Sisters' Chat #3 | Tell me, does spring always come in the end?

00:00 A reminder: if you enjoyed the podcast, you’re welcome to subscribe to the Shlichus as a Way of Life channel and share it with anyone you care about. To see content on my status, message 050-855-770. To hear about my new course, Health as a Way of Life, which I created after sixteen years of maintaining my weight using tools and insights from the teachings of the soul in Chassidus, message me at 050-855-770. Intro, and then we’ll get started. How can we turn our lives into lives of shlichus, full of meaning? I’m Chani Moskowitz, a shlucha in Kharkiv, Ukraine, now continuing my shlichus in Karmei Gat, Israel. In this podcast, we’ll meet different women who bring their shlichus to a range of fields. In their own way, they’ll help each of us find and refine our shlichus in the world, because living the life we were created to live is as good as it gets. Shlichus as a Way of Life starts right now. So, have you switched your clothes from summer to winter? Wow, actually, the four seasons are an interesting topic too. You also moved—well, moving from Ukraine to here is so different. You know, I was thinking that over there you basically don’t have sweaters, because the houses are comfortable, and then you just have really, really warm outer layers. And summer isn’t very hot either. Right. Basically, shirts and dresses like that—most of the year it’s light, long-sleeved clothing. Right. But I did have summer and winter clothes, because the style is a bit different. In winter I wear more black tights and boots and things. So, the colors? The colors, even the fabrics. Some fabrics look better with sandals, something lighter. So did you feel like you were getting a fresh start for summer? A little. With the clothes. A little. I mean, not really. Yes, but I didn’t fold up

01:49 the sweaters and take out the short sleeves. No. So it’s different. That’s interesting. Here in Israel I don’t wear short sleeves, though. Really, what else is most different on the level of, you know, everyday life, between Ukraine and here? Let’s go back to the seasons. Sure. Just because you brought it up. Let’s ground ourselves and talk about the seasons and come away with something cool. When I got to Ukraine, I realized that in Israel we learn about the four seasons, but we don’t have the four seasons the way we learn about them. So what do you have, hot and very hot? I mean, when we got there— Yes, exactly. No, there is some cold in winter. Yes. But when we got there, I suddenly said, “Wow, there really are four seasons here.” And you see it most clearly in the fall. Right. Here you need a magnifying glass to find the fall foliage. There is some, but there’s no comparison at all. Over there everything is orange and brown. You can’t miss the fact that it’s fall. You know, though, that’s intentional, because in Israel they planted mostly evergreen trees along the streets. So there are trees that shed their leaves. Personally, I clean the leaves they drop out of my yard, but not necessarily in the fall. I mean, we do have trees that change. No, but yes, there’s more of it in the fall. Still, you don’t step outside and feel fall all around you. You would always send those orange photos, where it was the first thing your eye noticed. And in winter you have the snow. Right, and then it’s white. It has a very wintry look. Yes, it’s not like rain. Oh, your seasons really have distinctive colors. Right. Now, because all the trees lose their leaves, the fall bloom—the spring bloom, sorry—is dramatic and special. And it took me

03:30 Once I understood that and started noticing it, I got so excited about it. You see a completely bare tree, and there was a bush at the entrance to the school. I would photograph it every few days, and then I had this gallery where you could see the first buds, and by the end the bush was so full you couldn’t see the branches. How amazing. And it’s beautiful. Here in Israel, spring is mainly about the flowers, which, again, are very beautiful, and you have to open your eyes to notice them too. By the way, in Israel—and I’d say even there, where it’s so striking—some people barely notice it. I would walk down the street and say, “Wow, everything here is blooming, everything is growing and coming back to life.” There’s something incredible about that feeling of renewal. It really is incredible. Everything starts over from scratch. You’re talking about it, and luckily this is being filmed, because I can see you and you’re just glowing. I loved it so much. It also took me time to connect— To what? Winter. To the—it gave structure to my year. In general, I really love and connect with the idea the Alter Rebbe taught us, of living with the times. I feel that our lives really have a rhythm, and there’s what we put into that framework called a day, a week, an hour. You can divide it up in so many ways, and then there’s what’s set for us: the seasons and the holidays they bring with them. After all, according to Chassidus, every holiday, every time of year, also has a place where it touches something in our souls and speaks to what we need. What is chametz, for example? Where does chametz meet us? And—and it’s not just where it meets us; it’s

