Episode 31: Apartment, Purity, Family - How Do You Design It? 🏡 | With Avigail Nachum, architect and interior designer

00:00 Speaker 1 What needs to go into planning the design of a mikvah, and how is that different from designing an ordinary home? What can and can’t you change when you buy an apartment from a developer, and what’s the best way to go about it? In short, come along with Avigail for a tour of blueprints, mikvahs and building plans—and, along the way, through the days and years of coping as a mother with secondary infertility and everything that comes with it. You’re invited to share this episode with friends, acquaintances, family—anyone you care about. Intro, and we’ll 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 different women who have brought their shlichus into a variety of fields. 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 as good as it gets. Shlichus as a way of life. We’re starting now. Hello, Avigail Nachum.

01:07 Speaker 2 Hello!

01:08 Speaker 1 How are you?

01:08 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem, excellent.

01:10 Speaker 1 All right, Avigail, you’ll have to introduce yourself to us.

01:13 Speaker 2 Okay.

01:13 Speaker 1 Go ahead.

01:14 Speaker 2 So, I’m Avigail. I’m forty-two, an interior designer specializing in changes to apartments bought from developers and in mikvah design. I have—

01:23 Speaker 1 You’ll explain all those terms in a moment.

01:25 Speaker 2 Yes, I’ll go into detail—

01:26 Speaker 1 “Changes to apartments bought from developers”—that’s a term in itself.

01:28 Speaker 2 Yes. Some people have even gone through that process and don’t know that’s what it’s called. So I’ll explain. I have one daughter, who’s twelve, a husband, and, well, I live in Kfar Yona, and...

01:42 Speaker 1 And that’s what you do professionally.

01:43 Speaker 2 That’s what I do professionally, yes.

01:45 Speaker 1 What does your day look like?

01:46 Speaker 2 What does my day look like? Lately I’ve been trying to get up at five in the morning.

01:51 Speaker 1 No way! You’ve got me there. Just kidding, just kidding.

01:55 Speaker 2 No, it doesn’t always work out. But honestly, the first thing I have to do in the morning is drive my daughter to school. She lives—she goes to school in Netanya.

02:05 Speaker 1 How long does that take?

02:06 Speaker 2 So the round trip takes me—

02:07 Speaker 1 That’s the southerner asking.

02:10 Speaker 2 Without traffic, it’s ten minutes, ten—fifteen minutes. But in the morning I hit traffic both ways. I work from home, and I still get stuck in traffic on my way to work. It’s amazing.

02:20 Speaker 1 Wow.

02:20 Speaker 2 So I have about an hour and a half every morning that gets eaten up taking her to school. I realized that when I got up at the last minute, got ready, took her and came back, I wouldn’t start my day until around ten or eleven. So getting up at five is really about making better use of my day. Some women get up at five to have an hour to themselves and all that, but for me it’s completely practical.

02:47 Speaker 1 When do you leave the house?

02:48 Speaker 2 At seven. I’m supposed to leave at seven so there’s as little traffic as possible, but it doesn’t always work out.

02:55 Speaker 1 Wow.

02:56 Speaker 2 So if there’s a little more traffic, I get home around eight-thirty or a quarter to nine, and that’s already pretty crazy. So, to be able to come back and dive straight into work before it’s suddenly afternoon, I started getting up at five to get ready, daven, get the house in order, reset everything, and then come back from that drive, recover and start working.

03:20 Speaker 1 So you have an off—an office, a computer at home, all that?

03:23 Speaker 2 I have a fancy little office at home.

03:27 Speaker 1 A work corner.

03:28 Speaker 2 Yes, I have a desk and a computer. With Hashem’s help, I really hope that’ll change soon. We’re planning to move.

03:36 Speaker 1 Who’s going to plan the design for you?

03:39 Speaker 2 Well, the shoemaker goes barefoot. We rent, but honestly, I’m always thinking and imagining what I’ll do, with Hashem’s help, when I have a home of my own. There are so many things I want.

03:51 Speaker 1 Right, you’d have to put all the—

03:52 Speaker 2 All my vision—

03:55 Speaker 1 Into one home.

03:56 Speaker 2 So I think there’s a chance we’ll stay in a rented apartment forever just to avoid dealing with that.

04:02 Speaker 1 It’s stressful.

04:03 Speaker 2 Yes, very stressful. And you’d have to impress people and live up to it.

04:07 Speaker 1 “Come see the interior designer’s home.”

04:09 Speaker 2 Yes. So, I don’t know, maybe we’ll stay in a rental forever. No, I’m kidding. With Hashem’s help.

04:14 Speaker 1 It’s not the end of the world, you know.

04:17 Speaker 2 Yes. Yes, absolutely.

04:18 Speaker 1 Wait, what was I going to ask you? You work from your office at home, but presumably you also need to visit the...

04:24 Speaker 2 Right.

04:25 Speaker 1 I was about to say “the clients,” but I meant the patients—the apartments.

04:29 Speaker 2 The clients too.

04:30 Speaker 1 Yes.

04:31 Speaker 2 You... Look, let me tell you: an interior designer or architect is a psychologist in disguise.

04:37 Speaker 1 Really?

04:38 Speaker 2 Yes. You go through a process with the family, with the couple. The husband has his wishes, the wife has hers.

04:46 Speaker 1 Wow, I hadn’t thought of that.

04:48 Speaker 2 Sometimes you find yourself in tricky situations, and you have to make peace between them along the way.

04:54 Speaker 1 I’m sure there are budget issues sometimes too.

04:56 Speaker 2 Budget issues are the usual thing. Look, some husbands say, “I’m not interested in any of the details. Just talk to me about the money.”

05:03 Speaker 1 That’s funny.

05:04 Speaker 2 Yes.

05:04 Speaker 1 The wallet.

05:05 Speaker 2 But ultimately, money is a significant part of the planning process. Let me tell you something: even millionaires—I once worked at a firm that dealt only with the top income bracket, only luxury apartments—even they feel they don’t have enough money for all their dreams. The more you have, the more you dream about.

05:27 Speaker 1 The price differences can be crazy for the smallest things. I can’t think of an example right now, but say a particular item could cost one amount or a wildly different amount. Then you multiply that by the square meter, and it becomes...

05:44 Speaker 2 Right, right. So I always tell my clients that, first of all, they need to set priorities. There are things that are very important to certain families, things they won’t give up and will invest in. And there are other things they can compromise on, buy a cheaper version of, or do without altogether. It really depends on the family and how they set their priorities—what matters to them.

06:14 Speaker 1 So when you come to design a home for a family, you really have to get to know them in depth.

06:18 Speaker 2 Right.

06:19 Speaker 1 What—

06:20 Speaker 2 Exactly. That’s why I say I don’t just come to see the space and assess it. First, I go through a process of getting to know the family. I have this thing: I can usually get a feel for people. I see a couple, and I know what design style they like. It’s a little game I play with myself.

06:40 Speaker 1 That’s funny.

06:41 Speaker 2 Usually I’m right, too. I have a very, very good friend whose home I planned. I told her, “Listen, this is the design you like.” Okay, I knew her—she’s a close childhood friend—but even so, I told her, “This is your style.” She said, “No, absolutely not. Not at all. That isn’t our style.” In the end, the house turned out just as I’d said.

07:03 Speaker 1 That’s funny.

07:03 Speaker 2 So I always play this little game with myself. I get a feel for the clients and first ask myself, “What was their home like? What style do they like?” And often, people aren’t even aware of it themselves. I tell them, “Do a little homework. Send me pictures of things you like.” They send me something they like, and I look at the design, study it with my designer’s eye, and eventually discover that what they liked was some little detail. Exactly—some plant. They tell me, “Yes, that’s the style we like.” But when you go through it with them and ask, “Tell me what you liked here,” and get down to the details, it turns out it was the plant. They showed me a country-style home, but what caught their eye was the plant, and they actually like modern design. Just as an example. So part of it is helping them sort that out. People aren’t always aware of what they really like. You might walk into a very impressive, beautiful home and feel good there, but maybe what made you feel good was that the lighting was warm yellow rather than white.

08:08 Speaker 1 Yes, that’s so interesting.

08:09 Speaker 2 So the first thing is to really explore people’s needs with them. And to me, that’s also my shlichus in my work, in my profession. Because I believe that when a home is planned around a family’s needs—and not just around the budget, though of course that matters too, so you don’t finish the house with debts you then have to live with—the planning becomes part of their everyday life. It improves everything at home. It improves raising the children; it improves shalom bayis. And beyond that, getting through the process with shalom bayis is important too.

09:00 Speaker 1 Right. So the house serves you, rather than you serving the house.

09:04 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. For some people, just as an example, an island in the kitchen is the most important thing. It’s the center of family life; that’s where everyone sits. For someone else, having children making a mess around her while she’s in the kitchen would drive her crazy. So there’s no right or wrong here. I really don’t like it when people come to me and ask, “What’s in now? What’s modern today?”

09:27 Speaker 1 Oh.

09:28 Speaker 2 That’s just it: there’s no such thing as “what’s in now.” There’s no “but so-and-so did it this way.” It really has to suit you and your needs. That’s what’s right. There’s an architect I really like who takes this approach. He tells me, “Listen, I surprise the family at around four or five o’clock, a really crucial time of day. I come in and tell them, ‘Pretend I’m not here.’” It takes courage to do that. I wouldn’t dare. He comes in, sits off to the side—“I’m not here”—and watches.

09:57 Speaker 1 Knock on the wall.

09:58 Speaker 2 Yes. He watches, investigates, draws his conclusions, and then explains to them what they need.

10:04 Speaker 1 Oh, that’s really...

10:05 Speaker 2 It’s amazing, but he’s a person with a lot of...

10:07 Speaker 1 Depth to his work.

10:08 Speaker 2 Yes. A person with a lot of nerve. I wouldn’t dare come and do something like that, but it’s really amazing. It’s real research. It’s getting to know people, getting to know families. More than getting to know them—it’s observing them and telling them what would be good for them.

10:25 Speaker 1 What they need in practical terms.

10:26 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

10:28 Speaker 1 Of course. And there’s presumably a difference with, say, a religious family that needs a kitchen suited to Shabbos, or...

10:36 Speaker 2 Right.

10:37 Speaker 1 Their whole way of life is connected to the home.

10:41 Speaker 2 Completely.

10:41 Speaker 1 That’s interesting.

10:42 Speaker 2 So let’s talk for a moment about changes to a builder’s floor plan, in light of what you just said.

10:46 Speaker 1 Oh, we haven’t gotten to that yet.

10:49 Speaker 2 Basically, these are changes made when someone buys an apartment from a builder while it’s still on paper, or even when construction has already begun. They can plan changes to the layout that the builder then carries out during construction, before they move in. What is a builder’s apartment, really? An architect planned the building and gave all the families the same home. There may be a few different apartment layouts, but the architect didn’t do that research with each family. He doesn’t know who will come to live in that home.

11:27 Speaker 1 One template.

11:28 Speaker 2 Exactly, one template. A building might have three templates, say, or four or five—a garden apartment, a penthouse. There are a few types, but what he designed is standard. He worked according to regulations and rules. He didn’t research the family; he doesn’t know who will live there. And sometimes even moving a wall thirty centimeters makes a very significant difference to how you plan the home afterward. As you said, for example, some projects are intended for religious or chareidi communities. There you’ll see large kitchens and a sink for washing hands outside the bathroom. If you go somewhere that isn’t designed for a religious or chareidi community, you won’t see those things. So sometimes you really have to adapt the apartment, if the project wasn’t designed for a particular community.

12:22 Speaker 1 A sukkah balcony and all those things.

12:23 Speaker 2 A sukkah balcony. Right, that’s another thing—I always like looking around.

12:26 Speaker 1 That’s the most obvious one.

12:27 Speaker 2 Yes, the most obvious. I always like walking around buildings and thinking, “Wow, there’s absolutely no chance of having a sukkah balcony here unless you live on the roof.” And then what do you do on Shabbos?

12:36 Speaker 1 Fifteenth floor, yes.

