Episode 41: A mother of eight who decided to transform Jerusalem | With Liora Alon, candidate for the Jerusalem municipal elections

00:00 Speaker 1 You know that moment when you say, “If I could, I’d change…”? Well, there’s one woman who doesn’t just think about it—she acts. She wants to give everything she can for the city that’s in all our hearts, and she’s on her way to running in the Jerusalem municipal elections. I caught her just before she becomes impossible to reach. Come listen to Liora Alon, a woman who talks about shlichus and lives it. And a reminder: if you enjoyed this content, you’re more than welcome to pass it on, share it, and send it to your friends, neighbors, sisters—anyone who matters to you. Intro, and we’ll begin. How do we turn our lives into lives of shlichus, full of meaning? This is Chani Moskowitz, a shlucha in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In 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 define our own shlichus in the world. Because living the lives we were created to live—that’s the best there is. Shlichus as a way of life. Starting now. Welcome to another episode of Shlichus as a Way of Life. Today we’re with Liora Alon.

01:18 Speaker 2 Hello, hello.

01:19 Speaker 1 A woman from Jerusalem, the holy city, the city we love. Liora, I was curious to talk with you. I don’t want to give anything away—I want to let you tell us about yourself—but as soon as I heard about you, I said, “I’m going to catch her first, before she becomes impossible to reach.” So introduce yourself, so all our listeners know who we’re speaking with.

01:43 Speaker 2 Okay, hello, everyone. My name is Liora Alon. I’m a mother of eight, I live in Jerusalem, and my husband studies Torah full-time. I was a teacher in Jerusalem’s education system for many, many years. In recent years I served as executive director of the Tzofiya school, part of the recognized but non-state school system for the religious Zionist community. And recently Noam asked me to help, apparently by joining its slate for city council.

02:11 Speaker 1 So you’re now in the middle of the Jerusalem municipal election campaign?

02:16 Speaker 2 Yes, yes.

02:17 Speaker 1 How many women are there, compared with men?

02:19 Speaker 2 I haven’t checked all the lists, but I think two.

02:22 Speaker 1 Two women?

02:23 Speaker 2 Two women.

02:23 Speaker 1 Out of several dozen?

02:26 Speaker 2 I think so. At least.

02:27 Speaker 1 Wow. One sheep among seventy wolves. What’s that like? How does it feel?

02:33 Speaker 2 How does it feel? I focus less on that. I focus more on the fact that we have a lot to do in Jerusalem, and we need to fight for it. So that’s very much where my attention is.

02:44 Speaker 1 So how did you actually get into this? How did you wake up one morning… I assume it didn’t happen one fine morning, but was some kind of process…

02:51 Speaker 2 It actually did happen one fine morning, though there had been some things leading up to it. Noam is a party that arose from a vision and a very great need to strengthen and sharpen Jewish identity throughout the State of Israel. I’d been very involved in its campaigns, helping however I could, volunteering, taking part, and getting projects off the ground to help Noam succeed. The people at Noam saw me and got to know me through that work. And while I was working at the Tzofiya institutions, there was a great deal of work to do—securing funding and seeing to everything the school needed. That’s where I met many people in the Knesset, including Avi Maoz. He was impressed and said, “She’s our representative for the Jerusalem City Council.” So one morning I got a call: “Liora, come to the Knesset. We want to speak with you.” I went, and I was in shock. I said, “Me? Jerusalem City Council?” He told me, “Yes. We see what you do, we see your strengths, and we want to channel them there.”

04:01 Speaker 1 And did you agree right away?

04:03 Speaker 2 First of all, I laughed and said, “No, I want to speak with my husband about it first.”

04:07 Speaker 1 You laughed, Liora, like…

04:10 Speaker 2 Yes, I laughed, and then I said, “Okay, wait. Give me time to think about it, and I’ll speak with my husband. We’ll see and think it over.” But it wasn’t so far removed from me, because for a whole year I’d been saying to myself: Hold on, everyone, we need to act. We need to do something. What do we do? There’s this problem—what do we do about it? And this is happening in the country—what do we do? I’m a woman of action. I do a great deal. When there’s a problem, I ask: Okay, what’s the solution? What do we do? How do we act? How do we move forward? And this fit me exactly. I said: Here, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is sending you a sign from Heaven. Now act. You wanted to do something—let’s see you do it.