05:04 where it meets us in the spring, at this time of year. Exactly, it’s all timed that way. Right. And presumably, with hashgacha pratis, whether you’re in Israel or Ukraine, the seasons affect you differently and take on a different form. It’s funny, I taught—I’m suddenly going back to this—I taught the children about the seasons in a Hebrew lesson, and I got very tangled up. At first, even though it was snowing outside, I told them that it rains in winter, and then I thought, wait, and it snows. So then I realized how real those differences are. Over there it rains in summer. In the Hebrew workbook, they had to stick the umbrella in the right season, and the children put it in summer. Do you see? Because in winter—winter means snow. So you don’t use umbrellas in the snow? Usually not. What an Israeli question, huh? Rain really makes it hard to walk outside. You can hardly walk in the rain unless it’s very light. But you can walk in the snow and it’s pleasant. Maybe it gets in your eyes if it’s very heavy or there’s a strong wind, but generally it doesn’t get in the way, apart from— Yes. All the mess it makes when you come into the house with it and so on. But as far as being outside goes, walking in the snow is really fun. That’s something—you’re really glowing when you talk about it. At first, winter was very hard for me. Really. There’s even such a thing as winter depression. Right. It wasn’t at that level, but I waited for it to end. But really, I can understand winter depression. There’s a kind of retreating into your shell; you’re at home more and so on. But also, on a physical level, there’s less sun, less

06:41 Time in the sun. The sun affects us, and it also helps synchronize our nights and days, so it makes a lot of sense. The days there were terribly short. So here in Israel, we have this tremendous benefit of sunshine. Yes. People look at it as some kind of threat, but I’m friends with the sun. I love it. Right, of course, everything in moderation. Not lying on the beach all day. But what was I starting to say? Oh, how did I make friends with winter? I said to myself, okay, this is a fact of life. What am I going to do with it? And you also thought you’d be living there until 120. Yes. Um, so I looked around and said to myself, let’s see how people here enjoy winter. People there waited for the snow. Really? Yes, absolutely. Some of it also ties in with their holidays there, doesn’t it? One year it didn’t snow for the holiday—well, there was snow, but not on the streets. Right. Uh, yes, but regardless, for a child who grows up with snow, their whole childhood is tied to it. Right. They have those memories of— It’s like here, though suddenly I’m thinking how happy we were when the first rain came. Right. Right. Right, and that smell of the rain. Right. How we waited for it. So when we started taking the children out on sleds and they enjoyed it so much, I said to myself, why shouldn’t I enjoy it too? And I started learning to ski. Once I started learning, I looked forward to winter. Never mind that half the years I couldn’t actually ski because I was, uh— Pregnant. Pregnant and things like that, when it’s very dangerous. Chani, so this really is the place—

