yourself.

12:36 Speaker 2 It really is. You know, after my son Uri was born—Uri turns six in just a week—I felt myself sinking. Really. It’s just something in me... I don’t know, maybe it’s genetic. My mother claims she was only a little sad, that she wasn’t actually depressed, but I think I simply have it in me. I just sink and sink, hide, close the blinds, don’t want to leave the room. I don’t love the baby. Really. All the symptoms of depression.

13:01 Speaker 1 Yes, textbook symptoms.

13:02 Speaker 2 And I go to the doctor for my six-week checkup, to make sure everything is okay, and I’m sitting there crying. And my husband Yonatan asks him, “What do we do?” So he says to me, “Listen, I can give you medication. It’ll help you. It’s okay; this happens after childbirth.” And then I cry even harder. I say to him, “Do you think I’m crazy?” And I cry even more. Then he says, “No.” I tell him, “Listen, give me a deadline of two weeks. I’m going home from this appointment, and I’m going out to run three times a week. I’m getting back to running. In two weeks I’ll tell you how I’m doing.” Listen to me: medicine.

13:37 Speaker 1 Wow.

13:37 Speaker 2 Medicine. I got back to myself, and that energy really carried me until the next run. That’s exactly how it was.

13:44 Speaker 1 But it really is medicine. Because depression is, in some ways, very hormonal.

13:48 Speaker 2 Right.

13:49 Speaker 1 And running is hormonal too. It recog—

13:51 Speaker 2 Look, there’s a hormone—

13:52 Speaker 1 It releases it.

13:52 Speaker 2 Really. There’s a hormone called dopamine, which is responsible for pleasure, happiness, joy, and feeling full, by the way, and it’s released after a run. And there’s a hormone called serotonin that’s lacking when you have depression. So when we release dopamine, we’re able to overcome all that suffering, which is entirely hormonal. And it really can be treated with medication, but it can also be treated with running.

14:23 Speaker 1 So it’s like a pill, it’s...

14:25 Speaker 2 That’s why I call running “Running Forte.” It really is medicine for pain, for frustration, for anxiety, for depression—for everything, really. And I have many women who run instead of taking medication, and many others who started out on medication and gradually reduced their doses.

14:45 Speaker 1 So is that often what motivates women to come to you?

14:48 Speaker 2 Yes, many of them. Doctors even send people out to run—

14:51 Speaker 1 Wow.

14:51 Speaker 2 So they’ll feel better. By the way, they also recommend running to balance blood sugar levels, for physical health too. You know—

14:57 Speaker 1 Yes.

14:58 Speaker 2 To sharpen [unclear]—all kinds of things. But emotionally, too, running is absolutely a therapeutic tool.

15:04 Speaker 1 Wait, so I need to understand how you went from “Okay, I’m running through the streets and it’s good for me” to having hundreds—

15:11 Speaker 2 Thousands.

15:12 Speaker 1 Thousands of women who started running thanks to you.

15:14 Speaker 2 Right.

15:14 Speaker 1 In pink, I should add.

15:16 Speaker 2 First of all, the pink, to me, was a G-dly flash of inspiration.

15:20 Speaker 1 Where did it come from?

15:21 Speaker 2 From Above. Listen, I grew up my whole life with the idea that a woman should hide: black clothes, stay out of sight.

15:28 Speaker 1 I really love black, though. Listen.

15:29 Speaker 2 Of course, because it doesn’t stand out, because—

15:31 Speaker 1 No, I enjoy it. It’s classic. People say things about wearing black, and I’m like, “But I like it.” Maybe it really does come from that place.

15:38 Speaker 2 We were taught to love black. We were taught things that very much... that we don’t—

15:44 Speaker 1 Are part of us.

15:44 Speaker 2 Exactly. We don’t think about it; we just do it. And black sends the message: hide so no one sees you; wear black. So no. When I went looking for a shirt, I went all around south Tel Aviv. I looked at Dri-Fit and then went to New Balance, and baruch Hashem, it came out amazing. I wanted a shirt with a very feminine color, one that really stands out. Women don’t need to hide. As a Chabad woman, I know the Rebbe spoke all the time about the power of women, which really is beyond comparison. You know, all the talk these days about radical feminism and all that—I’m not there at all. Women are on an entirely different plane, a thousand times over. They have an ability to influence everyday life that men don’t have. And it’s the same with running. You know, when I ran in the Jerusalem Marathon in 2012, there was one woman for every seven men. That tells you it was a very male-dominated sport; there weren’t many women. And I couldn’t understand why an activity that’s so, so accessible—what do you need besides running shoes and a little willingness?—wasn’t accessible to women. I saw what was missing, and that’s when I realized I needed to do something. In 2010 I trained as a gym instructor, and as I told you, I taught toning and Pilates—all of it. I simply sat down and built a twenty-week training program, based on what I’d learned, to get women running ten kilometers. Later it grew to twenty-four weeks, because I discovered that women don’t train on their own, so I had to— You can’t count on them doing the homework. Exactly. You also need to include strength training. So I built that into the twenty-four-week program, taking women from absolutely zero to ten

17:36 Speaker 2 kilometers. Now I’ll tell you an interesting little story. About a year ago, I opened a group in Beersheba for the first time. Beersheba is where I grew up. Anyway, my brother in Moscow sent me a message. I’d posted something in the group, and he wrote, “Maybe you should suggest that Mom join you. She’s home anyway; she’s retired.” How old is she? Sixty-five, retired, home in the afternoons. “Maybe suggest she join.” Honestly, Chani, I was laughing so hard. I wrote to her, “Mom, what do you say? Want to join the group tonight? I’m starting a group in Beersheba.” And she wrote back, “Okay, I’ll come. But wait—what am I going to wear?” I told her, “Don’t worry, Mom, there’s a pink shirt.” So I got her all set up: shirt, skirt, everything. She came to the training session. Were you there? You have instructors too, right? Yes. I come to the opening session. I was there. I only come to the opening sessions; of course there’s a coach there. And my mother started running. The very next day, she bought running shoes. I think it was the first time in her life that she actually went out and bought something for herself. And my mother ran ten kilometers. Wow. Listen, by the end of the journey— So there’s no age limit? No limits at all. Not age, not weight, not physical condition. Listen, she used to have pain all over her body before she started running. It all improved along the way: less back pain, less leg pain, less of everything. It’s incredible. Really. Running is health. Wow, wow, wow, that’s moving. For you, I’d almost call it coming full circle, but— It absolutely is. First of all, getting my family to accept what I do. Let’s talk about it: running, sports—is it modest, isn’t it modest? It really was