04:47 Speaker 1 Wow. I think that’s a particular kind of person, someone with a strong sense of justice. You see something wrong and say, “We can’t leave it like this.”

04:57 Speaker 2 I think we’re all like that. Sometimes you have more time and energy for it, sometimes less, but we all see something wrong and say, “How can this be happening?” Everyone wants to do something about it. I think it burns inside all of us. There are people whom Hakadosh Boruch Hu has chosen now for this shlichus, and there are people He has chosen for another shlichus, each according to their nature and the purpose He has designated for them. And I think that if He has chosen me for this purpose, then I’m ready for it. We’ll do it with all our strength.

05:29 Speaker 1 So when you reached that point, I’m trying to picture you there. You come with so much on your mind, so much you want to get out. It’s like, we need to do this, and this, and this—but you have to organize your thoughts and put together a clear platform, right? What do we actually want to change or do? Are there also things you want to preserve? That’s interesting.

05:51 Speaker 2 I’ll start with your first question. I think it’s a gift. When someone gives you a means to act and says, “Now go ahead. You wanted to change things? Act”—wow, that’s an incredible gift. So let’s sort it out: What’s most urgent? What’s the right thing to do? Of course, first of all, we aren’t acting on our own initiative. That makes it much easier. You act with guidance from the rabbis. We have our rabbis, who lay out the path for us. When you asked earlier what I did about the offer, I spoke with my husband, and of course we went to ask the rabbis. We received a blessing from all of them, and they told us, “Go ahead. We’re with you, we support you, and we’re with you every step of the way.” They also told us which things were important to do. In the end, it isn’t me, Liora as an individual, being expressed here. We have the tremendous strength of Torah behind us, guiding us and helping us pinpoint what to do overall, and we put it into practice in the details. So there’s a lot to do. There’s also a great deal to preserve. There are so many good people in the municipality. I know many good people there. I can tell you that the people I know are good people. I haven’t met anyone who isn’t, and they do good things—a great deal of good. We want to join that force for good, make it more focused, add to it and improve it, so we can do even more good.

07:09 Speaker 1 That’s interesting, because if I heard about someone running for, I don’t know, the Afula City Council, say, I’d be less interested. But Jerusalem belongs to all of us. I claim Jerusalem as my own, yes, but it really is everyone’s city. So to me it almost feels like someone running for national government—as though it affects us all. So I’m interested to hear: What are the things you see in Jerusalem? I don’t want to tell you what I see. I actually spent a lot of time in Jerusalem over the summer and saw all sorts of things that made me think, “Okay, that’s interesting”—some good things and some less good things. But I’d really like to hear from someone who’s stepping forward to act and bring about real change. What do you see that truly needs to change, that needs reform, even?

07:58 Speaker 2 So as I said, Jerusalem belongs to all of us. Jerusalem is the heart of all the limbs, of the whole nation, of the whole world. It’s the center we need to protect. If you really compare it to a body, when someone has an illness in another organ, okay, you treat it, you heal it. But if there’s an illness in the heart, it’s critical for the whole body. It affects the whole body directly. It’s the same with Jerusalem: when you protect it, you protect everything that... I think about my grandmother dreaming of Jerusalem. What did she dream of? What did she want? She dreamed of the return to Zion. She dreamed that we would return to being an active Jewish people in the Land of Israel. That’s what she dreamed of. She dreamed of holiness. And that’s what we all want, really. We all want to be part of this great, extraordinary nation, unlike any other in the world. And what do we want to do there? We truly want to safeguard the holiness, preserve what is natural to Jerusalem, preserve what we all wanted, and still want, to see in Jerusalem.

09:10 Speaker 3 Wow. As you say that, it strikes me that we only have one Jerusalem.

09:15 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

09:15 Speaker 3 There’s no room for mistakes. There’s one Jerusalem, and we need to protect it and care for it, and... wow. So what, concretely, do you dream of changing in this city?

09:32 Speaker 2 Wow.

09:33 Speaker 3 When you walk down the street.

09:34 Speaker 2 Yes.