08:08 So, what are you saying about me? This really is renewal. I’m throwing that out there now so I don’t forget it. Really, as you were talking, you were sparkling. You—and I’m sitting across from you, and your eyes were sparkling. That really is renewal. Like... I think I told you this: people keep asking me, “Are you a winter person or a summer person?” I’m a new-things person, I guess. Right, there really is beauty in every season. Look, some people suffer more from heat or from cold. But I think that because the blossoming of spring there, that sense of renewal, was so striking, I later looked for it here in Israel too, and then I noticed it more. Because spring here really can pass you by. Right. But if you open your eyes, you see spring. Right. Wow, there are so many purple trees. Right, in the mountains. I have a purple tree in my yard right now. It’s incredible. Right. It really, really is amazing, and the weather too. It isn’t summer yet. Granted, we’re already coming home sweaty a lot of the time, but the evenings are pleasant. Going for a walk in the evening now— The mornings are pleasant. Perfect, perfect. It’s amazing, it really is. And I truly think it’s right to connect with that, because everything that was created was created for us. We need to live it. So could it be that people in Ukraine need a more unmistakable sense of renewal than people in Israel? I’m asking because Hakadosh Boruch Hu planned it. What do I mean, “planned”? He creates it every moment: that there should be those kinds of seasons there, and these kinds of seasons here. That’s how it finds expression for them. People here are supposed to be warmer. What about

09:36 people who live on the equator? You know that in Venezuela— Yes. All year round— And in Thailand, Shabbos comes in within the same range of just a few minutes. Now, to me that sounds completely boring. It’s very convenient. Right. Look, all year, Shabbos comes in, say, between six and six-ten. Wow, and I’m so used to— Shabbos candle-lighting time. I need that— You know what? Just the question, “What time does Shabbos come in?” Yes, there they don’t ask, because— There’s really no need to ask. Five minutes earlier, five minutes later, and the same weather all year round. We went there, visited after the wedding. So there’s no renewal in your wardrobe. None. The stores bring in summer clothes all year round. All year, the temperature ranges from around twenty-three to twenty-eight degrees, and that’s it. Wow, how funny. So one person will say, “Wow, how cool—a dream,” and someone else will say, “How boring.” Wow, you know what that reminds me of? A friend of mine posted a story while she was out walking. She wrote—I don’t remember how many years she said—“How set in my ways am I, doing the same route for something like fifteen years?” Oh, I saw that. Yes, yes. For her, that consistency gives her peace. When I go walking, I look for— Now, saying I don’t like dogs is putting it mildly. I’m afraid of dogs. I don’t want them touching me or coming near me, and still I dare to look for little side streets on my walk, just to vary the route. Despite the risk. Despite the enormous risk that a dog might jump out there. Because it isn’t a main street where, you know— You need that... Because I need—what do you mean, need? For me, if I walk the same route, I feel like I’m standing still.

11:12 And when she takes those same steps, she feels she’s walking safely. Yes. Now, because I know her, I know that’s her—well, that’s her personality. I mean, she’s like that in a lot of areas. She goes about things in steady, measured steps. A personality like that has its— I wanted to talk about personality. See, we got there in the end. About people who—I don’t know whether they need renewal less, or whether they need to make more of an effort to bring it about, because in the end, I think a person needs renewal. We’re built around rhythms. We’re meant to live in a rhythm, in something that changes. There are many sichos in Chassidus about this, and many analogies. First of all, there’s the sun and the moon, the solar year and the lunar year. Why is the Jewish calendar actually a combination of both? Because we need both. We need both. It’s the same with the avodah of tzaddikim and baalei teshuvah. A tzaddik is always on a high level. And what is the avodah of a baal teshuvah? Ups and downs. On the other hand, a baal teshuvah has renewal. They have that excitement. Right. Think of someone who—we all do teshuvah every day, and still I always say: how incredible it must be to discover Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the middle of your life. Incredible. There’s something to envy there. Wow, I have goosebumps right now. Yes. And each has its advantage, because ultimately we really do need both. We need to live with that... We need to stay with it all the time, but keep renewing ourselves. So it seems that someone who’s constantly seeking new things will need to look for the steady places within themselves, while someone for whom consistency comes automatically will need to add some renewal. Right, but I think most of us, where

