Episode 32: The Journey to the Sk(l)in | With Inbal Choziyos, expert in natural medicine and advanced cosmetics

00:00 Speaker 1 What did Inbal go through in the years between leaving Omer, the town where she grew up, and returning to it? What unforgettable lesson did she learn during the year she lived in Cyprus? Where did she learn to cook dishes from several different communities? What is it like to work with women from every sector? And to finish, some valuable tips from an expert, straight from her clinic. You’re invited to join this fascinating podcast. And a reminder: if you enjoyed the content, you’re more than welcome to pass it on, share it, send it to friends, neighbors, sisters—to anyone you care about. An intro, and we’re off. How do we turn our lives into lives of shlichus, full of meaning? This is Chani Moskowitz, a shlucha in Kharkiv, Ukraine. On this podcast, we’ll meet different women who will share their shlichus in a range of fields and, through it, help each of us find and refine our own shlichus in the world. Because living the life we were created for is the best there is. Shlichus as a way of life. We’re starting now. Hello, Inbal Chozias.

01:11 Speaker 2 Hello and welcome.

01:12 Speaker 1 Did I say that right?

01:13 Speaker 2 You did. You’re one of the few who do.

01:15 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. No, I checked beforehand. Let’s be honest.

01:18 Speaker 2 Yes.

01:19 Speaker 1 Okay, I have to start with a few words and explain that we were here on Chanukah.

01:25 Speaker 2 Right.

01:25 Speaker 1 In the evening. And we’re now in Omer, where you live, which is a nonreligious town.

01:31 Speaker 2 Right.

01:31 Speaker 1 And suddenly I saw a woman in the audience wearing a sheitel, and I kept thinking to myself, “Okay, I have to ask her who she is, what her story is.” Then, when we spoke, you told me that you’re a baalas teshuvah and you live here in town, and I decided I had to come back sometime for the podcast. But I discovered something else interesting: I asked how old you were—and I don’t know whether you want to reveal that.

01:51 Speaker 2 No problem.

01:53 Speaker 1 And I said to you, “No way, no way.” So you told me, “Well, I’m a cosmetologist, and my skin is under supervision, so to speak.”

02:02 Speaker 2 Absolutely, absolutely.

02:02 Speaker 1 So, I hope I haven’t given too much away.

02:05 Speaker 2 On 14 Sivan, G-d willing, I’ll turn fifty.

02:07 Speaker 1 Oh, soon.

02:09 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:09 Speaker 1 Exactly a month.

02:09 Speaker 2 Exactly a month.

02:10 Speaker 1 Nice.

02:11 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:12 Speaker 1 You don’t... Okay, save a few secrets for us at the end...

02:15 Speaker 2 For me.

02:15 Speaker 1 So that maybe we can manage it by fifty too.

02:19 Speaker 2 G-d willing, definitely.

02:20 Speaker 1 So go ahead, the microphone is yours. Who, what, why—I’ll be quiet.

02:25 Speaker 2 I grew up in Omer, in a family that didn’t observe Torah and mitzvos, but there was some tradition at home, of course, as there is for all of us. Religious grandparents and so on. We really had a wonderful childhood here. In every respect, it was peaceful and quiet, and I grew up in a wonderful family...

02:49 Speaker 1 And was Omer the way it looks now?

02:51 Speaker 2 No. No. Omer was genuinely rural back then. The makeup of the population was completely different. I remember we could go barefoot to the head of our local council, knock on the door, and get a candy. Today, even if you have a problem...

03:08 Speaker 1 Just try it.

03:09 Speaker 2 Problems are a bit more complicated now. That was the atmosphere here. You know, Scouts, school... We really were very, very goal-oriented children. The parents here knew where things were headed. You were supposed to become a lawyer, a pilot, or a doctor.

03:34 Speaker 1 Soviet-style.

03:35 Speaker 2 Totally. But yes, most of the population here was from the Soviet Union.

03:38 Speaker 1 Oh, really? Also...

03:40 Speaker 2 Eastern Europe. Yes, most of the population.

03:43 Speaker 1 Yes.

03:43 Speaker 2 Today the makeup is completely different, for better and for worse.

03:46 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

03:47 Speaker 2 There are many more synagogues here now, and many more minyanim even during the week. So that’s for the better too.

03:55 Speaker 1 So you were basically put on a set track, in a way.

03:57 Speaker 2 Completely. Our childhood was very, very clearly laid out. I think that’s one of the things that made becoming observant much, much easier for me. First of all, by nature I was a child who very much wanted to please. So it was very, very easy for me when people told me what to do and gave me direction. I really like that. It isn’t something I find difficult.

04:19 Speaker 1 When everything’s clear, when—

04:20 Speaker 2 When everything’s clear and organized, when you have a very, very clear daily routine. For example, I see the young people here today, and they’re very different from how we were. We knew that our purpose was to study. Never mind what kind of studies—we’re not talking about that right now.

04:36 Speaker 1 Yes.

04:36 Speaker 2 But it was studying, and we took it very, very seriously. It was something very, very, very serious. We didn’t do other things. If, for example, we hadn’t done our homework, we weren’t allowed to go out, and we didn’t argue about it at all.

04:49 Speaker 1 Yes.

04:50 Speaker 2 There was no arguing about that.

04:51 Speaker 1 And in general, the generation then versus the generation today.

04:54 Speaker 2 Yes, though “then” is a little while ago for me.

04:55 Speaker 1 Yes. You’re saying, “Who am I to dare?” No, but it’s very noticeable everywhere—not just in Omer, let’s put it that way.

05:05 Speaker 2 I imagine so, yes.

05:06 Speaker 1 But that particular kind of set path really belongs to a very specific population. It was very much, “You need to be a lawyer,” or you need to be this or that.

05:15 Speaker 2 It was very, very noticeable. And sure enough, most people in my year... We had a class reunion ten years ago. We’d really like another one, so if anyone from my year is listening—those of you who organize things and make them happen—let’s do it. We’re definitely interested.

05:34 Speaker 1 Open to suggestions.

05:35 Speaker 2 And most of them really did become veterinarians, doctors, pilots, and lawyers. That really was the majority.

05:44 Speaker 1 There are a lot of doctors in Omer, right?

05:46 Speaker 2 Well, there’s Soroka, first of all, so that happens naturally.

05:49 Speaker 1 I happened to meet several doctors from Omer at Assuta.

05:52 Speaker 2 Yes. There are plenty, definitely.

05:55 Speaker 1 Wow. That’s the population here.

05:58 Speaker 2 That’s the population. And I didn’t feel that I didn’t belong, or that there was something different about me. But I do remember that, as a child, there was never a time when I felt disconnected from G-d. As a child, I remember that He was present in my life every single day. I would say good night to Him, say good morning to Him, ask Him for things.

06:23 Speaker 1 Wow.

06:24 Speaker 2 I would apologize to Him for things. Ever since I can remember, there was never a time when I was disconnected from Him.

06:33 Speaker 1 But how did you know that was even an option? Was there someone who...

06:38 Speaker 2 I have no idea.

06:39 Speaker 1 That’s amazing. Like Avraham Avinu.

06:42 Speaker 2 No, no, no.

06:43 Speaker 1 No, but—

06:45 Speaker 2 Hmm.

06:47 Speaker 1 I mean, as a child, instinctively.

06:50 Speaker 2 I think it’s... Yes, it’s something in the soul. There’s no question it’s something in the soul, but it’s a gift from the Creator. It isn’t me.

06:58 Speaker 1 Really. Wow.

06:59 Speaker 2 Yes. And I remember being very, very aware of Him all the time. So when—we’ll probably get to this later—when I became observant, what I needed was just the mitzvos. There was no need to build up my faith.

07:17 Speaker 1 It had always been there.

07:18 Speaker 2 It had always been there. And it was also... Maybe it’s my Litvish roots, but I very much came from a place of reward and punishment. I had this very, very strong sense that if I did something bad, something bad would happen; if I did something good, then of course things would be good. That guided me. It set me on a path toward good things.

07:37 Speaker 1 You’re a very moral person.

07:38 Speaker 2 Yes, very. That was very, very noticeable about me even as a child. I would take in animals from the street and give them homeopathy and Bach flower remedies.

07:47 Speaker 1 Wow.

07:48 Speaker 2 I’d help them get back on their feet and then find homes for them. And in Omer, as you’d expect, people have more dogs than children, more or less. It was like that in our home too. At any given time, there were two dogs in the house and lots of stray cats I’d taken in.

08:05 Speaker 1 Wow.

08:07 Speaker 2 That was how it was. I think caring for others was a passion of mine from the very beginning. It also showed up in my interest in herbalism, in plants. I remember we had a rose garden that my mother, a"h, tended. I would pick petals, make all kinds of mixtures from them, and crush them to smell the concentrated scent. Later I studied aromatherapy. I’ve been an aromatherapist for twenty years, and, G-d willing, I use it to treat women. It’s a very, very meaningful and powerful therapeutic tool in my life. What we’re smelling here is also—

08:54 Speaker 1 I noticed the scent as soon as I walked in. Wow, it’s incredible! It’s like you grew up with this.

09:01 Speaker 2 I really did, but it wasn’t deliberate. It—

09:03 Speaker 1 It’s like the bushes around you, and it all just—

09:05 Speaker 2 Right.

09:06 Speaker 1 Connects with you.

09:07 Speaker 2 It wasn’t deliberate. None of it was forced.

09:10 Speaker 1 Yes.

09:10 Speaker 2 It was really something that flowed naturally out of me.

09:15 Speaker 1 Yes. Wow. So you never chose this profession; it was as though it chose you.

09:21 Speaker 2 Yes—but there was something else, too. I followed the path people here usually take and studied behavioral sciences and philosophy at university. When I realized I’d need to do a master’s degree, I decided I didn’t want to keep working odd jobs. It didn’t suit me. I said, okay, I’ll study something that can give me steadier work. My mother, a"h, told me, “Listen, you have healing hands. Go study cosmetology. Work with people.” So that’s what I did. And the rest is history, as they say.

09:55 Speaker 1 Wow. Now I’m curious—did you finish your master’s degree?

09:58 Speaker 2 No, I never even started it.

10:00 Speaker 1 Oh, I see. You got hooked on this instead.

10:01 Speaker 2 Yes, completely. At first I worked at Super-Pharm as a beauty consultant, and then in lots and lots of other places. At April, the April chain, and at Ronit Raphael. By then I was working as a cosmetician. Ronit Raphael was a real crossroads—you learn so much there. And Ronit is a wonderful woman who gave so much of herself to the cosmeticians who worked for her. You don’t see that nowadays. She didn’t want us to stay cosmeticians. She was always saying, “Take yourselves further. Be ambitious. I want to see you working for yourselves.”

10:43 Speaker 1 Wow.

10:44 Speaker 2 A truly wonderful woman. I learned so, so much from her—the substance and quality of the treatments, and treatment techniques. A wonderful woman.

10:54 Speaker 1 It’s amazing how naturally you connected with this profession. You know, so many people are searching for their path. And you’re so sure this is where you belong. Even what your mother said about your healing hands—you have no doubt this is your shlichus. It’s moving.

11:11 Speaker 2 That’s true, but you have to mature before you can really absorb that into your life. It wasn’t as though I immediately said, “Okay, this is my shlichus.” At Ronit Raphael, I definitely didn’t think it was my shlichus. I thought it was a temporary job.

11:24 Speaker 1 How interesting.

11:25 Speaker 2 I didn’t know what would happen, and I wasn’t all that young. I was about twenty-six. That’s also where I became a baalas teshuvah, by the way.

11:32 Speaker 1 Right, so tell us about how you became a baalas teshuvah...

11:34 Speaker 2 As we said earlier, it wasn’t something that needed a huge upheaval to happen. I came to Ronit Raphael and met a woman a few years older than me named Malka. We’re still very, very close friends. She wrote a book that I really recommend reading. Malka was a baalas teshuvah herself at the time, and she kept telling me about Bruriah, the wife of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness. My second name is Bruriah, and that really caught my attention.

12:15 Speaker 1 Wow.