09:34 Speaker 3 When you walk down the street, you really have the eyes of someone who sees things and dreams of changing them. So what do you see that makes you say, “Liora, one day when you’re...” You’re already there now, but back when you’d walk around and say, “One day I’m going to change that.”

09:53 Speaker 2 Look, we have many, many things to do. The thing I feel most strongly about, as a mother, is first of all our youth. They’re the next generation.

10:04 Speaker 3 How old is your oldest?

10:05 Speaker 2 My oldest daughter.

10:06 Speaker 3 Your oldest daughter.

10:06 Speaker 2 I have six daughters and two sons.

10:10 Speaker 3 Wow.

10:10 Speaker 2 My oldest is in eleventh grade now; my youngest is—

10:13 Speaker 3 Youth, youth.

10:14 Speaker 2 Yes, youth. What can I, through the city, offer her so she can flourish? And not just her, of course—all Jerusalem’s young people. Because when young people are engaged, and engaged in something positive, they give the very best of themselves. They’re full of energy, full of goodness, full of strength. Let’s give them the tools to bring the tremendous potential within them into action.

10:38 Speaker 3 To channel all that youthful energy.

10:41 Speaker 2 Right. Otherwise, you’ll see them wandering the streets. We don’t want to see that. We want to bring them onto the stage and tell them, “You’re the next generation now. We’re investing in you. You’re our heart. We want to give you everything we can in terms of morals and values, help you feel that you matter, that you’re good at something, and give you the strength and the ability to bring that out.”

11:05 Speaker 3 Wow. Do young people today stay in Jerusalem? Say you think about your daughter. Do you think she’ll get married and live in Jerusalem?

11:15 Speaker 2 My daughter will absolutely stay in Jerusalem.

11:17 Speaker 3 Yes.

11:17 Speaker 2 I think the others are also connected to Jerusalem, connected to Jerusalem’s holiness, connected to the yeshivos. So I think it’ll happen naturally. As for whether young people in general stay in Jerusalem, I don’t know. That’s not what I... I see the young people before they reach that point. I see them while they’re still figuring things out.

11:38 Speaker 3 Yes.

11:38 Speaker 2 While they’re thinking it through. That’s where I... Look, we wrote a plan called “Youth for Noam”—“Noam for Youth,” sorry—and in it we set out a really detailed plan for how to help and uplift young people, give them a response tailored to their needs, help them move forward, and do only good for them. You know what? Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine yourself entering the Old City and beginning to walk on stones that have been there for thousands of years, stones Jews have walked on throughout the generations. You start walking through the Old City. There are signs showing you where to go. There’s the Kosel. You keep going. On either side you see young people—healthy, happy young people—guiding groups. Everything is clean, accessible, orderly. And wow, if it’s Shabbos, you see lots of people dressed in their Shabbos clothes. There’s an atmosphere of holiness. You see happy people, all walking together toward one shared destination: the Kosel, toward holiness. There’s holiness in the air. And then, little by little, you draw closer and reach the holiest place, from which the Shechinah has never departed. Light in everyone’s eyes, joy in their hearts, everyone together. It’s something incredible, and it isn’t far from us. It isn’t far away. We can reach it. We want it. We get there and say, “This is what I want,” and that’s what we’re working toward. And then the opportunity comes and someone says to you, “Wait, would you like to be a part of this?” What? Of course. Is that even a question? Let me. I just... We’ll do it, we’ll work at it, and we’ll take care of every last detail to make it happen. There’s no question about it. This is our Jerusalem. This is Jerusalem. Is that even a question? This is what we want.

13:33 Speaker 4 Wow. So your grandmother would feel at home when she arrives.

13:37 Speaker 2 All of us would.

13:38 Speaker 4 All of us.

13:38 Speaker 2 All of us.

13:39 Speaker 4 Wow. Tell me, the whole issue of Shabbos really interests me. It’s such a big issue now, especially here in Israel—public transportation or no public transportation. How do you even approach it? I’m really trying to put myself in your shoes. Tomorrow you’re at Jerusalem City Hall and you say, “That’s it. Starting tomorrow, we’re going to look after Shabbos in Jerusalem.” What do you do?