12:49 That it isn’t so clear-cut one way or the other. Right. For example, I have a close friend who’s so different from me, so I have a mirror in front of me all the time. A mirror shows me either the same thing or the opposite. Yes. So I constantly have this mirror before my eyes, and it feels as though the world is divided in two. [unclear] It really is like that all the time. I’ll give you an example: most people, in their regular routine, even if they’re happy with it, will eventually look forward to a vacation. And what do they look forward to at the end of the vacation? Getting back to their routine. Getting back to their routine. Why? Because we always need both. So are you a winter person or a summer person? I’m not telling. Are you a vacation person or a...? Again, I love vacation and I love getting back to my routine, and I think most people really are somewhere in the middle. Right. Both are good for them. And what’s even better for them? The transition from one to the other. Right. When you already feel the need for it. Still, it’s lovely to see the differences. Are you a night person or a day person? I don’t know. Both. At night you sleep. In a way, you need the night for the day and the day for the night. Right. You see the differences when the holidays end. Now, because of social media—social media lets you see a lot of reactions to things, which is interesting if you’re interested in people. Yes. You can pick up on it so much. A sociology lab. Absolutely. Anyway, when the holidays end, you see the people who are already excited to get back to their routine, and the people who can’t, and don’t want to, let go. They’re really holding on with both hands to the feeling of

14:20 the holiday. Sometimes I’ll deliberately leave something unpacked so I can still feel that holiday feeling. Like putting Pesach away. I still had the Magimix and another pot in the safe room. No, Pesach wasn’t over for me. I needed a little more of it. It’s an imagined feeling. Never mind that I’m still on maternity leave anyway, but it gives me this imagined feeling that I’m still holding on to the holiday. So I’m the kind of person who needs to work on getting back into a routine more quickly, while someone else might say, “Wait a second, say goodbye to the holiday first. Why are you rushing?” As in, don’t leave any traces of it, because that keeps you there. You already want to move on. Yes. To take off and keep going. Right, so it really depends. See, you mentioned maternity leave. It also depends on the period of your life. Yes, this time it was really easy for me. Now there was something... Right. What you might call somewhere to run to. Actually, since we’re talking about routine and vacation, I think in a way it’s a bit of a test of whether you love what you do. Right. When vacation ends, you sometimes hear a teacher sigh, and my heart goes out to her when she says, “Oh my gosh, I’m back in the classroom tomorrow.” Though often it’s just that the transition is a little hard, and after an hour you’re back into it. But yes, there are people who don’t love what they do, who aren’t comfortable with it, and really need to change professions. That’s when it comes to the surface, because sometimes, once you’re already caught up in the loop, it’s, “Oh well, it’s not so bad.” You survive, as they say. Survival. Anyway, that just came to mind. So, four seasons. It’s amazing how... How can you not sing the Jackie Chan song?

15:53 “Four Seasons,” right? Do you want to put a link below? By the way, the idea for that song really came from this: I so enjoyed seeing it, and I wanted to turn it into a song. And at the end of the song, I brought in the idea that the Alter Rebbe taught us in Tanya, a new teaching of the Baal Shem Tov: Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the world and brings it into being at every moment—but not just that. He creates it from nothing. In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu renews the act of Creation at every moment. It’s not like electricity that keeps flowing; it’s like electricity being generated anew every moment. And that’s really tremendous news. Right. Because reality isn’t static. Nothing is... “Well, everything’s headed that way, it’s all...” No. It’s in our hands. Hakadosh Boruch Hu put us here because He trusts us. It’s in our hands to create reality anew at every moment together with Him. Sometimes things look like the end of the world, the end of the road, and—hey, this may only be the beginning. It could be just the beginning. So it means living every moment with the sense that I can create something new, because the world is constantly being renewed. The world is constantly being renewed. Now go tell that to people who are sitting in something deep and low. It doesn’t feel new to them. When you’re active and doing things, you feel that newness. But— That’s the purpose of contemplation. Right. I’m saying it’s easy to say it casually when you’re in a period of blessed activity, when your work also has lots of different avenues. So it feels like there’s something new here, something new there. You’re moving things from one place to another. Now I’m blaming you—I’m blaming you