12:16 Speaker 2 I saw so much hashgachah pratis, and all kinds of similarities and parallels in what she told me about birurim. Then she introduced me to Rebbetzin Gerlitzky in Tel Aviv, and I went there. I remember thinking the whole time, “What do I have to do with going to an observant family’s home for a meal? What am I supposed to do? What shouldn’t I do? What can I say? What can’t I say?” I remember going to a class with Rebbetzin Gerlitzky at a shul behind Sheinkin Street. That’s also where my husband and I eventually got married. I simply told her, “When you invite me, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say.” By the way, it goes back to what we said about wanting to please people. It never occurred to me that I could just show up.

13:15 Speaker 1 Right.

13:15 Speaker 2 And let things be as they would be. I needed someone to tell me what I could do, what I couldn’t do, and...

13:21 Speaker 1 How to get it right in that situation.

13:23 Speaker 2 Getting it right—that’s the motto.

13:24 Speaker 1 Yes.

13:25 Speaker 2 I have to get it right. So I went there, and the light I saw at that meal—the sheer intensity of it—was nothing like I’d imagined. I’d pictured something very monochromatic. I thought I’d have to sit and listen to the rabbi, that there’d be no joking around, that everything would be terribly, terribly serious. I had never in my life seen or experienced a Shabbos like that.

13:59 Speaker 1 Oh, that’s so moving.

14:02 Speaker 2 It went against everything I thought I knew about it. Yes, as we said, I talked to Hashem, I had conversations with Him, and I wasn’t disconnected from Him. But what did I have to do with observant Jews? To me, those were two completely separate things. And now the connection was made.

14:23 Speaker 1 Wow. Were you there with Malka?

14:25 Speaker 2 The first time, yes. After that, she left me to go on my own.

14:27 Speaker 1 You had Shabbos figured out by then.

14:29 Speaker 2 Yes.

14:29 Speaker 1 No, I mean the first time. With all those worries, you’d naturally need someone to help bridge the gap. Had she been there before you?

14:36 Speaker 2 First of all, she was wonderful at helping me bridge that gap. Malka is a wonderful person to talk to.

14:42 Speaker 1 What book did she write? We shouldn’t miss it.

14:45 Speaker 2 She wrote—it’s here with me. She wrote something that she also teaches in workshops, about the Yosef Code. It’s really, really interesting. It doesn’t have any haskamos. I have to start by saying it doesn’t have any haskamos. She didn’t ask for any, but it’s absolutely...

15:00 Speaker 1 Interesting.

15:01 Speaker 2 Interesting. Interesting, and it simply fits with very tangible things that happen to us. We’re still in touch. When I need my children treated for various things using alternative therapies, for example, I turn to her. The way I see it, a mother can’t really treat her own children in every area, because she’s a little biased and has all sorts of ideas about them. She isn’t really objective, and I very much prefer to have other people do it. So there’s Malka, who treats them with Bach flower remedies, and there’s Rachela, an aromatherapist I studied aromatherapy with twenty years ago, who treats them too. Both of them treat the children when needed. Yes.

15:45 Speaker 1 Wait, so after that Shabbos, you leave the house and...?

15:49 Speaker 2 I leave their home and say, “I’m completely Yours.” Now, at various points over these twenty-three years since I became a baalas teshuvah, I’ve wondered, “Wow, maybe I did it too fast? Maybe I rushed it? I didn’t really go deeply into things.” Because I remember that a week later I was already wearing a skirt and a long-sleeved blouse.

16:16 Speaker 1 Wow.

16:17 Speaker 2 And I’d really taken on quite a lot by then. Shacharis took me a while, because I’m someone who found it hard to sit down to something that, to me at the time, felt intense and long. It took me time. I remember I had a siddur associated with Rabbi Ovadia Yosef—that was what we had at home. My mother came from a Sephardic family; she was Iraqi. I remember leafing through it in my rented apartment in Tel Aviv and saying, “Okay, not today.”

16:49 Speaker 1 …

16:49 Speaker 2 And the next day, “Okay, not today either.” Then I put it down. At that point I put it down and said, “O-okay, it’ll come.”

16:56 Speaker 1 Before that, did you have, say... I never know, because I don’t know many nonreligious families in Israel up close. Kashrus, for instance—were you familiar with it? Did you keep it on some level before that, or...?

17:11 Speaker 2 Honestly? At first, it was enough for me not to eat things I shouldn’t eat in non-kosher restaurants.

17:19 Speaker 1 That’s a level of sorts, too.

17:21 Speaker 2 Oh, yes. Today I know that doesn’t really count for anything, but...

17:26 Speaker 1 It’s all relative.

17:27 Speaker 2 But the desire was there. I wanted to make that distinction. Even when I spent about a year in the United States at twenty-one, I remember going into restaurants and knowing I wouldn’t eat meat there. At some point that also led me to vegetarianism and veganism, even after I’d begun becoming observant. The veganism came from a desire for kosher, not necessarily from a concern about non-kosher food. But this idea really sank in for me—that somehow you need to cleanse yourself in order to truly make room for what’s kosher.

18:02 Speaker 1 A kind of purity of the...

18:05 Speaker 2 Yes, as though the body—the physical cells—aren’t free of what isn’t kosher. Even if there wasn’t actually any non-kosher food.

18:18 Speaker 1 Right.

18:19 Speaker 2 It isn’t kosher, and it hasn’t been cleansed of the non-kosher. What’s pure needs to enter a kosher place, the right vessel.

18:24 Speaker 1 Yes. In a way, someone who’s vegan is, to a very large extent, keeping kosher automatically.

18:30 Speaker 2 Except for the bugs.

18:31 Speaker 1 Except for the bugs, yes. You need a little protein.

18:35 Speaker 2 We’ll pass on that route.

18:37 Speaker 1 So, wait, how old were you during this whole process? Twenty...?

18:41 Speaker 2 Twenty-six. Twenty-six.

18:43 Speaker 1 An age when you really want to have yourself figured out. It’s not like being sixteen or seventeen.

18:49 Speaker 2 True, but I think that’s preferable. There were girls who studied with me in high school who— We had a wonderful teacher in high school. I went to Eshel Hanasi, an agricultural school. I worked in the cowshed. I was a pioneer, with all the—

19:06 Speaker 1 With those tall black rubber boots.

19:09 Speaker 2 And you sink into what you sink into.

19:13 Speaker 1 …

19:13 Speaker 2 Um, yes, and milking cows in the morning and milking cows at night, and so on. And there was a woman who taught us—she was a religious teacher, and she taught us Tanach. I remember two girls who became religious, left religious life, became religious again, left again. It’s not—

19:32 Speaker 1 Right.

19:33 Speaker 2 I’m actually glad it came at a more mature stage.

19:36 Speaker 1 When you’re more settled, more...

19:38 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. You know what you want, more or less where you’re headed.

19:43 Speaker 1 Yes, so it isn’t just excitement, a sudden spark. You know, at that age you get excited about a lot of things.

19:48 Speaker 2 Right, but even at twenty-six I was very afraid of that spark. I kept saying, okay, when is it going to end? When is it going to go out?

19:56 Speaker 1 Where’s the catch?

19:57 Speaker 2 And I was terribly afraid, also because I was enjoying it so much. It’s a great light in your life. And I have to be honest: many times in my life I felt that spark had gone, that suddenly you feel Hashem isn’t holding your hand, that He isn’t your friend right now.

20:15 Speaker 1 Right.

20:15 Speaker 2 He isn’t with you. There were so many bumps in our lives when... I didn’t feel Him.

20:22 Speaker 1 But that’s how it is for everyone, because that’s how we’re made.

20:25 Speaker 2 Right, but I—

20:26 Speaker 1 But maybe you go back to that place.

20:28 Speaker 2 I did something for Him, so to speak.

20:29 Speaker 1 Yes, yes.

20:29 Speaker 2 I did something for You, so to speak. Of course, it isn’t for Him. We know that.

20:33 Speaker 1 Why are You leaving me? It was like we had a deal.

20:35 Speaker 2 Yes. I said, I’m Yours, and now You’re with me. You’re holding my hand all the time—and you don’t feel that hand all the time.

20:43 Speaker 1 Yes.

20:43 Speaker 2 But the times you don’t feel that hand holding you are exactly the times when you’re strongest.

20:49 Speaker 1 Right, your strengths are revealed.

20:51 Speaker 2 Completely, completely. You know it’s Him, but you know it’s you, too. It’s like a stalk of grain that can bend. You can really feel yourself being shaken, but you don’t break.

21:07 Speaker 1 Wow. It’s so important to remember that in those moments. Sitting here and talking about it is very easy, but...

21:13 Speaker 2 Right.

21:14 Speaker 1 Because I think you really feel it from a different angle. But everyone has those waves, each woman in her own place. Afterward, it’s very easy to say, “It was for the good; I grew from it.” But in the moment, to actually remember that it’s good—good that’s hidden, as they say.

21:31 Speaker 2 Completely, completely. I’m here in my clinic, and... there was a particular case that made me no longer want to provide mental-health treatments. I used to do reflexology and Bach flower remedies as well, and women would come to me for emotional help. Once, a woman came to me straight from a psychiatric hospitalization.

21:53 Speaker 1 Wow.

21:54 Speaker 2 It was very, very, very, very intense, and it was one of the things that made me realize I wanted a different side of this work. Yes, I use Bach flower remedies, and yes, I do reflexology, but—

22:07 Speaker 1 You’re not a psychiatrist.

22:08 Speaker 2 For everyone’s good.

22:09 Speaker 1 Yes.

22:09 Speaker 2 For everyone’s good—just for the face. That’s it.

22:13 Speaker 1 Yes. So tell us a little about what you do. It’s interesting. I see you, I follow you, and I see you doing all this work on people’s faces, and acupuncture too. Do you do cosmetic acupuncture?

22:25 Speaker 2 Cosmetic acupuncture too. And acupuncture that, again, isn’t acupuncture per se as we usually know it—it’s acupuncture for the benefit of the face. The needles go in the body. Say someone has acne and I want to cleanse her liver: then yes, I’ll use acupuncture for that.

22:42 Speaker 1 Meaning you don’t practice Chinese medicine generally.

22:44 Speaker 2 Exactly.

22:45 Speaker 1 Got it.

22:45 Speaker 2 Exactly.

22:46 Speaker 1 It all comes back to cosmetics, to facial skin.

22:49 Speaker 2 And to the body. I studied nutrition with Dr. Gil Yosef Shachar. I tailor nutrition plans. I give Bach flower remedies when needed. I use specific homeopathic remedies if needed.

23:03 Speaker 1 Wow.

23:03 Speaker 2 …

23:04 Speaker 1 You cover so many areas...

23:06 Speaker 2 I really love learning. I’m learning all the time. Even now, after twenty years as an aromatherapist, we have classes for aromatherapists with the same teacher, and I won’t give that up. It’s very, very important to me to know, first of all, that I’m truly giving my patients everything I can. I can’t bear the thought of someone from another clinic surprising me with something they know that I don’t.

23:33 Speaker 1 Yes.

23:33 Speaker 2 In terms of knowledge.

23:34 Speaker 1 To stay up to date.

23:35 Speaker 2 I’m not competing with anyone over how effective the treatments are, because every patient finds the practitioner who’s right for them. But when it comes to knowledge, I need to know for myself that I know my field.

23:47 Speaker 1 Yes. It feels good, too. You feel like you’re doing the most you can in terms of what you give.

23:55 Speaker 2 Right. It connects to that need I mentioned earlier to know I’m doing okay.

23:58 Speaker 1 Yes.

23:58 Speaker 2 I need to know that I’m doing okay, that I’m really giving everything I can—the absolute most I can give.

24:07 Speaker 1 Yes. Wait, let’s go back to the story of your becoming religious. I jumped ahead. When did you start observing everything? It’s incredible. It’s a 180-degree change, even though inside you were already completely there. But in practical terms. You know, it’s like when a woman gets married and suddenly has to learn all the laws of family purity. I remember when I got married, I said to myself, wow, so this is what people who become religious feel like when they suddenly learn something new. This is how you live now. Your whole life really changes. Anyone who lives a religious life knows that, in the end, everything is bound up with how you do things. Everything, everything is Torah and mitzvos.

24:46 Speaker 2 Right, but who observes everything?

24:49 Speaker 1 Ah, yes, no.

24:49 Speaker 2 I don’t think I observe everything.

24:51 Speaker 1 I mean that your entire day-to-day life is affected by it. It isn’t just, okay, Shabbos.