19:22 Speaker 2 hard for my parents to accept at first. But as the years went by, and as they heard all kinds of feedback from people around them about their daughter and what I do, they came to understand how meaningful and important it is. And my mother actually put on a pink shirt. I mean, come on. I think a lot of the time, when you start something new, people resist it just because it’s new. Right, and there’s even a lack of support. Right. Then suddenly, when it succeeds, everyone around you says, “Wow, that’s so cool!” Honestly, I see that a lot. I don’t really notice the lack of support, because I tend to see the... No, but you’ve also faced criticism. Right. So yes, every now and then I get questions: “Wait, but how do you run?” And I’m like, “What’s the problem?” “No, but you’re moving around out on the street. What about modesty?” So listen to what I did, brave person that I am. About five or six years ago—I fly to the Rebbe every year for Chanukah. Stop me whenever you have a question. I feel like I’m just... No, you’re fascinating. So anyway... And you’re answering the questions as you go. Right. So I flew to the Rebbe for Chanukah, and there was a talk there by the mara d’asra of Crown Heights, Rabbi Braun. Anyway, I said to myself, I have to ask him. I think my brothers had said to me, “Tell me, have you ever asked a rabbi whether you’re allowed to run?” Actually, I hadn’t. Not at all. In general, I don’t think everything needs to go to a rabbi. Some things are for a doctor, some for a rabbi, some for a psychologist. You need to go to the right professional. For a question of halachah, you ask a rabbi, but I hadn’t thought of running as a halachic issue. Still, I said, fine, for

20:53 Speaker 2 my brothers’ sake, I’ll ask. So I went to him and said, “Listen, I’ve been a running coach for—by then, I think it had been six years. It’s what I do for a living: I coach women runners.” He asked me, “Where do they run?” I said, “Outside.” He said, “When?” I said, “Honestly, at all hours of the day, but mainly in the evening and the morning. In the evening, after the children go to sleep, and in the morning.” “Where do they run?” “On the streets too.” Yes. I wasn’t going to hide it. I told him the truth. We run in parks too, but we also run on the streets. “Is that immodest?” That’s what I asked him. And he told me that if the goal is for a woman to be healthier, both physically and mentally, it’s okay. He said, “Look, I’m not going to give you a stamp of approval from the Badatz, but it’s certainly not forbidden. Keep running, and keep getting others to run.” Nice. Wow. As far as I was concerned, I’d gotten the go-ahead. Now people will say, “Oh, but there are also objections to the fact that I wear a wig.” Yes. You know, everyone comes with their own history. With a wig. Yes. For me, with food, it’s the opposite, because... No, that’s true. So, really... It depends which direction you’re coming from. Completely. So for me... Listen, the Torah has seventy facets, you know. And in our groups we have women from Satmar and Toldos Aharon, all the way to women who know nothing about Judaism except what they’ve seen on TV. Really. We have everyone. And what’s amazing is that the groups become a melting pot for women. I was just about to say “melting pot.” It’s amazing. They share the same experience. They face the same challenges. It’s like when you meet another woman in the maternity ward after giving birth. It doesn’t matter—you’ve both been through the same thing, so a bond forms, though that bond is very brief. Here, you go on a real journey into yourself, and running is

22:36 Speaker 2 Really, it also brings women together—she builds bridges between women, connects them, and it’s an amazing experience. Really. Wow. Do women come on their own or with a friend? Some come on their own. But look, at the very first training session I tell them, “Listen, look around you. Look to your right, look to your left. You don’t know the woman next to you? You’re going to become close friends.” Why? Because you’re going to go out training together, you’re going to talk as you go, you’re going to share an experience and put all your cards on the table. I always say that running is just an excuse. Yes. An excuse for a woman to get out of the house. Where else in our lives, Chani, do we have a get-together that’s just for ourselves, that isn’t work or home or our family? Because, you know, there are events. There isn’t one. You arrange to meet a friend at a café... That’s an outing with no other purpose. Exactly. It’s really an outing, a chance to be outside. Sometimes whole days go by and I say, “Wow, I haven’t seen the sun.” You haven’t seen the sun. That’s awful. Right. Exactly. Very true. And especially someone who works from home. Someone who works... Even someone who works outside the home. You know, women have their circles at work, but it’s all very, very much about work. Right, you need other circles. Absolutely. And the running circles are circles that simply create close friendships. They really do. Tell me, I’m curious: you go through the process. You said twenty, twenty-four weeks? Right. From zero to ten kilometers. And then you run ten kilometers. Right. And then? So here’s how it works. We have... I mean, where does it actually end? Or does it not end? Well, first of all, once you can run ten kilometers, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve been given the key to running. Now do whatever you want with it. We also have clubs, running clubs. So women

24:06 Speaker 2 who have reached ten kilometers and want to stay in a structured group and keep progressing—to run farther, run faster, improve—we have several clubs around the country that women join. Basically, once you’ve got the key, you know everything you need to know, so go run. Sign up for races, plan trips. We also do—I organize one or two a year. Oh, I see the announcements. They look so tempting. It’s amazing. You were in Greece not long ago. We were in Thessaloniki, in Greece; we’ve been to Rome; we’ve been to... Just running through different scenery is... Amazing. It’s not only the running. Listen, running is the excuse. You have no idea. On a women’s Shabbos retreat, we were sitting at the last meal. I told them, “Each of you, share something good you took from your parents’ home.” You have no idea—wow. The incredible things that came up, each woman’s experiences and everything. And along the way, we sit together, play cards. Really, beyond the runs, beyond the meals... Are these specifically women from the groups? Most of them run with the groups, but others come too. It’s open to everyone. On her own, with her sister. Yes, but mostly... And we have morning runs and training sessions. It’s very, very, very, very enjoyable. Wow, I have to tell you, it’s tempting. Every time I see it... I’ve never managed to go because we’re so busy as it is, but wow, it’s a dream. Really a dream. To leave the house, the children, your life for a moment, put it all on hold. And get a little breathing space. Right. Just to travel abroad, come back after a few days feeling like you’ve recharged yourself in so many ways. You come back with insights about yourself and about life. One of the women who came to Thessaloniki, Greece—during COVID, she and her family were isolated at home for almost two years. They were really careful, right up until they finally got sick.

25:43 Speaker 2 Two years. Almost two years. They were really careful, truly, homeschooling Tzlil. And afterward she said to me, “Miri, you don’t understand. The biggest realization I came away with is that I need time for myself. Without the children, without my husband, without the family. Just time to breathe, get some fresh air, live, be myself, think without worrying about anyone.” It was truly amazing. There probably are women for whom this is the first time in their lives they’ve allowed themselves some kind of... Of course. Time away. I’m not talking about the flight; I mean the running. Absolutely. Wow. You know, they pay money for it. She paid money for herself. Not for the children, not for classes, not for treatments, not for anything—just to feel good. Period. Wow. And I say that this expense, this commitment fee, pays you back many times over, with compound interest. You really get yourself back. Incredible. Tell me, is it for everyone? First of all, I told you about my mother, which... Right. I’ll tell you why I don’t run. Why don’t you run? It’s always on my mind. I follow you, and I see what you do, and it appeals to me. And I see people running in general. I remember in Kharkiv, when we’d sometimes go to the park in the morning, there were groups and groups of people running. But my knees are very sensitive. I once did Zumba, and it did a number on my knees. I was in pain for six months, and even now, whenever I do any kind of exercise, even something light, I’m very careful with my knees because they start hurting almost instantly, like they get inflamed. I don’t know how to explain it. Look, first of all, running, unlike Zumba, where you jump in place, is forward movement. So there’s less strain on the knees. Second, we don’t run ten