17:36 for your contemplation. Sorry. No, I’m saying, you have to understand: for a person who’s in a place that looks to them like one heavy, black mass, where is the renewal in that? That takes work— I’ll take you back two years. But you wanted a light podcast. Mm-hmm. Yes, I’ll take you back two years. This is actually something I learned then, when we arrived from Ukraine and it seemed like the end of the world to me. Right. As far as I was concerned, it was the end of the world. It was the end of the world. It was the end of the world. My whole community and the people I worked with—it had all supposedly come to an end. And at the time, that was my whole identity. That was my whole reality. Who was I? I was a shlucha in Kharkov, Ukraine. Yes. And then you open the Tanya, and... That passage in Tanya, by the way—you know, it’s in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah—and it was 7 Sivan, the second day of Shavuos outside Eretz Yisroel. It’s interesting that this teaching of the Baal Shem Tov came up precisely on his birthday—sorry, on the day of the Baal Shem Tov’s passing. The Baal Shem Tov’s birthday is 25 Elul. And the Tanya study schedules for a leap year and a regular year meet on that same day, because it had to be on that particular date. Okay. This was a little after we arrived. Shavuos, yes, about two months later. And you learn it and you say, “Wow!” In general, when you learn Chassidus and Tanya, you can’t learn it as theory. If you want it to bring about a change in you, you have to learn it as though it was written just for you. Just for you. Meaning, how does it speak to me?

19:19 Why did the Alter Rebbe write this for me? When the Alter Rebbe writes in the introduction to Tanya that it’s a book with answers to all the questions, that’s exactly the question: how can one book contain answers to all the questions? Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. We’re supposedly different. We’re different, and at every point I find myself in a different situation. But that’s exactly the answer. Because I’m different, and because I’m in a different situation each time, every time I learn Tanya I’ll find an answer to the question I have now. That’s why it has answers to all the questions: each time I come to it with different eyes, at a different time, in a different emotional state, and then I really will find answers there to all the questions. Yes, he explains that other books are written for a particular situation, from a particular point of view. But when a book is written from a place connected to the source of truth, it will meet you wherever you are in life. You just have to discover how it connects to you now, at this point. So, coming back to you: what was it in that teaching that spoke to you then? I said to myself, “Okay, I’m here now, and I have to renew myself somehow.” And then I started the podcast. It wasn’t... Again, it wasn’t as simple as one, two, three. It was part of this whole realization that if we don’t live with the knowledge that Hakadosh Boruch Hu renews the world at every moment, then what chance do we have at all? So really, I... By the way, this is encouraging. Let me give you another example: a person who’s ill. If this is reality, then this is reality. But if reality is renewed at every moment

20:49 Anew, and there’s no shortage of miracle stories—Right. —from people who’ve brought—So, in the very next moment, I could be healthy. That’s the explanation. Yes. So if I try to wrap up what we started with, the four seasons can help me contemplate the fact that reality is constantly being renewed. Here, it’s divided into quarters of the year, but—It reveals it. It’s simply such a clear, visible demonstration. Yes. And if it’s hard for you to look at the seasons of the year in Israel—I’m speaking to the listener now—then ask Chani for pictures from Ukraine, because there it’s really striking. You can go on YouTube and search for J-Kids[?] Four Seasons. There’s really... By the way, that’s a video we made over the course of an entire year. Oh, I’ll finish with one more thing about the seasons. Go ahead. I can’t believe I just threw that into the podcast out of nowhere. I said it half as a joke. But that really is how we... This is a conversation, a sister-to-sister chat, as they call it. Um, I remember walking through the park in the fall. It was so beautiful, and you could see everyone with cameras. “Take my picture, take my picture,” and so on, and everyone was... It was such a happy atmosphere. Then you stop for a second and think: How is everyone so happy? In another week or two, it’ll be empty. Empty here. What do you mean, empty? Describe it for people. The trees—when you walk through the park in winter, the trees are bare, completely bare. It looks like a brown forest. And in the fall you see them full of orange leaves. Still full, but—Yes. —I just have the picture in my head. But you have to understand: the park looks yellow, glowing yellow. Very, very beautiful. But ultimately, this beautiful process is... it’s