24:56 Speaker 2 I didn’t experience it that way. I... it was simply like slipping into a very comfortable pair of shoes. I didn’t feel cramped; I didn’t feel I was giving anything up. I had simply entered a place that was wonderful, a place that was good, a place full of light. It was simply a gift for me, truly a gift.

25:18 Speaker 1 You embraced that change, then.

25:19 Speaker 2 Completely. It was the thing—it was the final seal that needed to be put on all those years of faith.

25:27 Speaker 1 Yes.

25:27 Speaker 2 All that remained was to observe mitzvos. That’s all. The whole foundation was already there. After all, what’s the hard part? The hard part is faith. When do you not break? When things happen and you don’t break? When things happen to you... may we never know of such things, but things happen and you don’t break, and you don’t stop believing, and you’re not even angry with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That’s... that’s the hard part, and we work on it every day.

25:50 Speaker 1 Yes. It’s as if you said, “Just tell me what to do so I can be completely part of this.”

25:54 Speaker 2 Yes. So I can have that connection. After all, what are mitzvos? They’re a connection.

25:57 Speaker 1 Yes.

25:58 Speaker 2 And it’s true that I was connected and attached and everything, but what was I doing for Him? It’s like a husband saying to his wife, “I love you very, very much, but you’ll do the dishes and wash the floor too.” So show me how you love me.

26:11 Speaker 1 Actions, actions.

26:12 Speaker 2 Actions, actions.

26:13 Speaker 1 Wow. So when did you get married?

26:16 Speaker 2 I got married at twenty-eight, to a wonderful man. We spent a long time with Rabbi and Rebbetzin Gerlitzky, living as part of their household.

26:30 Speaker 1 That’s really a foster family. I...

26:32 Speaker 2 What do you mean? They’re adoptive parents. What’s a foster family?

26:34 Speaker 1 Yes.

26:34 Speaker 2 They’re your spiritual parents. That’s...

26:36 Speaker 1 It’s incredible. What a privilege.

26:38 Speaker 2 It’s unbelievable. I don’t even know if they realize how much merit they have.

26:43 Speaker 1 You need to send them the podcast.

26:45 Speaker 2 They’re always busy doing things, so they don’t stop to think about themselves for a moment.

26:50 Speaker 1 Yes.

26:51 Speaker 2 But I don’t know if they understand at all what they mean in our lives. They are our father and mother in every spiritual sense. To begin with, both of us came to our wedding without our fathers, only with our mothers. Our...

27:05 Speaker 1 Wow.

27:06 Speaker 2 Our physical parents, I mean. And it gave things a different feeling altogether, with Rabbi Gerlitzky accompanying my husband, and Rabbi Shmerling, his son-in-law.

27:19 Speaker 1 Wow.

27:20 Speaker 2 And Rebbetzin Mindy, who had just returned to Israel around that time, after she and her husband had spent a year there right after their wedding. They’re family in every sense of the word, and I can’t even describe what they gave me. They raised me all over again.

27:44 Speaker 1 And think how many people there are like you.

27:46 Speaker 2 So many.

27:46 Speaker 1 It’s incredible.

27:47 Speaker 2 So many.

27:47 Speaker 1 Are you still in touch?

27:48 Speaker 2 Of course. She’s my mashpia.

27:50 Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

27:52 Speaker 2 Of course.

27:53 Speaker 1 Wow. No, because I’m thinking, wow, hundreds and thousands of people pass through there. So...

27:57 Speaker 2 First of all, we were fortunate.

27:58 Speaker 1 Right, because maybe not everyone has such a lasting connection.

28:01 Speaker 2 When we were there, Rebbetzin Shmerling, Rebbetzin Gerlitzky’s daughter, had already started taking on some of her work.

28:11 Speaker 1 So you were among her first.

28:13 Speaker 2 I was among Gerlitzky’s last.

28:15 Speaker 1 Yes, among Mindy’s first.

28:16 Speaker 2 Yes, but we spent more time with Gerlitzky.

28:19 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

28:21 Speaker 2 And I think that connection, first of all, is of course still there today. Weddings and happy occasions, baruch Hashem, and when they still held Purim meals in their home, we would go. That was until we started hosting here. It took us a little while to build a circle of people who would come to the meals.

28:43 Speaker 1 So how did you get to Omer?

28:45 Speaker 2 Well, we got married and lived in Nachlaot, Jerusalem. Our sweet Chana’le was born in Jerusalem twenty years ago. She turned twenty this past Nissan.

28:56 Speaker 1 Wow. A Jerusalemite.

28:58 Speaker 2 A Jerusalemite, yes. A Jerusalemite for a little while.

29:01 Speaker 1 Yes.

29:02 Speaker 2 Baruch Hashem, she’s a wonderful girl. And then we pretty much began a journey of moving from place to place. I have to say, one of the reasons we’re in Omer has nothing to do with logic or reason. I mean, ultimately I now know why we’re here, and of course we don’t intend to leave. There’s a purpose here, and a shlichus—both mine personally and the community’s. But all that moving around led us to search a little. We were in Jerusalem, and after Jerusalem we went back to Tel Aviv, to Rabbi Gerlitzky and the community. After Tel Aviv we moved to Ramat Beit Shemesh because we wanted to grow a little stronger in our observance, and we really did grow a great deal there. It was like an education in chassidishkeit, because, baruch Hashem, we had already established our Yiddishkeit pretty well. So that’s what that time was about. Afterward, we went to Cyprus for a year of shlichus with Rabbi Raskin and Rebbetzin Sheindel, and it was wonderful. It gave us a taste of what shlichus is like among Jews who are truly living in the Diaspora. One of the things I remember most vividly—we weren’t eating dairy then, so it didn’t really concern us—but how they waited for dairy products, for Israelis to arrive with a few cheeses and—

30:33 Speaker 1 Yes.

30:33 Speaker 2 And cottage cheese, and some yogurts and dairy treats for the children. How they waited for that. Israelis would simply fill a suitcase with dairy products and bring them over. And I’m so happy to see the community there today—there are simply no words.

30:50 Speaker 1 It’s really growing.

30:51 Speaker 2 Growing? It’s a powerhouse.

30:53 Speaker 1 Yes, amazing. We were just there not long ago. Really.

30:57 Speaker 2 And I learned something so beautiful from Rabbi Raskin that I put into practice in the weekly parsha classes I teach here in Omer. I have to share this. Back then, there weren’t Chabad Houses in every city in Cyprus; there was only one in Larnaca. I remember he would travel to teach a class in Nicosia, which is quite a distance.

31:20 Speaker 1 Nicosia is in the—

31:21 Speaker 2 Farther north.

31:22 Speaker 1 To the north.

31:22 Speaker 2 Yes. And we would always ask him, “What if just one person comes? Why make that trip?” He would say, “There’s a class in Nicosia, and that’s that. There’s a class in Nicosia.” And today, when women come to my class and one shows up while another doesn’t, and I’m left with just one, I say, “Ma’am, there’s a class in Omer.”

31:49 Speaker 1 Wow.

31:49 Speaker 2 “There’s a weekly parsha class in Omer today. Period. That’s it.”

31:53 Speaker 1 Wow, wow, wow. That’s such a clear, simple point, but it’s a switch in your thinking.

32:00 Speaker 2 A switch? Think about it: do you feel like giving up an hour right now? Leaving the children? Leaving your wife with the little kids? We all know what that means, how important it sometimes is for a father to be home.

32:07 Speaker 1 It’s as though the fact that something exists is itself—

32:10 Speaker 2 And it does exist. And look, now there’s a Chabad House in Nicosia.

32:13 Speaker 1 He doesn’t treat it lightly. Wow.

32:14 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And I think it’s really a lesson for so many things in life, even something as... Let’s take the most mundane example for a moment: a diet. I’m taking care of my health now, and that’s that. End of discussion.

32:31 Speaker 1 Right.

32:32 Speaker 2 There’s no “Okay, but there’s an event, so I’ll grab a bit of this and a bit of that.”

32:37 Speaker 1 Maybe yes, maybe no.

32:37 Speaker 2 No. I’m taking care of my health now.

32:40 Speaker 1 Establish it. Yes.

32:41 Speaker 2 Establish it. It’s a fact; it exists. And when it’s a fact and it exists, it gets done.

32:48 Speaker 1 Amazing. Wow, amazing.

32:49 Speaker 2 Absolutely. He really taught me a lesson for life.

32:52 Speaker 1 You know, it’s moving to see that you haven’t finished your journey, but you’ve been to several places. You lived here, you lived there, you lived somewhere else, and from each place you’ve taken an insight that changed your life. There are people who accompany you in your heart, or not only in your heart, to this day. You say, “We were here, we were there,” but it’s as though you spent the whole journey packing things away, gathering more and more to carry with you. It’s amazing.

33:18 Speaker 2 That’s very much who I am, but I’m learning all the time. I don’t just study academic subjects. I love learning. I love learning from people. What’s more, we lived in Ramat Beit Shemesh during one of those moves, and I don’t want to tell you what kind of meals my husband got at that time.

33:38 Speaker 1 Okay.

33:38 Speaker 2 When he came home from work. But I can tell you what happened afterward. It was simply important to me that our kitchen be a kitchen that feeds people. And by then, baruch Hashem, we had three children, and I decided I was going to learn to cook good, healthy, tasty home food. Simple as that. I went to my Moroccan neighbor, I went to my Yemenite neighbor, I went to my Jerusalemite neighbor. I would sit with them on Thursdays, rotating between their homes, and that’s how I learned to cook.

34:09 Speaker 1 Wow, wow, wow, wow! How wonderful!

34:12 Speaker 2 It matters to me. It matters a great deal.

34:13 Speaker 1 You know how people talk about sitting on the counter next to their grandmother while she cooked? You sat with the neighbors.

34:16 Speaker 2 I had that too. I would sit next to my grandmother as well. They would bring me Iraqi food here all the time.

34:21 Speaker 1 Wow. So your kitchen is really multicultural.

34:25 Speaker 2 Well, I’m half Iraqi and half Russian.

34:28 Speaker 1 Oh, that already...

34:29 Speaker 2 Oh, that’s jellied calf’s foot alongside kubbeh.

34:32 Speaker 1 There you go. Somehow it works.

34:33 Speaker 2 It works.

34:35 Speaker 1 Wow, that’s incredible. You really live by “From all my teachers I have gained wisdom.”

34:43 Speaker 2 I hope so.

34:44 Speaker 1 As a way of life.

34:45 Speaker 2 I really hope so.

34:47 Speaker 1 That takes courage, listen.

34:47 Speaker 2 I haven’t reached the “gained wisdom” part yet.

34:49 Speaker 1 Yes. No, that takes a lifetime.

34:51 Speaker 2 A lifetime.

34:52 Speaker 1 It takes courage to knock on a neighbor’s door and say, “Listen, I want to learn how to cook from you.”

34:56 Speaker 2 Actually, they invited me. They knew. I think they really did it wholeheartedly and with love. And I remember my Yemenite neighbor, Rachel. She taught me that after a fast, you make your husband lahoh with Yemenite soup. It has all the food groups, and he gets everything he needs. For years, after fasts, we had lahoh with Yemenite soup here.

35:26 Speaker 1 How about that! Wow, that’s amazing. Do you know how to make jachnun?

35:30 Speaker 2 I don’t want to know how to make jachnun.

35:31 Speaker 1 Right.

35:32 Speaker 2 I don’t want to know.

35:34 Speaker 1 Just a little margarine, no big deal.

35:35 Speaker 2 Yes.

35:36 Speaker 1 My parents just moved after more than thirty years, but for years a family has lived across the hall from them. It feels funny to say “lived”; to me, they still live there. They’re Yemenite Chabadniks, friends who are close to our hearts. They have three daughters exactly the ages of me and my two sisters. We practically grew up in each other’s homes. And every Shabbos morning, of course, there would be a knock at the door: jachnun. Do you see why I had to work so hard on my eating habits?

35:59 Speaker 2 How did I not gobble it all up?

36:01 Speaker 1 To me, it’s really a food from my childhood, even though I have no idea how to make it. But...

36:08 Speaker 2 Lots of folding dough, and lots of margarine.

36:10 Speaker 1 Patience and a good pair of hands, basically.

36:13 Speaker 2 Yes.

36:13 Speaker 1 How about that.