14:02 Speaker 2 First of all, you have to feel it. You have to care about it. It has to burn inside you. You can’t just close the... what do you call them? The barriers at the entrances and exits of your neighborhood and say, “Where I live, it’s Shabbos, so everything’s fine.” First of all, you have to care. You have to feel it in your bones and say, “No, I don’t only care about myself. There’s an entire Jerusalem I need to care for.” We can’t look at this narrowly, only at the things that bother me personally. No, this matters to all of the Jewish people. What could be more natural than Jerusalem? Jeru—sorry, not Jerusalem, Shabbos. Is there anything more natural than Shabbos? Is there anything that connects you more—to Shabbos, a Shabbos of rest, of holiness, of uplift, of sacred time? What, is that it? Is public transportation and restaurants and pubs what we want? That’s not Jerusalem. It doesn’t suit the character of the city. So first of all, it has to burn in your bones. You have to want it, and you have to work for it.

15:02 Speaker 4 So over the years, Jerusalem’s character has gone in a somewhat different direction.

15:09 Speaker 2 I’m a Jerusalemite from birth. My parents immigrated from France straight to Jerusalem. They didn’t even consider another city. By the way, there are lots of French people in Jerusalem. Lots and lots and lots, and we’ll talk more about that later. This isn’t the Jerusalem I grew up in. It’s a somewhat different Jerusalem, one that’s gone in another direction. Back then, it was obvious to us that when we arrived in Jerusalem, we would kiss its ground and feel holiness in the air. Now it has taken on a somewhat different character. You see many more pubs and many more festivals and everything. Those things can exist, but they can be adapted specifically to Jerusalem. We don’t want to copy other cities here and turn—Jerusalem is one of a kind.

15:53 Speaker 4 Exactly, yes.

15:53 Speaker 2 There’s no other like it.

15:54 Speaker 4 That uniqueness.

15:55 Speaker 2 You want something that suits the holiness of Jerusalem. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin; you want to be unique, authentic. Now, we were talking about immigrants. My parents actually came from France about forty years ago, I think, if I’m not mistaken, and the desire to make aliyah burned in their bones. At first they were the only ones in their families who came, and afterward all my father’s siblings, and my grandparents, came too. But at the beginning they were very, very alone here. My father worked in high tech—he was among the first in the country to do so—and my mother is a doctor. They started looking for work and couldn’t find their footing. You need people you’re in touch with, people who can show you where to look for jobs. They didn’t have that. They kept searching, and even though they came with respected professions, they couldn’t find work. Slowly they found their way, and baruch Hashem, my mother is now a very well-known dentist in Jerusalem, and my father still has a good job in high tech. But I really connect with what an immigrant feels on coming to Jerusalem. He dreams of it; he gives up everything he could have had. My mother was a dentist in France and could have earned four or five times as much. The same was true of my father, and they gave it all up. They gave up the big house, their possessions, their livelihood, their friendships, their family. They gave up everything and came to the Land of Israel for Jerusalem. They came to Jerusalem. They didn’t hesitate or go to any other city; they arrived in Jerusalem and built their home here. We have to be there for them. As a city, we have to give them all the tools—

17:48 Speaker 5 A support system.

17:48 Speaker 2 A support system, everything we can to help them, so that everyone can return to Zion. Which Zion? Zion is Jerusalem. Let them come, let all the immigrants come here, and let’s give them everything they need so they can settle in happily, comfortably, gently, and with great success. Not have this happen after a few years: I met with a community of French immigrants, and they told me, “Liora, this woman—after seven years in the country, she couldn’t bear the burden anymore and went back to France. And this one…” We want them to stay here. That’s part—

18:17 Speaker 5 I know it from the Ukrainian side. Yes, people, whole families, actually go back. You’re talking about forty years ago, but this issue hasn’t been dealt with; it hasn’t changed. Your parents’ story was forty years ago, after all.

18:29 Speaker 2 And nothing has changed since then. When I sat down to talk—maybe things have changed. Sorry, I don’t want to say, G-d forbid, that nothing has changed. But when I sat with immigrants, it sounded as though the feelings were the same: the loneliness, the inability to deal with Israeli bureaucracy. It wears them out.

18:50 Speaker 5 It wears Israelis out too.

18:52 Speaker 2 That’s true too. But here you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t understand the language. Parents come to a meeting at their child’s school with the administration, and they can’t understand what the staff are telling them. It’s basic that the city should provide interpreters in all the languages we need.