12:37 Speaker 2 Right. What do you do on Shabbos? Walk all the way up. So...

12:39 Speaker 1 Wow, I bet when you walk down the street, you don’t see what everyone else sees. You look at the apartments and analyze them.

12:45 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. A lot of times I’ll go somewhere and really try to stop myself from doing that—from investigating, from thinking, “Wow, I would have done that differently.”

12:57 Speaker 1 Wow, people must be afraid to invite you into their homes. No matter what...

13:00 Speaker 2 Listen, I feel so uncomfortable about that. People are always saying, “Oh no, sorry about this, sorry about that.” When I visit clients, they immediately feel they have to tidy up the house. I honestly don’t notice those things. Friends always feel awkward too. Look, my house is always tidy. That’s my nature, and as we said, I have one child, so there aren’t many people to make a mess. My house really is always tidy, and friends feel uncomfortable when I come over. I always tell them, “I honestly don’t see it. It doesn’t interest me; I don’t notice it.” I know my place is tidy because I’m also such a Yekke. Really. My grandmother was born in Germany.

13:38 Speaker 1 Mine too.

13:39 Speaker 2 So being a Yekke is really in my genes.

13:41 Speaker 1 But I didn’t get the right genes, apparently.

13:43 Speaker 2 Well, I got the whole package. I didn’t get anything from the other side; I got the full Yekke package. So everything at my place really is... Not that it’s a museum and nobody’s allowed to touch anything. I don’t mind people making a mess.

13:56 Speaker 1 But it really bothers you... when people make a mess.

14:00 Speaker 2 So, no, it really doesn’t. What we were saying was that when I go into apartments and other places, I look at the layout. Sometimes I think, “Wow, what a planning mistake. Who designed this?” Unfortunately, there are a lot of places—builder’s apartments, for example—with layouts that don’t suit the people living there and have many mistakes. Sometimes clients bring me apartments like that.

14:22 Speaker 1 How do they build towers with dozens of apartments like that?

14:26 Speaker 2 Well, look. First of all...

14:27 Speaker 1 Who thought that through?

14:28 Speaker 2 First of all, there are a lot of constraints we know about. That’s what I tell myself when I go somewhere and think, “Wow, what a terrible layout.” I say to myself, “All right, calm down. You know there are constraints, and some things happen because there’s no other choice.”

14:42 Speaker 1 Usually it feels like they were trying to save money, doesn’t it?

14:44 Speaker 2 Well, that’s...

14:45 Speaker 1 A meter here, a meter there. They just crammed everything in.

14:47 Speaker 2 Look, at the end of the day, people buy an apartment based on the number of rooms. That’s what determines its value, or...

14:54 Speaker 1 The rooms.

14:54 Speaker 2 Right, so they try to squeeze in as many rooms as possible and get more for the apartment. What always shocks me is that they cram in lots and lots of rooms but give you a tiny kitchen and a tiny living room. And you think, if a family with, I don’t know, seven children is supposed to live here, judging by the number of rooms, how are they going to manage with such a small living room and kitchen?

15:15 Speaker 1 Yes, exactly.

15:15 Speaker 2 It really doesn’t make sense.

15:19 Speaker 1 That kind of layout.

15:19 Speaker 2 Exactly. But at the end of the day, the builder needs to make money.

15:24 Speaker 1 Yes.

15:24 Speaker 2 So those things really do have a big effect. But there truly are a lot of constraints too. So don’t be angry with the builders. It isn’t only because of...

15:37 Speaker 1 That’s sweet of you.

15:40 Speaker 2 It isn’t only because they want to... Well, yes.

15:43 Speaker 1 Their own interests.

15:43 Speaker 2 That too, exactly, but it isn’t only that. There are constraints and all kinds of regulations they have to meet. All sorts of things.

15:49 Speaker 1 Wait, but if it has to do with regulations, how can you come in and change it? Or are you talking about things you don’t necessarily change?

15:56 Speaker 2 So first of all, there are a lot of things you can change that aren’t related to building standards. For example, I have clients who really wanted to move the guest bathroom from where it was and make the kitchen bigger with that space. Let me explain for a second. I work with the contractor’s tenant-changes coordinator. She’s an architect employed by the contractor. She handles the tenant changes in the contractor’s office, draws them into the plans, and then passes them on to the project manager and so on. I have something to say about that too, but we’ll talk about it later. Let me tell you this story first. Anyway, the tenant-changes coordinator told me, “Listen, I’m telling you, if you’ve looked carefully at the plans, there’s no way you can fit the bathroom anywhere else.” Why did she say that? Because there really is a standard for how big a bathroom has to be in an apartment—standards the contractor has to meet. If you’re doing an ordinary home renovation, for example, nobody tells you what standards to follow, and you can make the bathroom whatever size you want. There’s what’s called ergonomics—the principles of how the human body works. Obviously, you need to...

17:09 Speaker 3 Be able to turn around, too.

17:10 Speaker 2 Be able to go in, sit down, turn around, open the door. Sometimes you really do walk into a bathroom, open the door, and then you practically have to climb onto the toilet to close it. So there really is a minimum when it comes to ergonomics.

17:21 Speaker 3 That reminds me of a bathroom in Ukraine. We used to go there in some—never mind, some public building—and you couldn’t close the door without squeezing between the toilet and the wall.

17:32 Speaker 2 Exactly.

17:32 Speaker 3 And now that I think about it, I’m saying to myself, they probably don’t have those standards there.

17:36 Speaker 2 Could be. So there’s the basic level of ergonomics, but let’s say a sufficient size for a bathroom is eighty centimeters wide and usually a meter thirty or a meter forty long, depending on where the door is.

17:49 Speaker 3 For an average person.

17:50 Speaker 2 Yes. Now, in a new-build apartment, it has to be much bigger—almost twice the size—to meet the standards. I don’t know why; it really is strange. That’s why the tenant-changes coordinator said to me, “Listen, where are you going to put it?” And she was right: a normal bathroom that meets ergonomic standards, where a person can actually get in and manage, would fit there. But a bathroom that met the standards the contractor has to follow wouldn’t. So what did I do? I designed a bathroom that didn’t meet those standards. We basically took a section of the shower area and made it into the bathroom, but we didn’t show the contractor a toilet on the plans. We labeled it a storage room. And on the other side of the wall was the toilet in the main bathroom. So once they receive Form 4, the occupancy permit, all they need to do is bring in a renovator for a small job.

18:49 Speaker 3 Workarounds.

18:50 Speaker 2 To install a toilet there. That way, they got a bathroom and made the kitchen bigger. Or, for example, there are all kinds of things you can prepare in advance and then bring in a renovator afterward to make the adjustments.

19:07 Speaker 3 You have to know all the rules, and then know how to work within them.

19:09 Speaker 2 Exactly. That’s why my specialty is tenant changes, and it’s very different from what another designer who works on renovations does. It’s different. You’re working with a contractor; you have to work within their conditions. You need to know how to deal with them, their schedules, the standards—everything.

19:27 Speaker 3 Wait, so do you work with several clients in one project? That would seem to be the most convenient.

19:31 Speaker 2 Sometimes that happens. I always tell them I’d be happy if they spread the word to other residents in the building.

19:37 Speaker 3 Because you’re already familiar with the place.

19:39 Speaker 2 Right, right.

19:39 Speaker 3 That particular one, I mean.

19:40 Speaker 2 Exactly, right. Every project has its own particular issues and all that. There’s no question that first you have to know generally how to handle tenant changes, and then you have to get to know each project. So sometimes I end up working on several apartments in the same project. It doesn’t always happen. You also have to plan with the future in mind, so you can have the contractor do as much of the preparatory work as possible. What do I mean, have the contractor do it? You pay the contractor for it, right? You’re not getting it for free. Though there are some things you don’t pay for, by the way. For example, there’s what’s called the Dekel price list. Maybe you haven’t heard of it. It’s a kind of standard price list. Just as there’s a list price for a car, this is the recognized or recommended price list in the construction industry. How much does it cost to install an outlet? To move an outlet? To knock down a wall? Those prices are in the list. In principle, contractors are bound by the Dekel price list. Some contractors use their own price list. Now, under the Dekel price list, there are certain things—for example, if you move an outlet less than thirty centimeters, the contractor isn’t supposed to charge you. They’re not allowed to charge for that. There’s a price for moving something, a price for adding something, and a price for removing something, when you get a credit from the contractor. So in the end, I plan the changes with the residents, we submit them to the contractor, and the contractor gives us a quote for the changes. Then there’s an additional amount for them to pay. So it depends, of course,

21:24 Speaker 2 on the extent and scale of the changes they’re planning. But in the end, they really do save money this way. People often say to me, “Listen, the Dekel price list is expensive. It’s not like what I’d pay if I went to a renovator.” Say the Dekel price for installing an outlet is 250 shekels, while a regular contractor would charge me 100 shekels. I’m just throwing out an example. But in the end, with a renovator, you’re not paying just for the outlet. You’re paying for their workdays and the workers they bring. And you lose time. You get the apartment and the keys, and only then do you start the renovations and changes. So you’re still paying rent on the place where you’re living.

22:06 Speaker 4 Yes.

22:06 Speaker 2 And now you’re getting into another whole renovation process—renovating a brand-new apartment. Sometimes those changes can also affect your one-year inspection period and the warranty you have from the contractor on the apartment. So in the end, it works out cheaper to do it through the contractor. And again, sometimes I plan ahead to prepare for something that will be done later. For example, I had a client who wanted to enclose a balcony. Obviously the contractor couldn’t do that, because of Form 4 and all that, but we had the electrical preparations put in for what the client wanted there later. So we had the contractor do as much as we could. The more the contractor does, the less you need to bring in a renovator afterward. Then all you have to do is install the toilet. That’s not a major renovation. And...

22:54 Speaker 4 Yes.

22:55 Speaker 2 It doesn’t disrupt things for you, either. You can already move into the apartment, and then, you know, there’s always another month of little final things to finish. So the process really starts with getting to know the family and understanding their needs, then getting to know the project and understanding who I’m dealing with. Some contractors are more down-to-earth than others. And all of that comes together to give the family an apartment that’s part of a new-build project, which is usually cheaper than buying land and building a house.

23:28 Speaker 4 Yes.

23:28 Speaker 2 Or buying a pre-owned house and renovating it. It’s also less of a headache in the end. I mean...

23:34 Speaker 4 At the end of the day, you get something new that also meets your needs.

23:37 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. Exactly. You get what is, in a sense, a standard new-build apartment, but adapted to your needs.

23:46 Speaker 4 Yes.

23:47 Speaker 2 So I really feel a sense of shlichus in this work. Because it’s not—because, really, the people who usually buy apartments in new-build projects... I wouldn’t say they’re people without money or anything like that. That’s not what I mean. But they’re people who didn’t go out and invest in buying land and building a house.

24:04 Speaker 4 They wanted it, you know.

24:05 Speaker 2 Yes, but really, the additions I usually suggest to residents when I come with my clients are, let’s say, twenty, thirty, fifty thousand shekels—something like that. Which is nothing when you’re investing two million—

24:17 Speaker 4 Negligible, compared to the...

24:18 Speaker 2 It’s negligible. And these are things that make such a difference afterward, in day-to-day life and for the family. It’s really a tiny investment, and you—

24:28 Speaker 4 It makes all the difference.

24:29 Speaker 2 Exactly. You walk into a home that’s really, truly yours. That really suits you.

24:33 Speaker 4 We’re renting an apartment here now, and I’ve visited a few families here who live in apartments exactly like ours. You know, maybe a mirror image, maybe facing the opposite way.

24:44 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

24:44 Speaker 4 And you see the differences. Ours is an investment apartment, and it’s nice and everything, but in another one they added a wall that closed off the kitchen and made the... You can’t imagine how much difference half a wall makes.

24:57 Speaker 2 Exactly. Absolutely.

24:58 Speaker 4 It’s crazy. Or some kind of drywall feature... Really, really. I see it all day long.