27:22 Speaker 2 kilometers all at once. We build up gradually. You come to Zumba having done nothing, and you jump for forty-five minutes when you haven’t been jumping before. Right. Suddenly you’re jumping for forty-five minutes straight. That’s not how I do it. In my program, you run for one minute at the first training session. So have you had women with knee problems and things like that? And they got better, because they did it properly. At the same time, every week we do strengthening exercises for the legs and the abdomen, because a lot of the support we need actually comes from our core muscles. And third, proper running shoes: you run in shoes that fit you, and then they absorb the impact. But I have to tell you, I trained for years here at a studio in Kfar Warburg. Smadi’s. Right. Me too. And I couldn’t do a squat because my knees hurt. See, that hurts my knees too. Right. No, listen: I run. I ran a forty-two-kilometer marathon, and everything is fine. First of all, Hashem truly gave us a body. In fact, everything Hashem created in His world is for us. We’ll get to food in a little while. As for running, Hashem created joints, blood vessels, muscles, tendons and a skeleton for us to move. If we don’t move our bodies, we’re failing to use them for the purpose they were given to us. It’s really like buying the very best washing machine in the world, putting a beautiful plant on top of it, covering it with the most expensive cloth in the world and lovingly patting it every day—but never actually turning it on and using it. Not exercising is simply taking this one-of-a-kind gift Hashem gave us, called the body, and in a sense letting it go to waste. Right, it deteriorates. It’s a way of neglecting it, and that’s why all these aches and pains come from a lack of movement. That’s also something, something that once

29:08 Speaker 2 It was much more natural to move around. Right. Today we’ve become—our bodies have become deconditioned. My daughter is studying—collectively speaking, I mean. Right. My daughter is working on a degree now. She’s studying nursing, to become a nurse. She tells me, “Mom, my tailbone hurts.” The girl is literally twenty, and I tell her, “Do you know what that’s from, Yael?” Really, I’ll tell you: it’s from sitting for long stretches. Right. If you don’t move your body, it becomes deconditioned. I’m moving while we talk. Great, let’s dance. Your body becomes deconditioned. The age of your body isn’t the same as your chronological age; it simply gets older. And when you exercise, your chronological age goes up, but your biological age goes down. I mean, I’m thirty-eight today, but my biological age is probably much, much younger. If we check blood cholesterol and all the things they check, measure all the… Yes. So the more we move, the more we stay in motion, the healthier and younger we are. I’m with you. I haven’t tried running yet, but I’m very… For years, I’ve… I told you that when I was in middle school, I weighed—I got up to a hundred kilos, and I made a complete change. Within a year I lost forty kilos. Wow. After that I balanced out a bit; I’d lost a little too much. No, how did you lose it? I lost it. I simply stopped eating so much and started moving. That’s it in a nutshell. So I want to—there are theories upon theories about this, because I’ve been through a lot in these fifteen years. Yes, a lot of processes, figuring out exactly how to do it right. And then suddenly you get married, and then there are births, and it’s not tenth grade anymore. But it’s always, always about movement. You keep moving. I’m always walking or doing different things. Or today, for example, I

30:45 Speaker 2 couldn’t go out for a walk. I have a few children who aren’t feeling well right now. And you can see this compact treadmill here. I opened it up, said, “Shh, everyone,” closed the door for ten minutes, and I wanted to do ten thousand steps, but I didn’t. So I’ll do three thousand. Something, at least. Right. It keeps you sane. I actually want to go back with you to food, because physical activity—how did we not start with food? So let’s start there. I think Hashem really gave us what we need in His world. He created it in six days, gave us Shabbos for rest, blessed be His name, but in those six days He created everything for us. On the third day—no, it’s not for nothing that “it was good” was said twice. On the third day Hashem created what we… On the third day, and the fifth day, and the sixth day, too. What we need to nourish ourselves with—that’s what we need to eat. And on the second day. And on the second day. Water. Right. On the first day, light; on the second day, water; and on the third day, plants and trees and fruit and vegetables. He created the ideal world for us, really. Completely. And on the fourth day, the sunrises and sunsets and vitamin D, and going out in the morning to see the world and sleeping properly at night. And on the fifth day He created fish and birds for us. Just enjoy it. Just eat what’s kosher and enjoy what isn’t. And on the sixth day, the animals. In short, what I’m trying to say is: eat Hashem’s food, be healthy, be active, look at the sun, and sleep at night. We’re all set. Right. That’s how Hashem created the world. We’re the ones who mess it up, really. We mess it up by buying crinkly bags of snacks at the supermarket, buying sweet drinks, putting sugar into our bodies—poison, simply poison, that gets us addicted, that leaves us in a haze,

32:34 Speaker 2 that messes with our heads, that turns us into something we’re not. That makes us into an entirely different person. Completely. Instead of being who we’re meant to be. And I’m not even going to get into Tanya now, and what a beinoni is, or delayed gratification, or what it means for the mind to rule the heart. Just the creation of the world, plain and simple. Look at what Hashem created and… what’s the expression? “The world was created for me”—so that we can use what Hashem created to be better Jews. Plain and simple. And clean, too. I mean, processed food is basically taking food and ruining it, in a way. Absolutely, ruining it. What’s the problem? It ruins us. You walk into a supermarket and eighty percent of it is that, that stuff. Right. And because we were born into it, it seems normal. You really have to keep reprogramming your mind, over and over. Really. I grew up in a place where there was no awareness at all of healthy eating. I’ll take a sip of water. No awareness at all. And I made that switch. I simply decided that my body is a Beis Hamikdash, and I’m not bringing poison into this Beis Hamikdash. I’m not bringing garbage in. I used to fill myself with junk to such an extent—I’m telling you, a tub of ice cream and a bar of chocolate, because I couldn’t bear to feel. Actually, let’s talk for a moment about emotional eating. Why do we eat all that junk? Because we can’t bear to be bored. I’m bored. So what if you’re bored? Be bored. We can’t bear to feel pain; we can’t bear to feel joy. Look at the buffet at a wedding. Right. We numb ourselves with food. You know, I remember I’d have training sessions. I’d come out of a group session glowing. I really felt on top of the world. The energy I’d brought them, how amazing I’d been, and so on and

34:23 Speaker 2 so on. I’d go into a gas station—I’m not kidding you—and buy ice cream, a big tub of ice cream, and chocolate. I’d sit in the gas station parking lot and finish it all. Once I was numb, I didn’t feel anything. Then I’d drag myself home and go to sleep. And that really stayed with me for years. So it’s been more in recent years—this is where I’m getting to the… In recent years especially, I’ve come to see that because I’m addicted to excessive eating, or whatever we call it—because I’m a compulsive overeater—I know that, for me, the abyss is just around the corner. It’s one bite away. Right. And that bite, as long as I have breath in me and as long as I’m able, I won’t take it. I won’t take it, because I have so much to lose. I could lose myself and my life, and I don’t want to lose them. Completely. Wow, I can relate. When we eat emotionally, we live alongside our lives. We don’t live our lives; we aren’t present with our children. We just… As my husband said to me, “Listen, do you know what was taken from you? Guilt.” And really, guilt was my screensaver. Like on a computer: we open all sorts of windows—home, work, children, this and that, money, making a living, and so on. And there’s a screensaver called food, guilt. Food, guilt. And I think the most important thing is to make sure it doesn’t turn into an eating disorder in the other direction, and to find your balance. And really, when you connect to Hashem through food and eat only Hashem’s food—only what Hashem created, in the form in which He created it, rather than what people have ruined—you can be a real person. I mean, a clearheaded person, a proper mother, a wife. And look, it’s not as if I enjoy putting the