19:09 Speaker 5 You know, that reminds me: we were once at a Ministry of the Interior office in some city—it doesn’t matter which one. We were desperately looking for an appointment and ended up there. It amused me how accessible they’d made it for Russian speakers. There must be a huge number of immigrants from the Soviet Union there, because we had to look for someone who could serve us in Hebrew at that branch. So it really can be done. All the signs were in Russian, all the clerks spoke Russian. It was quite a shock. But it’s possible, because there are people who speak the language. On the contrary, give them jobs.

19:45 Speaker 2 Give them jobs, give them hope, give them the ability to stay here in the country with dignity. They sacrificed so much; we owe them this. They sacrificed everything for us. At the very least, we owe them a contact person, a department in the city that’s responsible for helping immigrants settle in Jerusalem.

20:06 Speaker 5 Tell me, I want to ask you a question from a mother’s heart. Aren’t you worried it’ll consume you? With the passion you speak with and the sparkle in your eyes, it looks as if you’re going to be at City Hall twenty-four seven—or twenty-four six. And I’m thinking, life in this country is already so demanding, with the cost of living and that bit of a survival-mode feeling. Or maybe I still haven’t quite figured out how people live here. But we’re busy with the kids and their schools, the house, laundry, dishes—how are you going to do it? Are you not worried, or are you worried and already working on it? What were you doing last year? You were working at a school.

20:46 Speaker 2 Yes, I was the CEO of a group of educational institutions. First of all, worrying doesn’t help. We’re going into this role thoughtfully and with our eyes open, and above all with a very strong sense of shlichus. When you go into something with a sense of shlichus, knowing that you’re doing what your rabbis told you to do and that you’re doing something good for the Jewish people—well, they also say that those engaged in a mitzvah are not harmed. So I’m not worried. My children are my foundation. We believe in family; it’s our life. My children are the loves of my life. I’ll do everything for them. So my husband and I sat down and thought through, right down to the smallest details, how we’ll protect our home and keep it separate from everything going on outside.

21:33 Speaker 5 Yes, that’s another…

21:35 Speaker 2 It’s a world we’re not willing to let into our home. Our children are sacred. When you talk about the next generation, that’s our children. We need to protect them and raise them; they’re the continuation of the Jewish people. I have a little Jewish people sitting in my home, and I put my whole self into my children all the time. So we really sat down to think about how to protect them and how to make sure this won’t hurt them. I think—I believe—my husband has also taken on more at home, and so has the extended family. But there’s no substitute for a mother. I believe that if you start work early in the morning, work hard, focus on getting things done, don’t waste time and don’t let useless meetings drag on, you can accomplish what you need to without neglecting your family. Because otherwise, you’re contradicting yourself. If you neglect your family, you have to be—

22:29 Speaker 5 Yes.

22:30 Speaker 2 Genuine in every part of your life, both with your family and at work. It’s all one thing. That’s how I see it.

22:39 Speaker 5 Absolutely, absolutely. In the end, it’s all one thing. When we live and see the world with that sense of unity, things really do fit together and work better. Wow, it’s moving to hear that. Because when children see a mother with a clear purpose, fighting for what matters and taking action, you’ve already given them their education. It’s setting a personal example, and that means everything.

23:03 Speaker 2 Setting a personal example, warmth and love—they’re inseparable. You have to keep loving them, seeing them, seeing what they need, and being a good friend. I’m very, very close friends with my daughters, and with my sons too. Right from the start, they told me everything they were feeling, openly. I told them, “Girls, don’t keep anything bottled up. Tell me everything—what scares you, what bothers you, everything.”

23:28 Speaker 5 How do they really feel about it?

23:29 Speaker 2 At first it was very frightening for them. “Mom, that means you won’t be home.” One of my daughters cried for two weeks.

23:37 Speaker 5 Wow.