25:04 Speaker 2 By the way, some people invest in buyer-requested changes even for apartments they’re buying as investments. The better the apartment looks and the better it works, then—

25:12 Speaker 4 Right. You know what the demand is like compared to the supply in the same area.

25:16 Speaker 2 Right. Yes. Uh...

25:19 Speaker 4 Right. No, it happens, but...

25:20 Speaker 2 It happens.

25:21 Speaker 4 Unfortunately, not always. Though it depends on whose misfortune you mean.

25:25 Speaker 2 Yes.

25:26 Speaker 4 Wait, so you specialize in this. Does that mean you’re the best at it, or that it’s all you do? Say I buy an apartment that’s already forty years old—could you plan a renovation for me?

25:38 Speaker 2 I could do that. I know how to do it, but—

25:40 Speaker 4 Do you do it?

25:42 Speaker 2 Less often.

25:42 Speaker 4 Less often.

25:43 Speaker 2 Less often, yes.

25:44 Speaker 4 And the truth is, the more you work in one niche, the more expert you become in it.

25:47 Speaker 2 Right.

25:47 Speaker 4 So it makes you more of a professional at it.

25:51 Speaker 2 That too. And I also really connect with it more. Someone once asked me, “Why limit yourself? You can do so many things—why narrow it down and focus on this field?” Narrowing your focus brings abundance.

26:10 Speaker 4 Right.

26:10 Speaker 2 When I’m clear about what’s right for me, too, and I know that this... I’ll give you one example of an advantage it has for me. With a renovation, you really need to be closer to the site and visit much more often. With buyer-requested changes in apartments bought from a developer, the developer usually limits how many times you can come to the site. We get three visits to supervise the work on-site.

26:34 Speaker 4 Right, everything’s locked up.

26:35 Speaker 2 Everything’s locked up. You can’t come even if you want to. And it’s not like working with a renovation contractor who needs to ask you a question every minute—not that I’m looking down on them, okay? But this is a big developer, with lots of people involved. They have their own architects, and if they really need something urgently, they ask me. But generally, that’s also why I work throughout the country. Because with renovations, you really need to be much closer and much more available. Here, I can work all over the country, because I also know about two weeks in advance when they schedule our on-site supervision visit. It’s coordinated with me and the client. So it’s not like, “Oh, listen, can you—”

27:18 Speaker 4 You pop over twice and... Yes.

27:19 Speaker 2 Exactly. And because the process is different, it also suits my way of working. I go to the site less and focus more on the planning, which I know is one of my strengths—something I’m really good at. I deal less with going to the site and solving problems there. I can manage that remotely...

27:42 Speaker 4 So most of the work is on paper—or on the computer, really.

27:46 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Basically, yes.

27:49 Speaker 4 Wait, now explain to me the difference between what’s called interior design and home styling.

27:56 Speaker 2 Yes.

27:56 Speaker 4 Dressing a home.

27:57 Speaker 2 Yes.

27:58 Speaker 4 It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Dressing a home, like putting on a shirt and skirt.

28:02 Speaker 2 Yes.

28:02 Speaker 4 And then going home. Is it a different field, or does it go together when you do the...?

28:07 Speaker 2 Look, it all goes together, and it’s also all different.

28:12 Speaker 4 So you can separate them.

28:13 Speaker 2 You can separate them, yes. More than that: there’s architecture, there’s interior design, and there’s home styling.

28:19 Speaker 4 Wow.

28:20 Speaker 2 So my qualification is as an architectural and interior design practical engineer. I studied for two and a half years, and I’m authorized to sign off on plans. I can also submit permit applications.

28:32 Speaker 4 Wow.

28:32 Speaker 2 Yes, really.

28:34 Speaker 4 That’s serious.

28:35 Speaker 2 I can sign them; I have an official stamp for it.

28:38 Speaker 4 So does that mean you can approve the structural engineering—is that what it’s called?

28:42 Speaker 2 No.

28:42 Speaker 4 Of the building, I mean?

28:43 Speaker 2 No, not the structural engineering. An engineer does that.

28:46 Speaker 4 Oh, that’s their job.

28:47 Speaker 2 Yes.

28:47 Speaker 4 So what did you call your qualification?

28:48 Speaker 2 Practical engineer. It’s a type of degree.

28:51 Speaker 4 An engineer and a practical engineer are different things.

28:53 Speaker 2 Yes.

28:53 Speaker 4 Okay.

28:54 Speaker 2 Practical engineer is a type of degree.

28:56 Speaker 4 Okay.

28:57 Speaker 2 You know, there’s a BA degree, and—

29:00 Speaker 4 Yes.

29:00 Speaker 2 No... So there are electrical practical engineers and civil engineering practical engineers. Yes, it’s a type of qualification. I’m an architectural and interior design practical engineer.

29:08 Speaker 4 Okay.

29:08 Speaker 2 I studied architecture and interior design and received a practical engineer’s diploma. I’m registered in the state’s registry of practical engineers. I have a license number, and if I sign permit applications or anything like that, I sign with that number. Then there are architects who study for seven years for an architecture degree, and they can do urban planning. For example, if I worked in architecture, there would be limits on what I could sign off on. I could sign off on plans for a building of up to three stories, as long as it wasn’t a public building. So that’s mainly villas.

29:53 Speaker 4 Yes.

29:54 Speaker 2 To plan larger buildings, you need an architect.

29:58 Speaker 4 Yes.

29:58 Speaker 2 Someone who’s done—

29:59 Speaker 4 The seven years.

29:59 Speaker 2 The seven years, and studied urban planning too—all the things involved when you build a new city.

30:07 Speaker 4 Wow, that’s incredible.

30:08 Speaker 2 So they plan where the public buildings will go, where there’ll be—

30:12 Speaker 4 I just saw—

30:12 Speaker 2 How the new buildings—

30:13 Speaker 4 A new city. Near Kiryat Gat there’s Karmei Gat. I couldn’t believe it. It looks like... There used to be a computer game—what was it called? The Sims, I think—where you build a city.

30:23 Speaker 2 SimCity, I think.

30:24 Speaker 4 I don’t remember.

30:25 Speaker 2 Okay.

30:25 Speaker 4 Where you go, click, click, click, and put a park here and something else there.

30:28 Speaker 2 Right, right.

30:28 Speaker 4 That’s what it looks like there. You think, wow—not to compare it with Kiryat Malachi, but it’s cool. It looks like...

30:37 Speaker 2 So an architect who does urban planning looks at the topography—topography means the shape of the land.

30:45 Speaker 4 Yes.

30:45 Speaker 2 There are mountains, hills, and so on, and they plan accordingly: where the buildings will be, where public spaces will be. So architects deal with those things, as well as planning high-rises and public buildings. That’s architecture. Now, many architects also take their work all the way down to the level of interior design and home styling.

31:11 Speaker 4 Wow.

31:11 Speaker 2 Yes. Some architects take a project from start to finish and get involved in everything. That’s usually—

31:20 Speaker 4 Down to the flower on the windowsill.

31:21 Speaker 2 Yes.

31:22 Speaker 4 You know.

31:22 Speaker 2 That’s usually not the case with a public building, because there’s so much to deal with there. You have the architect, the interior designer, and lots and lots of consultants—lighting consultants and electrical consultants. In the end, a lot of people do it together. Each one really has their own specialty. Architects who do everything are usually working on private homes—planning villas or things like that. Then they really get into every detail, down to the level of...

31:51 Speaker 4 They have the opportunity to...

31:53 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

31:54 Speaker 4 Do it from start to finish.

31:55 Speaker 2 Yes. It’s not so much that they have the opportunity...

31:58 Speaker 4 It’s more focused. It’s a villa, not—

31:59 Speaker 2 It’s a villa, exactly. Not—

32:01 Speaker 4 A twenty-story tower.

32:02 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

32:03 Speaker 4 Imagine doing every apartment in that.

32:05 Speaker 2 So an architect can do that. I once worked at an architectural firm that mainly serves the very wealthy, and the architect there plans the house, submits the permit application, handles all the planning and building regulations, and goes all the way down to the drawers in the closet. She sits with the clients and...

32:29 Speaker 4 Wow.

32:29 Speaker 2 Yes, those are incredible houses. The work is amazing.

32:32 Speaker 4 Each house is like a whole development project.

32:35 Speaker 2 Completely. And often, I mean, sometimes it takes years to build these homes, and they go into such detail. One client came to us after being abroad. He’d seen a fence around a building, and he really liked the stones and the way they looked. He said, “That’s what I want.” I spent a whole day working on it, figuring out how the stones were laid out. They were all different sizes, and it looked like an old wall. He wanted it exactly like that. So I sat down...

33:09 Speaker 4 That’s how it was.

33:09 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. I spent a whole day figuring out the pattern of the stones. Something there repeated. I really studied it and worked out a square-shaped arrangement of stones that repeated, and we made him a wall exactly like it.

33:27 Speaker 4 Wow.

33:28 Speaker 2 So you see how far you can go, down to the smallest details, in planning. Oh, and this was funny too: one day he came back from a hotel and said, “Listen, I want my room to smell like that hotel.”

33:38 Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

33:39 Speaker 2 The architect there really looked into it.

33:40 Speaker 4 You need a scent architect.

33:42 Speaker 2 She really did. I visited that house afterward, and it really is a beautiful home with a wonderful smell. They have a whole system built into the house that runs all the time—you know those devices that go pshh, pshh? They have that built into the ventilation system for all the air conditioning.

33:59 Speaker 4 There’s no limit to people’s whims.

34:00 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s there all the time. You feel like you’re in a hotel while you’re at home. So some architects deal only with architecture. Some work in urban planning. And some also work all the way down to interior design and home styling. Interior design, let’s say, deals with the inside of the home. That’s what I do. I don’t work on the outside. For example, especially when I’m making changes for buyers in a new development, I can’t change the windows. I don’t—when you’re renovating, you often can do that. If it’s a private home and not, um...

34:38 Speaker 4 No, the building has to look uniform.

34:39 Speaker 2 Or a building in Bnei Brak, where they don’t care what happens on the outside, so people make lots of changes.

34:43 Speaker 4 Okay, so that’s me.

34:46 Speaker 2 There really are...

34:48 Speaker 4 No, I didn’t say anything. No, it really does depend on where you are. I mean...

34:55 Speaker 2 Right, right. Of course. Some places are much stricter about the rules. If you make any deviation... In general, people don’t realize that even changing a window requires a permit.

35:08 Speaker 4 Wow.

35:08 Speaker 2 Okay. So I don’t think anyone in Bnei Brak notices.

35:13 Speaker 4 Where do you mainly work, actually?

35:15 Speaker 2 Well, it’s really all over the country.

35:16 Speaker 4 What’s the farthest you’ve gone?

35:18 Speaker 2 Yerucham.

35:19 Speaker 4 Oh.

35:22 Speaker 2 That’s not so far.

35:23 Speaker 4 Not so far. I have uncles and aunts there. I spent a lot of time there growing up.

35:25 Speaker 2 Really?

35:26 Speaker 4 Yes.

35:26 Speaker 2 Wow, it’s a gorgeous place. But in Yerucham I did a mikveh. We’ll talk about the mikvehs in a bit too.

35:33 Speaker 4 Yes, that’s...

35:35 Speaker 2 So, interior design. What I really deal with is planning the interior. There’s design involved too: I choose the flooring patterns and the bathroom tiles with my clients. Design is part of it, and everything ties together. For example, if you want a special wall in the bathroom with distinctive ceramic tiles, you plan the space so there’ll be room for that wall.

36:01 Speaker 4 Yes.

36:02 Speaker 2 So it all ties together. That’s interior design: it deals with the planning at that level. For example, you plan the size of a room and where the beds will go, and then you plan the electrical layout accordingly.

36:19 Speaker 4 Right.

36:19 Speaker 2 So even when I’m making changes for buyers in a new development, I might leave the room the same size but change where the bed goes. Then we need to move the outlets in the room, for example. Or if I decide that a certain spot is the best place for the closet, you don’t want the light switch or an outlet hidden behind it. So you have to work out—

36:45 Speaker 4 All those things.