36:14 Speaker 2 Or Rami Levy.

36:16 Speaker 1 That’s not the same thing.

36:17 Speaker 2 No, no.

36:18 Speaker 1 For a moment I’m putting myself in your neighbors’ shoes, and I’m thinking how sweet they were. They simply saw you and invited you in, and that’s not something to take for granted today. True, you’re talking about many years ago, but I think even then, you know, there were people who were more focused on themselves and their own homes, and there were those who opened the door, literally and figuratively.

36:40 Speaker 2 Yes, but I open my door too, and I think you draw people toward you who are like you. First of all, I ask—

36:45 Speaker 1 You’re wonderful at that, Sheindel.

36:46 Speaker 2 Every morning after davening. Every morning, I ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “Please surround me with people who love me and appreciate me.”

36:54 Speaker 1 Wow.

36:54 Speaker 2 That’s very, very important to me. In return, I also try, in every interaction, to remember first of all that I’m not looking at a person. I’m looking at a soul. And that’s very, very hard. It isn’t easy. I say it, and it sounds as though I’m somehow—

37:11 Speaker 1 Living that way effortlessly.

37:12 Speaker 2 Yes. It’s really not simple, because people cut you off on the road, and people annoy you, and there are all kinds of unpleasant interactions. And I keep repeating in my ear, “That’s a soul, that’s a soul, that’s a soul.” Now, I can’t say I’m always such an idealist that I work through all of that and act accordingly. Sometimes I just step back, and that’s okay too.

37:40 Speaker 1 Right.

37:41 Speaker 2 But I know that each morning, I try to relate to people as souls wrapped in bodies, and not the other way around.

37:52 Speaker 1 Amazing. That’s the whole essence of chapter 32 in Tanya: to regard the body—

37:56 Speaker 2 I’ll trust you on that.

37:57 Speaker 1 For his body to become despicable and repugnant in his eyes, so that his joy will be the joy of the soul alone. That’s what the Alter Rebbe says. We’re taking this from chapter 31. Then in chapter 32 he says: Everything we learned in chapter 31—focusing less on the body and more on the soul—is a straight and easy path to fulfilling the mitzvah of “Love your fellow as yourself.”

38:15 Speaker 2 Come on, if only we’d get there already—

38:16 Speaker 1 And then he explains—

38:17 Speaker 2 Finally.

38:17 Speaker 1 Yes, we’re all one soul. And once we manage to see the truth, he says—because that is the truth. The truth is that we’re all one soul, and the body is... the body is temporary. The body is—what is the body? The body is holy. It has a very important place in Judaism, but—

38:30 Speaker 2 And I live a life that gives it a great deal of respect.

38:32 Speaker 1 Yes, exactly. You bring that into—

38:34 Speaker 2 Completely. I’m very—

38:35 Speaker 1 Yes.

38:35 Speaker 2 Good at giving it respect.

38:36 Speaker 1 But truly managing to peel away the layers and see the soul—that’s the essence of Ahavas Yisroel.

38:42 Speaker 2 It doesn’t always work, you know.

38:43 Speaker 1 It takes work, like anything else. If it were that easy, the world would look different.

38:48 Speaker 2 We’d already have the Geulah. What do you mean?

38:50 Speaker 1 I think that’s the biggest task right now. Wow. Wait, okay, I keep pulling you off in another direction.

38:57 Speaker 2 And I—

38:58 Speaker 1 We’re in Cyprus, we’re in Cyprus.

39:00 Speaker 2 Cyprus. Wow, listen, Rebbetzin Sheindel. I can’t praise her enough.

39:08 Speaker 1 A remarkable person.

39:09 Speaker 2 A remarkable person, very driven, with excellent taste.

39:14 Speaker 1 Yes.

39:14 Speaker 2 And really, excellent taste. She spares no expense for the community, for the women in the community. Did you see the mikvah there?

39:22 Speaker 1 No.

39:24 Speaker 2 Why don’t we have ones like that?

39:25 Speaker 1 We passed by there. We were mostly in Paphos, but they came over. I met Sheindel there in Paphos. Why don’t we have ones like that in Israel? That’s a subject for a separate podcast. You know, my previous podcast was actually with an architect who designs mikvahs, so I need to get back to her and tell her—

39:38 Speaker 2 To go see it, and why do you—

39:40 Speaker 1 She designed a mikvah in Beersheba. I need to find it and send it to you.

39:44 Speaker 2 Okay.

39:46 Speaker 1 That’s true. You see the mikvahs abroad and you think, I want to be one of those people they’re trying to persuade to come, too. And there really are some in Israel as well. It’s starting to happen.

39:56 Speaker 2 It’s starting, yes.

39:57 Speaker 1 There’s room for improvement.

39:59 Speaker 2 Yes, but with her, everything really is done with taste and tremendous, tremendous generosity. She doesn’t do anything on a small scale, nothing at all. Everything is truly abundant. And baruch Hashem, they receive many times over in spiritual blessings. I hope materially as well.

40:19 Speaker 1 Wow. So you were there for a year.

40:20 Speaker 2 We were there for a year. Then we returned to Israel, to Omer.

40:24 Speaker 1 You basically came home, but it was so different from what you’d left.

40:28 Speaker 2 I have to say that even during our wandering before that return, we made short visits to Omer. Say there was a two-month gap between rental apartments. So we stayed with my mother, and we came here, and we stayed with my husband’s mother, and so on. So there were visits. And when we came back from Cyprus, we actually didn’t want to—what do I mean, “we didn’t want to”? I didn’t want to settle here. We were thinking about whether to buy a house here, and I told my husband, in all the innocence of youth, “I’m not buying here because I don’t intend to settle here.” Well, we’re settled here now, without a house of our own at the moment.

41:13 Speaker 1 It’s funny how our minds work, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is like...

41:17 Speaker 2 Who do you think you are?

41:18 Speaker 1 Exactly, exactly. Those things we say: “I would never,” “I’m this”—you know.

41:22 Speaker 2 But the truth is, in my life I’ve noticed that precisely the things I was most adamant about turned out exactly the opposite of what—

41:32 Speaker 1 Maybe, maybe that’s the secret?

41:33 Speaker 2 That’s the secret.

41:34 Speaker 1 Say the opposite.

41:34 Speaker 2 First of all, keep quiet.

41:36 Speaker 1 Right. I’m saying, the very fact that we say, “I would never.” All those sweeping statements—

41:40 Speaker 2 Completely.

41:40 Speaker 1 And that certainty. Come on, who are we? What do we know? What power do we have? Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I learned that firsthand a year ago, you know.

41:51 Speaker 2 Don’t sa—never say never.

41:53 Speaker 1 Exactly.

41:54 Speaker 2 And keep Hashem present in your life all the time. He’s with you; He’s always with you. He’s always with us, after all. When we feel separated, that’s our feeling of separation. It’s not—there’s that story, correct me if I’m wrong, in Bereishis, where Avraham sends Hagar and Yishmael into the desert, and she doesn’t want to see him die. So she puts him at a distance and hides. And then it says, “Hashem opened Hagar’s eyes, and she saw the well.”

42:23 Speaker 1 Yes.

42:23 Speaker 2 It doesn’t say Hashem created a well.

42:25 Speaker 1 Yes.

42:25 Speaker 2 He just opened her eyes.

42:27 Speaker 1 Right.

42:27 Speaker 2 And there it was. I very much believe, for example, that we are in the Geulah, and there are just various things we need to take away, remove, and clear away. Then everyone will actually see it.

42:41 Speaker 1 That’s so true, because the world is good at its core, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu mixed evil into it, mixed evil into it, so that we would have work to do here. That’s the purpose of the world. But it’s our choice what to focus on. I also think that, in general, we need to give Hakadosh Boruch Hu room in our lives. Truly, He’s here. Give Him room; let Him help. Let Him help you. Let Him calm you; trust Him. Exactly. I keep thinking of earlier podcasts I did with Batsheva Dargan. She really made this subject of trust in Hashem her project, and it changes lives.

43:11 Speaker 2 It changes lives.

43:12 Speaker 1 Hashem is saying, as it were, “Relax, relax, everything is okay. You’re not—” And in a way, that’s the essence of Chassidus: taking my “I,” calming it down, and understanding, “No, sweetheart, you’re not. You’re G-dliness. Hakadosh Boruch Hu.”

43:26 Speaker 2 What is “I”? “I” is nothing.

43:27 Speaker 1 Exactly.

43:28 Speaker 2 That’s it. That’s exactly it.

43:30 Speaker 1 Amazing.

43:30 Speaker 2 It’s constantly showing you that this “I” is nothing. It’s nothing at all.

43:34 Speaker 1 Exactly. So apparently you said you’d never live in Omer.

43:38 Speaker 2 And we’ve been here ever since.

43:39 Speaker 1 I hope you said “bli neder.”

43:41 Speaker 2 I hope so too.

43:43 Speaker 1 How funny.

43:43 Speaker 2 Oh, we had a brief stint in Elad, in an attempt to make things a bit easier for my husband. He was working in Airport City then. He’s a software developer, and he worked there at some high-tech company, and there was some thought of moving back. But I guess closed communities just aren’t in my nature.

44:07 Speaker 1 Elad is an entirely Chareidi city, right?

44:09 Speaker 2 Entirely Chareidi.

44:09 Speaker 1 I don’t think I’ve ever been there. It’s one of those places where... I think you’re about to tell me not to eat at their homes.

44:16 Speaker 2 I’m trying to hold back.

44:18 Speaker 1 Right. But, okay, you know, there’s something to be said for trying out different places. How would you know a community wasn’t right for you if you hadn’t tried it?

44:27 Speaker 2 Look, Ramat Beit Shemesh really did suit me. It was... If I had to choose to live in a community, I’d live in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

44:37 Speaker 1 Alef.

44:38 Speaker 2 Oh, right.

44:39 Speaker 1 Yes. Because every section there is a different world, you know.

44:41 Speaker 2 Of course. I was there before Gimmel existed. There were Alef and Beis, by the way. There’s probably a Daled by now, too.

44:47 Speaker 1 Yes.

44:47 Speaker 2 Oh, really?

44:48 Speaker 1 Yes. It’s getting closer. Little by little, two more are coming here.

44:50 Speaker 2 I looked into it. So I could live in a place like that.

44:58 Speaker 1 Yes.

44:58 Speaker 2 I’d rather not. It’s not right for my personality.

45:01 Speaker 1 So you arrived here with three children already. It’s not—

45:03 Speaker 2 We arrived here with three. Chaya Mushka was born in Omer. Meir Shlomo was born during our stint in Elad.

45:14 Speaker 1 Each child reminds you of a different place.

45:16 Speaker 2 Almost every... I’ve been to quite a few hospitals by now. I can give recommendations to anyone who wants to give birth.

45:23 Speaker 1 How nice. I’ve mixed it up too. I gave birth in four different ones.

45:27 Speaker 2 Me too.

45:28 Speaker 1 How funny.

45:28 Speaker 2 Even the two who were born in Jerusalem, Yehoshua and Chanele—Yehoshua was born when we lived in Ramat Beit Shemesh, so he was born in Jerusalem too. He was born at Hadassah Ein Kerem, and Chanele at Bikur Cholim. Bikur Cholim wins.

45:38 Speaker 1 I guess we like variety.

45:41 Speaker 2 Yes. You know, “In the way a person...”

45:43 Speaker 1 Yes.

45:43 Speaker 2 “...wishes to go, he is led.”

45:45 Speaker 1 Wait, and when you arrived here, were you already trained in your profession? Yes.

45:49 Speaker 2 Of course.

45:50 Speaker 1 So you knew right away what you were going to do.

45:52 Speaker 2 First I waited a little for the children to grow up. I did see clients for treatments, but not as intensively as I do today. I saw clients and waited for the children to grow a little. At forty, when we had five children, I properly opened the business. But then I got a surprise: another child.

46:13 Speaker 1 A beautiful surprise.

46:14 Speaker 2 A wonderful surprise.

46:15 Speaker 1 Wow.

46:15 Speaker 2 Menachem Mendel, that sweet tzaddik.

46:16 Speaker 1 Wait, he was born when you were forty?

46:18 Speaker 2 Forty-three.

46:18 Speaker 1 Wow.

46:19 Speaker 2 Yes.