36:09 Speaker 2 My children. Right. It’s not that I don’t have... We have other work to do in life, exactly. But when it comes to that self-hatred, honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever said to anyone, or thought about anyone, things worse than what I’ve said and thought about myself. It really doesn’t make sense. Right. That’s because sugar really is addictive. Right. It’s an addictive substance. Drugs are known to be addictive, but the fact is that sugar hooks far more people than drugs do. Right, and by the way, it acts on the same addiction-related areas of the brain. Yes, but we grew up with it, so it seems normal, while with drugs we say, “Whoa, G-d forbid.” It’s not just that. Our attitude is also, “Well, what am I supposed to do? A child deserves a treat.” We treat sugar as a treat. It’s not... Our surroundings taught us it’s a reward. It’s a punishment. It’s bleach. It’s, it’s, it’s bad. That’s why it’s so hard to get away from it. Because we really did grow up with it. Right. And still, my kids come home... Wow. Since we moved to Israel. Listen. There, I still had some control. The kids really ate healthy, normal food at home. Suddenly, here, every time a child recites a chapter of Tehillim, they throw candies at them. It’s really tough. So at my children’s preschools, at the first-day meeting—I hope it’s because the teacher is scared of me. Just kidding. I said, “I’m asking that there be no sweets.” And that works for you? It works. Birthdays have an amazing breakfast with vegetables and cheese, and dessert afterward... And all the parents cooperate. Yes, because they don’t want their child filling up on junk either. Exactly. It’s something nobody really wants. Right. But it’s so cheap and readily available. Come on, what’s easier for a preschool teacher

37:45 Speaker 2 than buying a bag of toffees? So the teacher is completely on board: vegetables, platters, and for dessert I brought them dates, and it was amazing. They had a happy birthday and celebrated. Not every celebration has to revolve around food. Come on. Yes, a celebration without cake sounds like a dream. Events—what am I supposed to do at events? What do you mean, what do you do? Dance, sing, watch the DJ, the DJ, dance... Enjoy yourself. Bring joy to the bride, put on makeup, get dressed, look beautiful, meet people, get to know them, talk to them. Who said the schnitzel is the... the event? I think it’s only when we manage to uproot this belief lodged in our minds—because we really believe that food is what we lean on, that at the end of the day food will comfort me when nothing else will, that food is what keeps me occupied and is the whole atmosphere of my social gatherings—only when we uproot that from our minds can we let go and begin. Right, it really is about breaking the addiction. Changing your attitude. Just a change in attitude, really. A get-together doesn’t have to... You know, my parents don’t have couches at home; they have a table and chairs. Every gathering revolves around food. That’s how I grew up. Though, by the way, it’s not hard to eat on a couch either. But when you’re sitting at a table, what do you do at a table? Eat. Yes. Every gathering revolves around food, and I simply came to understand that if I want to meet someone, I don’t have to eat. I can sit in a café with just a cup of coffee for three hours. Right. It’s even possible. You don’t even need that, but it feels awkward taking up their space. But really, you can just have water. Right. The attitude needs to be: I eat healthy food because that’s what’s right for my body. Yes. Tell me, um,

39:30 Speaker 2 let’s get back to running. Are there people for whom running really isn’t suitable for some reason? Look, I have women with asthma who run. There are women who have an autoimmune illness—I can’t remember its name—that causes pain throughout the body. Fibro... Fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia, right. They run. There are women with heart valves who run. Wow. There are women who run after heart attacks, and women with metal implants in their legs who run. I don’t believe there are women who can’t run. Do you take responsibility for that, or do you send them to a doctor? No. If there’s a serious issue, say a woman becomes pregnant— Someone you mentioned with a heart condition. Oh, yes. First of all, she runs with a heart-rate monitor, but she runs. Um, someone who becomes pregnant: if it isn’t a high-risk pregnancy and everything is fine, she can continue. By the way, I gave birth to my last two children while I was running. They were the easiest births I’ve had, the quickest. So you ran right up until the birth? Right up to week thirty-six. Wow. I stayed active and trained, and it was just amazing. It really was a dream birth. I did get depressed afterward again, because I didn’t move for six weeks. But I had an amazing birth, and my body and my abilities recovered in a way they hadn’t after my first birth, when I was, like, ten times younger—I was sixteen years younger when I had my first child. Wow. And that was simply thanks to movement, without a doubt. Wow. So you’re saying the real restriction on running is basically the six weeks after giving birth, and that’s it. Otherwise, go run. And even then, you can go for walks. You can— Yes. Move. Little by little. You can get out into the sunshine, but yes. And if you, if you... You don’t start exercising, you

41:14 Speaker 2 don’t start running during pregnancy. But if you ran before you became pregnant, you can continue. Oh, so you need to start beforehand. Before you’re pregnant. Yes. To all the pregnant women: take note of that detail. Right. Um, what was I going to ask you? Now, when you have a group, the group isn’t really uniform. You have one woman who’s pregnant, another woman... Don’t you need to make some kind of adjustments? First of all, no one joins a beginners’ group while pregnant. Everyone is a beginner, so from my perspective the starting point is uniform: everyone starts from zero. None of them has been running. Or, as I say to the group, I treat everyone like a blank slate. As though today is your first time running. Mm-hmm. And then we have a structured program in which we build up the running gradually. At first it’s measured in minutes, then in distances, and the group progresses together. So yes, some run a little faster and some run a little slower, but overall they progress at the same pace. And as I tell you, like everything in life, the more we put into it—and there are two more training sessions each week, which to me are two more therapy sessions, on the house—the more we succeed. I have to tell you something. Go ahead. A year ago, during a training session with a group in Ashdod—I’d opened a group there for the first time, too—I arrived with my whole presentation: “Let’s get to know each other, how exciting, and here’s what we’re going to do.” By the way, each city must have its own character. In Ashdod, obviously, you run by the sea. Right, and there are many more women there who are Chabad chassidim. I hadn’t known Ashdod as a place with so many chassidim. Yes, yes, there’s a concentration of them there. So, yes. So a group arrived...