36:45 Speaker 2 Plan all those things, yes. It’s like fitting all the systems together, making sure everything connects and nothing clashes. And when a building is being planned, with apartments bought from a developer, there are consultants: an electrical consultant, a plumbing consultant. Sometimes, after you draw up a plan, you need their approval for the changes you’ve made. Or I work with the developer’s architect, whom I also wanted to talk about.

37:13 Speaker 4 You said you had something to add about her, right?

37:15 Speaker 2 Yes. And sometimes an architect will refer me directly to a consultant who needs to review something, or she gets his approval and passes it on to me, something like that. There are so many systems in a building that have to fit together. So any change we make can sometimes affect all kinds of—

37:32 Speaker 4 Yes.

37:33 Speaker 2 Different systems. That’s the level interior design works on. Then there’s home styling, which is really about furnishing and dressing the home: coordinating colors, furniture. Now, again, an interior designer might also do home styling. An architect might do interior design and home styling too. But someone who studied only home styling can’t be an architect.

37:59 Speaker 4 Yes, it sort of goes...

38:00 Speaker 2 Yes.

38:01 Speaker 4 One includes the other, in a way.

38:03 Speaker 2 So...

38:04 Speaker 4 If you’re one, you can also be the other, but not the reverse.

38:06 Speaker 2 Exactly.

38:07 Speaker 4 Yes.

38:07 Speaker 2 You might have studied architecture and want to work in home styling. No problem.

38:10 Speaker 4 Right, it’s also one of those professions where you can study something very broad and then focus on what you find connects with people.

38:15 Speaker 2 There are so many niches in interior design. I have lots of colleagues, and it’s always amazing to see what niche each one has chosen. I heard about a woman who decided to design shops connected with women’s beauty.

38:33 Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

38:34 Speaker 2 So you see how...

38:35 Speaker 4 She’s focused, in a good way.

38:36 Speaker 2 She’s focused because she realized that’s what she feels is her shlichus. She connects with it.

38:42 Speaker 4 Right.

38:42 Speaker 2 So that’s what she wants to do. You see what I mean? Everyone chooses a different niche. Some work only on kitchen design, for example.

38:49 Speaker 4 Yes.

38:50 Speaker 2 There are so many.

38:50 Speaker 4 And it’s a process, too, finding your way to that point.

38:53 Speaker 2 Completely, completely.

38:54 Speaker 4 Yes. How did you get into the field in the first place?

38:56 Speaker 2 Well, a few projects like that came my way...

39:00 Speaker 4 No, I mean into the field altogether.

39:01 Speaker 2 Oh, into architecture in general.

39:03 Speaker 4 Yes.

39:04 Speaker 2 Oh, okay. I was—

39:05 Speaker 4 No, why did you decide to study it?

39:07 Speaker 2 So, when I got to the stage of choosing a profession...

39:13 Speaker 4 What you’d be when you grew up.

39:15 Speaker 2 It was very clear to me that it would be something in design or art. My mother is an art teacher, and our home was always beautifully decorated. And I was always a child who liked working with my hands, making things and doing crafts. So I knew it would be in that field. To be honest, I was pretty sure I’d go into graphic design. But somehow things took a turn—I don’t even remember why or how.

39:46 Speaker 4 That’s funny.

39:47 Speaker 2 I ended up in interior design. I think someone told me I needed something more physical, something involving materials. Though architecture doesn’t really have that; graphic design actually has more of it. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but somehow I ended up there and studied architecture and interior design. I really connected with it, loved it, and carried on with it.

40:12 Speaker 4 That’s funny. Wait, tell us about the architect.

40:17 Speaker 2 Right. Every developer’s project has an architect who works for the developer. She’s usually called the buyer-changes coordinator, and she sits with the buyers and plans the changes they want, if they want any. So people often say to me, “Listen, we have the developer’s architect. We met with her. Why should we hire you as well and pay you? We already have her. She’ll plan it the way we want.” Now, the developer’s architect has maybe six hours in total to sit with each buyer, each family. Okay?

40:50 Speaker 4 Altogether.

40:51 Speaker 2 All in all, yes, she has about three meetings she can have with you. Each meeting is roughly two hours, something like that. Now, as we explained earlier, this is a process of research. It’s a process of understanding the family and its needs. She won’t go through that process with you. I’m not saying she can’t be very professional. She may be very nice, very courteous, able to get a feel for you and understand you, but ultimately she can’t fit an entire process into six hours. In those six hours, she has to produce the final plan for the changes. So she won’t really go through that whole process with you of understanding things in depth. And second, she won’t think of something like the bathroom solution I mentioned, for example. She won’t do something like that. She just won’t, ultimately.

41:34 Speaker 4 She has no incentive.

41:35 Speaker 2 Exactly.

41:35 Speaker 4 To do what’s best for the resident.

41:36 Speaker 2 Exactly. Ultimately, she works for the contractor. After you leave, she’ll still be there. That’s her workplace and her livelihood, and her first obligation is to the contractor. Ultimately. Again, she can be very nice and think through solutions with you, but she has limitations. Just this week, someone wrote to me that her parents hadn’t gone through a process with an architect accompanying them. They went through the buyer’s changes process on their own. She said they were so, so disappointed. They moved into the apartment after already spending the money on the changes, and ended up with a tiny kitchen and all sorts of things like that. When you don’t have the professional knowledge, you don’t pick up on these things on paper, on the plans.

42:28 Speaker 4 Right. Even reading the plans takes a kind of expertise.

42:31 Speaker 2 Absolutely. Look, some people have an eye for it and have the knowledge, the ability and the understanding, but at the end of the day it’s not their profession. Once, someone came to me and said, “No, I have an eye for this. I’ll manage on my own.” I asked her, “Really? How many years of experience do you have in the field?” She didn’t understand what I wanted from her. I said, “Ultimately, you have your job and your day-to-day life. This takes so much work. Where will you find the time to take all that on as well?” Beyond that, it might be a hobby, but...

43:03 Speaker 4 Right.

43:04 Speaker 2 You wouldn’t go to a doctor whose hobby is being a doctor, would you?

43:08 Speaker 4 It’s one of those things that seems expensive but is actually good value, because you’ve invested so much in the home. It’s a way of making the most of it.

43:15 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

43:15 Speaker 4 Give it the best you can.

43:16 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

43:17 Speaker 4 For just a little more.

43:18 Speaker 2 That’s exactly what I say. It’s such a small investment compared to what you paid for the home, and with Hashem’s help, you won’t be buying another home in just a few years.

43:28 Speaker 4 I don’t think you will.

43:31 Speaker 2 For most people, it’s a one-time thing. Yes, maybe after twenty years people buy another place, upgrade and move, but this is your home, and it has to serve you for twenty years too. So you’re investing so much in something so significant. People spend years looking for somewhere to live, somewhere to buy a home. Once you’ve gone ahead and done that, wouldn’t you invest a little more to make it truly perfect?

43:59 Speaker 4 Yes. Wow, it must be so moving to go through a process like that with families.

44:02 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

44:02 Speaker 4 From when it’s just on paper until they move in and get the keys.

44:06 Speaker 2 Absolutely. In fact, just today I went to see—well, they’re clients, but not exactly clients. They’re my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. It was a process filled with emotion, because they moved into my mother-in-law’s home. She passed away six months ago.

44:20 Speaker 4 It wasn’t buyer’s changes; it was a change of generations.

44:23 Speaker 2 It wasn’t a buyer’s changes process; it was a renovation. They moved in today, and right before I came here, I stopped by. I brought them a cake and everything. I try to visit every client and bring them something. I have a particular gift I always give them, and it’s very moving. I’m grateful to them for letting me share that process with them.

44:42 Speaker 4 Such a privilege. Yes.

44:43 Speaker 2 Yes, really.

44:44 Speaker 4 Think about it: you leave your mark on a home. That’s not just any little thing. As the saying goes, “A beautiful home broadens a person’s mind.”

44:50 Speaker 2 Right.

44:51 Speaker 4 It’s such a significant part of life—where you live, where you spend all your time.

44:58 Speaker 2 Right. Exactly.

44:59 Speaker 4 Where you raise your children.

45:01 Speaker 2 Home is your safe place, your quiet corner.

45:05 Speaker 4 Yes, it’s not just another thing you buy.

45:07 Speaker 2 Right. Right. That’s why, by the way, even though, as I said, I’ve lived in a rented apartment for six years, it’s always been important and meaningful to my husband and me to invest in our home.

45:15 Speaker 4 That’s what I wanted to ask you about—rented apartments.

45:17 Speaker 2 Yes.

45:18 Speaker 4 Because with all this talk about renovating apartments, I’m curious about people who buy apartments as investments. Have you ever worked with clients like that?

45:26 Speaker 2 No, I haven’t had clients like that, but I know there are people who do invest in that.

45:33 Speaker 4 Say someone is renting an apartment. How much would you recommend they invest? I suppose, first of all, it depends on how many years they see themselves living there. So a lot depends on that.

45:43 Speaker 2 Yes and no. Even if you live there for a year, it’s your home for that year, and you want to enjoy coming home every day.

45:50 Speaker 4 Yes.

45:51 Speaker 2 And some improvements really are just painting a wall, or making sure something that broke gets fixed.

45:57 Speaker 4 Little things that...

45:58 Speaker 2 Little things that really don’t involve a big financial investment. Ultimately, it’s your place. It’s where you most need to feel good. So yes, I would invest in it. Again, I don’t mean major investments, like going out and buying expensive furniture. If you know you’ll be moving soon, I don’t think you should invest in expensive furniture. But even if you buy something secondhand, you can paint it. You can put in a little effort. These days there’s Max Stock and all those stores where you can buy gorgeous things for twenty shekels that look like a million bucks. So make that small investment.

46:38 Speaker 4 Yes.

46:38 Speaker 2 And make the place pleasant, make it enjoyable. This also goes back to what I said about the difference it makes for children. I remember a woman once telling me that she lived in a rented apartment, and her husband wouldn’t agree to fix anything. A handle broke, and he wouldn’t fix it. She said to me, “Listen, one day one of my daughters suddenly said she doesn’t like having friends over.”

46:57 Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

46:58 Speaker 2 And that’s so significant. Children see these things; they feel them. I think it’s something you have to give your children. And not just the children. You too—as a woman, if you don’t feel connected to your home and you don’t like the way it looks...

47:15 Speaker 4 Right.

47:15 Speaker 2 You don’t feel like cooking, you don’t feel like cleaning, you don’t feel like being home at all. So spend a few hundred shekels to paint a wall, put up some decals... There are so many inexpensive solutions today.

47:30 Speaker 4 These days you really can just do some home styling, and it will already make a big difference.

47:35 Speaker 2 Absolutely right.

47:37 Speaker 4 A home isn’t just a building for adults. In the end, we all come back to [unclear].

47:43 Speaker 2 Right.

47:43 Speaker 4 It really is.

47:45 Speaker 2 Absolutely right.

47:46 Speaker 4 So how did you get into designing mikvahs?

47:49 Speaker 2 Wow.

47:49 Speaker 4 Wait, you design mikvahs? For anyone who didn’t catch that.

47:52 Speaker 2 Yes.

47:52 Speaker 4 You do that alongside your other work? I mean, yes, it’s a project. A whole project.

47:55 Speaker 2 Of course, completely alongside my other work.

47:57 Speaker 4 That’s incredible.

47:58 Speaker 2 Yes, it really, really is.

48:01 Speaker 4 At the same time, you’re building a home for a young couple, making sure it meets all their needs.

48:06 Speaker 2 Yes, making sure it meets all their needs. It’s truly moving. It’s truly amazing. Every time, I’m moved all over again that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave me this privilege.

48:16 Speaker 4 How did you first get into it?