46:20 Speaker 1 How old is he? Wait a second. Let me count... He’s seven.

46:22 Speaker 2 Seven.

46:24 Speaker 1 How funny.

46:25 Speaker 2 Yes, a sweet child, a real, sweet tzaddik. Baruch Hashem, we were blessed. He’s a gift. There are no words to describe it. At an age when you want another child but are almost embarrassed to ask.

46:38 Speaker 1 Yes.

46:39 Speaker 2 So he really is a gift. The clinic went on hold for a little while, but because I was already doing it, I managed with a great deal of help. I had two children in homeschooling then, and that helped a great deal.

46:56 Speaker 1 Wow. And then afterward, when... Wait, is he still being homeschooled?

47:00 Speaker 2 No. He’s at a Talmud Torah in Beersheba, together with his older brother, Meir Shlomo.

47:06 Speaker 1 And now you’re fully devoted to the business.

47:08 Speaker 2 Fully devoted to the business.

47:09 Speaker 1 During the morning hours.

47:11 Speaker 2 Actually, no. The truth is that, baruch Hashem, since COVID my husband has worked from home. There’s one day a week when he’s out, but he works from home, and it’s simply one of those prayers that was answered exactly as we asked. Our dream was for him to work from home.

47:30 Speaker 1 Where did he work before that?

47:32 Speaker 2 In an office, just at the same place. He worked in the office.

47:36 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

47:37 Speaker 2 Now he also has a different job here in Be’er Sheva, but in the same field, I mean.

47:40 Speaker 1 Right.

47:41 Speaker 2 And it really was a dream of ours, and there it is—it came true thanks to COVID, baruch Hashem.

47:46 Speaker 1 So many things happened because of COVID. It’s just—

47:49 Speaker 2 But honestly, mostly good things, no?

47:52 Speaker 1 I think—I think there isn’t a podcast where COVID hasn’t come up in some context. It changed something, shifted something, revealed something. I’m also inclined to say that so many good things happened, but I feel a little uncomfortable saying it, because a lot of bad things happened too.

48:06 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

48:07 Speaker 1 But yes. I think every shake-up is—

48:10 Speaker 2 An earthquake that rebuilds things completely.

48:13 Speaker 1 Exactly.

48:14 Speaker 2 No question.

48:15 Speaker 1 Absolutely. Wait, is the clinic here at your house?

48:16 Speaker 2 The clinic is in the garden.

48:18 Speaker 1 Wow. So what do you do day to day?

48:22 Speaker 2 Well, first of all, the clinic is open at night too. Some women really prefer to come after a day’s work and relax. Sometimes I leave the clinic at midnight or one in the morning.

48:34 Speaker 1 Wow.

48:34 Speaker 2 And I’m perfectly fine with that.

48:36 Speaker 1 That’s something.

48:37 Speaker 2 It’s my happy place, as they say.

48:40 Speaker 1 You don’t feel like you’re...

48:41 Speaker 2 I’m not working. I absolutely—

48:43 Speaker 1 That’s the dream.

48:44 Speaker 2 I’m so grateful to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There’s nothing like it. I couldn’t do anything else.

48:51 Speaker 1 Wow.

48:52 Speaker 2 I couldn’t do anything else. I can’t—I can’t go out to work.

48:59 Speaker 1 How does the saying go? Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

49:02 Speaker 2 That’s exactly it, and I’m hugely grateful to the Creator. I really don’t feel like I’m working. I treat people, and I love it, and I’m also much calmer there. It simply works both ways. I’m treating women and doing something good for them, and it helps me too.

49:21 Speaker 1 What you do is really a mind-body thing.

49:24 Speaker 2 We’re entirely mind and body. Completely.

49:28 Speaker 1 Yes, but everything about you—even the music you play, the scents—it feels like something for the soul. I—

49:36 Speaker 2 Listen, cortisol is a hormone that rises in our blood when we’re under stress. It’s what causes that breathlessness, anxiety and restlessness. Now, when blood sugar rises, women and men experience the same thing. It’s very much mind and body, really. By the way, there are very natural ways to treat these things. There are very, very natural approaches: supplements, and changing your diet helps a great deal.

50:13 Speaker 1 Wow. Do women usually come to you for a course of treatment—say, once a week or once a month—or do they also come for a one-off visit?

50:19 Speaker 2 Um, not so much for a one-off visit. Not so much.

50:23 Speaker 1 Right, because it’s very... I can’t find the word.

50:27 Speaker 2 There’s an element of maintenance. I think it really—

50:33 Speaker 1 Holistic. Oh, that’s the word I wanted: holistic.

50:34 Speaker 2 Holistic.

50:35 Speaker 1 What you do approaches it from several angles. There’s this, and then nutrition—

50:37 Speaker 2 It has to come from several angles. It can’t be—

50:39 Speaker 1 It’s a kind of 10,000-kilometer service, if you can call it that.

50:42 Speaker 2 Yes, and it can’t be any other way. It all has to go together. For example, when someone comes to me for acne treatment but doesn’t want to stop consuming milk, I say, “Okay, but I can’t take responsibility for the results.”

50:55 Speaker 1 I see. Yes.

50:56 Speaker 2 Milk means hormones. Period. Acne means hormones. Period.

51:03 Speaker 1 Treating the skin without addressing that is like putting on a Band-Aid.

51:05 Speaker 2 Isn’t all that money a shame? Aren’t all those treatments a shame? People pay so much money—what a shame.

51:10 Speaker 1 I think milk, for example, is one of those beliefs people grow up with. It’s very, very hard to change and ask yourself, “What would my life look like without milk?”

51:18 Speaker 2 Right.

51:19 Speaker 1 And it often takes people time to move past that.

51:22 Speaker 2 Right. First of all, I’ve been there, so I can really understand it.

51:24 Speaker 1 Yes.

51:24 Speaker 2 When Chana’le and Voloik were little, there was, to be precise, less than a year between them.

51:31 Speaker 1 Wow.

51:32 Speaker 2 And a few days. But when they were little, they had a lot of breathing trouble, and we consumed milk. I remember taking them to an acupuncturist in Tel Aviv. Voloik was born in Tel Aviv, by the way—we made the rounds of hospitals. And he told me, “Listen, they’re simply allergic to milk. Cut back.” I said to him, “I can’t cut back on milk. How am I supposed to do that?” It’s simply a matter of awareness and readiness.

52:01 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

52:02 Speaker 2 You have to be ready to take in the information and understand what milk is, what you’re actually giving your child, and be willing to make that change—to understand that it’s for your own good. And listen, touch wood, yes.

52:16 Speaker 1 I think it really starts with being willing to say, “Everything I thought I knew until now is open to question.”

52:22 Speaker 2 In every area, though.

52:23 Speaker 1 Yes, true, but you have to be ready for that. Not everyone is.

52:27 Speaker 2 I don’t know if it was still like this when you were little, but in my day, when I was a baby, there was no Materna formula. I was born in the seventies. They gave us milk with semolina; that’s what we grew up on.

52:38 Speaker 1 Cow’s milk, you mean.

52:39 Speaker 2 Of course. Cow’s milk with semolina, so we’d sleep well and not wake our parents at night.

52:43 Speaker 1 Wow.

52:44 Speaker 2 A lot of it. We woke them up anyway.

52:48 Speaker 1 Wow. Personally, I don’t drink milk. It’s been maybe twelve years now. It just—

52:54 Speaker 2 You can see it in your face.

52:55 Speaker 1 Really? I’m glad to hear that. It wasn’t because of my face. It mainly gave me migraines. I think that when you’re more aware of yourself and how you feel, and you experiment to find out what’s good for you, you discover things, and then you have no choice but to accept them.

53:11 Speaker 2 Yes, but it’s dynamic too. For example, I was vegan for seven years, and it was wonderful for me. I was fine and felt really, really good—until I didn’t.

53:20 Speaker 1 Yes.

53:21 Speaker 2 And when I understood what was happening, I knew I had to eat eggs and some protein. I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of meat, and certainly not poultry, which to me is... If you’re going to eat it, red meat is better. But I do eat meat now and then.

53:36 Speaker 1 It’s dynamic. It can change.

53:39 Speaker 2 It changes, and our bodies change, and our needs change—especially as women, through childbirth, after childbirth, menopause. These things change a great deal.

53:50 Speaker 1 Childbirth does something to the body?

53:52 Speaker 2 I hadn’t heard that.

53:54 Speaker 1 Just a little thing. A minor upheaval.

53:56 Speaker 2 Yes, from forty-nine to...

53:59 Speaker 1 It’s wild. Just yesterday I was thinking about how—this is random, not related at all—but how it’s simply obvious to a woman that she wants to give birth. Even though she knows how wild it is, she does it again and again.

54:12 Speaker 2 First of all, unfortunately, it isn’t obvious to every woman that she wants to give birth. I meet women like that.

54:16 Speaker 1 Really?

54:17 Speaker 2 Yes. I meet women like that, and it isn’t obvious to them. It’s terribly sad, because it comes from a difficult place.

54:24 Speaker 1 You mean parenting and that whole new thing?

54:27 Speaker 2 I mean—they genuinely don’t want to give birth. They don’t like children; they don’t want children.

54:31 Speaker 1 Wow. I think it’s one of those things someone suddenly came up with, and then people say, “Wait, maybe I’m like that too.” I mean, it’s—

54:37 Speaker 2 There’s no shortage of things someone came up with and then everyone went along with—

54:40 Speaker 1 It’s not our nature. It isn’t.

54:42 Speaker 2 No, it isn’t natural. Look how many women fight to be able to give birth.

54:46 Speaker 1 Yes.

54:47 Speaker 2 They never stop fighting. I see women like that at the clinic too.

54:51 Speaker 1 Do you help with that?

54:52 Speaker 2 With Hashem’s help. It’s called—yes, it’s called, uh...

54:55 Speaker 1 I thought so. There’s something a little mystical about what you do, isn’t there?

54:58 Speaker 2 I hope not. I try very hard to keep things grounded.

55:00 Speaker 1 Healing and that sort of thing—

55:02 Speaker 2 First of all, healing—listen, I have to, I have to address that.

55:06 Speaker 1 Okay.

55:07 Speaker 2 Healing is something that’s forbidden.

55:08 Speaker 1 Really?

55:09 Speaker 2 Yes.

55:10 Speaker 1 Wow.

55:10 Speaker 2 Healing and yoga are forbidden. As for yoga, we all know about klipas nogah, with its good and evil, and the three impure kelipos. Yoga comes from the three impure kelipos. It’s like taking a pig and deciding to slaughter it according to kosher shechitah, salt it and purify it. You can’t; there’s no such thing. Yoga isn’t kosher. It comes from the three impure kelipos. Go do Pilates. Go running. Miri Forest has amazing running groups.

55:44 Speaker 1 Podcast number twenty-six.

55:48 Speaker 2 How did I miss that?

55:49 Speaker 1 You missed it. Never mind—you’ll make up for it.

55:50 Speaker 2 Of course.

55:53 Speaker 1 Run, run.

55:54 Speaker 2 Run—honestly, I don’t run so much. I walk more, and I do more walking and running workouts at home. But—

56:02 Speaker 1 The secret is finding what suits you.

56:04 Speaker 2 Absolutely. Absolutely. And Pilates really is good for everyone. To my mind, Pilates is the thing that works best with a woman’s body.

56:14 Speaker 1 It’s very much a women’s sport.

56:15 Speaker 2 It is... yes, and it also... By the way, I sent my sons to Pilates classes on the machines too, and I think it simply builds your core. And which of us doesn’t need to build our core—both our muscles and our inner selves?

56:30 Speaker 1 Yes, absolutely.

56:31 Speaker 2 Who doesn’t need that?

56:32 Speaker 1 I started a few months ago, and it’s just addictive. At first it looks like some kind of Inquisition torture equipment.

56:38 Speaker 2 It still does.

56:40 Speaker 1 No, but when you feel it for yourself...

56:43 Speaker 2 It hurts—

56:43 Speaker 1 You understand why.

56:44 Speaker 2 It’s intense, and there’s no mercy for anyone.

56:48 Speaker 1 But it’s—

56:49 Speaker 2 But it’s good. It’s good for your body and your mind. Who needs psychologists?

56:55 Speaker 1 Yeah.

56:55 Speaker 2 I have my Pilates.