42:48 Speaker 2 A really, really large community of Belz chassidim, from some housing development—it doesn’t matter. Anyway, the first training session. Rova. Rova, Rova. Right. So, the first training session. I demonstrate the first step of running, trip, and break a bone in my left foot. Now, you have to understand: here’s a woman who runs three times a day, who comes to two training sessions, puts on a show, runs with them a bit and all that. By the evening, I’ve got a broken foot. Oh, wow. I go to Kaplan Hospital, get a cast, of course, and the doctor tells me, “The cast stays on for six weeks, and then we’ll see.” I felt like my world had come crashing down. A fracture. You said it. A real fracture. Wow. And there was also the hormonal side of it, like we talked about. Think about someone who runs and gets those endorphins, gets that dopamine in her brain. Every time I reached an hour when I should have been coming home from a workout, I was really depressed. All I did was sit in the hammock, eat, and cry. That’s what I did. Oh, wow. Every now and then I’d roll around on one of those knee scooters. I’d go to a bench a little farther from home and eat and cry there. Anyway, of course I gained a crazy amount of weight during that time. Then I sat down—and here’s something for you to take into your life, and for all your followers and listeners. I sat down and wrote, “Thank You, Hashem, for the fracture.” I genuinely searched high and low for things to thank Hashem for. Thank You—actually, I wish I had it here on my phone. I’ll find it, please G-d. I sat down and wrote out what I could thank Hashem for. And every time I felt sad and distressed, I’d open “Thank You, Hashem” and read it, and it gave me strength. But what I want to tell you is that this period with the fracture—speaking now from a distance of a year and two months—was the best thing that ever happened to me in my

45:08 Speaker 2 life. Okay?

45:09 Speaker 3 I have goosebumps.

45:11 Speaker 2 Here, I’m writing “thank You,” and then I...

45:13 Speaker 3 At what point did you realize it was the best thing that had ever happened to you?

45:16 Speaker 2 Here, I’ll read it to you. First, I’ll read this: “Thank You, Hashem, for the fracture. Thank You, Hashem, that the fracture is in my left foot and I can drive. Thank You, Hashem, that it happened now and not in the summer, because a cast in the summer could be a nightmare. Thank You, Hashem, that the fracture is in a metatarsal and not my ankle. Thank You, Hashem, that I didn’t need surgery. Thank You, Hashem, that the groups are still running with my wonderful coaches. Thank You, Hashem, for Yonatan, who makes room for my difficulties. Thank You, Hashem, that we live in a house with stairs, which forces me to keep my upper body strong. Thank You, Hashem, that I’m discovering how loved I am, surrounded by people praying for my recovery. Thank You for the good, profitable projects I’ve been given that I can do while sitting down. Thank You for the opportunity to give women strength through stories and status updates. Thank You, Hashem, that You never leave me, even when I’m like this. I know it all belongs to Him and all the good comes from Him.” I wrote that on December eleventh. That was a month and a week after the fracture. Listen, today, a year and two months later, I’m telling you it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Really. Because of the fracture, I lost an incredible amount of weight. I lost nineteen—

46:27 Speaker 3 You said you gained weight.

46:27 Speaker 2 I gained weight then. One day a friend came over, and my brother had just sent me this huge gift package. This was before the Elite recall, and it had more chocolate than I can describe.

46:40 Speaker 3 And you know how to treat yourself with sugar.

46:42 Speaker 2 You have no idea. Anyway, with me it’s never one square, sweetheart. It’s a whole bar, and then another bar. So she sees how miserable I am and says, “What do you want?” I told her, “I want to stop poisoning myself.” Listen, my eating had become disgusting. Really, I couldn’t stand myself anymore. We took a garbage bag and loaded in all the chocolate and everything people had brought me. I opened the freezer too—I’d hidden things there so the kids wouldn’t see—and took the pralines out of there as well. I put it all in, and she took the bag to the trash and threw it away. I haven’t touched chocolate since.

47:20 Speaker 3 Wow.

47:21 Speaker 2 I started losing weight, and I really started eating Hashem’s food. I lost nineteen kilos that year. I hadn’t weighed that little since before my wedding. That year, boruch Hashem, I stopped coaching groups myself; only the coaches did it. They’re amazing beyond description. They’re... I don’t even have words for how caring and nurturing they are. That year I started dealing with sexual abuse in the chareidi community, something that had been like a black hole no one would touch. But one of the women in my running groups—fortunately, or I don’t know what to call it—sent me a message about a week after the fracture. That was also when the article about Chaim Walder appeared in Haaretz, and she wrote to me that he had harmed her. And I don’t know how to stay quiet. Anyway, I took a screenshot of what she’d written without revealing her identity. I posted it, and the next day I called the places where he worked. I really did thorough work to get him kicked out everywhere—

48:14 Speaker 3 As an employee?

48:14 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And fortunately, at Mishpacha magazine, for example, the person in charge had run with me in the past, so she trusted me. Anyway, I used every connection I had and could use to stop this man. But what happened after I posted it was that I received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages and calls from women who had been harmed in their own homes, harmed in educational institutions, harmed over the years. And children. Really, it became more than I could bear.

48:45 Speaker 4 I’m trying to understand—suddenly they found someone who would listen.

48:49 Speaker 2 Someone.

48:50 Speaker 4 And who would believe them.

48:51 Speaker 2 Exactly. Someone who says, “It’s not your fault, and I believe you.” There’s no reason in the world for a woman or a man to make up something like that. Today—today—one of the women in my running groups wrote to me that, boruch Hashem, her sister had come from abroad to Israel today to file a complaint against their father, and she went with her. I mean, they’re grown women now.

49:16 Speaker 4 That’s hard.

49:17 Speaker 2 It’s very hard. It’s a terrible rupture. There are really so many aspects to it. And the mother knew and did nothing, because it really is an incident with many victims. But the man goes on. He has grandchildren, he has children, he teaches. People like that have to be stopped. With tremendous courage, they sent me a photo as they were leaving the Yarkon police district station, where they’d filed a complaint. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the tsunami that swept over me—and, I think, over the world—after the Chaim Walder story was like, I don’t know, a Geulah beyond comprehension.

49:58 Speaker 4 A cleansing.

49:59 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. No, a root canal. Really, it still isn’t the thorough treatment I’d want to see. It’s a process, but the process is happening.

50:08 Speaker 4 Tell me, though: personally, how do you handle receiving so many messages like that?

50:13 Speaker 2 The truth is, there was a point... First of all, I didn’t sleep at night. I really didn’t sleep.

50:17 Speaker 4 It drives you out of your mind.

50:19 Speaker 2 After one night without sleep, I just turned on the camera, after a woman told me she’d gone to a rabbi to tell him what had happened.

50:27 Speaker 4 Even when you know you’re the only person they can turn to.

50:29 Speaker 2 Right? And the rabbi told her, “If you want to keep your family, stay quiet.” Anyway, rabbis are not the people to turn to about sexual abuse. Let’s be clear about that. They haven’t studied it, they don’t know, they have no idea. They are not the people to turn to.

50:40 Speaker 4 First of all, there is someone to turn to.

50:40 Speaker 2 The police and therapists are the people to turn to. For the perpetrators, the police; for yourself, a therapist. Anyway, I turned on the camera and started talking, saying, “This makes no sense.” I started crying and just posted it on TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook. It got hundreds of thousands of views, and I received an enormous number of messages. I realized I was falling apart. So I asked to put together a directory of professionals who deal with this—not just therapists, but judges and all the professionals involved in cases of sexual abuse. I wanted to collect it all in a table so that when a woman contacted me, I could tell her where to turn. And that’s what I did. Little by little, I really took a step back. I went to see a psychologist, and she told me, “Miri, sweetheart, even therapists go to therapy themselves. You’re not a therapist. You’re a running coach, and you do that amazingly well. You’re there for people, you listen, but you don’t need to put yourself in this position. Period.” And now I really, really try to refer people who contact me to professionals who can help them. I try to hear as few stories as possible, generally. I think that with terrorist attacks and all kinds of other things too, we should expose ourselves as little as possible to the details of the horrors. It just contaminates our souls. Images, sounds, sights. We don’t need to hear exactly what happened and how. We don’t need to see the attack itself. We don’t.