48:17 Speaker 2 Well, it really came about on its own. I worked at a firm that mainly dealt with public buildings. One of the project managers I worked with—on the last project I worked on before leaving the firm—was someone I’d been in touch with and worked with directly. A few months after I left the firm, he suddenly referred someone to me. A woman from a religious council called me. She said, “Hello, Avigail, this is Chaya.” And, in all innocence, I said, “I think you’ve got the wrong person. I don’t work at [unclear] anymore. Maybe you were trying to reach him?” She said, “No, no, no. He told me to speak to you. He told me to contact you.” I don’t know why he decided that was my calling—Hakadosh Boruch Hu...

48:58 Speaker 4 The introduction happened at your previous firm in the first place.

49:01 Speaker 2 No, no, no. It was a religious firm, right?

49:03 Speaker 4 Ah, okay.

49:03 Speaker 2 It worked on public buildings for yeshivos, shuls. It wasn’t—

49:07 Speaker 4 Oh wow, that’s really...

49:08 Speaker 2 He sent me. I don’t know what happened. He must have had some inspiration from Heaven.

49:12 Speaker 4 Wow.

49:12 Speaker 2 He really decided to—he pushed me into it. He recommended me for the first project, the first mikvah I worked on. It was a mikvah renovation. By the way, it’s called Mikvah HaGeulah.

49:22 Speaker 4 Where is it?

49:23 Speaker 2 In Be’er Sheva.

49:24 Speaker 4 Wow.

49:25 Speaker 2 So yes, it was a renovation of a very old mikvah.

49:30 Speaker 4 So unlike what you said earlier about apartment renovations, presumably you have to travel to Be’er Sheva—

49:34 Speaker 2 Again, it’s the same thing. Yes, I have to travel, but it’s a little different from a private home renovation. It’s a public building, after all. There’s a project manager, there’s—

49:47 Speaker 4 A whole team, basically.

49:47 Speaker 2 A whole team, yes. So again, they need me a little less. I do go there, but they need me on-site less. Actually, the farthest project I’ve done was in Yerucham. It was a new mikvah they built, not a renovation, and I came in as the interior designer. There were lots of consultants there, an architect and so on. They manage it, so they didn’t need me all the time. But I’m pretty easy to communicate with. A lot of the time I can resolve things with the contractors over the phone or on WhatsApp. They send me a photo, and so on. There are lots of things you can really resolve on-site that way, but public buildings are a little different from a private home. So that’s it—the mikvah projects just came one after another. People approach me, and it’s amazing. I really put a lot of effort into advertising and marketing my apartment-renovation work. A year ago, I invested seriously in branding, but with mikvahs I don’t do any marketing or advertising at all. It just happens, one after another. They really come to me.

50:57 Speaker 4 How moving.

50:58 Speaker 2 Yes, it’s incredibly moving, and I’m truly grateful to Hashem.

51:06 Speaker 4 Presumably, you first had to develop some kind of expertise in the halachos.

51:11 Speaker 2 Well, I didn’t formally specialize in the halachos. From project to project—

51:16 Speaker 4 First of all, you’re familiar with it. You know what a mikvah is.

51:18 Speaker 2 Yes, right.

51:19 Speaker 4 It’s not as though they have to start with, “Hello, let us explain it to you.” But there’s still another level of depth—literally.

51:27 Speaker 2 Yes. So I really learned from project to project. First of all, every project has rabbis overseeing it whose specialty is building and planning mikvahs. Everything I do is in consultation with the rabbi. As I said, there are lots of consultants, and one of them is a rabbi.

51:47 Speaker 4 Are you comfortable with that? I’m imagining having a profession where so many people need to tell me what to do, and all the... You must have to be really good at communicating.

51:58 Speaker 2 Right.

51:58 Speaker 4 You’re dealing with someone who tells you one thing, and then...

52:01 Speaker 2 Right.

52:01 Speaker 4 You have to coordinate with everyone. I don’t know.

52:02 Speaker 2 It has to be coordinated with everyone. For example, there’s also an accessibility consultant. Mikvahs have various standards, and some have to meet a certain level of accessibility. There are different levels. The highest level is full wheelchair accessibility, and then you need a lift to get into the immersion pool and an accessible room.

52:22 Speaker 4 How many of those are there in the country? I’m curious. Do you know?

52:24 Speaker 2 Well, these days...

52:26 Speaker 4 It’s rare.

52:27 Speaker 2 These days it isn’t anymore.

52:28 Speaker 4 Not anymore. Wow.

52:29 Speaker 2 Yes. First of all, in general, mikvahs have become very, very modern, baruch Hashem. The religious councils have understood that renovating mikvahs and making them look good will also attract women who aren’t observant to come and do the mitzvah. Because there really are many women who have no problem doing it and feel a connection to it, but if the mikvah looks... it puts them off, and they simply won’t do it.

52:52 Speaker 4 Yes.

52:52 Speaker 2 Observant women will do it anyway.

52:55 Speaker 4 Anyway.

52:55 Speaker 2 Anyway, yes. Though they’d also be happy to have a nice-looking mikvah, and they deserve one. But in recent years, the religious councils have really understood that it’s a must—that it represents them, and that it’s one of the most important services they provide. When someone passes away, G-d forbid, people have to go through the religious council whether they want to or not. And here, beyond the wedding, if a woman doesn’t find it appealing, she won’t do it.

53:26 Speaker 4 Tell me, just out of curiosity—I’ve never thought about this. The budget comes from the religious council, but are there private mikvahs where someone invests extra money, for example?

53:38 Speaker 2 There are private mikvahs.

53:39 Speaker 4 Or people donate so the mikvah will look nicer, things like that. I’m wondering about that too.

53:44 Speaker 2 There are a few different arrangements. First of all, there are private mikvahs that aren’t connected to the religious councils. Usually they belong to chassidic communities that have their own mikvahs, and they’re completely private. They generally have very good budgets, too, and invest in them with the help of donors. As for religious-council mikvahs, yes, there’s the council’s budget. These days there are also various nonprofit organizations that really help.

54:06 Speaker 4 Ah.

54:07 Speaker 2 They support the projects and provide funding and assistance. Every religious council is different. Some have a certain budget and need to raise the rest. Some have nothing, and an organization helps them raise money. For example, with the mikvah in Yerucham, the religious council received a donation and invested money in it, and the municipality there also contributed an amount. So they invested in it themselves too.

54:38 Speaker 4 Every place has its own story.

54:39 Speaker 2 Exactly.

54:39 Speaker 4 In that respect.

54:40 Speaker 2 So it depends on the budget and the project. Every project has its own budget and its own way of operating. Now, we were talking about accessibility. These days, more mikvahs are being renovated, and a few years ago all the accessibility standards and laws were updated. So when they renovate a mikvah now, they’re required to comply with the new accessibility standards too. Each city has a requirement based on its population for how many accessible mikvahs it needs. So if, for example, it’s a small city, it usually needs only one accessible mikvah. If it already has one, this particular mikvah doesn’t have to be accessible. Beyond that, though, they want to make it easy for as many women as possible to come. There are different levels of accessibility. Sometimes a woman isn’t in a wheelchair, but she does have some difficulty moving around or another disability. So some places want at least a basic level of accessibility, even if the standards don’t require it. I do the planning, and it has to go through the rabbi, the accessibility coordinator, and the engineers, who also have a role in it. It’s a whole system of getting everyone’s approval, and you have to know how to make it work for everyone.

56:14 Speaker 4 And in terms of halachah, there are different halachic approaches to mikvahs too.

56:18 Speaker 2 Right, right.

56:19 Speaker 4 So it depends... Who decides? Is it based on the local community, or how does it work? I’m curious.

56:26 Speaker 2 Well, yes.

56:26 Speaker 4 For example, a Chabad bor or not a Chabad bor.

56:28 Speaker 2 Right.

56:28 Speaker 4 A sink inside, or no sink inside.

56:31 Speaker 2 Yes.

56:31 Speaker 4 All those things.

56:32 Speaker 2 So first of all, it depends on what the local religious council requests. If, for example, a lot of Chabad women use that mikvah, they’ll probably request it. Beyond that, different areas have different communities—more Sephardic, more chassidic, and so on—so they adapt it accordingly. But generally, the rabbi overseeing the project tries to make sure it really works for everyone, so that a woman doesn’t come to immerse and suddenly...

56:58 Speaker 4 Yes.

56:58 Speaker 2 ...find that something is a problem for her. For example, a Chabad bor. Let’s explain a little what a Chabad bor means.

57:06 Speaker 4 Explain the... again, the depth of it.

57:09 Speaker 2 The depth, yes. I don’t know—I’m not really an expert in all the halachos. The rabbi tells me what to do.

57:19 Speaker 4 In words we can understand.

57:20 Speaker 2 In words we can understand. Basically, the whole process of... there are halachos about what the immersion pool needs to be like and what makes it purifying. The whole point is that the water purifies the person. So there has to be a certain quantity of water. There’s also the issue of it being water that hasn’t been drawn. Water from a tap, for example, is considered drawn water.

57:43 Speaker 4 So it’s about the source of the water.

57:44 Speaker 2 Yes. What’s the source of the water? It has to be water that wasn’t drawn. So how do we fill the pool without using drawn water? There’s what’s called an otzar, a reservoir containing collected rainwater. Then there’s the immersion pool itself, and there’s a connection between the reservoir and the immersion pool. That connection is called hashakah. There are holes connecting the two pools, and then we have the water that’s considered pure, the undrawn water—

58:26 Speaker 4 In the reservoir.

58:26 Speaker 2 In the reservoir. Then ordinary water comes into contact with it, the waters mix, and the water returns to the pool. So, essentially, the pure water purifies the water in the pool.

58:40 Speaker 4 Yes.

58:40 Speaker 2 Okay? That’s the basic idea. And the water in the immersion pool is cleaned and replaced every... I once heard that after every ten women immerse, you’re supposed to change the water. I don’t think that happens in mikvaos, but of course you have to make sure the water is clean.

59:00 Speaker 4 On the other hand, you’re talking to someone who knows how to reveal all the secrets.

59:04 Speaker 2 Yes, um...

59:06 Speaker 4 During COVID, did they have to change the water between every woman who immersed, or was that just a rumor?

59:12 Speaker 2 Again, I don’t know how strictly they followed what perhaps really needed to be done, you know?

59:17 Speaker 4 Come on, don’t put all that on the... never mind.

59:21 Speaker 2 Yes. So in a Chabad mikveh, the difference is where the connection to the reservoir is located. In a regular mikveh, the connecting reservoir is beside the immersion pool, okay? In Chabad, it’s underneath.

59:41 Speaker 4 I see.

59:42 Speaker 2 The connection is simply different.

59:43 Speaker 4 Yes. Wow.

59:45 Speaker 2 So if there’s a Chabad mikveh, a woman who doesn’t follow Chabad practice can immerse in it, right? There’s no conflict.

59:54 Speaker 4 So it works for everyone.