23:37 Speaker 2 “Mom, they’re taking you away from us.” So we really explained to them how we planned it, showed them what the arrangement would look like and how we saw things—how it wouldn’t come at their expense, how much we intended to invest, and what we would give them. There are things we won’t compromise on, and there are things for which we’ll ask them to help more, to pitch in. Because ultimately it’s for the good of the Jewish people, and we have a shared goal here. Little by little, each of them came around in her own way. The younger ones were less involved, but the older ones really understand, and they’re truly partners in this process. After all, what is our goal in life? Why are we here? So that we can have an apartment, children and nice pictures? No. We want to sanctify Hashem’s name in the world. That’s our goal and that’s our life, and we give it everything we have. If we’re called to this role now, we get up and do it with all our strength. And sometimes we get up to straighten up the house. We do that, too, with all our strength and with the greatest joy.

24:35 Speaker 6 That’s shlichus, and that’s shlichus.

24:36 Speaker 2 That’s shlichus, and I don’t diminish either one.

24:39 Speaker 6 Wow. You really have to be super-duper organized with your time now—everything—to manage it all, to get to every...

24:45 Speaker 2 I think you’ve been doing that since your first baby was born.

24:48 Speaker 6 Yes, you have no choice.

24:49 Speaker 2 No choice. You have to have every minute planned, know what you’re doing at every moment. If you slip up even a little, things get a bit tougher. So yes, you have to throw yourself into it from every angle.

24:59 Speaker 6 Tell me, I wanted to ask: now that you’re in this position, suppose you suddenly receive a huge budget out of the blue. What’s the first thing you do with it? You can do whatever you want.

25:13 Speaker 2 Look, I have a lot of dreams—realistic dreams that really could come true. But maybe I’d put that question to the people listening to us now. What would you want? I’d like to hear from the public, too: what are your dreams? And when I say “the public,” I come from among the public, from ordinary people, and I’m not out of touch, because I’m still on the ground. Even as we’re talking, people are texting me: “Liora, this has to be dealt with. This needs to be done.” From all sorts of areas, all sorts of institutions, and... But I’d like to hear from the women listening. Let them send in their thoughts. Is there a way for them to get in touch? Yes, let them send them in.

25:46 Speaker 6 Yes, they can leave comments on YouTube, on Spotify.

25:48 Speaker 2 Excellent. Write what you would want to change in Jerusalem. Liora is in office now and has received a huge budget. What should she do for you, for Jerusalem?

25:57 Speaker 6 Wow.

25:57 Speaker 2 I want to hear. And we’re people of action—we’ll work to move those things forward. Because if Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave us the strength to act and that fire in our eyes, we can go far.

26:10 Speaker 6 Tell me, what do you think any woman can do? Take me, for example: I live here in Kiryat Malachi right now. I love Jerusalem; I visit Jerusalem. What can I do for Jerusalem besides davening? You’re active, you’re there, you’re working on it. But what can each of us, as a Jew and part of the people, do for Jerusalem? Is there a way we can help? Let me put it that way.

26:35 Speaker 2 Of course. There’s so much. First of all, as you mentioned, in our prayers. We daven three times a day—those of us who can; no pressure, once is fine too. But when we daven and pray for Zion, and our hearts are truly there, that has an effect—a tremendous effect—even though we can’t see it with our eyes.

26:57 Speaker 6 Right.

26:57 Speaker 2 But we need to focus on the words. “Your return”—whose return? The return of some person? No, of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. His return to Zion is something real. We need to stir our hearts, open their doors.

27:09 Speaker 6 Absolutely.

27:09 Speaker 2 Open our hearts and really focus on it. So yes, prayer mustn’t be dismissed, because it’s so important. It helps us clarify what we need to want, to truly want it. Another thing is actually coming to Jerusalem. When you come, even your visit contributes to Jerusalem’s tourism. Where is your heart directed when you go traveling? If you travel to all sorts of places around the country when Jerusalem is right here, what are you looking for there? You have Jerusalem.

27:40 Speaker 6 Well, Liora, as we head toward the end—we’ll go to Jerusalem, just like that. I really see you: a young woman with children who simply says, “I want to make a difference.” You’re willing to sacrifice and give, and there’s so much courage and passion in your eyes. And I think we all want to be like that. Every woman listening to you probably has places in her life where she saw something and thought, “Wow, if I had the courage, I would do that.” You know, so often there’s this thought: well, there are people who get things done, there are the activists, and then there’s ordinary me. But that’s not true. It’s not true. I think, in a way, it comes from not believing enough in ourselves, not believing that Hakadosh Boruch Hu believes in us, that we were sent into the world for this and that it’s true. So give everyone a little shot of courage, because enough—the world needs us.