52:16 Speaker 4 The problem is that so often it comes across as something—first of all, it seems normal. People just send these things.

52:20 Speaker 2 It’s terrible.

52:21 Speaker 4 You’re in your family group chat, and you see it, and it’s like—

52:23 Speaker 2 Just today I blocked someone—

52:25 Speaker 4 It’s like you have to make an active effort to stop it.

52:28 Speaker 2 Noach’s sons were rewarded for not looking at their father’s nakedness. Their father was in a bad state, and they simply turned their backs and covered him without looking at him. They were rewarded for that. We need to deliberately keep ourselves from seeing horrors. Whether it’s daycare workers or parents hitting their children, or whatever it may be. Keep ourselves from seeing horrors. It contaminates us; it really contaminates us. Hashem didn’t give us eyelids and eyelashes, and the ability to close our eyes or turn our heads, for nothing.

53:00 Speaker 4 Absolutely. Wow. Because I think that, in a way, the more you see, the more it dulls your senses. There are people who have no problem looking at these things.

53:09 Speaker 2 Do you know when I realized that? When the three boys were kidnapped.

53:13 Speaker 4 Oh.

53:14 Speaker 2 There was a horrifying recording—

53:16 Speaker 4 Right, from the car.

53:17 Speaker 2 And you could hear it. For days afterward, I’d get into my car—I coach in the mornings, you know—at five-thirty in the morning, terrified that someone was waiting behind me in the car. Do you understand? Just from hearing it. It was absolutely awful.

53:30 Speaker 4 [unclear]

53:31 Speaker 2 It’s called the pornography of death. It’s terrible. We need to protect ourselves from those images. That’s truly guarding our eyes. Guarding our eyes means keeping ourselves from seeing horrors that contaminate our souls.

53:43 Speaker 4 Protecting the purity of our souls.

53:45 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly.

53:46 Speaker 4 Wow. So now, when women come to you, you refer them to someone else.

53:50 Speaker 2 With anything involving sexual abuse, I refer them elsewhere. I try not to be the person they turn to. Look, if a woman says to me, “Listen, I want you to come with me to file a complaint,” then I’ll accompany her, yes. But I try to be involved as little as possible. It really ruined my health. Knowing that right now, at this very moment, a child is being hurt and you don’t actually have the ability to do anything—it kills you. It really is more than my soul can bear.

54:15 Speaker 4 Right, but you have to recognize that. Look, there’s something admirable about it: you start a project and then pass it on.

54:21 Speaker 2 Right, right.

54:22 Speaker 4 That’s how you make things work. It’s...

54:23 Speaker 2 So there’s another project I started and passed on before—on my birthday. Actually, every birthday of mine—

54:29 Speaker 4 29 Elul. Do you know why I remember? Listen to why I remember.

54:32 Speaker 2 Go on.

54:33 Speaker 4 Because my due date was 29 Elul.

54:36 Speaker 2 Really.

54:37 Speaker 4 And during that pregnancy, I was in the high-risk pregnancy ward. There was concern I might go into premature labor, and all kinds of things were going on. When you posted about this, I just started crying, and I thought—

54:47 Speaker 2 Wait, let’s tell them what we’re talking about.

54:49 Speaker 4 Oh my goodness. Okay, you start, then.

54:51 Speaker 2 Wait, did you get one? Where were you?

54:52 Speaker 4 No, I didn’t get one. I’d already been discharged. I was at Assuta. I was there in my sixth or seventh month.

54:57 Speaker 2 Wow.

54:57 Speaker 4 After that I was on bed rest, partly on bed rest. But when I saw it, I still hadn’t given birth, so—

55:04 Speaker 2 So let’s tell—

55:05 Speaker 4 Wow.

55:05 Speaker 2 —them what we’re talking about.

55:06 Speaker 4 Let’s do it.

55:06 Speaker 2 Okay, so.

55:07 Speaker 4 Now I remember your birthday.

55:09 Speaker 2 Right. I was born on 29 Elul, and I have post-traumatic stress from the lack of presents. Who remembers a kid on 29 Elul, the eve of Rosh Hashanah? It’s not a day for celebrating.

55:18 Speaker 4 Not really.

55:19 Speaker 2 It’s a day for preparing for Rosh Hashanah. And they really never celebrated my birthday on the actual day. And presents—come on, they saved themselves a birthday present and a Rosh Hashanah present by combining the two whenever there was one. Anyway, when I grew up, I decided I was going to stop waiting for presents. I’d start giving presents on my birthday. And by the way, I have to tell you, when you give a gift, you get back a thousand times more. So every year I did something.

55:43 Speaker 4 Amazing, because that’s a principle for life in general. Instead of trying to fill myself up—

55:47 Speaker 2 Looking, looking for where—

55:48 Speaker 4 Right.

55:48 Speaker 2 —where do I run, what about me, I deserve it, give me. Instead, you give, and that’s how you receive. So for my thirtieth birthday, for example—I give talks about physical activity and nutrition, and what I went through as a child, and things like that. Anyway, I gave three talks at institutions: one was for Haredi women who had been abused by their husbands, and two were for girls at risk. I went and gave each of them a talk as a gift, one for each decade. For my thirty-fifth, I went to an oncology ward and handed out thirty-five gifts. And that was that. Then, before my thirty-eighth birthday, which was just recently, I racked my brain: What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? Anyway, one day I went to my sister-in-law, and she said, “Miri, listen, there’s a woman”—she told me her name—“who’s in the high-risk pregnancy ward.” She was one of my runners, okay? Once her pregnancy became high-risk, she stopped running and was hospitalized at Assaf Harofeh for four months.

56:45 Speaker 5 That’s incredible.

56:45 Speaker 2 She said to me, “Would you like to visit her? This mother would be so moved. She’d be so happy if you came.” I said, “Of course! Why even ask?” Anyway, I went and sat with her, and suddenly it hit me: here was a woman, a mother with children at home, lying there in that ward with no one to turn to. There’s no other way to put it. The only person she regularly sees is her husband, and every few days her children come, lie down on top of her and don’t want to leave her. And I said, “What I want to do is give thirty-eight gifts to mothers with high-risk pregnancies. I want to go to the high-risk pregnancy ward, meet the women who are actually lying there—lioness mothers protecting their babies—and treat them, bring them something.”

57:28 Speaker 5 That’s incredible.

57:28 Speaker 2 Sit with them, listen to them, talk with them. Anyway, I put up a post on Facebook and Instagram. Listen—

57:37 Speaker 5 How many did you want? Thirty-eight?