59:55 Speaker 2 Yes, it works for everyone. There are other arrangements people make too. Broadly speaking, that’s the significant difference between Chabad and non-Chabad mikvaos, but there are all sorts of other details. It’s a whole world of halachos. I watched a lecture about it not long ago, and it really is a whole world. I’m not going to get into it; I don’t understand all of it. What I know, broadly speaking, is that it’s a question of where the reservoir of water is located. That’s the main difference. But yes, there are very small halachic details that make a difference. For example, some women wash their hands and say the brachah outside, and some say the brachah inside. So a woman who says it outside needs a sink there for washing her hands. I once visited a gorgeous mikveh, like a spa. It was built in a nonreligious area, and they really invested in it, but apparently they didn’t have a halachic consultant. I don’t know how it happened. There was no sink in the immersion room. The mikveh attendant told me, “Listen, it’s a nightmare. If a woman comes who says the brachah outside, I have to bring her a basin and a washing cup, and the whole spa feeling is ruined.” Plastic. Yes, and what can I do? They hadn’t thought of it. They hadn’t thought of it. You also need to know where to put the sink. By the way, there are certain halachos that require the sink to be completely separate from the immersion pool. Or some say that when she’s standing at the sink, she shouldn’t be able to see the pool. It’s... wow. There are so many, many halachos, and you really need to know and understand them, because ultimately it’s important that the experience be a good one. And if you

1:01:41 Speaker 2 come to a luxurious mikveh with a spa atmosphere and end up being given a basin and a washing cup for washing your hands, it does spoil it a little. So just as those little things matter at home for the experience of the people using it, the family, here too it’s important to pay attention to all kinds of small details. That includes the process itself: what a woman who comes there goes through, her preparations. I often find that I’m the only woman on the work team. Everyone else is a man: the project manager, the engineer, the plumbing consultant, whoever it may be. And often they’re not religious at all, right? Even nonreligious women don’t always understand. I remember one mikveh where the city engineer was very insistent on having large windows in the entrance lobby. I said to her, “Listen, a woman coming to the mikveh doesn’t want anyone to see her. She definitely doesn’t want big windows there.” You really have to understand the experience. She said, “What? We need to let light in.” I asked her, “Do you know what hours the mikveh is open?” She said, “When?” I told her, “It’s open for two hours after sunset. What light is going to come in?” She said, “Oh, really?” So I said, “You want daylight for the cleaner? She’ll manage with fluorescent lighting.” You really have to understand it. Outside, too, I try to make sure the area is screened from view and doesn’t have harsh lighting. They tell me, “What? We need bright lights here.” And I say, “No one wants to walk into a mikveh under a spotlight so everyone can see she’s gone in.” So you really have to explain it to them, or

1:03:33 Speaker 2 sometimes they ask me all sorts of... Those egocentric people. Yes, exactly. Sometimes they ask questions that show they don’t understand the process at all. I have to explain, “Listen, the woman enters here and she’s dressed; she comes out here and she isn’t dressed.” They just don’t understand. They asked me why the room has two doors. There’s the preparation room, with the door she enters from what we call the dry corridor, and then there’s the wet corridor that leads her to the immersion room. The whole building is unlike anything else. Right. You have to understand the concept and what happens there to understand how to build it. So you have to take health and safety standards into account, along with halachah and the feeling and atmosphere the woman wants to experience. And that really is my shlichus: knowing that, ultimately, women who come to a mikveh I designed will have the best possible experience in terms of both atmosphere and design. Someone who goes through the same experience they do has paid attention to the little details. And of course it has to meet safety standards and halachic requirements. There are so many things to think about. Within the budget you’re given. Yes, often I have plans that get dropped because of the budget, but that’s part of the process too. Right. Wow, that’s incredible. Yes. Have you ever been to a mikveh dedication? Um, not yet. A few mikvaos I designed were completed during COVID, so there was no dedication. The last mikveh I finished building, I don’t know—they aren’t planning to hold one there either. Their budget ran out. There’s no money to hold

1:05:23 Speaker 2 That. The budget went into the red. Yes. For your peace of mind. So, that’s it. I still haven’t had a chance to experience the ceremony. You said earlier that your grandmother was a mikvah attendant— Right. So it was already, like— Yes, right. You grew up with it, so to speak. It didn’t just come to you out of nowhere. Could be, could be. It found its way to you. Yes. My grandmother lived with us at home; she had a home with our family. And she was beloved in the community, really the kind of woman everyone loved, and she volunteered a lot. And she was one of the mikvah attendants—not the first, there was another friend of hers. The two of them were the first mikvah attendants. The mikvah team. Yes. And I knew she went to some very secret place. I didn’t know exactly what was there, but we did get to visit once. I don’t know if I can say this, but... Say it, and we’ll see. We had—no, I mean, whether people should know we used it for family purposes. Oh. Well, that was quite a few years ago. A lot. Anyway, there was a week when the water heater at home broke, and we went to shower at the mikvah. Oh, okay. You know, family connections for the immediate family. Yes, yes. So that was the first time I visited the mikvah. I remember my sister and I went and showered. How funny. Your first introduction. My first introduction. Yes. Anyway, my experience with the mikvah, as we were discussing earlier—I have a daughter who’s twelve. We’re dealing with secondary infertility. What that means is that, baruch Hashem, we were blessed with our daughter through a natural pregnancy and birth; everything happened naturally. But afterward, we got stuck. We’ve been waiting twelve years for her siblings. Wow. And for me, really,

1:07:29 Speaker 2 this whole experience around the mikvah is very, very meaningful and sensitive, and full of anticipation. And then designing mikvahs suddenly came my way. I felt that Hakadosh Boruch Hu was sending me a message through it, because I really, truly feel this is my shlichus. He knows how dear this mitzvah is to me and how much I cherish it. Yes, very much. It means so much to me, and I want to give women the experience they deserve. I really do pay attention to the little details, because they matter to me too. So every mikvah I plan and work on is deeply personal and important to me. I put my whole heart into that place. Beyond it being my profession and livelihood, it really matters to me personally. Every stone in the mikvah matters to me. Wow. Yes. So you felt it came to you specifically because you had that connection? Yes, because, as I said, I hadn’t thought about it at all. It wasn’t as though I changed direction, thought it through, came to the conclusion that I loved it, went through a process and invested in advertising. It suddenly just started happening on its own, one mikvah after another. I really feel like it’s a hug from Hashem. Yes. It’s interesting, because... First of all, even in the religious and charedi communities, awareness is still developing. Awareness of what it’s like to face fertility challenges and secondary infertility is a whole area that’s less familiar. Right. I don’t think it’s only in the charedi and religious communities. I think it’s true in general. In general. In general. Again, I’m not part of the wider community, but I think people talk a lot about infertility and about dealing with fertility challenges, but this— And when you’re surrounded by large families, I think it stands out more. Absolutely. Of course. Right. One child compared with neighbors who have eight children stands out more than one child compared with a family of three. Yes, right. It’s... noticeable. Yes, you feel it. Yes. The difference. Yes, you feel that difference. And still, we were raised to bring children into the world, that it’s part of our shlichus, part of our role. Our shlichus. Right. So for my daughter too, it’s a very, very difficult struggle. She sees families with lots of children all around her and wonders, “What’s going on? Is something wrong with me?” Did she ever ask you why? Why? She hasn’t asked. But it is very hard and painful for her. When she was younger, she once had an outburst that made me realize she thought somehow it was her fault, or that something was wrong with her. So I share a lot with her. My husband and I tell her that this hurts us just as it hurts her, and that we’re trying and making every effort. We say, “Come be part of this with us, and do what you can.” She doesn’t know exactly what’s happening, but... To daven. To daven. Yes, that’s it. Usually we try to strengthen her by saying, “Daven, ask Hashem.” That doesn’t always manage to strengthen or encourage her. Yes. Really, I— It’s not simple. Yes. You have your struggle, and she has hers. Right. She doesn’t have secondary infertility, but its consequences... Right. I think we have two different struggles here. Yes, exactly. The struggle

1:09:35 Speaker 2 People talk a lot about fertility, but when you’re surrounded by families with lots of children, I think it stands out more. Completely. Definitely. Right. One child compared with neighbors who have eight children stands out more than one child compared with a family that has three. Yes, right. It’s... more noticeable. Yes, you feel it. Yes. The gap. Yes, you feel the gap. And yet we were raised to bring children into the world, that it’s part of our shlichus, part of our role. Our shlichus. Right. So for my daughter, too, it’s a very, very difficult struggle. Seeing families with lots of children all around her and thinking, what’s going on? Is something wrong with me? Did she ever ask you why? Why? She didn’t ask. But it is very hard for her, and it hurts her. When she was younger, she once had this sort of outburst, and I realized she thought maybe it was somehow her fault, or that something was wrong with her. So I share a lot with her. My husband and I tell her that it hurts us just as it hurts her, and that we’re trying and making every effort. We say, “Come, be part of this with us, and do what you can too.” She doesn’t know exactly what’s happening, but... Pray. Pray. Yes, that’s it. That’s usually how we try to strengthen her: “Pray. Ask Hashem.” It doesn’t always manage to strengthen or encourage her. Yes. I really— It’s not simple. Yes. There’s your struggle, and then there’s her struggle. Right. She doesn’t have secondary infertility, but the result is... Right. I think we have two different struggles here. Yes, exactly. The struggle, I mean—

1:11:34 Speaker 2 with fertility challenges, and the struggle of having an only daughter. There could also be families with divorced parents, or a widow, for example, who are raising an only child. Yes. So these are two different struggles. For us they’re connected, but I really feel that, to some extent, I put my own struggle aside and deal more with hers. First of all, I don’t know if I’m comparing myself, but I look at couples who are facing the challenge of not having any children at all, and I say, “What do I have to complain about compared with them?” So to speak. Though no—I do have a right to complain. Yes, that happens a lot. You say you need perspective, and then you say, “No, but—” Right. I have my own situation, and— I believe that too— To complain, or whatever. Exactly. I believe that parents who have three children and want another one are hurting too, and it’s hard for them. Yes, though for someone who finds it hard to hear that, it’s like, “Uh...” It’s all relative. Right. Each person has their own purpose to fulfill in this world. But ultimately, we’re a couple. I have my husband. We’re dealing with it—we know the problem is with us, and we know what options we have and what efforts we can make. The solution is in Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s hands, but we decide what we do, what we don’t do, and what efforts we make. She’s affected by it, and there’s nothing she can do to change it. Yes. And then there’s what she faces with other people, with the feeling

1:13:14 Speaker 2 Hers—like, she has her own experiences with it. Do you think her friends see her as— Well, they’re children at an age when they’re not even in a place to understand what it means, I think, right? Ah, right, right. Being an only child probably looks to them sometimes like she’s a little spoiled and has it good. Totally. What she hates most is when they say, “Wow, you’re so lucky, you have a room to yourself.” So she has her own things there. “And all your toys—nobody touches them. You can do whatever you want in your room.” She hates it when they say that. Think about it: a child comes from a room with a bunk bed, or three beds, and thinks, “What is she complaining about?” Yes. Never mind that her room is very, very small. To them it’s a palace. Yes. Look, in general, I think children can be a little difficult. There’s no getting around it—there’s jealousy, there’s talk. You can’t— It’s hard. I understand. I can’t exactly tell their mothers, “Look how your child is behaving.” They’re children. Those automatic reactions, yes. Right. What I can say to her is that, at the end of the day—and I tell myself this too—there are advantages here as well, for me too. I have lots of advantages. You have more free time. I have more free time. I came here on my own just now. Yes. Just like that, yes—I can go with the flow. And she’s already twelve and independent, so all the more so. Right. On the other hand, there are obviously all the things you go through behind the scenes, and how do you put it? Only you know. Yes, of course. Only Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Of course. Yes, yes, there are challenges, but sometimes—

1:14:46 Speaker 2 Of course, I look at my friends and think, “Wow, it’s Pesach now—how do they do it with lots of children running around?” I know there’s no chametz in my house; there aren’t children running around with chametz in their hands. But that’s also true for pretty much any mother whose children are older. Though once they’re older, maybe there are grandchildren already. I don’t know, but... There are those people who say, “Be grateful for the mess. Be grateful for the laundry. Be grateful for all of it.” Yes, totally. Yes, right. There are things I enjoy, things I’m happy with. Yes. But of course there are also many things I’m not happy with. Of course. No, it really is a kind of talent, seeing the glass as half full. Because you could cry all day. Right. Or you could say, “Wow, I have this time. I can do things that another woman my age can’t do.” Yes. I think that—let’s put it this way: until she was six or seven, my life really was somewhat on hold. I lived with the anticipation and the— The absence. The absence. “So when is it going to happen? It’s just about to happen; it will happen.” And I think that affected her a lot too. At some point—I think it was around first or second grade—I eased up on that a little and said, “All right, life hasn’t stopped. You need to keep living. With Hashem’s help it will happen.” But it’s also a kind of realization: she’s already twelve, and I know now that she won’t have a childhood with siblings. Yes. So we’ll make it as good as we possibly can. Yes,

1:16:13 Speaker 2 Right. So maybe people will say she’s a little spoiled. I say maybe she deserves to be spoiled. Right. At the end of the day, we do need to give her the best, happiest feeling in the world. And yes, she’s a child who has plenty, who has lots and lots of things I don’t think girls her age have. Also, you know, the way I think about it is different. Say I buy her a shirt for a hundred shekels. Fine, it’s a hundred shekels, and that’s normal. But a mother of three—even. Yes. Yes. A mother of seven children won’t buy a shirt for each of them and suddenly have an expense of seven hundred shekels. So in our house, everything is calculated differently. Totally. You’re not multiplying the expense over and over. Of course, it’s not as if we’re millionaires or anything, but everything is different. Everything is different. The calculations. Exactly. Expenses are calculated differently, so of course I give her more. Right. Does she have cousins her age? She does, yes. Some of them live near us. You know, I came from Ukraine, where in most families the average is one and a half children per family. When my third daughter was born, we received a certificate saying “large family.” That’s very unusual there. Yes. Today it’s a little less unusual, but it still is. Once I ran a kind of getting-to-know-you game—well, not really getting to know each other; the people more or less knew each other. It was a warm-up called the signature game. You have different characteristics— Yes. And you have to find someone each characteristic applies to. Yes. And she signs; you have to fill in the chart. So one of the characteristics was “I’m an only child.”