56:56 Speaker 1 Totally. Wow, how did we get onto this?

56:59 Speaker 2 How did we get onto this?

57:00 Speaker 1 We started with healing, then yoga, and—

57:01 Speaker 2 I’m fifty. You’re asking me how we got onto this? You’re supposed to remember how we got onto this.

57:04 Speaker 1 I brought up the healing, and then we got to yoga. I said you struck me as a bit mystical—

57:09 Speaker 2 Right.

57:09 Speaker 1 With your treatments, that you have... I think you have this... Some people have a kind of deeper spiritual understanding of the world, don’t they?

57:16 Speaker 2 I think it’s really... I don’t like those mystical places. They’re hard for me. They certainly exist, they’re certainly there, but I think that because I’m very, very, very spiritual—

57:30 Speaker 1 That’s it, you see it.

57:31 Speaker 2 I don’t want to deal with that. I only want to deal with what grounds me, with what’s physical—

57:37 Speaker 1 Yeah.

57:37 Speaker 2 And a lot of the time I pull myself down into the physical world.

57:40 Speaker 1 That sense of being overwhelmed.

57:41 Speaker 2 Uh—

57:42 Speaker 1 I mean, I think you see and notice things other people don’t notice. You’re sensitive to that.

57:48 Speaker 2 I’m very sensitive.

57:49 Speaker 1 That’s something.

57:50 Speaker 2 I know who’s coming into my room before they walk in.

57:54 Speaker 1 Wow.

57:54 Speaker 2 But I don’t like being in that place. By the way, all the moving around is why we chose to come back to Omer instead of moving to Tzfas, which was an option. Tzfas and I can’t—

58:07 Speaker 1 It’s too, uh—

58:08 Speaker 2 Live together.

58:09 Speaker 1 Too spiritual for you.

58:09 Speaker 2 Whew, you’d fly away there.

58:11 Speaker 1 You’d need a parachute. You can fly there too, it’s...

58:14 Speaker 2 Totally. It’s not for me. I need to stay grounded.

58:17 Speaker 1 Yeah, and that self-awareness is amazing. Not everyone knows what they need and what they...

58:23 Speaker 2 It comes with maturity.

58:24 Speaker 1 Yeah.

58:24 Speaker 2 It comes with age and a great deal of experience. A great deal of experience. And I think there’s so much value in wanting to learn, because you don’t just let experiences pass you by. You take something from them, process them, and carry them forward.

58:42 Speaker 1 Totally. You go deeper, draw conclusions, and it—

58:45 Speaker 2 Yeah.

58:45 Speaker 1 Builds up over time.

58:46 Speaker 2 Exactly.

58:47 Speaker 1 How amazing. Tell me, um, what did I want to ask you? What’s it like coming back here wearing a sheitel?

58:56 Speaker 2 Very ambivalent. Very ambivalent. First of all, I have to say... I don’t know if every baal teshuvah experiences this, but it’s definitely been my experience: you never belong anywhere. That feeling can be unpleasant, unless you remind yourself that you have the Creator, that He’s always present and with you, accompanying you day by day, minute by minute, hour by hour, and that you belong to Him one hundred percent. And there’s the Rebbe.

59:26 Speaker 1 Yeah. What do you mean?

59:27 Speaker 2 The Rebbe is... Sometimes I think about the hard times I’ve had. You can sometimes grumble and be angry at the Creator, but you can’t be angry at the Rebbe, because you know he’s on your side. He’s always speaking up for you. He’s always with you. He always wants things to be good for you. Of course the Creator does too—I’m talking about our personal experience as human beings.

59:48 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

59:50 Speaker 2 And without the Rebbe, I don’t know how I would have done it.

59:54 Speaker 1 Wow. What you’re saying about belonging is interesting, because belonging is such a huge thing in our lives. In a way, it’s as though you’re giving that up.

1:00:03 Speaker 2 No, I’m giving it up in one sense, but I do belong.

1:00:08 Speaker 1 Yeah, no, but the way it feels to you—

1:00:09 Speaker 2 The feeling—

1:00:10 Speaker 1 Even though there are lots of baalei teshuvah, maybe each one really comes from a different place, and—

1:00:15 Speaker 2 The day-to-day feeling isn’t simple, because I see it with the children too. In some places, the children of baalei teshuvah are the children of baalei teshuvah. They’re not the children of people who grew up Chabad. That’s just how it is.

1:00:27 Speaker 1 No matter how much... yeah.

1:00:28 Speaker 2 It’s unpleasant, but that’s what it is. And in Omer, I’m the frum woman, and I’m really not one of them. I might do Pilates with all the women here, and people might see me around now and then, but that’s where it ends. I’m the frum woman, and I wear a sheitel. I’m not just a little bit frum.

1:00:49 Speaker 1 Do you have childhood friends who live here too?

1:00:52 Speaker 2 Of course.

1:00:53 Speaker 1 So who... who comes to your Tanya class—or your weekly parsha class, let’s put it that way?

1:00:57 Speaker 2 Actually, not the girls I grew up with. They’ve mostly stayed with the way we were raised.

1:01:03 Speaker 1 We’re friends.

1:01:03 Speaker 2 Yeah, we talk, we meet in different places, but the women who’ve become closer are mostly people who moved to Omer more recently.

1:01:14 Speaker 1 That’s something. It’s like you have several different versions of yourself here.

1:01:19 Speaker 2 You have no idea.

1:01:20 Speaker 1 You’re split between them—a split personality.

1:01:22 Speaker 2 Really.

1:01:23 Speaker 1 You’ve been connected to this place since childhood, but you’re completely different from the rest of the landscape.

1:01:29 Speaker 2 Right, but isn’t that the essence of is’hapcha? Transformation.

1:01:34 Speaker 1 Yeah, that you’re constantly going against your nature.

1:01:37 Speaker 2 You’re constantly turning what you are into something else, something better, more elevated.

1:01:44 Speaker 1 You live that in a tangible way.

1:01:45 Speaker 2 Uh, yes, yes.

1:01:47 Speaker 1 So you work with women. Women from all kinds of... You’re about to tell me even Bedouin women come to you for treatment.

1:01:55 Speaker 2 They used to come.

1:01:56 Speaker 1 Really?

1:01:57 Speaker 2 Yes, they used to come. Then there was some operation in Gaza, and they started rioting here and throwing stones at the exit from Omer.

1:02:08 Speaker 1 What, something recent?

1:02:09 Speaker 2 No, years ago. I just can’t remember the—

1:02:12 Speaker 1 Maybe Operation Protective Edge? That was almost nine years ago.

1:02:15 Speaker 2 No, later. A smaller operation.

1:02:17 Speaker 1 Operation Guardian of the Walls?

1:02:18 Speaker 2 Could be.

1:02:19 Speaker 1 Two years ago.

1:02:20 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s the one.

1:02:21 Speaker 1 It was that week.

1:02:23 Speaker 2 Exactly, that’s it. And then they rioted terribly here. They burned tires, and we couldn’t drive our Mushka down to her school. It was really very, very... It’s not that we don’t know who they are. We do. But then it’s right in your face, as they say.

1:02:43 Speaker 1 Yeah, you can’t push it out of your mind.

1:02:45 Speaker 2 You see it. That’s it.

1:02:47 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:02:48 Speaker 2 And when that happened, they stopped coming.

1:02:50 Speaker 1 Wait, but have you ever had someone contact you and had to tell her, “Sorry, I don’t take people from your community”?

1:02:54 Speaker 2 No, I never do that.

1:02:56 Speaker 1 Right. It’s very sensitive.

1:02:58 Speaker 2 Uh—

1:02:58 Speaker 1 A little dangerous, even, I’d say.

1:03:00 Speaker 2 First of all, I’m not afraid. I have to say, maybe because I grew up here, I feel this is entirely my territory, that this is my land. There’s no room for negotiation about it. This is mine. I’m not even afraid of thieves. People here close their doors and lock them. I don’t lock my door.

1:03:19 Speaker 1 Everyone’s welcome.

1:03:21 Speaker 2 And if I see a Bedouin thief in the house, so what? It doesn’t bother me. These days—

1:03:26 Speaker 1 What are the Bedouins here like? It’s not like East Jerusalem; it’s a somewhat different kind of place.

1:03:31 Speaker 2 They’re not Arabs, but—

1:03:33 Speaker 1 More tribal. They have that whole—

1:03:35 Speaker 2 First of all, there was a tribe here that... Yes, they stole a bit, but that was their nature. They were doing what came naturally to them. Let’s—

1:03:45 Speaker 1 [unclear], yes.

1:03:47 Speaker 2 “His hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him.” I’m not afraid of people who do what comes naturally to them. I’m afraid of people who don’t.

1:03:54 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:03:54 Speaker 2 That’s what I find difficult. And they did what they were there to do. They came to steal.

1:04:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, everyone came down into this world for a purpose...

1:04:02 Speaker 2 Yeah, and they really lived here, and I think they were our buffer against the bad Bedouins. There are bad Bedouins here who have married women from Gaza, and by now they’re really Arabs. There’s gunfire here at night and other unpleasant things, truly. I remember going out for a walk one night with the children. We got near the edge of Omer, and suddenly we saw bursts of gunfire. It looks like it’s aimed at you, and sometimes shell casings land here, so it’s a little unpleasant. Just a little. No big deal.

1:04:35 Speaker 1 Oh wow, that’s something.

1:04:37 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:04:38 Speaker 1 It’s not a settlement or anything, but—

1:04:40 Speaker 2 It’s definitely a border-area community.

1:04:41 Speaker 1 It feels that way. A border-area community, exactly.

1:04:42 Speaker 2 Yeah, so... Actually, the head of our local council removed that tribe that really had been a buffer for us. I think that was a mistake, but—

1:04:52 Speaker 1 Removed them?

1:04:52 Speaker 2 Yes, he moved them to—

1:04:55 Speaker 1 Oh.

1:04:55 Speaker 2 Somewhere else in the country.

1:04:56 Speaker 1 Because they were a kind of protection for you.

1:04:57 Speaker 2 Yes. They were a kind of protection for us. They’re also the only ones who really married within their own tribe. They still do, very consistently. They don’t even mix with other Bedouin tribes.

1:05:12 Speaker 1 They keep to themselves here.

1:05:12 Speaker 2 They remained authentic Bedouins.

1:05:15 Speaker 1 That’s fascinating. It’s a whole world, that world of the Negev.

1:05:18 Speaker 2 I have no problem with them. You know, a woman comes in with women’s problems, problems we all have, and I have a great deal of compassion—

1:05:25 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:05:26 Speaker 2 When it comes to that. And certainly, if someone comes to me with a problem, I’m not going to shut the door on her.

1:05:33 Speaker 1 Yeah. I wonder how she found you.

1:05:36 Speaker 2 How did she find me? How did they find me?

1:05:38 Speaker 1 Maybe just Google.

1:05:40 Speaker 2 I think.

1:05:41 Speaker 1 It works there; there’s reception.

1:05:43 Speaker 2 There is, there’s plenty. Oh, a Bedouin doctor came to me, and I remember that after that military operation, she blocked me. Not only did she stop coming—

1:05:53 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:05:54 Speaker 2 She blocked me. I became the enemy.

1:05:56 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:05:57 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s a problem—

1:05:58 Speaker 1 On their side too, really. It’s not that you closed the...

1:06:02 Speaker 2 No, not on my side. She blocked me on her phone.

1:06:04 Speaker 1 That’s something.

1:06:05 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:06:07 Speaker 1 Wow. So besides them, you also have women from across the Israeli spectrum. You have the population of Omer, broadly speaking.

1:06:16 Speaker 2 Not just Omer. They come from lots of... First of all, they really do come from many places. My approach is simply different. I do cosmetology, but I work a great deal with the body. I have a sauna, with Hashem’s help—it’s already here, but because we might be moving, I haven’t set it up yet. An infrared sauna that’s really used for healing.

1:06:38 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:06:38 Speaker 2 For skin problems, but also for internal issues. The approach is simply different. So I should mention that people also come to me from Caesarea and Kiryat Ata—

1:06:48 Speaker 1 Oh!

1:06:48 Speaker 2 From Herzliya.

1:06:51 Speaker 1 Wow, and you have the courage to stay in Omer. I mean—

1:06:55 Speaker 2 This is my home.