57:39 Speaker 2 Thirty-eight—I was turning thirty-eight—and I told people about it. More than 1,560 women contacted me saying they wanted to do it too.

57:49 Speaker 5 To take part, you mean.

57:51 Speaker 2 To go visit women too. What did they need to do?

57:53 Speaker 5 Wow.

57:54 Speaker 2 Anyway, the next day, a woman who runs some incredible projects contacted me. She said, “Listen, let me help you.”

57:59 Speaker 5 Wait, so this was a few days before your birthday?

58:01 Speaker 2 Yes, a few days before my birthday. And then I said, “Okay, what do we do? How do we do it?” I took a pair of socks to a woman and just sat with her and talked to her. Then other women said, “We want to do that too.” So I said, “Okay, let’s make it a project.” Then I thought, “What should we call it?” I wanted them to feel that they really are my sisters, that I’m there with them in their pain. In short, I called the project “I’m With You, My Sister. You Are Never Alone.” One woman said, “Let me make you a logo.” Another said, “Let me help you.” In short, we have WhatsApp groups with hundreds of women, from Rivka Ziv and the Galilee, in Nahariya and Tzfas, all the way to Yoseftal in Eilat. Nineteen hospitals around the country, with women who want to visit other women.

58:45 Speaker 5 That’s incredible.

58:45 Speaker 2 Then I said, “Okay, now what? I need to buy bags and this and that.”

58:49 Speaker 5 You basically set up a whole logistics operation without meaning to.

58:52 Speaker 2 It’s incredible. Listen, with everything happening, I said, “Okay, I’ll open a PayBox group so women can donate. I’ll buy bags and supplies.” I had no idea. I went to someone who makes—or imports—bags and said, “Give me a hundred bags.” So I got a hundred bags and paid him with the donations I’d received through PayBox. Then I saw that the bags were gone in a day. Someone wanted them at Barzilai, someone at Beilinson, others at Wolfson, at Maayanei Hayeshua and at Shaare Zedek. In short, requests were coming from all over the country, and I realized I needed to make it a little bigger. Then came more donations and more women, and by now there have been almost three thousand visits—

59:36 Speaker 5 Wow.

59:36 Speaker 2 At hospitals, by women visiting other women.

59:41 Speaker 5 It’s hard to grasp.

59:42 Speaker 2 It really is. And for me, this project is several sizes too big. I mean, you know, I’m a running coach.

59:47 Speaker 5 Right, so how do you actually manage it?

59:49 Speaker 2 Right now, whenever donations come in, I get help from an amazing woman who’s also on maternity leave and got incredibly excited about the project. I transfer the money to her, and she buys the items. It might be shampoo, a heating pad, socks.

1:00:07 Speaker 5 Something to bring—

1:00:08 Speaker 2 Something. To come with something. And we distribute those bags to the women. I also give them empty bags for women to fill themselves. By the way, the women have far more ideas than I do. They bake cakes. One woman is a kindergarten teacher, and she’s amazing—she hands out bouquets of balloons.

1:00:25 Speaker 5 Oh, how sweet.

1:00:26 Speaker 2 She arrives with bouquets of balloons. Others prepare challahs and hummus before Shabbos and come by before Shabbos. In short—

1:00:32 Speaker 5 It really doesn’t matter what it is.

1:00:33 Speaker 2 It doesn’t matter.

1:00:33 Speaker 5 Anything at all.

1:00:34 Speaker 2 Every visit—

1:00:34 Speaker 5 What you’re saying, really—

1:00:35 Speaker 2 Is that you come to someone, sit with her and say, “I’m here with you. How are you?” And you’re not a doctor or a nurse or a social worker, and you’re not her husband.

1:00:44 Speaker 5 You saw her.

1:00:45 Speaker 2 You saw her. You looked at her, felt her pain, sat with her and gave her so, so much strength. That’s it. It’s another project that’s several sizes too big for me. Right now, I try to give it a really strong push before the holidays, and every week there are visits at Bnei Zion—and really at hospitals all over the country.

1:01:03 Speaker 5 Amazing. What will happen when she goes on maternity leave?

1:01:07 Speaker 2 Well, she gave birth, boruch Hashem, and this week she sent me a video of herself running again. I actually posted it on my status—she’s back to running. And really, you know, that’s the finishing touch. Someone comes along and you realize you have a role here, and apparently your role is to spread the light. Then that light creates more light, and more light, and more ripples. Just like running.

1:01:30 Speaker 5 That’s cool.

1:01:30 Speaker 2 I provide the tool, and through that running, your whole family benefits—your husband, your children, everyone. It’s the same with all these projects. It’s simply light that draws more light—

1:01:40 Speaker 5 Right.

1:01:41 Speaker 2 And more light.

1:01:41 Speaker 5 It’s physiological. Movement leads to movement. It sets something in motion inside you—

1:01:46 Speaker 2 Right.

1:01:46 Speaker 5 Once you get into it, it already—

1:01:47 Speaker 2 It’s a movement of giving. Listen, whenever you’re sad, I’m telling you, go do something good for someone else.

1:01:53 Speaker 5 Absolutely.

1:01:54 Speaker 2 You have no idea how much it will fill you. Doing good for someone else fills you up. Whenever I’m sad—and I really do have plenty of those moments—I go out to coach. I drive to a group, and, you know, I tell them, “More than the calf wants to nurse, believe me, the cow wants to feed it.”

1:02:10 Speaker 5 Completely.

1:02:11 Speaker 2 Completely. Giving to you fills me up entirely.

1:02:13 Speaker 5 Wow. Tell me, I have to ask you something. Earlier you talked about the creation of the world, light and darkness, sleep—but with everything you’ve told me, I have to ask: when do you sleep?

1:02:21 Speaker 2 At night.

1:02:22 Speaker 5 Because you show up at sunrise, don’t you?

1:02:25 Speaker 2 Right. First of all, there were periods when I really slept very, very little. Recently, I made a really good resolution: I don’t bring my phone into my bedroom.

1:02:35 Speaker 5 Wow, that hits home.

1:02:36 Speaker 2 I don’t bring it in. I leave it in the hallway with the alarm set. I leave it there and don’t take it into the room. I actually read a book, like in the old days, and fall asleep with a book.

1:02:45 Speaker 5 How nice.

1:02:45 Speaker 2 And sleep comes much more easily; I fall asleep much more easily too. And for your marriage—let’s not get too deep into this—when there’s a phone between spouses, it takes you away. The phone wins completely.

1:03:00 Speaker 5 And the whole world is there in the room.

1:03:01 Speaker 2 The phone wins completely.

1:03:03 Speaker 5 But tell me, doesn’t the alarm going off in the hallway wake the whole house?

1:03:06 Speaker 2 I jump right up. It starts softly, and I recognize it right away. And if they wake up, they wake up. It’s okay; nothing happened.

1:03:12 Speaker 5 Cool. And actually, you can buy an old-fashioned alarm clock too.

1:03:14 Speaker 2 Right, but—

1:03:14 Speaker 5 For someone who finds that less convenient.

1:03:16 Speaker 2 I don’t know, it falls and breaks, and then I’m upset. I had one of those too. But the point is to get the phone out of the room.