1:17:53 Speaker 2 I thought that was so original and they’d have a hard time finding someone. It turned out that most of the girls there were only children. Yes. It’s interesting that there it’s a cultural thing. Right. That’s just what’s normal. And why did I bring that up? Because I wanted to tell you something— About cousins. Ah, about cousins. In Russian, when someone says “brother” or “sister,” they might be talking about a cousin. Ah. They’re really part of the immediate family. Mm. Speaking of that, you mentioned that the grandmother lives in the house, and it really is like that. They grow up together. Yes. And they have a term for it: a second-degree brother. Dvoyurodny brat means something like “second-degree brother.” It’s just interesting, because if you live close to each other and there are only one or two children in each family, cousins can really— Right. Play the role of siblings. So does she actually— That’s what I was curious about. Right. She often refers to her female cousins as sisters, as far as she’s concerned. But it doesn’t always work out, because every family is different; our family has a different style. So with some of them there’s less of a connection— It also depends on a lot of factors. Where exactly do they live? Yes. No, I’m talking even about cousins who live right near us. But the connection doesn’t always work well. Right. Still, her female cousins are very, very important to her, very significant. Yes. Wow. They give her a little bit of— It fills the gap for her. Yes, yes. Suddenly it’s a kind of safe place. One of the challenges she faces is with friends, in a social setting. When they come home from school, she takes the bus back. I take her there in the morning, and she takes the bus back. So she’s alone there. All—

1:19:34 Speaker 2 All her friends go to meet up with their sisters and so on. And, you know, if there’s a fight or an argument or something, it happens. With sisters, you automatically have that safe place: “My sister’s here; I’m okay.” But she’s alone. So when I see her with her female cousins, she does have a little of that feeling: “Okay, here I’m not alone. Here I have family who’ll look out for me.” And yes, she deals a lot with that feeling of being alone. Yes. Tell me, as you’re talking about her, I’m thinking: say I suddenly find out there’s a girl in my daughter’s class dealing with exactly this. What can I do? How can I support her, even a little? What should I say, what shouldn’t I say, what should I do? Maybe she’d like friends to come over more often, or maybe the opposite. Or presumably it’s individual; everyone has their own way of dealing with it. First of all, yes, I believe— Of course. Of course. But from your perspective, for example. A lot of the time she feels as though she’s imposing on her friends. She’s also very, very self-aware. She’s very mature. Yes. After all, the environment she grew up in is an adult environment. Adults. Though my husband and I, in a sense, also sometimes have to be her siblings—to be silly with her and play with her. At the end of the day, you know, we have to fill all the roles. A lot of the time I also feel there isn’t that distance between parents and children in our home. We’re one group of three, and a lot of the time I say, “Wait, that’s a little”

1:21:12 Speaker 2 Maybe we have a challenge here in raising a child because we don’t have enough distance from her. It’s also really hard for me. Even when we go away as a couple for a vacation, I think, “You’re leaving her alone right now.” I really feel that—wow. So often I think, “She’s being left alone.” It took me time to work on that within myself, to accept that it’s okay. Ultimately, she’s a child and we’re the parents, but part of this challenge is hers. This is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu decided. Right. That right now—this is what’s best for her. This is her task right now, her challenge right now. I have my challenge and she has hers, and ultimately it’s hers. You can’t keep feeling sorry for her, either, because that isn’t good for her. Absolutely right. Really. So yes, that’s work I have to do on myself too. I was just talking about this with a friend a few days ago. She said to me, “When something happens to her—say someone did something to one of your children at school—your concern for your children is divided by five.” How many do you have? Yes, five. Five. For me, she gets a hundred percent of it. Everything is about her. Every worry, every bit of stress. Exactly. Everything is about her. A child with siblings might tell their mother a story, but afterward the mother has to turn to someone else. I don’t turn to someone else. I stay completely wrapped up in that story.

1:22:38 Speaker 2 So for my own sake, too, I sometimes have to tell myself, “Okay, calm down.” Sometimes I get so caught up in it that it’s as if I’m her, and I have to say to myself—Keep it in perspective. Keep it in perspective. It’s really hard. For example, until she was about six or seven, I dressed her in the morning. It took me a long time to realize that was a mistake. Yes. Yes, because she remains the little one. Exactly. When do you move on to the next stage? Exactly. Yes. I talked about this with someone on a podcast I heard recently: whenever another child comes along, the older child suddenly seems big. Yes, right. That doesn’t happen for me. I didn’t realize she was already big. Right, because you don’t have— I don’t have someone else who needs me now. As far as I was concerned, it was easiest and quickest to dress her and head out. It took me a long time to understand that I was actually hurting her—her independence, her learning. She got to second grade and still— I had to ask friends, “Wait, at what age is this normal?” Yes, something like that. It took me a very long time to understand that. What was I going to say, though? I don’t remember. You also wanted to say something about her friends. Her friends. Yes, I did. I brought up dressing her in connection with something else, but as for her friends, I think that, first of all, this applies to anyone facing a challenge: they don’t want the people around them to pity them, but they do want people to be sensitive to them. So first of all, it really shouldn’t come from pity, or from—

1:24:13 Speaker 2 But people should be sensitive to her. Oh, I remember what I started to say. She often feels that she’s a bit clingy with her friends. Because, again, when someone gives her attention, that fills a need for her. Exactly, it fills that need. She doesn’t have that time with siblings in the afternoon. Her friends may sometimes want some quiet after school, and then they have to deal with their siblings. Yes. They can’t get away from their siblings, but they can choose to get away from friends. And for her, that’s her friend. We also live in Kfar Yona, and she goes to school in Netanya. We don’t live in a Charedi or religious neighborhood, so she doesn’t have a neighbor she can just pop over to see when she gets home. In the end, she’s pretty much alone. Seeing friends means traveling to them, walking a long way, or something like that. So that’s something you have to plan, too. Yes. She doesn’t have a friend nearby. So in the end, being with friends is her big adventure. It’s her whole life. Maybe people can understand that to some extent. Again, I don’t mean out of pity, but they can understand her need for company. She’s not being clingy just for the sake of it. It’s more like, “You mean more to me. You’re like a sister to me, too.” Exactly. Yes. Right. Wow. Yes. She’s already a big girl, and she understands everything we’ve been talking about. Sometimes she feels bad about herself for latching on to a particular friend or being clingy. She tells me, “Eventually they won’t like

1:25:45 Speaker 2 me because I’m like this.” But at the same time, it’s a real need for her. So, yes. I don’t know how you explain that to children. Maybe girls her age can understand it already, but with younger children, I don’t know how much they can understand. Or when they come over and feel jealous of her—I don’t know. You can’t tell a child, “Don’t be jealous.” Yes. That’s what children do. I believe every mother who wants to raise her children well tries to teach them not to be jealous, not to compare themselves with others. But it’s there; it happens. Maybe what matters most is for mothers to know it happens. Sometimes you hear your child saying things like, “That friend has this, that friend has that.” You can make it feel normal and say to the child, “Yes, sometimes there’s only one child in a family, and then we need to daven to Hakadosh Boruch Hu for another one.” Sometimes children think that if the whole world doesn’t look like their home, then... Absolutely right. You can say, “There are families like this and families like that.” Right. I think that really is what happens when friends come over to her house: they need to take it in. Yes, exactly. “Wait, what? Everything here is yours? This whole closet is yours?” Imagine a child from a family of ten. “What is all this quiet?” Yes, yes. Sometimes she feels that friends come over because they want some quiet away from their siblings. I’m sure that happens. Her home is a kind of refuge, her own little palace. And she probably has lots of things, too, so it’s fun to come over. Yes, and everything stays intact. No siblings breaking things. Do friends come for sleepovers? Uh,

1:27:13 Speaker 2 yes, I really like it when friends sleep over. I’m less keen on it during the school year, in the middle of the week and all that. But it’s fun. I’m putting myself back in the mind of a twelve-year-old girl for a moment. Of course it’s fun. It’s also a night when she doesn’t sleep alone. She’s very happy when they sleep in her room with her. As absurd as it might sound, a child who shares a room with lots of other children wants a quiet night. Again, I’m thinking of a mother who may be listening now, whose daughter is in her class. Her automatic response might be, “No, you’re not sleeping over at a friend’s house. I don’t like that.” But once she understands this need, she might say, “Go, have a good time.” There’s a difference between just indulging a child for fun and actually meeting someone’s need. This is something you can do relatively easily, just by changing your... That’s a lovely way to put it. Changing how you think about it. I think it applies to a lot of things. Someone asks you for something, and you have your routine, but you can stop for a moment, open your mind and ask, “Wait, is there a need here that I haven’t noticed?” Right. And you could make someone’s day. That’s what I meant when I said that anyone facing a challenge mainly wants you to care. Yes. To notice that you’ve seen there’s something different about them. To see them. To see them, exactly. You don’t have to come and do some huge act of volunteering, or... A little affection, a blanket. Yes, something like that. Just don’t ignore the problem. As far as I’m concerned, I have no problem at all with people talking to me

1:28:44 Speaker 2 About it openly. Here we are sitting here—and laughing about it. Laughing about it, too. Yes, I really have no problem with it. I prefer that to someone who, I don’t know, feels they have to guess what’s going on with me. Yes, I feel that’s better. Again, I’m speaking for myself. Someone else might be dealing with the same problem—the same situation as me—and not feel that way. Personally, with my situation, I’d rather people come and talk to me. I’m not saying they should start giving me advice, okay? Forget the advice. Enough with the advice. Enough with the advice. There’s no need. Really, it’s not something you’re hiding or ashamed to talk about, or... Yes, it’s part of life. You can daven for me: Avigail Chana bas Michal Chaya. I’d appreciate it. I really have no problem talking about it, in the simplest, most natural way. It’s just there. Avigail what? Avigail Chana. Oh, so we share the same name. Oh, right, right. Now that you mention it. Yes, right, I hadn’t noticed. I’m wr—oh, wait, I’m adding you to my list of people to daven for, while we’re at it. Avigail Chana. And your mother? Michal Chaya. Michal Chaya. Really, I think we need to normalize the idea that we’re all dealing with something, so let’s daven for one another. We don’t need to hide it— Exactly. Under the rug. I think—I mean, Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us this. It’s part of who we are. Exactly, absolutely. Look, I didn’t grow up in the chareidi community. I came from a Religious Zionist home, became more chareidi, grew stronger in my observance, and I think that in the Religious Zionist community there’s more openness toward people who are different, toward things outside the norm, toward all kinds of things. And I think that in the community, in chareidi society,