1:06:56 Speaker 1 Yes, “Come here.” No, you know, some people say, “Okay, I have something good to offer, let’s move to central Israel,” where everyone...

1:07:02 Speaker 2 That’s not where I belong. First of all, I’m very grounded as a person. That’s important to me. All my roots are here. That’s why I didn’t rent a space, either. I need to work from home because this is my place.

1:07:14 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:07:15 Speaker 2 I can’t work somewhere that isn’t mine, somewhere I rent just to work.

1:07:21 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:07:21 Speaker 2 It doesn’t work for me.

1:07:23 Speaker 1 Wow. So they must feel that. They come all the way to you from... That’s incredible.

1:07:27 Speaker 2 I hope so, and I assume so.

1:07:29 Speaker 1 How amazing!

1:07:31 Speaker 2 So first of all, they come. And really, you know, sometimes before a new client arrives—for example, a woman from a kibbutz around here started coming to me regularly. I know people from the kibbutz, and I kept thinking, “Oh no, what if she sees me wearing a sheitel now and doesn’t like it? What if she comes once and decides she doesn’t want to come back, and then... I won’t be able to treat her,” and so on and so forth. Then suddenly you realize that no matter who comes, Hashem sent her, and she’s here for a reason. And somehow, even with the person you’d think you could never connect with at any point in your life, you find all the things you have in common. Yesterday my husband and I went to a place that this particular client from the kibbutz recommended to us.

1:08:20 Speaker 1 That’s something.

1:08:20 Speaker 2 We drove north, to Moshav Kanaf, to a place that specializes in growing lavender. That’s why the whole house smells a little like lavender.

1:08:30 Speaker 1 Oh, interesting.

1:08:32 Speaker 2 Yes, she sent me there. That’s what we have in common. She—

1:08:35 Speaker 1 One thing leads to another.

1:08:36 Speaker 2 Absolutely. She buys local honey, and I buy local honey. It’s important to consume locally produced honey.

1:08:43 Speaker 1 Interesting. Why?

1:08:45 Speaker 2 You know the homeopathic principle of “like cures like”? That’s also what happened in the desert, when Moshe raised the copper snake and that healed people from the snakebites. It’s a very important principle: we heal ourselves with things that resemble the illness.

1:09:07 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:09:08 Speaker 2 That’s also why, for example, I advise mothers that when a child has a fever, they shouldn’t give the child a cold bath, but a warm one, because that’s what will bring the fever down. Like cures like. So, according to that principle...

1:09:26 Speaker 1 Honey.

1:09:26 Speaker 2 Honey works in a completely homeopathic way. In other words, a bee takes pollen from the place where you live. You smell and breathe in that pollen; it’s part of your body’s microbiome. Honey made from it is the honey that will heal—if you have allergies, if you need to strengthen your immune system.

1:09:46 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:09:47 Speaker 2 If you need it for something specific, like a sore throat, G-d forbid, things like that.

1:09:53 Speaker 1 Interesting, wow.

1:09:54 Speaker 2 That’s what will heal.

1:09:55 Speaker 1 So first of all, you need to live somewhere with beehives.

1:09:58 Speaker 2 That’s my dream.

1:09:59 Speaker 1 Aren’t there any here? Not in this area?

1:10:00 Speaker 2 Of course there are.

1:10:01 Speaker 1 Right, so that’s the local honey you’re supposed to use.

1:10:03 Speaker 2 But I want my own.

1:10:04 Speaker 1 Oh, okay. You have a lot of dreams. I feel like you’re just at the beginning. At the start of your journey.

1:10:11 Speaker 2 Yosef the dreamer—that’s my—

1:10:14 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:10:15 Speaker 2 My role model.

1:10:16 Speaker 1 That’s something. So wait, this woman... You started saying that with every woman who comes, you somehow eventually discover that—

1:10:24 Speaker 2 There’s so much—

1:10:24 Speaker 1 I mean, why—

1:10:25 Speaker 2 Much more that we have in common than that separates us.

1:10:27 Speaker 1 But that’s the truth. That’s the truth. And what do we talk about all day? What does the media talk about all day? Things that are really so marginal.

1:10:33 Speaker 2 Right.

1:10:33 Speaker 1 Come on, what’s our day-to-day life? It’s the children, work, life, health.

1:10:38 Speaker 2 The stages we go through as women—as mothers giving birth, as single women, as teenagers. At the end of the day, we really are all the same. We do the same things. We’re—

1:10:49 Speaker 1 A human tapestry.

1:10:50 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:10:51 Speaker 1 Exactly.

1:10:52 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:10:52 Speaker 1 And you see it firsthand. You meet people, and—

1:10:55 Speaker 2 I do see it. Of course, I think it’s much more noticeable among women than among men. Men are more separate; they’re more ratzo.

1:11:04 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:11:04 Speaker 2 Women are more shov.

1:11:06 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:11:06 Speaker 2 They’re more about building something. And you really see it—because I meet so many people, I see it so clearly. How much we... There’s this one Bedouin woman I sometimes talk about. Once, during a treatment, she said to me, “You’re my soul sister.” I didn’t say anything, but—

1:11:29 Speaker 1 Sisters from different mothers.

1:11:31 Speaker 2 Yes, but think about what she was feeling.

1:11:35 Speaker 1 I also think that when someone comes for a treatment, you know, something involving both body and soul, you have no choice but to open up. That’s just the situation.

1:11:42 Speaker 2 You have to.

1:11:43 Speaker 1 You’re not selling her a product in a store.

1:11:45 Speaker 2 Listen, I also have a story about a client who... An older woman came for reflexology treatments. She didn’t want facial treatments because she’s very, very sensitive, and I went along with that; it was fine. Although there are solutions for everything. She came for reflexology, and the first time was fine, the second time was fine. The third time, she said to me, “I’m too relaxed. I’m not used to this feeling.”

1:12:17 Speaker 1 That’s something.

1:12:18 Speaker 2 And the fourth time she came, she made a request. I said, “Okay, fine, then we just won’t focus too much on relaxation.” Now, as a therapist, what do I know? I know the person has a need for control.

1:12:28 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:12:28 Speaker 2 And when you bring someone into that state, you have to bring her to a point where she lets go. Because the need for control—fine, she’s older. Let’s say that at this point she isn’t going to experience the illness or other terrible consequences from it. But why live with so much anxiety? And the next time she said, “All right, just don’t relax me too much.” We worked on that; it was fine. The time after that, she said to me, “You already know too much about me.”

1:12:58 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:12:59 Speaker 2 She stopped coming.

1:13:00 Speaker 1 That’s something.

1:13:00 Speaker 2 She stopped coming.

1:13:02 Speaker 1 She was really afraid to open up.

1:13:04 Speaker 2 Really.

1:13:04 Speaker 1 It’s not for everyone.

1:13:06 Speaker 2 Really. She has to hold on to control. It’s hard.

1:13:10 Speaker 1 It’s painful to hear, somehow.

1:13:13 Speaker 2 It is painful to hear.

1:13:14 Speaker 1 To spend all that—

1:13:15 Speaker 2 Painful? It’s incredibly painful to hear.

1:13:15 Speaker 1 All that energy is spent on—

1:13:17 Speaker 2 Because she’s older, too. Soon she’ll have to let go of control and pass on to another world.

1:13:23 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:13:23 Speaker 2 Why not do it peacefully?

1:13:25 Speaker 1 Exactly. Wow. As if everything is under my control, and...

1:13:29 Speaker 2 Very, very hard.

1:13:30 Speaker 1 Fear of letting go. It’s frightening.

1:13:32 Speaker 2 Very. Very, very hard. Now, you’d like to think that it’s only found among people who don’t observe Torah and mitzvos, but no, you’d be wrong.

1:13:41 Speaker 1 No, I don’t think that. I mean, maybe for us, if you really study a lot of Chassidus and spend a lot of time reflecting, you understand that it isn’t right. But if someone has that tendency, then that’s simply the work they have to do.

1:13:50 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

1:13:52 Speaker 1 It’s something you’re born with.

1:13:52 Speaker 2 It exists in every community. It exists...

1:13:56 Speaker 1 Wow, it really is painful.

1:13:57 Speaker 2 Very. Very. And she stopped coming, so I have no way to help her, either.

1:14:00 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:14:01 Speaker 2 You understand?

1:14:01 Speaker 1 But I assume most women who come actually do want to say, you know, “Help me let go.”

1:14:05 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:14:06 Speaker 1 I went to someone who does massage with acupuncture and all that. I told her, “Put me last on your schedule and let me sleep here.” I’m actually someone who likes to be relatively in control, too, and I specifically look for places where I can let go, because it’s a gift.

1:14:23 Speaker 2 Right, but I don’t think you experience control the way she did.

1:14:27 Speaker 1 Definitely not.

1:14:28 Speaker 2 For her, control meant that after she took off her shoes, she had to wipe her hands with a cleansing wipe.

1:14:34 Speaker 1 Oh, no, that’s already...

1:14:36 Speaker 2 It’s hard. It’s hard, it’s...

1:14:38 Speaker 1 Anxiety and everything all together.

1:14:40 Speaker 2 But it’s all connected. It comes from the same place. It’s because you think germs are the enemy.

1:14:45 Speaker 1 And that you really can...

1:14:47 Speaker 2 Control it.

1:14:47 Speaker 1 To take care of yourself.

1:14:48 Speaker 2 Who can control that at all? We’re talking right now—do you know how many germs have entered our mouths?

1:14:51 Speaker 1 Yes, COVID proved that we all share the same fluids, as awful as that sounds.

1:14:55 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And each person has a microbiome, and you can work on your own microbiome. We have to learn how to work on it, and there are ways to do that. There are whole protocols that teach people how.

1:15:08 Speaker 1 When you say “microbiome,” you remind me of my daughter’s kindergarten in Ukraine. You know, the Russians are really frantic about germs. So all the time—

1:15:18 Speaker 2 But it’s cold there. What do you mean, frantic?

1:15:20 Speaker 1 To this day, my daughter is always saying, “Germs, germs! I need to wash my hands so I don’t get germs. I need to do this so I don’t get germs.”

1:15:25 Speaker 2 Oh dear.

1:15:25 Speaker 1 That’s really how they taught her, yes. Little by little, I’m trying to ease her out of it. You know, in Israel you can’t keep that up for too long. But not sitting on the floor and not coming in with shoes on—some of those things I would adopt here.

1:15:38 Speaker 2 Yes, I’d happily adopt the no-shoes rule.

1:15:40 Speaker 1 You know, it’s interesting. It took me time to get used to it. Then, when I came to Israel, I found myself saying, “Why don’t we have that here too? Why do people bring mud into the house?” I mean, what are you talking about?

1:15:49 Speaker 2 If only it were mud.

1:15:50 Speaker 1 Mud would be the best-case scenario, yes.

1:15:52 Speaker 2 We’re in Omer.

1:15:54 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. There are already some interesting things scattered on the ground.

1:15:58 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:15:58 Speaker 1 What did you call them? Landmines? Landmines.

1:15:59 Speaker 2 Landmines.

1:16:01 Speaker 1 Oh, wow. How did we get onto that? Wait. We were talking about the kinds of people who come here. It really is interesting. I think you have a sort of human laboratory, because you meet every kind of woman.

1:16:16 Speaker 2 I meet a lot of women, and I really do meet a wide variety. But as we said, I always see what’s different, so I don’t feel like I’m seeing so many different kinds of people.

1:16:26 Speaker 1 What they have in common.

1:16:27 Speaker 2 I only see what they have in common, and that really is most of it. It’s really everything.

1:16:33 Speaker 1 How amazing. Wow. I’m sure people mostly come to you by word of mouth. That’s what it sounds like.

1:16:37 Speaker 2 I don’t like advertising, I have to say. Even here, when women from Pilates approached me and said they wanted to come, I asked them not to. If they want to recommend me to a friend, that’s fine—I’d be delighted. But I don’t like being part of the local scene. I still want to keep my own little corner and not get too mixed in. To treat people, but from my own corner.

1:17:07 Speaker 1 So you must walk down the street and run into your patients all the time. How big is this place?