28:39 Speaker 7 I’ll tell you a few things about that. You said a lot, and I want to respond. First of all, every woman can do it. I sit among my people; I’m an ordinary woman. It may look different, but aren’t we all? In the merit of righteous women, the Jewish people were redeemed and will be redeemed. I think that every woman, in whatever role she has, if she does it well, full of strength and desire, with fire in her eyes, she’ll do it as well as she possibly can. That itself brings the Geulah. And first of all, she should be happy where she is. But sometimes you need to sit with yourself and say, “Wait, what else? What else?” Never stop asking yourself: What else can I do? What more goodness and light can I bring into this world? The world is waiting for us. As you said, Hakadosh Boruch Hu believes in us. He needs us. “Whoever has worked with G-d, let them come and receive their reward.” This is our time as women to get up and ask: What goodness am I adding to the world, to the Jewish people, to Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s world? What can I do with a clear sense of purpose to add goodness and light? Every woman can do that in her own circumstances. Not dream about things disconnected from reality, but be very grounded in reality. What can I add? Focus on that and grow your desire. Grow your desire, and eventually it shows up wherever you are. A great light appears, an enormous light that the world is waiting for. The world yearns for the light of every single woman.

30:01 Speaker 6 Yes, I think what you just said is so important: you don’t even have to think too big. You didn’t wake up one morning when you had a one-year-old daughter and say, “I’m running for Jerusalem City Council.” It’s about movement. Keep moving, do a little more and then a little more in your own area, where you are. Say you’re a teacher and you go to school every day. You try to do that little bit extra, that little something you’re not technically required to do.

30:26 Speaker 7 That really connects to Elul, because that’s what Elul is like. What is Elul? Are we putting on a show here? No. We’re making just a little more progress. I do everything I normally do each day, but a little better, with a little more intention, a little more. That’s how we prepare for Elul.

30:38 Speaker 6 Right.

30:39 Speaker 7 So, I believe it’s there in every one of us. Just look back a little. Day-to-day life draws you in so completely and keeps you so busy. And you said, “Three meals a day, and that’s enough.” Come on. First of all, that’s holy. I wouldn’t say “enough.” It’s holy. Changing diapers is holy; all of it is holy. But let’s add more. Let’s build another level. Let’s add something. Let’s sharpen our desire and believe in our abilities, because so often we’re inclined to say, “No, never mind, not us, not me. Maybe someone else. Maybe those people. Well, others will come and do it.” The whole world depends on you. If you think of yourself as standing at the tipping point of the scales, and right now you’re the one who will tip them toward good or the opposite, you’ll say, “What, really? Me?” So let’s go. I’m going to do it with everything I’ve got, with fire in my eyes. I’ll give it all my strength. And I wish for myself that I’ll always be in that place, because that’s where my desire lies: to do as much good as possible for the Jewish people, with tremendous energy.

31:39 Speaker 6 Amen. Wow. I’m cheering you on, and I’m sure everyone else is too. Wow, Liora, what an inspiration—truly amazing. And again, I wish every one of us would wake up each morning and say, how do I put it? “Good morning to a new day of shlichus.” To really feel like a shliach wherever you are, right where you are. I think the yetzer hara keeps telling us, “Fine, she ran for Jerusalem City Council, but me? Who am I? I can barely get the dishes done.” Enough. Put that aside, ignore it, turn it off, and look instead at what you can do—at your strengths, at what you’re doing, at who needs you right here. Maybe it’s your neighbor who needs you. Start with her. And may we all merit to bring light—amen—to bring light to Jerusalem, to truly add holiness. You really make me want to do that, I have to say: to add goodness, to add holiness, and to keep that in mind. To be purposeful, to think—you know, to walk around the city and not just think about what I’m cooking for dinner, important as that is, but to realize: there’s a street here, there are people here, and I have a responsibility. I’m part of the world, and the world is part of me. Thank you, Liora. My pleasure. We wish you every success. Thank you. May we all merit it, and may it be a good, sweet year. Amen, amen. With Hashem’s help. Thank you, everyone.