1:30:24 Speaker 2 there’s less of that. With everything, it’s, “Oh no, what will people say about me?” Today, though, things are opening up. It seems that way more, yes. Yes, things are opening up today, but still, I see friends of mine who grew up in the chareidi community, and they live much more with that “What will people say?” They’re embarrassed about all sorts of things. It could also be that they’re embarrassed to approach me because they don’t know how I’ll react. Right. But the way you grow up—it becomes deeply ingrained in you. Absolutely, very much so. So I feel that in recent years, since I left the Religious Zionist community, I’ve gone through a process of searching for myself. I always admired chareidi people. I used to think, “Wow, how amazing to grow up and live like that.” And now that I’m more involved in chareidi society—it’s interesting. I’m not completely part of it, because we don’t live in a chareidi area and I don’t live within a particular community. There isn’t one. Right. I don’t live within a particular community, but as you’re exposed to things, I suddenly find myself saying, “Wow, I really appreciate where I grew up and the values I was raised with.” So I think I’m bringing those back into the mix. At first I distanced myself from them. Yes. I said, “No, that’s not me. I’m not Religious Zionist. I have nothing to do with it.” And now, with maturity, you suddenly realize, “Wow, I truly, truly appreciate all the values I grew up with.” And I think that beyond the different communities, every city has its own... Every community develops its own values and principles. And really,

1:31:54 Speaker 2 having an eye for the good in every place and taking it with you—that’s what you need. Right, right. I think people also used to be very eager to put everyone in a box. If you couldn’t say who you were, couldn’t define which community you belonged to, then it was as though something was wrong with you. Yes. Less so today. People are more mixed now. I spoke on one episode of the podcast, I think with Anya[?], who’s the deputy director of external relations at ALEH. She said that part of her job was convincing families not to hide the fact that their child has special needs. I remember. So the child could receive care. Because when you hide it, you’re less able to address it. You’re less able to take care of yourself in relation to it, too. In the end, it’s a process people really need to work through—to understand that if Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave them a child like that, He’ll also help them with their other children. Hakadosh Boruch Hu can do so much—anything, really. Right. He made this happen, too. Ultimately, I think it really comes down to bitachon and emunah. Exactly. Hashem gave me this, and now I, Avigail, at forty-two, have to deal with it. This is what I was born for. This is my challenge. And the same goes for my daughter: this is what she was born for. This is her challenge. This is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants for her, and it’s what’s best for her. And this is the work I came here to do. So I have nothing to be ashamed of. I didn’t steal it from anyone. Exactly. And this is who I am. Exactly. And that’s okay. Exactly. I think that when we let go and understand that not everyone has to fit into that box of the perfect family, then come on, let’s all put our... It’s really very... Yes, it’s all okay. Everything...

1:33:28 Speaker 2 Ultimately, everything is Hashem’s choice. Exactly. And that’s completely okay. Remember Who’s in charge here. We didn’t do anything wrong. Yes, right. When you hide something, it’s as if there’s a flaw. A defect. It’s a flaw in your bitachon in Hashem. Right. Because if it all comes from Him, what are you ashamed of? It’s His. Exactly. Yes. Wow, exactly. Showing more compassion and sensitivity is something that’s always, always, always relevant. That’s it. That’s what I think. It’s not just, “Okay, how do you deal with...” Yes. “...an only daughter? How do you deal with a woman who has secondary infertility?” No. This applies everywhere. Sometimes you don’t know what another person is going through, right? And even— Most of the time when we see someone. Exactly, you don’t know. So first of all, judge people favorably. Don’t be critical of them. If a person... I remember when my daughter was in preschool, she had a teacher who I always felt was critical of me. Really. Judgmental. She really judged me. That’s hard. I would think to myself, “Does she think I chose this?” And even if I had chosen it, that would be my right, my choice, wouldn’t it? You don’t judge someone for that. Yes. First of all, having an only daughter really wasn’t my choice. I felt she was so angry with me for having an only daughter. Maybe it was jealousy; maybe she was having a hard time with her own children and took it out on me. But she was constantly judging me, saying my daughter was terribly spoiled. It was really... What a way to rub salt in the wound. Absolutely. So that’s what I’m saying: first of all, don’t be critical of another person.

1:35:01 Speaker 2 Someone else. You don’t know what he’s going through; you don’t know what’s happening with him. So give him the benefit of the doubt, and just—a smile, a little attention, and you’ve made his day. Positivity. Exactly. Come on, being someone who’s constantly judging other people seems so, so hard to me. Very. Draining. Very, very. Like, look at everyone as... Hakadosh Boruch Hu runs the world, and she is who she is, and what she does is her choice. Don’t get into it. We have enough of our own to deal with. Yes. No need to take on more. Tell me, let’s go back to your interior-design hat for a moment. How do you actually provide your services? Say someone listening says, “You know what, I want to go to Avigail.” How does she reach you? So first of all, I mainly work on changes to apartments before people move in. Great, so everyone who won an apartment, everyone who’s reached— No, not the people who won. Oh, no? You’ve surprised me. That’s different? Yes. Someone who won an apartment through the subsidized housing program isn’t allowed to make changes before moving in. Really? Sorry. Yes. Wow. So what can they do? Afterward, right? Afterward it’s no longer changes before moving in; it’s a renovation. It’s like they tell you, “You won. Sit quietly and say thank you.” As though you aren’t paying for it. Yes, ultimately you are paying for it, but they don’t have the option to choose. Wow. Types of flooring and things like that. They’re given about three models to choose from. Okay, so not everyone who won. Not the people who won. The ones who inherited an apartment. Yes. So really, anyone who’s currently,

1:36:45 Speaker 2 even before buying an apartment, can of course get in touch for a consultation, and we’ll look at the apartment together. Again, even for a consultation, I get to know the family beforehand. I send a questionnaire that gives me a bit of an introduction to them. I look at the plans, so I come to the meeting having done my homework. That’s the psychological interview. Yes. No, don’t let them get scared. Yes. No, it’s in a good way: someone is coming to make a home for me. Exactly, yes. So I— Not a home based on what looks good to her. Yes. You bring your experience into that person’s personal story. That’s incredible. Right. Exactly. It’s like, give me the bread and flour and I’ll bake you cakes from them. Exactly. I think Rabbi Nachman says something like that to his students: “Give me the prayers, and I’ll do what needs to be done in Heaven.” Give me something to work with. Yes. You come with all your experience and all your passion for it, and... Exactly. Give me the materials to work with, and I’ll make something good out of them. You can have a consultation even before buying the property. Look at it, check it out, talk through whether it really is a good idea or not. By the way, there are things you can also... With every apartment bought from a developer, you receive a specification: what the developer provides and how many changes and upgrades you can make. That’s included too. Sometimes the standard specification—for example, ceramic tile wall covering. Say the developer’s standard is ceramic tiling in the bathrooms up to a height of two meters ten. Okay? Today it’s very modern and common; people like it.

1:38:26 Speaker 2 I think it’s also most attractive and best to take the tiling all the way to the ceiling. So if that isn’t standard, you’ll have to add the tiling and pay extra for it—both for the developer’s work and for the additional tiles. Yes. Now, sometimes there are all kinds of things you can put into the contract with the developer from the outset. For example, you can say, “Include tiling up to the ceiling as standard.” There are certain things the developer will include as standard, because ultimately he wants you to buy the apartment. So even if you... There are things you can check before you buy? Before you finalize the purchase? Yes. Interesting. There are things you can check and things you can try to negotiate beforehand. Then they’re included in the standard specification and you won’t have to pay extra. Wow. So you can consult and discuss things beforehand. Even if you’re sure you want that apartment, you can still get advice. By the way, I wrote a guide. We’ll send it to them. You sound to me like someone who’s into contracts and details and... The practical stuff. You see a page full of numbers and get excited. A Yekke, Tamar? Come on, no. Yes. So I have a guide—we’ll share it—with four very, very important tips for before you buy an apartment from a developer. All kinds of things you can look at and try to analyze and understand. There are, of course, walls you can move, and things like that. So you can get advice in advance. And if you’ve already bought it, then of course we can start the process. I have three different packages, with different levels of support that you can choose from,

1:40:06 Speaker 2 and just feel free to talk to me. With home styling, for example, or without home styling. Yes, yes. There’s a planning-only option; there’s one that also includes overseeing all the developer’s work and choosing materials; and there’s a home-styling option afterward. Tell us your phone number now, before we forget. So... Go ahead. 050-913-7112. Great. Wow, I hope so. Listen, I can just picture someone hearing you speak and then having you do her apartment and make the changes. It’s incredible. Because when... the way you talk about it, when you do it with that sense of shlichus, and in the end they’ll build one for me near my house too. Yes. It’s just amazing. Now give us a tip for anyone who... Forget apartments from developers or not from developers. Anyone living in whatever apartment she’s found herself in. Something... You know what? We’ve talked a lot about children. Children are a blessing; may Hakadosh Boruch Hu grant them to everyone. Amen. A tip for a children’s room. Okay. First of all, I think this is really a tip for the whole house: avoid clutter. Especially in a children’s room. For keeping it organized. Yes. A children’s room that isn’t just for an only child already has the children in it, and each one has a bed and a closet. That’s already a lot in the room, especially if the rooms aren’t huge. So really try to keep the clutter down. Now, how can you reduce it? Because at the end of the day, there’s no getting around it: you need the children’s things. So the best starting point is for the furniture not to be colorful. You feel like getting a blue closet? Look, better to hold back. It’s better for the furniture to be

1:41:48 Speaker 2 Neutral, white, light. Bring in color through other things—the curtains, paint on the wall, pictures. That way the room will feel much calmer, but you’ll still have touches of color and design. It’s also much easier to change. A curtain doesn’t cost as much as a wardrobe. Right. I’m not married to the curtain. Right. So curtains—and again, as we said today, Max Stock, all the discount stores, Shein, AliExpress—you can order lots and lots of inexpensive things. If you feel like changing it every Pesach, go ahead and change it every Pesach. Right. So that’s the first tip. And the… Give us another one. Another one. Another tip, which applies both to the whole house and to a children’s room, is something I always say: when everything has its place, it’s much easier to keep the house tidy. Say a child knows there’s a designated place to put his bag when he comes home from school. Of course, his automatic reaction will be to come in and drop it by the front door, right? But at least when you tell him to put his bag away, he knows where it goes. If it doesn’t have a place, how is he supposed to know where to put it? Exactly. So if it has a designated place, at least when you tell him to put it away, he’ll know where. And with Hashem’s help, that will also help him do it on his own. But it helps you, too. When the house is a mess, sometimes women just go around in circles thinking, “Where do I even start tidying up?” Because they don’t know where the cleaning cloth goes, where the mop goes—where anything goes. Right. And that alone wastes time.

1:43:31 Speaker 2 But once you know where everything belongs, it’s much easier to keep things tidy. It’s much easier to teach the children and your husband—and yourself, too. Basically, you’re getting ahead of the problem. Right. Making sure everything has a place. Exactly. That comes down to planning, too. Right. So at the planning stage, for example, when I draw up a kitchen plan, I give my clients a layout: here’s where you’ll put the cutlery, here’s where you’ll put the pots, and so on. Everything is planned out. I visited a client after they’d moved into their house, and she said, “Go make yourself a coffee.” I told her, “I’m supposed to know where everything is.” So I asked, “Where are the teaspoons?” And she said, “What do you mean? Why are you asking me? You know—you planned it!” Nice, so she really stuck to the plan. Yes, she stuck to it. Right. Do you designate a junk drawer in advance, too? I call it storage. You have to have it. I call it storage. So when I’m drawing up the plan, I tell them, “Look at it. Look at the kitchen you have now. Even if you live in a small place, you can still get a sense of what you need. You know what you’re short of and what you have enough of. So compare the two and see whether we need to change anything in the plan.” Right. So it matters at the planning stage, but also in how you arrange things. When you have a cabinet where you know certain things belong, it’s easier to tidy up afterward. Right. Wow, Avigail, this has been fascinating. We went

1:44:59 Speaker 2 from topic to topic to topic. We managed to touch on everything. Yes. Wow, fascinating! Thank you so much. Thank you. And we’ll give you a bracha here, Avigail Chana bas Michal Chaya: may you be blessed, with Hashem’s help, with more children and more siblings. Amen. Amen. What’s your daughter’s name? Sarah. Right, may Sarah have more brothers and sisters, with Hashem’s help. Amen, amen. And thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. Bye.