1:17:11 Speaker 2 Yes, mainly at Pilates. I don’t really walk around. I hardly go out onto the street. I don’t like it. I’m very, very much a homebody. Rebbetzin Gerlitzky will put her stamp of approval on that. I don’t like leaving the house. I won’t go out with a friend or go out for coffee or any of that. It doesn’t interest me. Mostly I go from the clinic straight home. Partly because I don’t have time. You know, there are six children here.

1:17:37 Speaker 1 Yes. Life, life.

1:17:40 Speaker 2 A husband, a whole life. And here’s one sweet one going out on shlichus in Larnaca.

1:17:45 Speaker 1 Going back to the place you came from.

1:17:47 Speaker 2 Yes, they’re already talking about gathering sparks. It amazes me every time.

1:17:53 Speaker 1 Of course.

1:17:53 Speaker 2 Of course. Every time.

1:17:56 Speaker 1 The way Hakadosh Boruch Hu arranges it. How did he end up going specifically there? I’m sure that’s a story too.

1:18:00 Speaker 2 Because we’re in touch with Rabbi Raskin, and honestly, I don’t want him any farther away. I want to be able to fly to him.

1:18:06 Speaker 1 A forty-minute flight is about as easy as it gets.

1:18:09 Speaker 2 Exactly what I need.

1:18:11 Speaker 1 Let him feel like he’s abroad, but still be close to me. Wow. So you have a trip to Cyprus coming up.

1:18:17 Speaker 2 With Hashem’s help.

1:18:18 Speaker 1 I wanted to ask you something that, honestly, I kept telling myself not to forget. Why is your clinic called Naora?

1:18:26 Speaker 2 Well, first of all—

1:18:27 Speaker 1 I mean, where did you get it from? At one point I even got confused. I thought your name was Naora, and then I said, no.

1:18:31 Speaker 2 Yes, people sometimes call me by that name.

1:18:33 Speaker 1 Because it is a name. So where did it come from?

1:18:35 Speaker 2 Right. My husband, may he live and be well, is a software developer by profession, and he works in high tech. But he’s an artist. He used to make stained-glass pieces.

1:18:46 Speaker 1 Wow, how beautiful.

1:18:47 Speaker 2 For many, many years. Wonderful pieces, really. For example, the things you see here are his, though these are small pieces. There were also those framed pieces hanging here.

1:19:02 Speaker 1 I can see how full of light they are.

1:19:03 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

1:19:04 Speaker 1 I’ll take a closer look afterward.

1:19:05 Speaker 2 He made stained-glass pieces for a very, very long time, and he called the business Naora. That was when we still lived in Jerusalem—really, many, many years ago. And afterward he changed the name to Chalonei Rakia. He took it from the Shabbos morning davening: “He opens the windows of the firmament.”

1:19:31 Speaker 1 How beautiful.

1:19:32 Speaker 2 Very. And it did very, very well. But because it did so well, it wore him out: after his regular work hours, he had to work what was really a second job, late into the night. He got lots and lots of orders from abroad. People really loved his work, and he simply stopped doing it. So Chalonei Rakia is no more, and Naora suited me perfectly.

1:19:52 Speaker 1 How funny. Naora made a career change.

1:19:54 Speaker 2 But in the end, I understood the—let’s go back to Malka Mioni Raphael[?], who brought me to Rebbetzin Gerlitzky. She used to talk to me a lot about is’hapcha and iskafya, and always about how you turn darkness into light. And it’s not just that you turn darkness into light; because it was transformed from darkness into light, it has an even greater quality. And Naora fits perfectly, like “is’hapcha chashocha linehora”—turning darkness into light—

1:20:29 Speaker 1 Right, “nehora” is Aramaic for light, I think.

1:20:32 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:20:32 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:20:33 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:20:33 Speaker 1 How interesting.

1:20:34 Speaker 2 So the name stayed, and it stayed proudly.

1:20:37 Speaker 1 It fits you perfectly.

1:20:39 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:20:40 Speaker 1 How amazing! Suddenly it clicks. Wow, I’m glad I remembered to ask.

1:20:43 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:20:44 Speaker 1 Wow, how amazing! Tell me, give us a tip. You’re immersed in so many fields that all connect to one, but something that would suit everyone. There are girls listening to you now, and older women too—not that we’re defining what “older” means. The whole range of women, as they say. Something each one could do in her everyday life: a small change that would really make a difference. The kind of thing that makes you say, “How have I never heard this before?”

1:21:16 Speaker 2 Look, I’m not inventing anything. Everything I say, and everything I’m going to say, is of course something I learned from my teachers and mentors. None of it is new. I believe very, very strongly in movement. I think it’s healing for everything. A woman who came to me with—of course, I’m not a doctor, right? But she came to me while taking medication, and those pills ended up leaving her life.

1:21:44 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:21:44 Speaker 2 And that was really thanks to nutrition and physical activity alone.

1:21:48 Speaker 1 So you recommend that women get moving, but that isn’t something you work on with them yourself.

1:21:52 Speaker 2 No. No, that isn’t my field. I’ve learned to delegate, because you can’t cover everything. You really want to offer the complete picture, but you can’t. I’m not a Pilates instructor, and I’m not a fitness teacher.

1:22:04 Speaker 1 And if you started doing that too, you wouldn’t have enough time.

1:22:05 Speaker 2 And I don’t—I’m not trying to, either. I’m very aware of my place. People keep asking me, “Why don’t you grow? Why don’t you expand? Why don’t you advertise? Why, why?” Because I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I—

1:22:16 Speaker 1 You’re happy with...

1:22:17 Speaker 2 Yes. I want to work so I can live, not live so I can work.

1:22:20 Speaker 1 Exactly.

1:22:24 Speaker 2 I don’t turn people away from treatment. If someone needs to come, I’ll fit her in. I won’t turn a woman away just because I feel like taking the day off. That’s not how it is. But I know my place. I don’t want the clinic to be like a train station.

1:22:37 Speaker 1 So when you talk about movement, you see it as a tool?

1:22:39 Speaker 2 Movement is very, very, very important. You have to understand that it activates all the cells in the body. It changes your whole state of being—your thinking and your brain. It releases endorphins in the brain. It doesn’t have to be running. By the way, these days they say long runs are actually less beneficial, and that what you should do instead is several short runs. Again, I’m not a runner at all. I much prefer walking. And hiking—we like walking in nature, climbing up a bit and coming back down a hill. But not fast, intense walking and—

1:23:16 Speaker 1 Yes.

1:23:17 Speaker 2 Things like that. And I’m completely hooked on Pilates.

1:23:21 Speaker 1 How lovely.

1:23:22 Speaker 2 I’m completely with you. For me personally, it changed my life. I had a physical crisis a few years ago. I think it was a result of the surgery, because Menachem Mendel was born by C-section. It was foreign to my body. And it caused me so much pain that they thought it was fibromyalgia or something like that. I said to the doctor, “Wait, listen, I’m not accepting that this is psychosomatic. Let’s treat what’s going on.” Now, I know—I want to qualify that—I know it exists, and I know women suffer from it. I’m not saying anything to—

1:24:03 Speaker 1 You’re not trying to dismiss it.

1:24:04 Speaker 2 I’m not trying to dismiss it, G-d forbid. Of course not. But for me, in my life, accepting that diagnosis didn’t feel right, and Pilates simply changed everything for me.

1:24:12 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:24:13 Speaker 2 Everything. From spending entire days on the couch in pain, it just—

1:24:18 Speaker 1 You have to stick with it.

1:24:20 Speaker 2 Just stick with it. I haven’t missed a single session.

1:24:22 Speaker 1 Wow. Once a week?

1:24:24 Speaker 2 For three years, I’ve gone almost three times a week, and I haven’t missed a session.

1:24:28 Speaker 1 Wow.

1:24:29 Speaker 2 If I needed to reschedule, I rescheduled, but I didn’t miss it. Three times a week, religiously, as they say.

1:24:37 Speaker 1 Wow, that’s inspiring. Wow. And I have to ask for one more tip for radiant skin, because I’m looking at you right now and... a secret, just a little secret.

1:24:47 Speaker 2 There’s no magic. You know, you read about all these cosmeticians working in Tel Aviv: “the magician, the magician, the magician.” There’s no magic. Nobody’s going to sell me those stories. It’s a process, and you have to understand that it’s a process. Our skin renews itself and sheds every twenty-eight days. That’s the process, and we constantly have to support it and rebuild it. So how do we do that? We do it from within, and we do it from the outside. We need to eat well, be joyful, be happy, have faith, and of course care for our skin from the outside with good products. Each person according to what she can afford, of course. I tailor it to each person’s means, but that outside care has to be part of it too.

1:25:27 Speaker 1 To feed and nourish the skin, and to feed and nourish the body from within—

1:25:32 Speaker 2 And the soul.

1:25:33 Speaker 1 And the soul, of course.

1:25:34 Speaker 2 We need to be joyful.

1:25:35 Speaker 1 Wait, you ship products all over the country. Do you make the products yourself?

1:25:40 Speaker 2 It’s divided up like this. First of all, I work with a company that really is the best in the world. I’m sure everyone says that—every cosmetician says that—but mine has the credentials to back it up. They win awards from magazines around the world and everything. And I ship nationwide, after tailoring the products to each person through a video call, photos, and so on, for anyone who can’t come in.

1:26:04 Speaker 1 Nice.

1:26:04 Speaker 2 For the body, I make aromatherapy products: oils and smelling salts intended for relaxation, focus, and various other purposes. For example, for students who have trouble with attention and concentration and whose parents don’t want to give them Ritalin, we send them with essential oils.

1:26:22 Speaker 1 That’s so interesting. So the child just turns on a diffuser in class?

1:26:25 Speaker 2 No, no. There’s a little bottle of smelling salts, blended with lots and lots of relevant essential oils, tailored to the child, and the child smells it.

1:26:36 Speaker 1 Wow, how interesting.

1:26:37 Speaker 2 Rosemary is one of the stars of that blend, but of course—

1:26:41 Speaker 1 That’s what interests me about aromatherapy—the oil specifically. After all, you could just smell a sprig of rosemary.

1:26:48 Speaker 2 True, but the essential oil is an extract.

1:26:50 Speaker 1 So it actually has a much higher concentration of—

1:26:52 Speaker 2 It contains phenols that can later be found in the blood. It gets in. It really gets in.

1:26:58 Speaker 1 Wow, that’s really fascinating.

1:27:00 Speaker 2 And the nose, too. Think about it: the sense of smell is the only sense that didn’t take part in the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. It’s authentic. That’s why it gives us all kinds of signals about whether things are spoiled or not. We trust it a great deal. It remained authentic. They say she saw the apple, touched it and felt it, and she heard what the snake said to her—but the nose didn’t take part. The nose remained authentic. When you smell something, it goes straight to the brain. There are no filters. What could be better than that?

1:27:31 Speaker 1 Really, we spend so much time thinking about what we eat, what we eat—but what are we breathing in? And—

1:27:38 Speaker 2 That’s a whole separate podcast.

1:27:39 Speaker 1 And we breathe nonstop. We stop eating every so often, but we breathe nonstop.

1:27:44 Speaker 2 Inhaling.

1:27:45 Speaker 1 Inhaling, yes—speaking of what we take in.

1:27:47 Speaker 2 Yes.

1:27:47 Speaker 1 So we can take things in that way too. Wow. Like you said, that’s a whole podcast in itself.

1:27:54 Speaker 2 Absolutely, absolutely. Smell—and what scents you prefer—is really significant. Aromatherapy is a field of its own, it absolutely deserves its own space, and it works.

1:28:06 Speaker 1 Too bad we can’t transmit the scent through the podcast. Maybe one day we will, I hope.

1:28:11 Speaker 2 I hope not.

1:28:13 Speaker 1 That it’ll stay—

1:28:14 Speaker 2 Artificial intelligence makes me nervous.

1:28:16 Speaker 1 You’re saying, “Let’s leave one thing—”

1:28:18 Speaker 2 I’m traditional.

1:28:19 Speaker 1 Just as it is. Wow, Inbal, I have to say, I found this fascinating—

1:28:24 Speaker 2 So did I.

1:28:24 Speaker 1 So much. Thank you so, so much—

1:28:27 Speaker 2 Thank you.

1:28:27 Speaker 1 For your hospitality and for the opportunity to hear from you.

1:28:29 Speaker 2 It’s an honor. Thank you for this opportunity.

1:28:32 Speaker 1 My pleasure.