22:28 the leaves falling. The leaves here are falling. What are you celebrating? It’s like the beginning of the end. What’s all the excitement about? Yes. Can’t you see it? When you’re there, you can see it. It’s like slow motion: leaves actually falling to the ground, swirling around and landing. And you think, what’s there to celebrate? There’s something very painful happening here. The trees are shedding their leaves. So I ask myself, why? Why are they happy? Why isn’t anyone here worried? What will happen to the trees? What will happen to the leaves? Because they’re certain it will come. They’re certain spring will come. Exactly. Everyone knows spring will come, that everything will be all right. And I remember making a sweet little video about how that’s really the way we need to live. Even when it feels as though everything is falling apart, when you can see with your own eyes that the tree is about to be bare. To have—what are bitachon and emunah? Knowing that spring is on its way. After all, it’s rhythmic; it’s the tree’s cycle. It’s part of its life. In other words, even when we’re at our lowest point, we can see the beauty and know it’s part of the process. Just as I’m sure the sun will rise—and I know it isn’t the sun rising on its own—maybe that’s where this contemplation needs to take us. It’s not that the sun is sure to rise tomorrow. It’s that Hakadosh Boruch Hu will surely make the sun rise for me tomorrow. Then I’m really relying on the same Creator. He creates everything, you understand? He creates both what seems natural to me and what seems supernatural, because if everything is renewed each moment, then—Yes, of course it’s really Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That’s clear. It’s clear to you now, while we’re talking, but in... Right. In ordinary—where I was going with this—in ordinary thinking, the sun will rise. Yes. No,

24:12 it won’t rise on its own; Hakadosh Boruch Hu will make it rise. Right, right, right. It doesn’t choose when and where to rise. Right. By the way, when we were in the war, I went back to that video. It was six months later, and suddenly I remembered it—the video with the falling leaves. It gave me so much strength. I even posted it. I said, “Look at this video I found. It gave me strength,” because we really were in a very difficult situation. A few days later I laughed a little at myself. I thought, “What spring?” In the end there was shelling and we had to leave. I kind of laughed at myself. And now I’m laughing again, but for the opposite reason, because I’m saying: Enough. Enough thinking we know everything. Enough thinking too far ahead. Let’s keep ourselves in that frame of mind—not just that spring will come, but that right now we’re in a part of the process leading to spring. Enjoy the fall. We don’t see it. Yes. Right now we’re here. Right now we’re there, but ultimately Hakadosh Boruch Hu made us a rhythm of life that’s suited to us. Right. And everything is precise. Everything from Above is precisely as it should be. I might not see it because it’s fall right now. I might not see it because it’s winter right now. In spring I can see it more clearly. But it’s all Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s plan. And hashgachah pratis is also the situation I’m in right now. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants me to be in the fall right now, but to enjoy it. To have my picture taken against the backdrop of those beautiful trees. The one thing we need to let go of, as human beings, is that we know more or less in advance when the four seasons will come, but we don’t know the timing in our own lives. I think that’s the point. After all, why isn’t anyone sad in the fall? Because they know spring will come. Right.

25:41 So here, we need to know that things will be good even though no one has given us a deadline. Does anyone know when Moshiach will come? No. No. That’s why emunah is hard. But also—And that’s why it’s one of the fundamental principles of faith we need to work on. Right. But I really think that, yes, it’s very hard, yet it’s so, so much a part of us. To me it’s obvious, but the question of timing makes it a little abstract. Yes. The challenge is to make it feel just like the seasons. You know spring will come, and any moment now Moshiach will come. All right, before we finish the podcast—All right, Nava, thank you. May we have a healthy summer.