1:03:21 Speaker 5 Nice. So how many hours do you sleep?

1:03:24 Speaker 2 Some nights I sleep less. I really, really try—when things go well—to get six and a half or seven hours.

1:03:33 Speaker 5 Wow.

1:03:33 Speaker 2 It’s very, very important. On Shabbos I sleep much more. I try to get into bed at a reasonable hour. If I get back from coaching at nine-thirty, I’ll get into bed at ten. If I get back at ten, then eleven at the latest, so I can get up at a good hour.

1:03:49 Speaker 5 It really is important. I remember saying to my husband just recently, “What’s the sign that I’ve gotten old? I know I need to go to sleep early.” But it’s not that I’ve gotten old; I’ve matured.

1:03:59 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:03:59 Speaker 5 Because I used to stay up late. I’m really a night person: “Come on, let’s get one more thing done,” and it didn’t matter if—

1:04:06 Speaker 2 You know, in one hour in the morning you can get done what takes you three hours at night. Try it and see. Get up early, and you’ll see that you accomplish three times as much in a morning hour as you do at night.

1:04:16 Speaker 5 Yes, but that takes work. It really means changing your—

1:04:19 Speaker 2 It’s hard.

1:04:20 Speaker 5 Your whole internal clock.

1:04:21 Speaker 2 It’s that first second of getting up. “Why do I need this? Why do I need this? I’ll sleep some more. I’ll sleep some more.” Listen, whether you’re getting up at five-thirty or at seven, that first moment of difficulty is the same. It’s getting up.

1:04:33 Speaker 5 Right.

1:04:33 Speaker 2 Once you’re up—

1:04:34 Speaker 5 It’s just that at seven you have no choice, so it happens then.

1:04:36 Speaker 2 Right, so decide that five-thirty is when you’re getting up.

1:04:39 Speaker 5 To take more control of our choices.

1:04:40 Speaker 2 Right.

1:04:41 Speaker 5 To take things into our own hands, as they say.

1:04:43 Speaker 2 Right.

1:04:46 Speaker 5 Wait, yes, we’re at fifty-five minutes. One second, I’ll cut it there. Oh, wait, I’ve gotten stuck in a loop. I’m trying to see if there’s something we haven’t talked about.

1:04:55 Speaker 2 That’s it. We can say thank you very much.

1:04:57 Speaker 5 Wait, no, you have to say one more thing. Okay, I’ll send her car. Surprise. Wait. Fifty-six. Okay. Tell me, Miri, you do this and this and this, and you’re self-employed.

1:05:12 Speaker 2 Right.

1:05:14 Speaker 5 And you exercise, obviously.

1:05:15 Speaker 2 Right.

1:05:16 Speaker 5 How do you do all that at the same time? How many children do you have at home?

1:05:20 Speaker 2 Five children.

1:05:20 Speaker 5 Five children.

1:05:21 Speaker 2 Right.

1:05:22 Speaker 5 And stay sane and healthy.

1:05:25 Speaker 2 Right.

1:05:26 Speaker 5 From the outside, it looks like you don’t let yourself off the hook in any area.

1:05:30 Speaker 2 Right. First of all, anyone who follows me knows I’m so far from perfect. Oh my goodness, how much—

1:05:35 Speaker 5 No, I don’t mean perfect. But at the end of the day, you’re happy with your priorities, aren’t you?

1:05:39 Speaker 2 Right. That’s exactly the point.

1:05:41 Speaker 5 So give us a few tips to finish off.

1:05:43 Speaker 2 We have—

1:05:43 Speaker 5 Because women who are employees are overwhelmed, and self-employed women are overwhelmed too.

1:05:47 Speaker 2 Right.

1:05:47 Speaker 5 So from your experience, how can we best fulfill our shlichus as mothers? And in terms of what we bring to the world—our own personal fulfillment?

1:05:55 Speaker 2 Right. So first of all, being self-employed means constantly getting things moving again, because if you don’t make a move, it won’t happen. But I want to tell you that I really do make my own choices. And let me tell you something: I’m not rich. I’m not even well-off. I’m an average woman, okay? In terms of income, I mean.

1:06:13 Speaker 5 Yes.

1:06:14 Speaker 2 But I realized I need to manage my time properly. I don’t do the laundry. I saw that laundry was taking me about fifteen hours a week. Five kids.

1:06:24 Speaker 5 Every home is a laundromat. Mine isn’t like that.

1:06:26 Speaker 2 Right, right. So I realized I can’t do the laundry, because when I’m home, in the little time I have at home, I need to be with the kids—not frantically saying, “Come on, sort this out, help me, take this down, fold this, put this away, take that.” I can’t. I can’t afford to spend that time with the laundry instead of with them. So I simply chose to send my laundry to a laundromat twice a week. They come, pick it up, and bring it back. Now you might say, “Wow, what a dream! It’s like having an au pair at home.” True. I put the money I work really hard for into making my own choices about my time. Another thing: I don’t clean the house. I used to clean it, and I’d spend the whole day upset with them for making a mess.

1:07:11 Speaker 5 That takes hours too.

1:07:12 Speaker 2 Never mind that it takes hours and uses up the whole morning. The most you can do while cleaning is make phone calls; you can’t really be fully present. And then you’re upset with them, too. When someone else cleans, between us, it’s not such a big deal if things get dirty. At worst, you make a mess. So I realized I need a cleaner, and I need one more than once a week. I need more regular help.

1:07:31 Speaker 5 Oh, absolutely.

1:07:31 Speaker 2 So that choice—to set some things aside and focus on the little time I do have with the kids, to really be with them when I am home, or to sleep—it’s just about prioritizing our time. I don’t put the kids to bed, okay? I don’t, because I coach in the evenings. My kids know I don’t put them to bed. But I pick them up from preschool, I’m with them at the playground, and I sit and read them a story. And on Shabbos, I’m with them much more. We go out together. It’s all a matter of priorities. When a woman says to me, “Listen, how am I supposed to go running? I don’t have time,” I tell her that isn’t true. You’re choosing to do other things with the time you should be using to take care of yourself. It’s all a matter of priorities, and there’s no getting around it. I have a very, very, very supportive husband. Once, in a romantic moment, he said to me, “My only job in life is not to hold you back.” And that’s really what he does. He simply doesn’t hold me back, and I run forward—with thousands of women running alongside me.

1:08:34 Speaker 6 You’re amazing! Miri, thank you so, so much. You’ve truly been an inspiration.

1:08:37 Speaker 2 With pleasure.

1:08:38 Speaker 6 Come on, get out and run!

1:08:39 Speaker 2 Right, right.

1:08:40 Speaker 6 We’ll go downstairs and run now.

1:08:41 Speaker 2 Come on, let’s go—and come follow me.

1:08:43 Speaker 6 Great, we’ll post the number for your status afterward, and tag you and everything.

1:08:49 Speaker 2 Happily.

1:08:50 Speaker 6 That’s it. Because this is an ongoing story—we need to see what projects you have coming up next. All right, thank you, Miri.

1:08:56 Speaker 2 My pleasure.

1:08:56 Speaker 6 Bye.